R'unor

Quote from: Irid alMenie on 20 May 2011, 20:00:13

Consider the following sentence. Let me tell you beforehand that this is actually a valid sentence in Czech (though admittedly a bit farfetched and really just there to illustrate a point)

Drz prst skrz krk.

Translated freely, it means "stick your finger in your throat". (literally it is "keep your finger through your throat" so you see my point). The thing is, they're all real czech words. They do not add vowels when they say them. For them, r is, in certain cases, a valid vowel, the reason being that it can be held for a long time (and some other rules which I don't remember off the top of my head and I don't have time to look them up

) Off the top of my head, I can think of an example where L is mixed inbetween consonants: blby (meaning nonsensical) and its noun counterpart blbost (nonsense, logically) As I said earlier, czech people don't add a vowel to pronounce it, l like r is considered in some cases to be a valid vowel. (m is a similar case)

Thanks for input Irid! I was pretty late when Altario posted that link, so I didn't actually read it all. My mistake/ I'm not familiar with any Slavic languages, so I'll admit, the pronunciation of that particular phrase vexes me. The fact that l and r count for vowels however, do explain why those four words "work". You learn something new every morning it seems.

I'm more bothered by the fact that those two are the only constructions in R'unorian to feature that many apostrophes with so few letters. the only other word/name I've found. is another R'unorian deity (W'ri'cañe) who I'll admit I'm not sure how to pronounce it given the little tilde over the N. Wiki tells me that it's the same sort of n which appears in piñata and replaces a double N. So I imagine it would be rendered for someone less familiar with spanish or associated languages to pronounce W'ri'canne. That aside though, it has two letters and an extra vowel on Hl'f'ik.

@Talia:

Quote from: Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels on 20 May 2011, 15:16:36

Valan, I think you make a great mistake: Just because I'm asking, if something is ok the way it is handled right now, does not mean, that I'm against it. There is no need to be so defensive, as your tone suggests.

I think then, that you are misinterpreting my tone. My aim was the explain exactly how I intend to handle R'unor, and open that to others for discussion, as well as to explain why I wanted to change something as unimportant as a name. My intention was to make my views clear, and this I have done.

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There is no need to defend your wish to develop R'unor like a child who says: 'But I want to do this', stamping with your foot. A ' I prefer to delve in R'unor, because my creative juices are flowing there' would be enough. It would have been a good idea, to ask the community, if taking up the old works of Xenos is ok, would have saved a lot of troubles, wouldn't it? And everybody would have said, 'if you so dearly wish..'

I would thank you, Talia, as you have asked me to do in the past, not to put words in my mouth and intentions on my face in the manner you just did. I assume that to do this is just as rude if you were speaking german as it is in english, so I will not have excuses that I have misunderstood your meaning. If it is not your intention to offend people, or to make them defensive, then I would suggest you refrain from calling people childish, or dismissing them as you have been doing, and perhaps, if you continue to choose the wrong word, invest in a better dictionary and thesaurus. However you have a great deal of my attention so allow me to explain, exactly where I have found you to have misinterpreted me, or otherwise been wrong.

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Language: If a language has apparently no vowels - one fact could be, that they are just not written, but pronounced, that you have to know by heart, which one fills the gap in this word. Apostrophes can be an indication for missing vowels.
Check old Hebrew, I think it was the case there at some time. In this language you had no vowels also. So, that has nothing to do with fantasy

Written hebrew has no vowels as the latin alphabet recognizes them, but as we learn from the wiki: it has extra characters which do the same job. Transcribed to latin, Hebrew words and names (with one exception that I'm aware of) have vowels. Xenos was writing using a latin alphabet however, and not hebrew. My comment about fantasy and overusing apostrophes stands. As Irid has indicated, even in Czech, while it appears there are no vowels to someone who speaks English, there are. Do try again.

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Orc - did I say anything about having a society which clashes? Xenox writes, that the orcs are more civilised than elsewhere . I only missed the influence of them in the Murlar entry, or the remark, that Murlar is only a human god, that the orcs have a different one. For a society with orcs has to be different than a mere human one, otherwise I don't need to introduce them. Troubles make the life interesting!

So you would remove Xenos orcs, because they are too much like humans. Though this is the way that Xenos wrote them?
"Also the orcs of R'unor are orcs by race alone, meaning that they often behave in the same way the humans do and thus are considered to possess a great deal more intellect than orcs in other regions of the world."

If it is your intent to leap to the defence of old entries, I should at least expect you to have read them. I have, I continue to read them, so that I know the ins and outs of R'unor, like anyone who intends to develop in an area should. I have not mentioned the orcs, because as far as races go in R'unor, as Xenos has written things, the distinction between orc and human is meaningless. They are both r'unorian and it is from that perspective which I have written the entry on Murlar.

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One last thing:

Maybe some of the revisions in the past have violated our 'rule' to respect the older works of authors as much as possible? To say, 'but we've done it before' is not always a good argument. And to call anything 'patent nonsense' - I would never do this (even if I think it is), but try to work around it, make out of this 'nonsense' something believable. Of course, it may not be possible to realise all my great ideas, but isn't that a great challenge?

I never directed the nonsense comment at anything in particular Talia, I merely made comment that it would be foolish to preserve something which was nonsense, merely for the sake of preserving it. If I have a rotten floorboard, I don't keep it there out of some respect for the person who put it there, because that floorboard is broken. If something is broken, you fix it.

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One example, the lurker beetle. I have not read much of the old entry, nor much of your revision. Don't get me wrong again, I will not interfere with the bestiary mods, but show what I understand under respecting an old author's work. I also want to take this example to show, what can be done to integrate something, and why there should be a very good reason to skip something.

And again, you admit to "defending" an entry, without having read it. Do you know how that seems? I must agree with Deklitch. From where I am standing it seems that you argue in favour of preservation because you do not wish anyone to do something that you would not to your entries.
Talia, it seems to me the only reason that this discussion exists (I include the two pages over in the Murlar thread) is because I seem to have stepped on some toes by developing in the cosmology forum without having gone through quite the right channels. I erred in assuming that lack of disapproval was equivalent to approval. But I also believe that had I continued anywhere else, on a similar scale, this would not have happened and I would have continued quietly working on R'unor.

What is more, as I have said, you are arguing to preserve entries which you admit you have not read. That offends me. You are arguing over a subject which you know little or nothing. I have put time and effort into understanding the work Xenos did. I have read the tribes entries, the kingdom, the beasts and plants and hunted down overview and posts that didn't quite make it onto the site, so that if changes had to be made, they could be done without harming the larger part of his work.

This is what I did with the Lurker beetles, as I did with R'unorian currency. It is a shame that Xenos did not finish his work, because there is so much to be done, and so much potential, but in some places I think his reach has exceeded his grasp. That is all I aim to correct. If I really intended to change things, I wouldn't have kept the gods organized the way they were, with such seemingly random aspects to control.

I will tell you this now, I do not care for the exact method and manner in which something was constructed. I do not care for the way things have been named. For the most part, Xenos has been consistent in the way that things were written and named. I say for the most part because Xenos is human, and like all humans he is capable of making mistakes. My intention is to correct his mistakes in the same way that I would correct a spelling error in any other entry.

I do not care for the age of an entry or for the person who wrote it in the same way that I do not care for the carpenter or the rotten floorboard. I do care for the person who might put their foot through that board, and for replacing it so that it fits well with the rest of that floor, and I care for making the idea fit the rest of the world, and for the people who may develop there later. I would hope, that given my position another author would act the same way.

It offends me to know that I have been wasting my time by arguing with a person who should not have started such an argument in the first place. I think you should know better.
Talia, you have disrespected Xenos by ignoring his work and acting "in defence" of it, and I would thank you not to disrespect Xenos further by continuing to do so.

I would thank you, as well, not to suggest that my work will be in some way detracting from Manthria. When, Talia, was the last time you wrote an entry for Manthria? I would say it is very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

If you had read my post you would have noticed what I wrote about sarvonian entries vs. R'unorian entries. But I'll write it here more clearly, so there aren't any more misunderstandings. I have written 28 sarvonian entries, two nybelmarian entries, and now four R'unorian entries. I intend to write one R'unorian entry for every one of those sarvonian entries, and when the R'unorian entries begin to outnumber the Sarvonians, I intend to write more Sarvonian entries.

I would thank you, not to make assumptions that I do not know the scope of what I intend to undertake, or cast aspersions on the way I do my development, simply because I do not do the same to you.
Yes, you may say I am acting defensively Talia, at this point I am. But I am not acting defensively, like Deklitch and like others, without having been given reason to do so.

As far as R'unor goes: only the gods are within your purview in the cosmology forum. R'unor is not populated by Shendar, it is not a part of Aeruillin, nor is it part of the Rahaz-Dath. I would thank you, before you question what I am doing or how I am doing it, call me a child or make further assumptions, to read what I have written, and to do Xenos the same courtesy I have done, and read what he has written. Then you may tell me that I am wrong. Not before.

And if you're going to write someone's name, do them the courtesy of spelling it right. You managed to twice mis-spell Xenos name with an X at the end. For someone who is typically so careful about spelling, it does seem a little sloppy.

@Everyone else

Thank you for contributing. This is really what I wanted to see, people asking questions, and getting answers, instead of the train wreck of "me too", hurt feelings and bruised egos that we had in the original thread.

I know it may seem like the larger part of my last post should have gone into a PM, but I have a reason for that. I do try to learn from my past mistakes. One of the largest problems I had when I was a newbie (a few years ago) was the lack of transparency, and the way the rules seemed to flip-flop for some people, though I admit to skirting those rules myself a few times. So this is transparency. No he said, she said. No back-room talks in the members moot or PMs that no one else can see. It is in my nature to be blunt, so I apologize if I offend anyone. It is rarely my intention to do so, and I should hope that it is obvious when it is. My intent above was to make clear my feelings on the matter of Talia and her behaviour with regards to the perceived sanctity of old entries.

@Dek: Glad to know I'm not the only one with that view of people revising entries. I know I've written some that I would shudder to think of writing now, and I don't quite have the heart to get around to revising them. (That also tends to start a vicious cycle of revising the same entry three or four times)

@Alt: I try my best to appreciate candour, though it can be a little bitter to swallow.

@Azhira: The state you found the Kaaer in (a paragraph) is the state of a lot of Xenos entries, and in some cases that paragraph is a mess. Good to know I'm not the only person who's changed things (and yes, I think having evil humans migrating to Caael'heroth would have made my job a little harder, so thanks for that).

Now, are there any other questions, comments, concerns or disapproval that anyone wishes to make known? I will do my best to answer them politely, if bluntly, and without personal attacks.
If that is all, I was going to get back to work.