Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

Conservation of energy – scientific law that states energy can’t be created or destroyed. Teleporting up or to nearer the equator, causes the teleporter’s temperature to fall. Teleporting down or away from the equator has the opposite effect. Humans can only survive a small change in body temperature so this limits how far teleporters can teleport vertically or latitusionally.

Constructed clone – a clone constructed by nanotechnology. Can be grown fairly quickly to any age but is normally activated as a teenager or young adult. Normally programmed with false memories of the things people have normally learned by the age at which he or she is to be activated.

Cren – small, fluffy dog belonging of Zonlaria.

Cudelda – an old faharni, nibeyah judge who seems to have serious sexual hang-ups. Works in Targrath.

Dard – a teacher at Yoho Temple Academy.

Dark reaper – entity from folklore.

Data Deluge – a questionable legal practice which involves presenting a large amount of information and falsely claiming that it supports your position. Your opponent then has the difficult problem of going through it in order to prove otherwise.

Date Rape Spell – common colloquial term for Concussion spell.

Denadria – Trulist goddess of adventure and marriage.

Denreg-Obeydi – legendary first anavim community on Earth.

Device – any electronic gadget. Very few have been manufactured since the Cataclysm so they’re becoming rare. Most of the surviving ones have protective associates and are therefore also artifacts.

Denar (pl denari) – a small Paxian unit of currency.

Diode matrix – a type of electrical component.

Dog house – temporary accommodation for slegim and slegmetot, usually associated with a beit.

Dornac – the legendary first anav who’d founded the first anav community at Denreg-Obeydi on Earth.

Dousing – a psychic ability that is possessed even by many hipsickim. It allows somebody to find some psychical object or material, including people. There are various forms but a common one is to swing a pendulum over a map. To find people it requires the douser to know the person they’re seeking well or to have a biological sample of them.

Drintac – a small town in the southern foothills of Pax. Famous for having a large mental institution.

Dwendra – a glildac anavah Yohoist Holy Woman. Daughter of Mardna and Tarasas. Also known by the code name Sixteen.

Echinocereus – genus of small cacti, normally with cylindrical stems and large, magenta flowers. Hardier than most cacti. Produce fruit that tastes like strawberries.

Egrindreth – faharni. Estranged daughter of Anden and Latchmir and sister of Clindar and Attan. Given up to be a Temple Prostitute when she was eight so no longer officially part of the family.

Eleprin – a faharni Winemaker nibeyah. Daughter of the couple who own and run the Cascade Hotel and the best friend of Breeze.

Equip (verb) – the process a magis uses to turn somebody into a mage.

Ermish – a city on the northern plain of Pax.

Evuvednin – an uninhabitable sephir with an underground biosphere.

Faharni (language) – the main language in Pax. It’s been Midbar’s link language for many centuries so nearly everybody at least speaks it as a second language.

Faharni (race) – mostly live on the western side of the Great Basin, particularly Pax. Have brown skin (could pass for a south Asian, south European, north African etc.) and usually dark hair and eyes but other hair and eye colors are fairly common. Their eyes are round. Often polydactyls. Mostly Trulists.

Faldrath – Paxian general tasked with executing the last Yohoist priests and their families.

Familiar – an entity, apparently using associates, which can bond with a human and be used to perform magic. Mainly found in Ceralargan.

Familiar magic – the main sort of magic used in Ceralargan, involves familiars.

Familyism – discrimination based of family relationships. A sin according to Trulism and officially outlawed in Pax.

Fandril – Kindras’s brother and the first Yohoist priest. All other Yohoist priests are supposedly descended from him.

Faratondikh – Trulist goddess of caves and astronomy.

Fetmish – a very complicated board game.

Fig Grower Division – section of Benai Nibeyim concerned with breeding katcheyim.

Flaannin – a priestess at Rendamar Temple. Has a mixture of faharni, quippa and glildac features.

Flutter – one of a group of bat-like organisms indigenous to Midbar.

Foongad – a student at Yoho Temple Academy.

Frawnnil – a young nibey Yohoist priest.

Galdreth – a faharni Trulist hipsickah lawyer who lives in Targrath.

Garis – a faharni Trulist hipsick who lives in Drintac. Second husband of Yoldasia. Step-father of Aflingia and Miandri and father of Screld.

Garmas – a faharni Trulist hipsick teenager who lives in Laraget and is a close friend of Attan.

Geodeserine – substance composed of a specific arrangement of carbon atoms, often into shapes similar to geodesic domes (but on a microscopic scale). Same as Fullerines but this culture doesn’t know of Buckminster Fuller.

Geosynchronous orbit – an orbit where an object will remain at the same point over the planet’s equator constantly.

Gene – a location in the genome which affects a characteristic (sometimes more than one). A gene can have multiple alleles causing variations to that characteristic. People often sloppily use the word gene when they mean allele.

Gerdni – a Nuhara quippa hipsick schoolboy who lives in Laraget. Has a weird fixation with Clinder’s bus pass.

Gerhelda-Teradriel – a version of Earth.

Gift of tongues – allows somebody to speak and understand any spoken language.

Gillandi – possibly an idlan anavah.

Gimmel – a rare blood type.

Gindrac – a city north of the Great Basin. No longer inhabited.

Gintena – a faharni woman who lives in Laraget. Mother of Ildias and Zonlaria.

Gircari – anavah Winemaker of a strange race.

Glildac – a race with skin lighter than most faharnis but darker than most bennis and quippas. Have round eyes and strange, small, hooked noses. Went extinct during the Cataclysm although many people have some glildac ancestry. Mostly lived in the northern Great Basin and an area to the north of the Great Basin which is no longer inhabitable. Most were Yohoists.

Goflakh – a faharni Trulist hipsick who attends Yoho Temple Academy.

Gordito – a hipsick businessman and acting Grand Merchant of Benai Nibeyim.

Goy (Semic) – somebody who is not an anav or anavah.

Grape Picker – fairly low rank in the Benai Nibeyim Vinegrower division.

Great Basin – a gigantic impact crater on the Bet facing side of Midbar. This is where most the available water is located and therefore most the humans live in this area. Has a Sea in the middle surrounding Central Island.

Gribron – Haprihagfen’s leading legal expert.

Grisnarl – a city on the northern plain of Pax, with a large Nuhara population notorious for persecuting the local Winemakers. Has a railway station where you can catch trains to Kellrid.

Grotto of Faratondikh – a mostly disused Holy Site consisting mostly of a large chamber inside a mountain. Located a short distance to the north of Siglanti.

Grud – a major Trulist god who is now seldom worshiped due to the inaccessibility of his Holy Site.

Hairy – race from Kledris. Have thick hair over most their bodies (normally) but are otherwise much like other humans. Historically they were enslaved by nakeds but have overthrown their former masters, turned to a more literal interpretation their scriptures, at least on Midbar, and now practice apartheid against nakeds but don’t enslave them.

Guldrin – an old, High Family, faharni hipsick, the vice-president of Pax.

Haprihagfen (Semic) – A fundamentalist Winemaker order composed entirely of anavim. Has a complicated relationship with Benai Nibeyim.

Harbingers – a group of anavim who brought Winemakerism to Midbar.

Harness – article of female clothing. A system of straps and/or chains worn between the breasts and waist, to emphasize a woman’s curves.

Harvest Holiday – a long holiday in the late summer and early fall.

Harvest Master – a high rank in Haprihagfen and Benai Nibeyim’s Vinegrower Division.

Hecrin – a Winemaker country on the east side of the Great Basin. It’s main language is Hecrini, and most it’s inhabitants are idlans. Has a notoriously strict immigration policy.

Hecrini – the main language of Hecrin. Very few Paxians can read it.

Herdreckli – Trulist goddess of death and renewal.

Heterokobarsexual (adjective) – being unusually attracted to members of (a) different korbar(im) to oneself (she is heterokorbarsexual). Being related to sexual relations between members of different korbarim.

Heterokobarsexual (noun) – a person who has a sexual preference for partners of a different korbar (he is a heterokorbarsexual). This is unusual.

Ice – a faharni anavah, apostle of Haprihagfen. Wife of Mountain, mother of River and Rainbow.

Idlan – a race with dark skin, hair and eyes and narrow, pointed noses. Mostly live in the east of the Great Basin in Hecrin and are mostly Winemakers.

Ifrac – a boy at Yoho Temple Accadamy who Clindar has a low opinion of.

Ildias – a large faharni Trulist hipsick who lives in Laraget. Son of Gintena. Brother of Zonlaria.