Re: Archaen: A Bit of Magical Whimsy

[I'm sending this for the second time because
I got a strange garbled rebounce message from
the server. Sorry if you got this already.]

Edward Heil <edheil@...> wrote:
> In the roleplaying game Talislanta, the language wizards use is Archaen.
> It's ancient and nobody does anything but cast spells in it anymore.
>
> What would a language like that look like? Well, I designed the nominal
> system with some interesting cases.....
[snip]
>
>  Possessive
>                                 Supernatural possession (=Talislan
>                                 "under the supernatural control of")
Shouldn't that be "suppernaturally controlling"? Then you could
use the pair possessive - incantative (or a similar one):

  The evil spirit.POSS  commanded  him.INC  to do X.

Just a thought.

>  Apparitive
>                                 Appearance (=Talislan "in the shape
>                                 of")
Niiice!

>  Vocative
>                                 Calling people/things by name in
>                                 mundane circumstances. See also
>                                 Evocative, Invocative, and
>                                 Incantative, which are special
>                                 versions of the Vocative.  They are
>                                 all used in direct address, not in
>                                 ordinary sentences.
>  Evocative
>                                 Speaking to one who is on another
>                                 plane of existence
Which person gets marked for evocative, the speaker or
the hearer in another plane of existence? Could you
post some examples of each case?

[snip]
>  Abfiative
>                                 The original form of a
>                                 transformation (=Talislan "from" in
>                                 the sentence "he changed from a
>                                 prince into an exomorph")
>  Adfiative
>                                 The final form of a transformation
>                                 (=Talislan "to" in the above
>                                 sentence)
Really cool stuff.

>
> Any further ideas for "magical" cases or other grammatical constructions
> welcomed!
Lots of ideas! Just not to repeat what others said,
I'd propose: nouns (and adjectives) with inflections
that tell you if they are really what they seem, or
a bad thing in disguise, or a good thing that just looks
awful because it's been transformed, or you don't know,
etc. For example:

QST = you ask yourself if this is really true
HOR = different from what is meant in a horrible way
NAM = not as much as it seems
AFR = you're afraid of this

(You're walking with Xyz and see a tall ivory castle beyond)

You: What a beautiful castle.QST!

Xyz: It's Morgana's home.HOR. She lives there with her
     servants.HOR. She's a really beautiful.QST lady.QST.

You: I did hear she's beautiful.NAM. Will we meet her.AFR?


I don't know if this is mystic, or magic, but it has a
certain schizoid flavour that seems appropriate for "dark"
fantasy.


--Pablo Flores

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