Re: Con-other

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> The subject of con-currencies came up on the other thread, and made me
> wonder what other concultural artifacts people have created?
> Orthographies (that might not yet have an associated language),
> calendars, currencies, games (board and sport); vehicles, weapons;
> religions....
Calendars, yes. I had an Olaetian calendar with some 400 days divided
into ... how many months? I don't remember. That was a long time ago.

I used to draw lots of maps.

I did a drawing of a board and pieces for a strange chess-like board
game; I don't have any idea if it would work or the rules would actually
make sense.

Musical instruments. I drew a whole bunch of musical instruments, along
with the range of each one. There were the usual woodwinds, brass,
stringed instruments, percussion and so on, with a couple of unusual
ones (a bowed-string keyboard instrument). These days I do a lot of
con-music, complete with con-music-theory involving microtonal scales
and the particular arrangement of keys on reed organs.

Then there are the people and the animals. I started with humans, then
added elves (likely from the influence of Tolkien and/or D&D). Later I
added my own kinds of non-humans; the Thrinnyng (now two distantly
related groups, the Nithra and Hralta, which I originally considered as
the same species) were probably the first, followed by their relatives
the Zoray, Zireen, and Sangari, and the unrelated Nikta and Neyasai. I
started looking at books on drawing animals for ideas to make them look
less human, although they don't represent any specific kind of animal.
Then came the Mizarian rat-people, which started a brief trend of people
based on actual animals. The Oninko porcupines (fond of opera music) and
the raccoon-like Janarr (who speak Jarda and write in a braille-like
script) are from that period. More recently I've focused more on the
Zireen and even more newly-discovered kinds of people like the Verrilin
(human-sized furry people with longish ears and a rabbit- or deer-like
tail).

Religions.... Olaetians are polytheistic. I had a list of some of their
gods. The "elves" have more of an animistic approach to religion:
everything has a spirit. According to their view (at least in the
stories of Elvish wizards) you could get water to freeze if only you
knew how to communicate with all the tiny spirits of the water droplets
and tell them where to stand. Sangari are more philosophical in their
approach. Zireen are more interested in the next great monster movie, a
day at the amusement park, or quiet appreciation of nature -- religious
ideas seldom occur to them, and when they do, they're not given much
relevance.