Re: Con-other

Den 30. mai. 2008 kl. 01.01 skreiv Mark J. Reed:
> 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....
The Urianians have a set of runelike characters used widely until the
early medieval, when Roman letters became more common.

The traditional Urianian calendar is a simple lunar calendar with a
leap month added if the vernal equinox falls outside the 12th month.
It is still used by adherents of the old religion to find the
Gregorian dates of the festivals.

I haven't done any work on Urianian currency, but it could be an
interesting story. I gather they started minting during the last
couple of centuries BCE and developed a varied selection of coins.
But when the Scots, later British, took over the south of the island,
they introduced their own currency there, like the Danes did when
they took over the northern part. But the northern part wasn't
completely conquered until the 17th century, and even then there were
resistance barons who were likely to do some minting of their own.
Particularly in the case of the 1849 rebellion I think there would be
some rebel minting. When the southern part gained some independence
in 1917, they celebrated with special issues, but continued using
British denominations. The northern part got rid of the Danes in
1934, and the island was unified. The unification day on Aug 13 is
the biggest national holiday. Unification of the currency also
resulted, eventually, though I'm not exactly sure with what result.
Maybe they are still using pounds, shillings and pence to this day.

As a kid I had a period when I drew notes and mock coins to play
trading games with my friends. I called them 'Superman money' and
they were embellished with Superman symbols, inspired by a
Schaffenberger story I read at the time.

I've done a bit of work on religions. The Urianians have a
traditional IE polytheism with some twists. I have written a creation
myth in Old Urianian, perhaps a little ironic, almost like a parody
of IE creation myths. Don't know if they actually believe in the
stuff, but at least it was fun writing. The Suraetuans are animists.
They don't worship humanoid gods representing the Moon and the Sun
etc., they worship the objects themselves. I have done a bit of work
on their creation myth as well, but it's far from finished. At the
time when they encounter Uttrediay, the hero of the novel I have been
working on, they have a few sects with more or less quaint ideas to
market.

I have more than half a dozen books full of maps in quite a bit of
detail. Would like to make them digital, but it will be a lot of
work, particularly if done well. I have done quite a bit of work on
the botany, because I would like to know what diet items they had
available, and other useful plants as well. Suraetuans are fond of
colour, and I have tried to design some clothing, based on bronze age
models, but more elaborate. Most Urianian plants are species found in
Scotland and/or Scandinavia as well, but there is a small number of
species peculiar to the country.

There is a modern Urianian flag, and like "Ph. D", I have had a few
versions that were discarded when I found natworld flags that were
too similar. Currently I have a simple design of three horizontal
stripes in blue, white and green with a red emblem in the middle. The
national emblem should be treefold, but the actual shape is undecided
as of now. Probably a thistle should be included, and a walking lion.
I'm not sure yet of a symbol for the Urianian nation itself. These
things can often be very arbitrary. For some reason I was thinking of
a rooster just now.

LEF

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