How it came to be. Or something.

[annarti.livejournal.com]

I dunno someone might be interested. Stuff that's influenced various aspects of Tsyllaes, just cos I feel like rambling rather than doing French assignment >>;;

Raykin is, quite obviously, based on the Aussie desert, in that it's red~ sand instead of yellow, and there's spinifex and saltbush everywhere. Because seriously, red sand is so much more dramatic than yellow. The lifestyle of the Raykinians is pretty much ancient Egyptian-based, with the mudbrick houses, predominantly fishy diet from the river, flat bread, etc etc la de da.

The beer thing I nicked from Aussie culture. Cos we seriously do have a beer culture. Literally every town in this country has a pub. It may be a town of maybe 50 people, situated in serious desert, thousands of kilometres from the nearest capital city, with no hospital but the Royal Flying Doctor Service, but they'll have a pub. Case in point, Silverton, New South Wales, which is exactly like that. They have a few art galleries, museums, an old jail that's now a tourist attraction, and the pub. I'm not making this up! I've been there =D So yeah, had to incorporate that into Raykinian culture XD

The King's Own~ I nicked the name from Tamora Pierce, but that's it. As you know, the characters for the Own's riders are based around various songs on my playlist, so I won't go through that. They're all in the memories, anyway. But there's more to the group than that. I've also borrowed a few aspects of cricket and given them to the Own =3 (shuddup. I love my cricket, it had to make an appearance somewhere).

Among the Aussie cricket team, there's something of a heirarchy. The fast bowlers think they're the best and show it, while the top order batsmen know they are. They're very cliquey and have the odd batsmen-only functions X3

So, fast bowlers = blade archers (and to a certain extent, bow archers, but not so much), and batsmen = swordsmen.

Glenn McGrath, the best fast bowler on the planet (I'm not biased; he's officially ranked world number one) has an annoying habit of ditching things at people, even if they're having an interview with the media. Cricket balls, chips, drink cans, whatever. That was always going to be a trait of the blade archers. I mean, when you're that good at throwing stuff, why wouldn't you abuse such skill? X3

Matthew Hayden, previously our best batsman but he's been a bit, well, crap for the past year or so, can cook. Really bloody well, according to the rest of the team. He also can't stand how McGrath keeps ditching stuff at everyone. So there's Kurae, the Own's chef X3

I want to adopt the nickname thing they've got going too, but it's hard enough giving them real names, let alone nicknames. Literally every bloke on the Aussie cricket team has a nickname.

Haydos (Matthew Hayden)
JL (Justin Langer)
Punter (Ricky Ponting)
Marto (Damien Martyn)
Pup, Nemo (Michael Clarke)
Boof, Boofa, Shrek, Shrekie (Darren Lehmann)
Gilly (Adam Gilchrist)
Warnie (Shane Warne. Original, that one)
Binga (Brett Lee)
Dizzy (Jason Gilespie)
Pigeon (Glenn McGrath)
Kaspa (Michael Kasprowicz)

And~ so on. I want to be able to do that with the Own, but like I say, might be too much effort. I may get around to it eventually, but for the moment we'll stick with Nol and 'may and leave it at that.

Lastly with the Own, a few of the names I got lazy with >> Gylepi is from Jason Gilespie. His nickname's Dizzy, and Gylepi's named his horse Dizzy. Also got a mullet like Gilespie. Heh. And~ Murali's name came from Muttiah Muralitharan, Sri Lankan bowler whose name gets shortened to Murali. I was running out of names, quiet ._.;;

The Raykinian language is very, very loosely based on Indonesian, but not really. I just love the sound of Bahasa Indonesia. So lovely and soft and singy, so I've just gone one step further and ditched the letter S and derivatives. Bahasa Indonesia also lacks a word for 'the' and there's no conjugating of verbs (ie the verb stays the same whoever's doing it. No "I sing he sings" crap), and being a student of French, where there are three words for 'the', plus more if you want to include 'to the' and 'of the', and literally hundreds of ways of writing the same verb, this is very appealing, so Raykinians have no word for 'the' and no conjugations. Nice X)

Finally, the stories of the desert people (of which I've made up one, woo!) are something like Aboriginal Dreaming stories. I'm trying to make them all up myself tho rather than nick 'em directly from Aboriginal culture, hence why there's only one of them ^^;

I believe that's about it for Raykin, woo!

Kazin... erm... I nicked more cricketers' names for place names =D Mostly Pakistani names, because damnit Pakistani names are teh cool. Rivers Ssaqlen and Sushtaq (Saqulain Mushtaq, presuming I spelt that right), Ruzaka and River Rizzok (Abdul Razzaq), and that's it.

Also something else I haven't written about as yet, but in the tropical cities in particular, the streets are all lined with fruit trees, which is something I heard mentioned on ABC radio some time last year. Thought that was interesting, so that's incorporated into Kazinian lifestyle now. I'd like it to be in Raykin, but the whole idea of these trees is that they're completely self sufficient, so free food for all and no maintainance. In Raykin nothing beyond cacti, spinifex, saltbush and acacias have a hope of surviving on their own, so yeah, wouldn't work unfortunately.

Llayad is a strange mix of Africa and Ye Olde England. African landscape, Olde English culture. As far as specific influences go though, there's not a lot. Wine culture is a very South Aussie thing, especially in the Hills. The Barossa Valley and the Coonawarra are two of the most famous wine regions in the country, and South Aussies are very proud of their wine =3 Among the Aussie Rules Footy community, the Adelaide Crows supporters are seen as the "chardonnay drinkers" of the sport X3;; My dad especially loves talking about good years and cherry aftertastes and how this one would taste better with a good steak instead of a curry... I personally couldn't tell the difference between a badly corked two-dollar bottle of crap and a 1985 Penfold's Grange worth upwards of $500 a bottle. I know the wine lingo from Dad tho, so I can bluff my way through Llayan wine conversations X3

Tsaythis, there's not much. They live on wooden boats, so I figure no fire, therefore no cooking, therefore they eat raw fish, aka sashimi, hence sorta Asian-y looking boats, and their language is sorta staccato like a lot of Asian languages. That's it. Everything else in that kingdom is completely my own creation, yay!

Well, that was a ramble and a half. If you read the whole thing... you're quite clearly nuts. As much as I am for having written it. Yay!

Comments

[garney.livejournal.com]

*is clearly nuts*

whoa.. brain overload

you really raelly really think about things o-o deep

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Nah, I just go "OMFG! BEER CULTURE" and stick it in XD Sometimes it's more subdued tho, more along the lines of "Yaknow, the Llayans would so~ love wine."