Any questions?

[Ed Chivers]

Do you have a question about the setting? Want to clarify some detail or other about what's happened so far in our developing story?

Ask away, that's what this thread is for!

[Evie]

Setting question: The latest write-up uses "fire mountain" instead of volcano, because no Vulcan = no volcano, etymologically speaking. How should we deal with such words in write-ups and on the wiki?

[Ed Chivers]

Good question, I hadn't spotted that until you mentioned it (for clarity, this question refers to Briar's discussion about the buried "Waldo statues" at Entatrataan - "...what could have buried those statues, was it a fire mountain or landslide...", see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/thevalleyrpg/xpstXNiHD-o )

Feel free to use your own judgment on this, although can I say I love the idea of not using the word volcano due to their being no Vulcan in this world. That's awesome. I think it's also important to remember that you're writing in character (hopefully!) so keep in mind you should describe things from your character's perspective using words and phrases that would make sense to them.

[Rory Cullen]

On Sunday, 8 December 2019 21:06:54 UTC, Evie wrote:

Setting question: The latest write-up uses "fire mountain" instead of volcano, because no Vulcan = no volcano, etymologically speaking. How should we deal with such words in write-ups and on the wiki?

 This sort of thing comes up a lot in discussions of fantasy writing. There's no reason why a fantasy setting should have, say, potatoes, or cathedrals - and if it does, there's no reason it should know them by those names. That's the logical argument.

 The practical argument is that we're not writing the fantasy novel in Elvish or Norcretan or whatever language exists within the fantasy realm itself - I mean you could, but not many people would read it - so using common English words is fine; you're theoretically translating everything anyway, and it doesn't take people out of the narrative the way it could if they have to stop and think what it means for a character being thrown out of the Highfane for eating fried earthfruit.

 You can split the difference by deciding that although the High Kingdom of Norcrete does not in fact have potatoes, the word "potato" is the closest equivalent in English and although not strictly accurate conveys the meaning well enough for understanding.

 There's no definitively correct answer. Most authors try to avoid words with a particularly strong association to a culture or place - unless they specifically want to evoke that culture or place - and keep the setting-specific vocabulary for describing things that don't exist outside the setting.

R.