The Gate Program - The Large Gate - The Unwilling War - The Insurrection - Arrallin Facts - Definitions

Definitions

Arrallin Definitions and Terms

Alphas - The dominant breeding pairs of Arrallins are referred to on Earth as Alphas. Arrallakeeni (non breeding Arrallins) are referred to as Betas.

Arralla - The homeworld of the Arrallin species, found by Earth early in it's Gate Program.

Arrallakeeni - The Beta members of the Arrallin species refer to themselves as Arrallakeeni. Keeni is a diminutive affectionate term.

Arrallins - Both Alpha and Beta members of the Arrallin species are referred to as Arrallins by humans, however the term Arrallin is only used to refer to Alphas in Arrallin society.

Arrallakeeni - The Beta members of the Arrallin species refer to themselves as Arrallakeeni. Keeni is a diminutive affectionate term.

Furries, Fuzzies, Lupines - Derogatory term for Arrallins.

Ir'est - First Mate in Arrallin naval terms

Ir'mora - Chief engineer in Arrallin naval terms

Schnu - Arrallin expression, equivalent to �Heh� or �Yeah�. (It�s more of a snort than a word)

Introduction Ceremony - This is a special day when Arrallin Alphas transfer kits (baby Arrallins/Arrallakeeni) to their new parents. It usually occurs when the kits are between 4 weeks and 8 weeks old. It's the equivalent of when wolves open their dens to let the pups out to play with the rest of the pack for the first time.

Dimar Definitions and Terms

Acolytes - Acolytes are aids to the Great Mother or Father of a Barryd. They specialize in monitoring the Barryd plant-collective itself, and coordinating the efforts of the other arts in a barryd. They're essentially upper management, but they actually are effective (unlike most Earth upper management). See section on Acolytes below.

Arnas - These are the academies and universities where Arts and Crafts are taught. Everything from textiles to animal husbandry to music to trade and economics are taught in various Arnas. Every Barryd has several Arnas, but one particular Craft or Art usually comes to the fore in older Barryds and becomes associated with it. For example, Cal

Barryd - A collection of plants and animals all working on concert to provide a stable self-sustaining ecosystem that supports all. Barryds tend to evolve into large cities over the course of thousands of years.

Barryd Types (Designations) - not all are listed. More will be added as Dimar evolves.

Ela - Farming study. Ela barryds focus on food production for trade, and often evolve as sub-barryds within a larger barryd of another type.

Cal - Planetary Defense. This is basically war arts, but with a focus on defending the planet as a whole from outside invaders. For political reasons, it was not given the designation Mul.

Mul - War arts. This is the study of ceremonial combats and combat dances through full scale Barryd warfare. It has Ela, Telkai and other divisions. (Multai is sub-class of Mul arts, a form of extreme wrestling, created by Ian Munro and described in his wonderful short story. Click here!)

Mir - Animal Breeding. Mir barryds focus on selective breeding of animals to produce new, stronger breeds, as well as maintaining large herds for sale or trade. They do work with Tel barryds on occaision, but prefer a �back to basics� old style of animal husbandry to all that new fangled Water technology. The more extreme Mir barryds are equivalent to the Amish in America.

Olu - Arts and Crafts. These barryds focus on the creation of artwork, goods, performances and entertainment. They tend to be small, idyllic places, and are often chosen as retirement or vacation spots for Dimar who are not strongly connected with their central barryds. They also tend to be centers of wealth on Dimar because of their heavy Guild influence and surplus of tradeable goods.

Tel - Engineering Arts. Tel barryds focus on trying new technologies to tame the firestorms on Dimar in the dry season, as well as testing new configurations for the barryd plants for maximum efficiency. Tel artisans tend to enjoy cutting edge technologies. (See Telkai)

Tinar (Tin)- Firefighting Arts. Tinar skills also include precision flying using Wind lift, forcing back fires through Wind channeling and fire planning and control.

(and others...See Craft Conventions list below)

Dimar - The dragonlike species native to Dimar. Dimar is synonymous with 'earth' or �truth� in the thinking of the Dimar.

Mul Dimar - Are a type of Dimar that evolved after years of Barryd wars. They believe they invented what they refer to as 'lesser Dimar' (non-Mul) with Telkai engineering, but both are evolved from the most ancient Dimar, the Dimu, who are long since lost. A majority of Mul Barryds abandoned Dimar for star travel when the Barryd Wars resulted in the destabilization of the ecosystems and atmosphere of Dimar. The non-Mul Dimar at this time had been enslaved and used for production. They were left to die on the planet.

Firescales - Scaled plates that coat a Dimar during the Fire season. The scales are effective heat reflectors, as well as protecting the underfur of the Dimar while fighting fires.

Guilds - Each art has a guild associated if there is a sellable or tradable product produced through the study of the art. Guilds are like for-profit corporations, whereas the Arts tend to have a more religious feel to them. All guilds, regardless of the craft, have one mission: profit. The Arts are more academic in nature.

Leaders - Each Barryd has one Leader, who is the personification of the health of the Barryd-collective as a whole. They're like a thermometer for all the plants and animals that are linked to the Barryd.

Lita - A water carrying sack used by fire patrols for emergency healing of plants, animals or Dimar. It is made from the shells of infertile eggs laid by Dimar of a barryd. Resisting the urge to mate to create litas is considered an honorable sacrifice. Barryd members who do this are rewarded with gifts.

Miruls - Another species of Dimar meat-producing grazers. They're much smaller than morraks (the size of a whitetail deer or there abouts, only shorter) and are easier to herd.

Morraks - Large ox-like animals with long rabbit ears and long tails that end in puffs. They lack horns, but have sharp three toed hooves. These massive creatures are relatively docile by Dimar standards, although their sheer size makes them dangerous to humans and earth animals in most cases. They were not given psi ability, as they are destined to be food. Oolars are used to move them.

Murrkila - Mainland. Mainland is the largest continent of the big 5 on Dimar. Dimar has 5 large land masses and 11 sub-continental islands.

Nila - The monetary unit of non-Mu Dimar. They are large sheets of paper printed with a variety of symbols showing from which Barryd they originate, as well as their value and other features to make them harder to duplicate. Nila also come in a solid form - a sheet of wood or metal with the same impressions made as on the paper version. However, humans and Arrallins find these too difficult to work with.

Numu - tiny lemur-like tree dwellers.

Oolars - These creatures are Dimar pets. They are canine in appearance but are about the size of a large tiger and have a tiger-like tail. They have curving ram horns on their head, and tusks that emerge from the lower jaw. These features are remnants of when they were bred for war thousands of years earlier. They have mild psi abilities to make the easier to control.

War Oolars - This is the Mul version of an Oolar and are about the size of a large horse. They have protective scaling, much like firescales, and more pronounced horns and tusks. They are vicious fighters, adept climbers and have mild psi capabilities that make them easy to control. Some have wings, but most were bred for going into Barryds and slaying refugees hiding in the lower chambers, or for digging up the roots at the interior base of the Barryd to stun it or kill it.

Ranks - Each art or division of a barryd consists of many ranks - there are no set number. Lower ranks are lesser skilled, and are marked with higher numbers. The leaders are Rank 0, and First Rank are usually masters or peers of the leaders of the rank.

stripling - a term for a youngster. In the case of Dimar, approaching the age of it's first flight. (around 4 cycles - 8 years)

The Isle - The largest of 11 sub-continental islands on Dimar. It is considered Mul territory, and sacred ground, and non Mul Dimar regard it as Hades.

Telkai - The great hero of Dimar's early Barryd Wars, as well as the study of genetic engineering and form improvement. It is considered an engineering and management branch of the healing arts.

Turaks - An early attempt at Telkai engineering that resulted in a species that failed and died out. Miruls were used as a base for these animals.

Water - A prized tool of all Barryds for growing and healing, the Water is a form of genetic altering material. In earth terms: It's a set of programmable viruses and cell-technology machines that can alter forms and give then a new genetic code, or can take the existing genetic plan and repair the object based on that blueprint. Dimar also has an abundance of regular water (H20). The Water is only found in Barryds or in special carrying sacks called Litas.

Wind - Wind is a form of magnetic field that envelops Dimar. It's very much like Earth's magnetic field, but magnitudes larger and stronger. As Earth hardly has any Wind, so our science was not evolved to sense it.

velvet - A protective, nutrient carrying membrane that covers a young Dimar during its infancy and adolescence. The velvet is lost in a fire-ritual to mark the transition to young-adulthood.

More Details on Dimar
(Special Thanks to the folks of DimarMOO for asking great questions which have helped me flesh out the world in much greater detail)

Dimar Acolyte System:

Acolytes are sub-administrators of the Barryd. It's a bit like being in a Craft or an Art, but since Barryds are so important, it's almost more of a religious position, so it's given the term Acolyte. It has ranks, just like in the crafts, except they are ordered backwards from the crafts...where 1 is the lowest (apprentice) and it goes up to an arbitrary number based on the Arna's number of classes, specialties, etc. With Acolytes, being the Acolyte first is the highest you can be without being the 'Arch (Matriarch/Patriarch/Great Mother/Great Father/Leader) of the Barryd itself.

The number of sub ranks for Acolytes is arbitrary, but it's around 6 for a small barryd and 12 for a full barryd. There can be more than one acolyte per rank...and some ranks might be completely empty -- a barryd may lack a second acolyte, for instance.

Generally, each rank in the Acolyte system corresponds to some administrative task of the barryd.

Acolyte firsts are the personal assistants to the Leader. They need to be just about as well tuned into all the activity of the barryd as the leader him/herself.

Acolyte Seconds deal with the barryd plant itself - overseeing engineering crews and construction, helping planning how the barryd will grow over time and deciding what the barryd can support. This takes a very complete understanding of how the barryd interacts with it's local environment.

Acolyte third level deals with nutrition and trade, bringing materials to the barryd that the plant itself needs to grow.

Forth and fifth deal with crops and farming to keep the animal populations of the barryd fed, and deciding which items can be used for trade or need to be stockpiled.

Sixth level deals with special features of the barryd - the records storage portion of the plant (where simulations are done, histories are kept...it's like the TV/Cable/Computer/Radio portion of the plant).

Seventh deals with Water, another special feature.

Eighth deals with firefighting and military border patrols (keeping the barryd safe) - It's kept low in the heirarchy just because the peacebreeds dislike war arts, but it's so neccesary it's still above 12.

Ninth deals with internal barryd administration, helping assign existing rooms to various residents and working fair housing to meet the needs of residents. (Often, this just means overseeing a free market for the rooms, though. Only extrememly crowded barryds, old barryds that have used up much of their lands, need to do room assignments to keep things fair.)

Tenth deals with the justice system, overseeing individual disputes in the Barryd.

Eleventh oversees the mechanics of trade - kind of like a Chamber of Commerce..since the Arts and Crafts themselves usually do much of the legwork for trade. This is just the official administrative branch that helps things along.

Twelfth acolytes are Jacks of all Trades/Apprentices usually, learning about each level by acting as aides to other Acolytes in other levels.

This system is flexible, though, and can vary by Barryd. Barryds with serious fire problems might move that Rank to 4 or 5, moving down things like herd management and crops. Barryds near Mul barryds might separate War Arts from firefighting because they need serious full time soldiers to keep from losing territory.

Dimar Art and Craft System:

(A snippet from a conversation with Leighton re: Crafts on Dimar)

Well, in terms of crafts...there's a craft on Dimar for anything you can imagine people/Dimar needing, the same way there's a company to provide every good we need these days on Earth. The difference is that Dimar wouldn't call them by their human term...Dimar would have a word or term for each craft.

Just list off the crafts and I'll find the term the Dimar would use to describe it. I have some of them already designated, as Barryds themselves eventually associate themselves with a particular Art or Craft (Telka does Telkai, Mulkol does Mul, war arts) There's a list at the end.

The Crafts aren't organized quite like (some other roleplaying game) crafts, either...there's not a top master for the entire Craft type, although guilds and associations do exist within a particular craft -- like individual corporations. This is the production side of a Craft. The guild masters run the equivalent of stores and factories to sell the goods to the Barryds. It's not medieval, where the crafts are required to provide the good...it's capitalistic. They're really corporations. But, generally, in return for not paying taxes to a particular Barryd, a Guild of a craft located in a barryd will provide a certain amount of it's services to the barryd for low cost or free -- so it does have that medieval 'if the town needs it, it gets it' feeling that the guilds had in medieval times.

The way a particular craft group is set up within a Barryd depends greatly on the individuals in it...every barryd is different..there are as many ways to work things out as you can imagine. Also, there can be more than one craft group of a particular type in each Barryd -- competition is good for quality. :) It's not a rigid system...The Dimar are a very flexible species, much like humans.

Then, there's the 'Arts' part of a particular craft field. The Arnas are the learning halls for various crafts. Arnas are the equivalent of state colleges, usually sponsored by the Barryd in which they're located through the Dimar equivalent of Tax Dollars. :) A Tel Arna teaches Telkai (hmm..but would also be the term of a firefighting Arna...hrm...I gotta redo that).. A Ewl Arna would teach weaving, a Naki Arna would teach music, etc. However, this is just my interpretation of how the Crafts on Dimar work. Dimar is a shared world...which means I'm not the final authority. If someone else has would like to define the crafts another way, they should do that. Dimar is an open book...designed for you to take liberties, so please do! :)

Craft Reference Conventions:

A school dedicated to a particular Craft is an Arna...For example, a Tel Arna, or a Naki Arna. A master or ranking member of a craft (equivalent of a president or VP) is often referred to by the three or four letter prefix for his/her craft (Tel Kirra would be a master or ranking member of Telkai arts...Kinda like 'Mr. or Mrs.')

The Craft Designation list:

Telkai (Tel) is animal/plant genetic engineering (Tel)

Telai (Tela) is firefighting subspecialty of Telkai (hmm..not the best term...I may have to rethink that..it's confusing. Telkai versus Telai...)

Mulkai (Mul) is war arts/combat/weaponsmaking

Ekai (Eka) is healing arts

Elai (Ela) is farming

Mirrai (Mir) is animal breeding

Illai (Illa) is transport/trade

Oluai (Olu) is arts and crafts - not Arts and Crafts...just the production of decorative items (wall hangings, decorations, painting, sculpture - pure esthetic, non functional)

Ewlai (Ewl) is weaving

Nakai (Nak/Naka) is music