The workings of D'oril, pt 1

So I’ve bloviated on magic and healing over the last week or so, explaining in a small way how things work. There’s a lot more involved, of course, especially the ‘color’ involved in how healing works (Randir’s healing style, for example, is more than just ‘laying on the hands’) but I’ll go into that at a later date. Art recently reminded me/asked a question about ‘cha, cha’kel, and indirectly, il’cha status. So, here goes...

Back in the ifgs days, when Brandis’ character depth was fairly limited, I tossed out the stereotype statement “Elf Friend” and applied it to a couple of characters who were either close friends of his, or could be considered such in their involvement with the k’tath in the d’oril games. Early on, I was pretty vague about the differences between “elf” and K’tath, and in a spur of the moment, pirated ‘elf friend’ straight from tolkeinish literature.

Later, as I began developing my own background and depth, the K’tath became more distinct from “elf” in many ways. At first, it was cultural, I borrowed somewhat from CJ Cherryh and her Kesrith/Kutath/Shonjir (Faded Sun) series of sci/fi, specifically the three castes of the Mri culture. Though I kept the words at first, as I developed more and more depth, I diverged the cultural divisions very differently from the Faded Sun trilogy and Mri. The last remnant of that appeared briefly in Sha’te Valley, where I had the kath (now called krath) veiled in the manner of the Mri. However, the desert-born mri costuming has no similarity to the taiga residing K’tath, so I’ve dropped even that last similarity. Now, the K’tath are mine fully...

From there, I began altering most other elements, trying to create a unique character. When I came to “elf friend”, I wanted to keep the concept, that there would be a very few human and other-raced individuals who the k’tath would accept as close allies and friends, but I wanted it to have a deeper meaning. In addition, I began to see the kel groups as a core of the success of the k’tath in war, because of their incredible teamwork within a fighting unit, unparalleled in humanish culture. Thus Kel brothers and sisters, originally merely a convenient grouping and naming convention, became an almost psychically bonded group of warriors. But even within that group, there would be even tighter bonds. Thus, Cha’kel, a pair of compatible kel warriors, usually of opposite sex, who formed a synergetic, empathic bond between them that enhanced their, and the kel’s abilities.

I later used ‘cha, appended to a name, in the ifgs when Brandis first referred to Cerredwyn (A human amazon character) as Cerredwyn’cha after Shatterman Pass. In that game, then two of them had lived (and essentially died) through a series of emotionally traumatic events. Cerredwyn and Brandis had been taken unconscious by some Jepali tribesmen, and then used as hostages in an attempt to get the commander of the pass fortress to open the gates. They were healed to bare consciousness by the jepali and displayed in front of the gate of the fortress, but the jepali made the mistake of letting the two of them see each other, With unspoken understanding (mirroring the empathic link of cha’kel) of the situation, they both thrust their throats against the knives held against them, in an effort to remove the ‘live hostage’ leverage that the jepali held against the fortress defenders. (Never mind that the defenders then sallied from the gates to recover Brandis’ and Cerredwyn’s dying bodies). I chose to apply ‘cha after the momentous/miraculous healing that they received afterwards, (and as fate/ifgs would have it, the two characters spent the next two years surviving a series of dark no-co minigames, thus cementing the ‘cha name in their character histories.)

When I began transitioning from IFGS mind set to author mindset, I worked on reconciling the differences in these and many other areas. Cha’kel held a different meaning than Cerredwyn’cha, or Brandis’cha, Elf friend was implied, but unnamed. And I still needed another level of bond. Elf friend would remain un-renamed for now, but for the new level, I created Il’cha. Il’cha was something much deeper, stronger than Cha’kel, or (name)’cha, and I added a level of tragedy to it, in essence it was a spiritual bond that, at least as far as the kel were concerned, sometimes went too far. Two ‘lovers’ or partners, too deeply involved with each other, such that in the fatalistic K’tath Kel world, sooner or later, one of them would die, and the other would suffer greatly as a result, disrupting the harmony of the kel group. Il’cha bond pairs thus became stuff of kel tragic legend, something admired, and feared at the same time.

Needless to say, this complexity, though clear within my own notes, isn’t easy to immediately explain in writing. In Imperfect Hope, Cerryn and Randir have progressed to ‘cha status, but because the tale begins well after the characters had first met, I’ve little chance to “show” rather than tell. If I do a prequel (which is looking like a good idea anyway), I can do just that, but if IH is to stand alone, ‘cha, Il’cha, and cha’kel (plus ‘elf friend’) will have to be explained, or shown in some manner. It’s something to work on.....

At any rate... Looking into the bitty details of what I'm writing about has helped strengthen the continuity of what I've written, and I"m planning to do a lot more. For one, there's the whole history between the K'tath and the Empire of D'oril Why is the empire so insistant on fighting them... More to come...

TTFN,
Jim