Habah, Father of Behabah

Hebah is the father of Behabah, who drank the Lake Pehemeh when challenged by Atam. We also know Hebah as the Shepherd, for he stole herds of Earthen-Beings from Mash and Bu — first to make them jealous, and then because he enjoyed their taste.

Continue reading “Habah, Father of Behabah”

Getting Ready to Go Out

The Bloody-Handed Name of Bronze includes a little section about makeup and hair because the game asks you for descriptions of stuff all the time and I want to seed the conversation with imagery from outside the European aesthetic (and the European second-artistry that is modern Fantasy)

This image will be very small on the page. But since I set out to draw someone beautiful, I kinda…couldn’t stop. A little bit, I fell in love.

Continue reading “Getting Ready to Go Out”

That Which Is Made to Give

We here in 2019 in the post-colonial late-stage Capitalist Earth are really hooked on the idea of money. But it’s not an obvious idea, and modern economists even have a hard time describing what it is.

The World of Names is big and Earthen-Being are small; While the Giants strode across it like a single field; and to the Descendants of Heaven all distances are as one; to even the boldest Earthen-Being, the reach of their life is like a single poppy seed in a field stretching far past the reach of the eye.

And so, when an Earthen-Being has a desire and does not wish to force its satisfaction, what have they to trade in foreign lands that those recognize as worthy of the satisfaction of that desire?

Money, or things that we think of as money: a stone weight in the form of a grasshopper; two links of golden chain of which only 1000 were ever wrought; three glass rings to be worn in the hair of those honored by the previous bearer.
Clockwise, from left: two of the thousand links of gold chain wrought by the famed smith, Shebahfzu; a stone grasshopper used by the Gashab Family of merchants, inscribed with the sigil of the family; and three glass rings used by the Jigham people of the Western Desert, worn woven into the hair and clothes, and given to show honor.
Continue reading “That Which Is Made to Give”

Kalush, Buried Beneath the Twins

When the Giants quarreled, they brought forth many monsters to do their violence before Ummud conceived to form the Earthen-Beings out of red clay. The great serpent Kalush was birthed by Ishmu to seize the ruby heart of the river Ufaret and hold it close that Shutu might not regain it to place it again within her ribcage.

Kalush was trapped here beneath a seal, inscribed in the Language of Names, unable to see the light of day until Gushab and Adanu managed to move aside the stone. They are considering if they have perhaps made a mistake.
Continue reading “Kalush, Buried Beneath the Twins”

Bahamat, Mother of Sea Monsters

When you stretch your eye
across the sea
Beware, lest the sea
stretch its eye toward you.

Labiasam was born at the first dawn and was feared by the Giants.
Modular systems are a function of industrial society. But do people of The Fifth World still know how to agree to standards? With their acute interest in efficiency, I think they might have carried that lesson forward!