Sadly my knowledge of the geography of the world of the Deryni is lacking. Is there a New World that been, or is yet to be discovered? I am playing around with a story idea that maks the Deryni out to be like the Quakers and they head to the New World to get away from the persecution. That way, I can do pretty much whatever I want and not tread on any toes storyline wise. :)
Also in the vein of if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail,I want to write a story about how using Transfer Portals would make exploring a continent would be much faster and safer for the people involved.
Any Deryni geographers out there?
The new world is yet to be discovered; the Deryniverse's timeline is similar to ours, and they are only up to the 1200s; the Americas were only discovered by Europeans in our primary world--leaving aside the Vikings and Irish monks, whose incursions had little lasting effect--in the 1400s.
That being said, a mass Deryni migration to the Western Hemisphere is an interesting idea--go for it!
What Elkhound said. :) There are some maps in the Codex Derynianus, but only of those lands known to exist up to the year 1130 (which is two years after the events in the last book written in the Deryni series so far), so pretty much anything after that which doesn't directly contradict what has been laid out in the novels already would seem to be fair game for speculative fanfic (or alternate Deryni universe fanfic) along those lines. Since KK has never come out and said "There is no New World in the Deryni universe and never will be," I'd say just set a story at some plausible period of time after 1130 (possibly a few centuries later, if you want to keep it somewhat consistent with real world history), and go from there.
Even with the maps that do exist, they are similar to their real world medieval counterparts in being really, really vague about some of the details at time, especially the further out you get from Gwynedd and the Eleven Kingdoms. By the time you get over to the far eastern areas of the Known World, all you've really got at that point are vague areas blocked off as different countries or regions, as if the cartographer wasn't really sure where the exact boundaries lay, but was just marking off "It's around here someplace." :D And Great Jumping Jehosephat on a Pogo Stick, do not get me started on the elastic roads needed to make certain canonical plot points work if you go by the mileage gauge on the one decent map of Gwynedd and the Eleven Kingdoms that actually does exist! ;D (That map, in case you're wondering, can be found in the Deryni Adventures roleplaying game sourcebook, which is an excellent resource for fanfic authors even if you don't play roleplaying games. And probably an even better resource if you do. There's also a poster-sized version of the Eleven Kingdoms map available online that I just bought myself for an early birthday present...that one also has maps of the City of Rhemuth and the Cathedral of St. George in the corners. The Cathedral blueprint in particular nearly makes me swoon with joy...so much fanfic potential in that interesting complex of buildings....)
After the Council of Ramos codified the persecution and reduction of the Deryni, many of that race fled the lands of Gwynnedd for more hospitable locations. While some lands took them in and allowed the Deryni to live as free citizens, other lands restricted many aspects of thier lives. There were few places in the 11 Kingdoms where it was truly safe to be a known Deryni, or even a Deryni sympathizer.
To that end a band of Deryni, their families and supporters gathered together and arranged the purchase of a trading ship. They loaded the ship with trade goods, tools and animals and sailed out of the 11 Kingdoms into the unknown ocean to the West. They were never seen again in the 11 Kingdoms, and were assumed to have been lost at sea.
The truth is that this band of Deryni mystics, religious brethren, and a few surviviing Michaeline knights managed through determination, luck, and a liberal use of Deryni weather magic managed to sail across the ocean and discover a new land.
They named this new land in honour of the patron saint that had guided them there.
The Deryni Nation of Camberland
Sounds like an interesting start so far. I'd make sure not to have them all members of religious orders, if you want the colony to last longer than one generation. :D (You did say Quakers, not Shakers! ;D ) Perhaps they're not entirely going off blindly into the West either. They may have worked out, like the real world Ancients did (knowledge that wasn't forgotten in the Middle Ages despite the modern-day myth that everyone back then thought the world was flat), that sailing to the far West would eventually lead them back to the Far East, and they just hadn't counted on finding a large land mass in between. Perhaps someone scried for a glimpse of it....rather difficult at those great distances, I'd assume, but possibly not completely impossible, particularly if it were a group effort, and if something that might provide a focus happened to wash up on an Eleven Kingdoms coastline that had its origins in the as-yet-undiscovered New World. Ocean currents do move in mysterious ways....
What if they're not the first Deryni to make it to the New World? Maybe there were survivors of the Lost Kingdom of Caeriesse who somehow made it that far? How well (or badly) might the newcomers get along with the descendents of those Deryni?
Oooh - so many possibilities! I am already looking forward to the first fanfic! :)
I admit part of it is being lazy. This way I don't have to juggle all the known history canon and just make stuff up. :P
Plus I can scribble out the story of the Deryni cartographers and how they travelled across the land in style and comfort.
I had Deryni families and their followers and servants as well as the monastic types. Throwing in the monastic types allows for some of the knowledge to be saved and apssed down from one generation to the next. That way healing, transfer portals, weather magic and all the other Deryni advantages are not lost over the years as they are in the high Deryni series.
A couple of Healers head to the New World, they help the people survive, and pass the knowledge on down. They may lose some material, or perhaps the stresses of the new world force an inventiveness into the training and they discover more about their abilities.
Suppose Camberland, dedicated to Saint Camber thrives, and returns after a couple of hundred years with goods to trade. Or one of the 11 Kingdoms finds them, a nation of Deryni who remember the injustices, and also remember their heritage and powers. It could make for a rather tricky situation for the 11 Kingdoms.
Or the new world has to send agents back to get more technology and tools, things they canot make for themselves (yet). There is a lot of open territory to play around with. (And I just happen to think like that).
If you are ever looking for people to bounce ideas around with in real-time, there are a few of us who tend to show up in the #Deryni_Destinations chatroom many weekdays around this time of day/evening/night (adjust for your local time zone). Not so much today, since two of the Circulum Verbi members (inside joke there ;) ) are away from keyboards this morning/afternoon/evening, and I'm in the middle of some less interesting work in my real-world job, but maybe on some other day. :) But I get some of my best--and worst--story ideas from bouncing them around in there and seeing what gets added on to, challenged, shot down with raucous laughter, reworked, etc. Even if I don't end up using someone else's suggestions, they're often the catalyst to getting my mind to think in some other direction I do end up taking.
(And that's a general announcement, not just to MerchantDeryni. The Chatroom's not just for Sunday evenings at KK time anymore. :D )
Quote from: MerchantDeryni on November 29, 2011, 03:36:12 PM
Plus I can scribble out the story of the Deryni cartographers and how they travelled across the land in style and comfort.
If you're going to write about Deryni cartographers, you're going to need maps. Lovely detailed maps with mileage scales and non-elastic roads for the cartographically-obsessed among us.
OK, maybe you won't. But that's on my Christmas wish list, and a gal can dream. ;D
I like maps. I ran a D&D game (yes I am a geek) and used google maps and the West coast of Canada as the setting. So when folks ask where the river runs to, I knew. I just had to add in the castles and dragons :P
I would so play in (or even run) a Deryni Adventures rpg if I had a) more free time and didn't have to choose between using it to game or to write, and b) some local folks to game with again who have a clue what "Deryni" even are, much less how to play in that universe without trying to turn it into "hack the enemy / get the loot / move to the next level" dice-roll-dependent 'roll playing' rather than the actual story-based, dice-guided but not rules-lawyered, role-playing fun it could turn out to be in the hands of the right group of players. *sigh* Of course, in the Internet age there are all sorts of ways to run online games as well--Bynw runs one--but then you run into pesky things like time zone differences and coordinating schedules.
/me adds to Christmas wish list--"More free time"
Member of Circulum Verbi touching base from the peace of her holiday retreat ...:D
Camberland is an interesting premise. If you set it in the time of the persecutions, then you won't have had the equivalent of Vasco de Gama and the southern explorations, so do you have some sort of legends or tales about lands to the west, perhaps along the lines of the Viking voyages to Greenland? Or as Evie suggested, takles of the lost kingdom of Caeriesse?
And it will be interesting to see how you cope with the Deryni map making process and distances, given the many problems experienced in our world as far as accurate measurements of longitude. (Not to mention that the distances, both by land and sea, in KK's world seem to be extremely, er, "elastic"!!) IRL, latitude was relatively easy to measure, but longitude depended on having accurate timepieces, and that problem wasn't really solved in a way that was practical for ships' navigators until the late eighteenth century (see e.g. Captain Cook and his famous chronometers).
The other interesting aspect is the commercial importance and often extreme secrecy of maps IRL. As you point out, the issue of contact between Camberland and the 11 Kingdoms could be tricky for both sides, and I could imagine some interesting issues about whether / how to keep Camberland a secret. And if the secret was released, then on what terms? The efforts of the Portuguese to keep their trade routes to the east a secret are fascinating, with the map making 'espionage' by the Dutch and then the English as their empires expanded.
Look forward to reading about the founding of Camberland. :)
I am curious how Deryni people fleeing from persecution deal with the Native Camberlandians. Hopefully gentler than in our world.
By the way there is a great archeological site in Salem, New Hampshire called America's Stonehenge. You should visit if you havnt, would be a great place to integrate into your story. The professionals have never determined exactly who built it (the story has changed over the 4 times I have visited in the last 30 years) so why not an outdoor chamber for Deryni magic?
I have seen American's Stonehenge on TV. A very interesting place. Hopefully, the reason for its construction will be discovered.
Well I have written a few pages of ideas down for how things could go. I went for the easiest to begin with and had disease from the colonists wipe out a large fraction in the beginning, and have teh few healers the settlers have help save people. I just re-read Pillars of the Earth and the Diseases of trade section in my history of trade book (A spledid exchange I think it is called). So having sickness sweep the land could reduce initial threats to the settlers, while depriving them of help as well.
Most of my current ideas all revolve around the transfer portals, I like the scenarios and possibiliites they can create, and they are (to me) the most blatant 'Deryni' thing. I just like the idea, so I write about what they could do with them.
In that regard I disagree with KK in her assessment of Portal Use in Deryni Magic. She wrote that the networks were declining. My mercenary/greedy nature balks at the thought of something that useful (and profitable!) be declining. 4 people can make a portal if need be (more is better but hey), and only 2 of them have to be Deryni and know what to do, the other two are just batteries.
For Camberland, this means the ability to trek across a continent, find and make friends, and make a portal and boom, instant trade. I modeled it on fur trade, rather than voyageur, I have trade forts every 200 miles. Axe heads, adzes, metal pots, glassware, all the 'high tech' items a medieval economy could produce for the furs. Furs are loaded onto a trade ship rewed by humans and you have the fur craze 300 years early. (Yes, again with the trade. I use the teleportation to avoid portaging. I haveonly carried a canoe and all the food I would eat for a week once in my life, and I would gladly teleport every chance I could.
From a new nation diplomacy perspective. healers come in, cure wounds and illnesses, and they glow with handfire. Blessed by the Gods. Impressive as all get out. Sure the argument for possessed by Devils could be raised, but in my imagination the diplomatic relations go well :P.
Could a medieval technology level society conquer the new world? Slowly, standard of living would be easy to copy, a wood hut is easy to build to medieval standards using iron axes. The lack of firearms is a problem is warfare breaks out, bows and swords and chainmail vs bow and arrow of native american. this assumes (as I did in my story) that they land on the East coast of the US. *that way I can use local google maps and Ag data to show me where the coal seams and iron deposits are.
Getting more ships from the Old world with more settlers (Deryni or human), and the craftsman and the tools needed to expand may be difficult, which is why I positied the weather magic, more Deus machina for the storyline.
I like the ease of Camberland, where the people do not forget their heritage, and focus on the magic. Magic could/would make things a lot easier for settlers. Healing for sure, weather magic depending on how controllable it is. And of course, the Portals.
I think I will go write and post a 1 pager about the exploration of the vast continent, show folks what I am thinking of.
QuoteIn that regard I disagree with KK in her assessment of Portal Use in Deryni Magic. She wrote that the networks were declining.
I haven't got my copy of
Deryni Magic to hand, but think you may be misinterpreting KK's comment.
On my reading of DM, she was not commenting on the possible
future use of portals or a portal network, but making a statement of fact - that at the time of her books (the latest at that stage being QFSC), the networks were in decline. Which is perfectly true.
At the start of the first Camber trilogy, there was an ecclesiastical network of portals between cathedrals and the various sees; there were also portals in various key monasteries and training establishments, as well as private portals. But as we see, the persecutions of the Deryni resulted in some portals being destroyed (e.g. St Neot's), some were secured in various ways (Evaine securing their family one), and the location of others was forgotten as the numbers of Deryni declined and those who may have had the knowledge of portal locations either died or left Gwynedd. For obvious reasons, the remaining Deryni would have had to be extremely careful about their portal use and would not readily disclose private portal locations unless very sure of the person to whom they were giving the details.
Don't forget that Loris and his predecessors had many anti-Deryni supporters and spies. Even the very slightest
hint that someone had apparently been seen in place X when he was known to be in place Y would have caused suspicions and could have brought down the wrath and full investigative force of the Church. Even in KKB, Kelson was a little wary of openly using portal transfer.
After the time of KKB, the situation will probably change very gradually, as Deryni become more accepted (we assume!) and there is a re-birth and expansion of Deryni knowledge. But that will be a gradual process and it will be a while before portal use becomes more common and more accepted.
hmm, I reread pg 96 of Deryni Magic and she wrote that even in Camber's time the ecclesiastical network was declining. Personally I take this to mean that secular networks were growing as people used them for personal uses, not as a means by which the Chruch and its member organizations could stay in contact.
Of course I am biased towards Transfer Portal use, I think that their construction is the most Deryni thing the Deryni can do. Even Arilan points that out in High Deryni it is Happily one of the talents not totally lost. Reading WAY too much into that let us look at why portal knowledge is not lost.
It provides a fast escape route in times of trouble. This is something every Deryni would want. It worked for Camber and folks in the first series, and Arilan used one built in a tent to bring in the Camberian Council.
It is easy to do, relatively speaking. Arilan used a few untrained Deryni and walked them through it telepathically, and used the humans as batteries. While it takes a huge amount of energy it can be taught in moments, and a portal only takes moments to make. The description of the process is described in High Deryni. They ward the area, link minds, then lights, wind, energy drain and a portal is there. Prep time and ceremony takes less than an hour from the description. Sure everyone sleeps till midnight, but the portal is instantly accessible. Arilan could teleport to the Council chambers and pass on the coordinates.
So in a secular system a team could install portals and one person could jump back to the last base (where more people are waiting), teach coordinates, or jump a person back to the new portal. Then the maker goes to bed, (drop the wards first).
The new person learns the portal, jumps back and brings in a new person. Wash rinse repeat.
The more I read about them the more I like the Camberland scenario, or private trade networks.
Everyone is tired, and would need a day's rest, but even if a single team if people made a single portal a week that would be 52 portals a year.
A different interpretation of DM then :) But the impression I got from the chapter on TPs and the appendix where known or suspected ones are listed, is that their existence and use was not nearly as widespread as you apparently want it to be.
We know that some Deryni had and still have private portals, or at least ready access to a portal e.g. members of the Camberian Council, but of course, not all CC members were from Gwynedd. As we saw in KKB, the Hort of Orsal has one, but he keeps that pretty much a family secret for safetly reasons, as he explains. But I'd have to say that portal use even in Camber's time cannot have been that widespread, because otherwise all the Deryni could have simply escaped via portal - and we know from the number of killiings that they didn't. Known Deryni were attacked at their homes and their friends' places and likely destinations were watched: if it was as simple to escape via TP as you suggest, Evaine for example would not have had that terrible flight from Caerrorie.
And of course, during the persecutions, many private portals may have been destroyed or blocked in some way, as Evaine did, meaning that their future use was limited. In other cases the location of the portal(s) would have been lost, as those with the knowledge of their location die, escape elsewhere, or other circumstances cause a loss of knowledge. See the situation in Coroth, for example - it's hhighly likely that Duke Stiofan did have a portal there, but if so, no one now knows where it is. Same with the MacRorie family portal which Evaine closes to all but members of the family: the portal probably still exists, but no one now knows where it is, plus it can only be used by family members or their descendants.
I agree with you that portal use has potential, but from what we have seen so far in KK's world, the persecutions, anti-Deryni hatreds, and overall loss of knowledge has not allowed that potential to be realised at this stage.
Oh my bias in favour of increasing portal use is completely personal. I like the idea and if I could make them I would make as many as I could. :P it also makes for nasty edged stories (which I thend to write). It provides teh Deryni a few key advantages over human rivals, movement of people, goods and information.
In my Istanbul to Paris example that I gave in another thread. there are 200 miels between istanubl and Paris. Let's assume you have 11 portals, 200 miles apart. Each portal house has 1 Deryni operative.
At 8 am the Deryni in House 1 (Istanbul) gets up, collects the notes of the days happenings from the day before, puts in in a mailbag and puts that in a bag with 50 pounds of spices headeing west. He jumps to house 10 and puts the spice bag down, picks up a satchel containing mail heading eastward as well as 50 pounds of trade goods heading east and he jumps back east to Istanubul. he spends the rest of the day collecting information on events in the area nad making notes to send west.
House 10 picks up the spices and mail, pulls out any notes addressed for him and jumps to house 9 where he does the same routine and returns to house 10.
If every house does this in sequence a satchel of 50 pounds of spices (worth between 1 and 3 years pay depending on which time period you are modeling things on) takes about an hour to get from Istanbul to Paris. Return trade goods and messages take 10 days to get to istanbul.
Like in the trade portal thread, the incentives to having and maintaining a portal are fantastic. I know I am reading way too much into it, it is the deus in the machina as KK said, but I like to take ideas like that and play around with stories.
I would think that once the persecutions began anyone knowing how to make a portal would tell other Deryni how to do it, and even if it was a portal from the basement to an open area in the hills nearby, there would be an interest in having an escape hatch. Linking homes for economic benefit is just my Illuminati conspiracy group concepts coming out. :P
Personally I would love to work for an hour a day and split a years salary 11 ways, make a months pay every day. Woot! .
Quote from: MerchantDeryni on December 02, 2011, 01:23:06 PM
Oh my bias in favour of increasing portal use is completely personal. I like the idea and if I could make them I would make as many as I could. :P it also makes for nasty edged stories (which I thend to write). It provides teh Deryni a few key advantages over human rivals, movement of people, goods and information.
True. Though if you're going to write stories with realistic consequences, keep in mind that if you give Deryni so much of an advantage over their human rivals that it can't help but be noticed, remarked upon, and become a cause for envy and increased hatred, that will only exacerbate the existing rivalry and conflict between the two races. I suspect one reason KK downplays the Portal technology in her novels and only has her Deryni use them in extreme need (and with lots of caveats like "they take lots of energy and advanced training to make, they're exhausting to use for more than a few hops in a day, they have to be kept hidden from humans, they can put Deryni at risk just as easily as delivering them from harm, etc.") is that so many humans already hate and fear the Deryni and wish them dead; she doesn't want to throw more gasoline on that fire and have the entire human race cheerfully wanting to annihilate the entire Deryni race down to the last half-trained man, woman, and child. :D
It's sort of like in gaming, if you give a character a lot of strengths, that can make for some interesting story capabilities, but if you don't balance those with some weaknesses as well, you risk "god-modding," which ultimately makes the campaign's storyline less interesting, if your players (or in the case of a story, your readers) start to get the idea that "Oh well, no problem, we've got ____ power going for us, so everything's an easy fix...."
So if Camberland is going to have a superabundance of Transfer Portals compared to the Eleven Kingdoms, that's all well and good, but you might want to give some thought to what the downside of that development is going to end up being. Because realistically, there would be
some sort of downside, and probably even a few major ones. (And besides, stories are more fun to read when things aren't always going swimmingly for the characters, and when some of the "advantages" they think they have end up somehow making them want to snatch out their hair! ;D )
QuoteThough if you're going to write stories with realistic consequences, keep in mind that if you give Deryni so much of an advantage over their human rivals that it can't help but being noticed, remarked upon, and become a cause for envy and increased hatred, that will only exacerbate the existing rivalry and conflict between the two races.
What Evie says. :)
I assume Camberland has some existing native inhabitants? If so, how are they going to react to this 'supernatural' race? Sure, they
may eventually want to trade - but are they going to be happy at the long-term invasion of their lands? A shipload of Deryni isn't that many people, and they really can't afford too much loss of life. Don't forget that your Camber refugees don't have the advantage of gunpowder for their weapons, and that makes any battles far more balanced. Magical powers can only deflect arrows if there is time to wield them, and aren't much use in an ambush. They dont protect you against poison or knives to the throat either.
You may be lucky to have enough Deryni left to build any TPs at all, let alone develop a network :D
Well I have thought about having the diseases of the medieval world wipe out the natives, simliar to the devastation caused by the Spanish explorers in central america.
As for medieval technology trying to conquer the U.S. (yes I am using google maps again :) ) Tough to do, it would be tough going, although.... oddly enough, when iron tech is all you have, it is easy to replicate. A sword is easier to make than a firearm, so local manufacture could create a fairly decent 10th century tech level fairly easily, as opposed to local manufacture trying to create a 15th or 16th century level of existence.
The disease issue reduces native threat to the newcomers (convenient for my story purposes). If I had Native diseases wipe out all the Deryni it would make for a short story. lol
I have some good books on local manufacturing and the medieval economy. So if I conveniently place iron ore and coal nearby a smithy and forge could be fairly easily built.
Horses are a problem. I was figuring a 4 month journey, and not sure how many they could have packed onboard. Same issue for cows/cattle or oxen. Chickens I can see making the voyage.
Going back to (and harping on) the use of portals. The story I posted just showed a grim side of 'evil' Deryni magic, and to be honest there is nothing in any of KK's books that I can recall that says using a portal can cause death to a human. I threw in the energy drain power system for portal usage to show just how nasty a Deryni could be, and that given a trade advantage, it would indeed be a cost of doing business to scan a slave pen, take the one with the spark and kill him in order to get 3 years worth of money. It is the Magical equivalent of the Drug Lords throwing away a Cessna every night that cost $200,000 to smuggle in a million or two dollars worth of cocaine. (Although I have heard that this is an urban legend, but it would still make economic sense.)
Exploring a continent: Assume 20 men, 8 in advance party, a dozen men in a warehouse in town. the advance party has horses and a couple of pack mules. They travel very light, only a coupld of weeks of food. They ride/explore and when they run low on food they pick a spot, make a portal (needs 7 as in the High Deryni example), and they link to the warehouse portal. 1 explorer goes back, passes on the new coordinates and the support team comes through, bringing gear and supplies through with them. You would not have the Donner party scenario.
Portals remove logistical constraints, I've set a 50 pound limit because that is a number I figured could be stuffed into a backpack. KK had the Refuge for the Michaelines house all the Michaelines for a year and be supplied by portal. That would be tonnes of food brought in.
My ideas on portal use and prevalence are not canon, not supported by anything she has written, but I like the idea, I think it's fun. I think it makes sense given the ease with which portals could be made, and the rewards to those who actually do make the network with trade, or exploration in mind.
I just find it interesting to think about a Deryni culture or a human/Deryni culture that does not forget its magical abilities or roots, and preserves the knowledge. It knows it is magic and accepts it, and uses it. For those that don't like the idea of a portal centric Deryni culture, well, don't read the story. :P
The exploring
Quote from: MerchantDeryni on December 02, 2011, 11:28:20 PM
Exploring a continent: Assume 20 men, 8 in advance party, a dozen men in a warehouse in town. the advance party has horses and a couple of pack mules. They travel very light, only a coupld of weeks of food. They ride/explore and when they run low on food they pick a spot, make a portal (needs 7 as in the High Deryni example), and they link to the warehouse portal. 1 explorer goes back, passes on the new coordinates and the support team comes through, bringing gear and supplies through with them. You would not have the Donner party scenario.
What, no starving Deryni stuck on a mountain pass in winter, turning cannibalistic and challenging each other to Duels Arcane to determine which one(s) get the right to eat the other's flesh? Dang, I'm almost disappointed! I'm scared to think what that says about me.... :D
Quote from: MerchantDeryni on December 02, 2011, 11:28:20 PM
Horses are a problem. I was figuring a 4 month journey, and not sure how many they could have packed onboard. Same issue for cows/cattle or oxen. Chickens I can see making the voyage.
I'm fairly sure the Jamestown settlers, not to mention others, must have figured out the logistics of this. Maybe you could dig up some research that tells how many they were able to transport at a time, and then modify if needed for smaller, more medieval than Renaissance sized ships?
Quote
Exploring a continent: Assume 20 men, 8 in advance party, a dozen men in a warehouse in town. the advance party has horses and a couple of pack mules. They travel very light, only a coupld of weeks of food. They ride/explore and when they run low on food they pick a spot, make a portal (needs 7 as in the High Deryni example), and they link to the warehouse portal. 1 explorer goes back, passes on the new coordinates and the support team comes through, bringing gear and supplies through with them. You would not have the Donner party scenario.
My original thought on this, before your reference to the Donner Party brought out my inner ghoul, was a Lost Colony ("Croatan") scenario that popped into my head the moment I read the bit about one explorer going back and passing on the coordinates. It would be an interesting snag if that one guy went back for the support team, only to find them all gone, mysteriously vanished, with only one cryptic clue left behind to hint at what happened to them.... :D
But yeah, I'm all about the throwing interesting obstacles in my characters' way until they want to ambush me in a dark alley. I realize your mileage may vary. ;D
This page references the transport of cattle to the New World, and also some of Columbus' travel times:
http://purecorriente.com/_wsn/page3.html (http://purecorriente.com/_wsn/page3.html)
Given skilled enough weather working, Deryni might be able to make slightly better time, though you'd also have to consider other factors, such as ocean currents, that they might have even less control over.
So - you happily wipe out the nasty natives by disease, meaning there is little or no sustained opposition, and you 'conveniently' locate coal and iron nearby so your settlers can make weapons and other equipment.
Are you also going to provide suitably benign weather, make sure their crops never fail and they never nearly starve to death? Do none of them ever die unti old age, or the community as a whole get inbred? After all, if you've killed off the natives, there's no opportunity for intermarriage, and there are no other ships following with new settler blood.
Your proposed exodus is interesting, but if you make things too easy and convenient, perhaps you should call it Camelot, not Camberland! :)
Thanks for the cattle transport link!
I thought of the disease on contact from the influence in the last month of watching the Andromeda Strain twice, having a conversation about the book "The Hot Zone", and reading Pillars of the earth again in which mention is made of how often people got sick (and how after the fire there was less sickness, and fewer rats about, not that the character put the two things together). So I was in the mondset that people in the era would be covered in disease.
Ive also been reading a book on biochar by Albert Bates, and there is a chapter in the book about how massive the disease effect may have been on teh central American population. So I am really primed for putting an epidemic or three into anything I write right now. :P, also zombies (I read World war Z again),
hmmm, zombies and Deryni... :P (Stop that! it's silly)
Iron and coal, There is an Iron bog next to Jamestown virginia, concentrated extraction was started less than 2 years after the settlers landed. They used charcoal originally, there being a huge forest that had to be cleared anyway. I tossed in the coal because I thought coal was everywhere in virginia, but I was wrong. The closest is a coal seam 343 miles or so west of Jamestown, in I kid you not, Pocohantas virginia, site of the first exploited coal seam in Virginia. So I will have to stick with charcoal. oops, my bad.
http://www.dmme.virginia.gov/dmm/orphaned%20land.shtml
http://www.miningartifacts.org/Virginia-Mines.html
My bad for not checking into mining before I posted thoughts on how the colony could develop.
Crops never failing: well I mentioned Deryni weather magic to get to the new world, so I guess beneficial weather magic may be possible for agriculture, thanks for the suggestion! Actually, that may be the biggest edge a magical culture has, stability of production of food. Thanks Alkari, you've given me more to think about.
The marriage of newcomers and Natives: I did mention the healers helping with the disease. This would improve relations (as long as the native do not equate newcomers with plague), and offer the chance for survivors on both sides to marry and mingle.
The intellectual exercise in Camberland is having a population of Deryni and humans that USES all the magic at their disposal. Everything mentioned in the entire series in one spot, used daily because without the magic the enterpirse is doomed. Communication medallions to keep towns in touch, portals to move needed goods from one outpost to another, to help keep all explorers alive because they need the information and cannot risk folks. Mixed marriages to spread the Deryni blood around since each Deryni gifted person is another person who can take up the mantle of doing the extraordinary in Service to Everyone else. KK uses magic as plot points to drive her story and provide a means of creating or solving a situation. I'm going the opposite way and looking at what might be made if it was used in a much more industrial/pedestrian way.
The other reason for the die off is to prevent the cry of 'there is no way the natives would not have overrun the newcomers, as they did to the vikings back in the day, and almost did to several new colony sites in the new world. Without firearms the Camberlanders are on a much closer level of technology, and I used disease as the levelling force. Personally I thought it answered the biggest threat to the suspension of disbelief, they could easily get besieged and wiped out. I shifted the date of landing to allow some crops to be grown, had one of the ships to have fishing gear so the offshore resources could be exploited (which the natives could not do on that scale).
I'm Canadian,and thought of puting the colony close to the cod. But I decided to go to warmer climes. Cod was why Canada was founded, there was fish to feed the world forever. Sadly that lasted until the late 80's and the cod is now on the endangered list and the massive cod stocks will likely never come back. WAtch "End of the Line". a scary documentary on fishing.
Of course I am doing all these mental gymnastics to allow Deryni to land on the U.S. While it makes it easy to use google maps to describe terrain and find out what resources there are to exploit, I could easily say that Camberland is a different country and put iron and coal where I want it. I'm just doing the entire story and threads to look at how different things would be if there was magic in the world.
There's not an absolute need to tie the geography of your new world directly to the real life New World unless you are choosing to do so just for convenience, such as to ensure your distribution of resources remains plausible (such as not having two minerals mined together that are unlikely to be found in the same area in nature). After all, the shapes and geographic layout of the Eleven Kingdoms in no way parallels our real life Europe.
QuoteI thought of the disease on contact from the influence in the last month of watching the Andromeda Strain twice, having a conversation about the book "The Hot Zone", and reading Pillars of the earth again in which mention is made of how often people got sick (and how after the fire there was less sickness, and fewer rats about, not that the character put the two things together). So I was in the mondset that people in the era would be covered in disease.
Don't forget that Deryni Healers cannot cure disease as such - unless of course you are going to vastly expand all the powers we have seen so far in the books. So even your migrants are likely to be dying off from 'normal' ailments, not to mention childbirth and all the many ills of childhood. And in such a small colony, the death of
any person would be a tragedy in more ways than normal, because it could represent the loss of key skills and knowledge, or else the next generation.
Weather working - that takes time and resources, if you are going to manage the weather all the time. Do sufficient number of your Deryni have that skill? Can they hold off big winter storms? Or torrential rains? Or the occasional hurricane? What would happen if their experienced weather workers died?
QuoteThe marriage of newcomers and Natives: I did mention the healers helping with the disease. This would improve relations (as long as the native do not equate newcomers with plague), and offer the chance for survivors on both sides to marry and mingle.
I think that is a very big "IF": see my comment above re the Deryni abilities (or their lack) to heal disease. Would merely being able to render medical assistance for injuries issomehow make up for invasion of the natives' lands and the loss of their livelihoods and living? You also assume that the natives don't have a 'shoot first and ask questions later' attitude, and are willing to have
any contact with your settlers.
You also need to think about the limitations imposed by having a single refugee ship. Are
all the people onboard going to be Deryni? What about the crew? Are they going to be humans, or have your refugees in a very short time been able to scrounge up an all Deryni group of sailors? EVen with weather working, you'll need a crew! And check the limitations of ship size - how many people and livestock can you fit on one ship? They'll need to take feed for both people and animals, not to mention all the equipment and stores needed to found a colony. That very much limits the number of people you can carry, and you seem to be proposing that even with this small number, they have all the necessary skills in that small group. Do they have miners to get your coal and iron ore, for example?
The following is an extract from the link Evie provided:-
QuoteColumbus had been made Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Governor of the Indies. His task was to colonize the land he had claimed for the Spanish crown. The seventeen ships with him carried everything needed to become self-sufficient, including cattle. Because of the small size of the ships, the number of animals must have been limited. Not only would the ship have carried cattle, it would also have had to carry all the feed and water necessary for the journey. From Spain to the Canary Islands was a voyage of 900 miles, taking 4 to 8 days. From the Canaries to the East Indies was 2,500 miles, taking an average of 60 days. Columbus's second voyage took a record 22 days from the Canary Islands to Hispaniola. Other crossings would not have been so fortunate and the death loss must have been high.
Note that Columbus had
seventeen ships, not just one! The First Fleet to Botany Bay in Australia had eleven ships - and the early colony there very nearly starved to death because the land was so different and difficult, with crops failing, cattle escaping into the bush or being speared by natives, etc.
Even with the settlement at Jamestown, the Virginia Company sent ships to follow those first settlers within a year, bringing additional resources in terms of people and equipment. Your lone Deryni refugee ship scenario doesn't have that luxury - from what you have said, they put the expedition together in relative secrecy (a story in itself, surely!) and no one knew where they were going. They just sailed off into the sunset, never to be seen or heard from again by the people in Gwynedd, so there was no prospect of rescue or supplementation. As far as basing things on Jamestown, I seem to recall the previous colony at Roanoke failing and vanishing, and again, the colony at Roanoke was established with multiple ships. I can't see your expedition having more than two ships at the most, because otherwise the preparations would come to the notice of Church authorities, who might be just as happy to kill the would-be colonists anyway and not waste a valuable ship on a few hated Deryni :D
QuoteThe intellectual exercise in Camberland is having a population of Deryni and humans that USES all the magic at their disposal. Everything mentioned in the entire series in one spot, used daily because without the magic the enterpirse is doomed. Communication medallions to keep towns in touch, portals to move needed goods from one outpost to another, to help keep all explorers alive because they need the information and cannot risk folks. Mixed marriages to spread the Deryni blood around since each Deryni gifted person is another person who can take up the mantle of doing the extraordinary in Service to Everyone else. KK uses magic as plot points to drive her story and provide a means of creating or solving a situation. I'm going the opposite way and looking at what might be made if it was used in a much more industrial/pedestrian way.
I understand and appreciate the intellectual exercise you are proposing, but I'm getting no sense of any difficulties or problems in the scenarios you outline, nor any sense that your little colony is anything other than perfectly internally harmonious. Personality clashes can provide just as much danger to a small isolated community as any external dangers. Do any of your colonists wish they had never come? Do any want to return, perhaps to known lands where the Deryni are not persecuted? Would any of them rather have sailed around to Byzantyum rather than across the sea? Are there humans amongst them - see above? Healers were relatively uncommon even in the very good times in Gwynedd, so I don't know that your colonists would be able to gather more than a couple to go with them. What would happen if one of them suffered a tragic and 'senseless' accident as we saw with Rhys Thuryn? Or something happened to the only person in your group with certain other essential skills and talents, whether those were basic human skills or Deryni? As we see from the books, Deryni magic can't solve
everything, so when you write the story, you need to make sure that you don't give the impression that all is sweetness and light, that they have landed in the proverbial 'land of milk and honey', and that all your settlers have to do is sit around and work on developing magical applications for day to day life.
Like I said, you've got a good and interesting proposition, but make sure you provide a realistic Camberland and its community, and not a Camelot / Utopia.
By the way, there are also apparently some interesting studies about the effect of isolation on communities and their level of technology. We are talking thousands of years ago, and thus 'stone age' technology and knowledge, but some studies of Australian indigenous populations isolated on large islands apparently indicate that the long term effect of isolation from other groups was to eventually reduce their level of of technology in comparison to the much larger populations on the mainland. This was over a long period of course, but the island populations were much larger than your proposed refugee community.
I know you are proposing a community where the knowledge and use of magic increased while they were isolated from the Deryni communities back in the Eleven Kingdoms and adjacent lands, but have you considered whether in some respects the effect might be the opposite? With no new Deryni arrivals for hundreds of years, wouyld your community actually be more likely to mark time or even go backwards in terms of magical knowledge? Or will they develop some skills but lose others?
Look at the isolated community at St Kyriells. Certainly they wanted to remain hidden to escape persecution, but although it seems that they have preserved much of the magical knowledge from Camber's time, they may not in fact have expanded it in any way. ETA: look at the fall of the Roman empire and the tremendous loss of knowledge there. That was a big empire, yet the lights went out remarkably quickly: look at England after the departure of the Roman legions and their communities. In the West, it took more than a thousand years to replicate some technological aspects of Roman society, not to mention Western society's practices in fields such as medicine.
If you only have limited space for livestock on one (or even two) refugee vessels, especially larger ones such as horses and cattle, you have a dangerously small and vulnerable pool of breeding stock. What would happen, for example, if the local natives speared the only two bulls you'd brought, before they could get any or all of the few cows in calf? :D Or - as happened out here in Australia - some or even all of the cattle simply got loose and wandered off? Same thing with the horses. Of course your Deryni could scry for them, but what if the local natives get to them first and fancy a nice social BBQ? ;) What happens to basic farming practices if your community loses their everyday beasts of burden? Of course you 'can' farm without plough animals, etc, but if your people thus need to spend a large proportion of their time in growing or hunting food simply to survive, it doesn't leave much time to think about developing magic. Some Deryni will probably be able to 'charm the deer right up to the gates' so they could be hunted, but I haven't seen Deryni powers able to produce crops!
Necessity of course may well force the remaining Deryni to develop magical means of pulling ploughs or carts and such, but we really don't know how long it would take to develop new spells like that. It could however take technology in a new direction, where the community was forced into either abandoning certain things altogether, or developing magical solutions.
In my previous post I mentioned the death of Rhys Thuryn, which most people see as tragic and "senseless", which of course is the whole point of it. But his case is really very important for your whole scenario because it highlights the effects of sheer chance. The best laid plans can go astray through a simple and completely unforeseeable accident, and the mere existence of magical powers does not negate the effects of accident or misfortune. If your refugee community only had one Healer - remember Healers were not really numerous anyway - and he/she died or was killed, then there goes all that knowledge and skill. Even if the person already had children, there is no guarantee that they would have inherited Healing abilities. That could apply even if there were two Healers, as there is no guarantee that any of the next generation would have the powers. The Healing powers may emerge generations later, as we see with Morgan, Duncan and Dhugal, but those people would be in exactly the same situation as M,D and D, having to learn about their powers through trial and error. One or two Healer texts may have been brought along, but that is not truly a substitute for proper training.
Quote from: Alkari on December 04, 2011, 01:05:00 AMETA: look at the fall of the Roman empire and the tremendous loss of knowledge there. That was a big empire, yet the lights went out remarkably quickly: look at England after the departure of the Roman legions and their communities. In the West, it took more than a thousand years to replicate some technological aspects of Roman society, not to mention Western society's practices in fields such as medicine.
"A thousand years without a bath." Religious houses were able to preserve and copy many of the texts and thus save the knowledge, but they were able to do very little to either apply or expand it. Europe was mired in ignorance and superstition for generations until the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment.
Exactly Elkhound.
And while the refugees may have managed to take a few Deryni texts with them, books themselves were things of value at that time, and only the farily wealthy or the Church / large institutions would have had any at all. Deryni books were burnt by Church authorities along with the Deryni themselves, so what are the odds of a group of secret Deryni refugees being able to collect enough books to preserve their existing magical knowledge? Not to mention any queries about basic literacy levels in the community: how many ordinary people in Camber's time could read or write? We also don't know how many ordinary Deryni were fully trained in the use of their powers anyway, though it does seem that the levels of skill, knowledge and power varied widely. The lower the average level of knowledge and literacy in the group, the more likely you are to reduce the average knowledge passed on, especially if chance robs the community of one or two of its key practitioners.
I like the idea of a refugee Deryni community, but I don't think in any way that they could just arrive in the west, set up a nice happy little village surrounded by farming land, establish contact with friendly natives, and then simply move off to establish trade and commerce via a Transfer Portal network. You can't rely on disease wiping out all opposition - it didn't work in North America, and it didn't work out here. With only one ship and limited resources, I think that the practical aspects of survival in the first place would occupy almost 100% of their time. IF the community survived at all (see Roanoke!), then it would be a long time before members would be out there establishing a commercial network. What adaptations would they be forced to make in their survival stage? What if they didn't find coal or iron ore? What would they have had to do to make sure their precious stock of metal items survived? Something simple like a horse throwing a shoe and losing it may mean not only a sore horse, but the loss of valuable metal (and of course horse shoes wear down anyway). Never mind a TP network - I think the colonists may have been flat out simply surviving and getting enough food.
So - HOW did magic help them survive all these very practical matters? And with RL history and examples in mind, what knowledge and skills (Deryni and other) did they lose as well as gain?
Well I wrote an intor to a Camberland story, and I have been thinking about what they gained and lost.
Location: I am cheating and using the maps of the British Virgin Islands. I am also plundering the wikipedia articles on the islands.
I was thinking of stealing the history of Columbus and making the island Haiti, and I have been to the Domincian Republic. I picked the BVI because it is at teh edge of a long sequence of islands. An island hopping Portal network would allow for fast travel. If it was needed.
Now I was envisioning 4 ships making a getaway, but that's a little overkill on my part. So let us assume 1 ship. So a couple of hundred people, human and Deryni survive to make landfall. They meet Natives and settle on a different island. 1 small village of Deryni free to make their way in the world.
So what can they keep of their culture? I will allow some books and oral traditions, and a few scholarly types (It IS called Camberland :) ) The rest will be taught to the children as they grow up, stories of a Kingdom far away.
Fishing in the area would provide food, and they can grow crops. Maize, manioc would be staples. There is copper on the island they may have to trade for iron. This would be a problem, but a village lacks the manpower to mine for iron. On the plus side, a blacksmith could recreate what he needed of 10th Century tech. Advanced metallurgy would probably be lost, but village level smithing was pretty good.
So I picture a village growing up and using what crops they had, raising goats (and my island larder example would allow for a lot of goats to be grown if everyone stuck to fishing for as long as possible.)
Once the population starts to expand they can use Native ships to island hop and then set up Portal trade. Income could be from movement of goods and people.
Overall I would think the Camberlanders would have to work hard at not being assimilated with just a single village, but if they took a page from Quebec history and made themselves indigestible I think Deryni could grow and prosper.
Iron would be the biggest hurdle. Iron tools would let them hack at the jungle and carve out a space for themselves. All my thoughts about early days would be diplomacy nd trying to find anyone who would be willing to dig ore out of the ground. Then trading axes for the ore.
And to use the google maps distance feature. BVI west end of island to Puerto Rico is 120 miles, and 220 to the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana, so let the partying Deryni start!)
An exmple of a 300 mile Portal jump has been given, so Portals would be useful in moving goods from island to island.
Big risk would be having to sail to the destination carrying Matrix cubes. I am not sure about how difficult it is to MAKE new sets of cubes. That would be a vital skill to pass down in a Deryni village.
So it could end up being a village of Deryni carrying goods and passengers and raising families and gathering knowledge together to forge a strong Deryni history. The rapport skills and telepathic functions from Deryni Magic would help in this.
Quote from: MerchantDeryni on May 10, 2012, 04:02:27 PM
Overall I would think the Camberlanders would have to work hard at not being assimilated with just a single village, but if they took a page from Quebec history and made themselves indigestible I think Deryni could grow and prosper.
Um...
indispensable, perhaps? Or are they surrounded by cannibalistic natives? :D
Quote from: MerchantDeryni on May 10, 2012, 04:16:43 PM
Big risk would be having to sail to the destination carrying Matrix cubes. I am not sure about how difficult it is to MAKE new sets of cubes. That would be a vital skill to pass down in a Deryni village.
So it could end up being a village of Deryni carrying goods and passengers and raising families and gathering knowledge together to forge a strong Deryni history. The rapport skills and telepathic functions from Deryni Magic would help in this.
As long as your ship is carrying several fully trained Deryni, I don't think it would be too difficult for them to pass on skills such as activating and attuning ward cubes. After all, without the persecution they'd have to deal with in Gwynedd, or even the necessity for keeping a low profile re: their powers, which they might face in even the more Deryni-friendly kingdoms, they'd be freer to teach such skills openly to any new generations of Deryni without fear of reprisal. But of course the ship would need to have at least one (and optimally several) formally trained Deryni on it; simply being born with the trait and basic abilities wouldn't help when it comes to knowing and being able to pass down Deryni ritual magic and the more esoteric abilities. I imagine you'd want at least a few of the fleeing Deryni to have come out of Gabrilite and/or Michaeline schools.
I seem to recall a saying from a history class that the French Canadians asked a philosopher how to survive in an English Canada, and the reply was "make yourselves indigestible." My Google-fu is weak tonight and I cannot find the quote. The sentiment was that once the French forces lost and Canada became English, Quebec stayed a French culture and kept their language and identity, no assimilating. It was that concept I figured would be important for a couple of hundred Dryni and humans from Gwynned to survive in a foreign land.
My original concept was that 4 ships set out, kept in touch with each other via Deryni powers, and had Deryni weather magic to reduce risk of storms. Alkari and Elkhound's discussion of a single ship made me think about whether or not a single ship could retain identity. Probably not, unless they settled their own island. Four ships could mean a large enough population to have Deryni specialists and a wider skill set. It really depends on who came with the group.
A few high end Deryni families, with a good tradition of training would be invaluable. Or Camberian monks, focused on the Patron saint of Magic aspect. A Healer with a gift for training. Even just a few people, and the time and ability to train the next generation could (in my opinion) create a stable core of Deryni knowledge. Writing tools and paper would be important, and the rapport training would be invaluable in this aspect.
Take Portal construction. In High Deryni, one full trained Deryni , a few half Deryni and a few humans built a Portal in less than an hour. The rapport From Arilan trained Kelson, Morgan and Duncan in moments, then the portal was finished a minute after, Granted everyone was tired, and would sleep until midniight, but when you think about how powerful a Portal can be that is a small price to pay.
Quote from: MerchantDeryni on May 10, 2012, 04:02:27 PM
Iron would be the biggest hurdle. Iron tools would let them hack at the jungle and carve out a space for themselves. All my thoughts about early days would be diplomacy nd trying to find anyone who would be willing to dig ore out of the ground. Then trading axes for the ore.
They could borrow an idea from Terra Nova and use scrying to find meteroic iron meterorites. Since the Gulf is thought to be where the great meteor that wiped out donosaurs landed, there should be lots of fragments around.
nice idea!
Weather Magic has been used, and scrying done as ritual magic. It may well be possible to hunt for meteoric iron arcanely. Thanks for the idea!.
Quote from: tenworld on May 11, 2012, 10:52:09 AM
Quote from: MerchantDeryni on May 10, 2012, 04:02:27 PM
Iron would be the biggest hurdle. Iron tools would let them hack at the jungle and carve out a space for themselves. All my thoughts about early days would be diplomacy nd trying to find anyone who would be willing to dig ore out of the ground. Then trading axes for the ore.
They could borrow an idea from Terra Nova and use scrying to find meteroic iron meterorites. Since the Gulf is thought to be where the great meteor that wiped out donosaurs landed, there should be lots of fragments around.
Marion Zimmer Bradley had the Darkovans do this; Deryni magic isn't
quite the same thing as
laran but it is not totally dissimilar. (Not only did they do scrying to find the ore, but they used teleknesis to bring it to the surface where ordinary people gould gather it; that, I think, is a bit beyond Deryni abilities.)
I am noodling along on several different stories set in Camberland. Most of them goat and Portal related, I've looking at low tech methods of land clearance and spinning ideas from that.
I like the iron scrying and will use that in a story. There is iron in Puerto Rico, so I think a story will be set there shortly.
I;ve been thinking about the loss of heritage. I always envisioned a small group of Camberites, monks or lay brothers devoted to his patronage of magic. And then it occured to me. The same technique mentioned by KK in passing on knowledge of Portal construction may well be used to preserve the Deryni heritage. The biggest issue is trusting the other Deryni not to corrupt the knowledge being passed along.
Rapport is used over and over to show Deryni magical techniques, Portal construction in high Deryni (mentioned by KK in Deryni Magic) (High Deryni pg 289-295). Arilan places three people into energy support trance, then teaches Morgan and the others how to make a Portal, and then one is immediately made.
Rhys teaches, or tries to show how to block powers. Not everyone can learn the power, but they can see the area he is working on, they just cannot activate it themselves.
Over and over Deryni mind links share knowledge and planning. While schools are perhaps the best method of passing along knowledge in an orderly and systematic approach. It may well be possible that large chunks of knowledge were shared in order to preserve it. The task after that would be to write it down and codify it.
This could be helped by the mindspeech and any memory enhancing techniques shared. memories of a training manual (if none were saved for the voyage), could be enough to re-write the book, or at least save a fair chunk of it.
All in all, it may be possible to save far more of the Deryni culture than people who were relying solely on books. The caveat would be a poolm of Deryni with enough talent to rapport and share the information.