*Note
I’m in Canada, so I’m trying to spell everything Canadian, but it’s very difficult to find a spellchecker that will correct for Canada without going all the way to the UK. Many of the weird spellings that aren’t Canadian are due to inconsistent, overzealous spellchecking. But you’ll find some intentional weird spellings below too!
A
Alma: Also a proper name and an Iliodarian word meaning “soul,” but scientific understanding has since determined that a soul is not yet quantifiable, whereas alma can be measured and used to power magical functions. It dissipates upon death and must be used quickly or stored in a battery in order to have any effect. Alma appears to be related to intelligence and cranial capacity, but it is not always proportional. Only living things have alma — plants have a small amount, animals more and humans most of all. Even pieces of living humans, such as their flesh or blood, are high in alma and can be used to make magical batteries. The alma content of living creatures affects transformative magic, resulting in higher material inertia, which can make changes both more and less difficult, depending on context. In the Iroquois alma is called orenda.
Alteration: Also the verb “to alter.” Using magic to change something without transmuting or destroying its existing parts, not unlike raising or lowering the hem on a pair of pants. Reshaping ink marks, for example, is a way of forging documents and correcting mistakes. Since the material is only being superficially rearranged, alterations do little damage — although living material has a tendency to die. Delicate material or repeated alterations may result in rigidity or tearing. All alterations are permanent; to create a semblance of the original shape requires a good memory and another alteration. Errors are common. Thus, the alteration of human minds is considered equal to or worse than murder, no matter how minor the change.
Anathema: Outside very specific religious contexts, this is a disease of the lungs which came to Anatolia in the holds of seafaring explorers about four hundred years ago. It may be fungal or bacterial in nature, it mutates frequently, and without divine intervention it is invariably fatal. Damp places and rotting bodies carry a high risk of transferring the disease, and it can be diagnosed with certainty when the respiratory distress is accompanied by a red rash at the joints.
Anglais: A language spoken in Marsellia, Elbany, the ILV, and Suidas. Due to some shenanigans during the in-universe Norman Conquest, what we’d call “French” and “English” crashed into each other irreparably. It only looks like English so you can understand it, Dear Reader. The Southern dialect is called Low Southern, or just Southern. It is rendered in-text as French, and it is intelligible enough to Anglais-speakers to be parsed as an accent. Depending on thickness, Northern listeners may still need to ask a Southerner to slow down, or “speak Anglais!”
Anti-magic: Using magic to rewrite the reality of a given space so that magic does not function there. Compare to a computer which cannot be hacked because it is unplugged. Anti-magic may also be applied to an item, such as a blanket or handcuffs, intended to be worn by an individual. It is a type of ban. While simple in conception, it is complicated to apply and maintain, and tends to be too expensive to use on large areas.
Aspic: In the absence of a catchy brand name, this refers to all animal-based gelatin foods, both sweet and savoury. It may be served as a dessert or cold salad, or made very hard and used as a tasteless decoration.
B
Ban: Also “to ban.” Use of magic to prevent or remove a material or activity in a specified area. Bans may be applied to the entire space, or just to the entrances and exits or to certain objects. Very specific and very large bans are power-intensive and hard to maintain. Anti-magic and intent lines are bans.
Bandette: A catchy brand name that has become a byword for all precut adhesive bandage strips.
C
Cassette: Also known as ribbon cassettes, ribbons, ribs, or spools. They operate in a reel-to-reel format, with magic making them much more compact and portable that the version we’re familiar with. Cassette players contain a removable empty spool, which unwinds the ribbon from the loaded spool as it plays one side, and rewinds it as it plays the other. Rewind and Fast Forward buttons allow one to replay or skip tracks or whole sides, but put more strain on the already delicate and error-prone ribbons. At least they are still disc-shaped, but disc jockeys in Soldier On‘s time may be asked to “spool it” or “thread it” instead of “drop the needle.”
Charm: Also the verb “to charm,” or adjective “charmed.” A simple, self-contained magical function. Charms do not stack, they do one thing and that’s all they do. The nature of the thing may vary in complexity, but it is not possible to alter the charm to get it to do more. You must take it off and build another one or replace it with an enchantment.
Cheque: How Marsellia spells “check,” as in the financial transaction or the pattern, but not as in to look at, a V-shaped mark or the act of using one, or to stop. Objects displaying the pattern are “chequered.”
Chequers: Otherwise known as “checkers” or “draughts,” the one with the chequerboard. Also used as “Xinese Chequers,” which doesn’t have anything to do with Xin or a chequerboard, but exists as a Marselline trademark.
Cinéfone: Sound film, which made Music Vox obsolete. There are now other brands and processes, but “cinéfone” remains a byword for all of them, rather like “band-aid” or “kleenex” for us.
Coloured: This refers to innate magic-users, who have bright rainbow skin tones. The term “coloured people” is colloquial and middling-polite, “coloureds” less so. “Magicians” is rude. We try not to use this word out of context because of what it means in our universe. See: Notes on “Coloured.”
Countermagic: Fighting magic with magic. Compare to hacking a computer. When many modern conveniences and weapons contain a magical component, anti-magic becomes impractical and the ability to dismantle a particular function while leaving others alone is terribly useful. It is also terribly complicated, and skilled practitioners are rare, most others relying on all-purpose spells that have been constructed by skilled people — compare to script kiddies. When skilled practitioners meet and cannot reconcile their goals, it can get very much like an unrealistic 90s movie, with countermagic and counter-countermagic, and reality being rewritten all willy-nilly around them.
Cylinder: Outdated recording technology, consisting of magically augmented wax cylinders. They were played on phonographs. At lower resolution than records, they were longer. Two are capable of holding an entire album. Four, a double.
D
Deconstruction: Also the verb “to deconstruct.” The magic of making something not be there anymore. A skilled deconstruction causes the offending object to evaporate, but there is always a risk of explosion. Deconstructions have been weaponized, as the explosive kind are very easy to do and can be automated. Atomic-level deconstructions have not been successful and E=mc2 is still unknown to science. There will be much greater potential for deconstructive weapons in the future.
Disk-View Radio or DVR: Soldier On’s latest in broadcast technology, DVRs operate like mechanical television, breaking light into pixels by filtering it through holes in a gear. The simplest and cheapest kind allows one to view line-filled, blue-grey images through a small hole, a lacuna, in the radio’s case – upgrade kits which add this function to existing radios are available. A set and projector are more expensive upgrades, allowing for family viewing of ghost-like three-dimensional figures above a circular stage, which may be left on the floor or a table, or picked up and stored carefully on edge, as they are delicate and expensive. A radio may include a cassette-player/recorder, but a standard DVR is incapable of recording or replaying images. Milo is, as always, working on it.
Disme/Dis: A silver coin equal to 10 scints, or 1/10 sinq. In terms of purchasing power, it is equal to about two dollars.
E
Enchantment: A simple magical function which may work in tandem or in series with others. Being essentially modular, there is no end to the complexity of function enchantments can achieve. When bundled together for ease of application, they are called spells.
F
Fey Light: Magic-assisted neon lighting. It does not require electricity or neon gas to function. The illuminating effect is produced by a charm — this is the only practical difference between mage and fey lights. Different colours and intensities may be achieved by tinted glass, or variant charms.
Fleshwork: The magical manipulation of flesh, often with the addition of flesh from a donor, such as a dead body. This is the newest kind of materialwork, and the kinks are still being worked out. Not quite necromancy, and more effective than organ transplants, it is still considered unsavoury and prone to spectacular failures.
Frere/Femme: Slang appropriated from Low Southern by the coloured community for male and female friends, respectively, and in the process of being appropriated by young people and society at large. A gender-neutral equivalent is not in use, but the meaning is roughly equivalent to “ally,” whether one is a member of the community, a friend, or supportive in general. It may also be used sarcastically, or as a scare tactic, as if freres and femmes operate some kind of gang or conspiracy.
G
Geartune: All-digital music is still in its infancy, although digital — magical — storage has been used to augment sound reproduction since before people understood what it was. Geartunes are produced by programming gears to play musical tones. Very complicated structures can produce something like a MIDI, but this is a bit like building a Floppotron or a Furby Organ — cute but impractical. Most geartunes are no more complex than a musical greeting card and just as annoying.
H
Hard-Stick: The magical equivalent of superglue. Done properly, the adhesion will continue until removal or failure of the spell. Used as a verb, to hard-stick; a gerund, hard-sticking; or an adjective, hard-stuck.
Hosanna: A simple prayer which is considered nondenominational, but more common in the East. The standard format is something which one hopes will happen — or at least wishes will keep happening — phrased as something which one is grateful for, and sandwiched between two cries of ‘Hosanna!’ e.g. “Hosanna! Parking is free when the metre is broken! Hosanna!” A single ‘Hosanna!’ may also be used when something fortunate happens, or sarcastically.
I
Intent Line: A magical construction which prevents people with certain conscious intentions from crossing over it. It is a type of ban. Those affected will find themselves turning around and walking back the way they came under their own power. Intent lines are difficult to construct and most often seen in wealthier establishments that expect robberies. Being turned by an intent line is not admissible as evidence in a court of law, but it prevents most suspicious characters from making a second attempt.
Immie: A colloquial contraction of “innate magic-user” derived from the governmental abbreviation I-MU. Younger generations tend to think this is an improvement over “coloured,” while older folks seem more ambivalent. The Registry itself is held in general disdain by all.
L
Lemmie: A colloquial contraction of “learned magic-user” derived from the governmental abbreviation L-MU. This is not widely used in Marsellia, as magic-users who are not coloured are still considered relatively normal, not in need of a special word. Some learned magic-users consider it an insult, and some innate magic-users do indeed use it as such, but it may be more of a tit-for-tat situation.
M
Mage Light: A magic-assisted light bulb. It does not require electricity or a filament to function and may come in any shape. The illuminating effect is produced by an enchantment — this is the only practical difference between mage and fey lights. Different colours and intensities may be achieved by optical magic, variant enchantments or tinted glass. Mage lights are often modified with further enchantments and made to fly, follow, dim, change colours or stick.
Magic: A ubiquitous natural resource that allows one to rewrite reality like a computer program. Also, the use of this resource for that purpose i.e. to do magic or to magic. It is present in nearly every environment, more or less, and seems to have its own weather patterns. Given its proclivity for rewriting reality, it is very difficult to study, but some basic rules do seem to apply.
Magic Storm or Magic Weather: One of the above-mentioned weather patterns, occurring seasonally in most places around the globe. Storms have a detrimental effect on anything with a magical component, including innate magic-users, and learned magic-users cannot do magic during one. Most magical storms involve an excess of magic which gets out of hand, forming purple-hued strikes of raw power and doing things on its own. A magic inversion — that is, too little magic in the area instead of too much — is also possible, but much less hazardous and more rare.
Magician: A mild slur and way of referring to people who do magic. Stage magic is referred to as sleight-of-hand, and its practitioners are sleight-of-hand artists or charlatans. They must take great pains to prove they are not altering reality to do their tricks and often are not believed anyway. Sleight-of-hand is a thankless skill, rather like sword-swallowing.
Magic-User: The nice way of referring to someone who does magic. There are two kinds: learned, who are normal people with a trained skill; and innate, who are born different, look different, and can call gods.
Materialwork: Rarely used, but the most general way to refer to the magical alteration of the physical. Metalwork, stonework and fleshwork are materialwork, and one who works with them is a materialworker.
Merger: Also the verb “to merge” or “to do a merger,” or the adjective “merged.” Using magic to convince two things that they are one thing. Mergers are a type of alteration, although some material may be destroyed in the process to make a good bond. Separate pieces of different material or the same material may be used, or something that broke may be put back together, with or without new additional material. Human beings may accept mergers to repair broken or missing pieces of themselves, but only of similar kinds of material e.g. only types of stone, only types of metal, etc.
Metalwork: The alteration of metal with magic, or metal that has been altered with magic. Still sometimes used for metal that has been altered via more ordinary means. For context, mineral materials are differentiated because stone is magic-neutral or magic-resistant, while metal is magic-conductive.
Mew: Colloquial contraction of magic-user, from MU, a term of governmental classification. It has fewer syllables and seems a bit more dignified than “moo,” so it may be used for the sake of expediency, but it’s still held in general disdain. MU is considered the correct spelling, but it may be written as mew in more informal contexts.
Minor Enchanter: Not quite analogous to a “code monkey,” inasmuch as code only needs to be done once, but unskilled enchantments must be applied again and again. If the application of an enchantment is too complicated to be automated but simple enough to be given to someone with a minimal understanding of magic, a help-wanted ad for a minor enchanter is required. Also used as minor enchantment, for simple enchantments a minor enchanter might apply. Minor enchanters frequently have stations on assembly lines. Above this skill level, one is simply called “an enchanter.” Certain projects may have “lead enchanters,” but that is more a description of what they are doing right now than a skill level.
Molly: Not quite analogous to our modern use of “queer,” having connotations of molly houses, which date back to a time when women were not as free to run around being socially deviant. It is a little closer to “okama,” being both slangy, male-oriented, easily used as offensive, and a catchall term in a society that hasn’t differentiated gender and sexuality into an alphabet soup. Lesbians, trans-men or otherwise apparent women who present oddly may be referred to as mollies, but are more often assumed to be lesbians or just erased. Queer women and trans-men in Marsellia are divided over whether they’d like to be included as mollies or have a slangy name of their own. “Jenny” is in use in some circles as an alternative.
Molly House: The gay bar of long ago, both more and less respectable than entertainment which is available in Marsellia and Elbany nowadays. Coded speech and plausible deniability were necessities, but once the doors were closed all bets were off. Prostitution, cute boys employed by the management to push drinks, underage sex, and rental rooms for intimate encounters were all on offer, and regulation was nonexistent. It was possible to run a “nice” molly house, but just as illegal and likely to be raided, so most didn’t bother. Their history has been somewhat sanitized and they are remembered fondly in the molly community as an early safe space for self-expression.
Music Reel: MTV before TV, these are short films accompanied by popular songs, played in theatres as part of a roster with movies, cartoons, serials and newsreels. Often they have words and a bouncing ball inviting the audience to sing along.
Music Vox: Movies with their dialog, singing and sound effects produced live, via musicians doing voice from music. Now outdated technology, but still sometimes performed as a novelty — if one can dig up a film, its extremely complicated sheet music, and a musician capable of doing it.
O
Onda: A box-like, radioactive appliance which is capable of heating food quickly by agitating its molecules, but often not well. It is considered something of a novelty in most home kitchens, but a fixture in hotels and convenience stores.
P
Photo: If you say motionphoto, mo-fo, or full-motion photograph, you are showing your age. It’s been unusual for photos not to move for a while now. Picture may also be used, but can apply to animated or still drawings as well. Simple gestures may be used to control the animation: a tap to freeze the image, a double tap to reset it, dragging a finger from right-to-left to go backwards or left-to-right to go forwards. Their efficacy is dependent on the cheapness of the enchantments and age of the photo. Frustrated viewers often end up tapping or dragging to no avail, or engaging some idiosyncratic function common only to a particular brand of film. Eventually the magic will wear off altogether, although the better photos will last for decades, and the image will freeze randomly. Old family albums contain a lot of images of people with their eyes closed and/or mouths half open.
Plantwork: The alteration of plants and plant matter with magic, or plants and plant matter that have been altered with magic. Considered a primitive form of repairwork which is rarely done anymore.
Program: In automated magic, a series of magical functions — charms, enchantments or full spells — activated by mechanical motion. Mechanical items may also have magical functions applied that are not automated, but if it looks like it has gears, most people will assume it is running a program.
Q
Queer: Definitely not analogous to our modern use of the term. It never quite made the transition to slur or needed to be reclaimed, it merely remained a quaint euphemism for high-class people of either sex of “a certain way.” Wealthy people got to be “confirmed bachelors” or “maiden aunts,” in the same way they got to be “eccentric” instead of “nuts.” San Rosille and Ansalem once rather jokingly had “queer pride” parades, where the funny part was everyone being as unsubtle as possible and too well-connected for anyone to do anything about it. This practice has fallen out of favour since the war, but Ansalem’s Mischief Night Parade has picked up some of the slack and introduced the idea to the lower classes.
R
Record: In Tin Soldier’s time, these exist only in single form, with one song per side. Albums must consist of multiple records packaged together. Most people prefer to buy singles, building their own collections of greatest hits. By Soldier On, multi-track LPs have made an appearance, but are overshadowed by more-portable cassettes, see above.
Repairwork: Materialwork done to effect a repair. Usually in reference to human beings with reparative mergers. A gold tattoo is not repairwork, a wound which was closed with gold is.
Rond: A round pastry with filling in the centre, usually eaten for breakfast. (We needed a word for “danish” without Denmark.)
S
Scint: Marsellia’s lowest denomination of new money. Some half-pennies, equal to ½ scint, are still in circulation, but it now takes three of them to make up a scint. A scint may also be called a penny. It is a small copper coin.
Sinkie: A set of post-card-sized photographs whose motion will sync up with a given audio track, usually music, to allow for remote and repeated reviewing. You may insert them in any number of plastic gadgets that will display them in order, some of them in quasi-3D, but you will be prompted with an unobtrusive notice in the corner to advance them by hand if necessary. A deck of sinkies will usually cost one sinq, but people are fond of making and distributing unauthorized copies, often of just the good parts.
Sinq: Marsellia’s lowest denomination of folding money, equal to 100 scints. All new bills are printed in blue-grey ink. Old sinqs from before the end of the war are bright blue and worth slightly less than face value. It is pronounced “sank,” in-universe, but I can’t meet that standard myself.
Slipspace: Compare to hammerspace. Its storage capacity appears limitless, but objects put there must have a physical anchor in real space, or else they cannot be retrieved. It is possible to store living creatures and even human beings in slipspace, but if left there while conscious they do not come back quite right.
Soft-Stick: The magical equivalent of a sticky note. Once applied, the object can be removed with a gentle tug and reapplied to other surfaces indefinitely. Used as a verb, to soft-stick; a gerund, soft-sticking; or an adjective, soft-stuck.
Sol: A thick copper coin equal to 5 scints, or 1/20 sinq. In terms of purchasing power, it is equal to about one dollar.
Soundphoto: These are magically-enhanced photographs with motion and (due to common ordinances) optional audio accompaniment, usually toggled on and off by touching a small line-drawing of a phonograph horn. Common in your better newspapers and magazines, but in earlier years only available on a few key stories due to the expense. The newspaper variety freeze and stop functioning after two days at most, but very posh magazines will have some that last until the next publication, monthly or weekly. It is rude to play the audio in places where people congregate and cannot easily escape, such as on buses and in libraries.
Spell: A bundled set of magical functions, either enchantments or more spells, which can be applied all at once. May be automated as part of a program or cast by a skilled practitioner of magic.
Starcatcher/Starcatching: San Rosille produced its own private Berlin Airlift during the siege. A lot of people with poor judgment — mostly teenagers — and improvised flying objects went over the walls at night to bring back supplies from the surrounding countryside. Night flying combined with optical magic made them more difficult to detect and shoot down, so they called themselves starcatchers. It took the largest area anti-magic spell ever constructed to put an end to starcatching, and the siege ended three months later.
Stillphoto or Still: Magic and photography have been married for some time now. Most photographs have full motion, although they will randomly freeze after a period of time dependent on how good the enchantments are. Stills are old or cheap technology, and may be easily distinguished by the stiff, intentional poses of the people in them. Randomly-frozen pictures come off a great deal more candid and undignified.
Stonework: The alteration of stone with magic, or stone that has been altered with magic. Still sometimes used for stone that has been altered via more ordinary means. For context, mineral materials are differentiated because stone is magic-neutral or magic-resistant, while metal is magic-conductive.
Substitution: Also the verb “to substitute.” Using magic or other means to alter something just enough that it can be used as a similar thing, e.g. sweetened salt. Most, but not all, are types of alteration. Actually turning the salt into sugar would be a transmutation, which would use much more magic and eat up part of what was being transformed. Substitutions are cheap and easy, and useful when time and resources are low. Many can be done with no magic at all, such as warm water and vinegar for an egg, but are still lumped in with the general knowledge and skill.
T
Transmutation: Also the verb “to transmute.” Turning something into something else entirely. This is much more complicated than alteration, and requires so much energy that it will eat up a given portion of whatever thing you are transforming. Human transmutation is therefore a risky business, which may leave you short several ounces of fat or a finger, depending on skill and preparation. Material inertia may result in transmuted things retaining colour, shape, or other properties of their original form. This also accounts for mergers still acting as their original material despite being used as touch-sensitive human flesh, and humans who transform into animals only being able to attain one form.
V
Voice from Music or VFM: The magical alteration of existing soundwaves to produce more sounds, including voices, effects and instruments. This can be done from any source of sound, but most commonly a musical instrument. Its complexity results in it being more of an art than a science.
Y
Yaourt: I gave up. Canada spells what I call “yogurt” THREE DIFFERENT WAYS, it’s not consistent across spellcheckers, and the add-on I was using recently CHANGED which one it preferred. What the hell, you guys, you know they’re not speaking English anyway. (*Note, as I repair and refresh the site YET AGAIN, you are now reading the Yaourt Edit, which has minor stylistic differences and somewhat fewer typos than the De Merde Edit it replaces. God willing, this’ll be the last major edit for a long damn time.)
