So, I have been keeping a pattern of having a side-chapter or lore chapter between every act. I had not actually prepared a side or lore chapter for the break between the 5th and 6th acts of this arc, mostly because as I was writing I did not actually know where I was even going to put the break. I actually only decided after getting 3 chapters into what has now been labeled the 6th act. In other words, right before posting the last chapter.
So, not to break tradition, I have gone ahead and thrown together a quick lore chapter to stick into this break space. It is on a subject that has been coming up quite frequently lately in story, an explanation on the duties of the committees of the fey court.
(Note: This is from a historical perspective, and all in accordance with what their roles would have been under normal circumstances before Aerien showed up, triggering the Heaven's Fall on her way in. Things are rather messed up now.)
Also, since it didn't take that long to explain all the committees, I decided to also add a short little real-world lore base on what my inspirations were for the blue-jade dragons.
Special lore chapter: Civics of the Fey court.
The fey court has what is likely one of the more curious forms of government in the world. As the fey (other than elves) largely do not have children in the same way humans do, succession among fey noble lines is determined entirely by adoption. In addition, the standards held by the fey are such that they often do not adopt children. Rather, adoption by a fey noble functions less like being taken into a family and more like an apprenticeship, with the adopted son or daughter usually being well into the fey equivalent of their adult years. It is normally the case that one is not even a candidate for adoption until they are over 100 years in age and have proven their worthiness to be adopted into the family.
The fey of the great northern forest are ruled by a single queen, a great fairy dragon named Oren. It is said her eye was damaged when she was young in her previous life as a normal dragon, and the memory of that life-long injury was carried over into her rebirth as a member of the fey. She had once been a colossal greater dragon who fell when the demons drove the great land devourer to the surface. She is said to have done battle with the beast, but was no match for it as she met her end. She died with resentment against the beast, vowing revenge, and thus when she was reborn as a fey she immediately took up residence in the great north where the creature was said to reside. Soon, her power alone transformed the great north into the sprawling forest it has become today.
The court which serves under the blue-jade fey dragon queen Oren is divided into committees, gatherings of fey who have tasked themselves with one aspect of the governing needs of the fey or another. Each committee is then headed up by one of the fey-dragon dukes and dutchesses. Each duke or dutchess are among the peak of what is considered a true dragon and are bordering on the territory of greater dragonhood.
There are six committees in the fey court. The Arbor committee, which is responsible for managing the dryads throughout the great northern forest. The Justice committee, responsible for the prosecution and punishment of those who violate the law of the fey. The Civics committee, responsible for handling relations with and management of the elves and other fey creatures of the forest. The Defense committee, a warrior committee responsible for defending the northern forest, and the capital city in particular, against any form of attack. The War committee, a warrior committee responsible for pressing the attack primarily on the demon lands. And, finally, the Diplomacy committee, responsible for handling relations with the governments of nations ruled by other sentient races.
The Arbor committee, headed by dragon duke Baltair, is primarily considered to be the most important among the six committees, and is the only committee with the right to freely request members be surrendered from other committees in order to serve under him. The control of the dryads is considered to be the top and most important role of the fey nobles, and the reason why the rest of the fey subject themselves to the rule of the fey court. As such, the Arbor committee is held in very high regard among the court. As this is a subject so frequently on the fey court's mind though, the queen often winds up speaking on the Arbor committee's behalf, relegating lord Baltair to a secretarial position of carrying out the queen's edicts rather than properly leading the committee. (Essentially, the committee's role is so important the queen winds up hijacking it.)
The Justice committee, headed by dragon duke Faranti, holds the role of enforcing the law and has the power of jurisdiction over all members of the fey court should they violate the laws of the court or the nation in any way. The justice committee is comparatively small in terms of total member count compared to other committees, but Faranti and his direct subordinates are equal to the strongest members of other committees, and also have the direct ear of the queen should any attempt at enforcement be resisted.
The Civics committee, headed by dragon dutchess Frent, is the committee concerned with the actual day-to-day management of all the political processes within the court. It is their job to organize events, and act as go-betweens for all five of the other committees. Dutchess Frent also acts as a personal advisor to the queen Oren, updating her on the goings on within the court and the latest news on the villages. They share the job of regularly checking the villages with the Arbor committee, except that the Arbor committee is only really concerned with villages that already have or may soon have a dryad, where as the civics committee must remain apprised of the events in every village in the great northern forest. There are several small duties assigned to the civics committee, and no specific large role. However, their management of the small stuff is ultimately what allows the fey court to continue running as a governing body.
The Defense committee, headed by dragon duke Havarall, is an arm of the fey military. This arm of their military does not deploy or launch any exploratory ventures, and specializes in tactics to neutralize a threat quickly without causing collateral damage. It is their job to protect against invasion. They are often stationed at the capital, patrolling the perimeter around the great tree.
The War committee, headed by dragon duke Ter, is the other arm of the fey military. The war committee represents the sword to the defense committee’s shield. This arm is responsible for scouting and exploratory strikes against enemies to the fey, primarily against the demons. Lord Ter has been tasked by queen Oren specifically with the long-term objective of finding out where the demons have corralled the great land eater to, a task which has proven incredibly difficult as it has only been discovered twice in the millennia since he was charged with this duty, and by the time they could begin work on crafting a ritual spell grand enough to even hope at damaging it the demons would find out about this and cause the beast to wake up, forcing the fey to retreat.
The Diplomacy committee, headed by dragon duke Kavir, is responsible for all communication with nations outside the great northern forest. Lord Kavir is said to be especially wise and talented, and has repeatedly earned enough of queen Oren’s trust that she has granted him authority to speak in her name, promising to stand by any decision which he makes in the name of foreign relations. His subordinates are all highly skilled negotiators as well, and it is said there is no mortal man capable of deceiving or taking the better of any member of the diplomacy committee of the blue-jade dragon clan. The diplomacy committee will still defer to the queen in terms of final declarations of alliances or war, but matters of trade or the granting of access to the northern forest for diplomatic envoys is left entirely in the hands of Kavir and his subordinates.
Special real-world inspirations section.
Blue-jade dragons.
The blue-jade dragon clan is a somewhat convoluted reference to the original lore behind Qinglong, the bluegreen dragon of the east. Most may know this figure more commonly as Seiryu, the blue dragon, in more common modern Japanese pop-culture sources.
The reason for the name “bluegreen dragon” is an artifact of the older form of the Chinese and other Eastern languages. Up until a few hundred years ago, none of the East-Asian languages differentiated between the colors “blue” and “green” in their language. They all used a single character which referenced both colors. In the more modern Japanese language, they invented the word “Midori” to mean “green,” and kept the word “ao,” which used to mean both blue and green, and changed it to only mean blue now.
Because Seiryu was called the “ao” dragon in all the lore, pop-culture writers would frequently confuse the historical context and just take the term “ao” to mean only blue. Few looked into the more historical context about Seiryu/Qinglong to realize he was said to have immense power over nature, and wherever he would go the land would become more fertile and become over-abundant with greenery. Had they known, they would likely have realized that “green” is the more appropriate color to be attributed to Seiryu, rather than blue. And plant-related powers the more lore-accurate power rather than the ice more commonly given in the modern pop-culture sources such as Yu-yu Hakusho.
The reason they are called blue-jade dragons in the story, rather than blue-green, (aside from just sounding cooler,) is also in reference to Qinglong’s Chinese origin. Jade as a precious stone has been historically regarded very highly in the Chinese culture, and has held an important place in their religious lore.
Those familiar with Dungeons and Dragons lore might also recognize a similarity between the legend of Quinlong and the powers attributed to green dragons. Both are said to cause a sprouting of greenery wherever they go, with the only major difference between Qinglong and the D&D green dragons being that the plants that grow near D&D green dragons are all deadly poisonous. D&D green dragons also have a very strong connection with the fey, as it is said their power over greenery comes from a natural link their bodies have to the fey-wilds, to the extent that the body of a recently slain green dragon actually becomes a portal to the fey-wilds.
It is worth mention that the specific combination between the blue-jade dragon’s natural ability to promote the fertility of plant-life combined with the corrupting influence of arcane magic in creating demons would make the forests near where a blue-jade fey-dragon is active more similar to the forest of a D&D green dragon than it would the dwelling grounds of Qinglong who they are more closely based on.
NOTE: As this was never on the subscribe star, there are no subscriber comments.
Special bonus Easter egg hunt for lore buffs. I actually have not told all of the inspirational basis for the members of the fey court. However, the little hidden extra I have worked into it ought to be a little easier to figure out for anyone interested using the info in this chapter.
Hint:
The names are important in figuring out this Easter egg
Final note: (Yes, I DO realize it is slightly confusing having south-american winged serpents take most of their inspirational basises from the most famous among the Eastern dragons, and then to have a final result of them fitting the power set of a D&D western dragon.)
Thanks to the wonderful donations of all of my subscribers, I have taken some of that money and used it to make an order over on fiverr. I currently half suspect the links I have been posting to this story might be triggering an auto flag for possible violations, so I'm posting about this here in order to assure the trust and safety team I'm the real author.
The user handle of the person I have commissioned this order from is xshedevilx. Unfortunately, someone else on fiverr had already taken the name "jemini," so I had to add numbers to it. Since I am a little bit of a basic nerd, I made a hitchiker's guide refference and made my fiverr username "jemini42."
Well, that's all the information the fiverr trust and safety team should need to assure them this is all genuine. If this is still not enough, they can contact me and I can edit this in as an author's note in the actual chapter. As for my readers, I will likely give more details (probably with a little less frustration in my tone) once I have posted my next chapter.
(Note, while it IS frustrating, I actually do appreciate a little plagerism protection. Actually, the reason I noticed what was going on and resorted to posting a message like this so quickly upon seeing what was up is that when I posted this same story to RoyalRoad they had me edit my synopsis over here with a statement that I was posting to RoyalRoad in order to prove I was the real author before they would let me post over there. That was also a little frustrating, but I also really appreciate it all the same. It's a little frustration in order to avoid the potential major stress inducing nightmare scenario of having all your hard work stolen.)
i am really starting to think there is more to the demons then we are being told.
A good writer ALWAYS knows more than they tell.
@Jemini and also create the characters but let them create the story on their own
Thanks for the chapter!
Ehh, it seems unlikely to me that Orient means top of a map (source?). Orient comes from Latin “oriens” meaning rising or east. Orient as a verb originally meant to position so as to face East which was how most European maps were made (with East being up). It’d be very strange to say the East part of a map is North.
Well, credit that to bad 2nd hand research. I saw it on some documentary program I recall, can't remember the name of it. I just took their word for it, but upon looking into it following your comment, turns out you are right.
... Well, now I already have the forest being in the north. It doesn't necessarily NEED to be in the north, but I can't imagine the world arranged in any other way.
(I'll just delete that paragraph to avoid further disinformation.)
Are you sure you get the name "quinlong" right? Google search only returned "qianlong" emperor in its result. Also, where do you get the information that Blue/green was once the same word in Chinese?
You're right, my English brain accidentally added a "u" after the "q." That "u" does not belong there.
As for the mixture of blue and green, look up "grue" languages. Grue is the term used by linguists to describe languages that cover both blue and green (as well as certain shades of grey in some grue languages) with a single word. It's actually not that uncommon, and I have confirmed at the very least that both Chinese and Japanese used to be grue languages and only introduced new terms to differentiate the two colors within the last 200 years. (Actually, I only know for certain Japanese is no longer a grue language, I have not confirmed whether or not Chinese has differentiated the terms yet.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language
EDIT: Note to self, read your own links. Ok, so yes, Chinese has introduced a distinction between blue and green. Also, the Japanese introduction of the word "midori" was 1000 years ago. What threw me off is mention in some anime about older people considering "green" to be "blue." It made me assume the switch was a lot more recent, but it turns out that after the word "midori" was introduced, it was considered to be a shade of blue, like Cerulean. So, if older Japenese people who considered green to be a shade of blue were just feeling lazy, they would just call it blue.
This is in very recent Japanese history, and it seems the firm distinction between green and blue as completely separate colors rather than green being considered an off shade of blue was only established in Japan after WW2 due to stronger Western influence.
@Jemini
As someone who understands Chinese, let me add some additional info for ya.
In Chinese, there are 2 words that can refer to green:
1. 青: As in green.
2. 绿:As in more to Forest green. Based on the history of this word, it was a reference to how the hills were green, which is a different shade from the green of plants.
Generally, when people say green in Chinese, its the first version. However, in Chinese writing, we are supposed to use the 2nd version.
As for blue, the word is 蓝,and its way of writing (the grass head) is to show its origins from the green referring to plants.
On that note, there is also a word for the colour of jade:碧。
Sorry if this seemed annoying, but I do enjoy the rather fast pace of releases. Thanks again.
Edit: in Japanese, the term for this dragon is 蒼龍( Soryuu ), its the name for an aircraft carrier they used and the green, in this case, can refer to moss green also.
Edit 2: Japanese have another term refer for a blue-green dragon: 青龍 (Seiryuu). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Dragon
@SmallHiki That's actually really interesting, mainly in the fact that 青 is the Chinese Kanji for green and 蓝 is blue. My knowledge of Japanese is not at fluent levels, but I do know enough to know that in Japanese, 青 is blue and 绿 is green. Yeah, 绿 is not a shade of green in Japanese, it's just straight up green. The fact that the Japanese kept blue and added a Kanji for green, while the Chinese kept green and added a kanji for blue is interesting in and of itself.
@Jemini oh, it gets even better. Chinese jade (碧) in Japanese can be, depending on additional characters, green (mountains), blue (water, clouds, eyes) or jasper, which is both.
And of course even modern Japanese will be confused about the two colors - unripe fruit is still "blue" and green light is still "ao-shingou"