The Explicarium

astrapecrith

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 08:05:06 -0400

The correct technical term for a fulgar. The equivalent word for a wit is neuroticrith.

Assimus

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:15:05 -0400

Surly, sandy-haired, pinched-faced lampsman 1st class serving at Wintermill. In semiretirement owing to the early onset of arthritis, this lighter has been granted the easiest stretch of the Wormway on which to work and see out his days. Along with his old mate Bellicos, he has seen service on most of the inner stretches of the highroad, even enduring a spell at the “ignoble end of the road.”

aspis

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:00:05 -0400

As stated, this is a venificant, a highly tocix contact poison that allows the often harmless blows of a person against a monster to have rapid and deadly effect. The only problem with such potives is that they are deadly to people, too, one touch being enough to cause some great discomfort int he very least. Aspis is one of the more preferred venificants because it is a little slower to act, meaning that accidental touch will not do much harm, although it is deadly once a good dose of it has entered a body’s system.

Ashenstall

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:10:05 -0400

Last cothouse east before the Wormway descends out of the highlands of the Placidine down onto the Frugelle and the start of the “ignoble end of the road,” taking its name from the grey land about it, and perhaps from the local stone of which it is mostly built.

ash-dabbling(s)

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:05:06 -0400

Working with organs and other parts of corpses. The “hobby” of massacars and other black habilists, taking this name from “ash” as a synonym for the remains of a person.

Approach, the ~

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:15:05 -0400

Steep “driveway” that leads up to Winstermill from the Harrowmath. It is actually split in tow, one way continuing east down to the Pettiwiggin and the other curving south to join the Gainway.

amanuensis

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:00:05 -0400

Clerk who takes minutes, makes duplicates and triplicates of documents and writes notes on the details of official conversations.

alternats, the ~

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:17:05 -0400

Catch-all name for the secondary or subcapitals of the Haacobin Empire, being the Considine and the Serenine in the sout-lands, and the Campaline on the Verid Litus.

almonder

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 08:00:06 -0400

Assistant to a dispensurist or a skold, who does much of the fetching and carrying and reordering and other less glamorous work.

alembant(s)

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:05:06 -0400

Broadly speaking, scripts that alter the biology of a person, such as the washes that make a leer’s eyes. Specifically, the term can be used to refer to the potives taken by lahzars to keep their surgically introduced organs from vaoriating (spasming). The best known of thse is Cathar’s Treacle. See lahzar.

"ad captandum vulgus"

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 08:05:05 -0400

A Tutin political term literally meaning “toward courting the crowd” but used more in the sense of doing things to please the people, to inspire confidence.

Accord of Menschen, the ~

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:05:06 -0400

What we would think of an in “international” agreement upon the rules of conduct in warfare, standardizing procedures of victory, surrender, the treatment of the loser and of neutrals; a reratification of a much older document known as the Usages of War, a set of dogma governing behaviour to foes, prisoners, noncombatants, and the wounded and infirm during war. Though it was primarily drawn up in reference to land warfare, naval officers will also cite it, though they have their own accord—the Articles of Conduct; however, this is not as comprehensive in its statutes.

abnition

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 08:05:05 -0400

Spontaneous generation of life from muds and clays warmed by the sun in powerfully threwdish places. Such soils are called fecund or abinitive muds, or in the uncommon vernacular, life-loams. Some more extreme theories hold that these life-loams, these dipherbiosës (literally “seats of life”) can exist even in the heart of an urban park or rural lumber plantation, that where plants flourish (even domesticated varieties) threwd can concentrate in boggy dells and the ground become fecund. When known beyond the esoteric provinces of the teratological habilists this concept is generally rejected as being too terrible to contemplate.

Axles, the ~

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:06:05 -0400

The mighty rivergates that guard the northern and southern entrances of the Humour River as it flows past Boschenberg. The northern Axle is known as the Nerid Axle, and the souther the Scutid Axle. Heavily defended with great-guns and soldiers, the gates prevent riverine traffic from moving through without paying tolls for cargo and/or passengers, plus a tax for the craft itself. If the master of the vessel does not get the right forms filled in when passing through both Axles, he is likely to be charged twice, once for each rivergate. See rivergates.

ashmongers

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:00:05 -0400

Dealers in corpses and products made or gained from dead bodies; the middlemen of the dark trades, taking the dead bodies that the corsers steal and the smugglers smuggle, and passing them on—for a modest fee, of course—to their grateful, benighted customers. They also trade in monsters, alive or dead, and their parts. Because skolds and scourges frequently use their services, they have been legitimized, but everyone knows that they are agents for those working outside the law.

When stocks of body parts are low, the worst of these will stoop to abduction and murder to get the required items. If such items need to be of a certain “reipeness” to be useful, they will achieve this artificially, with chemistry. Stolenbodies are sometimes called anthropelf.

army

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:12:05 -0400

The states of the Empire are not allowed to have large standing armies, usually no more than ten thousand soldiers. These are considered enough for various guarding duties about the walls of cities and major rural centers. As a consequence there are many mercenary regiments (which are not illegal) roaming the lands; the states employ these to do their fighting for them.

Sometimes certain states manage to gain dispensation from the Emperor to have a standing army of greater than ten thousand men if their lands are extensive—a nice little loophole which has allowed some to amass sizable forces. Their neighbors, of course, do not like this. They have their ministers complain in the Imperial Parliament, from which the Emperor may or may not order a reduction, and so the cycle of rivalry and envy goes on. Meanwhile the mercenaries get richer. The army referred to in the story would be Boschenberg’s standing army, though mercenaries also seek recruits from such places as Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls.

Arius Vigilans

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:00:06 -0400

“The vigilant ram.” The emblem or sigil represented the state of Hergoatenbosch and its capital Boschenberg, and revered for its obstinancy and hard-headedness.

apprentices

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:11:05 -0400

Persons working in training under the tutelage of their employer. Often abbreviated to “‘prentices.” A person serves and learns as an apprentice to a master for four years, after this time becoming a journeyman or companion working independently and gaining experience. When they have worked at this for no less than six years, apprentices have the right to become masters and to take on apprentices themselves.

AOWM

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 08:00:05 -0400

An acronym used as the symbol of the skolds, taken from the symbols of the Elements in the Körnchenflecter. It represents the four-part systems of their discipline and learning. See the Four Humours, the Four Spheres, the Körnchenflecter, and skolds.

Arabis, Arimis

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:58:00 -0400

Son of a poor peltryman, Paddlin Arabis from Fayelillian way, who died of exposure on a desperate winter’s foray along with his crew of trappers. Raised by his mother in deep squalor, Arabis was first prenticed to another peltryman; when things turned foul he escaped, living by his wits and making his gradual and circuitous way to the capital. There he chanced upon a recruitment drive for the lamplighters of Winstermill, and took the Emperor’s Billion there and then.