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Worldbuilding PDF: Oenclar military (Patreon)

Published:
2015-12-17 09:44:50
Edited:
2016-08-25 05:00:28
Imported:
2026-10
Tags:

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Content

So this is the oenclar military PDF that was intended to go with the Obscura chapter last month, but it's so long that I didn't get to finishing it. But it's useful for the upcoming Skiagraphia chapter as well! Originally I included more government information in it since, obviously, the two are very closely related, but it just got TOO long and the government could really get its own PDF easily.

I did include what ranks the oenclar military sooooorta 'translates' to in English/American military ranks, but it's not a very adept equivalence. I explained it a bit in the commentary for Keyd's POV, and obviously English terms are used in Alan's POV too, but trying to match them up doesn't work very well. But just for a very very general idea, so it's not just random foundationless babble-words being thrown at you. Also I didn't explain every single rank in detail (or even all of them in detail) because Reasons. If this comes out as a confusing mess with too many goofy terms, just know I restrained myself on goofy terms and too many details.

Comments

Alex

This is awesome! I'm going to have to go back and re-read the first chapter of Keyd's POV now and see if I get anything new from it :0 I'm also skimming older chapters and noticing rank mentions and goddamn, your worldbuilding is just so thorough and awesome. I read bits and peices of this before work and during the mindless parts of my day (aka most of my day), I came up with a couple of questions. Is Ukuacherni considered a uhinmaike, and if she is, how did she get into the military? Did she have to take on a false identity or something? Also now I'm wondering how she fell into the whole Arirsanya/Gannekein thing? And speaking of Gannekein, does the -kein in his name mean sword? (I ask because of the name you include for Keyd's face mark, I was wondering if the meaning of the word changed in different contexts) Also, when cadets are sorted into aerial units, how do like... flight lessons happen? I imagine it's probably a really difficult thing to learn and even though I'm sort of laughing at the image of a bunch of scrawny looking kids being pushed off a roof like birds out a nest, but somehow I bet that's not how it happens :P Some other misc questions: do either the oenclar/clarbach military have a cavalry, or similar units? Have there been any major military tech discoveries in recent history? How are soldiers paid/support their families? Can soldiers retire after x years of service or do they stay in until they get discharged due to an injury, or something? Man sorry to bombard you with all these, haha. No pressure to answer ALL of them I am just insanely curious and in love with this world!

Teromain

Not to worry, I absolutely love questions and answering them! It's always great when people are interested, or put stuff together on their own and ask about it! And this got long so I hope it even fits in one answer box. So first, Ukuacherni—she is considered uhinmaike, and she did have to fake her way into the military and hide that, otherwise she wouldn't have been allowed in. During Gannekein's trial, when Jarynphar goes to look her up and figure out who exactly she is, it takes him a while and he comes back with the info that she's using her father's name because her mother is foreign. Because Jarynphar is a Keeper, he has access to complete full birth records like this and can find out this kind of information much more easily than the military actually can, and all this stuff is REQUIRED to be recorded (like if you don't 'register' your baby at their birth and who both parents are, they won't be considered oenclar at all. Even if both parents ARE clar. They want a complete and accurate record of everybody and their bloodline, so everybody has to submit to that or actually be considered foreign) so the fact her mother is foreign is accessible to Keepers, but not to the military UNLESS they really wanted to look into it. It helps that she looks completely clar, or her bloodline might have been questioned. Her father's last name is not particularly well-known (not one that people would immediately recognize) so even though it's a patrilineal name, she kind of gets away with it. She's always been stationed under Arirsanya, but really joined forces with him once Alan showed up and was a complete foreigner who still managed to be accepted by a lot of people and end up in places where foreigners are never allowed to be, and compared with how hard she had to work to conceal her only half-foreigness and how it limited her entire life, she really got behind Arirsanya's dislike for him. So she basically went to him and said 'I'll do whatever you need to get this guy gone or dead or whatever you want' and Arirsanya was cool with this. 'Kein' does mean sword in both contexts; Gannekein's name basically means 'beautiful/handsome/aesthetically attractive in appearance sword', since the word 'ganne' has a lot of subtle meanings. Flight lessons are pretty brutal actually. That'll get seen in Rysa's POV story, since it'll cover her military training (and a bit in Kir and Darban's story; even though they can't fly, they have friends who do and have to go through the training). The training barracks in Lojt, which are the biggest and almost every cadet goes through there at some point to get the most refined training, are on a high ocean cliffside. So you can maybe guess how some of the training happens. The clar are not above completely endangering cadets in order to train them, since they figure holding back will only make them unprepared for real battle. This is why when there are clar around with scars or visible old injuries, it's usually NEVER from battle—it's from training. If by cavalry you mean mounted soldiers; nope. They don't bring animals into war because they consider it inhumane. They certainly have horses, and they can be around war camps for labor or travel, but they don't go into battle at all. As far as tech, not a lot has been created in recent years because their encounters are so varied and take place in all kinds of landscapes and terrain, and they also heavily rely on their magical energy powers rather than building things, and also sometimes they have the assistance of locals who have more technology than them and so they don't actually have to create anything new themselves—although both sides do have siege weapon technology that they developed on their own (this is partly why Uillad has a giant wall around it). There are definitely legendary soldiers/commanders/generals that oenclar study ; part of military training is exhaustive military history, but Warrior caste kids usually grow up with stories about famous people, living or dead, and know a lot about them. Since novels are basically embellished histories, there are also more 'fictional' versions of these kinds of people that even civilians read and know about. Soldiers can stay in the military as long as they want as long as they are a) physically fit enough, b) not raising a family (though that's a temporary break and they can come back), and c)useful. So like Damao, who has an injury that prevents him from really participating in battles but doesn't hinder him otherwise, is still considered a useful asset to the military – he can train cadets, he can do diplomacy stuff, lots of things. The 'useful' category is a pretty big loophole that can keep a lot of soldiers in for as long as they want, even if they don't fight, and the military would rather have them in the military and doing small things than outside the military and not contributing but still getting paid a pension (because they do get something like that). They get paid based on a combination of things; rank, intramilitary social status, length of time in the military, their family, area they're stationed, etc. So a clarjja general in a dangerous war zone who's been in the military for a really long time gets paid quite a lot. A grunt soldier who's been in the military for a long time and has several children to support is going to get paid more than an unmarried commander in a safe zone who's not at much risk of seeing battle. But that means that people's salary can change a lot; whenever they get reassigned or promoted, if their family situation changes, etc.

Alex

does Arirsanya know about Ukuacherni's reason for being so supportive of his anti-Alan thing, or does it not matter so much since she's volunteered herself to help? Now I'm all interested in their dynamic too, Ukuacherni sounds like a really interesting character and i can totally understand her motives for really disliking him. but on that note too, is Rysa considered uhinmaike as well, or not? and cool, yay for treating horses humanely, I guess? I always think of the cavalry in WWI and how absolutely fuckin brutal it was, just awful (also, how patreon comments submit when you hit enter is super annoying and I keep submitting things early by accident.)

Teromain

Arirsanya doesn't know and isn't going to ask, he's definitely more interested in that she's just super eager and willing to help. And her 'test' was basically the thing that happened at the start of Skiagraphia, so she proved herself there and got even closer into his circle of people with that and testifying at the trial, which is why she was seen in charge of basically sieging the rhun later on and catching Alan; he gave her that as like almost a reward, even though she messed up and he got away. She wasn't supposed to kill him, though she might have if Alan had actually been caught there. Rysa isn't considered uhinmaike because while everybody hates the clarbach, they aren't actually considered foreigners, just ENEMY. The oenclar admit that they are descended from the same race as the clarbach (because this is part of their 'prove we're equal to them' thing, so they have to admit they're partly the same in order to have that make sense) and even though Rysa doesn't have any relevant birth parents to 'register' her by, Keyd's parents basically adopted her, so they're who would come up as being her parents if her history was looked up in Keeper records. There'd just be a note with it that it's not her actual bloodline (which is why she doesn't get to use Keyd's mother's surname). Rysa's basically a weird case all around and most of the time people just throw their hands up and go FINE WHATEVER, IF THIS ENDS UP A TERRIBLE IDEA IT'S NOT OUR FAULT. The clar are pretty respectful of life, especially since there's a general belief in reincarnation or at least an ongoing circulation of a person's soul/spirit/personal energy, and it's not always assumed you'd be human every time, so they tend to try and treat everything non-human as respectfully/humanely as possible. Also they don't find it fair to allow anything living that can't use energy into a fight where that's the main thing going on. If horses could somehow use the entities then they might actually bring them into battle, mayyyybe. And I hate that enter auto-reply thing too, aaah. I just want to make paragraphs, let meeee.