Down But Not Out...

I have had a lingering cold now for almost two weeks and I just can't seem to shake it. It is leaving me so exhausted that I am beginning to wonder if I have mono!

Otherwise, not much to report. Between the holidays and the weather and the cold I haven't been in work much for over a week, which is good in that I have been able to lie down in the afternoons. The side benefit has been that I have been able to link up with Terry at Old Glory and finalize our Qól order - 50 sets of everything. (Yes, that means 50 palanquins - so that stock should last us a while!) This was just before Christmas so presumably this underway though I haven't had an invoice yet.

Things have been otherwise quite. All our sculptors are no doubt enjoying the holidays with family and friends (as they well deserve) so I won't start pestering them again until sometime in January. I've been thinking about commissioning the N'lüss and Lorún in the New Year. According to the Professor the Lorún are related to the N'lüss though perhaps not with the height extremes. I've just been doing some calculations and the way I work it out (keeping in mind 18mm = 1 scale meter) the females should stand about 33mm to top of head (if 6 foot tall, as implied by the Lorún Princess in the Blue Solo book) and the males anywhere from that up to 42mm for the tallest N'lüss (7'6" as quoted in the Sourcebook.)

My thinking is that the Lorún are not quite as tall as the N'lüss - and anyway, the 7'6" height is not stated to be the average, but rather the upper limit. The intent is to get the females done to the 33mm measurement and the males 33-35mm. The N'lüss females would be 33mm as well but the males would be 35-42mm, with the lesser warriors being at the lower end of the scale.

The typical N'lüss is that warrior with the two-handed sword, but as we know from the sourcebook and the Seal of the Imperium magazine article, that image really encapsulates the cream of the N'lüss and not the whole warrior society.

Anyways, that is what I have been up to. Hope everybody has had a safe and happy holidays.

Best Regards,

Howard

The Undotted "i"!

This is one of my Pet Peeves about Tekumel. The various Tsolyani pronunciation guides that have been published over the years which though apparently intended for English readers, reference languages other than English when trying to explain how to say all those weird names.

The main one being the "ü", as in: N'lüss. We are told to pronounce this in two ways, depending upon which part of Tsolyanu we are from: "In western Tsolyanu , the "unlaut ü" of German; in the east it is a high, back, un-rounded vowel, like the "undotted i" of Turkish"!!!

Oh-Kayyeeee...and you think this is helpful - how? Did I mention that we're ENGLISH speakers!? That means: no German, no Turkish, and don't even ask me to figure out what a "high, back, un-rounded vowel" is.

Now I think the "ü" might be "Ooo" - at least the German bit, but I don't recall if I looked it up somewhere to figure that out. That means that "N'lüss" might be pronounced NUH-Loooss - or it might not...

Update: This according to Google...

Update 2: "I, ı [undotted i] 'uh' or the vowel sound in 'fuss' and 'plus'"

So we can pronounce "N'lüss" as NUH-loooss or NUH-lus, depending upon which part of Tsolyanu we hail from.

Update 3: my other example of this peeve is the "GH" - which is described as "a soft, frictive "g", the Arabic Ghayn; not in European languages."

I found some pronunciation help via Google again:

"I speak only a few words of Arabic but one self-instruction book I have says that this sound uses muscles that are not used by English speakers, except when they throw up."

Nuff Said!

Another Aridani N'luss Warrioress...

An Aridani N'luss

This is the last of the present lot of concept sketches Jeff Dee has done for the N'luss. We had considerable back-and-forth debate about the "look" which is based upon a number of things. From the Mu'ugalavyani Army Book we know that not all N'luss warbands are as well equipped with armour as others. And from the Swords & Glory Sourcebook we know that N'luss women tend to cover their legs with leggings. This is confirmed by the descriptions of the N'luss bodyguard in The Man of Gold.

Running somewhat counter to this are the descriptions in the later novels of N'luss wearing "pantaloons" and tunics, bringing to my mind at least images of Vikings, particularly "Jomsvikings", who appear from the illustrations I've seen (and miniature representations) to be the "dandies" of the Viking world.

These descriptions contradict all other descriptions and illustrations previously published. Perhaps they refer to some fashion among the city-dwelling N'luss that distinguishes from their wilder brethren of the hills (though I would never call any N"luss tame!)

Regardless, what I was looking for was an illustration of an Aridani warrioress from one of the poorer warbands. I think this illustration fits the bill nicely.

Deadlier than the Male?

An Aridani N'luss Warrior

Here is an Aridani N'luss warrior in medium armour, depicted again by Jeff Dee. We had some debate about her costume as the background is contradictory in places, referring to leggings in some earlier works and pantaloons in the later novels.

Yet another concept drawing...

N'luss Women: legs that go on forever...

Another Real World example!

The N'luss - the feared "Dragon-Warriors"

N'luss Warrior, in "medium" armour

N'luss Warrior, in light armour

The N'luss are barbarians who stand some 2.15m to 2.3m tall, compared to the average Tsolyani Male at 1.68m. That is around 7' to 7'-6" compared to 5'-6".

I knew that they were tall but I never realized just how tall until Jeff drew these pictures with the comparison silhouette.

Jorge Gonzalez

Here is a Real World "N'luss": Jorge Gonzalez, a professional wrestler until he passed away last year.

In battle they would have large oval shields which they bear as protection from enemy missiles. These they discard before combat - a piece of the fluff that has always bothered me because I felt the shields would get underfoot. Now, having seen the size of their two-handed swords in proportion to a regular Tsolyani, I can see that this wouldn't be the case. They would need a substantial interval to either side in order to wield their weapons so there would be ample room to discard their shields and not impede the advance of their fellows following on behind.