Chapter 1 [Fool]: Cruel Gods Give A Soap-Maker His Feast

Blacken/ Whiten/ Greyen: a semi-unique spelling of certain words and/ or colors. Don’t remember how it started or its inspiration, but the phenomen just stuck onto the Path’s manuscript. It fits the theme overall and adds some alien spice to otherwise common words, so it’ll stay. From cursory searches online, these spellings don’t seem to be archaiforms.

Jowls: archaiform of jaws. Seems that the word evolved from an archaic spelling to specifically referencing the lower and jiggly skin folds of a dog’s cheeks. I mostly use it as an archaiform but it may be used as in the sense of a dog’s lower jaw-skin as well.

Lecherous: synonym of sexually perverted with some connection to having an insatiable libido. I joined this word with leech for the prose and aliteration; both words are similar in sound but come from different roots with lecherous coming from Old English lech and then Frankish likkon which means “to lick.” Fits well because leeches are somewhat phallic and are associated with eating (licking). Also fits because of the connection between venoms (poison) and medicines, with leech and leigan being synonyms for doctors because of medieval bloodletting.

Venin: archaiform for venom, poison. Yes, I know that modern usage has poison and venom separated. The Anglo-French were a menace to the English language. A mixing of Germanic and Latin lone-words are just far too confusing.

Scabbard: a scabbard is a type of sheathe, a container for a weapon; a sword, most often. All scabbards are sheathes, but not all sheathes are scabbards. Scabbards are rigid (they are made with varying amounts of wood inside the leather) while sheathes flop all willy-nilly. I’ve said scabbard so many times in the last three lines that its lost its meaning. Scabbard, scabbard, scabbard. Scabbard.

Borne: brought to bear. I use it in synonym with born, a lot. Modern usage has it as a given thing held inside another thing, i.e. a bloodborne illness.

Marmon: archaiform of marble. I use it interchangebly with the modern spelling of marble, a synonym basically. It is not yet defunct in the world of Terra Mundus, both spellings coexisting by the time that the story is told (1125 A.E.).

Gotta Call A Pick A Pick: an Undercity aphorism (saying). It’s a permutation of “gotta call a spade a spade” but is endemic to the Arvenpyre slums because of the widespread quarry and coal-mining operations there.

Lumen/ Lumened: an invented word that is analogous to christen/ name. It means ‘to name’ something else. Kedweni peasantry don’t have access to the medicine and healers that the nobility possess, and so child-birth becomes a risky thing, for both mother and child. Babes are only named after a full lunar-month has passed because they die so readily. Hence, lumen from the androgyonous and hemaphroditic moon-god Lumenari. This practice is used for warding off would-be death and plague or as a means to not get too attatched to a babe that most likely will die next in three weeks’ time.

Will O’Wisp: a spirit or sprite or fairy. One that lures travellers into the dangerous wilds and off the beaten path.

Eightten/ Fortten: semi-unique and archaiform spellings of numbers. Eightten and eighteen are both used in Kedwen with eighteen more common South of the Ydden while Eightten is distinctly Northern and/ or Eastern (where the Pyre dwells).

Sunchild/ Plagueless Child: these words are analogous to each other, near synonyms to naive. A sunchild is endemic to the Undercity as only those that live in the Pyre proper have access to Solaria’s Grace (sunlight) and are said to be ‘pampered and arse smeared with honey’. Plagueless child is common to all of Kedwen; plagues have ravaged the land time and again, so any that has not lived through one, does not truly know of suffering. A plague incites general panic and mass-death the likes of which makes even War Himself turn pale. ‘Plagueless child’ is also used an insult for greenhorns and novices to the mercenary’s trade.

The Blind Mother/ Blind Mother’s Tits: the Blind Mother is a devil with the epithet She Who Dwells In Clouded Eyes. Her name is often invoked in swears and insults to the extraordinarily ugly. Blind Mother’s tits though often used as an expletitive for a bad situation, has its origins in that something usually good has turned bad or ’sour’ hence Blind Mother’s tits.

Black-heart/ Black-guard/ Blaggard or White-heart/ White-guard: synonyms to evil and good. All of the different permutations are common in King’s Kedwen, just depends on the region’s influences. White-guard and black-guard are more common in Tristam and other Western lands for its Floreni touch while blaggard and black-heart are more common to the North and East where a tribe of Brittons and meadowfolk alfar once called home.

Price Paid In Full: Kedweni aphorism (peasant saying/ idiom). It can either be used in the context of retribution and reparation (the price of law has been paid in full) or in the sense of caution and warning; nothing is ever free, everything has a cost, be wary.

Soap-Maker/ Seifarer: these are synonyms of eachother, being a lowborn occupation of the same class as tanner and butcher. Looked down upon in the Undercity because human fat and bone are used just as readily as that of lesser beasts to produce soap.

Seifar: means soap or any thing that resembles a syrup of some sort. It is an archaiform of syrup and either is or shares a root word with soap.

Chapter 2 [Magus]: Omens O’ Doom, A Shadow ‘Ere Looms

Yet to be glossed.