• << Back to 5-Rings.com
  • |
  • Blog Home
  • |
  • About the Author
  • |
  • Sample Chapter
  • ||

What is the Naming Committee?

Posted: August 25th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
Tags: Cirellio, Lura, style

There’s a system in Kassara that tries to ensure everyone has a single, unique name (no ‘surnames’). There are few enough people in Lura that it’s still possible.

Many people strive for harmony (especially the Northern Alliance) because they feel if people start sharing the same names or start adding additional names, it will bring the world one step closer to chaos, thus one step closer to a repeat of the day of discord.

So if a family has a baby, they must send a message to ‘Sky Haven’ with their requested name.

The elected officials at Sky Haven check their records to ensure that name doesn’t belong to anyone living. If that’s true, they create an ‘ID card’ for that child to use when crossing any city gates. That card will be traded in every five years throughout their life for a new card. The machine that creates the cards is large, lumbering, unique, and takes an almost unfathomable amount of energy to run. Their unusually high altitude in the mountains (closer to the arc lightning) helps them generate that power. Sky Haven uses the gates system and ID cards, attempting to keep track of the people of Kassara.

In the event that a person should earn a title recognized by the Naming Committee, they have earned honor for their name. When ‘Gaitan’ became ‘General Gaitan’, he was allowed to pass on his name once. Many of the new parents requested to name their child ‘Gaitan’, but he had planned to pass the name on to his son.

A child bestowed with a name of a titled individual is forbidden to accept the same title prior to their predecessor’s promotion, demotion, or death.

If a titled individual should be completely stripped of their title and they have given out their name to a child, they must relinquish their name and take on a new name with low honor, or become one of the ‘lost’.

If someone thought to be dead turns out to be alive, they must take on a new name. Until they do, they are ‘nameless’.

Anybody without a card living within the alliances is considered nameless. Many people without homes are nameless. They usually claim to have names, anyway. If a nameless leaves a town or city that uses the gate system, they are allowed to leave, but they can’t re-enter.

If one of the lost (people living outside of the alliances) happens to have the same name as an individual recognized by the Naming Committee, it must immediately be reported so proper action can take place. The lost are considered a threat to the years of harmony and upset the gods. Or so it is believed.

Prev: Courtly etiquette/Three things | Next: It takes three drafts, they say.

« « Courtly etiquette/Three things | It takes three drafts, they say. » »


2 Comments »

  1. Forgery must be fun.

    [Reply]

    Comment by elizaw — August 25, 2008 @ 12:03 pm


  2. LOL~ Fun? There’s a name for people like you in Lura. Nameless that try to cross gates illegally. Or people that attempt fake IDs. They’re called ‘rats’. ;)
    Sure, you could try and forge one. But you’d be found out within a day and a half of crossing a gate. Most forgeries are caught immediately at the gate.
    Even if your forgery was perfect, each crossing gets analyzed. If you take a non-existant name, the name of a deceased, or the name of another person, the Naming Committee would catch on very quickly. Within a city, you’d be captured by the guards. Outside a city, you’d be captured by the (even worse!) fugitive hunters.
    And you wouldn’t want to get caught in this world :) Punishment for rats is death by slow poison.

    [Reply]

    Comment by cirellio — August 25, 2008 @ 7:45 pm



~TrackBack URL~

Leave a comment

Click to cancel reply

Subscribe!
 
...by RSS Feed


...by Email

 

August 2008
S M T W T F S
« Jul   Sep »
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  

Tweets->

  • I've had a vision: A New Word Processor for Fantasy Novel Writers! - http://t.co/slVp1lUq 2012/02/07
  • Writing Journal Entry for 02-06 - http://t.co/UcYOgwgc 2012/02/06
  • Journal entry for 1-31 - http://t.co/R55wwbVO 2012/01/31
  • This morning's journal entry. - http://t.co/Rn6Noklt 2012/01/30
  • YTD - http://t.co/EEI44DQ4 2012/01/29

Recent Comments

  • Brian on I’ve had a vision: A Word Processor for Fantasy Novel Writers!
  • Brian on Writing Journal Entry for 02-06
  • Merrilee on I’ve had a vision: A Word Processor for Fantasy Novel Writers!
  • Merrilee on Writing Journal Entry for 02-06
  • Ryan G. Sanders on Writing Journal Entry for 02-06

Recent Posts

  • I’ve had a vision: A Word Processor for Fantasy Novel Writers!
  • Writing Journal Entry for 02-06
  • Journal entry for 1-31
  • This morning’s journal entry.
  • YTD

Archives

  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008

Resources for Writers:


The Word Cloud writing community
Limyaael's Rants
Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions

Blogs by Well-known Authors:


The Dragonmount Blog
Patrick Rothfuss
Brandon Sanderson
Neil Gaiman

Writing Broadcasts:


Writing Excuses Podcast

Fellow Writers:


Not Enough Words
Ryan G. Sanders
Soul Saga
C.R. Hindmarsh
Davina Pearson
The Awake Ones
One Swaying Behind
SmithWriting Blog
Natania Barron
Tales of a Fantasy Scribbler
Right Brain Spasms
Ken Kizer
Steph-O-Rama

Miscellaneous:


Blisters In May
Goodreads

How-To Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory Add to Technorati Favorites

Creative Commons License
FIVE RINGS by NICK ENLOWE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at 5-Rings.com. [E]





Copyright © 2007-2012 Nick Enlowe.

MCN: W16-4STV-6080