by R J Theodore
Presscoins: Cutter currency. Smelted and minted precious metal, stamped with the official seal of the Empire on one side, and a portrait of the ruler, or ruling family, on the other. Pressed in copper, silver, or gold.
Pygmy frond wyrm: A small tube-shaped creature that looks more like a clump of marsh grass than a creature. It is covered with tiny photosensitive spots on its body. It has a central nervous system and ganglia but no obvious brain.
Ra-Kaz: An enormous, towering timepiece in the center of Kasrespazi in Lippen on the island of Heddard Bay. Used to track the time and moderate activity within the city through a system of water-filled chambers that quickly spread the clockwork vibrations to areas that would otherwise be out of range of hearing the chimes and movements.
Sally bar: Slang for ‘salvage bar’. Tool for wedging, levering, and severing.
Salvage gear: Suit, helmet, gloves, lines, winches, and communication wiring which allows a person to (almost) safely visit flotsam to retrieve lost items.
Self-winching grapple cannon: Elbow-braced cannon to launch a tined-projectile connected to winch-wound wire, designed to reel a loaded net or bag through a narrow shaft.
Simula: Yu’Nyun-produced android capable of being programmed for both appearance and behavior. Can be controlled, if necessary, by a circlet device that interfaces with its cranial drive. When inert, appear Yu’Nyun in shape, with translucent gel-filled skin over a mechanical skeleton. May or may not include organic matter in the gel mixture.
Sinistral: Direction counter to the natural spin of flotsam around Nexus. Opposite of dextral.
Sirenia: Large roving beasts of the sky which feed on vegetation. Bioluminescing signaling across their body, large fins for display. They attain buoyancy through a balance between inflatable gas organs and consumed ballast.
Slips: Localized wind systems that travel faster than the air around them.
Star sharks: Air fauna that spends its adolescence floating between islands thanks to buoyant glands of gas in their many appendages. They lose their buoyancy as they mature and older star sharks are found on cliff faces beneath islands where they feed on other nesting lifeforms and congregate for mating and nesting. The mouth in the center of their body is filled with a saw-bladed set of flesh-rending teeth.
Starship: Fully enclosed ships designed for the vacuum of space, capable of long range travel between stars.
Stormwater depot: Supply stations set up within the storm clouds to collect rainwater for use across Peridot, especially for steam engines. Visited by water trawler airships, and also by smugglers and pirates as a place to hide.
Tocks: Soulless therapods who live and hunt in the wilds of Rakkar volcanic island jungles. Created as an early experiment of life by Arthel Rak. Capable of organization and spoken communication and primitive tool making. At maturity, they reach only 0.675 meters in height. They are mostly active at dawn and dusk, are extremely territorial. They are often preyed upon by large flighted creatures and stay within the trees of their native jungles.
Trade winds: A stable system of winds at Horizon, established by Silus Cutter after Recreation, along which an airship could navigate around Peridot. Islands and cities along this route became very prosperous and had a distinct economic advantage over others and, as a result, became large population centers.
Tripolarizing kiparcoiled band-conducted electroionic nimbofauna deterrent: Illicit alchemical device designed to protect ships that travel within storm systems from the predatory creatures that live therein. Operates by absorbing and re-channeling the electric currents of storm system lightning and unstable polarization of the air.
’tronics: Referring to the backward-engineered technology from the civilization predating the Cataclysm.
Undercity: A city that is suspended from the bedrock of one of Peridot’s floating islands. Usually to access mineral deposits, but sometimes as a matter of increasing the useable space on an island. Some are motley and/or ramshackle, as with Subrosa, while others are developed, properly constructed, and maintained.
Xercoles: Large dromedary-like gryphon, with webbed feet well-suited to walking in difficult terrain. They can be domesticated if their flight feathers are kept clipped but tend to become aloof and skittish when they are allowed to regrow. Their wooly hairs are often harvested for textile manufacturing and take dye exceptionally well.
Yu’keem: The language of the Yu’Nyun. Refers to both the spoken and written systems. Appears not to have dialects or slang in its current form, perhaps as a result of one socioeconomic class departing the Yu’Nyun planet generations ago and developing along extremely rigid societal guidelines and aided (or limited) by the absolute authority of their computer-stored libraries.
Zalika: See ‘Mermaids’.
Zepherion ferret: Small slender rodent noted for the spectacular eyesight that allows them to hunt even smaller prey while gliding on updrafts.
