18.iv
Acknowledgements and Research References:
The Sun is Also a Warrior
This woman was a wonderful folk singer and I recommend listening to all of her other works and collaborations. They capture a wonderful tone on a great many topics. If you enjoyed my story I expect you will like her work as well.
Handbook for William
This is another source for genuine words from the medieval area. And I found it a wonderful insight into a woman’s sincere desire to impart wisdom to her children. A sentiment I have found consistently recurring over millennia of human literature and letters. It is something I find heartening to see echoing again and again through the ages, mothers caring for their children so earnestly
I very much recommend getting a copy of a translation (but the cheaper ones) and reading through the entirety of the handbook yourself. There is much that remains the same over all the ages, even while there are things you might be shocked are different.
I do warn that the historical Douda and her eldest son did not fare as well as this one, for there was no true wyrm egg to keep William politically important enough to let live, I like to think the dream of this story where her son is allowed to thrive is an homage to Douda’s memory.
Cambrian Chronicles
Lovely and entertaining little channel on Welsh History, and also a great example of just how much of a pain researching and verifying history actually is.
Also how humans have not really changed over the centuries and almost no-one checks their sources no matter the era.
Mythology Database
An excellent tool for searching through all the folklore in the world, a great place to start if you want to try and fill in parts of your own world with cultural elements or just to simply browse the way the various motifs of stories change over time.
Transcending the Self in Immersive Virtual Reality
This paper along with others on the nature of ways that immersive experience can and has had fundamental effects and shifts on the self reflection, empathy and self perception of people’s own body image and perspective is one of the foundational pieces for my approach to a lot of the ways that magical transformations and body changes are approached in this book series.
Informed from them I have strived neither to depict a pure fantasy wish fulfillment or an overwhelming curse that shatters a brittle and rigid self image of its victims.
I think that while there are stories to tell involving both they also show a lack of appreciation for humanity’s breadth and capacity to bend, flex, change and adapt.
There is from all the research I’ve seen in neuroscience and perception a baseline of immense amounts of plasticity and resilience in what people experience their senses as, how they identify their body and define their own self.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
I’ve sought to try and acknowledge this nature. That thing I’ve seen and felt glimpses of in the diversity of humanity in my story. There are of course those that are not so resilient, but I suspect on the whole we are stronger than fiction currently favors depicting.
The Pottery of Uruk
Not a complete or even entirely accurate narrative for this topic. But an interesting approach to consider and a perspective that gets some of Alder’s viewpoint on civilization across. I’d say that this is probably a very common impression as far as most elves in my story are concerned.
Even if it is an inaccurate one.
The Red Quills Mapmaking
A wonderful alternative way to approach and think about history, in context of maps and cultures expected by it. Also a pretty nice soothing background for the illustrated sections. If I ever draw a map for this series I will likely leverage some of the less modern styles of map making to illustrate this distinction.
The Gulper and the Slurper: A Lexicon of Mistakes to Avoid While Eating with Ottoman Gentlemen
It took a bit of doing to find a proper source for this but this book is quite the hilarious little insight into both how courtesy at the dinner table can vary, and how much it can remain the same.
Murad the First & Vladimer Tepes
These two actually did not overlap with one another at all historically and to be quite honest so much is different in this story that neither has all of that much similarity to their historical selves except in broad relative geography and acclaim.
In history Vladimer never got the blessing of a literal goddess and vampiric powers, he had to accomplish his ends through brutality and terror. But in the same breath both vladimers suffered under imprisonment of empires that practiced terrifying means to attain military superiority.
And found a way to fight back against them, learning and being shaped by their experiences.
I’d say that by all rights vampire Vladimer in this story had his cruelty and monstrosity tempered by his vows and the pledge he made to protect his people. The actual man that lived by all records we can find was a rough one.
If you ever find yourself time traveling and have an opportunity to go to a dinner party hosted by Dracula, never attend. So many of those ended badly for the guests.
For Murad? Honestly the historical personage has sparse details for me to reference so I authored the personality from nearly whole cloth. But he did kill his first son in a rebellion against him.
Hyperpyrexia & On the Sacred Disease
While normal fevers will generally not kill you, there are exceptions where it can be very life threatening and how it is treated makes a huge difference. If a sufficiently high fever is sustained due to either hyperthermia or hyperpyrexia then it can and will cause brain damage and eventually death, and it does not take long to do this.
Unfortunately Muriel’s initial symptoms and the treatment thereof were a very poor confluence for such things.
What was taken as an overabundance of ‘cool’ factors to her humors was treated with heat.