Another name for Tarshish?

As mentioned in the timeline in the GM's Companion, there was a 10,000 BC Mediterranean civilization named Tarshish. (A full writeup by Ian Young is archived here.) As was pointed out to me in a discussion, the name Tarshish here is anachronistic. In real life documents, Tarshish was a port that traded with the Israelites, not any kind of ancient civilization.

So if the name doesn't make sense, then what could replace it? Atlantis? While Plato's 9000 year estimate does place it in the same general range, the name Atlantis is Greek and Greek wouldn't have existed at that time.

I did some research, and ultimately there really aren't many suitable names that I could find. The best candidate I could find is "Kheheb", a name for a prehistoric Egyptian civilization in the roleplaying game Fireborn. It's a fictitious neologism, so I think it could fit okay. The language spoken by them would probably be completely speculative anyway, since this civilization collapsed 12,000 years ago and the oldest extant writing dates back 6,000 years ago. 

So I guess I'll use Kheheb from now on. Although that does leave the question of what to call the 100,000 years old prehuman Atlantic civilization...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What are the decans?

Image
In astrology, the zodiac signs  are ruled by particular planets  and divided into  three decans per sign  as shown on the figure below:  In the French 3e supplement  Codex des Ar-Kaïm , the concept of Decans is introduced as an additional way to define a character's personality. Each House has its own emotional nature, further modified by the character's Decan. All Houses have three Decans, except for Serpentarius that has none. In other words, the combination of House and Decan serves a similar role to the Nephilim's Metamorphosis. In the US version, this would be represented by BRP's Passions (or Personality Traits as they're labeled in Chronicle of the Awakenings ). I'm still trying to figure out how to integrate Passions into the Ar-Kaïm rules, as Ar-Kaïm lack metamorphoses but the concept overlaps heavily with the Essences mechanic (i.e. their magic points). Ar-Kaïm display environmental manifestations as a result of their Essence values and ...
Read more

What are the Minor Tablets?

In the third edition Gamemaster's Screen , the Quest for the Cycle of Destiny is introduced. (The fanzine  Vision-Ka  #3  specifies on p41 that this Quest is one and the same as the Arcane Quest of The Magician.) The goal of this quest is to acquire and study the Minor Tablets, crafted by Akhenaton as supplements to the 22 Major Arcana Trumps. The purpose of these Minor Tablets is to help mortals reach Agartha. There are four Minor Arcana  in total: The Wand (Fire), The Cup (Water), The Sword (Air) and The Coin (Earth). Keen-eyed readers may notice that the symbolism of the suits correspond loosely to the traditional magical tools (see Liber Ka p52). By pursuing this quest, the Nephilim is better able to understand their Simulacrum's Solar-Ka: they can boost their chances of Critical Success based on their Solar-Ka, retain player control during Shouit seizures rather than handing control to the GM, and develop Solar Resistance through initiation into a Minor Arcanum...
Read more

"Reverie" as a new degeneration for Ar-Kaïm?

In the character creation for Ar-Kaïm, during the Past step the note determines how much of their mortal life the character remembers. Apprentice means they have total amnesia, Journeyman means they remember only dreams and confuse it with reality, and Master means no memory loss. However, this section contradicts the rest of the book(s): Ar-Kaïm don't suffer any Skill loss and amnesia is never mentioned in their lore. I suspect this text was leftover from an earlier draft as an oversight. It obviously creates problems for roleplaying so I can understand why it was revised. However, the Ar-Kaïm Codex has a short story where the narrator briefly mentions she sometimes has difficulty distinguishing dreams from reality. This inspired me to imagine a new degeneration just for Ar-Kaïm, one I tentatively call "Reverie." Ar-Kaïm have a close bond to the Astral and to the dreams of humanity. The idea behind Reverie is that it represents a loss of control and identity as a result ...
Read more