Alia Terra - Stories from the Dragon Realm

A Castle in the Mountains
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 10:55:50 PM

Hey everyone, Ava, Matt, and Emily here.

Starting with Ava:

(After having defeated the bear with their newly acquired sword, Ava teleports the audience to a castle in the mountains.)

Romania has its fair share of castles, fortresses, and citadels. From the Corvin Castle—and the fans of the Underworld movies have heard this name, though it is not the only instance in which it has been used in western media focused on vampires and werewolves—to the Bran Castle—oftentimes a tourist attraction for having been a residence of the historical figure Vlad Țepeș—these monuments of times past spread out throughout the country.

One of the most beautiful—if not even the most—is Peleș Castle. Built between 1873 and 1914, it was commissioned by the first king of Romania (ever! but more about that another time) Carol I of Hohenzollern–Sigmaringen.

Built with the most modern technologies at the time, Peleș was the first fully electrified European castle, with elevators, air conditioning, central heating and running water, a mobile roof and a central dust aspirator. It has 160 rooms and the central tower is 66 meters in height (216 ft.). The central dust aspirator, installed in 1901 by the German company Brevets Herz-Kozac still works to this day, after a century. What do I mean central aspirator? Well, imagine an HVAC system with ventilation shafts, except these were used to suck in air instead of blow it about. Heh.

It is an impressive piece of architecture and a wonderful sight if you ever find yourself about these lands. I visited it in 2014 and let me tell you, it's worth the trip.

Peleș is in the city of Sinaia, in the Prahova Valley. This river divides the Southern Carpathians from the Eastern chain. Nearby is the Bucegi Natural Park. The valley and surrounding mountains are quite an attractive area, both in summer and winter, offering vacation resorts and a myriad of peaks mountain passionates strive to climb and conquer. For the curious, the tallest peak, Omu (in English, The Human), is 2514m (the tallest peak in Romania is at 2544m, Modoveanu, and for comparison, Pike’s Peak in Colorado is 4300m).

Now, to Matt:

Matt here, with some art notes! When I was exploring images of Romania’s castles, looking for inspiration, I needed a tower that could stand on its own. Ava’s first story features a dragon who takes it upon themself to rescue a princess from a tower that’s described “like a jewel in a sea of leaves”. I needed a tower that looked impossible for our dragon to ignore!

The lovely corner tower of Peles Castle provided reference for a visually striking tower exterior. When it comes to illustrating the story and what happens in the tower, it also leaves plenty of room for invention! An interesting exterior like this leads me to ask “what does that look like inside?” “How does the ceiling in that room correspond with the shape of the roof?” “What does the sun look like streaming through those windows?” —all exciting questions that I get to answer when I create the illustrations for Alia Terra.

And a quick note from Emily:

(Sneaking in like a waggling puppet from the side.) All pledges (at all levels!) add more of Matt’s illustrations to the book, so we really appreciate you letting people know about the project. We’re so hopeful we can reach the hardcover goal soon so that we can leap forward to a fully illustrated book: with beautiful Romanian architecture and more soaring dragons. (And here’s that link to share: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/atthisarts/alia-terra)

Our best from the team: Ava, Matt, and Emily.

Dragons in Romanian Mythology
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 04:19:47 AM

Ava here. Good morning, or afternoon, or evening!

Today we're talking dragons. They're found in many cultures, across rich mythology, with various intentions and characteristics. They have different names, depending on wings, number of limbs, and whatnot. Smaug, for instance, is a firebreather hoarder of gold, willing to rip the world apart to keep his treasure.

The native Romanian dragon is called balaur (pl. balauri). They have snake-like bodies, wings and legs. The most notable difference is the number of heads. Usually they have three, seven, nine, up to twelve heads. Even when there's only one head, it has many tongues: three, seven, nine, twelve. Not random quantities: numbers have meanings in Romanian mythology and folklore. The most prevalent is three: tasks and trials happen in threes, the mythical magic wielders of medieval folk tales come in three, etc.

The Romanian balaur eats people. Sometimes. They are the guardians of treasures, usually gems, and considered incarnations of evil. Water balauri live in wells, waiting for unsuspecting victims. Earth balauri live in the underground, the smiths of gemstones. Sky balauri serve as beasts for a type of wizard-mage called solomonar.

Folk tales often feature such creatures against which the beautiful and valiant hero must stand. At times, those balauri who'd bitten off more than they could chew—literally, for instance a stag with large antlers—would help the hero who frees them from their mishap.

The words dragon and balaur have the same general meaning, in Romanian. The differences are there, if one looks closer at the origin of these creatures. My personal interpretation is that balauri are a subset of dragons, like a species vs. a genus. Or perhaps a family relative to an order. As a side note, it would be quite interesting to develop a book of cryptid and mythological creature classification across all (willing and open) world cultures, who's with me?

The dragons of Alia Terra, however, have four limbs and one head with, assumingly one tongue. Not that tongues are important to the plot. However, the choice I made for these characters, when translating into Romanian, was to keep the word dragon as a descriptor instead of balaur. (As another, gentle side note, if you want a story about a balaur in Alia Terra, two of the higher reward tiers will get you one of your own: Story Treasure and Wish Fairy.)

Of course, since mythology in this part of the world has observed a co-evolution process with the neighboring countries, the creature Romanian mythology knows as balaur might be encountered as zmeu in slavic folklore (zmey: a multi-headed serpent). However, on Romanian lands, the zmeu (pl. zmei) is a wingless but tailed creature, driven by greed—ugly, evil.

Closing off this update with Draco. This is the name of the Dacian flag and of the creature it depicts: a wolf with the body of a snake. Draco's etymological origins are in "the one who sees, the one who guards" with both Latin (draco) and Greek roots (drakon). When this flag was raised, when it was taken on a ride atop a horse, the wind would pass through its mouth and body, releasing a long, dreadful howl. How's that for the warriors of ancient times?

Thank you for joining us through this journey. We're aiming for the hardcovers with the next tier, and then—up, up and away—to the many illustrations Matt is just waiting to start working on. If you can, spread the word! We much appreciate it.

Have a lovely Tuesday, everyone!

Ava

The Nonbinary Folkwear of Alia Terra
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jun 06, 2021 at 11:50:02 AM

Hello again! Matt here, and Ava too!

Today we’ve got some early character sketches to share! These designs might change a little between now and the final book illustrations, but we want to talk about the specifically Romanian influence in their appearances!

Matt: One of the first requests from Ava when I started doing exploratory sketching for this project was to incorporate elements of Romanian folk costume into the apparel of the characters! They kindly provided me with some reference images specific to their region,  Dobrogea, and I was more than happy to oblige!

Queen Maria of Romania, 1920, American National Red Cross photograph collection (Library of Congress)

Ava: The most distinct element of traditional Romanian wear, common across the entire country, is the ie (ia, in its articulated form). Ia is a tunic usually made of soft, flowy fabric, embroidered in ways specific to each region. The patterns tell stories sometimes, their bits and pieces have meaning. It’s a way to map the socio-economic and cultural evolution of the Romanian historical regions. The ie is still a sought garment nowadays. There are welcome reinventions of it, some modernization, some changes in style, to match the world moving forward. Fabric in more than white can be seen coming out of talented hands of embroiderers, manually crafting these gems.

The Dobrogean tunics are simpler than most, often due to the sparsity of resources as this region, tucked between the last bend of the Danube and the shores of the Black Sea, has been subject to occupation on various occasions. A happy outcome, however, is the nowadays cultural diversity of the region, which brought forth a fascinating variety of folk wear.

Today, we talk about the Romanian costumes of Northern Dobrogea. As with many things, in Romanian culture, the costume is rooted in a gender binary: for women, for men (we’ll get to that later).

The women's setup has a long ie and an overskirt. The latter is called fota, made of two narrow strips of embroidered fabric (worn front and back over the lower half of the ie), usually of black or red thick fabric. The ie is tucked under the skirt. The men’s costume has an ie with less embroidery, worn untucked over tight underpants, falling down to mid-thigh or knee in length. A vest is sometimes worn over the ie, both forms have it in colder seasons. Yes! You’ve noticed correctly! No pants here! Heh.

A particular detail of the Dobrogean wear is the tall waistband, both types of costumes have it. Embroidered as well, it holds the tunic tight around the waist, keeps up the skirt and fota, makes a bold statement in the otherwise relatively simple design. A detail I am particularly fond of is the way the ie sleeves end, in a wide, loose fall, instead of bunched by a band and elastic. Ah, but you ask, would that not become frustrating when trying to do housework? Of course, that’s why the edge of the sleeve often has a thread run through ending in tassels that can be tightened to hold the sleeve in place when needed. (Pst! You can see this in the main graphic, on the left.)

The lack of a nonbinary culture is evident in these two variations. So when we were discussing character design, the idea to mix elements into a new setup came and we both embraced it.

Matt: So I looked at the general shape of the clothing, as well as the color and embroidery detailing, but given the very binary nature of Romanian folkwear and the nonbinary nature of Alia Terra’s characters, I tried to work a bit of a departure from that into my sketches.

The first round of character sketches incorporated some mixed elements in combination:

• The look of the ie and fota with the appearance of the longer tunic and boots
• The vest, with ie and fota
• The waistband, loose trousers that emulate the cut of a skirt, and boots.

I liked the silhouette of that final lower right sketch, so I ultimately used that one for the character I’ve been referring to as The Tower Princess, as shown below on the left!

We continued the folk-costume inspiration in the design of a character we’ll call The Mage, but giving it a slightly different spin. For inspiration, we took a look at ancient history and mythology.

Ava: Before Romania was Romania, the ancient lands were known as Dacia. Eternal adversaries, wars abounded between the Roman empire and Dacia, with the Danube as a witness and major impediment to the Roman forces who had to cross this wide, wide swath of rushing water to get to the other side. Like a non-romantic Romeo reaching for an enemy-Juliet, the Romans employed greco-syrian architect Apolodor of Damascus to bridge that… erm, bridge. A massive feat. Apolodor appears in a book of historical tales by Dumitru Almaș from 1982. This book is very well known, especially the illustrations with high historical accuracy by Valentin Tănase.

Matt: In its depiction, Apolodor wears a (sort of) toga, with a red sash draped across his shoulder. A scholar, as The Mage in our story is.

Ava: But the duality of Romanian heritage is not complete without the Dacian counterpart, so we looked further into the first so-called mage of ancient history. This is Deceneu, philosopher and astronomer, advisor of Dacian king Burebista. But also a priest of the Dacian god Zamolxis.

Matt: In his Dacian wear, Deceneu is garbed in sort of a loose, light colored robe with a belted sash crossing his chest.

Ava: What of magic users across Romanian lands? Well, witchcraft is a recognized trade in Romania nowadays! But we can’t infringe on practices that don’t belong to us, so we looked into mythological magic users. The iele are a type of mythological Romanian witch. They dance naked under moonlight, use their powers for either good or evil, and wear crowns of flowers. Sometimes they are human, other times they are fairies, and most often easily offended.

Matt: To create a design that hearkened back to Romania’s history, and upon Ava’s fantastic suggestion, I explored giving our mage a long white robe and a sash, but adding in the distinct embroidery, and giving them long hair braided with flowers.

Ava, in a whisper: When I saw the first sketches, without knowing Matt’s process beforehand, it was as if they were plucked from my own imagination! They are incredible, combining tradition with new motifs in a way that tenders to my nonbinary sensibilities.

Ava, louder for the audience: Anyway, what’s with the queen? You may have noticed an image of Queen Marie of Romania (1875-1938)—Regina Maria a României—earlier in this update. She was quite enamoured with her adoptive people, a strong and well-remembered presence in our history. Her clothing, as well, made an impression, from her days as principesă (def.: daughter of a sovereign, or wife of a principe (male version), sovereign herself and not merely a descendent, as is the case with prințesă, i.e. princess), to the traditional wear her and her daughters preferred during her years as queen.

Matt: In the above image we get a glimpse of a contrast in clothing styles: between a more medievally inspired dress for the Princess in Gold and the clearly folkwear inspired garb for the bespectacled Princess on the left!

Ava: A fiery dress for a fiery cutie! (Exiting stage left: Excuse me! Hello? Yes, I need a sword.)

Matt: These watercolor and pencil sketches—and a ton of additional preliminary work alongside occasional narration of the illustration process—will be in the Behind The Scenes Artbook! If you enjoy updates like these, please consider backing at a reward tier that includes the Digital Hoard exclusives!

Thank you so much for joining us in the creation of Alia Terra, looking forward to that hardcover stretch goal and beyond! (Matt, exiting stage right, pursued by a bear: Until next time!!)

Pride, Mândrie, and the Romanian Alphabet
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jun 03, 2021 at 11:29:23 PM

Hello, this is Ava.

To everyone celebrating around the world: Happy Pride! Even if you’re celebrating in a different month, even if you’re celebrating in silence, even if you’re afraid of celebrating. We see you, we stand with you.

For the better half of my life, being gay in Romania was a criminal offense. Kind words were not spoken, people outside the cishet normative were not visible anywhere. The decades pile up and the lack of this-person-is-like-me leads to staggering self-doubt. There were no marches, no visibility. Knowing me took a long time.

First Pride I ever attended was in 2018. In this century, you ask? Yeah. My reasons were multiple, most important of which: I didn’t want people living around me to know me. I had to think of reactions, or the insurmountable task of educating others on what is nonbinary, what is asexual, what is aromantic. The difference between them.

Goosebumps on my arms, I was almost in tears seeing people being so free in 2018 in Antwerp. Then 2020 hit. Dearly missing the friends that made the trip to Pride happen for me, I wrote the Alia Terra stories. Beyond the very important messages they carry, these stories are precious to me in another way: visibility. Showing characters like me, showing the world and showing Romania that hey, people are made of (queer) magic.

I am so grateful for those who can continue to let people know about the project, to back or share. I think it’s important to show the world there is an audience for nonbinary art, reminding adults and teaching kids about their own happiness. A fully illustrated book is very much possible, especially if we can push forward to the next goal of $7500, when hardcovers will become available.

So, Pride. In Romanian, the English word Pride is used, but for the curious out there, its translation is: Mândrie. How would we read that? What’s with the little hat on top of the a? (Yes, we call it a hat!) Let’s see a few fun things about the Romanian alphabet. Enjoy!

The Romanian alphabet has 31 letters. Out of these, 26 are the same one as the English alphabet, while the remaining 5 are obtained by adding diacritic marks to existing letters.

Ă is the middle sound of fur. Ș is the sound of sh. Ț is the sound of tz.

 and Î are the same sound. The first one is used in the middle of words, the latter at the beginning or end. Exceptions apply in proper names. But what sound is this? Just as the English-specific th does not exist in Romanian, you won't find â/î in English. Say ngh, with a groan. Well, it's like the end of that groan. Except shorter and with more life.

An interesting group of phonemes in Romanian is: ce/ci/ge/gi and che/chi/ghe/ghi. Ce as in chest, ci as in chick, ge as in generous, gi as in gene. Let's see the others! Che as in keratin, chi as in kill, ghe as in guest, and ghi as in guild.

So now we can answer the eternal question. Is it GIF of JIF? If you're speaking Romanian, you'd say it with the gi phoneme, as in gene, written gif. For the curious, jif would be pronounced with a sound like /zh/ (the sound the s makes in division).

Before we part for the day, one last thing. Spreading the word around and backing the book now will help us wrangle those algorithms and gain momentum again. March (virtually) with me!

Ava

Salt and bread
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 02, 2021 at 10:27:42 PM

Hello, Ava again! First, some news: we’ve reached the first stretch goal! Which means bookplates are in the works and I’m testing ink. Looking forward to the hardcover options (at the $7.5k stretch goal). In the meantime, some more Romanian things.

We have a saying here: being good like salt in food. Good as in tasty. It’s connected to a folk tale. In 1840, Petre Ispirescu heard it from his mother, then published it in 1887, to become a story I fondly remember from childhood. A story with a lesson, as it were.

It is said that long ago, there lived a king with three daughters. One day, the king asks each of them to express how they love their father (kind of a dastardly move if you ask me). The eldest says, "Father, I love you like honey." The middle: "like sugar." The king is extremely pleased. The youngest, however, when her turn comes, says, "Father, I love you like salt in food."

At that, the king is angry, enough that he banishes the daughter from his kingdom (stay with me, it gets better). The girl travels and, after looking for work, ends up as a scullery maid in another king's kitchen. She is hard working, smart, polite, and soon becomes a maid to the queen. When the prince of the castle is wounded in battle, the young woman nurses him back to health… and you guessed it, they're soon to be married. Romance! But that's not the point of this particular tale. The point is that she is appreciated and cherished by her new family who welcome her with open arms.

For the wedding, the bride makes sure that her father is invited. And during the feast, she specifically cooks all his dishes. Except, she replaces the salt with sugar and honey, or doesn't use salt at all. The father is naturally confused by the difference between his food, which he definitely does not like, and the food eaten by those sitting around him, that he demands an explanation.

At which point, like Anastasia shedding her fur coat, the daughter stands up and explains. Her love was like salt in food: you don't notice it's missing until it's gone. And that she's found a new family that doesn't demand proof of her affection.

Why salt? It's an old thing. Salt used to be precious. In the Roman empire, soldiers were paid in salt. Surely, in other cultures, a different ingredient or condiment or spice is better regarded (let me know if that's the case in yours!).

As for Romanians, the traditional, folk greeting of guests in one's home is with hot bread and salt. Romanian bread is never sweet (we have other bread-like dishes that are sweet). It isn't salty either. It's there, on the table, as a companion to other food. Dip it in soup, use it for spreads, bread is a staple in Romanian homes. As is salt.

Speaking of salt, an interesting place to see in Romania is the Turda Saltmines. The graphics of this update are from there, from a trip I took a couple of years back. If you ever pop up in this part of the world, Turda is somewhere in the heart of Transilvania. Don't forget your garlic!

Ava