Meta:Content Notice

Conventions

This wiki is the companion to the Oathbond World Bible. Both are canonical. The wiki is written and maintained solely by the Owner, so everything on it is canon unless a page is explicitly marked otherwise. The Bible is the primary text — the registered, copyrighted work the wiki is built from — and every lore page carries a == PAGE: Template:Tl == {{Bible}} tag naming the section it draws on. Where the two differ, the wiki is the more current and should be taken as correct: it is updated continuously, while the Bible is revised only at intervals. Any difference will be folded into the next revision of the Bible.

The wiki is a source of truth, not an in-world text

This wiki is written from outside Teraell. A great deal of what it says is not known to anyone living in the world. Where something is true but unknown, the page says so plainly rather than implying it, and marks the passage with a == PAGE: Template:Tl == {{Hidden truth}} box. Where the world itself has not settled a question, the page says that too, with a == PAGE: Template:Tl == {{Contested}} box.

The Oathbond

The Oathbond is the spine of this world. It is a person's standing: who answers for them, what they answer for, and what they must keep doing to hold it. A free person has one. A slave has none, and wears her owner's at her throat instead. Everything on this wiki that looks like law is downstream of it. If you are unsure how something in Teraell works, ask first who answers for it.

Names are translations

English names given for animals, plants, places, and institutions are the nearest available English word, not identifications. A Butera is not a butterfly from our world. A Spidh is not a spider, a Vaelith is not a horse, and Gechwyn is not wheat. When a page says "a horse-sized riding animal," it means exactly that and no more.

Ordinary objects and metals are exempt. A chair is a chair. Iron is iron, and brass is the same two metals in any universe.

City names are given in English throughout — Shining Reach, Forgegate, Stormharbor, Eldershore, Clearhold, the Iron Coves. Their in-world CLT names are given in the Lexicon and in each city's infobox.

The language names are translations too

Common Reason Tongue (CRT/CLT) and Brain Rot Tongue (BRT) render terms from two different eras. BRT is an English rendering of an insulting term for the language, given in tongues that have long since been lost. "Common Reason Tongue" is an echo of that older name, coined by whoever rendered these materials into English. It is not a name the speakers use. To them it is simply the Spraecha — the speech.

The Lexicon gives the tongue in three stages: Proto, Middle, and Modern. Lexicon pages are titled with a stage prefix, e.g. Lexicon:Modern/Abwynd.

Measures

Measures are given in their own units with a real-world gloss at first use on a page, then bare after. The full table is at Weights and Measures.

Dates

Dates are reckoned from the first year of records kept by the survivors of the Fall. The present year is 917. In the world this is simply the year the count began, before any city-state — even Eldershore — existed.

Cultural references

Each city-state page carries a note on its founding cohort and aesthetic references. These exist for writers and artists and are not in-world knowledge; nobody in Teraell would make these associations. They are also not equivalences. The founding cohorts came from our world, so the resemblance is inherited and real, but nine hundred years of separate development have made each city its own. Clearhold is not Yunnan. Eldershore is no place in Africa. The references tell you where to look for the texture of a place — the shape of a roof, the cut of a coat, the way a hall is laid out — and stop there. Where the reference and the world disagree, the world wins. See Meta:Cultural References.

Page conventions on this wiki

• Lore pages summarize and cross-link; they do not reproduce the Bible. For the full text, consult the Bible section in the page's == PAGE: Template:Tl ==

{{Bible}} tag.

• Bold the page's subject on first mention. Link the first mention of any creature, plant, place, institution, or CLT word.
• CLT words in running text are italic and link to their Lexicon page: caeshmae.
• Use "she" for slaves in general discussion and "he" for owners, as the Bible does, unless the page is specifically about male slaves or female owners.
• The wiki names institutions and vocabulary; it does not depict sexual acts. Where the Bible is explicit, the wiki summarizes.
• Everyone involved in anything sexual in Teraell is an adult. This is not a matter of interpretation.
• Nothing published under the Meta:Teraell Creator License is canon. Do not add fan material to lore pages.