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Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Luck of the Little People

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

In the City, there's a day when fountains are dyed green, a parade is held, and a great deal of alcohol is consumed (which is to say, somewhat more than usual). This celebration was brought to the New World by immigrants from the isle of Ibernia, a land under the rule of Grand Lludd.

Since before recorded history, Ibernia was the home of a race of pygmies known to later invaders as the Little People (a name the People themselves alternately reject or grudgingly accept). The Little People used the celebration to honor the Green Man, a mysterious eikone or pagan god of the natural world, who in some way helped them wrest control of Ibernia from savage giants (similar to hillbilly giants, at least in the legends) who dwelt there.


Waves of invaders, these bearing iron weapons, drove the Little People into underground homes and fortifications. There, waited out the invaders they couldn’t repel--and often ultimately assimilated them. A succession of Lluddish monarchs, from the earliest days of the kingdom through the rule of the Gloriana, down to the most recently decanted iteration of Her Preserved Majesty, Victoriana, have made that difficult. The magic of the Little People, cunning as they are in the art of illusion, has been no match for the doctors thaumaturgical in service of the crown.

To escape oppression, and poverty, the Little People immigrated to the New World, including City.  There many came to live in the crowded slums of the neighborhoods of Hardluck and Hell's Commot. Things weren't particularly easier there. As newcomers they were considered undesirables--viewed as drunken, and over-emotive. Some of these stereotypes remain, but over the decades they have made a place for themselves in New World society.

Over time, life in the New World has led them to grow taller (like the Dwergen before them), and most people who claim ancestry in “the old shires” aren’t remarkably short at all (though some pygymy families still remain). Whatever, they’re height, they care the pride of their people, and their yearly celebration with them.

9 comments:

  1. Good grief you better be talking about Leprechauns and not hobbits:D

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  2. I plead an inability to find any suitable leprechaun illustrations. :D

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  3. Okay, I missed this. Who or what is Her Preserved Majesty?

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  4. Awesome. Trey your strange new world just seems so natural. Every post describing a new feature or location just feels so authentic, like you are describing a place that I already knew existed. I guess this is because it is obviously based so much on our world, but I don't know. Great job.

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  5. @C'norr - You haven't missed it. :) Other than her being the queen of Grand Lludd (as first mentioned as such in the Undersea post) I haven't really said too much about her. Look for it at some point in the future, maybe next week in fact.

    @Pierce - Thanks Pierce. Versimilitude is something I sort of try for. Certainly using the real world stuff adds a degree of familiarity, though I hope I'm adding enough (or at leasting mixing it up enough) to keep in interesting and somewhat "new."

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  6. You couldn't find leprechaun images???

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v_N8Zne6IWY/T998rkYvahI/AAAAAAAAMHo/5MBqZ3uLC_4/s1600/little+people.jpg

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  7. Ha! I think I could do without Nazi Leprechauns.

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  8. OK, you did say "suitable"...

    Although my counter-argument is that any leprechaun encounters that do not involve those pictured are the poorer for it.

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