Worldbuilding the Ruon Chronicles – The Tellerassar: Shape-shifters of Airtha-Eyrassa
Or, humans turning into eagles (because it’s cool)
Hello again, Fellow Adventurer,
I hope you’ve had a great week!
In this week’s newsletter I’m having a look at the Tellerassar, who play a significant part in The Ruon Chronicles.
The Tellerassar: Shape-shifters of Airtha-Eyrassa
The Tellerassar are the shape-shifters of Airtha-Eyrassa and can turn into eagles and back into humans. The eagle that they turn into looks and sounds surprisingly exactly like an African Fish Eagle… strange how that happened. ;)
Their call is often described as being ‘mournful’ because of a legend of how they got their call and their link with the Water Women (also called Alaila’s Daughters). This is how it sounds:
The Tellerassar usually wear different neutral colours, only wearing colourful clothes at weddings and on important feast days. Their most important feast day, is Becoming Day; when they celebrate the day that they were given the Nith to shape-shift.
Clothes of the Tellerassar are also filled with Nith by Ruon in order that the clothes shape-shift with the wearer. The Nith is mostly imparted through embroidery, but can also be done with tatting, lace, and crochet. Knitting is very seldom used.
For the most part the Tellerassar live in Heimfeie, where they live in city states separate from the non-shape-shifting mortals. These cities are built into and onto the sides of cliffs and mountains. To the north of Heimfeie and in the south of Kauko, the cities’ richest houses are often crafted by the Ciph stone workers of Kauko.
The Tellerassar was given the Nith to shape-shift at the time of the Second Sundering. At this time, they were being brutally attacked by the Erewhar from what is now Treddian and Khallahna. Cornered in a gorge with no way of escape, the people that became the Tellerassar was taken pity on by Agrai and given the Nith to become eagles and escape the Erewhar.
(The Erewhar would later become known as the Agravér in the Midlands – read more about them here – but retained their name in the Farlands, including in the country Khallahna, where they are still a feared nomadic people.)
In other news
The weather here has been on the cooler side, which I’ve been really enjoying. I also decided to (finally) rearrange my books… which is a bigger job than I thought. I did not realise that some of the books were in such disarray. Different languages and genres were all jumbled together in the one bookshelf, so I had some serious re-packing of that one to do.
Plus I’d moved all my books from upstairs downstairs and needed to get those in the right places as well.
I hope that by next week I’ll have some proper shelfies ready!
Until next time, stay safe!
Love,
Carin