The Nomarian Glossary & Then Some...
Please note that some of these entries are connected with the second Nomaris book, which has not been completed much less published. Hints about "Nomaris: In The Beginning" will be dropped all over the place for any Reader curious enough to pick them up.
Amon: Elder male and Phailok's closest friend. He gets to prove this when he agrees to become Guardian to the baby Ryteera. Cynthargis has a crush on Amon, although she doesn't recognize First Love yet. He is a blue and gray dragon with strong silver highlights.
Aradiel (ara-dee-el): Elder, lives in the woods near the Circle of Light, a favorite gathering place of the Elders. Aradiel is a white dragon in her true form, with gold and silver highlights.
Balassa (bah-lah-sah): a flower that looks exactly like a rose, because it is. But before the no-Portal ruling (which applied to everyone but Elders,) Madwhack the Strict and a few of his friends accidentally discovered Terra, a beautiful planet that shared many of the attributes of Nomaris. To mark this discovery as a possible future home for Nomarians with wanderlust, they transplanted several kinds of native balassa to Terra's fertile soils. The Terrans loved the balassa flowers and were eager to help them prosper. The next time Madwhack paid a visit, he was pleased to see the balassa everywhere, although the Terrans called them "roses."
Beziks (bee-zicks): a population of small winged beings, they are similar to bees except that they do not live in hives, do not make honey, have four arms and two legs, are twenty times larger than the largest bee you ever saw…and they talk. They pollinate and tend to the lailah fields which would be no more than sparse, scraggly weedpots without the help. Beziks Pod & Carapina, mates, are private gardeners at Castle Cynthargis and live in a dome next to the greenhouse there.
After ice formed a unique frigid zone in the northern hemisphere, the two Beziks and their families created an ice park there which became a popular vacation spot, especially in late Osborn.
Boka (bow-kah): a tree that looks somewhat like a Terran rubber tree plant. The leaves are waxed and used for bowls, the sap is cooked down into delightfully sweet syrup and the bark is grated as a seasoning.
Branta (bran-tah): a huge, dark red to black root that's a real hardship to dig up. The root only weighs an average of twenty pounds but it is found at levels six feet beneath the surface. It also clings tenaciously to the soil with every hairy root and it's entirely covered in roots. It takes at least three grown Yanna men and a winch (or one pissed-off Elder,) to disunite a branta from its home. It is scrubbed, seasoned, oiled, and slow-roasted for hours until the whole takes on a savory patina and every mouth in the Village is watering from the aroma. The carving of the branta is a ritual most larger species of Nomarians have enjoyed for centuries, and huge feasts have been fashioned around many an Olympian sized tuber.
Caves, the: This Ingan Pok Retirement Community comes complete with a Library, an abbreviated “main road” lined on both sides with dusty storefronts, two Inns for the tourist trade, a somewhat dusty pub and a seasonal flea/farmer’s market that advertises itself under the romantic nickname of “Eternity Village”. Appropriately, for anyone under retirement age a weekend in Ingan Pok could indeed feel like an eternity.
Few admit to living in the dusty, sandy town of Ingan Pok while visiting larger towns for fear of being labeled a recluse or an "extremist" of the sort that prefer to wander around the arid desert on pilgrimages to The Crown instead of taking the paved roads. Locals who have not yet retired to The Caves usually refer to the town as the Dust Bowl and take their vacations as far from it as they can manage.
Crown, the: The Crown is what the Nomarians call a high-energy spot, and rightfully so. The air itself seems to hum, and a visit there of several hours leaves anyone - even Grinwhicket - unusually serene and rejuvenated throughout. Even during the harshest cold of Vulga, a warm pond forms at its center, a steaming circle in the snow where wildlife flock for a drink under the blue moonlight. Sputach, while being an herb of dubious usefulness for most Nomarians is plentiful inside the circle of the Crown when it can be found nowhere else in the Valley, and so it provides valuable nourishment for the few wildlife species without functional taste buds. The water dries up with the arrival of the gentle Morgantime sun. Grinwhicket uses hidden explosive chemicals, not magic for the dramatic tourist-attracting annual eruption of flames from all the towers of the Crown at once, but as his toasted nose proves, the wizard has always had a great fondness for things that explode colorfully, especially if they catch fire afterwards.
Cynthargis (sin-thar-gis): Youngest of the Elders. Lives on the west rim of the desert basin, on a not-entirely-natural mountain peak overlooking the coast. A little over 100 years of age. She is a black dragon with green and violet highlights.
Donada (doh-nah-dah): A Yanna woman born and trained to be the Guardian of an Elder, specifically, to guard Cynthargis from herself as she learns how to use her natural abilities and gains skill. A woman of average height for a Yanna, (5’3’) with tan, leathery skin and long gray hair streaked with white, more from the stresses of raising wild child Cyn than actual ageing. She usually dresses in soft tunics and pants because they’re comfortable and easy to care for, as she is always on the go with her young Elder charge and overseeing the castle staff.
(Soft fabric is also more easily trained to shush. Donada mastered the art of shushing, or walking silently, as a child.)
It is up to Donada to be the patient and motherly voice of reason to help balance the energy of the impetuous young Cynthargis and keep her out of trouble. The Loyalty of a Guardian is unquestioned, rivaling even that of the mother dragon.
Drs. Leo and Gracie Finklestein: the mycologists who find baby Ryteera (and her companion “cat” Amon,) "adopt" and name her Armillaria, after a favorite species of mushroom. They raise her with their own Morchella. Leo is on the short and slightly soft around the middle side, with thick curly hair that has gone from black to salt & pepper, a thick matching mustache and a Marx Brothers wise-cracking attitude. His wife Grace is thin and petite, with thin blonde hair that disguises any hints of gray; usually a lock of it is in her face though the remainder is usually tied back at the nape of neck. Casual, unpretentious, studious but with light senses of humor, Leo and Gracie make a great couple and loving parents.
Elak (ee-lack): A sort of wood nymph. They tend to be small, thin and mischievous, though not nearly as bad as Earth’s Brownies are said to be. They are never really invited to parties but always do their best to invade, er, attend them.
Franken: a pound weight
Frankel: a ten-pound weight
Filby: Young wizard in his early 20’s, and apprentice to the Official Oraculator. He works the night shift or any shift the Oraculator cares to take off.
Fred: Amon's Terran form: a very large long-hair cat with a lion-like mane and very odd behavior. Found with baby Ryteera in the cave (the Portal,) and protective of the baby. The Finklesteins bring the cat home with the baby and name him after the kind old Norwegian Santa Claus of a doctor who helps the couple "adopt" the baby. "Fred" means "Peace" in Norwegian.
Gailyn (gay-lin): Elder, lives in the west woods, not very far from Cynthargis. The most mysterious of the Elders, close in age to Ryteera but older. As an Elder, she is tall and willowy, always dressed in black with a long narrow silk-like red scarf around her neck. Her hair is usually dark and luxuriously thick and floating around her shoulders. Usually appears and disappears rather suddenly, rarely offering explanation for anything (which is true for all Elders but especially true with this one.) Gailyn most often wears a mysterious smile and is well loved but also a little feared; one senses the potential danger in irking her. Gailyn has a fondness for Earth, its quality chocolates, whipped cream, strawberries and occasionally, its men. In her natural form, she is a black dragon, streaked with deep red and gold highlights.
Garabindia (gar-a-bin-dee-ah): rare flowering herb thought to be extinct since the time of the Skarga. Makes an excellent smoky, smooth tea.
Grinwhicket the Calescent (grin-wick-et): The oldest wizard currently on the planet, and a true curmudgeon. Always grumpy. Brother Wizards secretly refer to him as Grinwhicket the Unpredictably Flammable or Impossibly Grouchy or simply, Grinwhicket the Impossible. Once famous but now a recluse with a tendency to get arrogant when drunk on his own potions, giving rise to many more inventive and impertinent nicknames.
He has no sense of smell due to an explosive incident in his earlier years as an apprentice. This makes him perfect for the job of relighting the sometimes unreliable Eternal Flames of Ingan Pok, as nobody can tolerate the smell of natural hiss without a gas mask. He also services the hiss spigots and is in charge of the annual lighting of The Crown.
Haros (hair-ohs): an aquatic creature that both eats and moves around by swallowing the mineral water and sand mixture it inhabits and expelling it forcibly out the back end after absorbing the nutrients of the decayed leaves that fall from the forest above. It has no eyes or ears but is very sensitive to vibration. It continually bumps into the spongy tree roots it lives around (and everything else.)
Hogut (hoe-gut): Elder male, born and raised with Mem. Their mothers, especially sociable Elders, decided to go through the tasks of Elder-Bearing together for the company. Hogut and Mem have remained together ever since and often share Obsessions.
Ilandra (il-ahhn-dra): Elder, lives near lailah fields and Beziks. She prefers to fly rather than ride or walk. Her home looks as though it was built around a lighthouse tower stuck in the center of a large bird nest, with the top three floors of the tower being mostly a series of holes and slots to catch the wind. The valley surrounding the unusual structure is haunted by songs the wind plays as it moves through the holes. This of course is the resultant work of an Obsession over making wind song practical for home structures. Ilandra is a sky-blue and green dragon in natural form.
Imelda Grizle: The largest town on Nomaris. It is famous for the wide assortment of mummen and other baked goods it produces as well as the Imelda Grizle Symphonic Assemblage (music for all occasions, available for parties of all sizes, please book early,) massive central Library and the main offices and meeting hall of the Wizard’s Guild.
Ingan Pok (een-gen-pock): A small desert town on the edge of the Valley of Eternal Flames. It exists mainly to supply a road and amenities for the Hiss vendors, retirees and those who serve the retirees. Anyone trying to reach the V of EF proper for rituals, meditations, parties and pilgrimages has no choice but to go through Ingan Pok first. Ingan Pok is quite well known for the quasi-hidden retirement village called The Caves, a huge annual farmer’s market called “Eternity Village”, weekend craft shows through the Pik season, the wild sputach supply and for just for being able to exist in the hottest part of the Nomarian desert without spontaneously going up in flame.
Jozin/jozen: a delicious edible seed similar to a sunflower seed, cherished by most Nomarians, especially the brightly feathered zeewees.
Kalyntra (kah-lin-tra): Elder, lives in the woods near the Yanna village. She likes to float gently just above the ground (having never really taken to shoes,) but will exert the energy for flying when it seems like a good idea. Her home is made mostly of softly glowing pink quartz-like crystal and spider-web delicate draped fabrics set up in the woods. It reminds one of sugarplum visions dancing in someone's head, though whose head and what concoction they may have been drinking recently is anyone's guess.
There are no walls to speak of and yet, there are; you can see them out of the corner of your eyes but not directly, which is a relief once you’ve noticed how the fabrics seem to hang in mid-air. Kalyntra grows flowers and makes fine papers by hand, sometimes combining both hobbies. She is a brilliant pink and orange dragon with red highlights in natural form, in love with the Elder Varagesh.
Kenaba-Sati Runes (ken-ah-ba-sah-tee roons): brain-boggling, trance-inducing set of stones presented as a gift to Madwhack the Strict from an alien race of beings; supposedly they foretold the Precise Future of anyone, anywhere, at any time, if only one could decipher them.
Kerilee: receptionist at the Wizard Guild’s Main Office, the only female permitted to work within the Guild Proper, mainly because she is pretty, has the patience of a Guardian, smiles and remains calm no matter which wizard is in a tizzy around her, and was the only applicant in a hundred years who could decipher the Wizard’s Highly Individualized Mystical Signatures and transcribe them for Roll Call.
Krix: the Nomarian version of a squirrel, only larger, smarter, stronger, more curious and twice as playful. Trouble in a fur coat.
Kinka root: a spicy rust-colored potato-like tuber used as a starchy staple vegetable all over Nomaris. Kinka is often made into a thick soup or dip and eaten with mummen, as well as baked in hot coals until soft.
Lailah : a blue plant that grows only in the northernmost hemispheres of Nomaris; used to make very fine fabrics similar to a silky suede. Lailah stalks yield a milky sap the Bezik collect and use for waterproofing their small canoes (good for three years then it decomposes harmlessly.)
The leaves are stripped after they wilt naturally, dried, ground into a bluish granular powder and used as a popular seasoning similar to salt. The stalks are rotted until only the strong silky fibers are left. Then they're spun and woven into one of the finest fabrics Nomaris has to offer. Luxuriously soft, incredibly strong, warm when you want it to be, cool when you need it to be. All Nomarians who wear clothes own something made of lailah. It's only drawback is that it comes in whatever shade of blue it felt like being that season. It refuses all attempts to make it accept dye. Or bleaching. It's very important to keep the plants happy and nutritionally balanced to get nice shades of blue.
Leeta: A mostly transparent water nymph. They tend to be loud and splashy at parties, they never have to be invited because they always show up if there's a way. It's been said that they all have names but nobody knows for sure: they all like to be called "Leeta." Mirakaiya, knowing their conceit and wit, suspects it means "Perfect."
Librarian: a necessary component of Nomarian life. The great central library at Imelda Grizle and the lesser one in Ingan Pok have both a regular and a "voluntary" staff: there is no Elder or Wizard on the planet who has not served time in one Library or another. For all but a few wizards, the year-long stay is inspiring. They return to their homes or schools feeling more creative than ever. To the few who would rather take long breaks at the local pub than oversee Nomarians seeking information on all possible subjects, getting the news of one's upcoming Term of Duty is rather like being served a bowl of soggy breakfast cereal when one clearly and distinctly ordered a chalice of simkaberry wine.
Librarians are not a wild bunch, despite rumors to the contrary. True, two or three times a year some of them are discovered in awkward if not necessarily risqué circumstances and it is almost always due to an overabundance of home-made ciders around harvest time and too much free time to taste-test the many varieties. Librarians, having researched the subject quite efficiently, know many secrets of the local fruits, and some of their research has turned out to be impressively intoxicating and the perfect thing to serve with branta burgers. Festivals are also hazardous times regarding the behavior of Resident Librarians. As there were no hard and fast rules set in writing about the behavior of a librarian, the only expectation of them being they take the best possible care of the library records, witnesses generally do no more than wink and joke about it "always being the quiet ones".
Still, annual festivals of Librarian caliber are only a few, and a year-long term at the Library could feel like forever to a young wizard impatient to test his knowledge of local ales.
Mapelo nuts (may-peh-lo): rock-hard, wrinkled sweet nuts, inedible to all but the krix, who enjoy the jaw exercise. They are sawed into slices and polished for fairly indestructible buttons and various ornamentations including mosaic footpaths. Unlike lailah, the nuts will accept some natural dyes when soaked in them for a few weeks. Combined with the wrinkled wood-like interior markings, the dyes make some intriguing patterns. The sheer durability of the Mapelo nut has inspired generation after generation of the more creative Nomarians to create something useful of them.
Mayfair: mother of Precipity Tanglewood, an Herb Woman who late in life runs away to Earth and becomes the first woman president of the United States.
Mem: Elder male, born and raised alongside Hogut.
Meshanta (meh-shon-ta): a term of endearment. In Common Nomarian it means "my most beloved”, or “my peace." In Bezik, however, it means, "Don't waste the pollen" and is said after someone sneezes.
Mirakaiya (meer-a-kie-ah): Elder, lives under water in a mostly-natural habitat: a living palace with coral creatures that form the pillars and roof of her watery home. She's learned to tolerate the Leeta and has even befriended a good many over the centuries. Her natural Elder form is a silvery-green dragon with pink highlights.
Molaka (moe-la-kah): a small sweet berry, pink on the outside, white and seedless inside, that grows on a less-common seaweed. It fruits only once a year for a brief period so when the time is right, and that time is terribly inconsistent, water-dwellers harvest everything they can find and throw a huge party where water meets land. (It is customary for land-walkers to greet the water dwellers with a party at the same time, tossing into the surf whatever happens to be ripe on land at the time.)
It should be noted that molaka has its own ideas about procreation and will not be propagated by any means other than it doing it on its own. It likes being "a little here and a little there" but won't put up with anything resembling a crowd of molaka.
Morchella Finklestein : natural born daughter of Dr. Leo and Gracie Finklestein, almost the exact same age as the just-found baby Ryteera. She is named after the prized morel fungus.
Mummen: a type of crusty, whole grain bread
The Yanna are renowned for they're baking skills. They are specialists in cultivating jozin, a popular staple grain.
Neenah: a large, perfectly tasteless cracker, that, while having no flavor to speak of, offers a dense form of energy-renewing food that is light and easy to carry. This makes it desirable, although one might also desire a bit of jelly to help it along. If you've eaten a matzo cracker, you have a good idea of what neenah looks and tastes like.
Netchi: a delicate but invigorating drink derived from flower nectar.
Ona (oh-nah): Phailok's mother, who, before leaving Nomaris, cut her ankle-length silver hair off up to her shoulders and gave it to her only son as a gift. This silver hair was woven into a fabric to make a cape resembling the midnight sky.
Pauka (paw-ka): an abundant form of seaweed. The broad scalloped-edged leaf is dried and used as an edible food wrap. Also dried and powdered as a seasoning.
Phailok (fay-lock): Oldest of the Elder males. Handsome with long silver-streaked black hair, a neat goatee and although he wears black it is with a dignified more than a mysterious air. The only Elder besides Gailyn who knows how to operate the Portal. His long-time Obsession has been to father a New One. Ryteera is his Beloved and he's been hoping for Union with her. She would like more time, a few centuries, perhaps, to think it over. An enormous black and silver dragon with blue highlights is he in true Elder form.
Plaka (plah-ka): Edible "pearls", the tasty sea-pea is a popular item on land as well. Unlike the Earth counterpart, these pearls do not grow inside a shelled being but in the space where pauka frond attaches to pauka stem. After harvesting the frond, one only need slide the thumb (or any digit,) up under the scar and out will pop three succulent, pearly-white sea-peas.
Precipity Tanglewood: offspring of a wizard who was embarrassed at having fathered a daughter instead of a male wizard-trainee. A Yanna woman renown for her healing and intuitive prowess, Precipity was named for the thunderously rainy day on which she was born (a name that later proved itself appropriate for the stormy weather she tends to induce when frustrated or angry). Had an Elder been ready to bear a Young One in her lifetime, Precipity would have been in training to be a Guardian because of her tracking and survival abilities as well as patience with young living things.
With no Young Elder to oversee as her life’s calling, Precipity turned her tracking abilities toward finding rare herbs thought to have become extinct since the Skargan invasion of Nomaris. She rescues wild seedlings when possible, or pollinates flowers of the rare survivors then collects seeds to help perpetuate the species.
Quillatee: a race of blue beings whose average height is 5 feet tall. Bipedal, hairless, with heads shaped somewhat like an ant's head but with smaller eyes and antennae, these people are known for their extremely sturdy furniture making, their extreme competitiveness in archery, and the extreme difficulty non-Quillatee have in telling male from female.
This has obviously not been a problem for the Quillatee themselves, as their numbers are fairly well represented all over the planet. Very young Quillatee make high-pitched, get the hair on your neck standing on end sounds, often and for no perceptible reason. This sound is impossible to tolerate for long by most Nomarians with ears. Non-agrarian, the Quillatee barter their furniture for food and perform services such as delivery of messages and packages (whenever they’re not engaged in some sort of competitive archery event.) One of the most popular and the tallest of the Quillatee is named Vras. He is 5'1" and although his people don't have official “leaders”, he would be the Leader if they did.
Ryteera (rye-teer-ah): Oldest of the Elder females, she lives in the woods near the east rim of the Desert Basin. Loves Phailok, raising rare species of balassa, archery and competition with the Quillatee and racing through the woods and desert on her pet Yorga. She loves flying but usually reserves her energy for other passions. She spends a lot of time in the Library, her greenhouse and with Phailok. Like all the Elders, she is skilled and has a love for music and art and a great appreciation for fine craftsmanship. Her true Elder form is a golden dragon, with black, red and green highlights.
Seasons:
Osborn: summer
Vulga: winter
Morgan: spring
Pik: autumn
Ship-ship: a piece of neenah with a bit of cheese and fruit or vegetable on it, served by all polite hosts everywhere, except for the water-dwellers who usually offer seaweed and plaka. In Common Nomarian "ship-ship" is also a toast: “To Your Energy: May You Be Ever Renewed”.
Simka: a large tree with smooth white bark, widely spreading branches and two blooming seasons a year. The flowers are similar to pale pink and white cherry blossoms in their fluffy appearance. They have a sweet carnation-spicy scent and delight on falling gently upon those who walk (or dance,) beneath them, making them a popular choice for landscapers. The fruit is also similar to a cherry but slightly larger, has 2 pits instead of one and should not be eaten fresh, but cooked into a popular thick pink jam. The fresh fruit if eaten can produce mild delirium, maniacally itchy rashes and inspire races for the bathroom.
Spilgatz: a rodent-like creature, the size and shape of a mouse but with smaller ears and a spiny tail and a terrible attitude in general. They give birth to large litters of minuscule baby spilgatz who develop short tempers immediately upon onset of puberty.
Sputach (spoo-tach): The only green(ish) plant to grow in the Valley of Eternal Flames. It seems to thrive there, although nobody understands why. This ability to withstand the heat and lack of visible water in the desert elevated sputach to mythic levels, and folklore about the wild brush’s life-preserving, disease curing properties abound.
Gathering and selling it is good tourist trade for the retired denizens of the area; however, the locals never touch the stuff. They hold their own ideas about the plant, beginning with the theory that the name was no doubt invented by the sound of one spitting it out while simultaneously gagging. Aside from being handy and plentiful kindling, nobody in Ingan Pok could come up with one incident where it cured anything but a chill (once lit.)
Strikk: a clumping grass-like plant that grows where land and water meet, in flat blades that vary in width and length but average about 1 inch wide and three feet long.
It grows in great tufts out of a small central crown. The leaves of strikk are used in making furniture that stays together without need for nails, light-weight casts for broken limbs and sun hats that really shrink-to-fit. (The person wraps the long frond while it is still greenish-blue around the object and lets it dry. It shrinks to fit and quite tightly at that. Because of the discomfort involved in the hat making process, assorted beings are hired to "model" for the new hats, but they only make two hats a day what with the headaches.) Once dry, strikk is almost impervious to water, but while still fresh it is easily handled, and beautiful strikk baskets and furniture are found in every Nomarian household.
Tashin: a rich paste of crushed nuts and seeds, recipes vary according to region and seasonal availability. This nutty butter is used in a wide variety of Nomarian dishes.
“Travel Light”: A common Elder expression meaning Walk Without Worries and adopted over the centuries by many other Nomarians due to their exposure to the dragon Elders. To some of the Elders, the expression has gained deeper meanings regarding the integration of personal energy fields with other, larger energy fields, enabling physical transmutation, manipulation of matter and “non-matter” at will, and the exploring of other spheres of consciousness.
Valley of Eternal Flames/Ingan Pok (een-gen- pok): An area of the Nomarian desert where natural gas leaks are kept lit to prevent the smell of hiss making the local population nauseous, at the same time creating a popular tourist attraction and mystical gathering place. When a flame is blown out by the wind, a thick green mist arises from the crack in the earth like a warning flag to all those with the sense of smell.
A senior retirement village of caves (The Caves) nearby relies on the tourists to make a little extra money during the festivals that some ignore and some mystics see as worth the pilgrimage. The area also attracts many artists who like to sketch the tall pillars that seem to hum in the sun. In the coldest part of Vulga, they show up in droves to paint the scenery of flames dancing from shallow pools of water surrounded by snow.
The Wizard Guild has its headquarters next to the great Library in Imelda Grizle but maintains a tiny outpost at Ingan Pok in the form of a small office with an unreliable air cooling system. This office, currently run by semi-retired wizard Zephaniah, exists mainly for people to apply for a permit before using the V. of E.F. for group ritual purposes or large parties, and now and then to report a lost tourist or contact Grinwhicket in the event of a doused flame.
Varagesh (vara-gesh): Elder male. Younger than Phailok but he looks much older. This is, as it is with all Elders, a matter of personal preference alone. In this case, Varagesh likes long gray hair, feeling gray goes better with bright blue eyes, and besides, Kalyntra likes it. Varagesh adores Kalyntra. They won the dance contest when they paired up at the last harvest party with the Leeta. That was a first for Varagesh who is, frankly, not known for his grace on the dance floor. In Elder form he is a white dragon with strong blue and violet highlights.
Yanna: Surprisingly human-like beings. Agrarian and vegetarian (they do many forms of “cheese” and nut "milks" but no eggs which generally means a Yannen omelet is more like a cheese blintz.) The Yanna are renown for their mummen, or bread-baking skills, as well as their excellent pottery, mosaic villages and devotion to the care of the jozin grain fields. They live in hand-smoothed artistic structures composed of clay and straw and protected from rain by elaborate mosaics that use up broken pottery bits. The Yanna are beloved too for their healing abilities, and Nomarians come from all over the planet to spend a little relaxing time in their villages, trade for their herbal elixirs, sample the assorted varieties of mummen and gaze in awe at the flowering of the jozin fields twice a year.
Yorga: a 700 pound tusked, panther-like animal with the slurpy disposition of a dog. Companion animals, often used in transportation and in races because they love to run and climb and leap and don't mind a medium-sized being or two hanging on for the ride.
Zeewees: a small, brightly plumed and extremely social bird. It is somewhat picky about its housing but otherwise a joy to have around.
Zephaniah: The Ingan Pok Wizard's Guild Extension Office is run by one of the few wizards of Nomaris who enjoys tedium. His name was Zephaniah the Oraculator until he retired from the job of interpreting the Oracle’s 3-dimensional symbols. Now as the head of the Extension Office (and last rest stop) before entering the Valley, his title is Zephaniah the Orderly but locally he is known simply as Zephaniah, the old man who runs the visitor’s center.
Zok: Zok was a refugee from another planet who got stranded, then voluntarily remained on Nomaris, despite his being the only one of his kind. Rumor once had it that if he had returned home his mate would have bitten his head off in suspicion of his gallivanting.
He looks much like a seven-foot tall walking stick bug, works at Castle Cynthargis as a recipe creator and assistant to both Cynthargis and Donada on the frequent occasions they need administrative help.
