WickedThought

VRENTAE
“Holding my heart.”

The word vrentae is best translated as “obsession,” although the literal meaning is “holding my heart.” Depending on the accentuation, the word has two connotations. The first is “love.” The second is “revenge.” If the first syllable is accented—vren-tay—it means “love.” If the second syllable is accented—vren-tay—it means “revenge.”

In the minds and hearts of the ven, these two things are nearly identical.

First, let us explore “revenge.”

The concept of war, as we understand it, is completely alien to the ven for many reasons. First among them is resources. While the ven are not a culture of scarcity, there is not enough dry land to support a standing army. The ven did inherit the ideas of warfare from the aelva danna, but it is no longer considered a practical method of resolving dispute. The ven adapted and evolved, developing a style of warfare that fit their circumstances.

Unable to wage war on a large scale, the ven have mastered waging war on a small scale. The most common way to settle a dispute is private duel. One-on-one combat. The two combatants agree on terms through a disinterested third party, meet at a predetermined time, select weapons, then ceremoniously try to kill each other. The winner is considered “correct” in the dispute.

However, despite all of this formal combat, deaths occur outside the parameters of legal duel all the time. We would call this “murder.” The ven call it uvanla: “a moment of opportunity.” When a ven is killed outside the scope of legal murder, the relatives of the deceased are obliged to call vrentae. The process for calling vrentae is complicated and must follow the correct procedure. If it is not correctly followed, the vrentae is not considered “official” and may carry dire consequences.

When a ven calls for vrentae, he marks himself in a distinct manner—usually with the color red—and is considered immune to almost all other procedures and bureaucracy. No other matter is more important than avenging the wrongful death of a relative. He is considered free of sin until the vrentae is carried out. However, if he fails to carry out the vrentae in the proper amount of time, or does not carry it out in the proper fashion, his reputation will be severely damaged. More on duels and formal combat can be found in a later chapter.

And now, let us talk about the other side of vrentae. Let us talk about “love.”

While many have translated vrentae as “love,” it is not a fully correct translation. “Romantic love” is closer, but still not completely correct. The ven do not view love as eternal, nor do they understand the concept of a “soul mate.” Marriage does exist in ven culture, but as a bargaining chip for settling land disputes, inheritance and for making heirs. All of this is rather cold, but vrentae is anything but. It is hot. It is the passion that drives men and women mad. As one ven poet wrote, “It is the sickness for which the only cure is the cause.”

For the ven, vrentae is a cause for poetry, for song and for story. It makes us unwise, drives us to tragedy, and blinds our reason. This is vrentae. And, just as those who are driven by revenge wear a color to distinguish themselves, so do those who have fallen under the mad spell of love. While wearing such a distinction, a man or woman may expect a bit more tolerance from those who understand the sickness of love. Those under its sway act madly and do foolish things. They cannot be held responsible for what they do: they are in love!

But love, like revenge, does not last. It fades like the seasons. Eventually, an affair grows cold and becomes like the marriage the lovers fled from. Marriages last forever, but affairs come and go. This is the way of love: powerful but fickle, passionate but passing. And while it may make us mad for a time, we cannot be fools forever.

This chapter details the ven and their culture, giving you an idea of what it is like to live in the courts of Shanri, under the shadow of the Houses. I have taken this information from various ven documents, translating them as faithfully as possible.

Translating this text from the original ven has proven difficult for a few reasons. The ven often sacrifice grammar for poetry, a stylistic choice many readers find confusing and disorienting. Also, simple ven words often carry immense meanings, depending on the context. While translating these documents, I have found one small fact most useful in illustrating this curiousity.

The ven have only one word for both “love” and “revenge.”

That should be enough to get you started.

Ven society is rife with contradictions. On one hand, they espouse virtue and chivalry, but on the other, they practice deceit and treachery. They are ruthless, yet deeply religious. They love with all their hearts and hate with equal passion. They are a complicated people, easy to misunderstand, but I have done my best to present them here as accurately and fairly as possible.

To explain the world around them, the ven use a sophisticated and nuanced language, reflecting their complicated culture. Like most languages, ven words and phrases have deep history, often explaining the context of seemingly simple turns of phrase as what they truly are: the keystones to ven philosophy.

Instead of presenting a long, dry diatribe on ven culture, I’ve organized a series of phrases and words key to understanding the ven and their world. I believe the best way to understand a foreign people is by understanding their language. For example, you could illustrate much about American culture just by giving a lengthy description of the various meanings and usages of the word “cool.”

The words and phrases listed below are not in alphabetical order, but instead, in contextual order. Starting at the beginning—with aelva danna de nuru—you will begin to see the world through their eyes, hopefully giving you a living understanding of their complicated and amazing culture.

AELVA DANNA DE NURU
“The wicked ones are only sleeping.”

The history of the ven is tied into the demise of Shanri’s previous masters: the mysterious aelva danna (aelva meaning “wizard” or “sorcerer” and danna meaning “ruler”). Aelva danna can also be translated as “the wicked ones,” and is sometimes used as a pejorative against those who study the forbidden art of blood sorcery. These “sorcerer-kings” ruled Shanri for… well, no ven knows for certain how long they ruled Shanri. For all the ven know, the aelva danna have always been. And for all they know, they will return again one day to rule again.

Before the ven had a culture of their own, these sorcerer-kings ruled Shanri. The ven were nothing more than a servant race, created by sorcery to fulfill specific roles. The ven were soldiers, servants, and lovers—all tailor-made to task. And they served the sorcerer-kings as the aelva danna made unspeakable war upon each other on an unimaginable scale. Using vast armies and eldritch sorcery, the sorcerer-kings almost destroyed the world, but instead, destroyed themselves. What they left behind was a shattered remnant of the world they created.

The servitor race called dug themselves up and out of the rubble. The world they found was nothing like the world they knew. At long last, they were free from the aelva danna, free from magical slavery, free to make their own destiny, but the world they found was dangerous and deadly.

The Shanri of today looks completely different from the world of the sorcerer-kings. During their time, the land was rich and plentiful, a vast pangaea full of life and wonder. Now, the world is shattered, torn and mutated by sorcerous warfare. All that remains is a spiraling chain of archipelagos filled with mutant flora and fauna: the remains of sorcerous experiments, some of which went horribly awry.

Since then, the ven have reconstructed the world around them, although vast tracks of unexplored wilderness remain. The ven live in the ruins left behind by the sorcerer-kings: incredible mansions and castles kept standing by a fading sorcery. On the outskirts of civilization, the beasts bred during the wars lurk in the shadows. And the ven whisper that perhaps the aelva danna are not dead at all, but merely sleeping, trapped in magics to great for them to break. Perhaps one day, the sorcerer-kings will return, enslaving the ven once again.

Perhaps…