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Posts authored by Dylan Edwards

The creator of this here comic

Pocalo Technology: Pharma

Pocalo Technology: Pharma published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - pharmaAs discussed in the article on medicine, pharmaceuticals form a major part of the Pocali economy.

Medicinals are generally available in two forms: prefabricated or compounded.

Prefabrication works best for widely used remedies that can be mass-produced on some level (not dependent on rare ingredients, and used for treating relatively common ailments). These will typically come in tubes, many labeled in Rovari script in addition to Pocali, particularly for medicines used by both Daraz and Humans.

The majority of medicines, though, are compounded: made to order from raw ingredients per the individual’s specific medical needs. Because several different types of raw medicinals might have the same or similar effects, and the rarity of various medicinals makes large scale consistency difficult to achieve, in many cases it’s just easier to make something on the spot based on whatever ingredients are available in the region.

An apothecarist’s egg is basically a portable mini-pharmacy. A typical egg will contain raw ingredients, tinctures, extracts, and tools for mixing medicines or forming tablets.

Pocalo Technology: Lights

Pocalo Technology: Lights published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - lightsPocalo doesn’t have electric lighting (or electric anything, for that matter).

Their interior lights are instead made of tiny ecosystems of bioluminescent fungi. The fungi have been domesticated to produce a brighter, whiter light than their wild counterparts.

The fungi survive by eating their own dead cells, so a well-balanced light can shine indefinitely. In practice, most lights don’t last forever: the glass gets cracked and throws the ecosystem off balance; the fungi reproduce too quickly (sometimes overgrowing to the point of bursting the glass); or they reproduce too slowly and die off. But a light made with a high level of craftsmanship may well last for hundreds of years.

There is no way to turn a particular light “on” or “off” (the fungi are either alive and glowing or dead and dark). In rooms where one wishes to achieve periodic darkness, like a bedroom, the lights will have some kind of hood which can be opened and closed.

A popular style of dimmable light is colloquially called an “eyelight,” as it has two adjustable lids which can allow for modulating both the intensity and the direction of the glow.

Pocalo Infrastructure: Smugglers’ Tunnels

Pocalo Infrastructure: Smugglers’ Tunnels published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - smugglers' tunnelsThe country that occupies the Valley, Pocalo, is divided into provinces, and each province is stacked on top of the other. The massive structure that houses all these provinces was built up slowly over the course of thousands of years. For most of that time, the only way to get from one province to another was to take a long trek up or down the mountains that anchor the structure.

The safest way to go was via mountain tunnels. These tunnels were dug and maintained by the Daraz, who build their cities inside the mountains. They leased the tunnels to the humans in exchange for various goods and services.

A scant couple hundred years ago, humans perfected the technology to move elevators between the provinces. The early elevators could only connect two provinces; later technological advances brought elevators that could connect 3 or 4 provinces. As elevator technology improved, the need for the tunnels waned in favor of the much faster vertical transportation.

The Daraz had little incentive to maintain the tunnels with no one using them much, and shifted to other forms of trade with the humans.

Getting on an elevator typically requires going through a checkpoint, though, and may require an official passport for boarding. What to do if you are perhaps interested in avoiding any sort of official scrutiny in the course of your travels? Like, say, maybe you deal in goods you might have obtained under less than legal circumstances?

Well, it’s certainly slower going, but here are all these old tunnels no one uses anymore, cough, ahem.

Yes, there have been many attempts to seal off the tunnels over the years, but somehow or other they always get unsealed, and the resources just aren’t there to guard them 24/7. Hence the tunnels tend to be left alone much of the time, should someone wish to slip from one province to the next while attracting minimal attention.

Pocalo Infrastructure: Plumbing

Pocalo Infrastructure: Plumbing published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - plumbing

I know what you’re wondering: how the heck does plumbing work in this weird world?

While there are a few different means of collecting and distributing water in the Valley, let’s focus on the one most relevant to the main comic: the plumbing of the Cashel Waystation. which is located in the interior of the province of Muru.

The Cashel Waystation receives most of its water via a large pipe from the provinces above (who get their water mostly from rainfall and snowmelt), and holds it in a reservoir.

“So, wait, they’re drinking and bathing in the runoff from the upper provinces?”

Technically yes, BUT. At the bottom of the reservoir is a filtration system, accessed via the topmost room of the main building, where those two little slit windows are. One of the many duties of the waystation attendant is maintaining that filtration system so the water stays clean.

“So, wait, the waystation is basically a giant Brita filter?”

Ahem. Kinda sorta yeah.

The bath is left running all the time to provide some humidity to the air, and to keep the water flow going to the provinces below. Gravity provides the water pressure.

Drinking water is filtered more thoroughly and piped separately from bathing water or toilet water. The Cashel Waystation has pit toilets that use only a tiny amount of water to flush waste down a pipe leading to Eradu, the province directly below. Eradu is nicknamed The Swamp for various reasons, of which this is one. It tends to be the last stop for a lot of the waste from the provinces above.

“Surely the residents of Eradu don’t care for living in what is basically a giant sewer.”

Correct! They do not. Which is why most people who live in Eradu actually live on the hillsides around the edges of the Valley, and not inside the web structure of Pocalo itself. Humans mostly try to avoid venturing into The Swamp itself if they can.

Pocalo Infrastructure: Elevators

Pocalo Infrastructure: Elevators published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - elevatorsThe tiered structure of Pocalo makes travel from one province to the next a challenge, unless you can hop on an elevator. Large elevators, like the one pictured here, are designed to carry a great deal of freight and several passengers (it seats around 150 people, so about the same as a medium-sized commercial airplane) among multiple provinces.

This particular elevator services four levels, and does much of the heavy lifting (ha ha) for getting agricultural foodstuffs distributed to the northern regions of the provinces. Merchants also use this elevator to move their wares around, perhaps selling medicines in one province, picking up some local foods, and moving on to sell those in a different province.

There are much smaller elevators dotted throughout the provinces, generally just ferrying between two levels. Most of these are concentrated in the upper provinces; the lower provinces (i.e., those at ground level and below) have relatively few elevators. This has more to do with population density than anything else; large swaths of the lowest two provinces are flooded, rendering them mostly uninhabitable.

While elevators have connected the provinces for around 300 years, this type of large freight elevator is relatively new technology (maybe 100 years old), and has accelerated cultural exchange and homogenization. While the people of each province still have their own distinct accents, clothing styles, foods, and so forth, basic necessities are widely distributed wherever you go.

Pocalo Culture: The Satirists

Pocalo Culture: The Satirists published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - The SatiristsAnyone can engage in political satire in Pocalo, but *THE* Satirists are special elected officials whose commentary is seen as especially insightful and funny. Their essays are published in a periodical called So Say the Satirists, which is made freely available to all residents of Pocalo.

Each province votes in an Official Satirist to a seven-year term. The Official Satirist will then spend the next seven years living in each of the seven provinces, one province per year.

They are also expected to sit in on high council meetings. The high council consists of three elected representatives from each province, and they meet approximately once a month (more often if necessary) to discuss matters affecting the country.

The Satirists from each of the provinces sit in on these meetings, though they are not allowed to speak or vote. They are there as observers. Once the meeting is over, they will release their commentary to the public. Representatives who act foolishly or belligerently, or who propose unjust laws, can expect to be mocked in a widely-distributed free pamphlet.

The level of social regard for Official Satirists in Pocalo is similar to that of the ancient Irish poets. In other words, cross them at your peril, lest you fall prey to premeditated satire.

Pocalo Culture: Peliyn

Pocalo Culture: Peliyn published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - peliynPocali culture doesn’t assign any specific societal roles or presentations or clothing to you based on whatever body parts you happen to have been born with, or whatever body parts you happen to have right at this moment. People dress how they want, perform the work that best suits them, and adopt whatever mannerisms feel comfortable to them.

As such, there’s no Pocali word for “transgender.” Everyone uses neutral pronouns, and there are no opposite sides to “cross” over to. But there are still people who experience body dysphoria, given that this is a condition separate from gender identity.

Pocali medical science offers a few avenues of relief for folks with body dysphoria, the most common being hormone treatments. People who seek these treatments are known as peliyn, which literally translates to “one who changes the body.”

The Peliyn Medical Society is a group of doctors, pharmacists, and scientists who are knowledgeable about the effectiveness and limitations of currently available treatments, and who take an interest in researching new options.

Pocalo Culture: Naming Conventions

Pocalo Culture: Naming Conventions published on

The humans of Pocalo typically have a personal name bestowed by their parents, and a second name acquired later in life that describes their primary skillset. Most names follow this pattern: [UNIQUE PERSONAL NAME] wis [PRIMARY SKILL], where “wis” is a contraction for “who is good at.”

Back in the mists of time, life in the Valley was very difficult, and ANYTHING you could do to help people survive for another day was considered a good thing. What you looked like, what configuration of body parts you had, who your parents were … none of this was more important than what skill you excelled at that would keep people alive.

“Hey, we need a doctor right away.” “No problem, just go talk to Derga wis Medicine.”

Arvandi Names

Valley of the Silk Sky - naming conventions

Razi isn’t originally from Pocalo. Xe’s Arvandi, and the Arvandi have a totally different naming convention. An Arvandi child’s second name is a portmanteau of xer parents’ names. For example, Razi’s second name is Zakar. Xer parents’ second names were Zaya and Kari, so when they had Razi they created a new name by combining syllables from their own second names. (If a family is polyamorous, the child might have a three or four syllable name. In other words, the name doesn’t necessarily reflect genetic material but rather acknowledged parents.)

The records office worker in the second panel is stumbling because xe’s expecting a “wis [PRIMARY SKILL]” construction and instead is seeing a word that doesn’t seem to suggest a particular skillset. Probably the person who entered the name wrong in the first place was having similar trouble, and didn’t know what a Zakar was any moreso than a Kazar.

Daraz Names

The Daraz have extremely sensitive senses of smell, so their language has thousands of words for different smells, indeed different individual esters, and further metaphorical meanings for those various words. Daraz names almost always reference scents, and are formally constructed as “Smells Like [SCENT].” Halvanylila = “Smells Like the Fourth Ester of Lilac.”

Valley of the Silk Sky - Daraz names

Chadsen is deploying a rather complicated pun here. “Bors” actually means “pepper,” but it’s very close in sound to “Borz,” which means badger.

The term for skunk is bűzös borz, literally “smelly badger.” Smells Like Badger = Smelly Badger = Skunk.

Flora and Fauna: Shriekers

Flora and Fauna: Shriekers published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - shriekersShriekers are one of the largest predators in the Valley. They are typically found where forests meet open space, and typically prey on herd animals of various sorts.

They are pack hunters whose main strategy involves sneakily encircling the herd they’re hunting. Shriekers at the rear let out a horrifically loud, piercing scream that either a) roots you in place in absolute terror, whereupon they grab you, or b) sends you fleeing in panic, directly towards the rest of the pack, who then grab you. All the shriekers close in around the prey to prevent escape. The shriekers at the rear can take care of any stragglers.

When their preferred prey migrates away during the winter months, shriekers go into hibernation. Like most hibernating animals, they will wake up periodically during the cycle, whether to engage in routine maintenance or because they’ve been disturbed by interlopers.

Ecology and Economy

Shriekers are keystone predators, making them essential for environmental balance in the Valley. Get rid of shriekers, and all of a sudden the herd animal population explodes, eats a bunch of plants that were keeping other plants in check, and the unchecked plants completely take over and kill off that one rare medicinal flower.

Since the Valley’s economy is so heavily dependent on materials gleaned from unique microclimates, the people want to avoid making any drastic changes to the ecosystem. As such, despite their fearsome nature, it is illegal to kill shriekers except in self-defense.

How Not to Get Eaten

“Why not just use repellents to avoid the shriekers?” you ask. Unfortunately, repellents don’t work especially well on shriekers. Since so much of their hunting strategy involves running prey into traps, individual shriekers may be too far out of range to ward off with a repellent. Because they move so quickly, they’ve already bitten you in half before they notice the unpleasant smell.

The best strategy is simply to move (quietly) during their hibernation season, or to monitor a pack and wait until they’re distracted by a hunt to sneak by.

If they decide to go after you, find some low, dense shrubbery to hide in, and then stay as still and as quiet as possible. You may have to sit there awhile, but eventually the shriekers will lose track of you and wander off.

Flora and Fauna: Merev Gombi

Flora and Fauna: Merev Gombi published on

Valley of the Silk Sky - merev gombiThe names humans have for many of the flora and fauna of the Valley come from Rovari, the Daraz language (Daraz are native to the Valley, humans are not). This particular creature is called merev gombi in Rovari, which literally means “hard sphere.” Humans usually just call this animal “merev.”

Merev are the beast of burden of choice for this region. Opportunistic grazers, they’ll eat just about anything placed in front of them, making them extremely easy to maintain. They’re slow but sturdy, and nearly indestructible. When spooked, they don’t run: they pill. If you get into a spot of bother, you know your cart will be more or less where you left it.

The merev’s hide is too tough for many predators to pierce, and its center of gravity too low for them to knock it over. So most predators simply don’t bother with them. YOU might get eaten, but your pack animal won’t.

The merev is not an insect; it is yet another of the many monotreme species in the Valley.

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