Notes, Changes and Status · 6:59pm Mar 20th, 2020
Chapter 10 is in the pipeline, it's just taking longer then I would like due to general life issues (the fact that I live/work in the Seattle area not withstanding). It will be done soon, and hopefully I can start picking up the pace.
Now there is one change I'm going to be retroactively making to the story. I've been using 'Drakes' for a male griffon, mostly as most of the other choices didn't really work or flow very well, though this has caused a lot of confusion as most people assume a drake is a male dragon. This was not exactly a great outcome, but I felt it was the most manageable. Then a friend pointed out the blindingly obvious, you could call them 'Toms'. This provides a nice symmetry as well with Hen/Tom and Bird/Cat, and while there are cats in the universe, they are rare enough I don't think anyone will be confused.
So my plan is to go back and change the work usage in the past chapters when the next chapter is posted. Hopefully that will be less confusing for everyone (unless it's not, then I'm not sure what to do about it).
Lastly, I've written quite a lot of background notes for world building, and most of them probably won't ever show up in the story itself. I thought I would share of that here, for those of you who might be interested. This block is focused more on the general layout of the Griffon Kingdom, and while it sets a few ideas in places about their economy, it's still just background.
The Griffon Kingdom is a long narrow country, running along the coast for about 320 miles, but only reaching 30-100 miles inland. The borders run from the coastline to the peaks of the Rending Range. The range is nearly impassable by land or air, with the only pass located at Grover’s Gap. Due to the collapse of the old Kingdom, the pass has been effectively closed for a generation. Without this pass, travel to the lands on the other side of the Rending Range requires sailing far to the sound, and through the Celestia Sea. Because of this, a number of counties on the other side of the range (including Zebrica, the Pride Lands and the parrot nations) have limited trade and contact with Equestria.
The Rending Range is made up of large peaks and narrow valleys, though even the valleys are fairly high up. The coastline is dominated by large cliffs running nearly the whole length, with the only open water port being in Garnet Point. The land between the coast at the start of the range is extremely rocky and uneven, while usually being very narrow.
Most of the kingdom are in small villages spread out over the valleys between the high peaks. Some of them are connected, but many more of them are semi-isolated from the others and there and while there are ‘roads’ connecting many of them, they are poorly kept and only passable in the short summer months.
This as one major road, running the length of the country to connect Griffonstone, Grover’s Gap and Garnet Point, it was created as a trade route between the cities and Equestria, and as such was well built and is still passable (though some areas need quite a bit more work to travel through then others).
From a geological standpoint, the Rending Range is caused by the collision of three tectonic plates, and while there are is quite a lot of seismic activity, there are no volcanoes (just like the Himalayas). The majority of the peaks have glaciers on them, maybe quite extensive. Because of this, the habitable land is significantly smaller than what would be suggested by the area of the country. Grover’s Gap is really the only workable pass, there are others that could be used, but they are far higher and narrower, making them much riskier to use. The Gap is, itself, located above the tree line and is prone to heavy snows in the winter.
I dunno. In a story about restoring a country, the existence of a closed trade route that could effectively quadruple its economic partners if reopened sounds pretty relevant.