Black Jewels: Glossary Part Two

[beroli]

Author's Note

 

The "Sc" in the names Scelt and Scletie is pronounced "Sh."
 

BLOOD HIERARCHY/CASTES

Males

landen--non-Blood of any race

Blood male--a general term for all males of the Blood; also refers to any Blood male who doesn't wear Jewels

Warlord--a Jeweled male equal in status to a witch

Prince--a Jeweled male equal in status to a Priestess or a Healer

Warlord Prince--a dangerous, extremely aggressive Jeweled male; in status, slightly lower than a Queen

Females

landen--non-Blood of any race

Blood female--a general term for all females of the Blood; mostly refers to any Blood female who doesn't wear Jewels

witch--a Blood female who wears Jewels but isn't one of the other hierarchical levels; also refers to any Jeweled female

Healer--a witch who heals physical wounds and illnesses; equal in status to a Priestess and a Prince

Priestess--a witch who cares for altars, sanctuaries, and Dark Altars; witnesses handfasts and marriages; performs offerings;

equal in status to a Healer and a Prince

Black Widow--a witch who heals the mind; weaves the tangled webs of dreams and visions; is trained in illusions and poisons

Queen--a witch who rules the Blood; is considered to be the land's heart and the Blood's moral center; as such, she is the focal

point of their society

 

 

 

     The books focus largely on the topmost levels of Blood society. Landens, who have no magic, exist largely to be a morality marker: Good characters treat them like people (even while not being able to relate to the idea of a life that doesn't prominently feature magic), evil characters treat them like vermin, slaves, or cannon fodder. Magic is strictly hereditary; a Blood character is unlikely to grow up knowing any landens. Blood and landens can interbreed, but aside from the power issue (a landen isn't exactly in a position to enforce a no) which Bishop never addresses, there are issues she does address: half-Blood children may have enough magic to qualify as Blood, but are likely, at best, to be far weaker magically than their Blood parent, and there's also a real possibility that a half-Blood child will have to live with an instinctive sense that s/he should be able to perform magic but no actual magic, or will have enough magic to set herself/himself up as a petty dictator over a landen village but not enough to be accepted as Blood.
 

     Only two characters who appear onstage are Blood who don't wear Jewels; both are male.

     The Blood have a legend--which will, over the course of the trilogy, prove to be entirely true--that all the Blood races inherited their magic from a dragon queen. All the Jewels were originally dragon scales. Because the magic came from a female dragon, females of all the Blood races were the first to develop magical abilities and have consistently had more powerful magic.

     Caste (Warlord, Prince, Warlord Prince, Healer, Priestess, Black Widow, Queen) is mostly inborn. A child's parents can immediately tell that the child is (say) a Queen (except in one case where they can't). However, it's also possible to become a Black Widow without being born one--even, in rare (once in the history of the Blood to date) cases, for a male to become a Black Widow--and possible to cancel a Black Widow apprenticeship partway through. (Can someone who was born a Black Widow choose not to be one? I'd say probably not, but I don't know for sure.) I have no idea how much of becoming a Priestess is choice; it seems odd that a woman could be born with "you're going to witness marriages and care for altars" stamped on her forehead in a way it doesn't seem odd that a woman could be born with "you're an instinctive ruler" stamped on her forehead, but none of the protagonists is a Priestess, which means it gets less exploration than any of the other castes. Note that which caste you are is not directly hereditary. A family with powerful magic is more likely to produce a Queen or a Warlord Prince, while one with weak magic is more likely to produce Warlords and witches with no further titles, but a Queen does not mean someone who necessarily has something to rule over; it means someone with magical instincts to rule who magically causes those of other castes to want to submit.


     Warlord, Princes, Warlord Princes, and Queens are entirely born that way, and their caste shapes their reactions through their lives. Healers seem to be born that way as well, though whether this influences them in any way other than giving them certain magical abilities non-Healers don't have is unclear. Healer and Black Widow can be combined with the other castes (someone can be a Healer, a Black Widow, and a Queen, or a Black Widow and a Priestess. Or a Black Widow and a Warlord Prince).

     Somewhat contrary to the text given in the glossary, a character in the second book sums Blood society up as, "Warlords are equal in status to witches, Princes are equal to Priestesses and Healers, and Black Widows only have to defer to Warlord Princes and Queens. And Warlord Princes, who are considered a law unto themselves, are a step above the other castes and a step--a long step--beneath the Queens."

     Males serve, instinctively, though a male can rule "on behalf of a Queen"--and it doesn't even have to be a Queen who's alive yet.

     If you have any questions about any of this, please ask them, and I'll try to clarify--either in comments here or, more likely, in future entries.