Ctesifon

Piero · Post by **Piero** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 11:25 am

http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/maps/m_sas_mint_2.jpg

look at this map. in the iraq area there is a city called "ctesiphon".
Has it inspired mark rosenfelder when he was creating ctesifon in almea, or he didn't even know its existance?

So Haleza Grise · Post by **So Haleza Grise** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:52 pm

Ctesiphon is one of a number of Earth cities and places that have cousins on Almea. Others include Pristina, Asucion, and Lake Como. There's more, but I can't think of them right now.

Piero · Post by **Piero** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 5:37 pm

What do they have in common with the Terrestrial ones? The name only or something more?

So Haleza Grise · Post by **So Haleza Grise** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:56 pm

Piero Lo Monaco wrote:What do they have in common with the Terrestrial ones? The name only or something more?

I think it's mostly the name, unless you can find something in the descriptions of those individual places that has parallels.

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:37 pm

So Haleza Grise wrote:I think it's mostly the name, unless you can find something in the descriptions of those individual places that has parallels.

Well, Ctesiphon in Iraq and ??sifo (Ctesifon) in Almea are both ancient imperial capitals, now defunct--although the Almean one is still occupied, at least. Another Earthly borrowing, albeit slightly disguised, is Gurdago, adopted from Cartago (Carthage) on Earth.

As SHG said, most of the borrowing are just names; some, like the ones above, have some parallel significance, while one or two are puns. (As Mark has noted, there are a few puns and jokes scattered around the map of Almea; most of these, like the Earthly place names, date back to Verduria's less-serious origins as a D&D game setting.) One example of a borrowed name that doubles as a pun is Denisovich, located along the coast northeast of Verduria and just north of Ismain. Its name comes from the patronymic of the main character of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Ivan Denisovich, was, of course, a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag, the subject of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago--and Denisovich consists of a coastal strip and a group of islands--i.e., an archipelago.

(Well, I thought it was kind of cute, anyway...

My apologies for the long-winded explanation.)

p@,
Glenn

Post by **zompist** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:54 pm

Glenn wrote:One example of a borrowed name that doubles as a pun is Denisovich, located along the coast northeast of Verduria and just north of Ismain. Its name comes from the patronymic of the main character of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Ivan Denisovich, was, of course, a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag, the subject of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago--and Denisovich consists of a coastal strip and a group of islands--i.e., an archipelago.

It gets worse... see if you can find the name of the archipelago.

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 10:51 pm

zompist wrote:It gets worse... see if you can find the name of the archipelago.

All right; I got it (finally

). From the page on Isma?n:

"Ismahi was caught in the middle of Elena Eledhe's wars with Kebri; the end result was the loss of the Gulag littoral..."

Sure 'nuff.

p@,
Glenn