Conlang Year: Week 1
I've started my Conlang Year project using the prompts from here.
Day 1: Set an intention for your language
I'm planning to create a language for Thek, the currently ascendant empire in my Jewelsea setting, inspired by the ancient world from the Bronze Age to late antiquity. It's an empire that's rapidly expanded over the last half century, taking advantage of weakness in the surrounding states caused by a period of drought and war.
In doing this, my primary goal is to end up with a naming language, something I can use to consistent give characters and places names that feel cohesive rather than the regurgitated vaguely Latin slop or random assortments of letters that comprise the names of too many settings. I'm hoping to learn a bit more about linguistics as part of the package.
Day 2: Set an intention for sharing your language
The primary audience for this language is me! When I get the Jewelsea setting to the table it will be for any interested players as well, but I certainly don't expend them to dive deeply into conlang linguistics. There is an outside chance that I'll someday publish a game or RPG scenarios in the setting, but this level of nerdery is probably not a draw for most people.
Day 3: Determine your speakers and conworld
The speakers of Thekkish are a diverse lot, occupying the valley watered by two great rivers running down from the mountains of the great western peninsula of a major continent. The kingdom of Thek proper occupies an Altiplano-like valley at the headwaters of one of these rivers, sitting on the saddle between the river and a major endorheic basin. This kingdom was conquered by nomads from the eastern steppe about half a century ago and not long after, the new nobility was able to conquer its southern neighbors (speakers of other dialects of Thekkish) along the rivers. From there, it has proceeded to bring most of the great peninsula under its heel and now looks westward across the Jewelsea and the Archipelago towards the great island of the Riverlands and the Sunset Kingdoms of the western continent.
Day 4: Describe (or design) your speakers
The peoples of the Jewelsea are humans, indistinguishable from people like you or me today. Thek has a culture of mounted warriors, assimilated from the elite class that the nomad conquerors established themselves as. The peoples of the empire and the surrounding Jewelsea phenotypically resemble those that can be found around the Indian Ocean on Earth.
Day 5: Describe (or design) your conworld terrain
Thek City lies along the headwaters of the western of the two great rivers of the Thekkish peninsula. The terrain in Thek proper resembles that of the Andean Altiplano on Earth, temperate despite its low latitude. After exiting their mountainous sources, the two rivers run generally southwards towards the Great Bight across a great plain that resembles the Indo-Gangetic Plain, with their eastern flank rising into the foothills of the great cordillera of the eastern continent.
Travelers heading west from the mouths of the great rivers will find that the rugged coast eventually gives way to the Canyonlands, a system of fjords and coastal valleys largely inhabited by peoples of the Archipelago, a massive system of islands located off the western coast of the Thekkish peninsula. The Archipelago has three lobes, one trending towards Thek, another towards the western continent, and the last southwards towards the largest island of them all, the Riverlands.
The Archipelago is currently home to Thek's chief rival and the primary check on their expansionism - the various defensive leagues and alliances that are supporting the city-states of the Canyonlands in their struggle against Thekkish conquest. Once lashed together into a thalassocratic empire, the overreach of the last of the thalassocrats shattered their unity, but the new threat of Thek has caused them to cautiously reappraise their fiercely held independence.
Day 6: Describe your conworld's climate and weather patterns
The region of the Jewelsea is largely tropical and subtropical. It's dominated by fertile river valleys, rugged mountains, and deep jungle. Rainy and dry seasons are a primary concern in most of Thek's empire rather than summer, fall, winter, and spring. Monsoon cycles dominate the agriculture of most of the region, and the rugged terrain on both the mainland and the islands mean rain shadows are an ever present effect.
Day 7: Describe (or design) native flora
The flora of the Jewelsea largely matches up to existing Earth flora, only with the occasional twist. I don't feel constrained to keeping things to Old World Eurasian/African plants, but if it exists in a tropical or subtropical environment, I feel free to add it to the Jewelsea.
One notable exception - the Jewelsea is a world without grasses. This means that rather than growing wheat, rice, or corn as staples, the people of the Jewelsea subsist on potatoes, bananas, beans, and nuts.