Idioms from the motescape, because I couldn’t be bothered to write up Potassium’s Pilgrimage, the Courting of the Stars, or the Craftsman Wars in full.
[TO BE] ANKHED: Converted, usually unwillingly. Though the imagery is that of the Church, it is colloquially used even in non-religious senses, though the ankh-shaped scarring burned into the backs of ex-heretics hint that there yet lurks truth in the old saying.
[TO BE] AIRSICK: Synonym for lovesick. See “Airy Eyes” for explanation.
[TO HAVE] AIRY EYES: To be ignorant of something, usually willfully. An allusion to St. Oxygen’s obliviousness to St. Hydrogen’s advances.
[TO HAVE] ANTIMONY’S EYES: To have bags under one’s eyes from sleepless nights of work. An allusion to St. Antimony’s commitment to craft.
BORON’S HAMMER: An all-purpose interjection of dismay. Melted down after the Craftsman Wars as a display of goodwill.
CYANIDE’S BOX: A distraction or diversion. An allusion to St. Carbon’s contest post-Craftsman Wars; St. Cyanide, throughout the Wars, was safeguarding their submission, a chest-sized box carved of ivory. When St. Carbon finally opened it to judge St. Cyanide’s artifice, she found that it was empty, as the time it took to appraise the box gave St. Cyanide time to steal her Death Mask.
[THE] DOWNS: Covert name for the Undermarket. “Wherever there is a city with doors that can be closed, there follows the shop that cannot sleep.”
GALLIE: Animal lover, often derogatory. Originating from St. Gallium, the very first to bond with a Naursic, Hamble (now the traditional name for all bonded Naursics). Naursics are indigeouus to the windward-side shadow of the Golgothan edifice, resembling crosses between news, elephants, and shaggy-haired deer.
[TO BE] HERCULEAN: To do something difficult but worthwhile or good. An allusion to Hercules, the only sinless Dwarf ever built by St. Boron.
[TO RECEIVE] THE KISS: To die. An allusion to St. Carbon’s Death Mask, as stolen by St. Cyanide following the Craftsman Wars (see “Cyanide’s Box”).
IODINE KNOWS: Nobody has a single fucking clue.
LUNATIC: Someone utterly insane. Originally, someone who believed in “the moon”, whatever that is.
[TO] LISTEN TO THE WHISPERS: To do something utterly unexpected, most often a betrayal. A reference to St. Potassium’s pilgrimage; while in the White Lands, his disciple St. Magnesium attempted to kill him after hearing something in the wind howling through the broken pillars and arches.
THE MOUNTAIN: A metaphor for enlightenment, or, more broadly, one’s goals. An allusion to the destination of St. Potassium’s pilgrimage, though some take umbrage with the idiom’s usage, claiming the Mountain is a literal place somewhere in the motescape.
[TO GET THE] NICKELJITTERS: The stage between the euphoria of learning something new and the confidence of mastery. An allusion to St. Nickel and his eternal apprenticeship under St. Antimony post-Craftsman Wars.
[TO] PASS THE SNIFF TEST: Given the pungency of magic and how many people have learned to smell Old World, passing the sniff test means being proved or suspected an arcane oddity. Frequently shortened; something simply “sniffs”.
[ONE’S] SOULMATE [IS] IN AN (ANIMAL): In reference to someone failing to find or seek romantic success. Since pure souls are redistributed upon death (or so it is believed), the common explanation for such failure is that one’s beloved is in a beast’s form. The more ludicrous the animal, the better.
[TO BE] READING POETRY: Proselytizing unwantedly or in poor faith. Like “Ankhed”, used broadly, despite clerical origins.
SCROLLSNIFFER: Out-of-touch intellectual. In a rather patronizing display, Mordent University’s front gates still retain this graffitied word from the Paint Riots.
[TO HAVE] WINGS ON [ONE’S] BOOTS: A straight person with a strained relationship to queer people, anywhere from fetishistic to homophobic. Derived from the winged boots of St. Mercury, the messenger who was corrupting St. Oxygen’s messages to try and get St. Hydrogen to fall for him instead.
Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.
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