When humans made first contact, they were attracted to the system by energetic anomalies. This was actually communication, transport and broadcasting infrastructure, and they had well anticipated the arrival of another sentient people. Eventually it was discovered that Aquarii had a form of interplanetary travel – with their modulations they’d developed a way of creating wormholes for individuals and groups. They expanded our network of habitable planets, and they welcomed humans to their own system once they’d examined this new people thoroughly. The society of co-evolved Aquari/Symbias planets was more like signal beacons and lighthouses between different kingdoms with the occasional small party of emissaries.
Tag Archives: Appendix
Peoples: Aquarii: Leadership & Society
– Small to big loghouse/treehouse structure tribes, some stable, some nomadic
– Elders & Accomplished in magical meeting rule by accord
– they have always had a local tribal leader/conductor and a spiritual reinterpreter
– planetwise, they hold councils
– there are maybe 6-28 tribes per planet
– high councils are termed octaves, 8 + 1 relevant/shuffled representatives – they have a special planet for that to which the Imperium has never been invited
– the Sendsingers are a guild and count as a planet in their home federet administration, but they aren’t concerned with most planetary affairs
some guilds:
– Sendsingers
– Grove tenders / heritage
– translation guild
– innovators (multimedia)
Peoples: Aquarii
– originating from eight planets in the Aquari Home Federet; citizens of the Pan-Galactic Imperium
– conjugated as Aquari:Human, Aquarii:Humans, Aquariid:Human(adjective)
– names: adjective + nature
– since we can’t fully reproduce their language, their place and person names are descriptive translations, like Russet Song Valley and Far Pitch
– bipedal mantid-cephalopod bodies
– suedelike skin covered in tiny vibrational hairs called setae-villi
– two main arm tentacles (no suckers, but electrostatic gecko grip suede that’s usually smooth and dry except when picking things up or gripping) – a circular mane of vibrational tendrils, plus a mustache of them on many of the men
– a beak mouth for eating
– audio-visual range frequency abilities in their natural communication
– high empathic perception
– somewhat taller than humans
– tribally-aligned uniquely colored carapaces
– their upright, two-legged bodies are covered in armor like carapaces
– strong, mantislike hind legs
– intelligent and compassionate black eyes
– carapaces vary in color, pattern and shape by tribe
– the young start in round shells protected in dreaming seashore beds with a lovegiver where they can already sing & color
– go through successive moltings & imaginalize into the modern bipedal-tentacled form when they can walk away from their molting
– start with short tendrils
– align by markings from group infancy and are raised tribally
– referred to as our-children
– can individualize in recombination to migrate tribes
– they mature in the company of their conscious Symbias tree groves, which maintain their ancestral linkage
– pair mating
– they use very little fire technology, prefer humidity – shape wood with song for their homes
– artistically-oriented culture
– all professions are a form of art
– technology, evolution and culture are centered around vibrational color/sound modulation
– we perceive it as what we call art, and to them it’s direct communication creating lasting structures of and monuments of multi-layered thought
– they love to share their art
– their language is audiovisual
– includes tones that humans can’t hear
– they have some emotions humans don’t have
– we can see their color-visual cues more clearly when applied to certain media
– they are very good at replicating human language sounds
– with some effort, they can color-emote for the human spectrum, but they are always able to read wavelengths off each other
– uncannily perceptive, coming from a culture that habitually sees thoughts and emotions publicly
– tentacles and tendrils are part of their emoting apparati, both visually and in producing vibrational control
– some can ventriloquize friction, the distance breeze
– Humans and Aquarii don’t often fight, the temperament is no longer there (since a long while back)
– they make everyone’s lives more fun, cooler, healthier, and more beautiful; simply put, they’re some of our favorite people and there’s a mutual natural reluctance toward conflict
– they also uphold powerful strategic keys of the Imperium, like the transgates
– with their hidden Groves and secret council planet too they may seem closed in some ways
– but they’re also extremely accommodating, helpful and fair
– no Aquariid defense (or attack) is like any other Aquariid defense or attack
– they’re situation-responsive and capable of extreme unpredictability using light and sound waves, which are intrinsic building blocks of our perceivable reality
– they don’t use much clothing or weaponry
– they do decorate themselves
– not very many technological objects
– commonly used are staves, wands, pendants, beaded scarves – they prefer swampy or rainforest environments
– Sendsingers enable modern intergalactic transit
– sendsinging is a deep craft with high responsibility
– linking those massive distances and bearing up to the task makes the nature of their voice rather different
– sendsinging requires a change of voice
– sendsingers pledge allegiance to no one planet
– common professions in the Imperium: artists, performers, special effects people, Sendsingers, natural builder terraformers
– herdspeople and foragers above and below water, sonic songs allow communication with other species
– they pride themselves on very earnestly developing interspecies communication praxes, like a new musical instrument or different scale
– charming communicators, powerful runners/jumpers/climbers
– the Aquarii have a pet type – a sluggie, like a friendly bean bag
– sort of a leathern styrofoam-pellet slime mold with a personality
– not actually slimy, snorfles, aids with projection in Symbias groves
– they’re a responsibility with their own moods, but they’re very joyful and able to bring harmony in tune
Peoples: Aureny
– live on one planet, named Ombd, beneath the harsh surface in communities called Subterranea.
– eat large succulent flowers grown in directed-light cavern fields
– enjoy sporting, forging, farming, singing
– names: nature+verb
– massive, the height of multiple stories
– stony hides with patches of ropy fur, some with a bison hunch
– collonade trunklike front limbs ending in padfooted dexterous opposable ironclaws, with back legs like backhoes
– a capital plate ridge, possibly a resonance chamber beneath
– four sensory pits below the bony capital ridge
– mouths with masticating dental platform ridges, and a pointed chin
– agendered, with self-polarizing gametes
– the young incubate each inside their own stone where different gametes have been placed on a favorite rock, and are raised tribally
– the stone grows, and they crack out of geodes like eggs, the name of which is similar to their name for their planet (omba/Ombd). Some of the most beautiful and powerful gems are shards of omba.
– they group-raise
– decorate with jeweled ornamentation when below ground; a teeny dreadlock-ring is the size of a human shoulder-torc
– ornamentation is studded with set crystals and gems, made of unguessable metals with luminous crystals that may not even be recorded on the phronium spectrum
– communication happens below human frequency range
– advanced awareness of emotion as a connective force of nature, able to balance to the exactitude of equation; with reverence, they both feel and understand the way it is, will be, can be, should be, could be; they feel the forces without forcing the feeling
– aureny is the name of their practice of collective emotional resonance, same as the name for their people
Appendix Complete!
Dear readers, a beautiful appendix has been fully crafted for us all to enjoy.

Coming in at a svelte yet well-built 70 pages, this contains all people, places, and terms present in the story dimension not exactly as in ours. It’s a little bit as though notes on these matters were gathered first-to-thirdhand from diverse perspectives and sources from within the chronology, possibly by Kao-Sidhe, and bundled into one organized trunk in the Vedani aetherscape, with an obvious multiplicity of contributors.
I am, in our world, the one who wrote it, yes. I took on this task because I myself have adored a fine appendix, and Bones of Starlight was built with a mountain of juicy tidbits.
This will be available to purchase on 7/14/24, July 14 Bastille Day, as it was with 3: Greater Beyond. Contact me personally via social media or through the site email form for a direct or autographed copy or set, or find it through your bookseller with the ISBN above via Ingram Distributors.
I once bought a chapbook Index for a work of fiction I hadn’t read, because it was intentionally artistically produced, and reading an out-of-context index to someone’s favorite work felt delightfully and poignantly non-sequitur. So if you ask, Does it stand on its own? my thought is, if you think it could. For Lovers of Worldbuilding.
I hope this will be a joyous addition to complete anyone’s individual volume trilogy set. It costs almost as much as a novel, but not quite. It’s a jacketed hardcover and will sit nicely next to the original full set of volumes. The cover art is also by the zesty trilogy cover art painter @leo.shallat (IG & TikTok).
Do I want to add the Appendix to the free version hosted on this website?
Yes.