Temple Dictionary & Ossary-Glay - Temple Of The Mermaid

“Air Intake Spire” (Temple) Coupled with a temple’s penthouse, the tip of an Air Intake Spire is likewise able to extend up, pierce the surface of the ocean, and draw in fresh air. Typified at its tip by four large cowl vents and a central dorade, air is drawn, when required, by utilizing pumping machinery housed below the Royal Palace on floor 93 or thereabouts.
“Astacoidia” (Gam) Supreme Empress Balihaj Astacoidia, ruler of the world(s), this is her Gam. Astacoidae is repped by Lobsters and Crayfish.
“Atinlay” (Gam) “Atinlay” (Language) Gam Atinlay speak in and amongst themselves in “Igh’hay Atinlay” or, as the other Gams refer to it informally as, “Fish Latin.” An old and romantic language, Atinlay’s roots can be found in such works as the “Ingkay Amesjay Iblebay,” the “Orahtay,” and the “Upanishads-ay.” One of Atinlay’s most famous and poetic orators, Amesjay Oycejay, imparts the experience of “Ermanmay Atinlay ife-lay” in the following lengthy quote from his work “Innegan’s Fay Ake-way:”
- (Excerpt not available due to opyrightcay infringementay) (See Footnote”*”)
“Baj” and “Bajing” For Naiads who don’t want to wait around and become a mermaid naturally, there is an “alternatural method.” A Baj is a fish breed relative to the Basking Shark and other fish that swim with their mouths open wide collecting plankton. The Baj has characteristics of any number of marine creatures, however, not just sharks; many flowing, colorful, and beautiful. Seemingly bred for this purpose: if a Naiad were to capture a Baj (or purchase one from an upper level dealer) she and it could bond – thus giving her a mermaid tail. Yes, it is a freaky ceremony. The baj swallows the naiad’s legs and becomes one with her. The “Bajing Ceremony” is different depending upon each Gam’s traditions. Naiads with some wealth typically adopt a baj and live with it swimming languidly around their apartment for a week or two, just so they get used to each other’s DNA. The bajing there-on can go quite smoothly. The baj species naturally wants to join with naiads (or bipedal humanoids) as it leads to a greater level of reproduction. Its memories and personality, such that these exist, are subsumed by the naiad in question and join with her personality and brain, giving her sudden knowledge of distant and deep environs… or happy domesticity, depending upon where the baj is from. Some baj are purely bred in tanks. (Without a naiad, the baj reproduce by passing through another baj’s wake during a yearly spawning cycle.)
“Blennie, Fang” Colorful, small, slender fish with two poisonous “fangs” situated in their lower jaw. The poison, though difficult for normal humans to harvest in our world, is harvestable by Merfolk alchemists in their world without difficulty. ‘Depends upon your schooling, I suppose.
“Blow Hole” 1) A naturally occurring thermal phenomenon on the ocean floor whereby jets of warm water or gas spew precious minerals, precious coins, methane, crude oil, or (theoretically) tiny living shrimp travelling through the center of the planet.
“Blow Hole” 2) The nostril of a whale or dolphin on the top of its head.
“Blow Hole” 3) Slang. Vulgar. Term for a rectum and/or anus located in the urogenital slit in Merfolk or a Naiad’s butthole.
“The C.R.A.P.S.” aka The Conspiracy Radio and Podcast Show. Tag lines: “Do you get The C.R.A.P.S?” and “If it’s 11pm Eastern Time, then it’s time for three hours of “The C.R.A.P.S.” I know, it’s hilarious. They have contests to pick the best catch phrase.
“Central Pillar” see also “Central Stack” see also “Guide Roller” From second floor up to (typically) floor 35, the central pillar houses the Guide Roller Shaft. From the control station at the center of the Temple’s Gam Branch Root Level (See also: “The Heart of the Temple”) the angle of intent for the guide roller is adjusted incrementally depending upon how steep the outside curve of the road is. The reason the Roller Apartments number 116 (instead of 120 – as there would be 12 rows of 10 – in a perfect grid) is because the four central apartments on each floor have been removed to allow the central pillar to pass through. Likewise, on the seabed road, in place of the center four rollers is the single, larger, Guide Roller. The interior of the central pillar is kept flooded with a mixture of sea water and either whale or crude oil.
“Coin Basket” (Ilehos) Fronds and Antlers of coral grow together and form sturdy baskets or “Bowls” of various sizes. Colorful, beautiful, exotic, but not unbreakable, coin baskets become filled with coins numbering from the dozens to the tens of thousands. Fish nudge coins to the baskets at the Ilehos location whereby puffer fish, little crabs, eels, etc toss or spit the coins onto the collected pile. Once the baskets reach a critical breaking point, their attending Ilehos rings begin to glow more and more brightly, and Doonies are attracted to the ring. The Doonies then “Kiss” the ring, transferring energy into their little fish bodies, which in turn makes them very attractive to Merfolk for a multitude of uses. Meanwhile, the basket breaks at a weak spot (a spot picked at by nibbling manidoon) and the coins pour out, more often than not, into a nearby sink hole.
“Coins” Minted primarily within the Temples themselves, though some pressings and styles originate supernaturally in the underworld, coins are (a) thrown into the wild to appease the Manidoon (b) strewn about outdoors for good luck (c) remelted and repurposed if their dates don’t match the current decade’s calendar.
“Coleoid” (Gam) Freaky looking, scary looking, or alien-looking Mer collect themselves into Gam Coleoid. Repped by Octopi, Squid, and Jellyfish, members of Gam Coleoid tend toward blue and purple-hued skin. Naturally they can dive deeper, see farther in the dark, and generally have better telepathic abilities. Scientists, alchemists, healers, and spies call Gam Coleoid home. Many can spray ink from an extra hole in their split, which can either smell good or not-so-good depending on their diet.
“Deet” Slang. Short for Detritus. Organic rotting material.
“Display” Term encompassing the rite of passage Naiads and some Mermaids endure to become paired with a Merman for marriage, coupling, breeding, or employment. Females appear upon a lower market stage or inside a lower market tank and are bid upon by competing and interested parties. Mermaids with proper plates may also bid upon females for likewise reasons.
“Doonie Juice” Blood, guts, and viscera of a smashed manidoon. Different colors and different varieties have healthful and healing properties.
“Doonie Tubes” Glowfish travel in and out and through Temple walls via translucent tubes. These tubes light the Temple interiors.
“Doonies” see “Manidoon.”
“Downramp” (see Uptube) Much simpler than an Uptube, a Downramp is a sometimes-straight and/or sometimes-corkscrewing waterslide. Fun unless you have a Spadix soldier with a spear on your tail.
“Dugong” (Gam) Gam Dugong is best known for hard workers, working class, plain folk and artisans. Nai’ds and Maids who don’t make the cut (in the looks department) in Gam Gourami, end up in Gam Dugong. (Hey, now. All Naiads and Mermaids are beautiful, its just that Gam Dugong Gals aren’t as “extra” as the Gourami Girls. So don’t sass.) Gam Dugong is repped by Dolphins, Dugongs, and Manatee. This is a lowkey powerful worldwide alliance: if you need a pod of Dolphins to help with something, gotta go through Gam Dugong.
“Fenaffle” Word origin unclear. Gam Fenaffle is associated with banking, cartography, coin and currency exchange rates.
“Floor Water” All levels of the Temple are flooded with floor water anywhere from a third to a full meter deep. Residential apartments may be flooded to a level satisfactory for each occupant.
“Fried Shrimp Tails” Salty, addictive, good for the digestion.
“Gam Banner” Gam Banners can be deployed between each of the Gam Branch Fingers – and like sails on a ship – they can catch undersea currents to help propel the Temple in its travels.
“Gam Branch Bubble Pod” Each pod contains a small community of houses, gardens, and observatories. Bubble pods and their internal structures remain copasetic and horizontal no matter what position their branch is rotated. Some have the ability to open to the outdoor undersea ocean. All have the ability to be flooded completely or have their globular space completely filled with breathable air. (See Temple Air Intake Spire)
“Gam Branch” Grown and carved from volcanic amber-like deposits in the undersea equivalent of Sicily, Gam Branches are molded and allowed to harden for a century before they are allowed to become permanent fixtures for a Temple. Each branch contains a single large trunk and three finger branches. Each finger is tipped with a cup and a large bubble pod. Each branch is fully rotational in order to best catch the undersea current when banners are deployed.
“Gam” Each Merfolk Temple resident is housed in a “Gam” – a neighborhood, a quarter, and (to an extent) an ethnicity that have their own “Branch” and “Gam Banner.”
“Gourami” (Gam) This Gam is known for beauty, colorful lowers, and Naiads who grow into the prettiest mermaids. They are also known for breeding, child rearing, and teaching. Gouramis have a better than other Gams percentage of graduates that join Gam Fenaffle. Gourami is repped by colorful, fin-flowing, tropical, freshwater, South Asian fish. Their tails tend to have extra fins and flutters.
“Guide Roller” The Guide Roller is the only roller with a range of adjustable motion on its X and Y axis – albeit a range of only 20 degrees; +/- 15. As the guide roller is not being propelled by the Roller Girls and their Can Carousels, the spin of its axle is used to power many contraptions on each level – from the Lower Market to the Middle Market and all levels in between (and many above as shafting continues through the outer walls). A natural shallow trench has worn away in the world-wide undersea road, so the guide roller doesn’t so much actively steer the Temple as it does passively hold the Temple to its course.
“Gup” Slang for “Guppy” or a small, helpless fish.
“Ick” is the Terra Aqua all-purpose curse word. Partially based on illnesses developed by aquarium fish when their anuses prolapse and seem unable to discharge healthy poops.
“Ilehos” is a particular grouping of creatures and objects on the Terra Aqua undersea floor. These include an “Ilehos Ring,” a “Sinkhole,” and a “Coin Basket.” Glowfish attend to, groom, and prune the Ilehos environment as it transfers energy from the ring to themselves. Small crayfish, shrimp, and krill do the same. The “intention” of an Ilehos is to grow the bounty of coins in their nearby coin baskets, until they break under their own weight and spill coins into the sinkhole.
“Manidoon” Manidoon or “Doonies” include any variety of small, one to two inch fish that absorb glowing energy from Ilehos rings and do the biding of the rings – simple commands like “go get more coins” or “go bother that Mermaid over there” or “Please dissuade that ray from flopping upon my sink hole, thank you.”
“Nai’ds and Maids” Slang for Naiads and Mermaids.
“Natural Born(s)” also “NB’s” Mermaids born/hatched with tails already grown in. They have a 20-year (give or take) advantage over naiads in as much as their tails are more bendy and wriggly – having never had to convert leg bones into spine.
“Plates” Merfolk currency. Clipped to necklaces, earrings, tierras, etc. Plates are rectangular pieces of gold, hammered gold or silver, rectangular gemstones, etc. along with mounting “Backs” appear in “Half-Plates,” “Bars,” “Short Plates,” “Half-Backs” etc and also with “Coins” constitute the full spectrum of worldwide Terra Aqua tradeable currency.
“Ples Pit” see also “Ples Stables” Penned in areas flooded to the usual open-air height where the Ples reside and muck-about in brackish water that you probably wouldn’t want to swallow if you swam in it.
“Ples” Informal term for “plesiosaur” or “plesiosaurus.”
“Roller Girl(s)” Slang name for the Naiad women who populate the bottom floors of every Temple and are responsible for keeping the giant rollers a-rolling along. Each Temple has 116 box-like apartments on the bottom floor, then boxes stacked upon boxes on floors two, three, (sometimes four and five). Each column of apartments controls one of 116 rollers directly below. They do this by pumping a treadle and flywheel and “cranking cans” – energy cans that power mechanics both large and small throughout the Temple. Girls who hatch naiad, as a general rule, are schooled until they are 14, then assigned to a Roller, where they toil for years until they either become a mermaid through natural maturity, or are bought out of Display. Roughly 1 in 6 Roller Girls never make the natural change into Mermaidenhood. “Lifer” Roller Girls work into their 30’s and “age-out” only to become service industry types in the lower levels for their remaining days.
“Shark” 1) Any number of undersea carnivorous predators with sharp teeth, dorsal fins, stiff wing-like pectoral fins, dark eyes (black eyes, “like a doll’s eyes”) (See Footnote **) kinda cute pointy noses, and the ability to be loyal and playful (See Footnote ***) (unless they want to eat you)
“Shark” 2) Slang term meaning “cool” or “bad ass.”
“Sink Hole” (Ilehos) Coins are sucked down by the tens and the tens of thousands; to where (?) no one knows. The Underworld wants them for their own use or to borrow for a time (see Blow Holes). As Ilehos rings strobe in brilliant colors of blue, white, and red, doonies swarm around the event and prevent other seabed creatures from being drawn inside. Sink holes can range in size from the diameter of a dinner plate to as big around as an Orca’s midriff (if you should find one chopped in half with a giant sword). (See Footnote ****)
“Slinger” slang for a harpoon gun.
“Snaiu” Acronym. “Situation Normal: All Icked Up.”
“Spadix” (Gam) The soldier class on Terra Aqua belongs to Gam Spadix. Other Gams have Constables, but Gam Spadix is the home for permanent soldiers. They are also home to deep sea and large-game hunters.
“Supercord” A high-strength fibrous cord, not unlike fishing line, sometimes held in reels affixed to the user’s utility belt, used with hand-held spear guns primarily for spearfishing.
“T.S.R” (Triple Systems Redundancy) An operational philosophy for Temple functionality. Example: Temple locomotion utilizes three methods. 1) Helical Energy, 2) Gam Banners, 3) Ples Trains. Example Two: Oxygen inside Temples is replenished utilizing three methods. 1) Penthouse Air Intake Cowls, 2) Internal Plant Growth, 3) Electrolysis Rooms.
“Unlock” Shortened term for the communal time Roller Girls experience before an allowed trip to the Lower Market. All or many apartments are unlocked all at once allowing the ladies to get out into the hallways, commiserate with their rarely-seen neighbors, and scrub the walls clean.
“Uptube” (see Downramp) An uptube is the means by which merfolk may go up from floor to floor inside each Temple – in open air. Commonly, uptubes are 3m in diameter with a rotating screw spinning from floor to ceiling. An uptube user need only crank a crank at origin-level for a seat to be released. Each seat will attach to the screw and raise a rider to their destination. At the termination point, a rider must hop out and exit the tube lest they get caught-up in the seat-return mechanics at each tube’s domed cap and pinch a fin… or worse.
“Val” (Gam) Gam Val is the Whale Gam. Members of Gam Val’s personalities track as you might expect. The old ones don’t mind having barnacles stuck to their backsides.

Footnotes:

* Itigation-lay ending-pay

** Matt Hooper – “You were on the Indianapolis?”

Police Chief Martin Brody – “What happened?”

Quint – “Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We’d just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin’ from the dorsal to the tail.

What we didn’t know, was that our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. (Heh) They didn’t even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, ‘sharks come cruisin’, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and sometimes that shark he go away… but sometimes he wouldn’t go away.

Sometimes that shark – he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And y’know the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin’ and the hollerin’ they all come in and… they rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour.

Thursday mornin’, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, Mister Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura; he swung in low and he saw us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. … Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”

*** Temple of the Mermaid, TotM Industries, its subsidiaries, Funchwerks, Funchwerks Inc., and anyone associated therein is not responsible for people playing with sharks. Little ones; maybe ok. But the bigger they get, please be careful and only pet them under the supervision of a licensed and professional mermaid. (See Footnote *****)

**** Do not ever split an Orca in half with a giant sword.

***** Temple of the Mermaid, TotM Industries, its subsidiaries, Funchwerks, Funchwerks Inc., and anyone associated therein is not responsible for licensed and professional mermaids purposefully leading tourists into shark infested waters. C’mon girls, be better.

Credit for “Quint’s Speech” from Jaws 1975: Sackler/Milius/Shaw/Spielberg