LexiconOfElderDays

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Lexicon Of Elder Days

Being a Cyclopedia of Ages Past
The Scholar-gods and wise Exalted of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy hold endless knowledge; here they gather to reminisce upon fallen times.

From Neel Krishnaswami's Lexicon, paraphrased or trimmed for conciseness and relevance.

This project was begun in 2004 and languished until late 2007 when it was revived. People are encouraged to join and help finish out this great game! When joining, be sure to read the rules and follow established procedure. It's a good idea to wiki-search for all pages that reference the entry you're writing so you know what has already been established about it. As per the rules, all facts established by other writers are 100% true, though they may be shaded by opinion.

Play nice with others and write your hearts out!

Rules

The basic idea is that each player takes on the role of a scholar, from before scholarly pursuits became professionalized. You are cranky, opinionated, prejudiced and eccentric. You are also collaborating with a number of your peers - the other players - on the construction of an encyclopedia describing the past ages of Creation: from the Primordial War to the Terrestrial Shogunate.

View the Original Rules here!

The Rules of the Revived Lexicon

  1. Each turn, all active players will claim a phantom entry and write its article, citing at least one previous, finished article and one existing phantom. As we close in on Z, it may no longer be necessary or possible to cite phantoms. If it isn't feasible to cite phantoms, cite at least two existing articles.
  2. If all phantoms for a letter are claimed or written and you still wish to write an entry for that letter, create a new article. New articles should not generate any new phantoms. Instead, cite existing articles and phantoms normally.
  3. Anyone is welcome to jump in at any time; you will probably want to jump in at the letter that's being worked on at the moment, and play catchup only if you feel inspired to do so. You're also welcome to play intermittently.
  4. It's an academic sin to cite yourself, you can never cite an entry you've written. (OOC, this forces the players to intertwingle their entries, so that everybody depends on everyone else's facts.) Incidentally, once you run out of empty slots, obviously you can only cite the phantom slots.
  5. Despite the fact that your peers are self-important, narrow-minded dunderheads, they are honest scholars. No matter how strained their interpretations are, their facts are accurate as historical research can make them. So if you cite an entry, you have to treat its factual content as true! (Though you can argue vociferously with the interpretation and introduce new facts that shade the interpretation.)
  6. Dibbing, what we call it when an entry is reserved by a poster, is for a very specific purpose: preventing two people from writing the same entry. You may only dib on the letter currently being worked on and you may only dib once per letter.

Entry Format

{heading 1} Title of Entry {heading 1}

fictional authorship:

{text of entry}

See Also:

  • Entry 1
  • Entry 2
  • Entry 3 (these 3 are alphabetized; one is the backlink and 2 are phantoms.
  • Other ? Entries (link to the page for this entry's letter)

- Signed (Wikiuser, not fictional author)

Entries

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Discussion

Players

I know there's not much competition, but I'm totally gonna beat everyone to the punch. You betcha.</i> ~ Shataina

Cleanup Crew

Long after the original game ended, these people filled in the phantom entries:

  • Ambisinister:(Nikos Vallay, Class 2 Scribe, Class 3 Lorist, Class 4 Translator of the Mad Quill Society)
  • Heru: (Hasn't declared a name yet.)
  • Telgar: O (Telgar, Sidereal Historian. Chosen of Saturn)
  • Wordman: C, O (Flaxen Catacomb, Vizier to the Tri-Kahn of Chiaroscuro)
  • TheHoverpope: (Makixata, Who Winnows Truth from Chaff)
Comments

I had hoped to revitalize the game and finish it out, but filling in the remaining phantoms (no shortage) is a good goal too. I will lend a hand to see this through! - Telgar, Sidereal Historian

I might try my hand in writing some of these as its setting making and I like setting making. :) I'll try writing some articles when I have time. Question, can I also make new articles or should I stay in the realm of phantom articles. - Heru

Several votes for restarting the project. At some point, I'd like to build a PDF of the lexicon, possibly an illustrated one, which means I'd be interested in seeing it "done" (even if only temporarily). I see several ways to proceed, if people are really interested in a resurrection:

  1. Finish out the current phantoms, then figure out how to extend with new entries from there. Pros: concrete goal, easier, clear indication of when it is done, follows the wishes expressed at the top of the post, would allow authors to write more than one entry per letter. Cons: Not quite as fun, maybe.
  2. Restart in earnest, using the "turns" lasting a few days, but starting with Z and working backwards. Authors would still follow the one entry per letter rule and probably the other rules as well. Pros: Expands the lexicon. Cons: More complicated, needs more contributors, no clear indication of being finished.
  3. Fill out the phantoms, following a rule something like "for every X phantoms you complete, you can add a new entry", where X > 2, more like 4 to 6. Follow the "one entry per letter per author" rule and the rules for linking, but ignore most of the rest. Pros: gives incentives to fill in phantoms, completes entries at a faster rate than they are added, allows slow growth. Cons: no clear indication of being finished.

-- Wordman

The original plan for finishing out the Lexicon was that we would simply not generate new phantoms. Instead, everyone would fill in one phantom entry per letter, creating a new article only if the letter didn't have enough phantoms to give everyone active something to do. We really were only about 2/3rds of the way through the alphabet when most people stopped. Each letter should have sufficient phantoms at this point. If new articles are created, they should cite existing articles or phantoms. No new phantoms. - Telgar

OK. No new phantoms. I'll probably still try to follow the "one article per letter" rule where possible. - Wordman

On a related but different note, going through the Lexicon as I attempt to write my O entry, I find a slight annoyance. There are forward citations and a few back citations, but few if any entries have a complete listing of all entries in which they are mentioned. That would be really helpful in reading existing entries and writing new ones. I suggest that each person claim maybe 2-3 letters and complete the entries' citation lists to include all mentions of that entry. - Telgar

I think that we should finish all the phantoms entries. That way we can have a complete A-to-Z database of information. I do not think we should have a one-letter per person thing or any other stupid restriction in my book. As long as you make sure what you write follows what other people write then there is no problem. I also think that once that is done we might consider creating new entries. So, to spell it our clearly, I am supposed to take one or more phantom entries and write out information on it. The information I write can be anything as long as it generally fits canon and fits in what other people wrote. Am I missing anything? -Heru

Something, yeah. The Lexicon isn't just a writing project, it's also a game. One article per letter per person is part of the game and encourages diversity. Maybe if there just flat aren't enough people to possibly complete the Lexicon as the rules would have us do it, we could go back and clean up spare entries. S is particularly overpopulated. But, for most of the letters, there shouldn't be a problem with one entry per letter per person. - Telgar

This sounds wonderful. I would love to join in. -TheHoverpope

Leave me Red Cliff, if y'all would be so kind. I've been meaning to finish it up but I've been busy writing other things. :) ~ Shataina

Question - all of the current phantom entries are referenced from somewhere, right? Because I notice a lot of them don't have references listed... - FrivYeti

As far as I know, yes, they are. But sometimes it really hard to find where the links go. I have taken the path of going to a written link that sounds interesting and then following it to a phantom entry. Its easier then going from a phantom entry to a regular link. This also leads to my question, we are not to make any new phantom entries right? I mean the rules state that each entry must have two or three links. Well that won't work for the phantom entries that we are filling in, they should only have one link - the link to where they were first referenced. -Heru

Not to be an ass, Heru, but you've already ignored most of the rules, Heru. U, Y, W? Not nearly anything resembling the turn structure of the Lexicon game. None of your entries cite even a single phantom. The point isn't just to fill in entries, it's to continue the game.
All phantoms are referenced in one or more articles. Someone, probably Shati, went into a few and made note of where they were first references. I assume it was her and I further assume she did so only for the phantoms she herself created. A simple Wikisearch will turn up all articles related to any phantom in a minute or so. So, while no new phantoms are to be created, it's perfectly reasonble to cite existing phantoms when writing an article.
If the rest of you are of a mind to do as Heru is doing and simply fill in the articles, well, enjoy yourselves. That isn't what I'd hoped for when I began trying to revive the Lexicon, but I won't go around undoing any edits or anything. I'll just continue on until I've finished my 26 entries and consider my contribution to the project complete. But I would hope that the game itself can restart. It was a lot of fun. - Telgar

Thanks for the credit! If you abbreviate my nick, though, I much prefer Taina.  :grin:
~ Shataina

What I had thought we were doing was filling in phantoms so that the lexicon could be as complete as possible. I did not think we were restarting the game or that we needed to follow the rules of usage or whatever. I had thought that the only rules we should follow was that we could not ignore what another person had written, though we coul give it a twist. So, I had thought that point WAS to fill in the entries and to hell with the game. That is what I gathered from your posts. You are right that you could make links to previously non-linked entries, but that was not suggested or even hinted at before, which is why I did not do it. I could, of course, go back and add a phantom entry to each of them, if that makes you happy. Personally I do not see a point. As I seemed to have completely missed the point, and was interested in something completely different than was intended, I'm backing out. I see no point in three people following rules that were intended for much more people. I hope you guys have luck in accomplishing what you wish. -Heru

If you want to back out, that's up to you. I of course hope you won't do so and will join the game as it gets underway. Look at the list of contributors, there were 6-7 people who actually made large contributions. There are already 4 signed up to continue. That's well on the way to an active community again if everyone sticks to it. - Telgar

Having not played the original game, I'm not that interested in the game aspect either. I can play along, but only because one letter is just as good as another for me at this point. Heru, I for one invite you back, to do whatever you like. - Wordman

I might come back, I have to think about it. While I have great interest and find it extremely fun to create entries about topics I do not enjoy the to tough strictures and rules. To me they take away the fun of the game and they stifle creativity. That is how I feel about it, while it works for some it does not work for me. I just don't have any fun in getting into arguments with people, all I want to do is work with the setting of Exalted and come up with interesting stories, characterizations, artifacts, locations and settings. Working with others and making it a collaborative work was one of the reasons that I decided to join the Lexicon of Elder Days in the first place. So I see no problem with rejoining if we will work together to make a collaborative piece as comprehensive as we can. I do have a problem rejoining if I will be told that what I do is 'wrong' or 'bad.' (This is in general and not directed at you specifically Telgar, I have a lot of respect for the ideas you have written up and the settings you have made.) I get that enough when I visit some of the Exalted forums and I don't want that here - especially on opinion pieces, which this entire project is. So with that said I'm still going to have to consider whether I should come back. -Heru

Well, if I'm the only one whats for playing the game again, I shall be content to see the Lexicon finished. I didn't mean to say what you did was bad Heru, I was just hoping that the game itself was drawing people back. It really was tremendous fun, like the relays are when they're moving fast. Turns lasted about 3-4 days, then the next letter opened up. Anyway.. If new phantoms aren't being created, I guess there really isnt much point in sticking to the turns and the order. I would think though that citing at least one Phantom entry per article written is a good idea to stick with. That way each new addition adds something to the unwritten phantoms. Large part of what make the Lexicon so cool is that each article has a cumulative influence on the others! Without citing phantoms in new entries, that's lost. - Telgar

No hard feelings, :), I just wanted to make a point about what I thought. I do want to say that I agree that all entries should have a phantom entry. And your right, the linkage to already existing phantom entries is one of the main things that make this a collaborative effort. When I add other entries I will remember to put in at least one phantom entry from the list of phantoms that we have. -Heru

Count me in! Looks like C is the earliest occuring phantom so i'll start there. -Ambisinister

Although after perusing the Lexicon for interesting things to cite, I note that technically the revised version start with O, should I start there instead? Hrm....I guess i'll just have to write an entry for A <i>and O.
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