So my first novel is in the developing stages (currently doing an outline). I'm doing a medieval setting and I am implementing astrology within it. The astrological signs represent the world I'm writing for, each having its own house, abilities, traits, and rulers. I'm having trouble figuring out what to name these houses in accordance with their respective sign. I don't want to just lazily write it off as House Aries or House Leo for example and that they have a lion or a ram. I want them all to be unique, with different sigils and/or creatures that they feel represented by while still making them recognizable to the reader. It would also be awesome if I could gain some insight on what your signs are too! How can I properly represent yours? I'm a Virgo, but you're probably something different. What traits do you get from your sign? What kind of person are you? etcetc?
I'm confused. Are you using the classic Western Zodiac, or are you coming up with your own system from scratch?
The questions you ask about the how and why's of the relationship to astrology in your the world will provide meat for your writing. Why do people believe in astrology? Has that belief evolved enough to become a religion with a church like organization that may even have conflicting sects? You could go as far as the signs, instead of representing abstract concepts, could be individual deities that could be at conflict with each other. The wonderful thing is that one question could have several answers, and all can be incorporated in your world. Godspeed!
They are actual deities! Each god/goddess is worshipped by the people of the house they're born into. Some are blessed with unique gifts from the god they're under, and some don't. But they all inherit traits from the house they're in, as well as distinguished appearances. Some people also don't worship and even leave their house entirely and forge their own identities.
You could always incorporate the sign into the name. For example, Aquarius could become Aquarion and Aries could become Arieset. That way it's still pretty clear what house it is while still retaining some uniqueness. I'm also a Virgo, but I don't think I act like one. Virgos are known to be perfectionists, kind of snobby, and uptight. While I am a perfectionist, I'm neither snobby nor uptight. I definitely am more of a Libra (my Rising sign), so I crave harmony above all else. I'll go out of my way to make sure everyone around me is happy, even if that means I'm not. I also have an Aries Moon, which makes me pretty feisty sometimes. Having a Libra Rising, it takes a lot for me to get angry. But when I finally do, my Aries comes out and I can unleash some hell on people! Are you going to play with Moon/Rising signs at all or just stick with Sun signs?
Then why not just use the classic names and symbols? I put my own spin on vampires in my WIP, but I still call them "vampires"
Thank you for your input! I'm considering adding Moon/Rising signs but I'm not sure how to go about it! The combinations of Sun/Moon/Rising are endless. If I don't have a proper idea, I will end up confused, and worse, confusing my readers.
As someone in the thread mentioned, I prefer to do something unique while still keeping it recognizable. I am thinking of using different creatures and symbols for each house as it is a fantasy world. The names of each house will just have an additional letter or so.
I'd recommend that too. It would save a LOT of time over having to teach the reader about an entirely new set of names/sigils and then conflating it back to an established knowledge base. Less tutorial in the word count will open more room for the story and characters to graze.
Like I said I put my own spin on vampires (doing something unique) while still calling them "vampires" (keeping it recognizable). If you do something special and unique, no one will care that the names are the same
... OK, I am going to make one last comment on the subject of naming TVTropes page "Phantasy Spelling" references a lot of works which spice up their fantasy world by spelling familiar words differently: "magick" "vampyre" "faerie" ... Many of these works do it well, but many others do not. And now I really want to talk about the concept as a whole I'm seeing 3 different ways that Houses could be established according to the signs of the Zodiac: Birthdate: somebody born on January 10 would be legally obligated to join House Capricorn Personality: each House has different responsibilities in their society (perhaps House Libra is officially responsible for mediating conflicts), and anybody who wishes to join any House would have to fulfill specific requirements first (prospective Libras must prove themselves intelligent enough and ethical enough to resolve challenging disputes as fairly, justly, and humanely as possible for as many parties as possible) Family: the House names and symbols are entirely ceremonial And quite a few ways to combine them Personality+Birthdate: it's assumed that people are destined for specific skills depending on when they were born, and children are trained from an early age to develop the corresponding skills regardless of what they're actually skilled/interested in Personality+Family: it's assumed that children inherit the skills of their parents (again, regardless of what they're actually good at) Family+Birthdate: parents would try to conceive such that their children would be born in the same set of dates that they themselves were born in, but children born in the "wrong" dates would be taken from their birth parents and raised in the "proper" House from the age of (12? 15? 10? Birth?) @crownedroman Do any of these sound like you'd be interested? Are are you thinking of something completely different
Don't know about the OP, but I think this idea is brilliant, lots of room for plots and schemes and conflicts in there.
@crownedroman I am a Capricorn (The Sea Goat, and my planet is Saturn). We Caps tend to be logical, honest, and fairly good natured folk in general. Though we can butt heads with others, and be stubborn as a mule, we do try to compromise and learn from our experiences. Hope this helps a smidgen in regards to your story.
These sound awesome! I was definitely considering the Libra house to create a Council after a chain of events that led to disaster for the noble houses, with one of them being extinct. And I already had it down for each child to develop their skills at an early age. Some have it easy, some are gifted, some are cursed, and some have to work harder than others to find out what skills they have. Awesome idea about children born at different dates and given to the proper house. I didn't consider that. I will expand on it, in fact.
Also I'm thinking instead to base the houses on the ruling planets, and then use the zodiacs to represent that house's special artifact/item/or weapon. Thoughts? What could be better?
That does sound pretty cool to have each house on their related celestial body. How do you feel about taking a few liberties to make that work in your universe? It would only make sense to have all the houses able to be on somewhat equal footing in terms of politics and other relations that they might have. For instance they can visit each other, and not need special apparatus to keep them alive off world while conducting trades or handling politics.
Well, as someone who studies astrology a bit, I can tell you some stuff. Could show you more if you're interested. So, houses. You could always use the 12 houses system, which works as a wheel, so the angular houses are the ones on all the angles (1st, 4th, 7th and 10th houses) are the strongest while the "weakest" houses are the Mutable houses, or the traditional term for them is "cadent houses". Planets all rule two signs and they also have their own day, so, Monday is ruled by the Moon, Tuesday by Mars, Wed by Mercury, Thursday by Jupiter, Friday by Venus, Saturday by Saturn and Sunday by, you guessed it, the Sun. The ruling planets for each pair of signs rule a Masculine and Feminine sign. Also known as "Diurnal" for "by the day" which makes a sign masculine. Or "Nocturnal" which makes a sign "By the night" so the sign is feminine. Here are the ruling planets for each sign, Aries (The Sun is exalted in Aries) - Scorpio = Mars Taurus (The Moon is exalted in Taurus) - Libra (Saturn is exalted in Libra) = Venus Gemini - Virgo - = Mercury (Side-note: Mercury is both in domicile and exalted in Virgo) Cancer = Moon (Yes, Moon is seen as a "planet" in astrology and only has one ruler) Leo = Sun Sagittarius - Pisces = Jupiter Capricorn (Mars is exalted in Capricorn) - Aquarius = Saturn Certain planets are seen as "Malefic" which are Saturn, the greater malefic and Mars, the lesser. Others are known as a "benefic" which are Jupiter, the greater and Venus the lesser. Some planets do not do well in certain signs as well, such as Mars in Cancer, the exalt of its opposing sign, Capricorn. Moon also doesn't do well in Capricorn. In your story perhaps these could be used as "weaknesses" or something. If you'd like to know more, for your story, PM me. If such a thing exist on here....dunno yet.
to do what you are thinking you would need to have a strong foundation in mythology and astrology for example Libra: the balance / justice symbols are the Scales of Justice Themis: the personification of divine order, fairness, law, natural law, and custom. Her symbols are the Scales of Justice but then you mentioned animals which leads me to Native American totem animal spirits. Raven: https://whatismyspiritanimal.com/native-american-zodiac-astrology/raven-totem/ House of Themis -- Symbol Raven -- Constellation Corvus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ House of Demeter --- Virgo/Bear/Ursa Major House of Pan --- Capricorn/Goose/Ansere (Vulpecula cum Ansere or fox and the goose) http://www.thewhitegoddess.co.uk/divination/astrology/capricorn_-_the_goat.asp
20 January - 19 February House of Ahephi -- Aquarius -- The Otter --- Constellation Lerna http://goddesses-and-gods.blogspot.com/2007/02/egyptian-gods-and-goddesses.html There is another constellation representing the female Hydra, the Hydra of Lerna otter (water animal), nutria (from Latin lutra, otter), The immediate followers of Pliny appear to have identified the ichneumon with the Otter (Gr. enudris). The Gr. enudris was not only the otter, but also a water-snake = hydrus [2]; 'ichneumon' was the name used for the 'pharaoh's rat' or mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon), which attacks snakes; it can also mean 'otter' [3]. http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Hydrus.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 February - 20 March House of Poseidon -- Pisces -- The Wolf -- Constellation Therion The Greeks and Ptolomy thought of these stars merely as a generic wild animal, the Therion 'wild animal' that the Centaur (Centaurus) was taking to Ara, the Altar, skewered on a pike as a sacrificial offering. Greek ther, means 'wild beast'. http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Lupus.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 March - 20 April House of Enyo -- Aries -- The Falcon -- Constellation Antinous http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Enyo.html "Many of them dyed the earth red: aye waxed the havoc of death as friends and foes were stricken. O'er the strife shouted for glee Enyo, sister of Ares (War)." https://archive.org/stream/falloftroy00quin#page/374/mode/2up According to Ptolemy the influence of Aquila is similar to that of Mars and Jupiter. It is said to give great imagination, strong passions, indomitable will, a dominating character, influence over others, clairvoyance, a keen penetrating mind and ability for chemical research. It has always been associated with the sign Scorpio, and by the Kabalists with the Hebrew letter Vau and the 6th Tarot Trump "The Lovers." [Robson*, p.29.] Antinous lies just south of Altair in Aquila. No astrological influences were suggested for this constellation by the ancients, but it seems to have been associated with the ideas of passion, love and friendship, for certain of its components stars were named Alkhalimain or Al Halilain, the "Two Friends", by the Arabs, and the Kabalists associated it with the Hebrew letter Vau and the 6th Tarot Trump "The Lovers." http://www.constellationsofwords.com/stars/Altair.html "Antinous was a former constellation south of Aquila. In modern times, Antinous was variously considered an asterism within Aquila, or a separate constellation, until IAU formalized the constellations in 1930, when Antinous was discarded." http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Aquila.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 April - 20 May House of Brighid -- Taurus -- The Beaver -- Constellation Castor http://www.angelfire.com/wizard/celticdeities/ Castor (alpha Gemini) is also the Greek name for the beaver, and beavers are of the genus Castor. http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Gemini.html -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am of House Capricorn thusly and robustly well hung We men of Lilith come with long knives Surrender your pretty maids or your lives!
Congratulations, you SO got my attention! This is a great, splendid idea! Especially to people like me, who are into astrology. I would expect you to use the mythology and symbolism around the signs. What you choose to take from each of the signs to build your world is up to you. I'm a Taurus. We're said to be obstinate and slow, but we're determinate and loyal as well. House of Pillars, if you want to make us look good? House of Wealth or House of Coins, if you want to make us look materialistic (*cough*which is a Taurus trait as well*cough*)? I won't be angry if you choose Taurus' worst traits, I promise. It's your choice. You have the Zodiac in your hands to do as you please. And please do! I'd love to read it when you have it written.
Thank you so much for your input!!! I am immensely happy that you enjoy my idea! I hope these series of books really capture people's attention. It would make the young novelist in me very, very delighted. Every house will have their good and bad traits, and will hold significant importance in terms of the way the realm works. There are the 12 noble houses, with one of them being the ruling house and another being extinct. How this works I have yet to figure out (I've only begun this yesterday so I am very nervous with all this information in my hands). The main plot I've yet to figure out. I only have bits and pieces for the first four main characters for the first book. This is why I've come to you all! I am tired of being scared of sharing this idea because I think some publishing house will have wanted to know all this for their eyes only, as some people have stated before on this website. And if anything, I can self-market if traditional or independent houses do not want me. I will see to it that this book is published!
Thank you so much for your posts! Your suggestions are great for me and I will look more into this. Though spirit animals, I will try to implement in some other fashion. I will keep a theme for each zodiac though and their ruling house! It might take me a little bit though. It's a little overwhelming and I must research each accordingly.
