Records of an Inquiry Into Unlawful Conduct in Angband Division C-134-B by kimikocha
Fanwork Notes
Orcish character names are unsystematic smish-smashes of Hittite, Hurrian, and Urartian vocabulary words with bits and pieces from various neo-Orcish dialects. The very concept of grammar has been ignored in its entirety.
Elvish names from Chestnut_pod's Elvish Name List.
Calendar System:
- Angband uses the Utumno Standard calendar, which dates back to before Utumno’s fall.
- In Angband’s reckoning, the “First Age” (Age of the Jewels, JA) begins when Morgoth stole the Silmarils from the Noldor. Their FA begins in YT 1495. As the Noldorin FA 1 occurs after YT 1500, there are five extra years in Angband’s year count.
- The Orcs and Elves under the Enemy’s sway are aware that their traditional calendars have a similar arrangement of days. The scholar attempting to seek answer from a conference of both would find themselves frustrated, never receiving an answer. However, orcish oral traditions do contain evidence of various older timekeeping traditions based on seasonal markers like the beginning of the salmon run, berry bushes blossoming and fruiting, and so forth. One historian has posited that the Utumno standard calendar was invented after Sauron learned that the elves had invented a precise method of timekeeping and chose to adapt it as the standard for use among those answering directly to the Enemy. This has naturally been dismissed as foolishness by at least one other historian writing in the late Third Age as "Noriam".
Utumno Standard | Reckoning of Rivendell | Shire-Reckoning (approximate)
Bashân (month of guests) | Quellë (Q) / Lasse-lanta (Q); Firith (S) / Narbeleth (S) | 7 October - 30 November (54 days)
Grazhân (cold month) | Hrívë (Q) / Rhîw (S) | 1 December - 10 February (72 days)
Ulubhân (water month) | Coirë (Q) / Echuir (S) | 11 February - 4 April (54 days)
Zaghân (month of mountain passes) | Tuilë (Q) / Ethuil (S) | 7 April - 30 May (54 days)
Rûzhân (sun month) | Lairë (Q) / Laer (S) | 1 June - 9 August (72 days)
Mughân (darkening month) | Yávië (Q) / Iavas (S) | 10 August - 3 October (54 days)
Mosârash (middle day) (‘mosârsh’ means “midday”) | Enderi (Middle Days) | 4-6 October (3 days), adding 3 more in every 12th year
The author, having forgotten entirely about First Day and Last Day, and having also forgotten entirely that Bâshan was supposed to be the start of the Orcish year until a point so late in drafting that they gave up on trying to fix it, humbly begs the reader's forgiveness.
The author also gave up on consistency about whether Angband uses scrolls or quires/folios and reports themself immediately for flogging.
(The aforesaid joke may amuse none but the author, who, during the drafting process, read a quantity of literature on flogging.)
Trial forms are taken from White's Records of the Spanish Inquisition. Penalties and the disciplinary system vaguely inspired by the British Royal Navy in its flogging-est era.
- Fanwork Information
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Summary:
In the Second Age, a historian reviews records excavated from Angband concerning a criminal inquiry.
In the First Age, in the wake of the fall of Gondolin, a pretty captive catches the Lady Thuringwethil's eye.
Major Characters: Sauron, Thuringwethil, Original Character(s)
Major Relationships: Sauron & Original Character, Original Character & Original Character, Thuringwethil/Original Character
Genre: Drama, Experimental, In-Universe Artifact
Challenges:
Rating: Adult
Warnings: Domestic and Partner Violence, Expletive Language, In-Universe Racism/Ethnocentrism, Rape/Nonconsensual Sex, Violence (Moderate)
Chapters: 8 Word Count: 79, 851 Posted on Updated on This fanwork is complete.
Show all chapters on a single page
Table of Contents
An extract from Ovid, just because.
Why, rejoice, victor? This victory will destroy you.
Alas, how a single night cost you your kingdom!
Now day had dawned: she sat with hair unbound,
Like a mother who must go to her son’s funeral.
She called her aged father and her loyal husband
From the camp, and both came without delay.
Seeing her condition, they asked why she mourned,
Whose rites she prepared, what ill had befallen her?
She was silent for a long time, and hid her face in her robe
Out of shame: her tears flowed in a running stream.
Her father here, her husband there comforted her tears
And begged her to tell, wept, and trembled in blind fear.
Three times she tried to speak, three times desisted,
And a fourth time, gaining courage, still couldn’t raise her eyes.
She said: ‘Must I owe this to a Tarquin too? Must I speak,
Speak, poor wretch, my shame from my own mouth?’
What she could, she told. The end she suppressed:
She wept, and a blush spread over a wife’s cheeks.
Her husband and her father forgave her being forced:
She said: ‘I deny myself the forgiveness that you grant.’
Then she stabbed herself with a blade she had hidden,
And, all bloodied, fell at her father’s feet.
Even then she took care in dying so that she fell
With decency, that was her care even in falling.
See, the husband and father throw themselves on her body,
Regardless of appearances, grieve for their mutual loss.
Brutus approached, and at last, with spirit, belied his name,
Snatching the weapon from the dying body,
Holding the blade dripping with noble blood,
Fearlessly he uttered these menacing words:
‘I swear by this chaste blood, so courageous,
And by your spirit that will be a divinity to me,
I will be revenged on Tarquin the Proud and his lost brood.
I have concealed my virtue for too long.’
At these words, lying there, she moved her sightless eyes,
And seemed to witness the speech by a stirring of her hair.
They carried her to her funeral, a woman with a man’s courage,
And tears and indignation followed after her.
The gaping wound was seen. Brutus, with a shout,
Gathered the Quirites, and told of the king’s evil act.
Tarquin the Proud and his children fled, a consul took up the rule
For the year: That day was the last day of kingship.
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