Castles Part 5- The Rosetta In Aethahil

So, on to the most important of my castles, the Rosetta in Aethahil, the palace of King Ellyanus and the Tiberi kings. I've waited months to do this, because of the magnitude of the information I know about it.

History of The Rosetta

    The earliest Altessi Kings dwelled on the cliffs of Aethahil. They called their house a palace, but it was really a glorified thatch shack. It was burned when Aethahil was captured, and a garrison was built on the spot by the invaders. When the Alteseans drove out their masters they set up government headquarters in the garrison. Over the years they expanded it, and turned it into a palace. King Christopher I, around the year 1378, came into a huge sum of money, (I don't know how he got it,) and built himself a palace. With strong foundations and structure, the outside was covered in marble, so it would gleam in the sunlight. Above the three story main halls it had five towers ranging from four to five stories tall. On top of five hundred foot cliffs, that's a freaking tall castle. I try to be realistic in my imagining, but I get greedy. Hmm...I wonder what the wind is like up at the top. Anyhow, King Ellyanus Tiberi's office was on the seventh floor in the west tower. When he was working on king stuff, if anyone wanted to see him, they would really have to really want to see him. Those carrying trivial matters got tired after four or five flights of stairs.

    These cliffs in Normandy are the way I imagine the Aethahil cliffs. However, the Aethahil cliffs are 500 feet at the most, and the Etretat are 1700 feet. Imagine the castle up on that outcropping, and the city sprawling on terraces from the plateau down to the beach.

White Cliffs of Etretat, In Normandy

View from a hotel in Positano, Italy. I do like terraced towns.

More Positano

The Sparrows Nest, on the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine. A tiny little castle that gives you an idea of the view from The Rosetta.

Mont St Michael,m in Brittany.

Interior architecture

King Christopher I designed in Neoclassicism before it was cool. Surrounding the courtyard of his palace he built stoas, some twenty feet tall. The gardens were renowned among the nations, and in 1792 a swimming pool was built, some seventy five feet long, twenty feet wide, and twenty feet deep.

Greek Stoa.

The Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City. In my visit there I was so impressed with the
architecture I thought it ought to be a palace.

The palace wasn't finished in Christopher I's lifetime. His great-great-great-great-grandson watched the last pane of glass in the throne room laid in place. By then the royal funds were getting low. This guy, King Robert, or Bob, shied away from gems, paneling, and red carpets. He preferred to imitate the beauty of creation and the glory of its Creator, rather than his own wealth. The walls were painted white, so light was abundant, and the pillars were fashioned to resemble trees holding up the roof. I guess he took a leaf a out of Gaudi's book.














The ceiling of the throne room was vaulted glass, to let in the sunlight of clear Aethahil summers. In 1789 the roof was reinforced with steel beams, a new and amazing invention, though hardly as powerful as modern ones. Also, chandeliers were suspended from the beams to light the room at night.
     The thrones themselves were delicately fashioned of ivory, and were reputed to be very uncomfortable.

Gaudi's Sagrada Familia. Josiah thinks the tree pillars look like bones. I think the floor plan resembles the Rosetta.

 There were 1572 windows in the entire palace complex, so Altesean monarchs had to get used to being cold in the winter. However, Altesean winters never get below the low thirties at their coldest.

The Flag of Altesea

Ta-da! I've finished the Altesean flag. This is the product of several years of ideas. I finally decided what the symbolism was last night.
Shapes:  The three stars represent the three traditional provinces; and the sea, fields, and mountains.  The two diagonal banners possibly represent the two ancient watchtowers between Glagnafrita and Aethahil, Gedullah and Ballahah.

Colors: The red stands for blood shed in defense of country. (Of course.)
The white stars mean that the people will strive to be a nation pure in heart.
The blue background represents the sea, heaven, sky, and other pretty blue things.
The yellow banners: Gold is the color of wealth, so the yellow perhaps signifies the great natural resources of Altesea. Also, it could represent the abundance of small yellow flowers that grow on the peninsula. When crushed, these flowers heal wounds.
The Provinves.
Each color represents a different province.
Red: West-southwest, with Vinum as capital. The west has had constant warfare for the last thousand years. And they are the number one producers of wine.
White: East-northeast, with Green Field as capital
Blue: North-northwest, with Mary's Hill as capital. The hill country, they are proud of their open skies.
Yellow: South-southeast, with Aethahil as capital. Those yellow flowers on the peninsula are famous for their healing ability.  

What Do You Do When Your Genre Doesn't exist?

        There is an exceeding number of book genres in existence. And those genres have sub-genres. Romance runs the gamut from Amish and bonnets, to sleezy stuff on the racks at gas stations and dollar stores. History can be almost everything. And then there is dystopian, The Hunger Games, When Atlas Shrugged, 1984. 

        Fantasy can be high fantasy, with elves and orcs and epic battles between good and evil- Lord of the Rings, Eragon, Blood of Kings. Or fantasy can be low-fantasy, where odd things happen in our own world--Twilight, Harry Potter, most fairy tales, the Arabian Nights. And then there is a bunch of weird fantasy novels for adults living in their parents basements. No offence to those of you who have found gems in all the weird stuff out there.

        I have spent much time researching the genre of my novel.   Some fantasies have dragons and trolls, but nobody can do magic. My people don't have dragons. There is no magic, but rather railway engines and telegraph wires. And everybody is human, no elves and dwarfs. That excludes it from high fantasy. It isn't Victorian or Edwardian, so it isn't steampunk. My people don't even have zeppelins. I felt a little hopeful when I discovered a book series with the genre of Gunpowder fantasy. I thought, "Hmm, this is closer." Nope. That book was about elvish Napoleons, and wizards firing off cannons. What do you call a book set in an early-mid 1800's world that has no magic and worships a Judeo-Christian God? After two years I have come to the decision that my genre doesn't exist...yet. I just have to invent it.

       The path to inventing a genre is a tough one. I entered my story in a contest. One of the judges said my combination of another world, medieval castles and civil war technology was strange. She basically said, "Who attacks a castle with cannons?" People did it all the time in the 1600's. Another person said that my names, so normal, felt out of place in another world. I don't know if the judges were right. Personally, I dislike fantasy books with long unpronounceable names. I find it distracting.

     My comfort is that most of those best-selling series out there are new genres some brave author invented. 

     Nobody had heard of dystopian for teens until Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games.

     Publishers rejected the story of a boarding school for wizards twelve times. And now, Harry Potter is still a favorite.

    Since when do vampires and humans fall in love? The wildly successful Twilight. 

    If you can come up with a strange new idea, you can probably sell it. I hope. :-)