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The largest known kotim[1] is the votim[2], the governance of the Isle of Vo which has not only the ability to manage the entire isle but also can affect reality by the belief of everyone connected to the votim. It expands on the ideas of the shared governance and the connected inputs to also include changing physical reality of the isle.
The idea of the votim[3] can long before I started to break it apart into its individual components. At the base level, it was the idea that the “magic” of the Isle of Vo was basically the sheer weight of belief makes changes. Individually, a telepath can influence thoughts, but a hundred thousand telepaths believing that there is a lake in a mountain can warp reality until it becomes true.
The idea of “will creates magic” is a common thread in Fedran, but there are only a few references in it so far. A good example, though subtle, is the descriptions of the night sky.
If you read Coins for Your Troubles[4], there are countless stars:
That meant that she was almost ready for the field again. Her thoughts drifted through fond memories of the field: seeing the bright stars far away from the cities, the rush of triumph as she helped clear out a nest of monsters, and even the long hours ranting to Roal about their respective ex-spouses.
— Coins for your Troubles 10[5]
=> /coins-for-your-troubles/ 5: /coins-for-your-troubles/
But in Raging Alone[6]: The desert are 107 stars in it because each one represents one of the children of the desert. The belief from the various desert clans was strong enough to darken the sky because they needed to have those 107 (108) stars to have meaning.
It was a breezy but dark night. He couldn't see the moon, only the eighty or so stars in the sky. They were almost peaceful compared to the rest of his day. He wondered what it would be like to spend his nights out on the desert, like the so-called night clans did. What did they do when they weren't attacking sun clans like the Shimusògo? He didn't really know anything about them, other than the horror stories the clan warriors told of battles in the past.
— Raging Alone 9[7]
=> /raging-alone/ 7: /raging-alone/
The 107 (inspired by an JRPG game) came from the almanac[8], which was a series of Twitter posts I made a very long time ago:
There are countless stars in the sky, except in the desert where there are only 107.
Each star in the desert is the physical manifestation of Mifúno’s other children.
There is a point where exactly 108 stars are visible in the sky. The last is named ChyobinofĂşmi, The Miscarried Rock.
I have a story or so set in the region where the stars fade in a matter of steps between the brilliant sky along the coast and the near darkness of the desert. It is also one of the areas where the phase two stories start.
Below are various useful links within this site and to related sites (not all have been converted over to Gemini).