THE CASTE OF BUILDERS

 THE CASTE OF BUILDERS

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One of the five High Castes of Gor and accorded the third highest status (above Physicians and Warriors, but below Scribes and Initiates). 

The caste colour is yellow and the caste symbol is the angle square.

 This caste includes such subcastes as Architects, Draftsmen, Stonemasons and others.  In general, they are the builders and inventors of Gor.  The Glass of the Builders, a telescope, is one of their inventions.  They also created the energy bulb, a special type of light bulb, over a century ago.  With help from the Physician's Caste, they also developed the slave goad.  In general, only free men are allowed to build on Gor.  Only the city of Port Kar was constructed by slaves.  The Builder's Caste can also verify the authenticity of gold.  Though this is an important Caste, little is told about it in the books. 

This caste and its many sub-castes concern themselves with the acquisition and preparation of sa-tassna, all forms of edible Gorean meat. In conjunction with the caste of Bakers, this caste and its many sub castes are responsible for maintaining the majority of the Gorean industries involved with food service.

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The tier nearest the floor, which denoted some preferential status, the white

tier, was occupied by Initiates, Interpreters of the Will of Priest-Kings. In order, the ascending tiers, blue, yellow, green, and red, were occupied by representatives of the Scribes, Builders, Physicians, and Warriors. ..... I was pleased to note that my own caste, that of the Warriors, was accorded the least status; if I had had my will, the warriors would not have been a High Caste. On the other hand, I objected to the Initiates being in the place of honour, as it seemed to me that they, even more than the Warriors, were nonproductive members of society.

TARNSMAN OF GOR

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>>In Ar, for example, early in the day, a member of the Builders will go to the roof on which the Home Stone is kept and place the primitive symbol of his trade, a metal angle square, before the Stone, praying to the Priest-Kings for the prosperity of his caste in the coming year;

TARNSMAN OF GOR

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DUTIES OF THE BUILDERS CASTE

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1.)The builders caste are responsible for the design and construction of buildings, walls, palaces, fortifications, roads and other such public works....

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"As you might have surmised," said Misk, "your city is being rebuilt. Those of Ko-ro-ba have come from the corners of Gor, each singing, each bearing a stone to add to the walls. For many months, while you labored in our service in the Lands of the Wagon Peoples, thousands upon thousands of those of Ko-ro-ba have returned to the city. Builders and others, all who were free, have worked upon the walls and towers. Ko-ro-ba rises again."

ASSASIN OF GOR

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.....most outstandingly there had been a considerable disbursement for the construction of four bastions and tarncots for the flying cavalry of Ar, her tarnsmen; the military men of Ar had waited patiently for these cylinders and were now outraged to discover that the moneys had actually been disbursed, and had apparently disappeared; the parties, presumably of the Builders, to which the disbursements had been made were found to be fictitious.

ASSASIN OF GOR

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The road, like most Gorean roads, was built like a wall in the earth and was intended to last a hundred generations. The Gorean, having little idea of progress in our sense, takes great care in his building and workmanship. What he builds he expects men to use until the storms of time have worn it to dust. Yet this road, for all the loving craft of the Caste of Builders which had been lavished upon it, was only an unpretentious, subsidiary road, hardly wide enough for two carts to pass.

TARNSMAN OF GOR

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Some two years ago the merchants and builders had opened the road of Cyprianus, named for the engineer in charge of the project, which led to the fairs rather from the southwest.

PLAYERS OF GOR

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2.) The builders also produce building materials......

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In the streets of Tharna shortly after the end of the revolt the caste colours of Gor began to appear openly in the garments of the citizens. The marvelous glazing substances of the Caste of Builders, long prohibited as frivolous and expensive, began to appear on the walls of the cylinders, even on the walls of the city itself.

OUTLAW OF GOR

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The new Administrator of Ar was a man named Minus Tentius Hinrabius, an unimportant man except for being of the Hinrabian family, prominent among the Builders, having the major holdings in the vast, walled Hinrabian kilns, where much of Ar's brick is produced.

ASSASIN OF GOR

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3.) The Caste of Builders are responsible for the assaying (authentication) and certification of assayers, of gold......

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"You have, of course, been paid in advance for your troubles?" asked Chino. 

"Of course," said Petrucchio.

"In authenticated gold, naturally," added Chino.

"Authenticated gold?" asked Petrucchio.

"Of course," said Chino. "If you have not had the coins authenticated, my friend, Lecchio, here, is certified by the caste of Builders to perform the relevant tests......

"Let us see your other coins," said Lecchio.

"Sir!" cried Rowena.

"That we may see if they be genuine," he said, menacingly.

"I assure you that they are," said Rowena.

"Let them be examined," said Lecchio, "that a determination in the matter may be made."

"He is certified by the Builders," Chino reminded them."

PLAYERS OF GOR

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4.) It should be noted that the builders caste are also the inventors of Gor who bring forth and introduce new technologies (although sometimes as a result of co-operation with other castes). Examples of builders' technological innovations are listed below......

4.1) The “slave goad” and the “tarn goad”......

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On the other side of the belt, there hung a slave goad, rather like the tarn goad, except that it is designed to be used as an instrument for the control of human beings rather than tarns. It was, like the tarn goad, developed jointly by the Caste of Physicians and that of the Builders, the Physicians contributing knowledge of the pain fibers of human beings, the networks of nerve endings, and the Builders contributing certain principles and techniques developed in the construction and manufacture of energy bulbs.

ASSASIN OF GOR

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4.2) “Energy bulb” lighting.......

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Inside, the tunnel, though dim, was not altogether dark, being lit by domelike, wire-protected energy bulbs, spaced in pairs every hundred yards or so. These bulbs, invented more than a century ago by the Caste of Builders, produce a clear, soft light for years without replacement.

TARNSMAN OF GOR

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4.3) A “Forbidden weapon”......

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On a green field somewhere, I had no idea where, a man in the garments of the Caste of Builders, emerged from what was apparently an underground cave.  He looked furtively about himself as though he feared he might be observed.  Then, satisfied that he was alone, he returned to the cave and emerged once more carrying what resembled a hollow pipe. From a hole in the top of this pipe there protruded what resembled the wick of a lamp.

The man from the Caste of Builders then sat cross-legged on the ground and took from the pouch slung at his waist a tiny, cylindrical Gorean fire-maker, a small silverish tube commonly used for igniting cooking fires.  He unscrewed the cap and I could see the tip of the implement, as it was

exposed to the air, begin to glow a fiery red.  He touched the fire-maker to the wicklike projection in the hollow tube and, screwing the fire-maker shut, replaced it in his pouch. The wick burned slowly downward toward the hole in the pipe. When it was almost there the man stood up and holding the

pipe in both hands trained it at a nearby rock.  There was a sudden flash of fire and a crack of sound from the hollow tube as some projectile hurtled through it and shattered against the rock.  The face of the rock was blackened and some stone chipped from its surface.  The quarrel of a crossbow would have done more damage.

"Forbidden weapon," said Sarm.

PRIEST-KINGS OF GOR

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4.4) The “glass of the builders”......

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The walls were crowded, and I supposed many upon them used the long glasses of the Caste of Builders to observe the field of the stakes.

NOMADS OF GOR

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"How are they?" asked Chino.

"So far, they seem good," Lecchio muttered, "but many forgeries pass the first test." He then drew from his pack a glass of the Builders, used for identifying distant objects. "Oh, oh," he muttered, darkly.

PLAYERS OF GOR

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I snapped open the glass of the builders. From both the north and the south,

like distant black slivers knifing through the cold waters of Thassa, masts down, came the fleets of the fifth wave.

RAIDERS OF GOR

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4.5) The one way mirror......

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 Ho-Tu turned into a side corridor and we found ourselves, to my surprise, looking through a huge rectangle of glass, some twelve feet high and perhaps fifteen feet wide; it was one of a dozen such panels I could see in the corridor.

 Beyond the glass I looked into what seemed to be a Pleasure Garden, ...... Then I stepped back for I noted, coming along one of the curving walks, two lovely girls, ......

 "Do not fear," said Ho-Tu. "They cannot see you."

 I studied the glass that separated us. The two girls strolled near the glass and one of them, lifting her hands behind her head, studied her reflection gravely in the mirror, retying the band of silk which confined her hair.

 "On their side of the glass," said Ho-Tu, "it seems a mirror."

 I looked suitably impressed, though of course, from Earth, I was familiar with the principles of such things.

 "It is an invention of the Builders," said Ho-Tu. "It is common in slave houses, where one may wish to observe without being observed."

ASSASIN OF GOR

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SOURCE OF LABOUR FOR CONSTRUCTION WORKS

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Goreans generally do not employ slaves for such labors as road construction, siege works, raising walls, and so on. Similarly they generally would not use them for the construction of temples and public buildings. Most such work is generally done by the free labor of a given community, though this "free labor" may, upon occasion, particularly in emergencies, be "levied," the laborers then contributing their labor as a form of special tax, or, if you like, "conscripted" or "drafted," rather as if for military service. Usually, of course, the free labor is paid, and with more than provisions and shelter, either from public or private funds.

DANCER OF GOR

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The men of Port Kar had not chosen to build towers. It is the only city on Gor I know of which was built not by free men, but by slaves, under the lash of masters. Commonly, on Gor, slaves are not permitted to build, that being regarded as a privilege to be reserved for free men.

RAIDERS OF GOR

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SPECIAL TOOLS OF THE TRADE

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1.) Surveying chords......

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The streets were laid out geometrically. This is usually done by engineers, with surveying cords.

MERCENARIES OF GOR

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2.) The angle square......

>>In Ar, for example, early in the day, a member of the Builders will go to the roof on which the Home Stone is kept and place the primitive symbol of his trade, a metal angle square, before the Stone, praying to the Priest-Kings for the prosperity of his caste in the coming year;

TARNSMAN OF GOR

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EXCHANGE OF IDEAS

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Four times a year, correlated with the solstices and equinoxes, there are fairs held in the plains below the mountains, presided over by committees of Initiates, fairs in which men of many cities mingle without bloodshed, times of truce, times of contests and games, of bargaining and marketing...... Similarly men of such castes as the Physicians and Builders make use of the fairs to disseminate and exchange information pertaining to their respective crafts.

OUTLAW OF GOR

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Further, members of castes such as the Physicians and Builders use the fairs for the dissemination of information and techniques among Caste Brothers, as is prescribed in their codes in spite of the fact that their respective cities may be hostile.

PRIEST-KINGS OF GOR

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WOMEN IN THE CASTE OF BUILDERS

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For example, a woman in the Metalworkers does not, commonly, work at the forge, nor is a woman of the Builders likely to be found supervising the construction of fortifications. Caste membership, for Goreans, is generally a simple matter of birth; it is not connected necessarily with the performance of certain skills, nor the attainment of a given level of proficiency in such skills.

FIGHTING SLAVE OF GOR

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STYLE OF DRESS

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A Builder, whose robes were stained with thrown fruit, hastily strode by. "You had better be indoors," said he, "on Kajuralia."

ASSASIN OF GOR

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In a Gorean city it was not difficult for a woman to travel incognito. By the robes of concealment this is made easy. I wore the robes of a woman of high, caste, today the yellow of the Builders.

KAJIRA OF GOR

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STYLE OF SPEECH

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My Chamber Slave's accent had been pure High Caste Gorean though I could not place the city. Probably her caste had been that of the Builders or Physicians, for had her people been Scribes I would have expected a greater subtlety of inflections, the use of less common grammatical cases;....

.....So, I thought to myself, I had placed her accent rather well, either Builders or Physicians, and had I thought carefully enough about it, I might have recognised her accent as being a bit too refined for the Builders.

PRIEST KINGS OF GOR

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BUILDERS' KNOTS

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I then illustrated, she cooperating, several other common knots, among them the Karian ancho knot, the Pin hitch, the double Pin hitch, the Builder's bend and the Builder's overhand.

ASSASIN OF GOR

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ARCHITECTURE AND NOTEABLE WORKS OF THE BUILDERS CASTE

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1.) On the general architecture of Gor......

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Indeed, good taste and aesthetic sense, abundantly and amply displayed, harmoniously manifested, in such areas as language, architecture, dress, culture and customs, seem innately Gorean. It is a civilization informed by beauty, from the tanning and cut of a workman's sandal to the glazings intermixed and fused, sensitive to light and shadow, and the time of day, which characterize the lofty towers of her beautiful cities.

SLAVE GIRL OF GOR

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"Hold!" cried a guardsman, one of two, at this post on one of the long, arching, graceful, railess, narrow bridges interlaced among the towers of Brundisium. Such bridges are a feature of many Gorean cities. They are easy to defend and serve to link various towers at various levels, towers which in a time of attack or siege may serve on given levels or in isolation, if the defenders choose to block or destroy the bridges, as independent keeps, each an almost impregnable, well-stocked fortress in its own right.In Brundisium there were eleven such towers.

 In many of the high cites there are many more. In Ar, for example, there are hundreds. Other than in their military significance, of course, such bridges tend to be quite beautiful and, functionally, serve to divide the cities into a number of convenient levels. Many Gorean cities, in effect, are tiered cities. Gorean urban architecture, in the high cities, tends to be not so much a matter of flat, spreading, concentric horizontal rings, as in many cities, as a matter of towers and tiered levels, linked by soaring, ascendant traceries.

PLAYERS OF GOR

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Yards, and gardens and courts, if they exist, are generally within the house, not outside it. This is very general in Gorean architecture.

EXPLORERS OF GOR

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There, some fifty yards away, kneeling, huddled together against the brick wall of a public building, the wall composed of the flat, narrow bricks common in southern Gorean architecture, was a group of some one hundred to one hundred and fifty females.

MERCENARIES OF GOR

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Most doors giving entry into a compartment, or set of compartments, on Gor do, however, have locks, generally hand-crafted, highly ornate locks, usually set in the center of the door and controlling a long bolt.

ASSASIN OF GOR

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He was a tall man, rather heavy, with bland soft features, but his voice was very deep and would have been quite impressive in one of the temples of the Initiates, constructed to maximize the acoustical effects of such a voice.

PRIEST KINGS OF GOR

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The atrium in the house of records, I had learned, was open to the sky, which opening, as in many public and private Gorean buildings in the south, serves to admit light. The displuviate atrium is open in such a way as to shed rainwater outwards, keeping most of it from the flooring of the atrium below. This would also facilitate the use of the rope and iron. The alternative atrium, if unroofed, of course, is impluviate, so constructed as to guide rainwater into an awaiting pool below.

MAGICIANS OF GOR

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2.) The Pharos of Port Cos......

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We looked at the tall, cylindrical structure which lay on a promontory, at the southwesternmost point of the harbor. It was perhaps one hundred and fifty feet high. It tapered upward, and was perhaps some twenty feet in diameter at the top. It was yellow and red, in horizontal sections, the colors of the Builders and Warriors, the Builders the caste that had supervised its construction and the Warriors the caste that maintained its facilities. It was as much a keep as a landmark. At night, in virtue of fires and mirrors, it served as a beacon.

RENEGADES OF GOR

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3.) The city of Tor......

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The buildings of Tor are of mud brick, covered with colored, often flaking, plasters......

The buildings in Tor are seldom more than four stories high, which is about as high as one may build safely with beams and mud brick. Because of the irregular topography of Tor, however, which is a hilly, rocky area, like most of the Tahari terrain, many of the buildings, built on shelves and rises, seemed considerably higher. These buildings, on the outside smooth and bleak, save for occasional narrow windows, high, not wide enough to admit a body, abut directly on the streets, making the streets like deep, walled alleys. In the center of the street is a gutter. It seldom rains in Tor, but the gutter serves to collect waste, which is often thrown into it, through open doors, by slaves. Within these walls, however, so pressing upon the street, I knew there were often gardens, walled, well-watered, beautiful, and cool, dark rooms, shielded from the heat and sun, many with superb appointments. Tor was, as Gorean cities went, rich, trading city......

The architecture of Tor, in concentric circles, broken by numerous, narrow, crooked streets, was a function of the radius from its wells.

TRIBESMEN OF GOR

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4.) The city of Port Kar......

(Note that Port Kar was built by slaves. However the slaves only provided the brute force labour and where directed and supervised by their Masters. One has to assume those masters were of the Builders Caste)

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In Port Kar, incidentally, there are none of the towers often encountered in the northern cities of Gor. The men of Port Kar had not chosen to build towers. It is the only city on Gor I know of which was built not by free men, but by slaves, under the lash of masters. Commonly, on Gor, slaves are not permitted to build, that being regarded as a privilege to be reserved for free men.

RAIDERS OF GOR

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Fire has always been regarded as the great hazard to the arsenal. Accordingly many of her warehouses, shops and foundries are built of stone, with slated or tinned roofs. Wooden structures, such as her numerous sheds and roofed storage areas tend to be separated from one another.

RAIDERS OF GOR

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Here and there small lamps, set in niches, high in stone walls, or lanterns, hung on iron projections, shed small pools of light on the sides of buildings and illuminated, too, in their secondary ambience, the stones of the sloping walkway on which I trod, one of many leading down to the wharves......

I passed iron doors, narrow, in the walls. These doors usually had a tiny observation panel in them, which could be slid back. The walls were sheer. They were generally windowless until some fifteen feet above the ground. Yards, and gardens and courts, if they exist, are generally within the house, not outside it. This is very general in Gorean architecture. But there were few gardens or courts in Port Kar. It was a crowded city, built up from the marshes themselves, in the Vosk’s delta, and space was scarce and precious.

There were pilings along the walkway, to which, here and there, small boats were moored. The walkway itself varied from some five feet to a yard in width.

EXPLORERS OF GOR

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5.) The city of Ar......

>> I had seen Ar at various times before. Such a sight I was accustomed to. It would not move me, as it might others, the first time to look upon it.

"Incredible!" said a man.

"Marvelous!" whispered another.

...... I saw then, in the distance, some four or five pasangs away, the gleaming walls of glorious Ar.

"I had not realized how vast was the city," said one of the men.

"It is large," said another fellow.

"There is the Central Cylinder!' said a man, pointing.

The high, uprearing walls of the city, some hundred feet or more in height, the sun bright upon them, stretched into the distance. They were now white. That had been done, apparently, since the time of Cernus, the usurper, and the restoration of Marlenus, ubar of ubars. It was hard to look at them, for the glare upon them. We could see the great gate, too, and the main road leading to it, the Viktel Aria...... Within the gamut of those gleaming walls, so lofty and mighty, rose thousands of buildings, and a veritable forest of ascendant towers, of diverse heights and colors. Many of these towers, I knew, were joined by traceries of soaring bridges, set at different levels......

"I do not think I have ever seen anything so beautiful," said a man.

We were looking upon what was doubtless the greatest city of known Gor.

"I did not know it was like that," said another man.

MERCENARIES OF GOR

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We began the long journey through the halls of Ar's great Central Cylinder, almost a city in itself. At times we walked up swirling gradients, at times stairs, swirling and broad, leading higher and higher into the cylinder; sometimes we walked through marble-floored passageways, in which, through narrow windows, designed to be too small for a body to pass, but large enough for use as crossbow ports, I could see the blue sky of Ar's bright morning; ...... then we would be walking deeper within the cylinder, down broad, carpeted, tapestried halls, set with energy lamps, seldom found in the homes of private citizens, emitting a soft, glowing light; many of the doors had locks on them, the vast ornate locks in the center of the door, so common in the northern cities; some others were secured only by signature knots, presumably the doors to the compartments of unimportant retainers or members of the staff, in many cases perhaps the doors to the compartments of mere slaves.

ASSASIN OF GOR

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There, in one wall, was a long crack. The floor creaked, too, in places, as one trod upon it. I trusted this was merely from the disrepair and age of the boards. Insulae are seldom maintained well. They are cheap to build, and easily replaced. Their structure is primarily wood and brick. There are ordinances governing how high they may be built. Although we had come up several flights, we were probably not more than seventy or eighty feet Gorean from the street level. Without girders, frame steel and timber iron, as the Goreans say wrought in the iron shops, such as are used in the towers, physics, even indexed to the Gorean gravity, is quick to impose its inexorable limits on heights. Such buildings tend to be vulnerable to structural stresses, and are sometimes weakened by slight movements of the earth. Sometimes walls give way; sometimes entire floors collapse.

MERCENARIES OF GOR

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6.) The roads......

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The village of Tabuk's Ford lay some four hundred pasangs generally north and slightly west. The Vosk road was the road used many years ago by the horde of Pa-Kur, in its approach to the city of Ar. We had travelled the Vosk road after crossing the Vosk on barges. It is wide, and built like a great wall, sunk in the earth. It is marked with pasang stones. It is, I suppose, given its nature, a military road leading to the north, broad enough to accommodate war tharlarion, treading abreast, and the passage, two or three, side by side, of thousands of supply wagons and siege engines, without unduly, for more than several pasangs, extending and exposing the lines of the march. Such roads permit the swift movement of thousands of men, useful either in the defense of borders, the meeting of armies, or in the expansions of imperialism, the conquests of the weak.

SLAVE GIRL OF GOR

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In the old days the road of Clearchus was often referred to as the "west road." This designation became less useful after the recent opening of the road of Cyprianus. It is not unusual, now, to refer to the road of Clearchus as the "old west road" and that of Cyprianus as the "new west road." Neither of these roads, incidentally, are "great roads," in the sense of being mounted in the earth several feet deep, built of stone like a sunken wall, the sort of roads which are often intended to last a thousand years, the sort of roads which, typically, are found in the vicinity of large cities or are intended to be military roads, speeding directly to traditionally disputed territories or linking strategic points. These roads are both secondary roads, so to speak, generally graveled and rutted; occasionally they are paved with such materials as logs and plated stone; they can be almost impassable in rainy weather and in dry, warm weather, they are often dusty. Tertiary roads, so to speak, are often little more than unfrequented twisting trails. There is often talk of improving the secondary roads, and sometimes something is done, but generally little is accomplished. The major consideration, of course, is money. Too, many roads, for great portions of their length are not clearly within the jurisdiction of given states.

PLAYERS OF GOR

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Some were even street wagons, and not road wagons, the latter generally of heavier construction, built for use outside the city where roads may be little more than irregular paths, uneven, steep, rugged and treacherous. Some Goreans cities, for example, perhaps as a military measure, in effect isolate themselves by the refusal to allocate funds for good roads. Indeed, they often go further by neglecting the upkeep of even those tracks that exist. It can be next to impossible to reach such cities in the spring, because of the rains. Besnit is an example.

MAGICIANS OF GOR

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7.) The city of Laura......

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The warehouses seemed constructed of smoothed, heavy timbers, stained and varnished. Most appeared reddish. Almost all had roofs had wooden shingles, painted black. Many were ornamented, particularly above the great double doors, with carvings, and woodwork, painted in many colors. Through the great doors I could see large central areas, and various floors, reached by more ramps.

CAPTIVE OF GOR

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8.) The town of Kassau and the Torvaldsland region......

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Kassau is a town of wood, and the temple is the greatest building in the town, It towers far above the squalid huts, and stabler homes of merchants, which crowd about it. Too, the town is surrounded by a wall, with two gates, one large, facing the inlet, leading in from Thassa, the other small, leading to the forest behind the town. The wall is of sharpened logs, and is defended by a catwalk.

MARAUDERS OF GOR

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"Your hall," said I to the Forkbeard, "is scarcely what had expected."

I had learned, much to my instruction, that my conception of the northern halls left much to be desired. Indeed the true hall, lofty, high-beamed, built of logs and boards, with its benches and high-seat pillars, its carvings and hangings, its long fires, its suspended kettles, was actually quite rare, and, generally, only the richest of the Jarls possessed such. The hall of Ivar Forkbeard, I learned, to my surprise, was of a type much more common. Upon reflection, however, it seemed to me not so strange that this should be so, in a bleak country, one in which many of the trees, too would be stunted and wind-twisted. In Torvaldsland, fine tlmber is at a premium. Too, what fine lumber there is, is often marked and hoarded for the use of shipwrights If a man of Torvaldsland must choose between his hall and his ship, it is the ship which, invariably, wins his choice.

MARAUDERS OF GOR

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Though the hall of Ivar Forkbeard was built only of turf and stone....

MARAUDERS OF GOR

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9.) The Inn at Ar's Station......

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The inn itself, aside from certain ancillary buildings, was built of heavy logs, and in two parts, or structures, with a common, peaked roof, and an open space, covered from above by the roof, between the two parts. Each part, or structure, contained perhaps three or four floors, possibly joined by ladders. It was about a hundred feet between the door in the interior gateway, where I stood, and, to the right, the covered way between the separate parts of the inn. The flooring of the court was formed largely, leveled and carved, from the natural stone of the plateau.

RENEGADES OF GOR

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10.) The Torcodino Semnium......

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Within the entrance to the Semnium was a marble-floored, lofty hall. Passageways and stairways led variously from this broad vestibule. The walls were adorned with mosaics, scenes generally of civic life, prominent among them were scenes of public gatherings, conferences and processions. One depicted the laying of the first stone in Torcodino's walls, an act which presumably would have taken place more than seven hundred years ago, when, according to the legends, the first wall, only a dozen feet high, was built to encircle and protect a great, sprawling encampment at the joining of trade routes.

MERCENARIES OF GOR

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11.) The aqueducts of Torcodino......

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"These are the aqueducts of Torcodino!" said Mincon.

"I see them," I said. The natural wells of Torcodino, originally sufficing for a small population, had, more than a century ago, proved inadequate to furnish sufficient water for an expanding city. Two aqueducts now brought fresh water to Torcodino from more than a hundred pasangs away, one from the Issus, a northwestwardly flowing tributary to the Vosk and the other from springs in the Hills of Eteocles, southwest of Corcyrus. The remote termini of both aqueducts themselves are usually patrolled and, of course, engineers and workmen attend regularly to their inspection and repair. These aqueducts are marvellous constructions, actually, having a pitch of as little as a hort for every pasang.

MERCENARIES OF GOR

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12.) The village of Tabuk's Ford......

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My master, with his lieutenants, sat cross-legged in the large, thatched hut of Thurnus. It was high, and conical, and floored with rough planks, set some six or seven feet on poles above the ground, that it might be drier and protected from common insects and vermin. The entrance was reached by a flight of rough, narrow steps. The entrances to many of the huts in the village, similarly constructed, were reached by ladders. Thurnus was caste leader. In the center of the hut was a large flat, circular piece of metal, on which, on legs, might sit braziers or the small, flattish cooking stoves, using pressed, hardened wood, common in the villages north and west of Ar. About the walls were the belongings of the house, in coffers and bales. Elsewhere about the village were storage huts and animal pens. Mats covered the rough planks. From the walls hung vessels and leathers. A smoke hole in the top of the hut permitted the escape of fumes. The hut, probably because of its construction, was not smoky. Also, though it was windowless and had but one door, it was not, at this time of day, dark. Through the straw of its roof and sides there was a considerable, delicate filtering of sunlight. The hut in the summer is light and airy. The frame of such a hut is constructed of Ka-la-na and Tem wood. The roof is re-thatched and the walls rewoven every third or fourth year. In the winters, which are not harsh at this latitude, such huts are covered on the outside with painted canvas or, among the richer peasants, with ornamented, painted bosk hides, protected and glossed with oil.

SLAVE GIRL OF GOR

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cylinder

the primary architectural form of buildings in major Gorean cities; they are of varying heights and colors, flat-topped and cylindrical, connected by narrow, colorful bridges that arch between them.

Tarnsman of Gor, page 23

Pillar of Exchanges

about one hundred pasangs northwest of Tharna lonely white column of solid marble 400 feet in height and 100 feet in diameter. The solid pillar offers an almost ideal place for the exchange of prisoners.

Outlaw of Gor page, 141

NOTEABLE MEMBERS OF THE CASTE OF BUILDERS

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1.) The Lady Rena of Lydius......

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The woman sat regally on the curule chair, wrapped in resplendent, many-colored silks. Her raiment might have cost more than any three or four of us together were worth. She was, moreover, veiled........

“Lift you head, Child,” said a woman’s voice. 

I did so. She was no older than I, I am sure, but she addressed me as a child.......

How steadily she regarded me, over her veil, her eyes amused. How beautiful she seemed. How splendid and fine! I could no longer meet her eyes.

“You may lower your head, Girl,” she said, not unkindly.......

“Who was she?” asked the grizzled, one-eyed guard.

“The Lady Rena of Lydius,” said Targo, “of the Builders.”.....

CAPTIVE OF GOR

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>>

The new girl had been Rena of Lydius, of the Builders, one of the five high castes of Gor. She still lay, secured, in the wagon. I expected Targo would keep her hooded and gagged in Laura, for it was possible she might be known there.

CAPTIVE OF GOR

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2.) Ina the slave......

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"It is the garment of a free woman," I had said.

"It is a lower-caste garment!" she said. "I am of high caste!" Ina was, I had learned, of the Builders, one of the five high castes on Gor, the others being the Initiates, Physicians, Scribes and Warriors.

VAGABONDS OF GOR

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3.) Lady Filomela of Ar......

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“But I was of high caste!” said Filomela.

“What was your caste?” I asked.

“The Builders!” she said.

“But you are not now of the Builders, or of any other caste, are you?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“What are you?”

“A slave,” she said.

MAGICIANS OF GOR

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4.) The members of the Hinrabius family (Tentius Hinrabius, Administrator of Ar and his daughter,  Claudia)......

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The new Administrator of Ar was a man named Minus Tentius Hinrabius, an unimportant man except for being of the Hinrabian family, prominent among the Builders, having the major holdings in the vast, walled Hinrabian kilns, where much of Ar's brick is produced.

ASSASIN OF GOR

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>>Nela, like most of the others at the baths, could talk of little but the startling disappearance, and presumed abduction, of Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, the proud, spoiled daughter of the Administrator of the City.

ASSASIN OF GOR

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5.) Cyprianus the engineer......

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Some two years ago the merchants and builders had opened the road of Cyprianus, named for the engineer in charge of the project, which led to the fairs rather from the southwest.

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This scroll compiled by the hand of Spyder Kamm, Scribe of Port Olni, 2008-09-09