Gorean Information

John Norman's Books Reprinted.

Debunking cyber myths about Gor.

Table of Contents

Alars  -   back to top

• nomadic, wandering, herding people, well known for skills with the ax.
• laagar - fortress of wagons of Alars.
• mount - medium-weight saddle tharlarian.
• newborn male - examined.  If found sound, lifted up and acknowledged as the man's son.  Has two incisions on the face, oblique on each cheek.  Child is marked before he takes nourishment.  By such thin, white, knife-edge lines may one identify Alars.
• saddle  - has stirrups and makes possible the use of couched stock lance.
• slaves - few, if any slaves.  The free women kill the female slaves.
• warriors - fierce warriors in the open field.
• weapons - fond of sword, the long, heavy, double-edged variety.  Shields are oval like Turians.
• women - typically blond and blue eyed, large, tall, and relatively plain.

Animals  -   back to top

• adder
• alligator or crocodile - something like it mentioned in the interior of Schendi.  Small legs, stubby clawed feet, gigantic tail, transparent eyelids, under scaly eyelids.  Eyes and snout almost level with water.  Never named.
• ant - black ant variety
• anteater - spined, 20 feet in length, heavily clawed forfoot.  Utters a whistling noises, lives on termites ("white ants").  More than 6 varieties in jungle.
• arctic gant - version of the gant.  Nests in the mountains of the Hringar and in steep, rocky outcroppings called bird cliffs which jutt out of the tundra.  When the eggs are frozen they are eaten like apples.
• armored gatch - marsupial of the jungle
• baleen whale - blush white-spotted, blunt fin.
• bees - honey bees
• beetle, marsh
• bint - fanged, carnivorous marsh eel
• blue grunt - predatory, voracious, a small fresh-water variety of the much larger and familiar salt-water grunt of Thassa.  Particularly dangerous during daylight hours, preceding its mating period when it schools.  Mating periods are synchronized with the phases of Gor's major moon.  The full moon reflects on the surface of the water and triggers the mating instinct.  During the daylight hours preceding a full moon, the restless grunts will tear anything edible to pieces as they school.  When they are mating one can pass through them without problem.
• bosk - cumbersome, huge, shaggy, shambling long haired wild ox with thick humped neck.  Wide head and tiny red eyes.  Two long, wicked horns that reach out from the head and suddenly curve forward to terminate in fearful points.  Has a temper.  The horns on the larger animals span a length greater than "2 spears."  15 varieties of bosk.
• butterfly
• centipede
• crayfish
• crested lit - brightly colored bird of the rain forest
• cuttlefish - eaten by the Hunjer Long Whale
• dog - does not exist on Gor
• eel - can jump, 15-20 pounds, 7' long
• eel, black - black eel is a variety in the rain forest
• eel, Vosk - normally feeds on garbage and small fish, but not unknown to attack swimmers.
• ferret
• finch
• fishers - tufted fishers, jungle bird
• fleer - long-billed fleer, jungle bird.
• fleer - prairie fleer variety, yellow, sharp-billed.  Also known as maize bird or corn bird.   Considered by Red Savages to be the first bird to find food.  Long-winged.  Feeds on insects.
• flies
• frevet - small, quick, mammalian insectivore.  Kept in some residences to keep the insect population down.
• fruit tindel - brightly colored bird of the rain forest
• jard - prairie bird.  Carrion eater and scavanger.
• gant - small, horned, web-footed aquatic fowl.  Lays legs, migratory.
• gant - jungle gant variety
• giani - tiny, cat-shaped panther, not dangerous to man
• gim - horned tiny bird, owlllike, four ounces in weight, purplish.  Migratory.
• gim - land gim is a variation, flightless jungle bird.  Yellow gim is jungle bird, but not clear if the yellow gim is the same as the flightless gim, or another variation both found in the jungle.
• gint - bulbous eyes and 6 inches long with tiny flipperlike lateral fins.  Has both lungs and gills.   They can leave the water.  4-spined dorsal fin, stout, fleshy pectoral fins.   Giant gint variety.
• gitch - insect whose bites are rather painful.
• golden beetle - has filamented, narcotic mane.  Pierces Priest-King's antennae with curved, hollow, laterally-moving jaw-pincers, draining the Priest-King of their body fluid.  Size of a rhinoceros.  Has short antennae with tufts of fluff of golden hair at the end.  Glowing eyes.  The back us divided into two thick casings which might once have been horny wings, but now the tissues had, at the points of touching together, fused in such a way as to form what is a thick, immobile golden shell.  Eggs are laid in humans (mentioned) and when hatch they look like a "child's turtle."    Six short legs.  Hisses.
• gort - hook-billed gort preys largely on rodents.  Jungle bird.
• grasshopper - red, four ounces
• grub borer - flightless jungle bird
• grunt, marsh - edible fish
• grunt, white - mentioned as black tiny eggs.  Gor caviar?
• Guernon monkey - jungle
• gull - Vosk gulls fly north in the spring when the ice breaks in the Vosk.
• herlit - large, broad-winged, carnivorous bird.  4 feet high with wingspan of 7-8 feet.  15 long narrow yellow and black-tipped feathers.   In Gorean sometimes called Sun Striker or with literal translation, "out-of-the-sun-it-strikes."  Makes its descent and strike on prey with sun above and behind it.  With the red savages, one is supposed to kill with the bare hands and then their feathers are used for religious and ceremonial purposes.
• hint - small, active insect.  Resembles a flea, but is not parasitic.
• hith - Like a python.  Mentioned as "rare" and "golden" but cannot be certain if all hiths are rare or if a golden variety is rare from context.  So large that, even unfed,  it would be difficult for a full-grown man to encircle its body with his arms.
• horse - does not exist on Gor
• Hunjer Long Whale - rare. eats cuttlefish.  toothed.
• hurlit - migratory bird.  Mentioned as a 'forest hurlit."
• Hurt - bounding, 2-legged marsupial.  Replaces its wool four times a year.
• ivory-billed woodpecker - heavier jungle bird
• jard - small scavenger.  Flies in large flocks
• jit monkey - nocturnal, small
• kaiila - like a horse.  Have claws, long neck, graceful head, a mane, fanged jaws and the agility of cats.  Silken, smooth-gaited, triply lidded, third eye transparent membrance.  20-22 hands.  Incredible stamina.  Can range 600 pasangs a day.  High strung, vicious tempered.  Southern variation pelt ranges from rich gold to black.  Sand variation has almost always a tawny pelt.  Sand variation suckles its young.  Southern variation are viviparous but the young hunts on instinct hours after birth.  Kaiila milk (drunk by people, mentioned specifically as the peoples of the Tahari) is reddish and has a strong salty taste.  Sand variation is omnivorous.  Southern variation is carnivorous.  Both have storage tissues and can go days without water.  Souther variation has a storage stomach and can go several days without meat.  Paws of sand variation are much broader, digits webbed with leathery fibers and heavily padded.  Sand/desert variation handles similarly to those in the Southern hemisphere and used as a mount by the Wagon Peoples.   Rein is tied through a hole in the right nostril.  Passes under the jaw to the left.  Also used is a long kaiila quirt.  Kaiila in the perimeter of the Barrens are controlled by a headstall, bit and reins, in short a bridle.  The Red Savages use a jaw tie, which is a strap or braided leather tie, placed below the tongue and behind teeth, tied about lower jaw from which 2 reins or a single double rein, a single loop, comes back over beast's neck.  Jaw tie serves as both bit and headstall, formed of same material as reins, one long length of material used for entire bridle.  In "Nomads of Gor" Norman says kaiila are "unknown in the northern hemisphere."
• kailiauk - four-legged, wide-headed, lumbering, stocky ruminant.  Herds are usually found in the savannah and plains north and south of the rain forests, but some herds in the forests.  Commonly have brown and reddish bars on their haunches.  They are short-trunked and tawny.  Males have tridentlike three horns.  Horns bristle from foreheads.  Males are 10 hands at shoulders and females 8 hands.  Males average 400-500 Gorean stone.  Females average 300-400 Goreign weight.  Seldom moves at night.  Kailiauk of the Barrens stands 20-25 hands, weighs up to 4,000 pounds.  Has 8-valved heart and 4 stomachs.  They are migratory.   The annual grazing patterns in the Barrens usually describe a gigantic oval, seasonally influenced which covers many thousands of passangs.  Ovoid grazing patterns tend to bend north in the summer, south in the winter.
• kailiauk herds in the Barrens - Boswell herd (for whom Boswell Pass is named), Bento herd (named for the first white man who saw it), Hogarthe herd (also for the first white man who saw it).   These herds number 2-3 million beasts.  The tremors in the earth from such a herd can be felt 50 pasangs away.  Takes such a herd 2-3 days to ford a river.
• kite - migratory bird that shrills.  Mentioned as a "meadow kite."
• kur -   alien race.
• Karl Whale - four-fluked baleen whale.  Less common than the Hunjer Whale.
• larl - native to Volteri Range, pantherlike carnivore, stands 6-8 feet high at shoulder.  A predator, clawed and fanged.  Substantially feline.  Head is broad, sometimes more than two feet across, and shaped roughly like a triangle, giving its skull something of the cast of a viper's save that it is furred.  The pupils of the eyes like the cat's can range from slits to circles.  Its head is almost continually in motion. An unobtrusive bony ridge which runs from its four nasal slits to the beginnings of the backbone. Eight-valved heart that lies in the center of its breast.  Tails are long and tufted.  Pelt of the larl is a tawny red or a black. The black larl, predominantly nocturnal, is maned, both male and female. The red larl hunts whenever hungry, regardless of the hour, and is the more common variety, possesses no mane. White larls are mentioned in the Sardar.  Females of both varieties tend generally to be slightly smaller than the males, but are quite as aggressive and sometimes even more dangerous, particularly in the late fall and winter of the year when they are likely to be hunting for their cubs.  Will always prefer ruining a hunt, even one involving a quarry of several animals, to allowing a given animal to move past it to freedom.  No man has ever succeeded in taming a larl.  They turn on you eventually.  Will attack men only if disturbed or other prey is not available.
• larl - jungle variety, diverse kinds in jungle
• lart - 2 stomached snow lart.  White.  10" high.   8-10 lbs.  Mammalian.  4 legs.  Eats bird's eggs and preys on the leem.  The fur does not freeze from human breath.
• leech
• leem - small arctic rodent.  5-10 oz.  Hibernates during winter.  Brown coat in the summer.
• lelt - blind, fernlike cranial irbration receptors.  Tiny eyeless heads.  5-7" long.  White and long-finned.  Swims slowly.   Unusually developed odor-perception center and two vibration-reception centers in the brain.  Hidden "ear" is the organ of balance and is connected with an unusually large balance center in the brain.  Visual center is stunted and undeveloped.  Gills are at lower sides of jaw.
• lice - size of marbles.  Infect tarn.
• lit - crested lit and common lit.  Needle-tailed lit, jungle bird
• lizard
• mindar - brightly plumaged, short-winged, sharp-billed forest bird.  Yellow and red.   Adapted for short, rapid flights.  Drills the bark of trees for food.   Like a woodpecker.
• moccasin, marsh - 5 feet long, small triangular head, poisonous.  Not common, not even in the delta.
• monkey
• needle fly - see sting fly
• ost - venomous, brilliant orange reptile, little more than a foot in length (listed elsewhere as "scarcely more than a few inches in length").   The bite is excruciating death in seconds.  Exceedingly poisonous.  The Ushindi ost is red and black stripe.   Mentioned as yellowish orange and marked with black rings.  "Death by ost venom is among the most hideous of deaths."  Flesh turns orange from one dies from ost venom.
• oysters
• panther - jungle variety, diverse kinds.  Will attack men only if disturbed or other prey is not available.
• panther - yellow variety
• parrot - mentioned in the jungle near Schendi, multile variations mentioned
• parsit - fish, small, slender/narrow, silver striped with brown, mentioned as usually striped
• pigeon - raised and eaten
• porcupine - climbing, long-tailed in jungle
• pte - female kailiauk
• qualae - small three-toed dun-colored mammal with a stiff brushy mane of black hair.
• rennel - poisonous, crablike desert insect
• roach - large, oblong, flat-bodied, black, one-half hort in length with long feelers.  Harmless.
• rockspider - called such for habit of holding legs folded beneath them.  Usually brown and black.   Looks like a rock.  Can get 8 feet thick.
• salamander - long-bodies, tiny, white and blind.  Long, stemlike legs.  Have an external gill system.  "Feather gills."
• sand flies
• saurian, marine - rare, small head and rows of small teeth.  Appendages very like broad paddles. Harmless to humans.  Can only take small bits of garbage and small fish.
• saurian, marine, fishlike - long, toothed snouts, silent and aggressive.  Sailors fear them as they do sharks.
• scorpion
• sea tharlarians - immune to the poison of the wingfish.
• shark - river and marsh sharks, common Gorean shark (and marsh shark? or same?) is 9-gilled.  Many varieties, some like the marsh shark and the sharks of the Vosk and Laurius are adapted to fresh water.
• shark, marsh - particularly aggressive early morning and near dusk, common feeding times.
• slee - rodent of the jungle
• sleen - Burrowing furred, six-legged, long bodied, fangs, blazing eyes, like a furred lizard.  4 main types in the polar seas; black sleen, brown sleen, tusked sleen, flat-nosed sleen.  None in the rain forest of Ua.  Most varieties can be domesticated to one extent or another.  Two most common sorts of trained sleen are the smaller, tawny prairie sleen and the large, brown or black, forest sleen.  In the north there is a snow sleen.  The gray sleen is Gor's finest tracker, and is better than other varities.  Sleen mates once a year in spring and there are usually 4 young in a litter.  Gestation period is 6 months.  Young are commonly white furred at birth.  Fur darkens by the following spring.  Snow sleen stay white pelted throughout life.  They live in burrows.  Sleen often pair for life.   The female sleen resists mating the first time, but never after that.  Generally nocturnal.
• slime worm - found in the halls of the PKs.  Long, whitish, wormlike animal, eyeless, with a small red mouth.  Long ago it functioned in the Nest as a sewerage device.  
• sloth - in jungle
• snail
• spider
• Spider People - communicate with translators.  Do not injure rational beings.  They spin the Cur-lon Fiber used in the mills of Ar.  They don't like loud voices.
• squirrel
• squirrel - black squirrel variety.  Small, jungle animal.
• sting fly - hatch around rivers and marshes, although usually somewhat later in the season.  Eggs are laid on the stems of rence plants.  There are peak times for hatching when they hatch in clouds.  Extremely painful sting.  Enough can kill a man, or make him go blind.  Tend to be attracted to the eyes.
• tabuk - single-horned yellow antelope.  Small, fleet, more than 20 varieties in jungle as well.  Hide is the warmest pelt in the arctic.  Each hair of the northern tabuk is hollow.  Bright golden pelt, born in the Ka-la-na thickets .  The young have a pelt that is mottled yellow and brown.  The prairie tabuk in the Barrens is tawny colored.  Some varieties lie down when sensing danger.  Most, however, tense, standing frozen and if alarmed further scurry away.  They can reach speeds of 80-90 pasangs an Ahn.  Their evasive leaps can cover 30-40 feet in length and heights of 10-15 feet.
• tabus (northern) - massive, tawny, and swift.  Single horn of ivory.
• tanagers - jungle bird
• tarn - gigantic, hawlike, predatory saddle birds.  Has a crest like a jay.
• tarn - land bird, generally of mountainous origin.  There are brightly plumaged jungle tarns.
• tarsier - jungle small animal
• tarsk - six-tusked wild boar, like a pig.  Small, fat, grunting, bristly, brindled, shaggy-maned, hoofed, flat-snouted, rooting animal.  Its meat tends to be salty.  Several varieties inhabit jungle as well.  There are domesticated tarsks, with sheathed tusks.  Thought of as a filthy animal.
• tatanka - kailiauk bull
• tatrix - lives in the forest
• tharlarion - herbivore, draft and riding lizards.  In comparison to mammals, has very sluggish nervous system.  Seems almost impervious to pain.  Most larger varieties have two brains, or more accurately, a brain and a smaller brainlike organ.  The brain, or "one brain" is located in the head.  The brainlike organ is located near the base of the spine.  Just-hatched weight 140-150 pounds.
• tharlarion, high - carniverous.  Saddle is constructed to absorb shock. Done by constructing thetree of the saddle in such a way that the leather seat is mounted on a hydraulic fitting which actually floats in a thick lubricant. Not only does this lubricant absorb much of the shock involved, but it tends, except under abnormal stress, to keep the seat of the saddle parallel to the ground.  Mounted warriors always wear, as an essential portion of their equipment, a thick leather belt, tightly buckled about their abdomen. In addition, mounted warriors inevitably wear a high, soft pair of boots called tharlarion boots. These protect legs from the hides of their mounts. When a tharlarion runs, its hide could tear the unprotected flesh from a man's bones.
• tharlarion, long-necked, paddle-finned - mentioned in the marsh, but seems to be different from a marsh tharlarion.
• tharlarion, marsh - mentioned as having third eyelid.  Used to taking prey in water, unlikely to climb on rafts and seldom ascend the rence islands.
• tharlarion, racing - only certain breeds are used to race, such as the Venetzia, Torarii, and Thalonian *25
• tharlarion, river - vast, long-necked.  Triangular-toothed jaws.  Mentioned as harnessed to pull a barge.
• tharlarion, saddle - generally managed by snout reins.
• tharlarion, short-legged, long-bodied - mentioned in the marsh, but seems to be different than a marsh tharlarion.
• termite - also called "white ant," extremely important to the ecology of the forest
• tropical fish - most near Schendi are poisonous to eat, due to certain seaweeds on which they feed.
• tumit - large, flightless carnivorous bird, hooked beak as long as a man's forearm,  mentioned of the southern plains.  Hunted.
• turtle - marsh turtle mentioned
• ul - giant pterodactyl, native to swamps of the Vosk, winged tharlarion, predatory, toothed.  Wingspan is 25-30 feet Gorean.  Long, narrow-toothed jaws, like a long snout or bill.  Long narrow extension of skin and bone in the back, long snakelike tail terminating with a flat, spadelike structure.
• umbrella bird - heavier jungle bird
• urt - small horned rodent like rats, as big as tiny dogs, although most species are small enough to be lifted in one hand..  Three rows of needlelike teeth, 2 horns, tusks like flat crescents which curve up from the jaw and two more that protrude over the eyes from the bony tissue that forms upper ridge of eye socket.  Long hairless tail.  Urts from the water commonly make the strike at the surface versus surfacing as they strike.  Certain species migrate twice a year.  It is necessary at that time to avoid them.  People usually remain indoors when a pack is in the vicinity.  They normally attack in a pack.  Messy kills.
• urt - gliding urt - variety mentioned in rain forest
• urt - ground urt variety, rodent in jungle
• urt - leaf urt, a variety mentioned in Schendi rain forest
• urt - leaf urt, four-toed variety, small jungle animal.
• urt - tree urt, a variety mentioned in rain forest
• urt people - narrow, elongated face and large ovoid eyes which adjust quickly to darkness.  Narrow-shouldered and narrow-chested.  Long, thin arms and short spindley legs.  Walks bent over, knuckles often on ground, head moving from side to side.  Seldom attack.  Fond of pit fruit.
• Ushindi fisher - long-legged, wading bird
• vart - blind, batlike, swarm of flying rodents, each the size of a small dog.  Sometimes trained as weapons on Tyros.
• vart - jungle vart variety
• verr - like a goat, spiral horned, bleats, cheese from this animal is good, domesticated long-hair.  Mountain goat.
• vint - insect, tiny and sand-colored
• vosk - carp
• vulo - like a chicken.  Spiced brain of Torian vulo is mentioned as served as a dish.
• wader - ring-necked wader variety, jungle bird
• wader - yello-wlegged wader variety, jungle bird
• warbler - jungle bird
• water tharlarion - carnivore, yellow
• weasel
• whales
• wingfish - Blue.  Tiny, about the size of a tarn disk when curled in one's hand.  Delicate.  3 or 4 slender spines on its dorsal fin which are poisonous.  On the stiff pectoral fins it can glide through the air for short distances.  Also called a songfish because it has a mating whistle.  In courtship they thrust their heads from the waters and utter a kind of whistle.  Blue, four-spined wingfish is found only in the waters of Cos, so called Cosian wingfish.  Larger varieties are found farther out to sea.  Cosian wingfish livers are regarded as "the delicacy of delicacies."
• yellow-breasted hermit bird - like a woodpecker
• zad - large, broad winged, black and white with yellowish beak bird.   Beak is long and narrow, slight hooked for probing and tearing at carcasses.   Like a vulture.
• zadit - Small, tawny-feathered, sharp-billed bird.  Feeds on insects.
• zarlit fly - most are purple, 2 feet long with four translucent wings, spanning about a yard across.  Large padlike feet.  Harmless to humans.  Preys on small insects.
• zeder - sleen-like in rain forest.  2 feet in length, 8-10 pounds.  Knifes through water by day and returns to nest at night.  Nest built from sticks and mud in branches of tree overlooking water.

Assassins   -  back to top

• clothing - do not carry pouches
• ethics - codes forbid poison on steel
• Killer - title of respect for an Assassin.
• paid - when has been paid gold and receives charge, affixes on his forehead the sign of a small fine black dagger.  He may enter whatever city he pleases that none may interfere with his work.
• recognition of - paints black dagger on brow
• success rate - one in ten completes instruction
• training  - is in pairs, each pair against others.  Each member of the team must hunt and kill their team member at the end.
• withdrawal  - withdrawal from the training program is not permitted

Auctions  -   back to top

• barefoot - all female slaves are sold barefoot
• blindfolded - slaves are often blindfolded at market to keep them quiet
• central block - there is more prestige to be sold at the major or central block versus sold casually from a side block.  "Side block girl" is a term of disparagement.
• Curulean - most famous auction block in Ar.  The largest.  Semi-curcular and 40 feet in width.  15 feet high.  Painted blue and yellow.  Nine slave girls are carved in white-painted wood evenly spaced.  They represent the first nine girls taken.
• ending - to end an auction the auctioneer closes his hand.
• fixed price - slaves who have a fixed price, written on their body with grease pencil or lipstick
• iron pens - generally refers to all of the subterranean retention facilities in the house of a slaver, not simply cages but pits, steel drums, wall chains, etc.  It is the name of an area, on teh whole rather than a literal description of the nature of the only sort of security devices found there.
• pierced-ear girl - gets higher price
• ritual phrase of an inspected slave - "Buy me, Master."\
• Schendi - Quality slave markets in:  Ushunga, Mkufu, Utajiri, Dhahabu, Fedha, Marashi, Harini, Kovu, Nguma.
• tag, black - means the slave is ill.
• tag, brown - means the slave is a low slave.  Being sold as a kettle-and-mat girl or a pot girl.
• tag, gold - means the salve is a much higher grade of slave, usually a trained pleasure slave or dancer.
• tag, red - means slave is sold.
• tag, yellow - means the girl is not to be sold without prior consultation with slaver.
• tag, white - means the slave is on hold.
• traditional auction block - rounded and of wood with sawdust on it.
• unbranded slaves - may not legally be sold in a public sale in most cities.  Unbranded slaves ay be sold privately, however.
• volume - highest volume for sales is the 5 days of the Fifth Passage Hand, coming late in summer, called jointly the Love Fest.  Thought to be good luck to buy a girl on that feast, so the prices are higher.

Creation Myths of Gor, Life & Death Beliefs   -  back to top

• Common Creation Myth - The Priest-Kings formed man from mud of earth and the blood of tarns.
• Death - called the "Cities of Dust"
• Death Rite - cremation with bits of bone kept in an urn.  Ashes scattered.  Mentioned.
• Immortality - Goreans do not believe in immortality.  The teachings of the Initiates is that only initiates can obtain eternal life.
• Kurii - do not believe in immortality
• Priest Kings - accorded the honors of divinity.  Considered to be the most ancient gods of Gor, and prayers are said to them.
• Red Hunters - believe in reincarnation for animals and people.
• sun worshippers - there is a sect that worships the sun, but it is insignificant in numbers and power.
• theatre people - denied funeral pyre and other forms of honorable burial.
• Torvaldsland Creation Myth - The gods took a hoe, sprinkled water on it and rubbed sweat from their own bodies to create a race of slaves.  From this hoe most men were formed.  One god threw down his great ax, poured paga on it and his own blood.   The ax leaped up and ran away, to become the father of the men of Torvaldsland.
• Wagon Peoples - revere the Priest-Kings but pray to the sky.  They pray only when mounted, only when in the saddle, and only with weapons at hand.  Women are not permitted to pray.
• worship - Goreans in general worship standing

Brands  -   back to top

• Branded more commonly on the left thigh then the right.   Sometimes on the lower left abdomen, which is the third most favored brand site.  They can also be on the left side of the neck (mentioned as tiny behind left ear), on the left calf, interior of the left heel, inside of the forearms, left breast, or the high instep area of the left foot, buttocks.  Although left side always favored, right possible.
• chain and claw - occurs in lairs of Kurii agents on Earth.   Signifies slavery and subjection within the compass of the Kur yolk.  Almost never occurs on Gor.
• Common for males - Gorean script of the initial for Kajirus in a large block letter
• Common for females - smaller and more graceful than for men, the initial in script of Kajira
• Dina brand
• exploit marking of a captured female - ( | )  (red savages)
• exploit marking of a captured male - no common sign (red savages)
• Kassars - the symbolic representation of a three weighted bola , three circles joined at the center by lines.
• Kataii - is a bow facing left
• law - not to brand a slave is contrary to merchant law and contrary to the laws of most cities.
• Less common for females - the initial in script of Sa-Fora
• moons and collar - commonly occurs in certain of the Gorean enclaves on Earth, which serve as headquarters for agents of Priest-Kings.  Consists of a locked collar and ascending diagonally above it, extending to the right, three one-quarter moons.  Indicates  the girl is subject to Gorean discipline.  Almost never occurs on Gor.
• North - half circle with a steep diagonal line adjoining it at the right tip.  The half circle is about 1 1/4" in width, and the diagonal line is about 1 1/4" in height.  Symbolic of the phrase that in the north a bond-maid is sometimes referred to as a "woman whose belly lies beneath the sword."
• Palm brand
• Paravaci - a symbolic representation of a bosk head, a semicircle resting on an inverted isosceles triangle
• Penalty Brand, Traitress - tiny but clearly visible.
• Penalty Brands - tiny but clearly visible.  One for lying and another for stealing.
• Port Kar - has their own brand, called the "Mark of Port Kar"
• Tahari - the Taharic character "Kef" which is the initial letter of the work Kajira in Taharic.
• Treve - has their own brand, called the "Mark of Treve," which is the first letter in cursive script of the name of the city of Treve.
• Thieves Guild Brand (only known Thieves Guild is in Port Kar) - tiny, 3-pronged over the right cheekbone
• Tuchuk - sign of 4 bosk horns, set to somewhat resemble an H, about 1" high.  Also used to brand Tuchuk bosk, but then a 6" square.

Castes  -   back to top

• Assassins - "most hated caste on Gor"
• Carriers of Wood
• caste laws - Tharna law is that women are freed temporarily, as a person conceived by a free person on a free person is consider a free person, even if later carried to term and born by a slave.  Many other cities (the usual case) is that offspring of a slave is slave and belongs to mother's owner.
• Charcoal Makers
• children out of caste - when parents mate out of caste, child takes the caste of the father.
• High Castes - Initiates, Scribes, Physicians, Builders, and Warriors
• Initiate Caste - also called the Blessed Caste.  Servants of the Priest Kings
• Merchants - Gorean Law does not recognize Slavers as a different caste from Merchants.
• Metal Workers
• No Caste - certain occupations are not traditionally associated with caste, such as gardening, domestic service, and herding.
• Peasants - "the ox on which the Home Stone rests"
• Physicians -  women in many cities at 15 wear two bracelets on the left wrist.  When she has one child, one is removed.  With the second child, the second is removed.  She may then, if she desires, enter into full practice of her craft.
• Poets
• Pot Makers
• Saddle Makers
• Slavers - statistically there are very few female slavers.
• Singers
• status outside the caste system - only slave, outlaw, and Priest-King.
• Tarn Keepers Caste
• Thieves Caste - the only one known is at Port Kar
• Torturers - a clan of the Wagon Peoples.  They do not formally have castes, but this is close enough.  The only peoples on Gor who have a clan or torturers, trained carefully in the arts of detaining life.  They wear hoods.  They remove the hood only when the sentence is death.
• Warrior - many seem to take pride in a lack of literacy.  *25
• Warrior Code - One who has shed your blood, or whose blood you have shed, becomes your sword brother, unless you formally repudiate the blood on your weapons.  Also, If a warrior accepts a woman as a slave, at least for a time (at his discretion) she is to be spared.  If she is displeasing, she may be immediately disposed of.  This is not a legal obligation.  See also free woman captured.
• women - of a given caste normally do not engage in caste work.   Notable exception is the Physicians, and they normally do not permit women to full practice until they have borne two children to retain a high level of intelligence in the caste.
• women out of caste - when women free companion out of their own caste, they can retain their own caste, or be received into the caste of her companion.

Cities     -  back to top

• Citizenship - conferred only upon coming of age and only after certain examinations are passed.  Must be vouched for by citizens, not related in blood, and be questioned before committee of citizens intent upon determining worthiness or lack thereof.  Citizenship in most cities is not accrued in virtue of accident of birth, but earned by virtue of intent and application.
• Home Stone - kept in highest cylinder in a city.  Sometimes a crude piece of carved rock, or a magnificent and impressively wrought jewel incrusted cube of marble or granite.  It is to a city what life is to a man.  Originally, peasants built their huts around a flat stone which was placed in the center of the circular dwelling.  It was carved with a family sign and was called the Home Stone.  A symbol of sovereignty, and each peasant, in his own hut, was a sovereign.
• Merchant Law - the only common body of law existing among cities
  - The Slave Wars - a series of wars, loosely referred to as Slave Wars, occurred among various cities in the middle latitudes of Gor on and off for approximately one generation.  Out of these wars grew merchant laws pertaining to slaves.
• Pasang Stones - along the great roads like mile markers.  metnioned on the great road to Ar.
• Anango - famed for their magicians *25
• Ar - largest city on known Gor.  Luxurious metropolis in the midst of vast plains, produces milled linen.  Their speech is melodious yet expressive.  Houses that rent dancers in Ar are Kelsius and Aurelius.  Capacian Baths are gigantic baths, the finest on Gor.  City ordinance that says all female slaves must wear a visible sign of bondage, but not so for males.  Has some forty public gates.  
• Argentium - city, west and somewhat south of Corcyrus.  Also spelled Argentum.
• Asperiche - island
• Bazi - far to the south
• Besnit - next to impossible to reach in the spring due to rains (*25)
• Brundisium - Port on the cost south of the Vosk's delta.  Ally of the island ubarate of Cos.  One of the largest and busiest ports south of the delta.
• Corcyrus - south of the Vosk. It is south-west of the city of Ar. It lies to the east and somewhat north of Argenturn.
•  Esalinus
• Fina - town in the Vosk League
• Forest Port
• Fort Haskins - no longer a fort.  At the edge of the Barrens at the foot of Boswell Pass.
• Hammerfest
• Harfax
• Helmutsport
• Hochberg - small city.  Mountain fortress in southern ranges of the Voltai.  (Also spelled Hochburg)
• Holmesk - city
• Hulneth - Island
• Iskander - river town
• Jad - one of the 4 major cities of Cos
• Jasmine - town in Vosk League
• Kailiauk - easternmost town at the foot of the Thentis Mountains.  Lies almost at the edge of the Ihanke.  Major business is traffic of hides and kaiila.  Permanent citizens number 400-500.  Several inns and taverns along central street.  Most notable feature is its hide sheds.  Under the roofs of the open sheds are thousands of hides tied in bundles on platforms.  Great heaps of bone and horn about, often 30 feet high.
• Kargash - city
• Kasra - the capitol of Tyros, river port, known for red salt.  Important in the Tahari salt trade.
• Kassau - seat of the High Initiate of the north.  Claims spiritual sovereignty over Torvaldsland.  Town of wood.  The temple is the greatest building in the town.  The town is surrounded by a wall with two gates, one large facing the inlet the other small leading to the forest behind the town.  There is a wall of sharpened logs which is defended by a catwalk.  The main business is trade, lumber, and fishing.
• Ko-ro-ba - sometimes called Towers of the Morning, but literally an archaic Gorean phrase referring to a village market.  In the midst of green and rolling hills, hundreds of feet above the sea level
• Kurtzal - village port
• Lara - one of the four cities (the westernmost city) of the Salerian Confederation on the banks of the Laurius River
• Laura - 200 pasangs inland from Thassa.   Small trading city, river port.  First major town east of Lydius.
• Lydius - at the mouth of the Laruius where it empties into Thassa.  200 pasangs downstream from Laura.  A bustling, populous trade center.  Wood, wood products, and hide are traded through there.
• Market of Semris - small town.  Famed for its tarsks.  Best known as an important livestock market.
• Point Alfred
• Port Kar - nearest solid land lies to the north some 100 pasangs distant.  "Tarn of the Sea," on the Tamber Gulf, name is synonymous in Gorean for cruelty and piracy.  No towers.  The only city known to be built by slaves, not free men.  Had no home stone until Bosk gave it one.  Their slave girls are famed as dancers.
• Port Olni - one of the four cities of the Salerian Confederation.   One of the first two cities in the league.
• Ragnar's Hamlet
• Rarir - village
• Rive-de-Bois - city
• Rorus - village
• Rovere - city
• Sais
• Samnium - 200 pasangs east and a bit south of Brundisium.  Ally of the island ubarate of Cos.
• Schendi - Population one million, majority black.  Known for sapphires.  Home port of the league of black slavers.  Equatorial free port thus no winter.  Jungle behind Schendi.  Far to the south.  Their slave girls carry vessels on their heads without the use of their hands.
• Selnar - one of the 4 major cities of Cos
• Siba - town in Vosk League
• Skjern - island, very distant from Ko-ro-ba.
• Stones of Turmas - Turian outpost, licensed for storage of goods within realm of Ar.  Not uncommon to have such an outpost which has commercial value, not military value.
• Sulport
• Tabor - merchants of Tabor are famed for the accuracy of their accounts.
• Tabuk's Ford - large village, 40 families, receives it's name from the fact that field Tabuk were once accustomed, in their annual migrations, to ford the Verl tributary of the Vosk in its vicinity.  400 pasangs to the north and slightly to the west of Ar.  20 pasangs off the Vosk road to the west.
• Tafa - river town in the Vosk League
• Tancred's Landing
• Tarnburg - 200 pasangs north and west of Hochburg.  Mountain fortress, in southern ranges of the Voltai.
• Teletus - Island
• Telnus - capitol of Cos.  It has wall-encircled harbors.   There are 4 major cities of Cos and Telnus is the largest.
• Temas - one of the 4 major cities of Cos ("Temos" in Magicians of Gor, page 290)
• Tentium - one of two major cities of Tyros.
• Tetrapoli - river town, originally 4 separate towns:  Ri, Teibar, Heibon, Azdak.  Legend says founded by four brothers.  Tertrapoli means "four cities" or "four towns" in Gorean.
• Tharna - silver mines.  Few free women. One of the most harsh and cruel slaveries is that of the slave of Tharna.  Sometimes called the City of Silver.  boys of Tharna receive two yellow cords during their Home Stone Ceremony.  Cords commonly worn in belt of male.  18" long, suitable for binding female hand and foot.  Every free woman must don temporary collars, wear slave tunics, and be leashed when visiting Tharna.
• Thassa - marks the faces of their men
• Thentis - famed for tarn flocks, in the mountains of Thentis.   Needle trees grow here.
• Ti - largest and most populous city of the four cities of the Salerian Confederation.  One of the first two cities in the league.  City on the Olni.
• Tor - northwest corner of the Tahari.  The principle supplying point for the scattered oasis communities.
• Torcadino - crossroads city on the flats of Serpeto.  Located at various intersections of routes; the Genesian, Northern Salt Line, Northern Silk Road, Pligrim's Road, Eastern Way.  Two aquaducts provide fresh water from 100+ pasangs away.  One from the Issus, other from springs in the Hills of Etocles.
• Treve - bandit city, high among the crags of the larl-prowled Voltai.   Most men do not even know its location.  Treve does not grow its own food, but in the fall raid harvests of others.  They live by rapine and plunder.
• Turia - Gold mines.  Far to the south, in the middle latitudes of the southern hemisphere.  Water is supplied by deep, tile-lined wells, some hundreds of feet deep.   Also siege reservoirs, filled with melted snows and rain.  Turian wells have no raised wall, but save for a 2" rim.  Baths of Turia are second only to Ar in luxury, number of pools, temperatures, scents, and oils.  Bath girls of Turia are almost as famous as those of Ar.  Mentioned as a luxurious city, with shops that are filled with rare, intriguing paraphernalia.
• Turmus - town at the delta of the Vosk, the furthest west town in the Vosk League.
• Tyros - rocky with labyrinths of vart caves.
• Ven - river town
• Venna - small, exclusive resort city 200 pasangs north of Ar.   The preferred residential section is Telluria.
• Victoria - town, has wharves, on river.  One of the major outlets for merchandise of river pirates.  Coin girls are kept in kennels on the Street of the Writhing Slave.  The custom of capture carry and initiatory whipping is practiced.  Girl is carried over the threshold, chained up and then whipped.  Headquarters to Vosk League.
• Vonda - one of the four cities of the Salerian Confederation.  
• White Water - town that is the furthest east in the Vosk League.  On the northern bank of the Vosk.  Named for the white water rapids in the vicinity.  First major town west of Lara, east of Ar's Station.

Clothing   -  back to top

• Administrator - wears brown
• agal - the cording on a kaffiyeh.  Binds the kaffiyeh to the head.  Several lengths of cord.  The cording indicates tribe and district.
• Alar women - simple, corded, belted, woolen, plain, widely-sleeved, ankle-length dress.  Adjustment cording from loop at back of the neck down to breasts, crossed and both cords between and under breasts, linked again to belt.  Alar women do not wear veils.
• anklet, slave - original had five bells.  Fashion sometimes has the number go up to as far as seven, then back down.  *25
• arctic - women of the arctic wear boots that reach to the brief panties of fur.  They wear nothing on the top when it is "warm" or above freezing. 
• breechclout - red savages.  Single piece of narrow material.  Tanned hide or soft cloth.  Held in place by belt or cord.  Goes over cord in back, down between legs, and comes up, drawn snugly tight over belt in front.  In cooler weather often worn with leggings and a shirt.  In warm weather, in camp, worn alone.   Females and slaves are not permitted to wear it.
• burnoose - sleeveless, hooded desert cloak
• buttons - only on slave clothing.
• camisk, common - rectangle of cloth with hole for head like a poncho, about 18" wide.  Falls a bit above the knees in the front and back and is belted with cord or chain.  The common camisk is called the "northern camisk" in Turia.  Favored in Tharna.
• camisk, Turian -  like an inverted T, in which the bar of the "T" would be beveled on each side.  Fastened with a cord.  This single cord binds the garment to girl at three points, behind the neck, behind the back, and in front at the waist.  Edges folded under and stitched to prevent raveling.  Normally falls to the knees.  Belted with chain or long, thing strap of leather binding fiber.  Conceals a brand but exposes the back.  Turnian camisk is worn tightly, where it is most common.    
• chalwar - sashed trouser garment, diaphanous, gathered at the ankles.
• chatka - Worn over the curla.  4 feet in length, folded narrowly to a width of 6 inches, thrust over the curla in front, taken between the legs and thrust behind and over the curla in back.  Drawn snugly.   Also mentioned as 5 feet in length in black leather.
• collar stocking/collar sleeve - silk, or other  material, mentioned as velvet, that is worn around a girl's collar.  Not used in most cities.  Mentioned as used in Corcyrus
• cothornoi - Costume in theatre.  High platform-like boots.
• curla - rope of twisted silk tied snugly about the slave's belly and knotted with a slip knot which can be loosened with a tug at the left hip.
• djellaba - striped, hooded, sleeved, loose robe
• free woman's clothing - in many cities it is a capital offense for a slave girl to don the garments of the free woman.
• free woman's legs - it is scandal for a free woman to bare her legs.
• girdle - slave girdle is used to adjust the garment on a slave.  A cord.  Usually tied in a manner to enhance the girl's figure.  May be used to bind the slave.  The most common method to tie is to loop the cord and put it over the slave, so the loop hangs behind the back, and the two loose ends in front.  Then the forward ends of the cor are put back, beneath the arms, through the back loop, and drawn forward where they are tied snugly beneath the breasts.  The forward ends of the cord are crossed over the bosom, before being placed again through the loop at the back, drawn forward, and again fastened in front.  *25
• haik - covers woman head to toe.  Mentioned as black.  At eyes, tiny bit of black lace.
• kaffiyeh - squarish scarf, folded over into a triangle, placed over the head, 2 points at the side of the shoulders, one in back to protect the back of the neck.  Bound to head by an agal.
• kaftan
• kalmak - brief, open, sleeveless vest of black leather.
• koora - kerchief like, covers head, also mentioned as a strip of red cloth that binds a slave's hair.
• mercenaries - often do not wear uniforms.  Insignia such as arm bands, scarves, ribbons or plumes of given colors denote their side (easily changed).
• Merchant fashion - Saphrar is  mentioned as having "scarlet nails" so we presume nail polish.  Many merchants shave their head, and eyebrows removed.  Over each eye four golden drops affixed to his skin, but we presume other designs for other merchants.  Two teeth of gold, upper canines, probably containing poison.
• Merchant robes - white with gold material trim
• onkos - Costume in theatre.  A towering, imposing headress.
• Physicians robes - green
• red savage women - shirt-dresses and knee length leggings.
• Scribe hair, free woman - commonly wear a bun in the back, but not a style outlawed for slaves.
• Scribe robes - blue
• silks, green - worn by slaves of huntsmen, green tunics
• Slaver robes - blue and yellow
• Warrior robes - red
• sandals
• ta-teera - brief slave garment, literally "slave rag."  Some cities do not wish girls seen in public on the streets in this.
• Tuchuk - wear black leather
• turban
• veils - held by pins at the side, or hooks or cords which pass about the back of the head.  Free women.
• wool is mentioned as being of the Hurt, imported from Ar

Contests   -  back to top

• bow and spear - skill with 
• feats of strength
• Lance and Tospit - Save for armed combat, the living wand is the most dangerous of sports of the Wagon Peoples.  One's own slave must stand for one.  It is essentially the same sport as lancing the tospit from the wand, save that the fruit is held in the mouth of a girl, who is slain should she move or in any way withdraw from the lance.  The most difficult of the lance sports.  Thrust must be made with lightness, the lance loose in the hand, the hand not in the retaining thong, but allowing the lance to slip back, then when clear, moving it to the left and, hopefully, past the living wand.
• Girl Catch - mentioned as a contest to decide disputes between two cities.  100 young men of each city and 100 women.  The object is to secure the women of the enemy.  Area enclosed by a small wooden wall.  When male forced beyond wall he's removed from competition.  When a girl is taken she is bound and thrown into a girl pit.  There are two pits, one on each end of the field.  If the girl cannot escape she is a "catch."  The object of the match is to remove the opponents and capture girls of the other city.  Object of the girl is to elude capture.  The women of the winning city are released, robed, and honored.   Women of the losing city are stripped and made slaves.
• Girl Run - girl runs from circle.  Object of rider is to effect her capture, secure her and return her in as little time as possible to the circle.  Girl gets 10 Ihn before rider chases.  If captured girl can free a hand, foot, or even loosen a thong, the rider is disqualified.
• Plains of a Thousand Stakes - Where the Love War is held.  It is an ancient institution between Turians and Wagon Peoples, which antedates even the Omen Year.  Does not constitute a gathering of the Wagon People's, for normally the herds and free women do not approach one another.  Held some pasangs from Turia.  Estimated there are at least a thousand stakes or more.  Flat-topped, each about 12.5' high and 7-8" in diameter stand in two long lines facing one another in pairs.  The lines are separated by about 50' and each stake in a line is separated from the stake on its left and right by about 10 yards.  The two lines extend for more than four pasangs across the prairie.  Stakes are painted, each differently, and trimmed and decorated differently.  Retaining rings on the stakes, about 5-5.5' from the ground.  The key for each is hung from a tiny hook near the top of the stake.  In the space between the two lines of stakes, for each pair of facing stakes, there is a circle of roughly 8 yards in diameter.  The grass is removed from the circle and the circle is sanded and rakes.  Two hundred warriors from each people are sent in the sprint to the Plains of a Thousand Stakes.  Only the most beautiful women are chosen.  First stake means the most beautiful.  Turian girls stand facing their city, the Wagon Peoples girls stand facing their warriors.  When more than one wishes to fight for a woman, the Turians determine by rank and prowess; warriors of Wagon Peoples determine by scars and prowess.
• racing
• Test of Five Arrows - the villagers except the two contestants leave the village and the gate is closed.  Each contestant carries his great bow and five arrows.  He who opens the gate to readmit the villages is caste leader.  Perhaps used for other resolutions as well.
• Test of Knives - two men leave the village and enter a darkened wood from opposite sides.  He who returns is caste leader.  Perhaps used for other resolutions as well.
• theatres - pit choruses and poets and players of various cities against one another
• tospit seed guess - two people guess if tospit has even or odd number of seeds.
• wrestling

Customs -  back to top

• Anniversary of Slave - the date of a girl's acquisition is often celebrated each month.
• baths - there are rinsing jars by the baths.  It is common for the bath girl, the sponge, and the strigil to come with the bath.  Simple have fires beneath bricked platforms.  Elaborate have subterranean furnaces and the heat is conveyed up through vents and pipes.  Elaborate baths have scented pools, massaging rooms, steaming rooms, exercising yards, recreational gardens, art galleries, strolling lanes, arcades of merchants, physicians courts, reading rooms, music rooms, they're Huge!  Turia and Ar's are monumental, like vaulted pillared stadiums.  Gorean baths are almost always segregated, if only by time of day.  People often sleep in the baths in colder weather, as it is often warmer than their houses.
• baths, common setup - first tub is for soaking and sponging.  Emerge to apply oil(s).  Rubbed well into the skin and then removed with the strigil.  Second tub has clean water.  Sponges away any remaining dirt, oil, and then soaks again.
• bridal customs - woman furiously struggles, squirms and protests as the male binds her
• City Councils - in many cities only members of the High Castes may belong to the council.
• collaring ceremony - hair is released from bound up in a braid by Master, releasing four pins.  Garments are removed form slave. She kneels, extends her arms to him with wrists crossed, lowers her head and says, "I, <name>, of <city>, to the <caste>, <master's name>, of the <master's city>, herewith submit myself as a slave girl.  At his hands I accept my life and my name, declaring myself his to do with as he pleases."  Master lashes slave's wrists.  He presents collar, and if she is literate she reads it aloud, otherwise another literate slave reads it aloud for her.   He collars slave.  She says, "I am yours, Master."
• color - white is associated with impartiality
• conquered ubars - their daughters often grace the triumphs of victorious generals.  Sometimes marched naked at their stirrups, in chains; sometimes marched among slaves holding other loot; sometimes displayed on wagons, or rolling platforms, caged with she-verr and so on.  Almost always publicly and ceremoniously enslaved, either before or after the triumph, either in their own city or in the city of the conqueror. *25
• Dar-Kosis - Sacred Affliction, virulent, extremely contagious, wasting disease.  Those afflicted are spoken of as the Afflicted Ones, and may not enter normal society.  Wander countryside in shroud like yellow rags, beating a wooden clapping device to warn men from their path.  Volunteers go to Dar-Kosis pits, where they are fed and given drink and isolated.  Those who get the disease are regarded as dead immediately by the law.
• deliveries - most deliveries, as of produce from the country, not borne on the backs of animals or peasants, are made at night or in the early morning.  Also often the case with good leaving the city, such as shipments of pottery and linens. *25
• enslavement ceremony - free woman begs man for this, in which she proclaims herself and becomes his slave.  In their most secret and intimate relations thereafter she lives as his slave.
• fatalistic saying - Tonight, let us drink wine.  A Gorean expression, a fatalistic maxim in which the events of the morrow are cast into the laps of the Priest-Kings.
• feast, Turian - take the better part of a night and can have 150 courses.  They provide a golden bowl and tufted banquet stick, dipped in scented oils.  One vomits using these tools and then returns to eat more.
• Free Companionship Ceremony - great feast, holiday, city filled with light and song.  Shimmering strings of bells peal in the wind, and lanterns of a thousand colors swing from the innumerable flower-strewn bridges.  Many a wretch in bondage sees the dawn as a free man.  A symbolic cup of Ka-la-na, mentioned lifted to the Lady in honor of her beauty.
• Free Woman - doesn't change her name in the ceremony of Free Companionship.
• free woman captured - in some cities, the captured free woman makes herself a slave unconditionally and it is then up to the man in question whether or not he will accept her.  Regardless, she is a slave from that point on.  This is a law.  In most cities, a free woman may submit herself to a specific man.  If he refuses her, she is still free.  If he accepts, he may immediately kill her or sell her, however, as she is only a slave.  This is a law.  See also, code of warriors.
• free women entering room - Gorean male typically stands.
• free women sleeping - if displeasing to their companion, they may be chained to the slave ring for the night.  It is a reminder 
• gesture to silence - One is to hold finger across the lips.  Another is to touch the fingers twice, lightly to the lips.
• guests - in a large house it is customary for a host to permit a guest the use of one of the girls for the evening.  Each girl eligible for service at one time or another during the evening approaches the guest and offers wine.  His choice is indicated by the one from whom he accepts wine.
• guilt - the Gorean male feels guilt over having spoken to one's father-in-law's sister.  (Assassin of Gor, 134)
• hair, dyed - Goreans frown on dyed hair.
• Home Stone - when speaking of a Home Stone, one should stand, for matters of honor are involved.  Where a man sets his Home Stone, so does he claim that land by law as his own.
• homosexuality - not unknown on Gor.  (pages 232, 314, 427)  *25
• Kajuralia - Holiday of Slaves, Festival of Slaves.  Occurs in most of the northern, civilized cities once a year.  Exception is Port Kar.  Date differs.  Many cities celebrate the last day of the Twelfth Passage Hand.  In Ar and some other cities it is on the last day of the fifth month.  Slaves are served by Masters.  Often celebrated till dawn.
• lamp of love - a Master orders a slave to light the lamp of love, which she places in the window to his chamber so they are not disturbed, prior to sex.  Called "ravishment lamp" in Rogue of Gor
• magic - some Goreans believe in magic.  *25
• marched beneath a yoke - conquered men of a city are marched under three spears, two upright and the third bound across the other two.  To pass under it a man must lower his head.  Some choose to die instead.  Women's yoke is of broom, and so low they must pass on their belly beneath.  The horizontal bar is hung with dangling slave beads.  
• masks - worn by men to conceal identity.  Sometimes worn by men in disgrace, or those who with to travel incognito.  Sometimes free young men wear masks and capture free women, take away her clothing, and force her to perform as a slave for them.
• meals - finger towels and finger bowls are almost always present.
• Ngao coast - in entering a village on this coast, one always enters on the right to show peace.
• Planting Feast of Sa-Tarna - celebrated early in the growing season to ensure a good harvest.  Complex feast, celebrated by most Gorean cities.
• political prisoners - their noses and ears are painted yellow "to make them appear ridiculous" *25
• rape - the unauthorized rape of slave girls is officially frowned upon in most cities, but too, it is as often "winked at."  Free women are almost never raped on Gor because:
  1.  They are thought to be accorded the highest respect because they are free
  2.  Slaves are regarded as being much more desirable.
• self-contracting, limited - the free woman has documents which declare her a slave for a specific period, ranging usually for an evening to a year.  She enters the contract freely but cannot withdraw from it in the same way, as she is property until the contract expires.
• stabilization serums - injections which keep Goreans young-looking.  Given to slaves as well as free persons.  More effective with some than others.  With some the effect lasts "indefinitely," with others, it wears off after "but a few hundred years."  With some it has no effect, and with others it hastens degeneration.  The odds, however, are in favor of the recipient.
• streets - many are too narrow for wagons.  Local deliveries in these areas are usually made by porters or carts.  Wagons are not permitted on certain streets, and on many streets only during certain hours, usually at night or in the early  morning.  *25
• streets, naming - most Gorean streets do not have names, and even those that do not typically one name which is for the entire length of the street.  *25
• Ukungu shield - tuft of feathers.  Held feathers down the quarry is animal.  Held feathers up, the quarry is human.
• saying - "A man returning to his city is not to be detained."
• saying - "Gold has no caste."
• shoulder carry - a woman head forward over a man's shoulder is being shown courtesy as a free woman.  A woman with her head to the rear is a slave.
• silk - in many cities it is a crime to bring slave silk in contact with the flesh of free women, for it is "too exciting and sensuous."
• slave serving - "A slave girl dares not touch with her lips the rim of that cup which has been touched with the lips of her master."  Part of slave training in the pens of Ko-ro-ba.
• sun gate - Most cities have one, often several.  Called such because they are commonly opened at dawn and closed at dusk.
• tavern and inn curtains - often beaded, most often used to separate open from restricted areas in taverns, "restaurants" and such (Renegades of Gor, 71, although restaurants are specifically mentioned as nonexistent on Gor elsewhere).
• tavern and inn doors - to the kitchen swing both ways, both single and double common.
• taven waitresses - kneels to take an order, performing obsequience (head to floor) before order and before departing table.
• temples - slaves are not permitted in temples.  *25
• toenails, painted - unheard of for free women and uncommon for slaves.
• Traffic Pattern - Gorean traffic keeps to the left
• Veils - Veils are not legally required to be worn by Free Women.  Veils are popular in cities to the south but not in the north, the forest towns, and northward on the coast.  Women drink through their veils, or lift the veil to drink.  From the veil against the face outward:  1 - a light veil of white silk, almost transparent. 2 - freedom veil  3 - veil of citizeness  4 - pride veil  5 - street veil, worn in public, extremely bulky, quite heavy and completely opaque.  Each is heavier and more opaque than the previous veil.  The House Veil is worn when indoors and when there are people present who are not members of the household.  Veils are worn in various numbers and combinations by Free Women.  Tends to vary by preference and caste.   Low-Caste women often only have one veil which must serve for all purposes.   In public often 2 veils, the light veil or "last veil" and the house or street veil.  Rich women may wear up to 9 or 10.  In certain cities the pledged may wear 8 veils, several being ritualistically removed during the Free Companion Ceremony.  Slave girls may be face veiled. (page 125, Players of Gor)
• Vernal Equinox - paint doorways green, song and feasting and celebrating.  At the dawn of the vernal equinox a ceremonial greeting of the sun, conducted by ubar or administrator of the city.
• Waiting Hand - 5 day period of the Waiting Hand, doorways are painted white, little food is eaten, little is drunk, no singing or public rejoicing in the city.  First day of the Waiting Hand, many low-caste homes' doors are sealed with pitch, not to be opened until the first day of En'Kara.  Almost all doors have branches of the Brak Bush nailed to them.  Pitch and the Brak Bush are said to discourage entry of bad luck.
• Work Day - average working day is ten Ahn, but 2 Ahn for lunch and stopping an Ahn early for paga is not uncommon.

Dances    -  back to top

• Belt Dance - dancer is mentioned as being in a delicate vest of chains and jewels with shimmering metal droplets attached.  Performed with a Warrior.  Female writhes on he furs and at his feet, moving as though being struck with a whip.  She never stands.  Goal is never to move above his belt.
• Brand Dance
• Chain Dance
• Contrition Dance of Turia - rather fixed form dance of placation.  Usually taught to a girl in slave training.
• Dance of Six Thongs - six lengths of binding fibers, like slave snares, at each wrist and ankle and two about the waist.  Men hold the ends of the slave fibers.  The slave dances as if she does not realize she is bound.  Hands and feet are bound at the end.
• Dance of the Tuchuk Slave Girl - an independent dance
• general - there are hate dances, rebellion dances, display dances, need dances, love and submission dances.  They conclude, inevitably, with the ultimate surrender of a girl to her master as a love slave.
• Hunter's Catch - implied as a dance where the slave is clothed in netting.
• Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl - has many variations but the common theme is that the girl dances her joy that she will soon lie in the arms of a strong master.
• Need Dance - five phases.  First, slave feigns indifference to the presence of men.  Second, she shows she begins to feel sexuality, yet is struggling against it.  Towards the end of this phase it is clear that she feels she may not be of sufficient interest to men.  Third, in a ladylike fashion she acknowledges herself defeated in her attempt to conceal her sexuality.  Then, delicately, she acknowledges her sexual needs.  Fourth, she dances her need shamelessly.  She begs for sexual satisfaction.  This phase is called the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen.  Fifth, she is overcome with sexual desire and she clearly manifests that she is utterly a female slave.  Seldom on her feet during this phase, she is sitting, rolling, crawling, bending backwards.  She whimpers, moans, cries out, pleads for rape, writhes.  This phase is called the Heat of the Slave Girl.
• Oar Dance - not a dance at all but an athletic feat.  The Free Person leaps from moving oar to moving oar, proceeding from the oars nearest the stem on the port side to the stern, then leaping back onto the deck at the stern quarter and leaping again on the oars this time on the starboard side, and proceeding from the oar nearest the stern to that nearest the stem and then back onto the ship.  done by the men of the North.
• parade of slaves - in paga taverns and brothels or at a feast of a wealthy man.  Each slave presents herself and her charms in turn, often to music.
• Sa-eela - one of the most moving, deeply rhythmic and erotic dances on Gor.  Belongs to a genre of dances commonly known as the Lure Dances of the Love Starved Slave girl.  Usually performed in the nude.  She writhes as thought sexually frustrated.  She prepares for an imaginary master.  Crosses her wrists, and moves them as though they have been bound.  Extends them as though straps on them have been pulled taut.  Led on her tether from the pen, head high, a bound slave.  At the imaginary gate her wrists separate and she is still confined.  Retreats to center of pen and falls to her knees, covering head with hands and weeps.  Third phase of dance hears a sound in corridor beyond gate.  Pretend men are there and they have come for her.  Puts head up, turns away, feigns disdain.  She started looks about as they turn away.  She throws herself to belly on floor, calling to them, lifting her head, holding hand out piteously.  She pleads to be considered.  She shrinks back, lifting herself to the  palms of her hands, frightened, that gate has been opened.  Kneels in position of pleasure slave.  Twice appears struck with whip.  She seems hauled to her feet, wrists bound behind her back.  Body and head bent far over.  Head twists as if man's hand in her hair.  With small hurried steps she describes a wide circle on tiles.  Then thrown to knees and then her side. The audience is of course the masters before whom slave is to perform.  Final phase begins when the girl, naked but for the collar, attempts to arouse interest of master.  Display phase is when she calls attention to various aspects of her beauty.
• Tahari Dancing Chains - various types.  One is oval and a collar.  The chain fastens at the sides of the top of the oval, where there are two wrist rings.  Oval is pulled inward and wrists and ankle rings fastened on slave.   Throat is locked in dancing collar, which has under the chin an open snap ring.   With left hand the oval is gathered together so the two strands of chain lie in the palm of the left hand, whence lifted they are placed inside snap ring.  Snap ring snaps shut and is locked.  Two strands of chain flow freely in snap ring.  Yard of chain across from wrist to wrist, and 18 inches between ankles.
• Tile Dance - commonly performed on red tiles, usually beneath the slave ring of the master's couch.  Girl performs dance on her back, stomach and sides.   Usually neck is chained to the slave ring.   Dance signifies the restlessness, misery, of a love-starved girl.  Premise of the dance is that a girl moves in her need as if she is completely aone.  Supposedly the master surprises her and she attempts  to suppress the torment of her needs.  Failing this, she surrenders her pride in final shred, and writhes openly before Master, begging him to touch her.
• Virgin Dance - 3 senses of a "virgin dance"
  - a kind of dance appropriate for virgins
  - danced by a virgin usually just before the loss of virginity
  - a role dance, telling the story of a virgin about to lose her virginity, typically danced by an experienced slave
• Whip Dance

Discipline    -  back to top

• For slave running away:  First time, beating.  Second time, hamstring.
• For thievery:  First time, notched ear.  Second time female: sold to slavery.  Second time male:  severed left hand.  Third time male:  severed right hand.

Drinks    -  back to top

• ale - poured from a wooden keg
• amphora - two-handled, narrow-necked vessel.  Commonly fitted into a storage hole, burined there overnight to keep contents cool.  Base is so long and narrow it will not stand on a surface, but when buried in a crate the bottom touches the cool earth through a hole in the bottom of the crate.
• black wine - made from the beans grown upon the slopes of the Thentis mountains.  Mentioned as poured from a narrow-spouted silver pouring vessel in heavy cloth to retain its heat and protect the hands.  Also mentioned that it is served in a cup which has two tiny handles.  Black wine is so strong and bitter that it is normally drunk only a drop or two at a time.  Served with sugars, and creams (plural noted), and "spices" if desired.  The first girl takes the orders, and prepares, and the second girl pours.  Thus is black wine without anything added called "second slave."
• Cal-da
• chocolate, warmed - beans are from the tropics.  Very rich and creamy.
• diluted - wine is most often mixed with water in homes, primarily because of the potency of many wines.
• Falarian - rare wine only rumored among collectors to exist.  So rare and precious that its cost might purchase a city.
• goblet, metal - many civilians do not know why certain warriors request paga in metal goblets when dining in public houses.  It is so if a foe gets close enough the warrior may use it as a weapon.
• hydra - water vessel, high-handled for dipping, warmed paga is ladled out with this before being put into a goblet
• Ka-la-na - mentioned as stored in a bottle, served in a wine crater (bowl), from Cos.  Ka-la-na wine is a type of wine.
• Ka-la-na, diluted - warm water mixed with Ka-la-na.
• kantharos - mentioned as small, paga served in it, said that it may be even more dangerous when used as a weapon and broken across the bridge of the nose than a metal goblet.
• krater/crater - wine is served in a krater.  Spelled crater in other books.  "krater" spelling found in "Renegades of Gor."
• liqueurs - those of Turia typically regarded as the best.
• mead - drink made with fermented honey and water and often spices and such.  Favored over paga in the north.
• paga - Pagar Sa-Tarna is the full name, meaning "Pleasure of the Life-Daughter."  Mentioned as poured from a "huge bottle," so large it requires a pouring sling.  It is thought that warm paga causes one to become drunk quicker.
• paga, served in public establishments - at an inn, not uncommon cut one part paga to five parts water.  Cut less at a paga tavern or not cut at all. 
• paga vessel - mentioned as bronze, with 2 handles.
• second slave - means to serve black wine without creams or sugars.  The first slave puts down the cups, takes orders, and sees that beverage is prepared according to preferences of the one being served.  Second slave is the girl who pours from the pouring vessel.  Even when only one girl serves, it is called "second slave."
• sul paga - clear as water, almost tasteless
• Ta-wine - made from the famed Ta grapes
• Treve - habit is serving warm wines.  Wine is warmed in a small tripod above a fire.  To test warmed wine, the slave takes the copper (mentioned) bowl and holds it against her cheek.   When it is not comfortable to hold the bowl, yet not painful to do so, it is served.  Then slave holds wine crater to cheek.
• wine, alcohol content - often has an alcoholic content by volume of 40-50%.
• wine krater/crater - vessel one serves warmed wine in (mentioned), in Renegades of Gor said that all wine is served in a krater.
• wine, served at home - when drunk with meals in the home almost always diluted.
• wine, Turian - sweet and syrupy, flavored and sugared to the point where "one could almost leave one's fingerprint on their surface."  Often have spices and sugars stirred into them.

Entertainment    -  back to top

• acrobatics
• archery contests - popular *25
• bean race - slave girls push beans with their nose, while bystanders place bets on the winner. *25
• Bone Gambling - each player tosses tiny shapes made of bone.   The person's who has their bone figure land upright wins.
• burlesque
• carnival troupes - must petition for the right to perform within a city.  This usually consists of a sample performance before the high council, or committee delegated by the council.  Sometimes actresses are expected to perform privately, being "tested" for selected officials.  If the troupe is approved, it may, for a fee, be licensed.  No troupe is permitted to perform without a license.  Licenses run for five days of a Gorean week.  Sometimes specific night or performance is licensed.  Licenses are commonly renewable, within a given season, for a nominal fee.  It is not uncommon for bribery to be involved, and is so common it is often simply considered "fees."
• Cat's Cradle - game popular in the north by red hunters; in Hunjer, Skjern, in Torvaldsland and as far south as villages in the valley of the Laurius.
• clowns
• costume - costumes and masks are popular at carnival time.
• crowns for the victors - victors of competitions, crowns are woven from leaves of the Tur tree. *25
• dice - many forms of dice games, usually played from anywhere from a single die to five dice.  Major difference is that Gorean dice usually have the numbers or letters or any pictures painted on their surfaces.  Scooped out indentations create uneven dice.  Some dice are sold in sealed boxes, bearing the city's imprint, which have allegedly been cast 600 times with results approximately the ideal mathematical probabilities.  Some dice is tampered with or "loaded."  "Larls" (when using pictures) are maximum high.  Other types of throws are urts, sleen, verr, etc.  Lowest value is the urt.*25
• farce - theatrical groups perform farces
• favors - a scarf, granted by a free woman.  They are given by her own free will.  Freeman wears only one.  The freewoman typically begins with ten.  She who has favors first accepted considers herself superior.  Done at carnival.
• fire swallower - mentioned as entertainment during a meal.
• Girl Catch - the girl is belled and hooded as are the contestant males.  Males are turned around to dizzy and disorient them.  This is the informal option.  There is also a formal option (See Contests).  The girl is switched by the referee upon the beginning of the game, which also includes shouting the word "quarry."  The girl must move every 5 ihn or she is switched.  Males may not identify themselves to avoid favoritism on the part of the girl.
• great staff contests - popular *25
• greased wineskin - one pays a tarsk bit, then tries to balance on it for a predetermined amount of time, typically an Ehn.  If one manages, one wins the wine skin and its contents.  Common sport at peasant festivals. *25
• juggling
• Kaissa - a game like chess, but with 100 red and yellow squares.   Almost all civilized Goreans, of any caste, play Kaissa.  Children 12-14 play with depth and sophistication.  The Home Stone is not officially a piece of the game, as it cannot capture, though it can move one square at a time.  It is not on the board at the beginning of play, but must be placed on the board on or before the 7th move, which placement counts as one move.  The pieces for the north and the south have some differences.  The northern piece Jarl is the Southern Ubar.  This is the most powerful piece.  The northern Jarl's Woman is the southern Ubara.  Northern Axes are southern Tarnsmen.   Northern Rune-Priests are southern Initiates.  Northern Singers are southern Scribes.  North and south both use Spearmen.  Winning is called "taking of the hall" in the north and "capture of the Home Stone" in the south.  Tarnsman can move only one space on the positioning move.  Tarnsman may attack only on a flight move.
• magicians
• meat catch - slave girls try to catch bits of meat tossed at them.  Wagers are made on who will catch the most.  *25
• mime
• Prition - by Clearchus of Cos.  A book.  Inappropriate for free women.  Perhaps a slave training manual.  *25
• puppeteers
• Song, "Ten Maidens of Hammerfest" - recounts the fates of these lovely lasses, not sung before free women.
• Stones - a guessing game where one person guesses whether the number of stones held in the fist of the other are even or odd in number.  One point scored for correct guess.  Game played to predetermined  number of paired guesses, usually 50.
• story dance - often performed by theatrical groups. (start *25) Variation (said to be many) is that one to five stones are held, and the opponent guesses the number.  Sometimes beads are used, or even gems.  In certain cities, tournaments are held.(end *25)
• Tag - game of children
• Tarn Races - of Ar.  There are factions that control racing and compete among themselves.  Greens, reds, golds, yellows, and silvers.
• Theater of Pentilicus Tallux - theater in Ar, normally referred to as the "great theater" but named for the poet.  Can easily accommodate 1,000 actors.  *25
• theatre, low - encourages audience shouting out suggestions, especially with farces.
• thought reader - one selects one coin from several on a tray, usually tarsk bits, and then, holding it tightly in his hand, concentrates on the coin.  After the reader turns about and, more often than not, locates the coin.  One then loses one's tarsk bit.  If the reader selects the wrong coin, one receives all the tarsk bits on the tray.  Goreans often accept that the reader can read thoughts. *25
• Young Man Game - not named in the book.  Certain objects, as part of a game, are prearranged significance among partiers and thrown to the floor.  Slave must pick one up, bending from the waist.  Whichever object she touches first determines to whom she must submit sexually.  Common at parties of young men.
• Zar - a game that resembles Kaissa.  Pieces may be placed only on the intersections of lines within or at the edges of the board.  Each player has 9 pieces of equal value which are originally placed on intersections of 9 interior vertical lines with what would be the rear horizontal line, constituted by the back edge of the board, from each player's point of view.  The corners are not used in the original placement, though they constitute legitimate move points after the play beings.  The pieces are commonly pebbles, or bits of verr dung and sticks.  "Pebbles" move first.  Pieces moves one intersection at a time, unless jumping.  May jump either opponent's pieces or one's own.  A jump must be to an unoccupied point.   Object is to effect a complete exchange of original placements.  The first player to fully occupy the opponent's initial position wins.  Capturing does not occur.

Food   -   back to top

• mint sticks - mentioned as a tiny bowl of mint sticks served with black wine
• holiday breakfast, common - cakes and Bazi tea are common for a Gorean breakfast on a holiday.
• pastries with cream and custards
• Sa-Tarna bread - almost always baked in round, flat loaves.  Average loaf is cut into 4 or 8 wedges.  "Two of four" indicates half a loaf.
• salt - is divided into 9 qualities.
• stick candy - soft, rounded candies, usually covered with a coating of syrup or fudge.  Like a caramel apple but much smaller.  Mounted on sticks.
• Sullage - a common Gorean soup consisting of three standard ingredients and, as it is said, whatever else may be found, saving only the rocks of the field. The principal ingredients are Sul, the curled leaves of the Tur-Pah, a tree parasite, and the secondary roots of the Kes Shrub

Furniture    -  back to top

• chairs - have special significance, and do not often occur in private dwellings. They tend to be reserved for significant personages, such as administrators and judges.  They are not thought to be comfortable.
• curule chairs
• divan
• marble bench
• thrones
• stools - mentioned as scribe's stool

Gems   -   back to top

• opals - more rare on Gor than Earth.
• sapphires - of Schendi generally a deep blue, but some purple, and some white or yellow.  Usually carved into shape of tiny panthers, but sometimes other animals.  Often small animals or birds.  Sometimes carved to resemble a tiny kailiauk or kailiauk head.
• sereem diamonds - red, white flecked.
• topaz - semi-precious stone

Genetics

• Kurii - most are right pawed.
• most Goreans are brunette.  Statistical deviations in large numbers from this type occur only in Torvaldsland and in certain other areas in the northwest latitudes.

Geography    -  back to top

• To the West - Cos (terraces), Tyros (cliffs, island)
• To the North - Hunjer, Scagnar, Skjern, Torvaldsland, ice lakes
• To the South - Anango, Bazi, Ianda, Shendi
• Anango - exchange island, so far south of the equator that it is almost beyond the understanding of Goreans.  Stories are commonly told of the "magicians of Anango."  These magicians seem well known everywhere on Gor except in Anango.
• Arctic - within 500 pasangs of the pole
• Asperiche - exchange island south of Teletus and Tabor.
• Barrens - vast tracts of rolling grasslands lying east of the Thentis mountains.   Absence of larger bodies of water.  Great extremes of temperature.   Bitter winters and long hot, dry summers.  Tornados and crashing thunder.   The blizzards are the worst on Gor.  Sudden storms.  12 inches of rain in an hour not uncommon.  Hail storms.
• Boswell Pass - at its foot is the town Fort Haskins.  At the edge of the Barrens.
• Brundisium - south of the Vosk's delta
• Cartius - broad, swift-flowing tributary.  important subequatorial waterway.  Flows west by northwest, entering rain forests and emptying into Lake Ushindi.
• Casmu, lands of - west of the Isanna, north and west of the Isbu, above the descending northern branch of the Northern Kaiila.
• Cos - 400 pasangs west of Port Kar.  It's capitol is Telnus.   Has a fleet to match Port Kar's. Other major cities include Selnar, Temos, and Jad.
• Clearchus - secondary road that approaches the fairs from the northwest.  Known as the Old West Road.
• Clearchus Woods - along the road of Clearchus, and a haunt of brigands.
• Council rock - north of the northern fork of the Kaiila River and west of the Snake River
• Cyprianus - secondary road that approaches the fairs from the southwest.  Named for the engineer of the project.  Passes through less rough terrain than Clearchus.  New West Road.
• Eastern Way - aka Treasure Road, links western cities of Ar.
• Exchange Islands - or free islands.  In Thassa.   Administered as free ports by members of the Merchants.  Several such islands ; Teletus, Tabor, Scagnar, Farnacium, Hulneth
• Genesian Route - connects Brundisium and other coastal cities of the south.
• Farnacium - Exchange Island
• Forest Port - East of Ar's Station, one of three towns between Ar's Station and White Water.
• Hammerfest - west of Ar's Station
• Helmutsport
• Hills of Eteocles - has springs which feed an aqueduct of Torcodino.
• Holmesk - city 100 pasangs south of Ar's Station
• Hringar Mountains - literally Barrier Mountains. The chains of interlaced chains of mountains.
• Hulneth - Exchange Island
• Ianda - island
• Ihanke - Boundary to the Barrens.  From the outskirts of Kailiauk (see Cities) one can see the markers, the feathers on tall wands/staffs, which mark the beginning of the country of the red savages.
• Isbu, lands of - southern lands between the North and Southern branches of the Kaiila.
• Iskander - East of Ar's Station, one of three towns between Ar's Station and White Water.
• Issus - northwesterly flowing tributary to the Vosk.
• Jasmine - west of Ar's Station
• Jort's Ferry - west of Ar's Station
• Kasra - river port on the Lower Fayeen. 
• Kaiila River - High in the territory of the Kaiila tribe, branches into two rivers, the Northern and Southern Kaiila.  Flows generally southwest direction.
• Kamba River - flows directly into Thassa.
• Lake Ngao - second of the great equatorial lakes.  To the west of Lake Ushindi.  Fed by only one major river, at its eastern extremity, the Ua.
• Lake Shaba - the lake forming the source of the Ua.
• Lake Ushindi - drained by the Kamba and the Nyoka rivers.
• Lara - lies between the delta to the west, and the junction of the Olni and the Vosk to the east.
• Laurius - empties into Thassa.  Winding, long, gentle, slow river.  North of the Vosk.   Flows generally westerly, but more to the southwest than the Vosk.
• Margin of Desolation - flanks Ar on the north.
• Market of Semris - south and somewhat east of Samnium.
• Metellan District - south and east of the district of the Central Cylinder in Ar.  Shabby but not squalid.
• Napoktan, land of - east of the Snake River and north of the Northern Kaiila and Kaiila proper.
• Northern Salt Line - Runs East to West.
• Northern Silk Road - runs South to North.
• Nyoka River - flows into Schendi Harbor, which is harbor to the Port of Schendi and then into Thassa.
• Olni River - tributary to the Vosk
• Parsit Current - the main eastward current above the polar basin.   It is called so because it is followed by several varieties of migrating parsit.
• Pilgrim's Road - leads to the Sardar
• Plains of Turia - aka Land of the Wagon Peoples.
• Port Alfred - west of Ar's Station
• Port Olni - downriver from Ti
• Ragnar's Hamlet - west of Ar's Station
• Sais - west of Ar's Station
• Saleria - refers broadly to the fertile basin territories both North and South of the Olni.  The lands over which the confederation professes to maintain a hegemony.   What began as a leage to control piracy turned into a considerable political force in eastern Known Gor.
• Salerian Confederation - all four cities lie on the Olni River.   Also known as the Four Cities of Saleria.
• Salerius - the meadow of Salerius is where the Salarian Confederation was signed and sworn
• Samnium - North and somewhat west of Market of Semris.
• Sardar Mountains - home of the Priest-Kings.  Brassbound timber gate, formed of black logs bars the way.  None of the animals of Gor can enter the Sardar
• Scagnar - Exchange Island to the north.
• Schendi Harbor - 8 pasangs wide, 2-3 pasangs in depth
• Siba - west of Ar's Station
• Snake River - a tributary to the Northern Kaiila.  Flows almost due south.
• Stream of Torvald - current, as a broad river in the sea, pasangs wide, whose temperature is greater than the surrounding water.
• Sulport - west of Ar's Station
• Ta-Thassa Mountains - southern hemisphere
• Tabor - Exchange Island to the south of Teletus and north of Asperiche, named for the drum which it resembles
• Tafa - east of Port Cos.  west of Victoria.
• Tahari - "The Wastes" aka The Emptiness.  Vast, rocky, hilly, dunes, windblown, almost waterless.  Has an almost constant hot wind.   Prevailingly blows from the north or northwest.
• Tamber Gulf
• Tancred's Landing - east of Ar's Station, one of three towns between Ar's Station and White Water.
• Teletus - Exchange Island to the north of Tabor and Asperiche.
• Telnus - major port on the island of Cos, as well as being the capitol of Cos.
• Tetrapoli - west of Port Cos
• Thantis Mountins
• Thassa - the sea
• Thassa Cartius - actual source of the tributary to the Vosk.
• Thentis - famed for tarn flocks, also a city
• Thentis Mountains
• Ti - farthest away of the Salerian Confederation from the confluence of the Onli and Vosk.
• Tor - northwest corner of the Tahari.  A city.
• Torvaldsland - in the north.  Known for furs.  They number their years from the time of Thor's gift of the Stream of Torvald to Torvald.
• Turmus - west of Port Cos, at the eastern end of the Vosk's great delta.  Last town on the river itself.
• Tyros - 100 pasangs south of Port Kar.  Rugged with mountains.   Famed for vart caves.  It's capitol is Kasra.  It's only other major city is Tentium.  Has a fleet to match Port Kar's.
• Ua River - a river vast enough to challenge the Vosk in breadth and might.  Sole river that feeds Lake Nago.
• Ven - west of Port Cost, at the junction of Ta-Thassa, Cartius, and Vosk
• Venna - North of Ar, on the Viktel Aria
• Verl - Tributary of the Vosk.  Flows northwestward into the Vosk
• Victoria - east of Tafa.
• Viktel Aria - more commonly known as the Vosk Road.  Literally means "Ar's Triumph."  A road that leads towards Ar.
• Voltai Mountains - ranges to the east, in a sense this is where the Gorean world ends.
• Volteri Range - scarlet, native haunts of the larl
• Vosk - great river.  Broad with strong current.  In the south, well below Ko-ro-ba though well above Ar.  Flows in generally westerly direction.  Borders the claims of Ar on the north.
• Vosk, delta of - covers thousands of square pasangs.  Little solid ground.  Waters are usually shallow, seldom rising above the chest of a tall man.  Much quicksand.
• Vosk Road - see "Viktel Aria"
• White Water - First major town west of Lara.  Is east of Ar's Station.
• Wismahi, land of - holds the more northern lands in and below the fork of the Kaiila.

Initiates    -  back to top

• blood - shedding of blood is against their beliefs.  They get someone else to do it for them when meting our justice.
• diet - do not eat meat or beans
• gender - males only may be initiates
• language - converse among themselves in archaic Gorean
• prayer ring - ring with several tiny knobs on it, worn on the first finger of a male's right hand.  Move the ring on the finger by means of the right thumb.  When one, turning the ring by means of the knobs, keeping track of prayers that way, comes to the circular knob, rather like the golden circle at the termination of the Initiate's staff, one knows on ehas completed one cycle of prayers.  One may then stop or begin again.  From comment, any male may wear, not just Initiate.  Magicians of Gor
• purpose - intermediaries between Priest-Kings and other people
• training - trained in the mysteries of mathematics.
• women - forbidden for Initiates to touch women, or for women to touch Initiates. *25

Knots    -  back to top

• basket hitch - used for fastening a carrying basket to hooks on certain tarn saddles.
• bow knot - sort of knot which on Gor, in certain contexts, is spoken of as a slave knot.  Sometimes prescribed by masters for the fastening of slave garments.  It may be easily undone with a casual tug.
• Builder's bend
• Builder's overhand
• Capture Knot - used for binding slaves.  Warriors can do it in less than 3 Ihn.  Struggling tightens the knot.
• double Pin hitch
• Karian anchor knot
• Pin hitch
• Tharnian tie - ankles are crossed and bound and the head is tied down.  Head is fastened by a short tether running back to the ankles.

Kurii    -  back to top

• Canibalism - They will not eat the meat of another Kur. 
• Foraging - squads of Kurii are sometimes accompanied by trained sleen.   When accompanied, often by 4 sleen.
• Genders - 1) Dominant (closest to human male) 2) Non-Dominant, closely resembles the dominant but does not enter the killings or mate.  3) Egg-Carrier who is impregnated (closest to the human female).  Egg-carrier deposits "egg" (mouthed but sluggish and immobile) into a blood-nurser and months later it tears its way free.  4)  Blood-Nurser, which the Kur do not believe to be rational.
• Hierarchy of Gender - 1) Dominant 2) Egg-Carrier 3) Non-Dominant 4) Blood-Nurser
• Humans - Regard humans and other beasts as food.  Men and Kurii, where they meet, usually in the north, regard one another as mortal enemies. 
• Language - They have language.  Some can approximate human speech.
• mating - it is not unusual for females to go to the mating cliffs in the moonlight where they cry out, or howl, their heeds.  *25
• Nocturnal - predominantly nocturnal
• Non-Dominant - sometimes can turn dominant and that is why Kur biologists differ as to whether the Kurii have three or four genders.
• Origin - They are actually an alien race.  Extremely powerful, highly intelligent, and technologically advanced.  Most live in ships.   It is believed their own world was destroyed. 
• Physical Characteristics: Furred.  The ears are pointed and wide.  Two nostrils, slitlike.  The tongue is dark.  Two rows of fangs, four of which are particularly prominant.  The upper two are especially long and curved.  The arms are longer and larger than the legs.   Clawed, paw-like hands, six-digited, extra-jointed, almost like tentacles. 
• Pollutants - Kurii have a lower tolerance for pollutants.
• Stomach - have storage stomach.  Even in the true or chemical stomach, Kur can by regulating the flow of digesting juices, hasten or protract the process of digestion.
• Zarendargar - "Half-Ear," a war general.

Language    -  back to top

• Goreans have one mother tongue, despite dialects
• Al-Ka - first letter of the Gorean alphabet.  Common sound at the end of feminine names.
• alphabet - Gorean alphabet is 28 characters.  6 letters suggest influence by classical Roman alphabet.
• Al - letter
• Altron - letter of the Gorean alphabet.
• Ba-Ta - second letter of the Gorean alphabet.
• Bana - beads of value, such as a strung necklace of gems.
• Bina - slave beads.  Beads of little value.
• Bloketu - summer or summertime,  in the language of the Kaiila tribe.
• Blotanhunka - leader of a war party in the Barrens
• canjellne - "challenge
• Da - means "the"
• Dar-Kosis - the Holy Disease.  The exception to disease being unknown on Gor.
• Delka - fourth  letter in the alphabet, a "triangle." On Gor, a river's delta is called its delka. *25
• Dodi or Lale - child's common terms for their governess
• drying and withering disease - Gorean term for aging, which they prevent with stabilization serums.   See "Customs."
• Double Knowledge - the difference between what people on the whole believe, and what intellectuals are supposed to know.  Those beneath High Castes were encouraged to believe their world was a broad flat disc.
• Eta - most frequently occurring letter in Gorean alphabet.
• falarina - woman has been penetrated at least once by a male.
• First Knowledge - that information given to the lower castes.  Included is the myth that if one of the lower caste were to take charge of a city, it would fall.  Knowing the real name is said to give one power over a person, a capacity to use that name in spells and insidious magical practices.
• gag answers - standard one whimper for yes, two for no.  Convention of communicating with gagged prisoners and slaves.
• glana - state of virginity
• great road - mounted in the earth several feet deep, built of stone like a sunken wall.  Typically found in the vicinity of large cities or intended to be military roads.
• Gorean - simply known as "The Language"
• Hail - a form of greeting usually reserved for recognized experts, or champions.  *25
• Hand Sign - the hand signals used by the red savage tribes with each other.
• Har-ta - "faster"
• Harigga - bosk wagons of the Wagon Peoples.
• Ho - common prefix indicating a lineage.
• Homan - letter of the Gorean alphabet.
• Ina - letter of the Gorean alphabet.
• infants - first word a Gorean baby typically learns is "yes"
• Kaiila Language - as with most languages of the Barrens, the adjective commonly succeeds the noun.
• Kaissa - "game" as well as the Gorean version of chess.
• Kaissa cipher - many variations.  Used by caste of players for the transmission of private messages.  Extremely difficult to decipher because of the use of multiples and nulls and the multiplicity of boards.
• Kajira - female slave
• kajirae - plural for kajira
• kajiri - plural for kajirus
• Kajirus - male slave
• Kamba - means rope
• Kan-Lara - means brand
• Kef - the letter that begins Kajira.  A straight line, rather severe, with two fronds curled and graceful adjacent to it to the right.  The straight line represents the staff of discipline and the two fronds of the beauty of a woman.  Sometimes referred to as the "staff and fronds."
• Ki - means "not," signifies negation.
• Kur - means "beast".  Plural:  Kurii
• kurdah - frame of tem wood, covered by rep cloth, carries females (free or slave)
• Kwah - letter.  possibly related to the English Q.
• La - "you," presumably female pronoun from context.
• Lo - "I am," presumably male pronoun from context.
• Mazahuhu - Dust-Leg word for bracelets.  The Napoktan band, as called by those outside the Kaiila tribe.
• metaglana - state succeeding virginity
• mira - "mine," presumably when used to refer to a female.  Used "Kajira mira."
• Mu - letter of the Gorean alphabet.
• Nu - letter of the Gorean alphabet.
• Nyoka - means serpent
• Oglu waste - means good luck in the language of the Kaiila tribe.
• Omnion - letter of the Gorean alphabet.
• pharos - lighthouse
• please - "I ask your favor"
• Polemarkos - from "Mercenaries of Gor."  Appears to be a title denoting "general."
• profalarina - state preceding falarina.
• Rarius - "of the caste of warriors," "warrior"
• restaurant - no precise Gorean expression for "restaurant"
• sa - a suffix which means "red" in the language of the Kaiila tribe.
• Sa-Fora - literally means Chain Daughter, a word for female slaves
• Sa-Tassna - meat, or food in general.  Means Life Mother.
• Sa'ng-Fori - literally "without chains" but better translated as Freedom or Liberty
• Samnium or Semnium - dialect varies.  Original meaning was "meeting place."  Now refers to a building or a hall for the meeting of councils.
• scytale - marked hair ribbon, looks like gibberish until wrapped around a round dowel of the same diameter as that when the message was written, and then a message is revealed.
• Second Knowledge - Knowledge of the intellectuals.  The high castes.  Goreans who know of Earth origin.  Required of the higher castes and not of the lower castes, but not prohibited to the lower castes
• second wine - wine of a girl's slavery, a metaphor for sex.  Also the breeding wine, of which the active ingredient is teslik.
• secondary road - graveled and ratted, occasionally paved with logs and plated stones.
• Shu - letter of the Gorean alphabet
• Sidge - letter of the Gorean alphabet
• sneeze, no more than - "no more than a sneeze" like the Earth "piece of cake" statement.  *25
• Stranger - The word for enemy and stranger is the same.
• Tal - "greetings"
• tarntauros - creature half man, half tarn which plays a role similar to a centaur in the Gorean myths.
• Tau - letter of the Gorean alphabet.
• Tatrix - queen
• Taurentians - elite palace guard of Ar
• territory road - little more than an unfrequented twisting trail.
• Third Knoweldge - knowledge of Priest Kings
• Tun - letter of the Gorean alphabet
• Val - letter of the Gorean alphabet
• Var - where, also signifies "turning"
• Viktel - "triumph"
• virginity - the words falarina, glana, metaglana, and profalarina are commonly to be spoken of and by free persons only.  They are not to be applied to slaves.
• w - a sound extremely rare on Gor
• writing - Gorean script moves left to right, then right to left on alternate lines.

Merchants  -  back to top

• market - no fixed prices in the Gorean market.  Few stores of a general nature, handling a larger variety of goods.  In the place of general stores are bazaars and markets.
• Street of Brands - in most cities where you expect to find the houses of slavers.
• Street of Coins - banking is usually done here.  Each city usually has one.

Miscellaneous    -  back to top

• Applause is done by striking the left shoulder with the right hand, or for warriors, clashing weapons.
• begging - not favored by Goreans
• courts - two systems of courts on Gor - those of the City, under the jurisdiction of an Administrator or Ubar, and those of the Initiates, under the jurisdiction of the High Initiate of the given city; the division corresponds roughly to that between civil and what, for lack of a better word, might be called ecclesiastical courts. The areas of jurisdiction of these two types of courts are not well defined; the Initiates claim ultimate jurisdiction in all matters, in virtue of their supposed relation to the Priest-Kings, but this claim is challenged by civil jurists.
• Disowning someone is irreversible.  One hand to the hilt of the sword, the other hand on the medallion of the city.
• eat sleen hearts for luck, and only the heart of the mountain larl is more lucky.  cupping the hands, one drinks a mouthful of the blood of the killed sleen and looks into the blood in the cupped hands.  If you see your visage black and wasted, you will die of disease; torn and scarlet you will die in battle; old and white you will die in peace and leave children.  One drinks the remainder after looking.
• energy bulbs - invented more than a century ago by the Caste of Builders, produce a clear, soft light for years without replacement
• greeting - lift right arm, palm inward, phrase among freepersons is "Tal"; farewell phrase is "I wish you well."
• hair - common trade item on Gor.  Higher price for freewomen  hair than slave girl  hair.  It is mentioned as used for insect whisks, for dusters, for cleaning and polishing pads, for cushioning, decorations and ropes, particularly catapult ropes, for which it is highly prized.
• hair, fashion - upswept hair styles are typically reserved for freewomen or high slaves.  A mark of stature.
• heart - symbol of love, stated in "Rogue of Gor," although elsewhere (sadly did not write down specific book) it is stated it is NOT a symbol of love on Gor.
• hunting larl - In the Voltai Range bands of hunters, usually from Ar, hunt the larl with the Gorean spear. They Do this in single file and leader of the file is called First Spear.  His will be the first spear cast. As soon as he casts his weapon he throws himself to the ground and covers his body with his shield, as does each man successively behind him. Once Last Spear casts his weapon he may not throw himself to the ground. If he does, and any of his comrades survive, they will slay him.  Last Spear must remain standing, and if the beast lives, receive its charge with drawn sword. He does not hurl himself to the ground so he will remain conspicuously in the larl's field of vision and be the object of its attack. He sacrifices his life for his companions who will, while the larl attacks him, escape.   First Spear is normally the best of the spearmen
• locksmith - it is a capital offense for a locksmith to make an unauthorized copy of a key
• meals - Gorean supper in a house of wealth, 8-10 wines may be served.
• message slaves - common way in which a girl carries a Gorean message is on foot, with her hands braceleted behind her. The message is then inserted in a capped leather tube tied about her neck.
• pity is a forbidden emotion
• plastic - mentioned that girls are displayed inside plastic cages, suspended outside the Curulean.
• Goreans have little sensitivity to race, but much to language and one's city
• roads - are kept in good repair.  They lead towards borders and frontiers.  They are military highways.  Supply posts are every 40 pasangs, which is an average day's march.
• rubber - is mentioned as rimming wheels of a prisoner cart
• Tassa Powder - makes you pass out/sleep.  Tasteless and effective.   Shows up in water.  Meant to be mixed with red wine.
• Torvald - legendary hero and founder of the northern fatherlands.
• Turian Eating Prong - used for eating. Single tine.
• urt hunters - swim slave girls with ropes on their necks beside their boats as bait for urts.  When urts rise to attack the girl they are speared.   Urt hunters help keep urt population in the canals manageable.

Money -  back to top

• abbreviations - C.T. means copper tarsk on a price list, thus:  5 C.T.
• coinage - tends to vary from community to community.  Certain coins tend to standardize what otherwise might be mercantile chaos.
• copper tarsk - equals a tarsk bit (commonly 8 tarsk bits, *25)
• double tarn - coin, twice the weight of a Tarn (*25)
• gold piece - equals ten silver tarsks (8,000 tarsk bits, *25)
• golden tarn of Ar - one of the standardized coins (10 silver tarsks, *25)
• golden tarn of Port Kar - on of the standardized coins
• paper currency - unknown on Gor, although business is often conducted by notes and letters of credit.
• silver tarsk - equals 10 copper tarsks in some cities and towns.   100 copper tarsks in Kailiauk, and mentioned as 100 copper tarsks being more of the standard in Rogue of Gor.  Varies.  Mentioned in "Assassin of Gor" as worth 40 copper tarn disks.
• silver tarsk of Tharna - one of the standardized coins (100 copper tarsks, *25)
• spoken form - "A silver tarsk, five" is a silver tarsk and five copper tarsks.  It's like saying "A dollar fifty" instead of "A dollar and fifty cents."
• tarn - coin
• tarsk bit - smallest Gor coin.  Valued from 1/4 to 1/10th of a tarsk.

Music -  back to top

• block melody - commonly used in slave markets, in the display of slaves
• czehar - a long, low, rectangular, oblong instrument. It is played, held across the lap. It has eight strings, plucked with a horn pick.  Played while sitting cross-legged.
• cymbals
• drum of the red hunters - large and heavy.  Has a handle and is disklike.  Held in one hand and beaten with a stick held in the other.  Frame is generally wood and cover is tabuk hide.  The drum is struck on the frame.
• fife
• finger cymbals - instrument
• flute
• Hope of Tina - melody that is the expression of the hope of a young girl that she may be feminine and beautiful enough to be a slave.
• kalika - instrument which is 6-stringed, plucked, with a hemispheric sound box and long neck.  Has a flat bridge.  Strings are adjusted by small wooden cranks.  Resembles a banjo or guitar.  Played either sitting or standing.  Even slave girls sit cross-legged to play.
• kaska - small hand drum
• lute - stringed instrument having a long, fretted neck and a pear-shaped body.
• lyre - harp like musical instrument
• music - written music is mentioned as never seen, and uncertain if it exists.
• ostraka - like tickets to a performance, mentioned as fragile and lovely.  They are mentioned as snapped in two, half to purchaser, when used for raffles.  Purchased in the market places or square. Originally shells or pieces, shards, of pottery, but now small clay disks, with a hole for a string near one edge. Fired in a kiln, and glazed on one side. The glazing colorations and patterns are difficult to duplicate and serve as an authentication for the disk, the glazing differing for different performances or events. The unglazed back of the disk bears the date of the event or performance and a sign indicating the identity of the original vendor, the agent authorized to sell them to the public. Some include a seat location. Most theatre seating, however, except for certain privileged sections, usually reserved for high officials or the extremely wealthy, is on a first-come-first-served basis. Kept as souvenirs, collected and traded.  Scalping is not uncommon.
• ranking - among musicians the czehar plays have most prestige, next flutists, then kalika, drums, and the man who keeps the miscellaneous instruments is last.
• rattles -  mentioned as gourds filled with pebbles
• sista - instrument.  plural is sistrum
• slavery - musicians are never enslaved.
• tabor - male slave mentioned as pounding on one. Possible typo for tambor in this book?*25 
• tambor - instrument
• tambourine
• trumpet (mentioned as a battle trumpet in "Blood Brothers" and just as a trumpet in "Players" and "Magicians of Gor")
• whistle

Outlaws  -   back to top

do not enslave each other at established exchange points.  To do so would be to nullify the trade opportunities for both genders.

Panther Girls   -  back to top

• camps - have semi-permanent camps, especially in the winter
• captives - shave the heads of men they capture in a mark of shame. It is a 2.5" stripe from forehead to back of the head.
• characteristics - are often blond and blue eyed
• culture - have dancing circles
• seating - sit cross-legged like men
• talunas - white females in the rain forest who used to be the rain forest version of Panther Girls.   Overpowered by the small people.

Paper  -   back to top

• milled linen
• parchment
• rence - comes in 8 grades
• vellum
• wooden, hinged, waxed tablet - contains bills for taverns and such.  Used on Gor for drafts, note taking, temporary tallying, children's lessons, and such.  They contain one or more waxed surfaces which are written on by a stylus.  The smaller ones open like flat books, not roll books, and may be closed with tiny latches or tied shut.  Used instead of paper.

Perfume - back to top

• Chains of Telnus - well-known Cosian slave perfume.
• signature recipes - unique and secret.  Wealthy women may have as many as 15 signature recipes, all different.  Called signature recipes not only because individualized to a specific women, but because the recipe bears the perfumer's signature, indicating that he accepts the perfume worthy of his house.  Recipes are kept on file in the perfumer's strong boxes.  Ingredients and processing remain the secrets of the perfumer.  There are perfumes associated a given house, which may be purchased by more than one woman.  These recipes are sometimes also called signature recipes.  They are unique to given  houses.  There are hundreds of more standard perfumes, the preparation of which is widely understood by perfumers of many cities.
• slave perfumes - heavier scents, and more sensual

Planet  -   back to top

• angle - The angle of its axis is somewhat sharper than the Earth's, but not enough to prevent its having  seasons. An equatorial belt, interspersed with northern and southern temperate zones. 
• fifth ring of Gor - Jupiter.  Goreans call it Hersius after legendary hero of Ar.
• gravity - Gor has gravitational reduction from Earth
• history - the planet Gor was originally a satellite of a distant sun, in one of the fantastically remote Blue Galaxies. It was moved by the science of the Priest-Kings several times in its history, seeking a new star.
• magnetic "north" - all directions on Gor are calculated form the Sardar mountains, which serves a role analogous to Earth's North Pole.
• map - Much of the area of Gor is blank on the map
• moon - 3 white moons, one large, 2 small
• polar regions - Gor has two polar regions 
• Prison - name of one small moon
• rotation - like Earth, rotates to the east.
• seasons - no particular moderation of seasonal variations in either hemisphere, due to the balance of land and water masses.
• shape - not a sphere, but a spheroid. Somewhat heavier in its southern hemisphere and shaped somewhat like Earth - like a rounded, inverted top. 
• size - Gor is smaller than Earth
• sun - called Lar-Torvis (means "The Central Fire") or Tor-to-Gor (never used in the context of time) means literally "Light upon the Home Stone"
• Sun Shield Theory - it is placed as a counterpoise to the Earth. It has the same plane of orbit and maintains its orbit in such a way as always to keep The Central Fire between it and Earth, even though this necessitates occasional adjustments in its speed of revolution.
• temperatures - Gor's temperatures tend to be fiercer than Earth
• third ring - Gor and Earth share the third ring.

Plants and Plant Foods   -  back to top

• apricot
• arctic plants - 240 different types of plants in the arctic.   None are poisonous and none have thorns.
• beans
• berries
• Brak Bush - leaves, when chewed, have a purgative effect.  Said to discourage entry of bad luck when branches nailed to door.
• cabbage
• carpet plant - in rain forest.  Tendrils mentioned in passing to tie shut a bandage
• carrot
• chokecherry
• cinnamon
• clove
• corn
• date palm - grow to more than 100 feet.  Take 10 years to bear fruit.  Yields 1-5 Gorean weight of fruit.
• dina - small roselike flower
• evergreen
• fan palm - more than 20 feet high, spreads leaves in form of opened fan.  Excellent source of pure water, as much as a liter found as if cupped at the base of each leaf's stem.
• fern
• flahdah tree - in the Tahari by water holes.  Look like flat-topped umbrellas on crooked sticks, less than 20 feet high.  Narrow branched with lanceolate leaves.
• flaminium - five petaled flower, scarlet
• garlic
• gieron - unusual allergen
• grape - mentioned that grapes eaten were supposed to be Ta-grapes, which implies there are other varieties.  Ta-grapes are often associated with the terraces of Cos, but they are grown many other places.
• grasses - mentioned that there are dark blue and orangish ornamental grasses in gardens.
• hemp - used to make bow strings
• Ka-la-na tree - wine tree, sweet-smelling.  Cannot grow in Torvaldsland
• kanda - roots are extremely toxic.   Grows largely in desert regions.  Leaves are not toxic.  Rolled leaves of   plant are formed into strings and sucked or chewed.  Favored by many Goreans, particularly in the Southern hemisphere, where the leaf is more abundant.  Mentioned as a green kanda string.
• Katch - foliated leaf vegetable
• larma - a flowering fruit.  The blossoms are used to decorate tables.  Red with a crunchy shell.  The shell is rather hard, but brittle and easily broken.  The shell is not eaten.  There is a single-seeded, apple-like variety which is sometimes called "pit fruit." There is also a segmented, juicy larma.  
• leach plant - strikes like a cobra and fastens two hollow thorns into victim, bladder like pods produce mechanical pumping action and blood is sucked into the plant to nourish it
• liana vine - useful source of water.  Make the first cut high over head to keep the water from being withdrawn by contraction and surface adhesion up the vine. Second cut a foot or two above ground, creates a vine tube which drains a liter of water.  Found in the rain forest.
• melons
• mushroom
• needle tree - grows in Thentis
• nutmeg
• olives - mentioned as being red olives from the groves of Tyros
• onion
• palm - more than 1,500 variations of palm tree.
• pea
• peach
• pear
• pepper
• pit fruit - a variety of larma.
• plum
• pod tree - cloth is made from it
• pumpkin
• radish
• ram-berry - small, reddish fruit with edible seeds, not unlike tiny plums.
• rence - paper is made from it.  Plant has a long, thick root, about 4 inches thick which lies horizontally under the surface of the water.  Small roots sink downward into the mud from the main root, and several "stems," as many as a dozen, rise from it, often of a length of 15-16 inches from the root.  Stems are leafy.  Has an excrescent, usually single floral spike.  Grows predominantly in the delta of the Vosk.
• rep - white, fibrous matter found in seed pods of a small, reddish woody bush.  Commercially grown in several areas, but primarily below Ar and above the equator.
• talender - delicate, yellow-petaled flower
• Sa-Tarna - like wheat.  Sown the preceding fall, a month following the harvest festival.  Sown early enough that before deep frosts come a good root system can develop.  Then, in the spring, the plants, hardy and rugged, asset themselves.  Yield of fall-sown Sa-Tarna is statistically larger than spring-sown varieties.
• Sa-Tarna (oasis variation) - brownish hybrid to withstand the heat.
• sajel - a simple pustulant
• scrub brush
• sip root - extremely better.  Slave wine is made from this.  When eaten in its raw state, provides birth control for 3-4 moons.  In the concentrated state, as in slave wine which is developed by the caste of physicians, the effect is "almost indefinite." (Blood Brothers of Gor)
• spikenard
• sul - like a potato. Very common large, thick-skinned, starchy, yellow-fleshed vegetable.  Tuberous root of the sul plant.  Golden sul is the starchy, golden-brown vine-borne fruit of the golden-leaved Sul plant.  Also mentioned as "yellow."
• Ta-grape - from the lower vineyards of the terraced island of Cos, mentioned as purple
• talender - delicate yellow flower
• telekint - roots are used for dye
• Tem - supple tree, black wood, cannot grow in Torvaldsland
• teslik - active ingredient in the breeding wine, or "second wine."
• teriotrope - flower
• thorn brush
• tor shrub - various names.  The name translates to "the bright shrug" or "shrub of light," because of abundant bright flowers which are yellow or white depending on the variety.  Does not grow higher than a man's waist.
• tospit - yellowish-white peach like fruit, about the size of a plum.  Grows as a bush, patches of which are indigenous to the drier valleys of the western Cartius.  Almost invariably have an odd number of seeds, saving the rarer long-stemmed variety.  Both are indistinguishable outwardly.  Long-stemmed tospits are not available until late summer.  Quite bitter.  Commonly sliced and sweetened with honey and in syrups and to flavor with their juices a variety of dishes.  They contain a great deal of vitamin C.  Sometimes called seaman's larma.  Fairly hard-fleshed fruit and are not difficult to dry and store.
• Tur tree - lofty, broad canopy of interlaced branches
• tur-pah - vinelike tree parasite with curled, scarlet, ovate leaves.  Mentioned as lovely to look upon.  Used as food.
• turl bush
• turnip
• veminia - also called veminium, and elsewhere verminium.  Not sure if one is plural and another is singular, or if variations are typos/inconsistencies throughout the books.
• veminium - softly-petaled bluish wild flower commonly found on lower slopes of Thentis range.  Stalks.  spelling from "Assassin of Gor" and "Mercenaries of Gor"
• verminium - desert verminium is purplish.  Thentis verminium is bluish.  Delicate five-petaled blue flower common in both the northern and southern hemispheres.  Boiled and condensed into oil used to rinse eating hand. 

Priest-Kings   -  back to top

• appearance - tall, thin, like a blade of a golden knife.  Golden antennae, two golden-haired, jointed appendages protruding from globelike heads, above the eyes, are their primary sensory organs.  Forelegs lift delicately before body.  Four supporting posterior appendages.  Gigantic head, antennae that glisten with delicate sensory hair.  Cleaning hooks behind the third joints of forelegs.  Two large, circular, disklike eyes, compound, many-faceted  surfaces.  18' in height, a yard wide.  Four posterior, four-jointed supporting appendages, each with four delicate tiny prehensile hooks.  Tube that joins head to thorax.  Laterally opening and closing jaws.  Communicates with odors, secreted from signal glands.  They are picked up by a translator and translated mechanically and without emotion.  Eight brains, mentioned three places on the thorax and one behind the eyes.  They "bleed" green.  They can regrow severed appendages.  They cannot handle the radiation of the sun.
• attention wandering - can be shown by the unconscious movement of the cleaning hooks from behind the third joints of the forelegs
• breathing - Muscular contractions in the abdomen take place.  Air is sucked into the system through four small holes on each side of the abdomen, the same holes serving also as exhalation vents.
• Duty of the Twelve Joys - Muls must wash completely 12 times daily.
• eating - PKs eat standing up
• entering the Sardar - "Do you wish to speak to Priest-Kings?" member of the Caste of Initiates asks.  Then, "Do you know what you do?"  On each side of the huge gate there stands a great windlass and chain, and to each windlass a gang of blinded slaves is manacled.  The gates are so heavy, men have broken their own bones on the timber spokes of the Sardar windlasses.  A mournful tolling of the huge, hollow metal bar which stands some way from the gate.
• fair at the Sardar - no one may be enslaved at the fair.
• father - "There is never a father of the nest."
• favorable - shown by the unconscious movement of the cleaning hooks but there is in addition an incipient, but restrained, extension of the forelegs in the direction of the object toward which the Priest-King is well disposed
• friendship - expression for which no natural 'word' in their language exists is 'friendship'.  There is an expression in their language which translates into English as 'Nest Trust', and seems to play something of the same role in their thinking. The notion of friendship has to do with a reliance and affection between two or more individuals; the notion of Nest Trust is more of a communal notion, a sense of relying on the practices and traditions of an institution, accepting them and living in terms of them.
• Flame Death - people burst into flame when they upset the Priest-Kings.  Such as inventors of new, forbidden, technology.
• food - eat fungus.
• Gur - is a product originally secreted by large, gray, domesticated, hemispheric arthropods which are, in the morning, taken out to pasture where they feed on special Sim plants, extensive, rambling, tangled vine-like plants with huge, rolling leaves raised under square energy lamps fixed in the ceilings of the broad pasture chambers, and at night are returned to their stable cells where they are milked by Muls. The special Gur used on the Feast of Tola is, in the ancient fashion, kept for weeks in the social stomachs of specially chosen Priest-Kings to mellow and reach the exact flavor and consistency desired, which Priest-Kings are then spoken of as retaining Gur.
• High Council of the Nest - first five born of the mother.
• hunger - indicated by an acidic exudate which forms at the edges of the jaws giving them a certain moist appearance
• impatience - shown by trembling in the tactile hair on the supporting appendages
• language - by odor.  What in their language would correspond to phonemes in ours, since their 'phonemes' have to do with scent and not sound, number seventy-three.
• libation - mentioned for a feast, on one side small altar to the Priest-Kings, where there burned a small fire.  At the beginning of the feast, the feast steward had scattered grains of meal, colored salt, drops of wine on the fire and said "Ta-Sardar-Gor" and the others repeated it.  It means "To the Priest-Kings of Gor.
• laugh - the shaking and curling its antennae is laughter
• longevity - thought to be immortal, mentioned that one has lived 2 million  years.
• mathematics - begins with ordinal and not cardinal numbers
• Matok - A creature that is in the Nest but is not of the Nest
• Mul - expression that designates human slave.
• Mul feedings - Muls feed four times a day. In the first meal, Mul-Fungus is ground and mixed with water, forming a porridge of sorts; for the second meal it is chopped into rough two-inch cubes; for the third meal it is minced with Mul-Pellets and served as a sort of cold hash; the Mul-Pellets are a dietary supplement; at the final meal Mul-Fungus is pressed into a large, flat cake and sprinkled with a few grains of salt.
• Mul-fungus - it has almost no taste, being an extremely bland, pale, whitish, fibrous vegetable like matter.  The major difference between the higher grade fungus the Priest-Kings eat, and the lower grade Mul-fungus is smell.
• messages - simplest method for leaving messages, as their communication is with odor, is chemically treated rope of cloth like material which the Priest-King, beginning at an end bearing a certain scent, saturates with the odors of the message. The coiled message-rope retains the odors indefinitely and when another Priest-King reads the message he unrolls it slowly scanning it serially with the jointed sensory appendages.
• mother - 'Greatest in the Nest is the Mother.'  None may see the Mother save her caste attendants and the High Priest-Kings, the First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Born, except on the three great holidays.
• omniscient - said to be aware of everything that goes on on the planet.
• Once in his life every Gorean is expected to make the journey to the Sardar Mountains, mentioned as before the 25th birthday.
• prayers - prayers to the Priest-Kings are in Old Gorean
• record-scar - slaves are given one for being displeasing.  Upon receipt of five record-scars they are destroyed.
• Rounded circle of gold is often a symbol of the Priest-Kings.
• Sardar Mountains - home of the Priest-Kings
• scent dots - analogous to a sign.  Scent-dots are arranged in rows constituting a geometrical square, and are read beginning with the top row from left to right, then right to left, and then left to right and so on again
• sign of PKs - made with a closed, circular motion
• slaves - their slaves have heads shaven for sanitary reasons, and wear purple plastic.  No collars.
• sleep - PKs sleep standing up
• syllabary of language - four hundred and eleven characters, each of which stands of course for a phoneme or phoneme combination, normally a combination
• technology - they limit the technology available.
• thirst - indicated by a certain stiffness in the appendages, evident in their movements, and by a certain brownish tarnish that seems to infect the gold of the thorax and abdomen
• Tola - holiday.  The Anniversary of the Nuptial Flight
• Tolam - holiday.  The Feast of the Deposition of the First Egg
• Tolama - holiday.  The Celebration of the Hatching of the First Egg

Red Hunters   -  back to top

• custom is to put out the lights in the gathering hall so it is pitch black.  Men catch the women and have them.  When lights are back on women serve the men who caught them for feasting.  Mentioned as occurring five times in an evening.
• genetics - have children with a blue spot at the base of their spine.
• hair - free women of the arctic wear their hair knotted in a bun on the top of their head outdoors, and only loose when they are menstruating.  Slaves do not follow this convention.
• names - red hunters will not say their own names.  They get someone else to say their name for them in introductions.
• sleep - on a sleeping platform approximately 3 feet high to stay warmer in their dwellings.
• ulo - woman's knife.  Semicircular blade, customarily fixed in a wooden handle.

Red Savages - back to top

• Canwapegiwi Moon - moon when leaves become brown.  Moon of the autumnal equinox.
• Casmu - one of the five bands that comprise the Kaiila tribe.  Also known as the Sand band.  1,000 members.
• children - are skilled riders by the age of 7.
• children, loss of son - female has the first joint of a finger cut off for every son lost.
• collars - slave collars are high (mentioned as 1.5 inches wide), beaded, tied together in front by rawhide string.  Subtle differences in the styles of collars and in knots with which they are fastened on the girls' necks differentiate tribes.  Within a tribe the beading, in arrangements and colors, identifies the particular master.  Also the knot is unique, mentioned.
• coup - whites are not considered worthy of the coup structure
• cradle - wooden frame on which are fixed leather, open-fronted enclosures, opened and closed by lacings for the infant.  Has two sharpened projections at top like picket spikes, extending several inches above baby's head.  This way if a cradle falls, it typically sticks upside down in the earth, and laced-in child is uninjured.  Hung vertically from lodge poles and trees.
• culture - is nomadic, based on the herbivorous lofty kaiila.  Tribes are united only by hatred of whites.
• Dust Legs - tribe of red savages from the Barrens.  One of the most peaceful tribes.  Perimeter tribe which, on the whole, was favorably disposed towards whites.  Most trading is done with them.  They act as agents and intermediaries of trade with rest of the tribes.
• exploit marking of a captured kaiila - inverted U.
• Fleer - tribe in the Barrens.  Men wear hair in a high pompadour, combed back.
• genetic - racially and culturally distinct from the Red Hunters of the north.  More slender, longer-limbed people.  Daughters menstruate earlier.  No blue dot at the base of spine.
• Isanna - one of the five bands that comprise the Kaiila tribe.  Also known as the Little Knife band.  700-800 members.
• Isbu - one of the five bands that comprise the Kaiila tribe.  Also known as the Little Stone band.  The largest band, at 1600-1700  members.
• Istawicayazanwi Moon - sore-eye moon, vernal equinox.
• Kaiila - tribe of the Barrens, comprised of five bands.  The Isbu, Camu, Isanna, Napoktan, and Wismahi
• kaiila,  notched ear - the animal.  Indicates one especially trained for the hunt and war.
• kaiila, notched ear, Kaiila tribe - Kaiila tribe notches both ears of a kaiila.
• Kantasawi Moon - time of gathering of the Kaiila tribe with great hunts and dances.  The time in which plums become red.  Generally the hottest time of the year in Barrens.  Latter part of summer.
• lodge - poles are approximately 25 feet high of tem wood.  Bark is removed from poles and trimmed to an even thickness.  About 12 inches around.  Top yard is tapered, to facilitate clustering.  A long rawhide rope, from the ground,  is wound about several times to fasten primary and secondary poles together.  Cover of the lodge is several kailiauk hides.  A lodge is 15 feet  in diameter, and families of 5-8 live comfortably in this space.
• love - crossing one's arms over the breast indicates "love" in sign.
• Magaksicaagliwi Moon - moon of returning giants
• Memory - the Memory is the tradition of hatred and suspicion fostered by red savages toward whites
• Napoktan  - one of the five bands that comprise the Kaiila tribe.  Also known as the Bracelets band.  They wear copper bracelets on their left wrists. Warriors wear 2 on the left wrist.  Smalled band at 300-400 members.  Called the Mazahuhu, which means bracelets in Dust-Leg language, by those outside the Kaiila tribe.
• sewing - roll of rawhide string is held balled in the mouth, which keeps the string moist and pliable.
• Sleen - tribe of the Barrens
• Sun Lances - warrior society of Sleen tribe.  Yellow lances on the flanks of their kaiila distinguish them.
• Takiyuhawi Moon - the moon in which the tabuk rut.  also called Canpasapawi, the moon in which the chokecherries are ripe.
• tribal advancement - cannot advance in tribe or become leader or chieftain unless one has frequently counted coup.  Man who has not is not permitted to mate.  In other tribes, if a man is over 21 he can mate but not allowed to paint mate's face.
• Urt Soldiers - society of the Yellow Knives tribe.
• Waniyanpi - matriarchal society owned by the tribes.  Means "tame cattle."
• war - prefer to avoid fighting in the darkness.
  - if slain at night, the warrior may have difficulty finding his way to the medicine world.
  - the individual slain at night may find the portals of the medicine world closed against him.
• warpath - a man who refuses to go on the warpath is put in women's clothing and given a woman's name.
• Wanicokanwi Moon - mid-winter moon
• Waniyetuwi Moon - winter moon
• Wayuksapiwi Moon - Corn Moon, Harvest Moon, also known as teh Canwapekasnawi Moon.  When the wind shakes off the leaves.
• Wicatawi Moon - urt moon
• Wismahi - one of the five bands that comprise the Kaiila tribe.  Also known as the Arrowhead band.  500-600 members.
• Witehi Moon - hard moon
• white men - may not enter the Barrens with more than 2 kaiila per white man, or no more than 10 kaiila for a party of white men.
• Yellow Knives - tribe of the Barrens

Sailing - back to top

• buoys - gold is not used on buoys, even slavers' buoys, as it doesn't show up as well as yellow.
• compass - an instrument used on Gor, but not by the men of Torvaldsland.  The Gorean compass always points to the Sardar.
• construction - Northern ships are clinker built, being constructed of overlapping plans, or straks, the frame then fitted within them.  Southern ships have carvel construction, with flush planking.
• directions - port is referred to by the port designation, starboard is referred to by the port of registration.  When both match, the port is called the harbor side.
• eyes - Gorean ships always have eyes painted on them.
• galleys carry several sails, falling into 3 types, "fair-weather," "tarn," and "storm."  Fair-weather sails are large and used in gentle wind.  Tarn sails are the most common sails used.   Between the tarn and the storm sail is a smaller tarn sail, called a "tharlarion" sail.  A storm sail is very small and is used when the ship is fleeing storms.
• galleys are typically lateen rigged, square rigged, and there is no way to take in (shorten) the sails, which is why they carry so many sails.  Southern galleys the keel to beam ratio is one to eight.
• keleustes - one who marks time, usually on a pounding block or ship's drum, for the oarsmen.  In some navies and on ships of some registry, the office of keleustes is referred to as that of the horator.  He reports directly to the oar-master.
• long ships - ram-ships, ships of war.  Beam to its keel is a ratio of about one to eight.  Medium class is determined not by freight capacity but by keel length and width of beam.  A medium class long ship will have a keel length from 80-120 feet Gorean, and a width of beam from 10-15 feet Gorean.  Always takes its mast down and stores its sails below decks.  The bulwarks and deck of the ship are often covered with wet hide.
• marsh barges have no time-beater (keleustes), and count is given by the oarsmen verbally
• night procedures - Gorean seamen often beach the craft in the evening and set watches
• Northern ships generally do not have a rowing frame.  They carry one sail, not the several sails, all lateens, of the southern ships.  Their sails are hung straight from a spar of needle wood.
• oar-master - like the helmsman, of which two are generally on duty at any one time as most Gorean ships are double ruddered.  Reports to the captain.
• pirate ships are often green
• Port of Laura - the North shore is favored to approach.
• prow girl - preferably, a stripped free woman hangs at the prow of a ship.
• ram ships - rowed by freemen
• round ships - with deep holds for merchandise.  Has a heavier, permanent rigging and supports more sail, generally two-masted.  It is not round, but does have a much wider beam to its length of keel, about one to six.  Medium class round ships can freight approximately 100-150 tons below decks.  Traditionally rowed by slaves
• round ships & long ships - both are predominantly oared vessels.
• rudder - Ships of Torvaldsland are single-ruddered and on the right side.
• sand is used for ballast in Gorean vessels.  The sand stays cool, so perishables are often buried there.
• seasons for sailing - typically done in spring and summer
• sextant - instrument used on Gor
• shearing blades - on medium and heavy class galleys.  Invention of Tersites.  They are huge quarter-moons of steel, fixed forward of the oars, anchored into the frame of the ship itself.  Used for oar shearing, when one vessel pulls her oars inboard and slides along the hull of another whose oars are still outboard, splintering them and breaking them off.
• slave transport - slaves transported on ships are almost always completely shaved to protect against parasites. Upon debarkation, common (and required of many port authorities) to subject slaves to immersion in slave dip.  *25
• tarn ship - has two side-hung rudders
• time, keeping time:  At noon the fire of white smoke is lit in ports.
• uniak - skin boat.  Skins are sewn over its frame, lashed together with sinew cord.  Usually paddled by women.

Slaves -  back to top

• baker's knot - When a slave is sent for things from the baker, the baker puts them in a sack and ties the sack to the girl's neck in a "baker's knot."  This prevents the slave from eating the sweets.
• bathing skills - proper to kiss belly after unknotting the tunic.  Go to the back and remove the tunic, kissing below the left shoulder blade.  Move before the Master.  Fold tunic and belt.  Kiss them.  Kneel, placing them to one side.  Stand with head down until instructed to continue.
• bells - almost always put on and removed by one in authority over slave.
• binding fiber at throat - when 5 coils of binding fiber are knotted at a slave's throat, it is a token of slavery
• blindfold - 2 rounded pieces of soft felt, 3-4 inches in diameter and the binding which is three turns or dark, thick, folded cloth or scarf knotted behind the head.  Absolutely cannot see when blindfolded.
• bonds of the master's will - slave lays on her stomach, wrists crossed.  She is not permitted to rise to her feet, yet no rope nor strap is on her body.  To move from this position without permission of a free person causes her to be instantly slain.
• breeding - the most beautiful female slaves are bred, hooded,  with handsome male silk slaves, also hooded.  Some female slaves have a pedigreed lineage going back several generations of slave matings.  It's a felony in Gorean law to forge or falsify such papers.   Few male slaves have long pedigrees.  Usually not bred of the same house.  A stud fee is paid to the master of the male slave.
• caller - performs what is sometimes called the whip song.  A series of announcements. Summons other girls to witness one of their sisters on the way to discipline.
• clothing at a man's feet - when a slave places her clothing at a man's feet she acknowledges that whether or not she may wear clothing is dependent on his will.
• coin - Generally forbidden to touch a coin without permission although they may be sent to market and given coins for errands.  Slaves carry coins in their mouth or hand (direct contradiction with online customs, but books allow coin  held in the hand).  Sometimes the slave ties coins in a scarf and wraps about a wrist or ankle, or in a bag which master places about her neck.  An  unaccounted for coin found in a slave's possession or among her belongings is cause for severe punishment, even to being fed to sleen.
• coffle arrangement, common - thongs are about 5 feet long.  The first woman's hands are bound behind her back with one end of the thong and then the other end is taken up and knotted about the neck of the woman behind her.
• coffle rope - of the north is 1/2" in thickness of braided leather corded with wire
• collar - most Gorean collars are basically a flat, circular band, hinged, which locks snugly about a girl's neck.  Turian collar fits more loosely and resembles a hinged ring, looped about the throat.  A man can get his fingers inside a Turian collar and use it to drag a slave to him.  Girls of the Wagon People wear Turian collars.
• collar, exceptions - although collars are almost univeral, some masters use a bracelet or anklet.  Some may wear as little as a ring to denote their slavery.  Bracelet, anklet, and ring are often worn by women whose slavery is secret.  Even such women, when in private with their masters, will usually be collared.  *25
• collar locks - almost all for female slaves are cylinder locks of pin or disk variety.  Six pins or disks, one each for each letter in the Gorean word kajira.
• collar, male - male slave collars are seldom a locked collar.  Normally band of iron is simply hammered about his neck.
• collar,  plank - two boards into which matching semicircles have been cut.  Two boards connected and supported by five flat, sliding U-irons.  When U-irons are slid back, the collars are opened.  When slid into place, and the two leaves are bolted together, collar is closed.  Two hasps with staples secured with padlocks occur at opposite ends of the planks.  These lock the collar.
• confinement circle - drawn in the dirt with the heel.  Slave cannot leave it without permission of a free person.
• covering - when a covering is thrown over a slave at master's feet she may  not rise or speak until a freeman lifts the cover.
• display chain or selling chain - has the arrangement of the girls determined by a variety of considerations, aesthetic and psychological factors.
• entering a room - there are 104 ways to enter a room in Ar, which is the most.
• entering a room # 10 - girl's back is to the side of the door, palms of her hands on the jamb, head up, lips slightly parted, eyes to the right.
• evening meal - no slave may touch the evening meal without first having been given permission, assuming Free Person, even a child, is present.  "You may feed, Slave Girl" is a common way to give permission.  Not true of the other meals.
• exotics - expression for any unusual variety of slave
• fountains - slaves must drink from the lower basins of fountains in a city, as animals do. *25
• field slaves - hair is often cropped to protect from parasites. *25
• fully trained - exhaustive and detailed, takes months about 5 hours daily.
• gag law - slave may not speak, only whimper and moan, but no physical gag is used.
• heel - slaves follow behind on the left.  To be on the right indicates disfavor.  When more than one slave follows, the slave who follows most closely on the left is in highest favor.
• imbondment - in some cities, kneeling before a man naked at his feet and addressing him as Master affects legal imbondment of the female, being interpreted as a gesture of submission.
• kennels - sometimes used synonymous as Iron pens, but more often it refers to a small cement cell, customarily 3' x 3' x 4' with an iron gate, which can be raised and lowered.
• newly owned - commonly carried over the threshold when they first enter master's place of residence.
• saying on Earth girls - of the 2nd knowledge, "a steel collar locked on the throat of an Earth woman is perfect."
• slave brace - many different types, but two mentioned:
  - short hollow tube - thong passes through the tube to emerge at the far end, where it is used to secure the ankles
  - longer pole - drilled four times, used with a prone or supine slave, which it makes impossible to rise to the feet.  *25
• papers - slave papers include an "extremely complete description of the woman" exact even to details of the structure of her earlobes.  Measurements of the width and length of fingers and toes, width of heels, distance between her nostrils, etc.  Fingerprints and toeprints are taken.  *25
• permission to placate - a request by a slave when Master is angry.  If granted, slave tries to please him sexually in the effort to avert punishment.
• position, break - "You may break position" means the slave may move from the position last ordered. *25
• Position, Hair - slave goes to the guest and kneels, lowers her head, that her hair may be used as a napkin or wiping cloth, by means of which the free person, either male or female, may remove stains, crumbs or grease from his hands
• position, hand gesture - pointing two fingers to the ground, and spreading them, indicates the girl should spread her legs as she kneels.  *25
• position, knee crawl - No explanation detailed *25
• position, knee walk Turian - sometimes used by slave dancers.  No other explanation detailed *25
• Position, Kneeling to the Whip - slave position for a girl who is to be punished.  Cross wrists beneath body and touch head to the floor, exposing the bow of the back.
• position, palms up - denotes need, helplessness, desire to please.
• position of Pleasure Slave - kneeling, hands normally rest on her thighs but, in some cities, for example, Thentis, they are crossed behind. More significantly, for the free woman's hands may also rest on her thighs, there is a difference in the placing of the knees.
• position of the Tower Slave - kneeling, differs from a free woman only in the position of the wrists which are held before her and, when not occupied, crossed as though for binding
• possession of - if a slave is in possession of a thief or a captor for one week she belongs to that new owner legally.
• report - when ordered, a slave responds, "I am <name> the slave of <owner's name>, of <owner's city, tribe, or other identification>.  On the orders of my <Master/Mistress> I herewith report myself to you.  I present myself before you, a <female/male> slave.  I beg you to <Master's order to slave on why they are presenting themselves> for <Master's ordered duration of time>.
• slave steel - putting  a slave in slave steel is rarely done except by the master/owner of that slave.  It implies claim of ownership.
• Stage of Slavery - first is understanding she must obey.  second is needing the touch of a man.
• training texts - Manuals of the Pens of Mira, Leonora's Compendium, Songs of Dina (songs of chains of love, the last, the glory of masters), The Nature and Arts of the Female Slave (the last is by Hargon) *25
• types of slaves
  - agricultural slave
  - contempt slave
  - laundry slave
  - proxy slave - a form of vengeance slavery. One totally innocent woman is enslaved and made to stand proxy for a hated, at-least-temporarily inaccessible woman, even being given her name.  Even if the hated woman is later captured the proxy woman is not freed.  She's generally given away or sold.
  - public kitchen slave
  - vengeance slave
• walking chains - adjustable with rings from a length as small as 2 inches for security to a stride length of approximately 20 inches.  2 keys, both fit each ankle-lock ring.
• unbinding hair - he who unbinds a slave's hair is culturally understood to be the act of one who owns her.
• whip - slaves are expected to bring a slave whip to their master on all fours, and the whip in their teeth.
• wrist and ankle rings - sizing runs separately.  Sizes 1-4 with 1 being small, 2-3 being normal, 4 is large.  It is considered desirable for a slave to take the same number wrist and ankle rings.  Interior circumference of a #2 wrist ring is 5 horts; of a #2 ankle ring is 7 horts.
• yielding - submitting sexually to a Master.  False yielding is punishable by death.

Slaves, Female -  back to top

• bite at the sleeve of a Master's tunic to get their attention (mentioned)
• bond-maid - called in the north, sometimes referred to as a woman whose belly lies beneath the sword.
• bond-maid circle - by the laws of Torvaldsland, to enter is to declare oneself a bond-maid. Don't have to enter the circle voluntarily.
• bondage knot - simple looped knot tied in slave's hair.  Worn at the side of right cheek or before right shoulder.
• body chain - slave jewelry.  5 feet in length.  Made to loop the throat of slave several times, or, by alternative bindings, to bedeck her body in a variety of fashions.  Can be used for slave security.  Decorated with wooden beads, semiprecious stones, and leather.  Detachable at one end are two sets of clips, one of snap clips and one of lock clips.  Using the clips it can change from slave jewelry to slave restraint.
• chastity device - White Silks are locked in iron chastity belts when out of the house, mentioned for girls in a slaver's ownership and in training.
• coin girl - thought to be the lowest form of street slave
• collar - most common has a seven-pin lock
• common names - Tuka, Lana, Lita
• depilated slaves - are not uncommon in Ar and Turia.
• Free Woman to Slave Law - "Any free woman who couches with another's slave, or readies herself to couch with another's slave, becomes herself a slave."  A law. *25.
• hair - most slave girls wear their hair long and loose, although sometimes held back with a headband or tied behind the head with a string or ribbon.
• hair care - not uncommon for a master to care for a slave's hair.
• hair tie 1 - wrists of one woman are bound before her body, lifted and raised, in the hair of the woman before her.  Done in a line or in a circle.
• hair tie 2 - hands of a woman are tied behind her back to the hair of the woman who,  head lowered, kneels behind her.  Done in a line or circle.
• hair, value - auburn hair is generally thought to be the most prized hair color on Gor.
• lipstick - there are one-hundred eleven basic shades of slave lipstick.
• message girls - head is shaved and a message tattooed on the head.   Then the hair is regrown.  Illiterate girls are chosen so they do not know the message they carry.
• message, location - to send a message to a girl's master, often the message is written upon her left breast. *25
• paga slaves - typically belled
• Piercing - in the far south, below Gorean equator, is the practice of the piercing of ears.  Any woman with pierced ears is a slave girl.  It is regarded as the epitome of a slave girl's degradation.  Piercing of the septum is regarded more lightly by female slaves than the piercing of the ears.  Turians like piercing slave girls' ears.  Women of the Wagon People wear nose rings.
• possessive - "most masters are rather possessive about their slaves, particularly if f they are fond of them."  In Guardsman of Gor, mentioned when it is discussed that masters who get together do not typically share the slaves they bring with them to the dinner.
• shielding - slave girls are not permitted to shield their "intimacies" (vagina) without explicit permission of master.
• sent to another - if a slave is sent to a man naked and bound, he is to have her sexually.
• silk ribbon - used by slaves to tie their hair back.
• silks - 
  - white silk - virgin mentioned as a white silk, also mentioned white silks as having ignorance, naivety, and lack of experience.  Mentioned as red silk immediately after penetration and no longer virgin.  Mentioned that white silk is usually a slave who is still a virgin, or slave whose bodies have not yet been opened by a man.
  - red silk - mentioned as experienced.  "Savages of Gor" first printing page 205.  Mentioned a second time, in separate books, that red silk means no longer virgin.
• slave flame - a slave haircut.  Tapers in the back so the hair swirls seductively when the girl moves.
• slave wine - prevents conception for more than a month.  It is black.  Mentioned as enduring "several cycles" elsewhere, and later as "indefinite" in its standard dosage made by physicians, although renewed annually.  Mentioned that annual renewal may be in deference to tradition.  "Dancer of Gor" page 174.  It is incredibly bitter.  Made from a derivative of the sip root.  It is counteracted by another drink, smooth and a sweet beverage called breed wine.
• sleep - slaves typically sleep at the foot of their master's couch, on a straw mat, if permitted to stay with him.
• sleeping couch - customarily a slave girl may not even be on the couch to serve her master's pleasure.  That is reserved for the Free Companion.  The slave is taken on furs on the floor.  Yet in "Rogue of Gor" it states that a slave girl may ascend the Master's couch after months, and the proper way for her to do so is to kiss the furs first, then from the lower left or bottom, crawl up to the couch.
• South - slaves in the south commonly kept barefoot and  hair is worn long and loose.
• state slave of Ar - is kept in short hair, with the hair brushed back around her head.
• statistically only one out of every 40-50 women is a slave.
• training questions:  
  Q - What are you?  A - I am a slave girl.
  Q - What is a slave girl?  A - A girl who is owned.
  Q - Why do you wear a brand?  A - To show that I am owned.
  Q - Why do you wear a collar?  A - That men may know who owns me.
  Q - What does a slave girl want more than anything?  A - To please men.

Slaves, Male -  back to top

• bracelet - mentioned to be silver, locked on the male's left wrist.  *25
• clothing - there is no distinct garment for male slaves, as it is not well for them to discover how numerous they are
• origins - male slaves are usually debtors or criminals.  Sometimes captives.
• price - a silver tarn is a high price for a male slave, if he is not a certified woman's slave, trained to tend a woman's compartments.
• use of - they are typically used for cargo galleys, in the mines, on the great farms, and as porters at wharves.

Tahari  -   back to top

• children - Tahari nomad children are suckled 18 months, which is 1/2 again as long as the normal Gorean infants.
• free women - sometimes belled and wear ankle chains that the length of their stride may be measured and made beautiful.
• hygiene - Tahari nomad children are bathed frequently, although adults may go months without bathing.
• infant mortality - very low.
• export - primary export of the oases are dates and pressed date bricks.
• slave alcove - slaves are kept in a slave alcove, which is a small opening, approximately 18" square an set 10" off the floor.  A girl lies with her head to the wall on her belly.  The square gate is locked behind her.
• upper class - in the Tahari upper class it is scandalous to see a girl's mouth.  For a Master to touch her teeth with his is a prelude to taking her.
• whipping - other girls are seldom permitted to see their sisters being whipped.
• whipping position - belly against the flat iron piece over which the cage door swings in closing.  Knees through the bars, on the inside of the cell.   Binding fiber about the knees and behind and over bars.  Wrists tied on outside, each to a separate bar, on either side of the small iron gate.

Tarns  -   back to top

• "Brothers of the Wind"
• beacon - tarn beacon signals the location of an inn or other building and a safe approach, free of tarn wire.  One brings the bird in to the left of the light.
• coloring - bred for coloring.  Black, white, multi-plumaged, and the most common is green-brown.
• feeding - domestic tarns are taught to accept prepared, even preserved meat.  Ideally taught from time of hatchlings.  Tongs are used.
• guidance - guided by a harness and throat strap, to which six reins are attached in a clockwise fashion.  Different colors, but learned by number not color.  They pass for the throat strap to the main saddle ring which is fixed to the saddle.  One directs the bird by exerting pressure on the reins.   One-Rein is for Up, Four-Rein is for Down.  Releasing the reins, letting them hang on the saddle-ring, is the signal for a constant and straight flight.  Numbered in a clockwise fashion.
• saddle - five-rung leather mounting ladder which hangs on the left side of the saddle and is pulled up in flight
• Tabuk - cry of tarnsmen to signify that the bird may hunt and feast without the rider dismounting
• tarn-goad - rod like instrument, 20 inches long.  Switch in handle like a flashlight.  When turned on and struck on an object, it emits a violent shock and scatters a shower of yellow sparks.  Controls tarns.
• tarn-whistle - summons a tarn, and one tarn only.
• tarnsman - the capacity to master a tarn is innate and some men possess this characteristic and some do not. One does not learn to master a tarn. It is a matter of a relation between two beings which must be immediate, intuitive, spontaneous. It is said that a tarn knows who is a tarnsman and who is not, and that those who are not die in their first meeting.

Time, Measurement & Direction -  back to top

• ah-il - length from elbow to tip of middle finger.  Cloth is measured in ah-ils.
• ah-ral - 10 ah-ils
• Ahn - hour, 40 Ehn.  10th Ahn - Gorean "noon", 20th Ahn - Gorean "midnight"
• Cart - southwest, if one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole
• chronometer - Gorean watch.  Hands turn counterclockwise.
• Day - 20 Ahn
• directions - two main directions to Gorean thinking.  Ta-Sardar-Var:  "turning to the Sardar" which appears on all maps, and Ta-Sardar-Ki-Var: "not turning to the Sardar" which never appears on a map as any direction not towards the Sardar is this.   Gorean compass is divided into 8 main quadrants.  If one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole, the directions listed as the nearest Earth approximation.   Beginning with North and going eastward:  Ta-Sardar-Var, Ror, Rim, Tun, Vask, Cart, Klim, Kail.
• Ehn - 80 Earth seconds, 80 Ihn
• Gorean foot - 12.5 Earth feet.  Has 10 Hort.  At Sardar a metal rod which determines the official Merchant Foot, or Gorean foot.
• Hesius - the second month of the year, following the first passage hand (mentioned in Ar) and also a legendary hero. *25
• Hort - 1 1/4", unit of measurement
• Huda - 5 tefa
• Ihn - second
• Kail - NorthWest, if one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole
• Klim - West, if one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole
• latitude and longitude - figured on the basis of a Gorean day.
• Month - 5 weeks.
• Month of Autumnal Equinox - Se'Kara-Lar-Torvis, said usually simply "Se-Kara."  Meaning, "The Second Kara" or "The Second Turning"
• month names - differ from city to city, but the months associated with equinoxes and solstices and the great fairs at the Sardar do have common names.
• moon - Kantasawi, moon during which the Bento herd enters the country of the Kaiila.
• moon, autumn moon - Wayuksapiwi, Corn-Harvest moon.  the moon when the wind shakes off the leaves.
• moon, Autumnal Equinox - Canwapegiwi, the moon in which the leaves become brown
• moon, early spring - Magaksicaagliwi, Moon of Returning Gants.
• moon after Magaksicaagliwi - Wozupiwi, Planting Moon
• moon preceeding Magaksicaagliwi - Istawicayazanwi, Sore Eye Moon.
• moons, winter - winter moons are Waniyetuwi and Wanicokanwi
• New Year - celebrated at En'Kara for most cities, but celebrated at summer solstice for Turia, and at the Season of Snows for the Wagon Peoples.
• Omen Year - actually a season, not a year, which occupies a part of two of the Wagon Peoples regular years.  Once every two hands of years this occurs.  A time of gathering for Wagon Peples.
• pasang - 0.7 miles.  Gorean unit of land measurement.
• Passage Hand - 5 day period.
• Rim - East, , if one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole
• Ror - Northeast, if one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole
• Se-Var - winter month in the northern hemisphere
• Season of Little Grass - Wagon People's measurement of the time of spring.
• Stone - unit of measurement, about 4 Earth pounds.  Both the Stone and the Weight are standardized throughout cities by Merchant Law.  The official "Stone" is actually a solid metal cylinder kept near the Sardar.   At the great fairs the official Stone is brought forth with scales, that merchants may test their own Stone against it.
• Summer Solstice - En'Var-Lar-Torvis or common En'Var (The First Resting)
• Ta-Sardar-Var - North, if one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole
• talu - approximately 2 gallons
• Tef - handful with five fingers closed
• Tefa - 6 tef.  A tiny basket.
• third month - called Camerius in Ko-ro-ba.
• Tun - SouthEast, if one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole
• Vask - sometimes spoken of as Verus Var, or the true turning away.  South, if one considers Ta Sardar like the North Pole
• Vernal Equinox - First day of the month of En'Kara, "The First Kara," more fully (but not used in speech) En'Kara-Lar-Torvis, "The First Turning of the Central Fire"
• Waiting Hand - a 5 day period prior to the vernal equinox
• Winter Solstice - Se-Var-Lar-Torvis or common Se-Var (The Second Resting)
• Week - 5 days.
• Weight - unit of measurement, about 10 Stone
• Year - 12 months.  Between each month is a Passage Hand.   12th passage hand is followed by a Waiting Hand.
• Year (Wagon Peoples) - tend to vary in length due to the chronological conventions.  Their calendar is based on the phases of the largest moon.  A calendar of 15 moons, named for the 15 varieties of bosk.  Functions independently of the tallying of years by snows.  For example, the Moon of the Brown Bosk may at one time occur in the winter, at another time, years later, in the summer.

Tools of Discipline -  back to top

• Control Stick - chain loop on end of control stick about 2" in length.  Loop goes about slave's neck and by means of trigger may be tightened or slightly loosened.  Girl is signaled by the chain.  At the other end of control stick is leather loop.  Goes about right wrist of Master.
• Double Ankle Rings - two-pieced and hinged.  A simple fetter without links that holds the ankles of a slave crossed.
• gratis blow - also known as the mnemonic blow.  Often a stroke "for good measure," one extra to remind the slave they are slave.  Often the most harsh blow.
• Harl Rings - named for the slaver Harl of Turia, who is said to have first used them.  4 parts to this tool.  1) a metal ankle ring. 2) to the back of this ring is welded a closed loop. 3) to the front of this ring is fastened another closed loop with a yard of chain attached. 4) the chain terminates in a locking device, which may be snapped shut through the welded, closed loop on the back of a second ankle ring.  When the chain is linked about an object  such as a tree it is called a "closed Harl loop."
• hook bracelets - leather cuffs with locks on them, and snaps.  They are soft and the snaps, as opposed to the cuffs, require no key.  By means of the snaps a girl may be variously secured by the locked cuffs.  The girl cannot reach the snaps when in the bracelets.
• Kurt - also called a slave lash.  A five strapped/stranded slave whip.  Often used on women.   Punishes terribly but does not mark the victim.  Staff of the whip is about 1.25-1.5" in diameter.
• leash - Gorean leashes come long.  May be used to bind a slave or double as a whipping strap.
• Leg Spreader - used by red savages.  Single-position and the more sophisticated multiple-position.
• rape-rack - different in various villages, but typically of wood and holds the girl in place for rape.
• Sirik - Turian-type collar, light chain is attached.  When girl stands chain falls to the floor.  10-12" longer than required to reach from collar to ankles.  To this chain, at the natural fall of her wrists, is attached a pair of slave bracelets and at other end a set of linked ankle rings.  Can function as chain leash when unattached from bracelets and rings.
• slave hobble - 2 rings, one for wrist, other for ankle, joined by 7 inches of chain.  Right-handed girl locks on right wrist and left ankle.
• slave hoods - combine the advantage of blindfold and gag.  Fit entirely over the head and buckle at the chin about the neck.  Made of leather or canvas.  Some lock.
• slave goad - like a tarn goad.  Has both a switch and dial and intensity or charge.  Can be varied from an infliction which is distinctly unpleasant to one that is instantly lethal.  Emits a shower of yellow sparks when touched to an object.
• slave oval - hinged iron loop locked about waist.  Two wrist rings, on sliding loops, fitted on oval.  Has welded ring on the back, through which a slave bolt may be snapped, fastening slave to wall or object, or through which a chain may be passed.
• slave tube - for force-feeding a slave.  Round, cylindrical, truncated cushion, usually of cork or leather, with a circular hole in the center.  Forced in slave's mouth.  Prevents her from closing her teeth on the tube.  Tube is then introduced through the opening in bite cushion, and run down to her stomach.  Funnel at the mouth-end of the tube.  Some come with plungers, so that semi-solid foods may be forced into the stomach.  Girl usually on knees with hands tied or braceleted behind her.  After, hands left confined for a time so she cannot force herself to vomit.
• slavery of the she-quadruped - commonly used for disciplinary purposes, or amusement.  Slave is not permitted to rise from all fours.  Not permitted human speech.  Not permitted use of hands except as means of locomotion.  Must eat and drink from pans.  Taught tricks, such as begging, lying down, rolling over and fetching things in teeth.  When used sexually it is in this position.
• Snake - single-bladed whip, weighted of braided leather.  8' long and 1/2 - 1" thick.  Sometimes set with tiny particles of metal.  Can lift the skin from a man's back.
• Stock Yoke - pair of hinged planks with matched, semicircular openings in the planks.  Wrists and neck are placed appropriately between the planks and they are closed or tied shut.
• thumbcuffs - many feel less secure than slave bracelets, because they must be tightened more tightly and the girl may injure herself.
• training harness - consists of numerous straps and rings.  useful to help a woman learn how to serve while being denied use of certain limbs, for example the hands.  Commonly worn while naked.
• Turian slave bar - metal bar with collar at each end, and behind collar.  Manacles that fasten prisoner's hands behind neck.

Wagon People  -   back to top

• bosk - said to be Mother of the Wagon Peoples and they revere it as such.  Serious penalty for killing foolishly.  Criminal is strangled in thongs or suffocated in hide of animal he slew.  If one kills a bosk cow with unborn young he is staked out, alive, in path of the herd and the march of Wagon Peoples makes it's way over him.
• calendar - kept by a set of colored pegs set in the sides of some wagons.  On one of which, depending on the moon, a round, wooden plate bearing the image of a bosk is fixed.  Years are not numbered by the Wagon Peoples, but given names toward their end, based on something which has occurred to distinguish the year.
• castes - they do not have castes.  They have clans which specialize in matters.
• clans - camp singers, healers, leather workers, salt hunters, torturers, and so on.  The primary function, however, is to tend and protect the bosk.  All are expected to be superb in the saddle, skilled with weapons of both the hunt and war.
• courage scar - without it one may not pay court to a free woman, own a wagon, or own more than 5 bosk and 3 kaiila among the Tuchuks.
• culture - not agricultural, nor manufacturing.  Herders and killers.  They eat nothing that has touched the dirt.  They live on the meat and milk of the bosk.
• divination - they are fascinated with the future and signs, though to hear them speak they put no store in such matters.  Reality is they give them great consideration.
• eating bosk meat, Tuchuk fashion - hold meat in the left hand and between teeth, then cut pieces from it 1/4" from the lips with a quiva.  Chew severed bite.
• free woman clothing - not permitted to wear silk.
• Kaiila Wars - southern hemisphere fought among factions of the Wagon Peoples.
• Kassars - The Blood People, red shield.  Their standard is a scarlet, three-weighted bola which hangs from a lance
• Kataii - their standard is a yellow shield bound across a black lance.
• naming - youth are taught the bow, quiva, and lance before parents consent to give a name.  Until then, child is known as first, second, son of such and such a father.
• nose rings - worn by even Free Women of the Wagon People
• Omen, First - the Omen to see if the Omens are propitious to take the omens.
• Omen Year - lasts several months.  Consists of three phases:   1)  Passing of Turia (takes place in autumn), 2) Wintering (takes place north of Turia and commonly south of the Cartius), 3) Return to Turia (in the spring).   Near Turia in the spring the Omen Year is completed.  This is when omens are taken.  Over several days, hundreds of haruspexes, mostly readers of bosk blood and verr livers, determine if the omens are favorable for choosing a Ubar San, a One Ubar, a Ubar who would be High Ubar.  This is a Uber who leads the Wagon Peoples as One People.
• Or - a Ten.  Each able bodied  man is a member of a Ten.
• Oralu - a Thousand.  Each Hundred is a member of a Thousand.
• Orlu - a Hundred.  Each Ten is a member of a Hundred.
• Paravaci - Rich People, the richest of the wagon dwellers.  Their standard is a large banner of jewels beaded on golden wires, forming the head and horns of a bosk; its value is incalculable.
• scar code - for each mark on the face there is meaning.  Red is a Courage Scar.  It is always highest on the face.  Without it no other scar may be granted.  Order from top to bottom:  Red, yellow, blue, black, 2 yellow, black.
• slave clothing - curla, chatka, kalmak and koora.
• slave hair - not permitted to braid, or otherwise dress their hair.   Must be worn loose except for the koora.
• swimming - few Tuchuks swim.
• trading - will not trade two items with Turia.  1) a living bosk, 2) a girl from Turia.
• Tribes - 4 Wagon People Tribes:  Paravaci, Kataii, Kassars, Tuchuks
• Tuchuk females - all have their noses pierced with rings.  Free and slave alike.
• Tuchuk free women - unveiled, long leather dresses, long hair bound in braids.  Unscarred, wearing nose ring in gold.
• verbal heritage  - they do not trust important matters, such as year names, to paper.  Few can read.  They have a large and complex oral literature.  Kept by, and occasionally, in parts, recited by the Camp Singers.
• wagons - almost square, size of a large room, drawn by a double team of bosk, 4 in a team.  Wagon tongue and two axles are of tem-wood.  Wagon box stands about 6' from ground, formed of black, lacquered planks of tem-wood.  Inside box is fixed a rounded, tentlike frame, covered with the taut, painted, varnished hides of bosks.  Hides are richly covered and often fantastic designs.  Rounded frame is fitted somewhat within the wagon box so that a walkway surrounds frame.  Sides of wagon box are perforated for arrow ports.  The wheels are huge.  Back wheel diameter 10'.  Front slightly smaller.  Thick strips of boskhide form wheel rims, replaced 3-4 times a year.  Guided by a series of 8 straps, 2 each for the 4 lead animals.  Interiors are lush.  In the center of the wagon is a small, shallow fire bowl formed of copper with raised brass grating.  Mostly for heat.   Smoke escapes by smoke hole, which is shut when wagon is moving.
• Year Keepers - the year names are kept in living memory by this group, some of whom can recall the names of several thousand consecutive years.

Weapons  -   back to top

• armor - forbidden by the Priest-Kings
• arrows
• ax
• bola - 3 long straps of leather, each 5 feet long, terminating in a leather sack which contains, sewn inside, a heavy round metal weight.
• bow of the Tuchuks - small, double-curved, about 4' in length.  Built up of layers of bosk horn, bound and reinforced with metal and leather.  Banded with metal at seven points, including the grip.  Metal obtained in Turia in 1/2" rolled strips.  Leather applied diagonally in 2" strips, except that horizontally it covers the entire grip.  Bow lacks range but at close range, firing rapidly, can be devastating.
• bow string - made of hemp
• bosk whip - single-bladed, 8-10 feet long.
• canhpi - long-handled, stone-bladed tomahawk
• catapult
• crossbow - assassin's weapon of choice.  Primarily an infantry weapon.  Considerable striking power, kept ready to fire almost indefinitely, and easier to fire with accuracy from saddle than straight bow.  At short ranges, penetrates most hide shields.  Disadvantage is slowness of fire.
• crossbow, cavalry - iron stirrup in which rider may, without dismounting, insert his foot, thus gaining leverage necessary for drawing cable back with both hands.
• fire bomb - oil soaked rags, thrust into oil-filled clay vessels.
• fire-maker - like a lighter.  Standard flint and wheel device, with tiny wick and reservoir.  Cartridges of oil-saturated tinder moss.  The sulfur match is not found on Gor, as the chemistry for such is forbidden.
• flight arrow - 40 inches in length.  Both it, and the sheaf arrow, are metal piled and fletched with three half-feathers, from wings of gulls
• Frame of Humiliation - is the custom before a frame is surrendered to the waters of the Vosk, every man spits on victim's body. Bound helplessly, without food or water, victim's own body tortures by its weight dragging on the hand and ankle ropes, suspended a few inches above the roiling, muddy surface under the sun.  One of the water lizards of the Vosk or one of the great hook-beaked turtles of the river can seize body and drag it and the frame under the water, destroying victim in the mud below. Also the chance that a wild tarn might swoop down and feed on the helpless living morsel fastened to frame. The wretches on the frames are none but villains, betrayers, and blasphemers against the Priest-Kings, and it is a sacrilegious act even to consider terminating the sufferings.
• francisca - single-bladed Alar war ax.
• gladius - Alar word for a shorter sword than a spatha.
• Gorean blade - with belt and scabbard
• grapnel, derrick - used from walls, dangled down, and then drawn up with a winch.  It can capsize a ship, or topple a siege tower.
• grapnel, giant chain - hurled by an engine, and then reversed, drawn back with great force.  Can rip away crests of walls, tear off roofs, etc.
• great staff - 6' long, 2" wide, common peasant weapon.
• gunni - training devices, curved weights of lead, several pounds with handles cushioned with cloth.  They strengthen muscles of the shoulders, back, and arms.  When removed, it seems like the hands can move very fast. Concave surfaces face the user and handles are recessed into these surfaces.  The outer surfaces, or striking surfaces, are shallowly rounded, slightly convex.  Gunni are similar in weight to heads of sledge hammers.  They are punched against a training beam.
• harrow - a large, rake-like agricultural instrument.  Also a formation of warfare, named for same.  Introduced to positional warfare by Dietrich of Tarnburg.  Spikes of archers, protected by iron-shod stakes and sleen pits, project beyond the forward lines of the heavily armed warriors and their reserves.
• javelin
• Kaiila lance - designed to be used from kaiilaback.   Has 2 forms.  Hunting lance (longer, heavier, thicker) and war lances.  
• lance - Wagon People's lances are made from tem wood.
• longbow - tipped with notched bosk horn at each end.  Height of a tall man.  Back, the part away from the bowman is flat.  Belly, the part facing the bowman, is half rounded.  1.5 inches wide and 1.25 inches thick at center.   Made of Ka-la-na wood.  Nine arrows can be fired aloft before the first falls to ground.  Rate of fire is 19 arrows an Ehn.  Outlawed in the tributary villages of Fortress of Saphronicers.
• machete
• mobile siege equipment - first utilized in Gorean field warfare at Rovere by Dietrich of Tarnburg.
• needle - made of bone.  slaves are permitted to use.
• panga - 2 foot long heavy curve-bladed bush knife
• peasant hoe - a tool.  Staff of 6', head is iron and heavy, 6" at cutting edge, tapering to 4" where it joins the staff.  Fastened to staff by staff's fitting through a hollow, ringlike socket at its termination.  Wedge is driven into the head of staff to expand and tighten wood in socket.
• quiva - balanced saddle knives of the prairie
• saber - not used widely on Gor, the scimitar of the Tahari is an exception.
• scabbard - most Gorean are not moisture-proof
• scaramasax - Alar word for a short stabbing sword.
• scimitar - The Kavar scimitar points away from the body, others point towards the body.
• sheaf arrow - slightly over a yard long
• shields - concentric overlapping layers of hardened leather, riveted together and bound with hoops of brass, fitted with the double sling for carrying on the left arm
• short sword - carried with shoulder belt and sheath.  Double edged, 20-22 inches
• single bladed axe
• small bow - greater maneuverability and capacity to be concealed.
• smoke bomb
• spatha - Alar word for a sword that is a long, cutting sword.
• spear - typically 7 feet in height, heavy, stout, with a tapering bronze head which is 18 inches in length
• strigil - for bathing.  Usually made of metal and almost always narrow, spatulate form.  Scrapes away oils, dirt, water and cleans pores.
• trident - traditional weapon of fishermen of the western shore and the western islands
• turf knife - wooden bladed, saw-edged, paddlelike tool.  Used to cut and saw sod and when handle is held in right hand and blade supported with the left hand, it may be used rather like a shove.
• whip knife - delicate weapon and is unique to Port Kar.  It is a whip, but set into its final 18", arranged in sets of four, are 20 thin, narrow blades.  The tips of whip knives differ.  Some have double-edged blades of 7-8" at the tip.  Others have a stunning lead, which fells the victim and permits him, half-conscious, to be cut to pieces at the attacker's leisure.
• white cloth - signals truce

since June 23, 2000
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