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
• tr