Horcruxes and voldemorts

In past posts I lamented how archaic words like lich and phylactery have had their previously versatile meanings changed and shrunk by the vagaries of Gygax and his imitators. This means that I can no longer use them in their original meanings without confusing people who grew up on a diet of iterative fantasy. Not that it will actually stop me from using those words in their original capacities, as other authors have done before me, but it is annoying that my readers won't understand my meaning.

I recently discovered that voldemort is now a word. It derives from French vol de mort, meaning (roughly) "flight/theft of/from death." According to French speakers, this is grammatically sound but more appropriate for the technical speech of a police report (e.g. "theft of corpse"). A less stilted phrase would be Le Vol de la Mort, meaning either "the theft of death" or "the flight of death." Flight as in the flight of a bird or plane, not fleeing.

I would like to thank J.K. Rowling for coining this word. Prior to this, the fantasy genre didn't actually have a word for an evil wizard who cheats death. The word lich was used for this purpose due to Gygax's popularization, but as I have said before I consider that usage to be clunky and parochial. The benefit of voldemort is that its literal meaning relates to cheating death, and it's a well known fantasy word in the popular imagination.

The same goes for horcrux, also coined by Rowling. I've seen it used in NOS4A2 to refer to objects created to contain souls other than those of evil wizards, so its meaning is thankfully versatile. Prior to this, we only had phrases like "soul jar" and "zombie bottle" that weren't well known in the popular imagination.

These new words, voldemort and horcrux, are versatile. They can refer to Koschei and his hidden heart, Sauron and his cursed ring, Voldemort and his horcruxes, Arthas and his vampiric runeblade, etc. I should like to use them in my own writings from now on.

There are two types of zombies in folklore

During my research into zombies and zombie folklore (research links provided below), I discovered that there are actually two types of zombies in folklore. The process for creating a zombie splits the body and soul into two linked entities, the zombie cadaver and the zombie astral. The zombie cadaver is the stereotypical zombie slave, whereas the zombie astral is the captured soul of the zombie. It is kept in a vessel called a "zombie bottle," which will release the zombie astral if broken. The zombie astral may be compelled to perform tasks for the bokor who captured it. The zombie bottle may also be sold as a good luck charm.

The more you know!

Cacoastrum, cagaster, iliaster, iliastrum, et al

While reading Mongoose's Infernum, I came across mention of "iliaster." One google search led to another, and I found myself referring to Paracelsus, Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell, Carl Jung, and so on. The search results have been screwed up by extraneous anime garbage, but I managed to find the origin and etymology of these words.

Iliaster and cagaster, also known as iliastrum and cacoastrum and other permutations, (the former sometimes spelled with a "y" at the start) are neologisms from the work of medieval alchemist Paracelsus. I've been completely unable to determine what they actually represent in his works due to a lack of reference material (fuck you internet), but I have been able to determine their etymology.

Iliaster, iliastrum, yliaster, or yliastrum et al comes from Latin hȳlē ("fundamental matter") + -aster/-astrum ("incomplete resemblance") or astēr/astrum ("star"). Possibly a play on the resemblance between the latter. Therefore, it means something like "matter of the stars" and/or "matter-like." Wikipedia calls it a synonym for prima materia.

Cacoastrum, cagaster, or cagastrum et al comes from Greek-derived caco- ("bad") and/or Latin cacō ("to defecate") and the same suffix as above. Again, possibly a play on the resemblance between the two. Therefore, it means something like "an ill star" and/or "shit of the stars." The former sense was used as a term in medicine relating to germ theory.

Fiction goes in completely different directions:

• Infernum used iliaster as the name for the power source used by demons and angels, which was only produced by God and human souls.
• To Reign in Hell used cacoastrum as the name for the substance of raw chaos and iliaster for the stuff of order.

I did consider using the neologisms in my own worldbuilding, but it's been so long that I don't even remember my original ideas. Oh well.