u/ChroniclesOfAzazel

It's been about 15 years since I read it, so details are vague, but lacking the name has irked me.

I read a small paperback, relatively battered, between 2004-2009 from the library, so I can assume it was printed a while before that.

It was a fantasy book, I'm fairly sure classed as YA. It covered a few kids (5 of them? Teenagers?) all of whom had powers. These powers came from their parents, and I remember there being four distinct "pantheons" of sorts (maybe "families"). All of them magical, and I believe one of the pantheons was known as the "Athenians".

Distinctly remember two of the magical kids arguing that they had the same types of magical abilities. Yet the boy was arguing that they do not - their families have different magics. His point was that one of the girls could transmutate something just by wishing it, whereas he had to know some bits of chemistry, to get it to transmutate.

For some reason that conversation between magic-users / children of gods / whatever, arguing that some magic is instinctive and others need to know details really stuck in my head.

I couldn't tell you anything else about the book at this point, but it has lived with me for years as a point of frustration that I can't even remember the name, let alone whether it was good or not!

Halò a h-uile duine!

For anyone in the know, Warhammer 40k and its various stories draw on a lot of real world themes. Not least of which is the Aeldar (or Eldar) using a heavy amount of Scottish Gaelic and Irish in its names, characters, and language.

I am in the process of putting together a (hopefully cohesive) list of them all in one place and in one video, but I've faced some problems. That being - the writers never knew Gaelic, they just grabbed words and smushed them together as befit their whims. So, I've been spending an age with dictionaries, a great deal of liberties and guesswork with phonetics, and not a small amount of luck.

Example 1:

Margorach are Harlequin Death Jesters. The words put together from what I assume was "marbh" for dead, and "gòrach" for fools (or in their case, jesters!)

Example 2:

The Eldar describe the webway (the interdimensional lattice of passageways through the warp that they use for travel) as Uigebealach. I assume from "Uige" from Irish meaning "fabric" and "Bealach" from Scottish Gaelic for a "pass". So I assume the author wanted something like "woven path" and then went crazy with the translation options.

So on and so forth. But there are five things that I suspect may have their roots in Gaelic, but I am still an absolute novice with the language (although admittedly this project has expanded my vocabulary somewhat.) I wanted to ask if anyone here recognised parts of these words along with their accompanying descriptions if the mods allow this? They may not be related to Gaidhlig at all, but they make me suspicious.

1: Blei-deòradi - Supposedly "oath breaker" but I can't find any connection

2: Dhamashir - Supposed to be "soul". Is there a synonym for "anam"?

3: Dresil’ach - Describes a "Forgotten ruin". Alas I am clueless whether this is from Gaelic or not.

4: Anhrathe - Outcasts. Rangers. Stealthy warriors that have either chosen the life of freedom, or done terrible deeds and are now exiled. Can't find any synonym root words anywhere close to this.

5: Guair Dromlaith - A term for the Maelstrom, a massive warp storm. I assume that "Dromlaith" is from "trom-laighe" meaning Nightmare, but I can't make heads nor tails out of "guair" unless it's using "gu" as in towards something...?

There are plenty, plenty more that I've puzzled out myself, but these five words are niggling at me that they may have a connection to Scottish Gaelic, but I can't find the key. If anyone can help I'd be incredibly grateful. And if they're not Scottish Gaelic - then I guess I've already finished the full list!

Tapadh leibh uile! And if the mods deem this as a translation post I apologise!

Made a brief video on the Iron Cage with Sandman of Terra - but it's made me more excited than ever for Perturabo's return and the future novels that we'll be getting.

For the most part, I've not been a Fists' fella, nor a Iron Warriors guy. You guys had your feuding and it was all pretty funny. HOWEVER I did a 30 minute video on the Iron Cage, thinking it would be a tragic, grimdark tale of Dorn and the Imperial Fists....

And yet I think I unwittingly converted myself to loving Perturabo? The angry, pitiless brilliance that he is. And now I can't wait to watch his return with the Infinite Citadel, plus any other Scouring flashbacks we'll get.

So yeah - started the video feeling sorry for Dorn, finished it loving Perturabo. I'm not starting an IW army though. Purely because my painting skills could never do hazard stripes...