The Count of Years is the in-universe sacred text of the Cuzeians, one of the first monotheistic cultures on Mark Rosenfelder’s Constructed World called Almea. It tells the story of Almean history from creation to the founding of Cuzei and the development of writing, as well as tantalizing hints of an advanced prehistoric civilization that was utterly destroyed by its own hubris.
It may be read here
, with further commentary from the author so that we earthlings can understand the context.
Provides examples of:
- Constructed World: Takes place entirely on Almea, which, like Tolkien and Arda, was made so Rosenfelder’s constructed languages had a world and cultures to be in.
- Direct Line to the Author: Like everything else in his Almea project, Mark Rosenfelder always writes about it from the perspective of an anthropologist studying that world, as if Almea were real, meaning that the readers only have access to what the Almeans themselves know. He also wrote a “commentary” to accompany the text where he justifies his “translation” choices, noting that the English version is not identical to the texts the native Almeans would be reading.
- Evil Counterpart: A recurrent theme is Amnās creating an Always Chaotic Evil race out of spite whenever Iáinos creates a good race. In order, as follows:
- The first physical race of beings created by Iáinos are the Giants, and in response Amnās secretly makes the Ogres. Interestingly, despite the former being innocent and unaware of evil, and the latter being made to be evil, they seem to be otherwise identical, with both being gigantic mountain-like creatures immune to human-sized weapons and who cannot reproduce, but live forever unless killed. Mavordaguendu the first Giant even asks Bōexurgo the first Ogre why they must be enemies.
- After the Ogres are killed off (in the war that Amnās started) and the Giants are reduced to a handful of survivors, Iáinos has the surviving Giants help him make the ilii, who are semi-aquatic humanoids about the size of dolphins that are the first intelligent race that can reproduce by themselves like animals. Once Amnās finds out, he makes the ktuvoks, who are also a race of semi-aquatic humanoids larger than men, but who know no love and are entirely evil. Unlike the Ogres who were smart enough to realize that Being Evil Sucks, the ktuvoks enjoy their villainy, and are otherwise rather dim.
- Later, the elcari are created to dwell in the mountains and practice smithing. Amnās steals some of their children away and raises them to be evil. These are called the múrtani.
- Humans, or rather, uesti, don’t have an evil counterpart, because Amnās eventually corrupts them by tricking them into warring against the ilii on the side of the ktuvoks, an act that makes all human beings capable of sin from that point forward.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The ktuvoks are the way they are because their creators Amnās and Soxāeco have no understanding of love or community.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Amnās starts out as a minor spirit among many, too insignificant to even have his role mentioned before his sin, but eventually refines evil to a degree that its creator could never envision, causing more harm and suffering than any other being and becoming worse than the creator of evil, and in fact is the Arch-Enemy of all life.
- Leaking Can of Evil: Even after Amnās is defeated and trapped in the center of Almea with Ecaîas, Iáinos laments that evil is still not vanquished, because of the malice of Amnās and his corruption of physical beings.
- Legend Fades to Myth: In-universe, the wars between the ilii and ktuvoks, and the futuristic society in which they and humans lived, really happened, but since the War of Chaos thrust humanity back to the Stone Age they don’t know what truly happened, only exaggerated and theologized myths about what happened.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: The Ogres do evil because they were created by the evil Amnās and Soxāeco, but their hearts don’t seem to be in it. Their leader Bōexurgo has to have it explained to him why to make war on the Giants, and he seems subconsciously to try not to go through with it. However, because they are loyal to their creators, they still follow the orders without fail.
- Mythopoeia: Is the Creation Myth of a fictional culture.
- Precursors: The ilii already fit this role, but this story gives them precursors of their own in the form of the Giants, beings with flesh as hard as stone who cannot reproduce. The Giants are themselves preceded by the First Spirits, but those are basically angels and don’t count.
- Prequel in the Lost Age: The first seven chapters take place before and during the iliu-ktuvok wars, a legendary conflict that the writer has consistently remained coy about the true details, but which is implied to have had a technologically advanced, world-spanning civilization that was totally destroyed in the last war, with every race but the ilii falling back to the Stone Age and forgetting all their knowledge and history, not developing civilization again for anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 years.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Ecaîas is punished for introducing evil and needless suffering to Almea by being imprisoned in the center of the planet until he repents, thus serving as a "Just So" Story for earthquakes and volcanoes, since his wrath can reach the surface. Twice, his successor Amnās tries to break him out, but fails both times and is imprisoned with him after the second attempt.
- Strangely downplayed in the commentary, which notes that Cuzeians don’t consider Ecaîas to have been so far gone as to be incapable of repentance (instead viewing his creation of evil as caused by ignorance of what it entails) and thus hold that he will eventually be freed and forgiven, if that hasn’t already happened yet.
- Space Elves: The ilii are already this trope in Almea proper, but it is exaggerated here, with them being explicitly stated to be without sin, yet are physical creatures unlike angels.
- Spoiled Brat: Amnās’s first punishment is rather mild, the equivalent of a child told to go to their room and think about what they’ve done, but Amnās resents this so much that all his later evil acts are lashing out at his creator for the first punishment. Had he any maturity, he’d have learned his lesson, but he only gets worse with time, unfortunately for the mortals.
- The Stool Pigeon: Amnās starts out like this, tattling on Ecaîas like a trickster figure, but since he thought Ecaîas did nothing wrong and was stronger than Iáinos, he too gets punished. Unfortunately for the world, he doesn’t take this well.
- Unreliable Narrator: The true events are Shrouded in Myth, so though there are hints of what the earlier civilization was like, the truth is drowned out by legend, theology, and lack of understanding high technology.
- War Is Glorious: Deconstructed in the series of events leading up to the War of Corruption. Up to now, humans have only fought wars against the metaphysical forces of evil, and as such have come to see it as a virtuous task that glorifies God. As such, when one of their leaders is unknowingly corrupted by Amnās and recommends they go to war against the ilii, their own mentors, to make a name for themselves, the other kings of men have no answer to his argument, and all but one join him, causing the fall of man. This is the out of universe analysis. In-universe, it’s likely that the Cuzeians retrojected their own martial values into the mythic past.
- Would Hurt a Child: The ktuvoks cement their own evil by kidnapping an iliu girl named Nexi, killing her with their bare hands, and eating her, an act so horrifying that the ilii at first are convinced the ktuvoks are nonsapient animals before learning They Can Think. The ktuvoks refuse to make things right, and this event leads to millennia of intermittent war.
