Regency Era Shapeshifters: A Lexicon

How did no one think to do this in the books?!?!

Sooooo I’m working away on two new series, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t done this in The Shapeshifters of the Beau Monde. In my defense, no one else who laid eyeballs on it had thought to do so either.

‘This’ is a lexicon of the versipellian terms that pepper the narratives.

So a thing to know about me is that while I appreciate the hard work and talents that go into maps that may appear in the front matter of a novel, or family trees, I skip them.

I cannot be bothered. Sorry, hard working, talented people! Zip, zip, there I go, straight into the narrative.

It did not cross my mind that readers may have liked a reference for the Latin my Shapeshifters books.

Better late than never! And mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.*

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Forthwith, a lexicon of terms concerning the titles, characteristics and procedures of Regency Era Shapeshifters.

Versipelli: Two skins; Shapeshifter

Homo plenus : full human

Animali purii: beasts, fish and fowl that are not Shapeshifters

Dominatum: the power of the Alpha of a pack or clowder or flock to control the members of the clan or to protect them; called upon in a challenge between Alphas 

Sentio: the heart-based connection that connects a pack or clowder or flock to its Alpha, and allows the Alpha to send and receive love and wellbeing

Vera amoris: ‘true love’, true mate, the fated mate of a pair, no matter their gender or whether they are versipelles or homo plenum

Alpha: the head of the clan

Beta, or Second: the second in command, mostly concerned with administration of the pack’s needs

Gamma, or Third: works as the go-between the body of the clan and the hierarchy

Omega: responsible for the spiritual wellbeing of the clan; often manages the emotional temperature of the pack when strong emotions threaten it; sense changes and/or problems before they start

Cognominatio: in which one of the fated pair names the other as their vera amoris before their family and clan

Disputatione: invoked by a clan member who disputes the mating of two of its members

Repudiatio: in which a member of repudiates the will of another member of the pack, often when that member is up to no good 

Cursio: The opportunity for all in a pack to run together in their Shapes

Concilium: a meeting

Expulsio: ejection from the pack or clowder or flock

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*’Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault‘. Bit extra, even for me.