We first learn about the various ways that gomes communicate with each other in Blackhope Scar. We have examples from Bluebeard’s little black book and from the cave writing near Invertoshan that gomes like to communicate by writing things down. They use symbols as a shorthand to communicate some things but can also use human letters if they need to. Some gomes use a lunar calendar and so they count time by how many full moons have gone past in a year. We don’t yet know how they keep track of years or whether they even care to do so.
Here are some examples of Gome Writing that were found recently in a cave on the coast of Wigtownshire. Experts at the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow are not in full agreement about what this document is, or what all of the symbols mean. Sir Hector McGlumshie believes that this may be a page ripped from one of Bluebeard’s note books. Lord Ponsenby Smallpiece, disputes this, however, since he believes that one of the symbols is the personal gome symbol for Bluebeard himself and would not therefore be something that Bluebeard would need to write down in his own note book.
Gome symbols are often written together in combination to tell stories or record events. Both McGlumshie and Smallpiece agree that there are three such stories on the document found recently in Wigtownshire:
- On the fourth new moon of the year of the fork and horseshoe a successful shipwreck was carried out with fire and death and three boxes of treasure.
- A church was burned to the ground with five humans killed.
- On the eighth three-quarter moon of the year Bluebeard was awarded five units of treasure.
See if you can find those and other gome symbols on the manuscript.
We learn more about gome symbols in Twilight Cave. Gomes use symbols to represent important people and places within the gome world. The Barcelundan “B” is recognized throughout Europe. Barrels of apisinthe made in the distilleries of Barcelunda will have the Barcelundan “B” marked on them. Humans invited into gome society are branded with the same “B.” Throughout the city gateways and doors are marked to show the level (by the number of dots inside the “B”) and the location (by marking the compass bearing on the outside of the “B”). Here are some other gome symbols that we have encountered in the Twilight Cave story. There are several mysterious symbols on the Justice Wall, including the one that accompanies the Latin phrase, Lux Celeris Caeli which roughly translates as “Swift Light of the Heavens.” There is a symbol for the Petramax, for Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome, Bluebeard, and one for Desperandum. The meaning of this symbol for Desperandum has been argued by scholars for decades. What do the stars at either end of the “D” mean? Does the triangular shape beneath the “D” represent a mountain top, or does it indicate that Desperandum think of himself as being above (and therefore better than) everyone else? Or does it represent the power of acid spilling out of his body.Some famous gomes, like Wullie, Bluebeard, and Desperandum even have their own symbols:
In the fourth Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome story, Shadow Canyon, we see complex gome symbols that form the “Angry Eye of Ometepe:”
