More of D'oril's inner workings

Working on Imperfect Hope has required me to look at the motivations of the antagonists with a critical eye. One way I'd done that was to detail the what/why/how/when/where of the plan. In IH's case, I needed to know why the empire was changing their tactics, in the earlier era (Sha'te Valley and IFGS times) they were driving straight at their foe in order to obtain...
The what. I hadn't detailed the reason for the Empire's aggression in Sha'te very well, I'd sufficed it to say that they wanted something in the south, and the K'tath were in the way. For writing, though, I"ve come up with a bit of a deeper reason. Wintergems... Once common in the empires lands, they were used and abused in creating control collars for dragons and demons (among other shadowy uses. The proble being, that using them in that way kills the Heart-Pine from which wintergems come. With their own supply all but gone, they found a new source, within the forests of D'oril.

In other words, the empire's aggression is a war for oil. Sort of. Anyway, one way I developed this plot line was to write the empire's history. Here's a blurb from the rough history of the empire of tallux.....

(Excerpts from History of Tallux, 2nd to 3rd empires, Gurn and Prable dynasties)

.....The series of military catastrophes that began with the debacle at the Battle of Five Passes (called Sha’te Valley by those of the eastern continent) weakened the last of the Gurn emperors. Gurn the XIVth had long relied on the competence of his generals, and following the assassinations and betrayals of his best commanders sent to conquer the wilds of D’oril while bolstering their ally, the Dar theocracy, he assumed direct command of the campaign. This proved to be his undoing, for Gurn’s control over the Demonguard, and specifically their commander Beauty became tenuous at best. The shadowgems that allowed his domination of the demonguard from afar lost their potency, and eventually failed entirely. As we later determined, Beauty eventually slipped his masters leash, dooming any further military progress in the D’oril region. All military units were ordered to return as best they could. This retreat, as well as the failure of the demonguard to maintain an actionable rearguard allowed the assassins of the northern alliance the time they needed to slip into the empire’s heart. Many of emperor Gurn’s most trusted advisors then fell to the assassins, and the replacements he chose were at best unreliable. When Beauty himself returned to the homeland with the remnants of what he now considered his own army, the changeling allied himself with the traitor Jun. The ensuing civil war lasted only 11 months, but exacerbated by the relentless attack on the empires leadership by the k’tath assassins and their allies, the fall of the Gurn dynasty became inevitable. Though the rebellion was crushed, it was nearly 30 years before an effective emperor emerged from the crowd of pretenders to take the reins of the empire of Tallux.....

.....Prable the First was vastly different from the dozen false emperors that preceded him during the time of chaos, and nearly the opposite of Gurn the 14th. He’d been educated in the temples of Seta, and throughout his long reign, he relied upon them almost exclusively for advice. It has been said that he was the first (and perhaps the only) emperor who essentially was advised directly by the demi-god himself, for he always chose the high priest of the temple as his closest advisor.

Prable’s first tasks, of course, involved pacifying the outlying regions on the western continent that remained in rebellion. The campaigns showed his prowess, both as a military strategist, ruthless foe, and diplomat. Many of the rebellious lands returned to the empire voluntarily, often following the untimely death of several of the more prominent leaders who had espoused their tentative independence. The success of his navy in suppressing the coastal raiders that sprang up during the chaos times marked the end of the rebellion, but before he could turn his attention outward, he fell ill, and died shortly thereafter.

His eldest son, Zuli (known as Prable the second) also relied heavily on the divine advice of the priests of Seta, but his adaptation of that advice was often flawed. In his early bid to gain access to the wintergems of D’oril, he plotted the course of both naval, clandestine, and diplomatic campaigns. These moves were designed to gain a foothold along the shores of the northwestern shores of the confederacy that had arisen from the loose conglomeration of merchant princes and Baronrys in the interior of the eastern continent. Zuli hoped to avoid the costly war against the k’tath that brought the fall of the Gurn dynasty by employing some complicated subterfuge within the fledgling confederacy in order to gain control of one of several ports along the rugged coast. Any one of these ports would have given Tallux a much more direct route to the forests of D’oril where the wintergems were found. However, circumstances spun wildly out of his control early in the campaign, and it became clear that Zuli’s prowess in both strategy and diplomacy would never matched his father.....

The workings of D'oril, pt 1

So I’ve bloviated on magic and healing over the last week or so, explaining in a small way how things work. There’s a lot more involved, of course, especially the ‘color’ involved in how healing works (Randir’s healing style, for example, is more than just ‘laying on the hands’) but I’ll go into that at a later date. Art recently reminded me/asked a question about ‘cha, cha’kel, and indirectly, il’cha status. So, here goes...

Back in the ifgs days, when Brandis’ character depth was fairly limited, I tossed out the stereotype statement “Elf Friend” and applied it to a couple of characters who were either close friends of his, or could be considered such in their involvement with the k’tath in the d’oril games. Early on, I was pretty vague about the differences between “elf” and K’tath, and in a spur of the moment, pirated ‘elf friend’ straight from tolkeinish literature.

Later, as I began developing my own background and depth, the K’tath became more distinct from “elf” in many ways. At first, it was cultural, I borrowed somewhat from CJ Cherryh and her Kesrith/Kutath/Shonjir (Faded Sun) series of sci/fi, specifically the three castes of the Mri culture. Though I kept the words at first, as I developed more and more depth, I diverged the cultural divisions very differently from the Faded Sun trilogy and Mri. The last remnant of that appeared briefly in Sha’te Valley, where I had the kath (now called krath) veiled in the manner of the Mri. However, the desert-born mri costuming has no similarity to the taiga residing K’tath, so I’ve dropped even that last similarity. Now, the K’tath are mine fully...

From there, I began altering most other elements, trying to create a unique character. When I came to “elf friend”, I wanted to keep the concept, that there would be a very few human and other-raced individuals who the k’tath would accept as close allies and friends, but I wanted it to have a deeper meaning. In addition, I began to see the kel groups as a core of the success of the k’tath in war, because of their incredible teamwork within a fighting unit, unparalleled in humanish culture. Thus Kel brothers and sisters, originally merely a convenient grouping and naming convention, became an almost psychically bonded group of warriors. But even within that group, there would be even tighter bonds. Thus, Cha’kel, a pair of compatible kel warriors, usually of opposite sex, who formed a synergetic, empathic bond between them that enhanced their, and the kel’s abilities.

I later used ‘cha, appended to a name, in the ifgs when Brandis first referred to Cerredwyn (A human amazon character) as Cerredwyn’cha after Shatterman Pass. In that game, then two of them had lived (and essentially died) through a series of emotionally traumatic events. Cerredwyn and Brandis had been taken unconscious by some Jepali tribesmen, and then used as hostages in an attempt to get the commander of the pass fortress to open the gates. They were healed to bare consciousness by the jepali and displayed in front of the gate of the fortress, but the jepali made the mistake of letting the two of them see each other, With unspoken understanding (mirroring the empathic link of cha’kel) of the situation, they both thrust their throats against the knives held against them, in an effort to remove the ‘live hostage’ leverage that the jepali held against the fortress defenders. (Never mind that the defenders then sallied from the gates to recover Brandis’ and Cerredwyn’s dying bodies). I chose to apply ‘cha after the momentous/miraculous healing that they received afterwards, (and as fate/ifgs would have it, the two characters spent the next two years surviving a series of dark no-co minigames, thus cementing the ‘cha name in their character histories.)

When I began transitioning from IFGS mind set to author mindset, I worked on reconciling the differences in these and many other areas. Cha’kel held a different meaning than Cerredwyn’cha, or Brandis’cha, Elf friend was implied, but unnamed. And I still needed another level of bond. Elf friend would remain un-renamed for now, but for the new level, I created Il’cha. Il’cha was something much deeper, stronger than Cha’kel, or (name)’cha, and I added a level of tragedy to it, in essence it was a spiritual bond that, at least as far as the kel were concerned, sometimes went too far. Two ‘lovers’ or partners, too deeply involved with each other, such that in the fatalistic K’tath Kel world, sooner or later, one of them would die, and the other would suffer greatly as a result, disrupting the harmony of the kel group. Il’cha bond pairs thus became stuff of kel tragic legend, something admired, and feared at the same time.

Needless to say, this complexity, though clear within my own notes, isn’t easy to immediately explain in writing. In Imperfect Hope, Cerryn and Randir have progressed to ‘cha status, but because the tale begins well after the characters had first met, I’ve little chance to “show” rather than tell. If I do a prequel (which is looking like a good idea anyway), I can do just that, but if IH is to stand alone, ‘cha, Il’cha, and cha’kel (plus ‘elf friend’) will have to be explained, or shown in some manner. It’s something to work on.....

At any rate... Looking into the bitty details of what I'm writing about has helped strengthen the continuity of what I've written, and I"m planning to do a lot more. For one, there's the whole history between the K'tath and the Empire of D'oril Why is the empire so insistant on fighting them... More to come...

TTFN,
Jim

More stuff

One aspect of the tale I’m working on, (and probably most of the stories I write) involves magic. Since magic can be whatever you want, there is a tendency for many authors to just “whip that rabbit out of the hat” when it’s needed. Bad technique. I’ve put a lot of thought into how magic works in D’oril. At first, I just sort of appended the IFGS system, without much consideration as to how it would fit. In truth, it’s a handy template, a familiar starting point. I’m not a big fan of “character classes” in fiction though, it reeks of writing about role playing games.

So classes, per se, are the first thing to go out the window. Instead, the main characters have some things they’re really good at (Cerryn and the 5 forms of sword dance she’s mastered), and some things they’re not at all able to do. (Cerryn and defensive magic) Not unlike real life, (me and keeping planes from meeting unexpectedly, probably a form of defensive magic, or me and getting a clue in social situations)

Once classes are out, I started looking at how magic is made. I”m still working on the details, but I’ve pretty much decided that there are a few forms of magic, such as elemental magics, natural magics, spiritual magic, mental magic, and innate magic. (There are a few others I’m still deciding if they’re independent forms, or sub forms) Within each form, there are likely some crossover effects (for example, elemental magic fire, and spiritual magic fire, though coming from different sources, may sometimes appear the same). Forms are differentiated by source, ritual (how the form is summoned) and side effects. Within this framework, I”ll be able to let characters develop who aren’t omnipotent, who are believable.

For example, Randir is a k’tath questor (known as a companion of Elorna during Brandis’ time). Magically, he’s somewhere between a cleric and a ranger (using some rather broad IFGS categories). He’s a skilled healer, which comes from a spiritual source, has some empath abilities (mental forms), and knows some basic natural magics. Since the story revolves around his spiritual side, naturally that aspect has been fleshed out the most so far...

That brings up the question, how does healing work. In my world, true healers are very rare, but there are more who have basic skills that would equate to modern day field medic abilities. The “medics” would use a mix of basic first aid with some limited empathy to detect and eliminate corruptions in wounds (infections). They can set bones, and with their empathic skills, ease pain a little. The next level up, “surgeons”, would share many basic skills with your basic general practitioner. Healers, full blown miracle workers, could conceivably do anything, but... There’s the consequences issue. Massive healing takes both massive energy (either from the healer, or the healers supporters) and has physical, mental, and spiritual repercussions to the healer. Thus, Randir can bring someone back from the brink of death, but... He’ll be unconscious, or near death himself, and more. The more is where a twist in the story begins...

Anyway... More to come...

new week, new month...

Hey! I actually got some work done on Imperfect Hope. Not much, 1k words or so, and some rewriting of a couple of scenes in chapter 2, but it’s work, the first of a long time. I’m sure more will be coming. I did reread everything I’d done so far, noticed a general pattern that a couple of the early scenes were pretty bland, but the last couple I’d been working on before “summer vacation” were, if I may pat myself on the back, pretty on target. I think one reason is that the early sections in question were setting up character and scene, and the latter scenes revolved around some important action, even while it set firmly some aspects of the main characters. I’ll see how it goes from here, see if I can keep up the intensity.

I touched on a bit of Cerryn’s early life in my last posting, and it’s something I’ve been mulling over. In the character sketch I wrote way back last winter, I included the basic details of her early life, how as one of the youngest daughters of a keep holder in the coastal reaches of the confederacy, she faced a probable arranged marriage to cement political alliances, with no real hope of anything approaching today’s standard of happiness. It all changed when she was one of the two children selected that year by the Valnar monastery for training as a questor. I think that stage of her life would actually make a pretty good story in itself, especially after digging around in the dirt to see what makes the grown up Cerryn tick. I’ll see where I fit that in my ferocious writing schedule... ;-)

On the less than happy side, The summer of stress has piled on the physical side-effects. According to Dr. Faini, besides the weight climbing again (despite the weekly personal trainer sessions), my cholesterol is climbing again (though not in the bad area, yet). I’m reminding myself what I need to do, diet wise (“Portion control, man, and put down that loaf of french bread!!!. Oh, and more oatmeal for you...) and exercise wise (once a week doesn’t cut it,) so I”ve asked my trainer to prepare “homework” for me. I’m pretty sure I saw her rubbing her hands together in glee after I asked her...

Writing practice at last?

I wish I understood what it is that motivates me to write. I've felt dead in the water for months now, and all of a sudden, these last couple of weeks, it's alive again. Maybe it was a form of depression, maybe somebody stole my mojo ;-), or perhaps my muse has returned. At any rate, I'm getting back on the ball...


I"ve been digging back into Imperfect hope, working on redepthing (there's a new word) the main characters. Though I'd done a rather detailed character history for both, I felt like there's something missing, hence the 'redepth'. Besides just adding some details, I've decided to spark my interest again with writing some bits and blurbs from their pasts as writing practice. So here goes, a little bit from Cerryn's life, well before she became a questor of Valnor...



Cerryn peeked out from behind the heavy tapestry, trying to remain inconspicuous as she watched the visitor. It wasn't difficult, she and her older brothers and sisters had found dozens of hiding places throughout the keep, and this was one of her favorites. From here, she could listen in on the courtly activities, though most times she understood little of what the grown-ups spoke of. Usually her older siblings would be discovered, either too fidgety or noisy, often they just grew bored and would run off after each other to play or study. Cerryn would keep quiet and listen for much longer than any of them.


From her secret vantage point, the young redheadwas able to listen intently as her mother and father spoke with the stranger. He was short, his hair was cut severly, with a clean shaven face. From where she hid, she could barely hear any of them speaking in their hushed tones, something rarely done withing the great hall. Cerryn knew that her father held an important position within the western confederacy, and that many came to him for advice on all sorts of matters. The great hall was rarely empty of observers, if there was business that needed to be kept quiet, they would meet in the library upstairs. This meeting, and in fact, this visitor seemed different. Both her father and mother seemed unusually deferential. It was especially odd considering the plain attire of the stranger, simple homespun breeches and tunic more fitting to a weary traveler than one meeting with one of the confederacy's councilmen.

"Cerryn, come here and meet the abbot-questor" called her mother. For a moment, she wondered how her mom knew she was there, and for a few seconds, the red haired youngster tried to stay very still behind the tapestry. When Cerryn peeked out again, she saw all three adults were looking her way. She grimaced, wondering if she were in trouble, and stepped out from behind the wall hanging that depicted the hills that overlooked their ancestral lands. Then, she recognized what her mother had called the stranger, abbot-questor. There would be only one reason the abbot-questor would be visiting the keep. Her heart leapt with hope, even as she kept her face calm. Her feet betrayed her excitement though, and the 6 year old almost ran to meet the legendary sword master of the Valnorian questors...

New Stuff

I've rearranged a few items, including bringing the sunset of the day up to the left column, moved the quote of the day to the left, and added a reaction poll for each posting. The reaction poll will give me a snapshot on what I wrote about, and whether I should work more on it. I also added another poll, this one to gauge the interest in what I should write about in the future. Help me build interest.....

I've also added an opportunity to become a follower of my blog. I think this requires you to register with blogspot, though honestly, you can use any alias you want. One advantage is that you can get an email when I've updated the blog, post a picture of you (or your favorite mushroom) and follow other blogs from a dashboard when you log it. I'll be exploring it a bit myself to determine if it'll be useful or merely fluff.

Speaking of fluff, (nice segue, even if fluff has nothing to do with the rest of this note). Art raised some more questions about my timeline for Imperfect Hope, compared to the Brandis and the companions of Elorna era. I sat down and started charting out "THE BIG PICTURE", a time line from the earliest K'tath history, to beyond the time of IH. No year spacing yet, I'm just putting things into a perspective. I'm doing this so I can better understand how much the past (in my many notes about D'oril) can and should influence the stories. I'm rather excited by the ideas that have popped in my puny brain these last few days as a result of those questions...

One final note, my statcounter gadget tells of an average of 10 visits a day to Tales from Doril, about half are regular visitors. I know who a couple of you are, you've left comments, and I'm really curious who else is visiting, and why. Please leave a comment, introduce yourself (an alias will suffice if you prefer) and feel free to join in. Off topic comments are welcome (for now, but if it gets offensive, I'll edit/delete as I see fit), if there's enough commentary, I'll start a weekly "Open Commentary" thread for discussions. Help make this place fascinating...

More to come...
Clear skies,
Jim

Brandis and Merlissa

First of all, mundania... It's Over... Now, maybe we can start to heal and get along???

Writing is coming back. Maybe it's because winter is coming, and D'oril is in the north...

I think everyone who has been reading my blog knows Brandis, in one form or another. I've been doing some writing practice, and one way I"m stretching my brain before getting back to Imperfect hope is to Remember, Rewrite, and Revise stuff I'd done in the past. Character histories are something I have always practiced. That dredged up a bunch of memories, some of which involved how Brandis' character history has evolved over the years.

In the beginning, (gah, I actually used it. Somebody shoot me) his history was pretty simplistic. Something on the order of "He's from the north, and all of his people were killed in a horrible attack". Later on, I added more details, explaining why he came south, what happened, who the k'tath were, and who the bad guys (anyone remember the "Black Axe Dwarves", the original B.A.D. guys???)

Later, as I started working on writing the first games that took place in D'oril, I amended the simple to a bit more complex, "Brandis thinks he's the last of his kind, but in truth, he came south because of Elorna's need". Suddenly, Brandis was no longer a refugee, rather he's now an emissary, though he doesn't know it yet, due to some machination of the goddess that he's not privy to.

Then there was Merlissa. About this time, I was reading a lot of MZB (Marion ZImmer Bradley), which often contained an edge of romance novels. When one of the D'oril games ran, my game aides added a bit of content intended for Brandis' history, (with my permission, albeit unknowing of the details) that smacked of the classic MZB romance. Merlissa, a tentative non-player character, later to become a PC) was wondering where Brandis was, pissed that he'd disappeared, leaving no word, and no clue from Elorna, except a sense of "He's alive, I know it, I'd feel it if he were gone". In the process of feeding information to the players of the mini-game, I was playing Brandis as an NPC, who'd returned to D'oril for some unremembered reason, and had fallen into the wrong hands. The end of the minigame provided the reunion, a classic high tension moment of complicated emotions for the NPC's.

After that, I revised and reworked Brandis history many times, usually adding more detail, occasionally changing something to fit the growing D'oril universe more smoothly. I never revisited the Merlissa story line, in part because the once NPC became a PC, and it wasn't in my rights to rework that part of the storyline. I considered "cloning" the character for my own purposes, but chose instead to stay away from the issue. Instead, I wrote him off in another direction, he faced another exile from D'oril. This one was explained by a short story I wrote about how Elorna intervened directly in a Shadowlord Plot, saving him from the hands of Beauty and the Empire, but in doing so forcing her to pull her hero from D'oril because she'd upset the balance.

Brandis became the center of several short stories, all incomplete writing practices that revolved around his adventures in many other lands outside the IFGS. He played in many IFGS games as well, his character darkening as he spent more and more time away from home. The crux came after a series of very dark mini's that he played in, most of them with Cerredwyn on his team. In them, Brandis and Cerredwyn became close friends, in some ways a substitute for Merlissa, but one that didn't touch on the intimate side of that relationship. Instead, his soul became exhausted by the constant war, this gave me the excuse to withdraw from playing him for several years (actually due to the pressures of being an Air Traffic Controller). In my writings, he found some spirit healing from a k'tath healer sent to help him, though he was still unable to return home.

I wrote about other topics for a while, and played Brandis in a few other games at Ray Michel's request, playing him still as an exile, becoming somewhat of a tragic figure. His mood deepened the more he spent away from home, while I sought through writing a way to finish his story that began as a character history. At one point, I outlined a series of D'oril games that could do just that, but FAA time pressures never allowed me to go beyond that stage.

I've recently gone back to the history, considering what I might do with the saga. Since I'm writing Imperfect Hope in the D"oril universe, Brandis can and should be a part of that, but I've going to place him in a different time frame from IH, probably a few dozen years earlier. The lands of the Seven Tribes, in which the IFGS games take place, have changed to the Confederation, at least in the present. Brandis' saga would detail the re-contact between the k'tath and the people of the south. But what ever happened to him. Did he ever get home? Did Merlissa ever find him again? Should I drop hints about the past, little easter eggs that, should someday I get published, fans (yeah, right) would argue over the meaning of online and at cons.

In the meantime, I"m going to keep practicing. Brandis' history is, at last count, some 40 pages of story and scenerio and random notes, maybe my next project will organize that. More to come later.....

Clear skies,
Jim