I almost forgot to post something for Saturday! I know it's like 2 in the morning, but I still call this one a win. I don't have time to finish the D&D character now, so if I need to I'll deal with that another time.
In the meantime this is a story I came up with in a dream. Really. Start to finish, it played out in my head like a movie. I had to do a lot of filling in the gaps, but for the most part it was fully formed in my head before I ever wrote anything. This is incomplete, but it has all the main stuff, and I do plan to come back and do some more. So here it is, part one. Part 2 to come tomorrow. (Sunday that is.)
*********
The drive had been long and tiring, but really gorgeous as well. The first week of September was really considered by most to be the beginning of Autumn, even though it wasn't officially. But even on Labor Day it still felt more like Summer.
There were a lot of cars going in the other direction too. Labor Day marked the end of the holiday weekend, and the end of the season for the Kotumpka Bed and Breakfast. Jack and Dani Simmons had thought themselves pretty clever for booking their honeymoon/vacation for the week following Labor Day, and the Walters', the old couple who ran the B&B were happy to keep the place open for a few more days, provided they could agree on the menu in advance, so they wouldn't have to keep the cook on, and that they wouldn't have to keep a housekeeper on staff. Jack and Dani had agreed to clean up after themselves in their room.
It looked perfect. There was only one road in or out of the little place, apparently an aborted railroad tunnel. There was no cell service, but rooms had internet access. No TV service, but TVs with DVD players, and a radio in each room.
They pulled their car up to the main lodge, and got out looking around.
"Look look look!" said Dani excitedly, pointing.
Jack looked where her finger led, and saw two deer who had paused to look at them, about thirty feet away through the sparse trees. He smiled, and looked at Dani's enraptured face.
"Aww," she said, in a high cutesy voice. Jack smirked. "They're so cuuute," she cooed. She started fumbling for her cell phone.
"What are you doing?" said Jack. "There's no service here."
"I want to get a picture," she told him, fiddling with the phone. She held it up at arms length, at about eye level and tapped the screen. Half a second later the phone made a familiar double beep, and shutter noise, and the flash went off. The startled deer, turned and bolted gracefully through the trees. Dani made a disappointed noise, which made Jack laugh.
They checked in at the front desk where Mrs. Walters exclaimed how cute they were, then they were shown to their room.
It was a corner of the building, with it's own exit, in the form of a heavy glass door. They unpacked, and checked out all the features of the room, then fell delightedly into bed together, naked.
A bit later when they were both hungry they decided to get dressed and head over to the dining room. They were surprised to discover that they weren't the only couple there. The man was charming and seemed very confident, the woman was very attractive, but didn't seem very intelligent. When they asked Mrs Walters about it she said that someone else had asked about coming in on Labor Day, and since they were going to be open for the Simmons's anyway, they figured there was no reason they couldn't be open to anyone else.
"Maybe," said Mrs Walters, "this will become a regular thing with couples, wanting to avoid the press, have a more relaxed vacation. It could become huge!"
During the salad, which Mrs Walters brought out to both tables at the same time, the other man who had been glancing over at the Simmons, got up and went over to them, and said, "Listen, I don't mean to bother you, but my wife and I were talking, and... it seems a little weird to be the only ones in here, and sitting separately. We were thinking that maybe Mrs Walters would have an easier time if we were all just sitting together."
Jack was usually nervous in social situation, which Dani had been trying to help him get over. He looked a little unsettled, but she nodded encouragingly at him, and he agreed.
A couple hours later they were laughing like old friends and drinking together as the Simmons told the ridiculous story of how they met, which involved the differences between real rock climbing and climbing a rock wall.
[In this scene you get the impression that the man Terry, is charming, intelligent, and confident, but somehow a little off. Bridget on the other hand is amazingly attractive, but a little vapid, but well meaning. However you can't help but notice the difference in their relative intelligence (B v D), and Terry in particular seems quite intrigued by Dani's intelligence, as if noticing Bridget’s lack of intelligence for the first time, even though they just got married.]
After a bit the Simmons excused themselves, implying in rather explicit terms that they intended to go back to their room and make much love. In passing they mentioned their plans for the following day, Jack intending to go fishing on the lake, noted for being at the top of a waterfall, while Dani wanted to go hiking through mountain woods. Terry, suggested that he might be interested to join Jack, (who seems a little reluctant) and that Bridget (who also seemed reluctant) could join Dani, who seemed eager to have another girl to talk to.
The following day Jack woke up early hoping to get out on the lake early, and - though he never said so - avoid Terry. However Terry was waiting outside, getting his tackle box ready. They went out on the lake in a little rowboat. The lake was stocked with various types of compatible fish, and was a stopping point for trout from further up the river that fed into the lake.
Terry asked many questions about Jack and Dani's relationship, Terry noted that he could hear them all the way from his room, which made Jack a little uncomfortable.
However in a small fit of manly pride he said, "Well she is kind of a wildcat in bed... I could tell you some stories, but well, it wouldn't be polite to go spreading tales about a lady."
They laughed, but Terry seemed jealous, and confessed that Bridget, though very well built, was rather unimaginative in bed. "I think now, looking back, that she never had to work at it. Men just flocked to be with her because of how she looked. She wasn't as interested in the sex, as she just wanted the attention, so she never really developed a technique, didn't ever have to work at being considered sexy." He went on to say that women like Dani were considered sexy because they had to work harder to be considered so.
Jack, who had always considered his wife to be gorgeous, took issue with this. "You make it sound like my wife is some kind of un-confident attention seeker who needs to turn herself into come kind of slut in order to get attention."
Terry considered this for a moment. "Are you saying that's not the case?"
"Yes!" said Jack in disbelief. "My wife intentionally held back from having sex with me for nearly a month when we first started going out. We'd just eat, she's always been a terrific cook, and hang out, watch movies, but... I guess there was always this... Anticipation I guess... then one day just before she was going to leave to visit some family over Fourth of July weekend..." He floundered for a second.
Terry just looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
Jack started to smile, then laughed. "Okay, so maybe she lured me in with food, and the anticipation of sex, but honestly? That just made her seem MORE confident. Like she was worth the wait. And not a slut either, because she didn't sleep around. And she didn't come off as desperate, otherwise I imagine she wouldn't have waited. She just wanted to be sure there would be something more than just the sex." Terry was nodding along distractedly, when suddenly there was a bite on his line.
They reeled in the trout, and laughed and celebrated a moment. Jack mentioned that he was planning on doing catch and release, as they wouldn't want to take the time or effort to clean them.
Terry said nothing, but just stared at the fish, holding it up, as it struggled, and gaped for water. His eyes looked intent, and focused, and his hands seemed to tighten around the fish, very slowly, whispering under his breath, "You belong to me."
"Hey." Jack nudged him in the back, breaking whatever spell had snared him. "Are you going to toss him back, or skin him and eat him?"
"Her," said Terry. He held the fish vertically, where tiny clear eggs were coming out.
Jack smiled. "Oh yeah. Well then you have to throw her back so they can re-stock the lake. It is spawning season after all, and I'm pretty sure this is a spawning pool."
Terry nodded, and lowered the fish into the water, but paused at the last minute. The fish wriggled in his grasp, and he started to squeeze, but then he blinked a few times, as if coming out of a haze, and lowered the fish back into the water, and let it go.
Dani and Bridget hiked through the woods along a trail. Dani was entranced by the wildlife, laughing and pointing out a woodpecker. Bridget seemed a little nervous though. When Dani asked her about this, and what she was worried about, Bridget told her.
"Bears?" Dani laughed. "Sweetie, I asked Mister Walters about that before we came here. There are no bears. They were all hunted out about a hundred years ago."
"I don't know, Terry warned me to be careful of bears, and mountain lions," she shook her head and looked around.
Dani was perplexed by her behavior, but more that Terry would have made her so scared. Dani had been a little worried about wild animals, so she had made the effort to call Mr Walters ahead of time and check with him, even though Jack though it was silly. Maybe Terry was just more cautious about this kind of thing, but the idea that he hadn't checked seemed a little odd.
"Bridget, sweetie, it's okay. I made a special call to Mr Walters just to make sure that there wasn't any danger hiking through the woods here, and he said that he's lived here all his life, and he hasn't seen anything more dangerous than deer since he was like twelve and they had to hunt down a mountain lion." She chuckled. "Unless you count humans that is."
Later that night Jack and Dani were in their room, talking about the days events.
"It was just weird, like he was trying to scare her," Dani was saying.
Jack shook his head bemused. "He didn't seem to concerned while we were out fishing. At least not that he said. Maybe he's just not one to let things get to him."
"Yeah. And dinner tonight was a lot better. With Bridget. It seemed like she really opened up. I'm even thinking about going to one of her interior decorating parties."
Jack snorted. "You mean the one where you get all kinds of home decorations and go redecorate a room in someone's house?" He started to chuckle until she threw a pillow at him. "Hey!" he laughed.
"Don't laugh, she's really proud of her little enterprise, and the decorations sound really pretty."
Jack could tell she was trying not to laugh herself though. "Oh god," he said. "You're not thinking about doing one of the rooms in our house in those god-awful decorations are you?"
"Well," she started, a little defensively. "If I really believed in something like that I would really want to know that it was helping someone. She's nice, and they only live a few hours from us in Boise."
"You did used to do that whole cosmetics thing, so I guess I can't really object," he said a little more kindly.
"You did like me with those false eyelashes on, right? You said it did something for you," she smirked at him as he grunted.
"Yeah," he growled. He crawled across the bed to her and pulled her onto it. She yelped and laughed, then moaned as he kissed her...
Outside in the darkness, unnoticed by either of them, something stirred.
Someone was knocking on the door. Hard. Frantically.
It was morning, and light was filtering through the trees outside, but still one spot of light managed to focus itself right onto Jack's left eyeball. He groaned and tried to roll over to get the light out of his eye, but the pounding resumed on the door. Insistent pounding.
Jack rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of boxer shorts, and stumbled to the door. When he got there and opened the door, Terry stood there looking a little crazed, and scanning over Jacks shoulder into the room beyond.
Jack tried a couple times to speak but seemed to be having issues. He tried clearing his throat, a few times then said, "'Srong Tree?"
"Have you seen Bridget?" Terry looked uncharacteristically upset, and panicky.
Something in Terry's voice got through the sleep-haze of Jacks mind. "She's-" He coughed a couple times and tried again. "She's not with you?"
Terry shook his head. "I think she got up in the middle of the night to take a walk, and she never came back."
"Okay, um..." Jack looked back at Dani a moment, trying to make up his mind. "Okay, I'll help you look for her, just gimme a minute to get dressed." He shut the door on Terry, and started moving around the room looking for his clothes.
Dani stirred, and sat up on her elbow, squinting at Jack tiredly. "What's wrong?" she slurred.
"I'm helping Terry look for Bridget. Apparently she wandered off in the middle of the night." Jack sat on the edge of the bed and started pulling on socks.
Dani gasped. "S'she okay?" she slurred again, obviously concerned, but still tired.
Jack thought about it for a second. "Yeah, probably. She probably just got lost out there somewhere, or she's fallen asleep or something." His brow furrowed, as he pulled on his pants, and shirt. As he slipped on his shoes, he said, "Did you get the impression that there was anything wrong between those two? Like they were having problems or something?"
Dani was sitting up in bed blinking now, and reaching for a tank top to wear, and some pajama pants. She shook her head. "No," she said. "As far as I could tell they seemed good. D'you think she left him, or she's mad at him or something?"
Jack sighed and shrugged, shaking his head, and pulling on his jacket. "I don't know. Something about this situation feels a little... hinky."
Dani nodded in agreement.
Jack reached for the door. "Do me a favor and stay here," he said. "If anything is going on I'd rather know that you're safe."
"Okay. Be careful sweetie."
He smiled and winked at her, and went out the door.
Terry was waiting near the front door of his own cottage when Jack came out. He looked a little shaky and nervous. "I'm kinda freaking out a little here," he said, starting off toward the hiking trail. "I'm starting to regret coming out here, this really isn't her kind of place. I could have chosen Maui, or Santa Barbara, Jamaica, Barbados, Sicily-"
Jack cut off his rambling before he built up a head of steam. "Do you think we ought to wake up Mister Walters about this? I mean he might have some kind of idea where she might go..."
Terry stopped suddenly, causing Jack to halt behind him. His nervousness seemed to evaporate, and he was very still for a moment, but Jack couldn't see his face. Then Terry took a deep slow breath, as if calming himself, then turned back to Jack. "No, I'm just overreacting, I'm sure. There's no need to wake them up, we can find Bridget on our own."
Jack was a little taken aback by the sudden change in Terry’s demeanor, but shook it off. The man's wife was missing. It was bound to make anyone a little unnerved. He nodded at Terry. "If you're sure then. I think if we don't find anything for a while though we might want to consider it."
Terry nodded, a look of gratitude settling on his features, and he turned and started once again down the path.
As they walked Jack picked up several little things, but in his distraction he failed to piece them together. For example he noticed several broken branches on bushes, a dead branch that had fallen in the night cracked in the middle, a large boot print in some deep mud on the side of the trail going in the opposite direction.
After nearly an hour of walking calling out for Bridget, Terry slowed to a stop squinting and looking through the trees. Jack moved up next to him and looked in the same direction. Terry pointed, and Jack saw something bright bubblegum pink, but covered in dirt in a thicket of trees ahead.
Terry looked a little shaken. He gulped. "Could you ah... I don't think I can... um..."
Jack understood. If it had been Dani he wouldn't be able to look either. He clapped Terry on the shoulder, and gave it a squeeze, and headed off through the trees to check out the sighting of pink.
It turned out to be a pink sweatshirt laying on top of a mound of what seemed to be freshly dug earth. Jacks breath caught as he walked closer, and looked over the mound.
Bridget's body, her eyes open and lifeless, her face slack, and a small red hole in her forehead lay on top of a bed of dirt, branches and leaves in the bottom of the hole, stained red by her draining blood.
Jack fought back the urge to vomit as several things passed quickly through his mind. The bootprints, the broken branches... Terry's sudden change in demeanor.
Then he heard the sound of a gun hammer being cocked. He froze, every muscle in his body tensed.
"I'm sorry Jack, but I'm afraid we're going to have to swap wives. I married Bridget for her looks, but when we met you and your wife, I realized that Dani has a bit more... Substance."
The gun went off. Jack's body flinched violently as he felt the bullet impact the top of his head, and he lost his balance, and fell forward as the whole world went very bright, then faded to black.
****
It was about an hour later that Dani heard the frantic thumping on the door. She ran over, and opened it, and gasped as Terry all but fell into the room. "Oh my god!" she nearly screamed through her fingers.
Terry was a wreck, covered in dirt and leaves, his clothes torn and he seemed to be bleeding from several places. He was panting heavily. "Jack... " he gasped.
"Is Jack all right?" Dani was suddenly even more in a panic. If something had happened to Jack she wouldn't know what to do.
But Terry was shaking his head. "No- he... tried to... kill me," Terry rasped. He was struggling to his feet now.
Dani was in shock. Jack try to kill Terry? To kill anyone? It wasn't in his character. They had known each other for a couple years now, and she had never seen anything in him that might suggest that he was capable of murder.
Terry was catching his breath now, and starting to speak a little more normal. "He told me that he'd gotten up in the middle of the night, and seen Bridget and followed her into the woods." He started to become a little emotional here, looking about ready to cry. "He said he- said he-" he collapsed into a chair nearby.
Dani stood there in disbelief for a moment, then sat down on the edge of the bed. She put her hands over her mouth for a moment, and forced herself to calm down. Her heart was racing. Jack couldn't do something like this.
But Terry wasn't done yet. "He said... he told me he was coming to kill you too. That's why he'd brought you out here. Because of all the open woods... lots of places to do it without being heard... tree cover. A lake to dump the body...."
Dani stopped listening at this point, as he continued, and just sat on the bed, her head in her hands, thinking. First of all, Jack wouldn't do anything like this. He felt bad about hitting squirrels on the road, and when a bird had rolled over his windshield, he'd nearly been reduced to tears. And he couldn't have gotten up last night, then come back to bed. Any time he got into or out of bed, it woke her up, and he hadn't moved last night, not even to go to the bathroom. And finally, there was the trip. It had been her idea the whole time, she'd booked it, researched it online, and convinced him to come along after weeks of indecision from him. In the end he'd had to admit that he had no place better in mind, and that settled things.
But all this meant that Terry was lying to her. Trying to get her on his side....
"Where is Jack now?" she interrupted him.
He shrugged. "I only hit him with a branch. I think he might be slowed down, but he seemed pretty disoriented. He was still lying on the ground last time I saw him. He... he had this..." he showed her the gun, held flat in his hands, like he was afraid of it. She gasped. Terry must have shot Jack... she could only hope that somehow that it hadn't been fatal.
She reached forward tentatively for the gun... "Can I..?" she asked, looking at him.
He offered it up to her with apparent relief. She took it, stood up, looking at it, and walked a few steps away. She didn't have much time. If Jack was out there somewhere, bleeding slowly to death, he would need her to find him as soon as possible. She made up her mind. She turned, and pointed the gun at Terry.
****
Ha HAA! Cliffhanger. Now you HAVE to read part two or you'll never see how it ends!
Thanks everyone, comments and suggestions welcome, and thanks for reading!
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Saturday, September 7, 2013
D&D Character part 1
Welcome back! Today I need to work on a character for a weekly D&D game.
I've been out of this particular game for a few months now, but I know a bit about the world, and I've had some conversations with the DM about some character ideas, and I think I have one that I like, and that I can be happy with. I have some concerns, after all just because you have a character with a particular skill, and a concept that you're happy with, it doesn't necessarily mean that the skills you are developing will be of any particular use in the setting, or that the other members of the group will work with you when trying to employ said skills.
I'm being vague aren't I? Okay then, sorry about that. My character concept is an Aasimar con man.
Aasimar however are supposed to be notorious do-gooders, so how does that work? Well this particular Aasimar had a very unusual upbringing, and he uses his skills of deceit and trickery to steal from those greedy individuals who would take advantage of the people who live in the north who don't understand the value of what they have, or the concept of capitalism. I'm picturing something like the Native Americans or the Inuits or something, but that's something for the GM to figure out.
But how did he get there?
Well the way I understand it is that a long time ago there was a time when Angels and Demons roamed the lands, in equal force. For each of one, there had to be another of the opposite. But then the gates of Heaven and Hell closed, and whatever forces of good or evil remained were stuck on this plane of existance. Many bloody battles followed, and both sides lost many of their numbers. But finally there came a day when the Angels finished off the last of the Demons (as far as they knew) and restored balance to the lands.
Except... except that their presence as Angels and the power and force they represented meant that there would never be true balance. But at the same time they couldn't simply vanish, they couldn't go to their home any more, and suicide or mutual murder would be unacceptable. So the only possible option would be to forsake their immortality and live as and among the people. The three that remained decided between them that they ought to never have children. But inevitably something that would never happen to an angel was all to easy for a human.
Kabshiel the angel of grace and favor found a tribe of nomads living in the north, barely making their way in the world, near to starvation, but possessed of a grace he had never seen before among the humans of the world. He decided to stay among them, and teach them, and help them to survive, reasoning that now that he was human this couldn't possibly considered interference. And so he lived with them and taught them how to find better sources of food, how to read the game trails, where to travel during the seasons so that nature would have a chance to replenish itself, even in the desolate wasteland. They wanted him to lead, but he refused, believing that it wasn't his place, and not wanting the temptation of taking advantage of the power that would give him, hoping instead that they would be able to maintain their innocence. Instead he became something of a shaman, guiding them in day to day life, helping them to survive, advising, but never leading.
Then came the day that Snow fox came of age.
Kabshiel, now known as Sky Leopard had watch her grow up, but had never taken a lot of interest in her. But on the day that she came of age, and chose her totem, she sang a song of such deep and profound beauty that he couldn't help but take notice. She sang of deep and passionate longing, of a love that could never be sated, and a respect that bordered on reverence. He had no choice but to fall in love with her, though knew he mustn't.
She persisted. Every day she sang him a new song, and every day he fell in love again. Finally after 3 full moons he could bear it no longer and agreed to marry her. And in the fullness of time she bore his child. Kabshiel felt enormous guilt, and though he could no longer perform the kinds of miracles he once could he had enough divinity to do one thing to ensure that the effect of his betrayal would be minimal.
He felt that it would be wrong to stop his child from having any children, but he did cause a change that meant that he, and his child, and all their decendants would never have more than one child each.
And so it was for several generations.
When Rabbit of the Northern Star was born the demons were already hunting for him. His mother Star Rose knew that she would never be able to protect him and his father had already been killed by the demons six moons before. They never showed themselves overtly only whispered to her in the dark about how her husband died because of his ancestor's betrayal, and that she was lucky to have survived, and that she should join the demons and live a life better than the simple life she had among her simple people, and let them raise her child, and show him his potential, and make him a god among his own people.
No one believed her. No one except Wind Eagle the hunter, who had always secretly loved her. She begged him to take her child and go far away so he would be safe. He had little choice but to agree, so selflessly did he love her. He begged her to come with them, but she could not. She had to stay and convince the demons that she was still pregnant, and that she would consider being tempted by them in order to allow Wind Eagle to get Rabbit away. Wind Eagle tried to find some other solution, but ultimately he knew that there could be none. With a heavy heart he took Rabbit, and two oxen, and left heading toward the south.
The oxen were nearly not enough for them to make it far enough south. Wind Eagle saved as much milk as he was able for the child, but soon he had to resort to extraordinary means to feed the baby, such as trapping goats and buffalo and hobbling them to milk, before slaughtering them for their meat. But soon Rabbit was eating more and more, and Wind Eagle was barely able to keep up with the demand, to the point where he had to water down the milk or run out.
At the end of 3 months Rabbit was dangerously undernourished, and nearly didn't have the strength to even cry. Wind Eagle despaired, fearing he had failed Rabbit's mother, when as he trudged through the snow, he looked up and saw a verdant forest in the distance ahead. His heart leaped and he made his way forward. When he reached the forest, he saw by chance a cart rolling along. He hailed the driver, who stopped and looked in astonishment, but agreed to take them with him into town.
When he reached the village, a small but bustling town isolated by mountains Wind Eagle discovered that no one was willing to give him milk for Rabbit without something in trade, and his supplies had run out several days ago. He had dropped everything he couldn't carry, and so had nothing.
But then providence once again stepped in, and took their fates by the hand. A small brothel existed in the town, and by chance one of the ladies that worked there had just had a child of her own. She agreed to wet-nurse Rabbit in exchange for Wind Eagle's service as a guard. Some customers had been growing restless and violent as of late, and the ladies would need more protection.
Wary, but seeing no other choice Wind Eagle agreed. He took the name Sammael to allay suspicion, and to help prevent the demons from finding them. He gave Rabbit of the North Star the name Whit, though in the years to come he would still occasionally refer to him as "Little Rabbit." When he was old enough to get the joke Rabbit, or now Whit, started calling Sammael "Old Bird."
Whit grew up among the ladies of the brothel, learning the arts of diplomacy, flattery, desire, control and deception. He learned to read people, how to draw them out, how to talk them into giving you exactly what you would need to give them everything they desired.
But his real education began when he turned 16, and a Baron's son came to town. He had never been there before. In the nearby pub, one of the ladies Albina, worked her magic on the man and learned, through his boasting that he was there to hunt, that he had heard about an enormous Albino Bear that had been sighted in the forest, enormous and ferocious. As such a rare thing surely it would make the greatest trophy he had ever had. She was rapt, and held his attention as un-noticed by the Baron's Son, but noticed by Whit, a man named Three-Coin Alexo stood up and left the pub, a strange mischevious look on his face. Whit had never understood what Alexo did in the village, so he followed the strange man out of the pub. Alexo strode casually down the street, and Whit followed at what he thought was a discreet distance, but as soon as they were both out off sight of the Pub Alexo casually U-Turned, causing Whit to run straight into him. After a brief exchange of threats Alexo agreed to show Whit what he was doing, and even offered to let Whit help.
The following day Alexo pretended to be a woodland guide showing the Baron's son to the place where the Albino Bear was rumored to have his den. The Baron's son saw the bear through the trees while Alexo was looking in the other direction, and in his greed and haste, he drew an arrow and shot the great beast. When he and Alexo made it over to the corpse they saw that it wasn't a bear at all, but a young man wearing a white fur cloak, blood covering his face and body, his eyes open and lifeless, and his tongue hanging out. The Baron's son was horrified. He might be able to get away with quite a bit, but cold blooded murder... he would most certainly be hanged!
He begged Alexo to make it go away, to hide the body, or make up a story so that he would avoid being punished for this crime. Alexo seemed reluctant, his conscience getting the better of him, the Baron's son though pushed bag after bag of coins at him until Alexo finally reluctantly agreed, and the relieved Baron's son ran off back to his father's lands.
Whit waited till the Baron's son was gone before standing up. He was covered in pigs blood, and holding up the un-tipped arrow, which a few moments before had been tipped with a fragile shaped limestone arrowhead, which had simply crumbled upon impact.
Alexo laughingly admonished Whit for having his tongue hanging out, which had almost made him laugh when he was supposed to be acting somber and worried.
And so Whit learned the ins and outs of the confidence games, and how to rig gambling games, and how to take advantage of a "mark's" greed to take him for everything he had. He had also insisted that Whit should learn swordplay, "For those times when you can't talk your way out of trouble."
But it was Sammael who insisted on teaching him swordplay. The old warrior did not approve of the trickery and deception, but agreed that Whit needed to learn to protect himself.
And so many years passed. Whit found that he had a conscience when it came to conning, and could not bring himself to treat people who had less than himself. Often, much to Alexo's annoyance, he would end up giving up his own money to help. He found this satisfied a deep part of himself, and whenever he pulled a con from that time forward he always made sure that his share went back to those who needed it the most.
*******************
Welp, it's 1 am, and while it' not exactly complete, this is certainly a good start to my character background. I still have to get him from here to where the game begins, but I'll save that for later, along with any revisions I might have to make.
Comments and suggestions are welcome as always, and Thanks for reading!
I've been out of this particular game for a few months now, but I know a bit about the world, and I've had some conversations with the DM about some character ideas, and I think I have one that I like, and that I can be happy with. I have some concerns, after all just because you have a character with a particular skill, and a concept that you're happy with, it doesn't necessarily mean that the skills you are developing will be of any particular use in the setting, or that the other members of the group will work with you when trying to employ said skills.
I'm being vague aren't I? Okay then, sorry about that. My character concept is an Aasimar con man.
Aasimar however are supposed to be notorious do-gooders, so how does that work? Well this particular Aasimar had a very unusual upbringing, and he uses his skills of deceit and trickery to steal from those greedy individuals who would take advantage of the people who live in the north who don't understand the value of what they have, or the concept of capitalism. I'm picturing something like the Native Americans or the Inuits or something, but that's something for the GM to figure out.
But how did he get there?
Well the way I understand it is that a long time ago there was a time when Angels and Demons roamed the lands, in equal force. For each of one, there had to be another of the opposite. But then the gates of Heaven and Hell closed, and whatever forces of good or evil remained were stuck on this plane of existance. Many bloody battles followed, and both sides lost many of their numbers. But finally there came a day when the Angels finished off the last of the Demons (as far as they knew) and restored balance to the lands.
Except... except that their presence as Angels and the power and force they represented meant that there would never be true balance. But at the same time they couldn't simply vanish, they couldn't go to their home any more, and suicide or mutual murder would be unacceptable. So the only possible option would be to forsake their immortality and live as and among the people. The three that remained decided between them that they ought to never have children. But inevitably something that would never happen to an angel was all to easy for a human.
Kabshiel the angel of grace and favor found a tribe of nomads living in the north, barely making their way in the world, near to starvation, but possessed of a grace he had never seen before among the humans of the world. He decided to stay among them, and teach them, and help them to survive, reasoning that now that he was human this couldn't possibly considered interference. And so he lived with them and taught them how to find better sources of food, how to read the game trails, where to travel during the seasons so that nature would have a chance to replenish itself, even in the desolate wasteland. They wanted him to lead, but he refused, believing that it wasn't his place, and not wanting the temptation of taking advantage of the power that would give him, hoping instead that they would be able to maintain their innocence. Instead he became something of a shaman, guiding them in day to day life, helping them to survive, advising, but never leading.
Then came the day that Snow fox came of age.
Kabshiel, now known as Sky Leopard had watch her grow up, but had never taken a lot of interest in her. But on the day that she came of age, and chose her totem, she sang a song of such deep and profound beauty that he couldn't help but take notice. She sang of deep and passionate longing, of a love that could never be sated, and a respect that bordered on reverence. He had no choice but to fall in love with her, though knew he mustn't.
She persisted. Every day she sang him a new song, and every day he fell in love again. Finally after 3 full moons he could bear it no longer and agreed to marry her. And in the fullness of time she bore his child. Kabshiel felt enormous guilt, and though he could no longer perform the kinds of miracles he once could he had enough divinity to do one thing to ensure that the effect of his betrayal would be minimal.
He felt that it would be wrong to stop his child from having any children, but he did cause a change that meant that he, and his child, and all their decendants would never have more than one child each.
And so it was for several generations.
When Rabbit of the Northern Star was born the demons were already hunting for him. His mother Star Rose knew that she would never be able to protect him and his father had already been killed by the demons six moons before. They never showed themselves overtly only whispered to her in the dark about how her husband died because of his ancestor's betrayal, and that she was lucky to have survived, and that she should join the demons and live a life better than the simple life she had among her simple people, and let them raise her child, and show him his potential, and make him a god among his own people.
No one believed her. No one except Wind Eagle the hunter, who had always secretly loved her. She begged him to take her child and go far away so he would be safe. He had little choice but to agree, so selflessly did he love her. He begged her to come with them, but she could not. She had to stay and convince the demons that she was still pregnant, and that she would consider being tempted by them in order to allow Wind Eagle to get Rabbit away. Wind Eagle tried to find some other solution, but ultimately he knew that there could be none. With a heavy heart he took Rabbit, and two oxen, and left heading toward the south.
The oxen were nearly not enough for them to make it far enough south. Wind Eagle saved as much milk as he was able for the child, but soon he had to resort to extraordinary means to feed the baby, such as trapping goats and buffalo and hobbling them to milk, before slaughtering them for their meat. But soon Rabbit was eating more and more, and Wind Eagle was barely able to keep up with the demand, to the point where he had to water down the milk or run out.
At the end of 3 months Rabbit was dangerously undernourished, and nearly didn't have the strength to even cry. Wind Eagle despaired, fearing he had failed Rabbit's mother, when as he trudged through the snow, he looked up and saw a verdant forest in the distance ahead. His heart leaped and he made his way forward. When he reached the forest, he saw by chance a cart rolling along. He hailed the driver, who stopped and looked in astonishment, but agreed to take them with him into town.
When he reached the village, a small but bustling town isolated by mountains Wind Eagle discovered that no one was willing to give him milk for Rabbit without something in trade, and his supplies had run out several days ago. He had dropped everything he couldn't carry, and so had nothing.
But then providence once again stepped in, and took their fates by the hand. A small brothel existed in the town, and by chance one of the ladies that worked there had just had a child of her own. She agreed to wet-nurse Rabbit in exchange for Wind Eagle's service as a guard. Some customers had been growing restless and violent as of late, and the ladies would need more protection.
Wary, but seeing no other choice Wind Eagle agreed. He took the name Sammael to allay suspicion, and to help prevent the demons from finding them. He gave Rabbit of the North Star the name Whit, though in the years to come he would still occasionally refer to him as "Little Rabbit." When he was old enough to get the joke Rabbit, or now Whit, started calling Sammael "Old Bird."
Whit grew up among the ladies of the brothel, learning the arts of diplomacy, flattery, desire, control and deception. He learned to read people, how to draw them out, how to talk them into giving you exactly what you would need to give them everything they desired.
But his real education began when he turned 16, and a Baron's son came to town. He had never been there before. In the nearby pub, one of the ladies Albina, worked her magic on the man and learned, through his boasting that he was there to hunt, that he had heard about an enormous Albino Bear that had been sighted in the forest, enormous and ferocious. As such a rare thing surely it would make the greatest trophy he had ever had. She was rapt, and held his attention as un-noticed by the Baron's Son, but noticed by Whit, a man named Three-Coin Alexo stood up and left the pub, a strange mischevious look on his face. Whit had never understood what Alexo did in the village, so he followed the strange man out of the pub. Alexo strode casually down the street, and Whit followed at what he thought was a discreet distance, but as soon as they were both out off sight of the Pub Alexo casually U-Turned, causing Whit to run straight into him. After a brief exchange of threats Alexo agreed to show Whit what he was doing, and even offered to let Whit help.
The following day Alexo pretended to be a woodland guide showing the Baron's son to the place where the Albino Bear was rumored to have his den. The Baron's son saw the bear through the trees while Alexo was looking in the other direction, and in his greed and haste, he drew an arrow and shot the great beast. When he and Alexo made it over to the corpse they saw that it wasn't a bear at all, but a young man wearing a white fur cloak, blood covering his face and body, his eyes open and lifeless, and his tongue hanging out. The Baron's son was horrified. He might be able to get away with quite a bit, but cold blooded murder... he would most certainly be hanged!
He begged Alexo to make it go away, to hide the body, or make up a story so that he would avoid being punished for this crime. Alexo seemed reluctant, his conscience getting the better of him, the Baron's son though pushed bag after bag of coins at him until Alexo finally reluctantly agreed, and the relieved Baron's son ran off back to his father's lands.
Whit waited till the Baron's son was gone before standing up. He was covered in pigs blood, and holding up the un-tipped arrow, which a few moments before had been tipped with a fragile shaped limestone arrowhead, which had simply crumbled upon impact.
Alexo laughingly admonished Whit for having his tongue hanging out, which had almost made him laugh when he was supposed to be acting somber and worried.
And so Whit learned the ins and outs of the confidence games, and how to rig gambling games, and how to take advantage of a "mark's" greed to take him for everything he had. He had also insisted that Whit should learn swordplay, "For those times when you can't talk your way out of trouble."
But it was Sammael who insisted on teaching him swordplay. The old warrior did not approve of the trickery and deception, but agreed that Whit needed to learn to protect himself.
And so many years passed. Whit found that he had a conscience when it came to conning, and could not bring himself to treat people who had less than himself. Often, much to Alexo's annoyance, he would end up giving up his own money to help. He found this satisfied a deep part of himself, and whenever he pulled a con from that time forward he always made sure that his share went back to those who needed it the most.
*******************
Welp, it's 1 am, and while it' not exactly complete, this is certainly a good start to my character background. I still have to get him from here to where the game begins, but I'll save that for later, along with any revisions I might have to make.
Comments and suggestions are welcome as always, and Thanks for reading!
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Character sketch: Santa Society
One of the hardest things about writing a story sometimes, is coming up with good believable characters. Everyone has their own quirks, stories, histories, and millions of little things in their background that inform who they are, and what they'll do in their life. You're essentially creating a whole person. It can be a little daunting. Oh sure, for some characters you can basically come up with the most basic of traits and let it go at that, but for the important characters you really need a balanced well rounded individual.
Er... balanced and well rounded in the sense of completeness of the character. Truth be told all the best characters in history are flawed in some very significant ways. It's those flaws that make a character interesting, and real.
So to get there we're going to borrow some advice given to one of my favorite writers, Jim Butcher, who had a teacher who told him to pick two characters that you really like, and blend them together. Sound advice. The character I'm going to create today is the Prodigal Son, the one slated to be the next Grand Master, or "Santa" (Latin pronunciation) by right and tradition, hand picked by the previous Grand Master to have the right qualities to lead the family the non-profit.
So for the first character I'll be choosing Aragorn, the rightful king of Minas Tirith. (The Movie version, just because I haven't read the books in a while) One of the qualities I love about him is his self doubt. I know that sounds a little strange, but it makes his journey so satisfying. He starts out reluctant to accept his fate, but finds his reason in saving his kingdom, but mostly his friends, and Frodo from a terrible fate. He's also very confident in the element that he's chosen for himself, and takes his duties very seriously, to the point that he is willing to give his life for those whom he is sworn to protect. The pain and loss he feels when feels that he has lost Merry and Pippin is palatable. That's the kind of selflessness I want in my character, and the kind of conflict over that selflessness and reluctance.
The second character is a bit more obscure, but fits in this situation. Carl Johnson, aka CJ from GTA San Andreas left home because he was trying to save himself from a life that might have killed him otherwise. His friends and family saw this as cowardice, but for CJ it meant giving up everything he had and starting over in an unfamiliar place far from home. But he did it, and make his way in the world for about 5 years before the unfortunate events that led to his return, the death of his mother. Everyone assumed, incorrectly, that he would just pay his respects then turn tail and head back to Liberty City. But he didn't. He stayed, and did his part for the family and for gang he was a part of. It's that tenacity and dedication to his family, but also his creativity and willingness to take things further and push the boundaries of possibility for his gang.
But of course my character isn't going to be a gangster. He's heir to one of the greatest secrets of Christmas.
So who is this guy? Well using this name generator I've come up with the name Isaak Georg Weber. I like the name Isaak, and it's different enough. But that's not really important. Isaak is the son of Miriam Klausenn, and Jaan Weber (pronouned like Yon). Jaan wasn't part of the Society prior to his relationship with Miriam, and while he was always willing to keep the secrets of the Society, he was always extremely frustrated with it. He felt that the Society could do far more good for the world if people knew about them. When Jaan died when Isaak was 17 Isaak blamed it on all the stress that keeping so many secrets but on him.
His father left him one third of his $450,000 life insurance policy, so when he turned 18, he was able to take that money and he moved to Seattle where he went to the Puget Sound Conservatory for Jazz Composition. His specialty was composition and direction. He created several large symphonies for Jazz Orchestra, and composed several songs for various groups, but mostly for the schools orchestra, and for the class that he started teaching in the subject after he graduated when he turned twenty five. He has kept in touch with his mother, and despite her status, his grandmother, who always understood his need to be apart from the rest of the Society, more than anyone else. She was worry for Jaan's loss, and agreed that keeping so many secrets must have been terrible for him, and though she maintained that his heart failure was inevitable due to a congenital defect, she never contradicted him when he disagreed.
However many of his cousins were very resentful at his leaving seeing it as a betrayal of the family, and a selfish act that he should ignore his duty to the family and the Society. Some of them had refused quite lucrative job offers when they left college, as many of them had graduated near the tops of their classes due in part to the extra tutoring that their family members could give them, not to mention firsthand experience. They had studied logistics, accounting, IT, business infrastructure, management, several different varieties of engineering, from Civil to Electrical to Mechanical to Industrial, and so on. In short all the skills needed to be part of a global industry, like the Santa Society.
And Isaak went and studied Jazz. They were a little resentful.
But Isaak didn't care. He came with his to Thanksgiving and Easter every year, skipped Christmas, the busiest time of the year for the family, and even managed to make it around for the occasional 4th of July or Labor Day. His grandmother played his CDs in the house, and in the hall they rented every year to house the Thanksgiving and Easter get-togethers and gift exchange. Because of their business they did gifts at Thanksgiving, and agreed that the gifts should not be bought, or traded, or anything like that. Isaak delighted every year in giving his grandmother and his mother his CDs, which he was producing nearly each year.
He was making a decent living with the music, but part of him didn't want anyone to know it was him, which is why his name was left scrupulously off the band name, and none of the songs were ever directly attributed to him, except on the copyright paperwork, of which he had read a LOT.
So that explains what he does, but what about who he is? How does he react in certain situations?
First off, when faced with a problem, he tends to think outside the box and tries to consider all the possibilities. If there is a simple answer, he uses that one, but if the answer is not so simple, he tends to be the first one to see the unconventional solution that others would deem absurd.
Next, he has a mouth that would get a nun into trouble. He cracks wise with the best of the best, and delights in the discomfort of others, when he feels they deserve it, and if it doesn't cause too much public embarrassment. (or sometimes even if it does)
He can't keep a girlfriend because of a relentless perfectionism of chaotic order. His house looks like a disorganized mess, but in fact it is MEANT to appear that way. So when the women he brings home inevitably try to clean up his place, and can't stand to be in such a filthy location, they go. He doesn't try to stop them, and often times he holds the door open.
He is calm and collected, level headed and stable on the surface, but bubbling just below the surface is the pen hurling, music stand flipping, shouting, tantrum machine the students call Mr Hyde, after the alter ego of the famous Dr Jekyll, and after what most of the front row are forced to do when the tirade begins. Mr Hyde will call students to the front of the class to play something, and you never EVER know whether its to show the class the right way, or the wrong way. If it's the wrong way, god help you, you might be standing in front of the class till you get it right. But he's never abusive, which is the secret. He seems to blame himself mostly, but loudly, and it tends to hold a mirror up to the students own failings, which in turn makes the students blame themselves, and want to live up to his expectations. And at the end of the year the orchestral performances are raucous, wild, and seem to be teetering on the brink of disaster, but they are always performed perfectly, because it's the composition that makes it sound so chaotic.
If he were older he would be considered irascible, but his youth just makes him seem passionate, feisty, irritable, but at the same time considerate, nurturing, good natured, and somehow likeable.
When the story opens he will have to return to the Society at the behest of his Grandmother, who is dying. She has chosen him to be her successor as Grand Master of the Society.
This will anger a lot of people of course. And many will believe that he has no interest in returning. In some ways they would be right. But what they don't know is that once his schooling was paid off, the rest of his inheritance had gone right back to the charity part of the society. He still received all the newsletters and read them diligently, and has always kept one eye on the goings on of the society mostly thanks to his Grandmother. He won't be happy about leaving his post, but he'll do it. And many people will see his grudging nature as a sign that he doesn't want to be there, but that's just his personality.
Well, that sounds like a good start.
I didn't have any of that until I typed it all out just now, made it up as I went along. So of course some things may not mesh perfectly, but this is just a start, not the final thing.
Tomorrow: I need to make up my D&D character for Sunday game. I might as well do that here, though it will depend greatly on how the world works for the game, and some of the details I come up with will need to change, but I think it will be a good exercise in character development and back-story.
As always comments and suggestions are welcome, here, on Facebook, or on Google+.
Thanks for reading!
Er... balanced and well rounded in the sense of completeness of the character. Truth be told all the best characters in history are flawed in some very significant ways. It's those flaws that make a character interesting, and real.
So to get there we're going to borrow some advice given to one of my favorite writers, Jim Butcher, who had a teacher who told him to pick two characters that you really like, and blend them together. Sound advice. The character I'm going to create today is the Prodigal Son, the one slated to be the next Grand Master, or "Santa" (Latin pronunciation) by right and tradition, hand picked by the previous Grand Master to have the right qualities to lead the family the non-profit.
So for the first character I'll be choosing Aragorn, the rightful king of Minas Tirith. (The Movie version, just because I haven't read the books in a while) One of the qualities I love about him is his self doubt. I know that sounds a little strange, but it makes his journey so satisfying. He starts out reluctant to accept his fate, but finds his reason in saving his kingdom, but mostly his friends, and Frodo from a terrible fate. He's also very confident in the element that he's chosen for himself, and takes his duties very seriously, to the point that he is willing to give his life for those whom he is sworn to protect. The pain and loss he feels when feels that he has lost Merry and Pippin is palatable. That's the kind of selflessness I want in my character, and the kind of conflict over that selflessness and reluctance.
The second character is a bit more obscure, but fits in this situation. Carl Johnson, aka CJ from GTA San Andreas left home because he was trying to save himself from a life that might have killed him otherwise. His friends and family saw this as cowardice, but for CJ it meant giving up everything he had and starting over in an unfamiliar place far from home. But he did it, and make his way in the world for about 5 years before the unfortunate events that led to his return, the death of his mother. Everyone assumed, incorrectly, that he would just pay his respects then turn tail and head back to Liberty City. But he didn't. He stayed, and did his part for the family and for gang he was a part of. It's that tenacity and dedication to his family, but also his creativity and willingness to take things further and push the boundaries of possibility for his gang.
But of course my character isn't going to be a gangster. He's heir to one of the greatest secrets of Christmas.
So who is this guy? Well using this name generator I've come up with the name Isaak Georg Weber. I like the name Isaak, and it's different enough. But that's not really important. Isaak is the son of Miriam Klausenn, and Jaan Weber (pronouned like Yon). Jaan wasn't part of the Society prior to his relationship with Miriam, and while he was always willing to keep the secrets of the Society, he was always extremely frustrated with it. He felt that the Society could do far more good for the world if people knew about them. When Jaan died when Isaak was 17 Isaak blamed it on all the stress that keeping so many secrets but on him.
His father left him one third of his $450,000 life insurance policy, so when he turned 18, he was able to take that money and he moved to Seattle where he went to the Puget Sound Conservatory for Jazz Composition. His specialty was composition and direction. He created several large symphonies for Jazz Orchestra, and composed several songs for various groups, but mostly for the schools orchestra, and for the class that he started teaching in the subject after he graduated when he turned twenty five. He has kept in touch with his mother, and despite her status, his grandmother, who always understood his need to be apart from the rest of the Society, more than anyone else. She was worry for Jaan's loss, and agreed that keeping so many secrets must have been terrible for him, and though she maintained that his heart failure was inevitable due to a congenital defect, she never contradicted him when he disagreed.
However many of his cousins were very resentful at his leaving seeing it as a betrayal of the family, and a selfish act that he should ignore his duty to the family and the Society. Some of them had refused quite lucrative job offers when they left college, as many of them had graduated near the tops of their classes due in part to the extra tutoring that their family members could give them, not to mention firsthand experience. They had studied logistics, accounting, IT, business infrastructure, management, several different varieties of engineering, from Civil to Electrical to Mechanical to Industrial, and so on. In short all the skills needed to be part of a global industry, like the Santa Society.
And Isaak went and studied Jazz. They were a little resentful.
But Isaak didn't care. He came with his to Thanksgiving and Easter every year, skipped Christmas, the busiest time of the year for the family, and even managed to make it around for the occasional 4th of July or Labor Day. His grandmother played his CDs in the house, and in the hall they rented every year to house the Thanksgiving and Easter get-togethers and gift exchange. Because of their business they did gifts at Thanksgiving, and agreed that the gifts should not be bought, or traded, or anything like that. Isaak delighted every year in giving his grandmother and his mother his CDs, which he was producing nearly each year.
He was making a decent living with the music, but part of him didn't want anyone to know it was him, which is why his name was left scrupulously off the band name, and none of the songs were ever directly attributed to him, except on the copyright paperwork, of which he had read a LOT.
So that explains what he does, but what about who he is? How does he react in certain situations?
First off, when faced with a problem, he tends to think outside the box and tries to consider all the possibilities. If there is a simple answer, he uses that one, but if the answer is not so simple, he tends to be the first one to see the unconventional solution that others would deem absurd.
Next, he has a mouth that would get a nun into trouble. He cracks wise with the best of the best, and delights in the discomfort of others, when he feels they deserve it, and if it doesn't cause too much public embarrassment. (or sometimes even if it does)
He can't keep a girlfriend because of a relentless perfectionism of chaotic order. His house looks like a disorganized mess, but in fact it is MEANT to appear that way. So when the women he brings home inevitably try to clean up his place, and can't stand to be in such a filthy location, they go. He doesn't try to stop them, and often times he holds the door open.
He is calm and collected, level headed and stable on the surface, but bubbling just below the surface is the pen hurling, music stand flipping, shouting, tantrum machine the students call Mr Hyde, after the alter ego of the famous Dr Jekyll, and after what most of the front row are forced to do when the tirade begins. Mr Hyde will call students to the front of the class to play something, and you never EVER know whether its to show the class the right way, or the wrong way. If it's the wrong way, god help you, you might be standing in front of the class till you get it right. But he's never abusive, which is the secret. He seems to blame himself mostly, but loudly, and it tends to hold a mirror up to the students own failings, which in turn makes the students blame themselves, and want to live up to his expectations. And at the end of the year the orchestral performances are raucous, wild, and seem to be teetering on the brink of disaster, but they are always performed perfectly, because it's the composition that makes it sound so chaotic.
If he were older he would be considered irascible, but his youth just makes him seem passionate, feisty, irritable, but at the same time considerate, nurturing, good natured, and somehow likeable.
When the story opens he will have to return to the Society at the behest of his Grandmother, who is dying. She has chosen him to be her successor as Grand Master of the Society.
This will anger a lot of people of course. And many will believe that he has no interest in returning. In some ways they would be right. But what they don't know is that once his schooling was paid off, the rest of his inheritance had gone right back to the charity part of the society. He still received all the newsletters and read them diligently, and has always kept one eye on the goings on of the society mostly thanks to his Grandmother. He won't be happy about leaving his post, but he'll do it. And many people will see his grudging nature as a sign that he doesn't want to be there, but that's just his personality.
Well, that sounds like a good start.
I didn't have any of that until I typed it all out just now, made it up as I went along. So of course some things may not mesh perfectly, but this is just a start, not the final thing.
Tomorrow: I need to make up my D&D character for Sunday game. I might as well do that here, though it will depend greatly on how the world works for the game, and some of the details I come up with will need to change, but I think it will be a good exercise in character development and back-story.
As always comments and suggestions are welcome, here, on Facebook, or on Google+.
Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Religion vs Atheism in fiction
So those who know me are aware that have some very
solid opinions about the existence of a higher power, and about religion
in general. I think that religion is dangerous and detrimental to our
society and faith in something you have no
evidence for is a little silly, etc etc-that's not what I want to talk
about today.
The question I want do address is this: How do you deal with, or address this in your writing?
There are many schools of thought on this subject. Historically many writers follow their consciences and do as they see
fit. C. S. Lewis was very clear in his writing, which was an allegory to
the bible, while many Sci-Fi writers treat religion
as a non-subject, acting as though it never existed at all or treating
it with disdain. Then again there are stories like the Left Behind
series which depict supernatural events brought on by biblical forces,
God or Satan.
Well, on the one hand... I almost feel as a writer it should be my duty to educate people. To show them the truth, as I see it, as I believe it to be, and lead them away from the path that may lead to bigotry and judgmental-ism. But honestly not all religious people and for the most part no one the I know act like the Westboro Baptist Church. So that may not be the best thing. And the more I think about it the less I have an issue with faith, so long as it's not taken advantage of or corrupted.
With the Santa Society I think I can just treat religion the same as it really is in the world. Some people believe, some don't. It's important though to make sure to make sure that the faithful sound true to life, so I'll have to get some of my religious friends to help me get it sounding right.
With the Mage World story, I'm going to have to decide about how that's going to work. My instinct is to say that there is a semi-provable God, and come up with some kind of magical explanation. But I'm thinking that I'd like to have it be a bit more realistic as well, keep it more ambiguous.
Bottom line, I'm going to -for now- make religion an ambiguous thing with all the perils and pitfalls that comes with. If I decide to change that in the future, then I'll have to revisit the issue, but for now I think I'm just going to put it in neutral.
Short post tonight, but I'm a bit tired, Narcolepsy hitting me in the face. But as always, comments and suggestions are welcome. Thanks for reading!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Groundwork: "The Santa Society" part 2: History of the World
In a very important sense all fiction takes place in an alternate reality. In fact a large portion of Historical non-fiction does as well. Because in both of these cases you're presenting something that is both familiar - it's generally written in your language, or translated, it involves people, or something that acts like people, and it tends to be something you can relate to in some way - and something that is not 100% real. In the case of fiction this is intentional, you're telling a story which didn't actually happen. Non fiction is just because it's impossible to get all the details just right, so you kinda fib things and fudge them to make the detail fit.
But we're just interested in fiction today. My story needs a background.
So we're starting with Santa Claus. And the Santa story is one that is full of little details that can be bent and inferred, and altered just a little to suit my needs. He comes from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, which have formed a kind of amalgamation to become this distilled thing, the essence of a symbol of the "Spirit of Christmas." (BTW I have a whole thing about religion vs atheism within fiction, but I'll be saving that for another day.)
Anyway my favorite of the old legends that would one day become the Jolly Fat Man is Sinterklaas who was the traditional figure for a very large portion of what is today known as "The Low Countries" such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and so on. He was thought to be a Holy Man, and was simply called De Sint, and he had dark skinned "Zwarte Piet" or Black Pete helpers who listen at chimneys and tell Sinterklaas whether the children have been naughty or nice, and help him to distribute the treats to children (as well as causing mass drunkenness among the adults, but that's something altogether different.) But of course this was all created from Saint Nicholas, who actually died on Dec 6th, 343, at the ripe old age (especially at that time) of 73, who had a lot of good things to recommend him, primary of which was his reputation for clandestine philanthropy. One wonders what he would think of the whole idea of Santa Claus and the legacy he left behind just for putting coins in peoples shoes when they left them out.
But let's get back to Sinterklaas. While Saint Nicholas was almost certainly a real historical figure, Sinterklaas was the true origin of our modern tradition, as he was also an amalgamation of several different traditions fused into one, as many things back in that day were. And it's not hard to imagine that it all started with one sailor who brought the Saint Nick story to the Netherlands, as he was also the patron saint of sailors. He told this story to his cousin, a chocolatier and baker, who has been looking for a "mascot" to help him sell chocolate. His business had been failing, mostly due to the fact that nobody seemed to know about it. He - let's call him Niclause, just be cause I love symmetry - Niclause decides he's going to borrow the idea of Saint Nick, and he hires another one of his cousins, a rotund man known for his good nature, and his luxurious white beard named Klaus to help him out, and here's where history meets serendipity, and amazing things are born.
Niclause decides that in honor of Saint Nicholas he will have Klaus go out into the city with a big selection of his chocolates to sell dressed up in a costume of a Bishop or Cardinal, again in honor of the day's namesake. Klaus goes out with precisely that intention, until he sees a poor urchin in the street, homeless and helpless, and he thinks "Hey, Saint Nick is the patron saint of children, I should help this child." No sooner does he give away a single piece of chocolate than children are suddenly swarming all around him demanding free chocolate. Then suddenly it's not just children, but adults, and before long amidst wild praise and cheers to "Saint Klaus," Klaus finds that his supply of chocolate is completely gone, and he hasn't made any money. He heads dejectedly back to his cousin to give him the bad news.
Niclause is furious at the lost money, and is into a full blown furious storm of anger and rage at his cousin, demanding that he pay back every cent of the money he has now lost in chocolate. He's on the verge of getting into a fourth tirade of epic proportions, and is about to start throwing things when there comes an amazing sound from outside. People are crowding the streets outside his shop cheering and calling for "Saint Klaus," as they start pouring into the shop, jingling their money purses and placing so many orders that Niclause would never be able to keep up on his own, He nudges Klaus and whispers to him to "put the hat back on." Klaus became his partner from that day forward, and they expanded the shop and hired many people to help with the running, and the cooking. They begin the annual festival of SinterKlaas (Saint Klaus) and for nearly the whole of December they give away chocolate, when they can. Because Niclause had started making these small coin shaped chocolates with the intention of giving those away to children, but they're so popular that people begin buying them for themselves, so they can give them away!
And so each year the festival grew, and spread, and people began to give other gifts to one another, toys and clothes and tools, and art, and many many things, and Klaus was asked to be in many cities, but could not go to all of them, so he began to send others dressed up in wigs and beards and Cardinal outfits, and they went further and further each year, until people began to notice that he was in several places at once, and believed he must have some kind of magic to be able to get around so quickly, to which he would cleverly quip, "Of course! I have a magic horse that takes me wherever I wish to go!"
And the festival continued to gain popularity out of the control of the little family, though Niclause and Klaus continued to play a major role for the rest of their lives. Eventually their sons took up the roles, then their sons, then theirs.
And this continued on for many years, until someone shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. By then the family was enormous, and spread out over Europe, all keeping in contact, and all still doing their part for the family business, which by this time was something on the order of a secret society, giving generously during Christmastime, and using the popularity of Santa to drive sales for their various businesses. But when the biggest war in history (up to that point) began to threaten, they decided to pull up stakes and move to the Americas, some settling in Canada, some in the United States. Isadora Klaussen the matriarch of the family at the time settled in what would eventually become South Bend Indiana. Bereft of much of what they would need to build up their family business again, it looked as though the family business would fail, and many family members started taking work outside the business. Fearing for the future of the company, Isadora made an incredible decision: The company would get out of the "Christmas" business, as they had thought of it for so many years, and get into the "Santa Claus" business.
Up till that time Santa had been rather warped over the years, and the most recent depiction had shown Santa as a tiny elf. But Isadora had been holding on to some old paintings of "Saint Klaus" and showed them to an advertising agency in early 1930. After nearly a year of working with the images to make them more secular, an artist named Fred Mizen painted his famous picture of Santa drinking a bottle of Coke. The family began to work with Coca Cola a lot over the years, but ultimately retained the rights to the "Santa Claus" image, but Isadora didn't feel quite right about using her generous ancestor to make money, and applied to the government to form an organization who would get tax breaks for doing charitable acts, as long as they used their surplus income for those charitable acts, or for improving the business, becoming among the first corporate non-profit organizations in the US, and to this day, one of the very few who are able to support and expand the business and operations from their own revenue stream. (wow, that's a long run on sentence.)
And that brings us up to today, where the organization thrives in secret, and perpetuates the myth that it was responsible for creating so many centuries ago, in a little chocolate shop in the Netherlands.
As always comments and suggestions are welcome. I hope you like what you're reading so far, let me know in the comments here, or on Facebook or G+. Thanks for reading!
But we're just interested in fiction today. My story needs a background.
So we're starting with Santa Claus. And the Santa story is one that is full of little details that can be bent and inferred, and altered just a little to suit my needs. He comes from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, which have formed a kind of amalgamation to become this distilled thing, the essence of a symbol of the "Spirit of Christmas." (BTW I have a whole thing about religion vs atheism within fiction, but I'll be saving that for another day.)
Anyway my favorite of the old legends that would one day become the Jolly Fat Man is Sinterklaas who was the traditional figure for a very large portion of what is today known as "The Low Countries" such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and so on. He was thought to be a Holy Man, and was simply called De Sint, and he had dark skinned "Zwarte Piet" or Black Pete helpers who listen at chimneys and tell Sinterklaas whether the children have been naughty or nice, and help him to distribute the treats to children (as well as causing mass drunkenness among the adults, but that's something altogether different.) But of course this was all created from Saint Nicholas, who actually died on Dec 6th, 343, at the ripe old age (especially at that time) of 73, who had a lot of good things to recommend him, primary of which was his reputation for clandestine philanthropy. One wonders what he would think of the whole idea of Santa Claus and the legacy he left behind just for putting coins in peoples shoes when they left them out.
But let's get back to Sinterklaas. While Saint Nicholas was almost certainly a real historical figure, Sinterklaas was the true origin of our modern tradition, as he was also an amalgamation of several different traditions fused into one, as many things back in that day were. And it's not hard to imagine that it all started with one sailor who brought the Saint Nick story to the Netherlands, as he was also the patron saint of sailors. He told this story to his cousin, a chocolatier and baker, who has been looking for a "mascot" to help him sell chocolate. His business had been failing, mostly due to the fact that nobody seemed to know about it. He - let's call him Niclause, just be cause I love symmetry - Niclause decides he's going to borrow the idea of Saint Nick, and he hires another one of his cousins, a rotund man known for his good nature, and his luxurious white beard named Klaus to help him out, and here's where history meets serendipity, and amazing things are born.
Niclause decides that in honor of Saint Nicholas he will have Klaus go out into the city with a big selection of his chocolates to sell dressed up in a costume of a Bishop or Cardinal, again in honor of the day's namesake. Klaus goes out with precisely that intention, until he sees a poor urchin in the street, homeless and helpless, and he thinks "Hey, Saint Nick is the patron saint of children, I should help this child." No sooner does he give away a single piece of chocolate than children are suddenly swarming all around him demanding free chocolate. Then suddenly it's not just children, but adults, and before long amidst wild praise and cheers to "Saint Klaus," Klaus finds that his supply of chocolate is completely gone, and he hasn't made any money. He heads dejectedly back to his cousin to give him the bad news.
Niclause is furious at the lost money, and is into a full blown furious storm of anger and rage at his cousin, demanding that he pay back every cent of the money he has now lost in chocolate. He's on the verge of getting into a fourth tirade of epic proportions, and is about to start throwing things when there comes an amazing sound from outside. People are crowding the streets outside his shop cheering and calling for "Saint Klaus," as they start pouring into the shop, jingling their money purses and placing so many orders that Niclause would never be able to keep up on his own, He nudges Klaus and whispers to him to "put the hat back on." Klaus became his partner from that day forward, and they expanded the shop and hired many people to help with the running, and the cooking. They begin the annual festival of SinterKlaas (Saint Klaus) and for nearly the whole of December they give away chocolate, when they can. Because Niclause had started making these small coin shaped chocolates with the intention of giving those away to children, but they're so popular that people begin buying them for themselves, so they can give them away!
And so each year the festival grew, and spread, and people began to give other gifts to one another, toys and clothes and tools, and art, and many many things, and Klaus was asked to be in many cities, but could not go to all of them, so he began to send others dressed up in wigs and beards and Cardinal outfits, and they went further and further each year, until people began to notice that he was in several places at once, and believed he must have some kind of magic to be able to get around so quickly, to which he would cleverly quip, "Of course! I have a magic horse that takes me wherever I wish to go!"
And the festival continued to gain popularity out of the control of the little family, though Niclause and Klaus continued to play a major role for the rest of their lives. Eventually their sons took up the roles, then their sons, then theirs.
And this continued on for many years, until someone shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. By then the family was enormous, and spread out over Europe, all keeping in contact, and all still doing their part for the family business, which by this time was something on the order of a secret society, giving generously during Christmastime, and using the popularity of Santa to drive sales for their various businesses. But when the biggest war in history (up to that point) began to threaten, they decided to pull up stakes and move to the Americas, some settling in Canada, some in the United States. Isadora Klaussen the matriarch of the family at the time settled in what would eventually become South Bend Indiana. Bereft of much of what they would need to build up their family business again, it looked as though the family business would fail, and many family members started taking work outside the business. Fearing for the future of the company, Isadora made an incredible decision: The company would get out of the "Christmas" business, as they had thought of it for so many years, and get into the "Santa Claus" business.
Up till that time Santa had been rather warped over the years, and the most recent depiction had shown Santa as a tiny elf. But Isadora had been holding on to some old paintings of "Saint Klaus" and showed them to an advertising agency in early 1930. After nearly a year of working with the images to make them more secular, an artist named Fred Mizen painted his famous picture of Santa drinking a bottle of Coke. The family began to work with Coca Cola a lot over the years, but ultimately retained the rights to the "Santa Claus" image, but Isadora didn't feel quite right about using her generous ancestor to make money, and applied to the government to form an organization who would get tax breaks for doing charitable acts, as long as they used their surplus income for those charitable acts, or for improving the business, becoming among the first corporate non-profit organizations in the US, and to this day, one of the very few who are able to support and expand the business and operations from their own revenue stream. (wow, that's a long run on sentence.)
And that brings us up to today, where the organization thrives in secret, and perpetuates the myth that it was responsible for creating so many centuries ago, in a little chocolate shop in the Netherlands.
As always comments and suggestions are welcome. I hope you like what you're reading so far, let me know in the comments here, or on Facebook or G+. Thanks for reading!
Monday, September 2, 2013
The Hunter part 2
Welcome back! This is part 2 of the story of Nate Golden, the last of the Great White Hunters. Having re-read this now I defiantly recognize that the story needs a bit of TLC. There are a lot of places where I could add in a few things, change a few things around. This is why we work in drafts. So keep that in mind as you read the exciting conclusion of the story. Also, please, if you have any questions, finding the answers will help me to write any future drafts that I might come up with.
But with no further ado, here's part 2
“Okay, I’m in.”
It
was about ten minutes later, and Jefferson was now happily cruising
through the computer system like a fish through water. “Ugh, what a
mess. You know, I don’t think this matrix has seen a good
degaussing since quantum computing went out of style.”
Nate
wasn’t a computer person by nature, but every starship captain has to
know about communications equipment, or risk being stuck with a dead
radio in deep space, not able to call for help. So
he’d rewired the comm from the holo, called Jefferson, and hooked him
into the computer system.
“I don’t need a history lesson,” he growled. “What can you tell me about this place?”
“
Well for one thing, I can see that there’s a shuttle at the other end
of the station. Can’t see it from here, but it’s drawing power, and
there’s telemetry. Looks like it’s in working order.
I can open it from here.”
Nate grunted. “Sounds good. Now what’s the BAD news?”
Jefferson
gave a sigh that said he knew this question was coming, and was
dreading having to give the answer. “Well…” he started. Nate said nothing, but said it in a very loud way. “There’s about
a dozen mutant…. Things… between you and the ship.”
Silence.
Then Nate said, “Oh. Okay then.”
Jefferson stuttered, “W- ww-“
“Meh,” said Nate. “There’s always Mutants or Aliens or Henchmen or whatever. I’ll handle it.”
“Oooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaay…. “
“Is there a map of the station?”
Jefferson checked. “Yeah, actually.”
Nate grunted again. “Transfer it to my cuff,”
Five
minutes later he was creeping around the corner of a corridor. He knew
about where to look for the mutants, though his map didn’t show life
signs, he knew they would be protecting the shuttle,
though none of them would know how to get into it, and protecting their
food. He was about one hallway away from the mess hall, and he could
hear them talking to each other in their strange too high, meowing
voices.
“We know he’s in the computer bay, and there’s no way for him to use any of the computers in there.”
“So what are we to do?”
“He’ll be heading toward the idiot panthers guarding the shuttle. Chances are we won’t even need to deal with him.”
Nate
checked his map. There WAS a way to get to the shuttle bay directly,
bypassing the galley, but unfortunately for those cats defending the
galley, Nate didn’t know if the shuttle was equipped
with a hyperdrive, nor if it had provisions for a long trip. So he’d have to gather the provisions first and foremost.
He stepped out into the hallway in front of the two cats, holding his weapons out in front of him.
“Hi,”
he said. “Now, you’re going to lead me to the mess, or you,” he waved
the plasma cannon at the lion-ish one, “are going to end up a greasy
smear on the wall, and you” he waved the protonic
cannon at the bobcat, “are going to have your head vanish in a cloud of
mono-atomic particles.”
The lion hesitated. It saved his life. Because the bobcat didn’t hesitate, but growled, crouched back to leap at Nate. Then it’s head vanished in a slowly expanding cloud of monotomic particles.
His body fell to the ground with a thud that Nate found oddly satisfying. He looked at the Lion, and smiled, blowing molecular smoke out of the corner of his mouth.
The Lion blinked. “Uh… why don’t I take you to the mess...?”
Nate smirked and pointed the gun away from the Lion, who relaxed visibly. “After you,” he said.
As the lion turned and walked down the corridor, Nate told him, “Remember, if you try to warn anyone, the first one to die… will be you.”
But this turned out not to be the case. Because five minutes later as Nate
was pillaging the mess hall, and filling up a hovercart full of
provisions, the Lion sat on the floor unable to move for
the hole in his leg, and surrounded by the dead bodies of his comrades.
He had just had time to reflect that the threat wouldn’t have been as
effective if The Hunter had said, “You’ll be the LAST to die.” After
all, there were more of the them than there were
of him, surely he would have been taken down. But somehow the old
hunter just knew how NOT to be where the danger was. The Lynx had
attacked from behind, and the coat’s shielding sparked and he flew off.
The Jaguar tried to sweep his legs out from under him,
and he’d simply stepped over his leg. Not even jump, just step, like it
was an inconvenient log or something. Lion had replayed the scene over
and over in his mind, and still couldn’t see how he’d done it. Over and
over again, the cat people had flown at the
old hunter, and with a startling efficiency of motion, he’d just... not
been in the places where they attacked him. It was almost like he’d
worked out in his head how everything was going to go, and planned out
all his moves in advance.
The truth was, of course, very simple. Nate Golden
had been doing this for a long time. He’d fought everything from small
aliens to Elephantine mutants, at least twice, and he knew how a fight
was going to go. He just made sure it went HIS way. Very little
surprised him anymore.
When he'd finished loading up the cart, he walked back over to the Lion.
The Lion flinched. "You're going to kill me aren't you?"
Nate knelt down in front of him, gun out. "D'ya have any doubt I could? If I wanted? Even if you were at a hundred percent?"
The Lion appeared to think about this for a moment, then shook his head.
"Naw," he said. He put the gun away saying, "Me neither. Which means you ain't a threat no more." Nate considered the Lion-man for a moment, then reached a decision. "You ever been off this station?"
The Lion blinked, nonplussed. He hadn't expected this at all. "Er, um... no..."
Nate shrugged. "Wanna?"
The Lion started in disbelief. "B-but... but I warned them. I thought you were gonna kill me, but I told them you were coming."
"Risked
your life. Showed courage. Not something to punish, if you ask me.
What's your name anyway?" A blank look was the only reply. Nate nodded,
and frowned a bit. "Okay. So if you had a name, what would it be?"
The Lion thought a moment. It had never had a name before. And now it could have any name it wanted.
"S-spike!" he said suddenly. "That's a good name... right?"
"Sounds like a winner, Spike." Nate stood up and lifted the newly named Spike to his feet. "Want to ride in the cart?"
Spike
shook his head. He was feeling a lot better about this whole thing. He
picked up a broken piece of chair from among the debris on the floor,
and started using it like a cane. The hole in
his leg was cauterized from the blast, and it still hurt a bit, and he
wouldn't be able to walk on it for quite some time, but who cared? He
had a name.
A
few minutes later they walked into the shuttle bay, and were greeted by
another larger than life holo of The Mighty Erwin, and several real
dark furred cat-people standing behind him.
"So you've managed to best a handful of my minions," said Irwin derisively. "And what's this? You've decided to keep a pet?"
Nate
glanced back at Spike, rolling his eyes, and shaking his head.
"Whatever Irwin. Spike here can make his own decisions now. I'm just
offering him a lift off your little rock."
Spike growled at the holo. The Panthers, however blinked a bit and started to look sideways at one another. Nate just barely heard one of them say, "Spike? He gave himself a name?
Irwin
meanwhile was guffawing. "You call him Spike? That sounds like
something an old granny would name her tabby cat. You're never getting
out of here alive you know."
One of the Panthers raised their hand. Nate leaned around the image of Irwin, and nodded at... her. It was definitely a her, Nate realized.
"Uhm... if we go with you... can we have names too?"
"WHAT!?" screamed Irwin whirling around.
"If you want," said Nate. "Not really my place to give you names, but if you want a lift out of here, I can help you."
"I
won't let ANY of you leave, I'll blow up the asteroid first!" laughed
the image of Irwin. He pressed a button on an unseen control panel. The
station very suddenly... failed to explode.
Then a voice came over the speakers in the hangar. "Oh, sorry, I disabled the self destruct," said Jefferson's voice. Nate smirked.
"I just remembered how I know you," he said. "You're the little weird kid that lived in my neighborhood back on Earth."
Irwin froze, looking maniacally at Nate, his eyes open wide.
"Yeah," said Nate,
rubbing his chin. "As I recall, you used to steal the neighborhood
cats, and nobody would ever see them again. At least nobody ever did,
until you moved out of that apartment...
"
"SHUT UP!" Irwin screamed, losing control.
"I seem to remember they found a lot of jars full of parts though..."
"SHUT
UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Irwin flailed uselessly, until he must
have hit his holo-transmitter, then the holo-field in front of them went
to static snow, then faded completely.
"Huh," said Nate into the silence. "Thought he'd never shut up."
"Did you really know him?" asked Jefferson through the speaker system.
He shrugged noncommittally. "If it wasn't him, it was someone a lot like him," said Nate.
He stepped up to the Panthers, looking them over. There were seven of
them, three males and four females. It took him a lot of willpower
not to smirk. He looked over his shoulder at Spike.
Then he looked up at the shuttle. After a moment, he grinned, and said, "Jefferson, do you have video here?"
"No, why?"
"Well let's just say you're going to be a lot less sorry about me getting your other shuttle blown up."
In
the end they decided that the terraformed planet Venus would work best
for the cat people. Since being terraformed, nearly 300 years before it
had been overrun with vegetation and deemed uninhabitable
by the Sol Council. No one lived there now, but it was a jungle with
lots of wild animals, a perfect place for a small tribe of Cat People to
run free.
Another asteroid in the Kuiper Belt had suddenly exploded right around the time that Nate was leaving the one he'd been on. No one knew why.
The Great Nate Golden,
last of the Great White Bounty hunters of the Space Age, continued his
search through the Solar System for the nefarious villain Draconis...
I kind of like the ending, but I have the opinion that it's a little anti-climactic. It makes me feel good inside though, so I haven't changed it so far, but I'm hoping to find a way that I can have some kind of epic battle at the end with Erwin. By the way, I have no real problem with the name, and I'm not trying to insult anyone named Erwin, I'm just saying that it's not very imposing as far as names go. There was Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, but lets be honest here, the thing that made you respect that name wasn't the "Irwin" part. But anyway, as
always if you have any suggestions or comments feel free to post them
here, on the FB post, or the G+ post, and I'll see them. Thanks for reading!
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Fiction: The Hunter part 1
So my wife and I had a wedding to go to today, and what with one
thing and another I didn't have time to get anything written for the
Blog today. However, I think it's important to make sure that even if I
don't have anything I'm still maintaining a schedule of posting, in
order to get used to the idea of maintaining order and holding up my end
of the deal. After all, you can't improve if you don't practice. And
it's not just writing that I need to practice, but setting and keeping
to one post per day, at least as far as major posts. If I don't post
enough people will forget, and I'll forget, and the whole thing falls
apart. It I post too much, it loses meaning, and starts to become too
much for people to keep up with, so they decide not to bother with it,
then suddenly I have no interest.
And interest is honestly what keeps me going with doing this. I know that not everyone comments, and that's fine, but I know you're reading because I see the page views, which have been fairly impressive for me. And when I talk to people they tell me that they liked what I'd written. Thanks for that everyone.
But today I'm going to post part of a short story I've already written. Keep in mind this is a first draft, with very few corrections, other than spelling corrections. The way I came up with this story is that I went to the TV Tropes website and used their Story Generator, which gave the the following:
Setting: Space Base
Plot: Deserted Island
Narrative Device: No Party Like A Donner Party
Hero: Great White Hunter
Villain: Demoted To Dragon
Character As Device: Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up
Characterization Device: Terrified of Germs
The idea was, I had to wrap my mind around these concepts, and find a way to merge them into one coherent story. It was entertaining, and I think I've done a fairly good job for a first draft.
So here's the story in it's current form. If it seems like something worth expanding, or doing more drafts, then I may do that. Let know what you think.
Enjoy!
And interest is honestly what keeps me going with doing this. I know that not everyone comments, and that's fine, but I know you're reading because I see the page views, which have been fairly impressive for me. And when I talk to people they tell me that they liked what I'd written. Thanks for that everyone.
But today I'm going to post part of a short story I've already written. Keep in mind this is a first draft, with very few corrections, other than spelling corrections. The way I came up with this story is that I went to the TV Tropes website and used their Story Generator, which gave the the following:
Setting: Space Base
Plot: Deserted Island
Narrative Device: No Party Like A Donner Party
Hero: Great White Hunter
Villain: Demoted To Dragon
Character As Device: Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up
Characterization Device: Terrified of Germs
The idea was, I had to wrap my mind around these concepts, and find a way to merge them into one coherent story. It was entertaining, and I think I've done a fairly good job for a first draft.
So here's the story in it's current form. If it seems like something worth expanding, or doing more drafts, then I may do that. Let know what you think.
Enjoy!
The Great Nate Golden,
last of the Great White Bounty hunters of the Space Age, had tracked
his nemesis the nefarious Draconis to a hidden Asteroid base in the
Kuiper Belt, in the middle of a Nickle
and Iron rich cluster of asteroids, making radio communication
difficult, if not impossible. As our story begins Nate hurtles toward the asteroid in a borrowed shuttle.
"Are you there yet?" Jefferson's voice came through the speaker, as his face appeared on the veiw-screen in front of Nate, his bald head and goggles giving him a very Mad Scientist aspect.
Nate
frowned curling his lip around his cigar, and narrowing his eyes at
Jefferson. "Not yet," he growled. "I'm trying to sneak up on him, so I'm
bleeding speed, and using that cloaking field you
gave me."
"Yeah, if you come in to hot he'll be able so see right th... HEY! Are you SMOKING on my ship!?"
The end of the cigar glowed blue as Nate
puffed. "Relax doc, it's electronic. I'm not gonna ruin your precious
ship with my cigar." He blew the Molecular cloud, which looked a lot
like cigar smoke
out the opposite side of his mouth.
An alarm went off on the console.
"What is that!?" demanded Jefferson.
"I'll call you back." Nate
calmly but firmly slapped the comm button, shutting Jefferson out. He
took a look at the readouts on the big holograph in front of him, then
past them out the viewport
in front, and swore, standing up from the command chair. He started
looking around the cabin for all the things he would need. He grabbed
his gun belt, and gun, and shoved them into the airtight bag along with
his duster. He was just grabbing his hat to shove
in when the Comm came back on.
"You can shut me of like that, this is MY ship!" Jefferson watched concernedly as Nate ignored him and continued gathering items from the cabin. "Nate...? NATE! What's going on?"
"Sorry doc, but it looks like Draco's sensors are better than your cloaking field." Nate
zipped up the bag and tossed it next the to the pressure suit by the
airlock. He stepped into the suit with
practiced ease, and it closed around him, the helmet clamping down over
his head, switching him to the suit radio. He puffed on his cigar.
"Time for me to go."
He
picked up the bag and opened the airlock, both sides. The air all
rushed out all around him, but that wouldn't matter any more. He
unlocked his boots and leaped headfirst out the hatch, riding
the rushing air.
For
almost a minute he floated away from the Shuttle until the ballistic
rockets he'd detected tore through the ship gouging huge holes until
they reached the reactor, then the whole shuttle exploded
in blue and orange flames.
Nate
sat calmly and watched the whole thing, rolling the cigar around his
mouth, occasionally puffing, the "smoke" dissipating quickly.
After
the show died down, and the the debris had all drifted past he set a
course for the asteroid, the suits thrusters taking him on a slow
journey toward the only haven left him.
Several hours later Nate
floated outside the asteroid looking through the force-field that would
let anything larger than air to pass easily through. It was visible only
as a haze, like static snow
hovering transparently in the air. Nothing moved on the other side, and
there were only parts of spacecraft, nothing that would fly. He drifted
forward, expecting a trap, but not surprised when there wasn't one. He
shoved his bag forward through the field,
to check the orientation of the artificial gravity. They fell the same
way as the wreckage on the ground.
A few moments later Nate
stood decked in his duster, with nano-particle shielding, his wide
brimmed hat, with its neural interface and optical kit. His
Multi-Phasic-Plasma-Particle cannon resembled
nothing so much as a slightly over-sized revolver complete with a
revolving cylinder in the center, and was slung low on his hip. His
short barreled protonic disruption gun rode his back, within easy reach.
He brushed off the white dust from his previous job,
when he'd had to blast a couple bad guys down to protonic dust.
He
rolled the cigar around his mouth, and took a deep breath in through
his nose. The air wasn't stale, but it stank a little bit. So, the air
scrubbers were up and running, but they weren't enough
to deal with whatever was currently living here. Super.
Nate wasn't worried. Nate never worried. Once you get to be a certain age, the only things you could count on were taxes, and death. Nate wasn't afraid of death, he'd lived so close to it for
so long it was like an old friend.
He
found four doors at the back of the abandoned hanger, but only one was
open. He smirked. A trap then. Without the slightest trace of hesitation
or caution he strode through the open door, and
down the hallway. He turned left to go down another corridor when the
attack happened. Four gibbering mutants like howler monkeys came
screaming down from the rafters with voices like nails on a chalkboard.
The first one dropped from a steel beam down on top
of the old bounty hunter...
...Or at least on top of where he was. Nate stopped a step early, and drew the revolver, which spun up with a green fiery glowed. As the mutant fell past him, Nate held revolver out, and pulled
the trigger just as it fell past the barrel of the gun. It's thick khaki colored blood splattered down the hallway.
Nate
was already moving as the next monkey came down at his back. He spun
away, and backhanded the ugly little creature with the heavy barrel of
his hand cannon. It smacked between his gun and
wall of the hall, and it's head cracked open, and it fell limp to the
ground.
The third monkey-mutant had dropped to the ground and was now leaping toward the old hunters feet. Nate lifted his leg at the last moment, and the thing grabbed the bottom of his shoe, so he stomped
down on its spindly fingers, as the fourth was rushing his back…
"...Damn monkeys."
Nate
continued through the corridor, a little less cautiously now that the
trap had been sprung. Minds like the one that thought of the Flying
Monkey trap wouldn't waste time with other traps.
It was a mind that just wanted you to know that IT knew you were there.
He
reached a hatch, and the indicator said that it was safe to open, and
there was no lock, so he opened it. It led to a control room of sorts,
full of holographic displays, and controls and complicated
looking equipment. Nate didn't bother with the
equipment or the controls. He wouldn't know what any of it did, and they
likely were locked out anyway. He did look at the displays though. They
were full of cages. Rows and rows of cages.
...And they were all empty.
"Aha, you can see now, the gravity of your situation."
Nate
rolled his eyes, and turned to see exactly what he'd expected or
rather, almost what he'd expected. What he'd expected was a
larger-than-life hologram of Draco hovering over a console gloating
at him, and explaining why he was doomed. What he saw was someone else
gloating at him. He raised an eyebrow. "Who the hell are you?"
The figure looked offended, but decided to be gracious. "As you are about to die, I suppose I can tell you." (Nate grinned inwardly at this.) "I am Draco's second in command, the Mighty Erwin,
and I will succeed where he has always failed; defeating the mighty Nate Golden." He smiled in what he clearly thought was a vindictive and smug manner.
Nate
took the cigar out of his mouth, and swaggered forward a few steps.
"You ah... might want to work on that name Erwin. I mean I'm hardly
quaking in my boots here." He gestured to himself. "You're
not really inspiring a lot of respect or fear out of your enemies if
you go around calling yourself the Mighty Erwin."
The
Mighty Erwin looked angry for just a moment, but then looked
thoughtful. "You know, it was calculated to get my enemies to
underestimate me, but perhaps your right. Maybe fear is better. Take
a look at this." The monitor flickered over to a scene of a humanoid,
but more feline, strapped to a table getting injections. "They're as
smart as humans, but with none of the stupid emotions or other ethical
concerns that come along with the shape. A perfect
killing machine." Nate shook his head, and rolled his eyes again. Villains, he thought. They never understood.
"You don't like the name Erwin then? Well how about, The Mighty Killer of Nate Golden!?"
Nate
yawned. Conversations like this were useful in their own way, and
sometimes entertaining for a little while, but only if the other person
was fairly clever and “Erwin” clearly wasn’t. Certainly
this whole thing may have been a cleverly disguised ruse to lull him
into a false sense of security, but somehow, he doubted it. Erwin was a
lackey, and lackeys in general tended to be overambitious, and overly
eager to prove themselves.
Nate
drew his protonic shotgun, turned it on the holo-emitter, and blew it
into mono-atomic dust. The transmission abruptly cut off. Erwin would
still be able to see him he knew, but at least Nate
wouldn’t have to listen to him anymore. The odd thing was, that he got
the nagging feeling that he knew this… Erwin. But there wasn’t really
time for that right now. Now it was time to find another way off this
rock.
And he was in a control room.
He decided to re-assess his initial conclusion about the uselessness of the equipment.
Well that's it for part 1. Tomorrow will be part 2, the exciting conclusion.
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