In preperation for my next WIP, I've been playing around and brainstroming versions of the novel's story question. The novel, working title of 'Lembek of the Towers', is set in a kind of Georgian-era society with magic, but in a post apocalyptic world.
Story Question?
1:When he is framed for the murder of a maid, and the mutilation of his brother-in-law, a young Noble hunts for the truth and searches out the real killer, but he is banished from noble society and struggles to survive in the cutthroat gutters of the city slums, while every blade is determined to stop him.
2: Framed for murder and banished to the lows, young noble Lembek must fight to survive and clear his name, whilst at the same time coming to terms with his newfound magical powers, but can he succeed when the king of the Croakers and every assassin in the city is out to stop him.
3: When he is framed for murder and banished young noble and neophyte sorcerer Lembek sets out to find the truth, but will he succeed when the king of the Croakers and every assassin in the city is out to stop him.
4: In the magic rich city of a thousand towers, the noble son of one of the city’s sorcerer elites is framed for murder and banished to the lows: the cutthroat slums beneath the towers.
5: The son of a sorcerer-lord is framed for murder and banished to the slums; where he must fight for his life, prove his innocence in order to win back his place in society.
6: A noble-sorcerer’s son is framed for murder and banished to the city’s dangerous slums.
7: The son of one of the City of Towers sorcerer-elite is framed for murder and banished to the slums.
8: In the City of a Thousand Towers the son of the city’s most powerful Sorcerer-Lord is framed for murder and banished from the Great Tower to the sprawling and deadly slums below.
9: Framed for murder the son of a powerful sorcerer is banished to the city’s slums.
10: Framed for murder, banished to the city slums, the son of a powerful sorcerer must first fight for survival before he can prove his innocence.
Friday, 23 April 2010
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Wednesday Worldbuilding: The Shore People
All along the southern shores of the spine live interrelated tribes of humans who call themselves collectively: the shore people.
Each tribe differs in its customs, social mores, values, etc. but they all share a common mythology and they all excel at fishing, most are excellent swimmers and canoeists, and some are skilled surfers. For many though, some by choice, others by necessity, warfare has become their primary skill-set and way of life.
Amongst the shore people, beyond the necessities of everyday life, pearls, certain shells, and some types of coral are highly sought after and act as status symbols. Because of this skilled Pearl divers are valuable to any tribe, and the subject of much intertribal rivalry; a rivalry that sometimes includes taking of divers by force in raids or more formal challenges between two tribes.
After generations of raids and challenges a warrior caste has started to develop in many of the tribes. At first warriors were chosen based on physical prowess and innate skill, but now the warrior caste has become hereditary with fathers, or mothers for there are many female warriors, pass down the jealously guarded secrets of their combat skills to their children and raise them as warriors from birth. This makes it very difficult for anyone not born to the warrior caste to force their way into the hierarchy.
Each family has it’s own speciality, its own preferred weapons but most tribes use a clubs carved from wood, stone or whalebone, clubs studded with shark’s teeth, carved wooden spears, fishing spears, blow darts, bows, and bolas.
To become a warrior a youth must pass an initiation ceremony, after which their face is tattooed to mark them out as a warrior. After that further tattoos are earned for bravery and success in war, and thus each warrior’s face displays his worth and status within the tribe.
As well as fighting amongst themselves and defending their tribes against the Aze-Toh and the many other threats they face warriors from many tribes have formed an alliance to fight a holy war against the lizardmen of the outer islands who they believe to be demons. This has caused division between the tribes and within individual tribes as many feel it is unwise for their warriors to leave the shore to fight on foreign lands.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Wednesday Worldbuilding: The Aze-Toh Headhunters
Previous Wednesday Worldbuilding posts . . .
1: Thou shalt not Tolkienize!
2: How the Hell Do You Build a World Anyway?
3: The Shape of Things to come
4: Of Men and Monsters
5: It's A Kind of Magic
6: The Village of the Hahn
The Aze-Toh
The human tribes of the Spine tell stories of the Aze-Toh; a fierce tribe of head hunters who have no home of their own, instead spending eternity roaming the spine and taking fear and death wherever they go.
The truth is the Aze-Toh are not a tribe they are slave-citizens of Zinth, the ziggurat city of the sorcerer kings.
Every ten years the acolytes, the human servitors of the sorcerer kings, select from the slave-citizen populace boys and girls who they deem likely candidates for the Aze-Toh. Those young people then spend the remainder of their lives in being trained in all aspects of combat, raiding tactics, jungle survival, tracking, and other more esoteric practices. It is rumoured some are even taught the secrets of sorcery. After ten years of training they are armed and equipped with the best the city has and then sent from the city to raid.
Ranging in number from thirty to fifty warriors Aze-Toh raiding parties roam back and forth across the spine, searching its coasts, going deep into the jungles. They seek only to raid their fellow humans and avoid conflict, where possible, with all the other races of the Spine. Their orders are clear they are to harvest the heads of all the adult humans they can find.
Each year collectors are sent out to meet the Aze-Toh and bring back that year’s crop of heads. Those heads the acolytes deem worthy are taken for the sorcerer kings to examine. The sorcerer kings are powerful, secretive, and jealous rulers; therefore the collectors, acolytes, and even the Aze-Toh themselves do not know why, or for what the heads are taken.
The life of the members of an Aze-Toh raiding band is brutal and short and within ten years attrition usually reduces their numbers to ten or less. No longer effective as raiders they return to the City of Zinth where they help train another generation of Aze-Toh before being sacrificed at the great ziggurat as an offering to the success of the newest raiders.
1: Thou shalt not Tolkienize!
2: How the Hell Do You Build a World Anyway?
3: The Shape of Things to come
4: Of Men and Monsters
5: It's A Kind of Magic
6: The Village of the Hahn
The Aze-Toh
The human tribes of the Spine tell stories of the Aze-Toh; a fierce tribe of head hunters who have no home of their own, instead spending eternity roaming the spine and taking fear and death wherever they go.
The truth is the Aze-Toh are not a tribe they are slave-citizens of Zinth, the ziggurat city of the sorcerer kings.
Every ten years the acolytes, the human servitors of the sorcerer kings, select from the slave-citizen populace boys and girls who they deem likely candidates for the Aze-Toh. Those young people then spend the remainder of their lives in being trained in all aspects of combat, raiding tactics, jungle survival, tracking, and other more esoteric practices. It is rumoured some are even taught the secrets of sorcery. After ten years of training they are armed and equipped with the best the city has and then sent from the city to raid.
Ranging in number from thirty to fifty warriors Aze-Toh raiding parties roam back and forth across the spine, searching its coasts, going deep into the jungles. They seek only to raid their fellow humans and avoid conflict, where possible, with all the other races of the Spine. Their orders are clear they are to harvest the heads of all the adult humans they can find.
Each year collectors are sent out to meet the Aze-Toh and bring back that year’s crop of heads. Those heads the acolytes deem worthy are taken for the sorcerer kings to examine. The sorcerer kings are powerful, secretive, and jealous rulers; therefore the collectors, acolytes, and even the Aze-Toh themselves do not know why, or for what the heads are taken.
The life of the members of an Aze-Toh raiding band is brutal and short and within ten years attrition usually reduces their numbers to ten or less. No longer effective as raiders they return to the City of Zinth where they help train another generation of Aze-Toh before being sacrificed at the great ziggurat as an offering to the success of the newest raiders.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Cap'n Jethro and the iPad Spike
As I previously mentioned when the rights returned to me I'd republished my pirate story Cap'n Jethro at smashwords.com . Since it was published it had steadily clocked up 50 odd sample downloads, but never more than four on any one day. On April 3rd, launch day of the iPad it spiked at eight downloads in one day and has since risen to 70 in total. That's me an, as yet, unknown writer with just one minor publication under his belt, and available for download. Be interesting to see how the sales of well-known writers spiked on launch day!
Oh and by the way Cap'n Jethro is available for free download and if, like me, you don't have an iPad, don't worry thanks to the excellent service provided by smashwords.com it's pretty much available in every eFormat known to man.
Anyone else experience an iPad spike?
Oh and by the way Cap'n Jethro is available for free download and if, like me, you don't have an iPad, don't worry thanks to the excellent service provided by smashwords.com it's pretty much available in every eFormat known to man.
Anyone else experience an iPad spike?
Friday, 2 April 2010
FRPG FRIDAY: Meet the Guys - When Roleplaying and Scriptwriting Collide.
Hmmm, no update since last week, and that was another RPG post seems like they're out numbering the writing posts these days. So here's a bit of both. A 1st Draft excerpt from my Comedy Drama script Magus. It's about Danny, a typical urban youth who just happens to be able to summon and control creatures from other dimensions. It's a calling card script in a similar vain to shows like, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Being Human, or Demons.
In this excerpt our hero, Danny, who is yet to discover his powers, has been kicked out of his mum's house because he's such a slob and has gone to stay with his dad. To Danny's dismay when he arrives his dad is playing D&D with his friends who are, I think you'll agree, a pretty typical bunch of players.
The Script Formatting doesn't really work in blogger but here we go anyway . . .
SCENE 14. INT. RON'S HOUSE. DAY 1.[09:30]
DANNY'S DAD RON (LANKY, LONG HAIRED, BEARDY-WEIRDY IN HIS LATE FORTIES) MEETS HIM AT THE DOOR.
THEY EXCHANGE AN AWKWARD MAN HUG AND HEAD INTO THE KITCHEN, WHERE RON AND HIS FRIENDS ARE PLAYING D&D.
SFX: DODGY PROG ROCK CIRCA 1977.
THE ROOM IS DENSE WITH JOSTICK SMOKE, THE TABLE COVERED WITH SNACKS, DRINKS, DICE, BOOKS, MINIS, AND A DUNGEON MASTER'S SCREEN.
RON: You remember the guys?
DANNY: Err, kinda . . .
RON: That's Thark Turlock; the party's Dwarven Warbastard . . .
RON POINTS TO AN ANDROGYNOUS YOUTH, WITH LONG BLOND HAIR, WHO BLUSHES WHEN DANNY LOOKS AT HIM.
RON (CONT): . . . El'malare The Fair; our Elfin Charmdancer . . .
HE POINTS TO A SHORT, FAT, BEARDED BLOKE, WITH MEAN PIGGY EYES WHO GLARES ANGRILY AT DANNY.
RON (CONT): . . . Berek Lightbringer; the party's Human Holyhealer . . .
A HUGE THUG OF A BLOKE, WITH A SKINHEAD AND 'CUT HERE' TATTOOED ACROSS HIS THROAT GRUNTS AT DANNY FROM BEHIND HIS COPY OF 'TITS AND GUNS' MAGAZINE.
RON (CONT): . . . Dargon Darkheart; our Demon Deathstalker . . .
A NIGERIAN CATHOLIC PRIEST SMILES WARMLY AT DANNY OVER THE BIBLE HE IS READING.
RON (CONT): . . . oh, and err . . . yeah . . . that's Ninja Bob.
A VERY FAT MAN IN A BLACK NINJA SUIT NARROWS HIS EYES AT DANNY THROUGH THE SLITS OF HIS NINJA MASK.
EL'MALARE THE FAIR ELFIN CHARMDANCER: He can't play unless he knows the houserules!
HE DELVES UNDER THE TABLE AND PLONKS A HUGE FOLDER FULL OF HAND-WRITTEN HOUSERULES ON THE TABLE, THEN ANOTHER, AND ANOTHER, AND REACHES FOR ANOTHER.
DANNY: I'll pass, gotta unpack ya know.
EL'MALARE GIVES DANNY A PARTICULARLY HOSTILE GLARE.
In this excerpt our hero, Danny, who is yet to discover his powers, has been kicked out of his mum's house because he's such a slob and has gone to stay with his dad. To Danny's dismay when he arrives his dad is playing D&D with his friends who are, I think you'll agree, a pretty typical bunch of players.
The Script Formatting doesn't really work in blogger but here we go anyway . . .
SCENE 14. INT. RON'S HOUSE. DAY 1.[09:30]
DANNY'S DAD RON (LANKY, LONG HAIRED, BEARDY-WEIRDY IN HIS LATE FORTIES) MEETS HIM AT THE DOOR.
THEY EXCHANGE AN AWKWARD MAN HUG AND HEAD INTO THE KITCHEN, WHERE RON AND HIS FRIENDS ARE PLAYING D&D.
SFX: DODGY PROG ROCK CIRCA 1977.
THE ROOM IS DENSE WITH JOSTICK SMOKE, THE TABLE COVERED WITH SNACKS, DRINKS, DICE, BOOKS, MINIS, AND A DUNGEON MASTER'S SCREEN.
RON: You remember the guys?
DANNY: Err, kinda . . .
RON: That's Thark Turlock; the party's Dwarven Warbastard . . .
RON POINTS TO AN ANDROGYNOUS YOUTH, WITH LONG BLOND HAIR, WHO BLUSHES WHEN DANNY LOOKS AT HIM.
RON (CONT): . . . El'malare The Fair; our Elfin Charmdancer . . .
HE POINTS TO A SHORT, FAT, BEARDED BLOKE, WITH MEAN PIGGY EYES WHO GLARES ANGRILY AT DANNY.
RON (CONT): . . . Berek Lightbringer; the party's Human Holyhealer . . .
A HUGE THUG OF A BLOKE, WITH A SKINHEAD AND 'CUT HERE' TATTOOED ACROSS HIS THROAT GRUNTS AT DANNY FROM BEHIND HIS COPY OF 'TITS AND GUNS' MAGAZINE.
RON (CONT): . . . Dargon Darkheart; our Demon Deathstalker . . .
A NIGERIAN CATHOLIC PRIEST SMILES WARMLY AT DANNY OVER THE BIBLE HE IS READING.
RON (CONT): . . . oh, and err . . . yeah . . . that's Ninja Bob.
A VERY FAT MAN IN A BLACK NINJA SUIT NARROWS HIS EYES AT DANNY THROUGH THE SLITS OF HIS NINJA MASK.
EL'MALARE THE FAIR ELFIN CHARMDANCER: He can't play unless he knows the houserules!
HE DELVES UNDER THE TABLE AND PLONKS A HUGE FOLDER FULL OF HAND-WRITTEN HOUSERULES ON THE TABLE, THEN ANOTHER, AND ANOTHER, AND REACHES FOR ANOTHER.
DANNY: I'll pass, gotta unpack ya know.
EL'MALARE GIVES DANNY A PARTICULARLY HOSTILE GLARE.
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