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Author Topic: The Birth of an Artifact  (Read 20103 times)

SirHoneyBadger

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #60 on: May 30, 2009, 06:56:48 am »

Next installment is up, yay!

Also, if you'd all like to start PMing me with ideas for new migrants, please feel free. Try to keep them fairly serious, though, as I don't intend to add any obvious comic relief characters to the script. Serious doesn't mean tragic or dull, but it does mean the character will have to fit into the story on a more or less equal basis with the characters already present.

If what you come up with doesn't work for me, I'll let you know, we can discuss why not (as much as I'm able to, so you might not always get a good answer), and you can try again.

Please be aware of the name of your character! Names are important to me, and if I don't think the name fits, I'll ask you to change it. I won't use your Forum name.

More detail is better, by the way--Please also be aware that I do reserve the right to use, alter, and thoroughly abuse, anything you send (whether directly and obviously, or in more subtle and terrifying ways), but if I do-and if I'm able to due to the story's plotting, which I won't guarantee-I'll try to discuss that with you.

And yes, I can be a real hardass sometimes, but I'm going to do what I feel is necessary to make this as good as I'm capable of making it.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2009, 04:55:03 pm by SirHoneyBadger »
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SirHoneyBadger

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TBOAA: Shal'e'ish Story, Part 1
« Reply #61 on: May 31, 2009, 06:56:12 am »

Shal'e'ish was only 19 years old when the man she absolutely believed was her father, passed away. He was an important man--everyone said so. Everyone she'd ever met, anyway; her nurses, her tutor, her lady mother. He'd been a warrior baron, a great leader of men, and he'd died struck by an unlucky arrow, in otherwise victorious battle.

She couldn't say she knew him very well.

It was Shal'e'ish's great and distant, rather abstract honor, to have come from a long line of heroes. Men who had given their lives in defense of their Fortresses, led conquering armies through goblin halls. Men who slayed fell beasts and terrible monsters, and either lived to tell the story, or met their fates in songs still sung to this day.

Always they were men. She'd noticed that, immediately.

Some had been villains in their own way, she was sure. Isolated, she was, quite, but less naive than you'd expect. Fed fairytales and hours-long sagas, when presented with what amounted to her own history-the very story of where she came from-she couldn't help but extrapolate, to draw parallels, and to hypothesize that somewhere, in all that glory, must lie a villain or two in wait.

In storybook land-the land she was most familiar with-the villain was almost always-almost-the one you expected him or her to be.

So why not an exception here? Why not an almost or two in her family? She wondered at that, worried at it until the things that were said-a word here, a thread there-unravelled themselves, and then grew again in different shapes, much like her halfhearted attempts at knitting. She listened to those stories, again and again, demanding them from her harried nurses at every opportunity.
Her old scholar-tutor was too wise and careful, too rutted and dried fast in the ways of protocal, to get much from him, other than the official accounts, but her three nurses were absolute troves of gossip, and she pried every grain of gold from them, no matter how tiny or false, or tightly they guarded their secrets--which, when confronted with the singleminded will of an extremely intelligent child with absolutely nothing else fit to occupy her, proved not very tight at all.

The pricking thing of it was: many of those so-called "heroes" who figured in her family line really had been honourable men. Quite to her surprise, she found that she really did come from a noble family, rich with the blood of just men, fairly level-headed, unfashionably generous, often brave. They weren't perfect, ofcourse, not like the stories, but not much like the stories her nurses whispered only to each other about their own men, or their many past lovers.

Those good men made her restless. It was a fine thing, she supposed in an offhanded way, to have such shining examples to look up to, and she knew, but didn't really understand, that those sorts of men had made the land her family ruled, a more gentle and welcoming place than it might have been. But who were they, really? She'd never-not for certain-met anyone like them, and didn't know if she ever would, or would really want to. What does one say?

Others in her family were simply men. Not very good, but not more evil than a baron, or a baron's father or brother or cousin, was expected to be. Some of these were entertaining, but most were terribly dull. She liked that. Liked the dullness of them, because she could understand that far better than the minds of distant heroes. Had, infact, met many dull people in her life, and found their company to be satisfactory. When you're 'The Baron's Daughter'-when that's all that you are, to almost everyone you come in contact with-it's something, to meet someone who's atleast as concerned with this year's crop of barley, or the import tax on wine, as they are about what dress you'll be wearing to the garden ball.

She hated her dress, the garden AND the ball, and she hated her family, thoroughly. She never felt like she belonged in any of them. That couldn't stop her from being fascinated by the lives of all those dead people, who had first conspired to make, and then abandon her.

And that was the one thing she knew enough about her father to love him for. Of all the people, for miles around, she understood that he was the one person wholely unconcerned about finding himself in or out of her favor. Disregarding the circumstantial nature of the situation, and the cold-bloodedness of the man, himself, she found that quite strong and admirable a trait,

She couldn't even say that of her lady mother, who'd taken to fawning over her, since her father's passing. It was hardly sufferable, but she did what she could to comfort the poor woman.

Which is how she came to learn The Truth.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2009, 11:32:51 am by SirHoneyBadger »
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Heron TSG

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #62 on: June 01, 2009, 08:05:32 am »

It's good writing, but what's the point of it? Who is Shal'e'ish?
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SirHoneyBadger

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #63 on: June 01, 2009, 02:04:15 pm »

Shal'e'ish So'pah = the woman with the mace.

I'll try to get around to adding a little section about all the characters presented so far, but I want to get past the part I'm on right now, before I do that, since I'll be adding background details on several of them in this section.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2009, 07:39:44 am by SirHoneyBadger »
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SirHoneyBadger

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TBOAA: Shal'e'ish Story Part 2,
« Reply #64 on: June 05, 2009, 11:32:26 am »

Tending to her mother, the Lady Tan'esh, proved to occupy more of her time than Shal'e'ish had expected.

Upon hearing of the death of her husband, Shal'e'ish's mother was inconsolable. At first, the girl suspected this had more to do with the fear that she'd lose her place of authority--it was known, atleast privately, that the Lady Tan'esh was unable to bear any more children, the result of a miscarrage after Shal'e'ish was born. While it was not only acceptible, but quite common for women to hold high rank-infact, wives traditionally outranked their husbands-they were forbidden, again by tradition, from directly leading soldiers. She would therefore need a husband or a son to maintain her rule over the Fortress, 'Graniteshear', and Shal'e'ish was an only child.

This inconvenience was soon solved, however, when Shal'e'ish's grandfather-a respected and famous general who had only recently retired-was sent for. Her grandfather-father to her father-had remarried after the death of his wife, so the elder couple would serve as figureheads, while the Lady Tan'esh maintained her place of power.

Shal'e'ish very much looked forward to their arrival. Her grandfather was one of the few men she really looked up to, and Shal'e'ish was very close to the woman he'd married. The venerable woman had been trained as a soldier in her youth, in a very dangerous Fortress, and later had gone into politics, serving as a diplomat to the goblins.

She was tough and smart, she always had much better stories to tell than any of Shal'e'ish's nurses, and seemed to know more gossip than the three of them, combined. She'd earned her own place in the world--something Shal'e'ish greatly envied, but knew her mother would never allow her even a taste of.

The Lady Tan'esh was also smart. Plenty tough in her own way, too, but ever since the miscarrage, she was driven to be a mother-in-spirit to everyone around her. She was a good woman, as kind and generous even as some of the heroes in the stories...and she kept her subjects firmly under her kind and generous, vigilant thumb.

It was a golden time for her subjects, true: New roads were being built, and their safety ensured by well-armed and well-trained guards. Crime was punished firmly, but fairly, and the Hammerer rarely called upon. Taxes were heavier than in times past, but this was more than compensated for by increased trade. The taxes were spent well, too, going primarily towards strengthening the Fortress defenses, the roads, and public works, such as a complex system of aquaducts that would soon bring clean water from the mountain springs, to the very center of the Fortress.

Being Mother to the Fortress didn't leave her a lot of time to be a mother to her daughter, though. She did find time, here and there, but even when the opportunities came, the Lady Tan'esh was always distracted with one of her projects. It was often more frustrating for Shal'e'ish to be in her presence, than out of it. The woman seemed to realize this, and often sent her gifts that were clearly meant to make up for her absence, but it was never the same.

The worst thing about it was that Shal'e'ish very much enjoyed being in her mother's company. It was the only time she got to tour all parts of the Fortress. They visited the walls her mother was extending, the deep mines where spinels and silver were still wrested from the living rock, and even toured the gaol, where Shal'e'ish got a long glimpse at some of the bandits that plagued the wild scrublands that lay between 'Graniteshear' and three of the settlements they traded with.

It was a highly secure area built deep into the Fortress, and the head gaoler was the wife of the Hammerer, and a close, and long-time friend of Shal'e'ish's mother. Recognising that the lives of the women of the Fortress were lacking somewhat in novelty, the Lady decided to open up the gaols to regular public viewing, even encouraging a certain mild, polite fraternization between prisoners and the womenfolk. This served a certain educational purpose for the women, and went a long way towards keeping the prisoners calm and civil. In return, the women supervised and helped maintain the cleanliness and propriety of the prisoner areas, provided extra food and water, lack of alchohol being the main punishment, and often aided and encouraged the prisoners themselves to find new apprenticeships, education, healthcare, and basic hygiene, that they were so often lacking. 

Direct physical interaction was forbidden, and the prisoners were kept behind thick iron bars, but "prisoner-watching", talking and socializing, giving various lessons, and taking meals together was common. 

Most of the bandits were shabby-looking men and youths--mainly leaden-bearded, obviously very poor, and probably driven to their wicked trades by simple hunger and lack of skills--but one of them was a goblin. Shal'e'ish had never seen a goblin before. Not very tall, with no fat at all on it's body, it was hard-muscled, and extraordinarily wirey, with large knotted joints that made it's veiny limbs gangly-looking. It's thin skin was a deep inky blue, heavily black-spotted and looking slightly scabby and sunburnt, wherever the sun had touched it, but striped a chalky sky-blue on the undersides of it's arms. Small scars of a faint teal shade cris-crossed it's forearms, hands, and face, but these all appeared to be from recent wounds, and healing well.

It wore a leather cuirass, old looking, also badly scarred, but with several of the straps and bronze buckles newly-severed. By the guards who had captured it, she supposed.
Below the cuirass it wore a series of three thin belts, the uppermost of which also included a strap that ran over it's left shoulder.
Attached to the strap like a bandolier were seven small sheaths that she guessed had held throwing knives, that ran up from the center of it's deeply muscled chest to right below the shoulder.
That shoulder was protected by several heavy leather scales, which were further reinforced with bronze studs and what looked like three heavy bronze belt buckles, each of a very different style. On the two lower belts, she counted over a dozen more belt buckles, also in a wide variety of materials and styles, including a very large wooden one that looked as if it had been grown, rather than made.
On the two lower belts were also three empty scabbards of various sizes, a wineskin made from foxhide, and some sort of weird mounting made from a cut down hip bone, attached to the lowermost belt. When it turned to the side to speak to one of it's fellow prisoners, she saw yet a fourth empty scabbard, larger than the rest, crossed under a complicated-looking hangar, where a mace or an axe might have hung.

It's forehead was broad, heavily-ridged above it's eyes, and decorated with a single thin, neatly-trimmed eyebrow that ran across the forehead and down around the bottoms of it's extremely large, flexible ears, which came to a sharp point, and which never seemed to stop twitching. Fine white fur started on the forehead, directly above the eyebrows, but quickly turned into blueish black hair which looked partially braided, and bound in several places with verdigreed copper wire.
The face and ears were of a somewhat paler shade than the rest of it's skin, and looked untouched by the sun.
She'd heard that goblins often wore strange masks, and perhaps this was the result? 
The face itself was well-formed and not entirely uncomely, although sharply angled and cruel-looking. The large purple lips of it's narrow mouth pouted out around two narrow fanglike tusks, and then turned up almost in a constant grin, within which she could see two rows of very sharp teeth and a thin mauve tongue. It seemed the creature liked to talk, as it held a constant conversation with the other prisoners. It spoke her dialect fairly well, although the high voice warbled strangely, at times nearly birdlike. Shal'e'ish spoke to the creature on occasion, and it answered back politely enough, but there was ever a slight mockingness about it, as well as the prideful, still-arrogant way it held itself in a prison of it's enemies, and something else, in it's eyes, that always kept her on edge.
The eyes fascinated, and sometimes even frightened her.
Very deeply set into it's skull, the goblin's eyes were huge amethyst orbs possessed of an obvious intelligence, cunning, and a deep, cold age.

The goblin hadn't stayed very long in the prison, although long enough to pick up a rudimentary knowledge of writing, and basic mining theory. It was quickly processed and assigned to the Fortress's salt mines. Shal'e'ish later learned that it had risen to a minor overseer position, but had later murdered it's direct supervisor and two guards, before being killed by it's lover, a rare woman prisoner, in a nearly-successful escape attempt.

She hadn't been particularly surprised at any of these events. 
« Last Edit: July 20, 2011, 09:20:35 am by SirHoneyBadger »
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Slinkyfest

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #65 on: June 07, 2009, 05:50:06 am »

Huzzah!
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Rashilul

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #66 on: June 15, 2009, 12:21:26 am »

Awesome story telling! ;D

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Slinkyfest

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #67 on: June 19, 2009, 10:13:45 pm »

Bamp
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SirHoneyBadger

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What Shal'e'ish Saw.
« Reply #68 on: June 22, 2009, 03:44:29 am »

They live in the City of Thorns and Roses, a massive citadel carved from an impossibly old rosebush that had been grown in the black crater of an even more ancient volcano, which has long gone extinct. The flower city seems to explode out of the crater like the portrait of a distant eruption, one in which the colors are all wrong, but the aeons quieted fury is still preserved.

The mouth of the mountain stands out in black charcoal lines and coal-grey smudges. It contrasts starkly with the sky's sugarey whiteness, and the powder hues of the vaulting, twining bouquet of a city.  An assassin's bouquet.

Malachite lines-grossly arching, weirdly weaving-scaffold a wicked forest of hidden thorns, each one the length, or almost, of a man. There are many buildings and other structures nested within the crosshatching scourges, each held firmly in place by a million viney fingers.

Here, lies an ancient marble-faced palace of fairy-thin towers and broad basaltic garden walls, supported-infact thoroughly invested-by a for-centuries-dying bough. The blackish bark is one shade browner, and perhaps one or two hairs softer, than iron. It grips the marble like a mummy's hand--giving here, taking there, into or against the crumbling stone. 

Here, is an artificial waterfall--one of many--dripping from a fantasy aqueduct of wood, meticulously teased into a spiral, carved further into shape, and then plated with tarnished copper. The water pours down into the crater and then, in three separate falls, splashes merrily on the mountainside.

There, is a city parkway, a broad road carved into one of  the bush's several trunks. Flower blossoms large enough to stand up inside of, held gently in place by filigreed brass, line either side of the road. Obviously cultivated through much taking of pains, they bloom in a hundred different shades. No color combination is duplicated all along that long stretch of road. At each flower, almost touching the fantastic petals, stands a soldier at attention.

The armour they wear stands out in dark metallic tones, flashing and glinting in a way that nothing else in the city seems to, even other metals which do exist in profusion. Long blonde hair streams down from spikey, waspish helmets. They look much the same, for all their grandeur-pale, narrow face and too tall frame, neatly trimmed but very long goatee and mustaches-not quite a beard. Halfcloak tabard of white silk roses on a field of crimson. Each holds rigid a thorn-tipped spear, the curved wooden blade fire-blackened and lacquered. Held in place with a green silk ribbon is the bloom of a much smaller, no less beautiful flower. As alike as the men look, it takes a moment to realize that the coloration of the flowers on their chests match the impossible flower that each soldier seems to guard.

The road, surfaced with more copper plate that had long ago gone to verdigris, splits, flowing around a broad basalt fountain that had been carved and polished into a titanic skull. A much more normal sized-but still sizeable-wild rose bush grows up from somewhere deep inside the skull's base, showering strands of vines dappled with white flowers like moth's wings, down over the grinning rigormortis.

Beyond that lies the heart of the literally living city: A cavernous inverted ziggurat that drops down, step by step-though each step be half the width of a city block-deep into the heart of the great rose's trunk, into depths beyond sight or knowledge. Grandiose public buildings of polished basalt, adorned infrequently with pink and yellow marble, line the steps. The road, one of eight to meet at the great hollow-each with it's skull-fashioned fountain, it's own squad of soldiers, turns into a shallow staircase that only grows steeper as it makes it's way down.

Glim, stately lights, as from a procession of fireflies, show the way down, insufficiently lighting buildings that seem to twist into ever odder shapes, as the distance, and darkness, gathers.

At the very edge of vision, the eight staircases conjoin into one--a single spiral quickly swallowed by the mysteries of the long quiet volcano.
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Sabre_Justice

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #69 on: June 22, 2009, 10:50:51 am »

Just stumbled across this thread the read the whole thing from beginning to end- quite a read, very well done. The way you describe the world from the dwarves' point of view is really good. I'm hoping the original plot gets back on track soon though, I'm eager to see how Mat'tock is gonna put those farms back into use- and look into making that sword.

Love the the description of a human from a dwarves' point of view, somehow I always find those hilarious.
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Slinkyfest

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #70 on: July 24, 2009, 01:21:50 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: July 24, 2009, 01:23:31 pm by Slinkyfest »
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SirHoneyBadger

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #71 on: July 25, 2009, 10:22:09 pm »

No worries.  8)

This is a very busy time of year for me, and will continue to be through atleast September, if not October. When I'm not busy outside working on my garden and yard (like I did today), then I'm either working, trying to keep up on my sleep, which being an insomniac isn't easy for me, or I'm doing honeydews for my wife.

I have absolutely every intention of continuing the story whenever I'm able to, and your great support and encouragement really keeps me interested in it, so thank you!
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Neyvn

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #72 on: July 27, 2009, 08:41:04 am »

Gah Curse you...
I have to work early tomorrow and your storytelling as captivating as it is, has kept me up to nearly midnight. And I haven't even read the 5th Page worth of writing yet. Gah!!!

Bloody Heck though mate, This is good. Really good...
I'm thinking of copy pasting this into a word doc and printing it out so I can read it without me eyes going red from strain, also, you still don't mind an influx of a couple of characters still right???
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SirHoneyBadger

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #73 on: July 28, 2009, 04:22:52 am »

Yep!

I'm taking character proposals, so feel free to PM me so that I can wantonly gorge on your creative energy, and likely puke up something nigh-unrecogniseable.
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Heron TSG

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Re: The Birth of an Artifact
« Reply #74 on: July 29, 2009, 10:33:59 am »

I can't remember if I already asked for one...

I'd like a dwarf with a staff on a quest to find his lost flock of sheep. the sheep are his livelihood, and he'll be put to death if he doesn't return them to his city which feeds on the sheep which are his flock.
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Est Sularus Oth Mithas
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