I like them all. But if I'd have to pick a favourite, I say C as it's a good mix to work with. Bit a low fantasy, bit a high fantasy.
Ditto, it's a cool idea. Lots of potential.
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Ditto, it's a cool idea. Lots of potential.
Feel free to voice opinions and suggest your own.
What about a 100 Years/30 Years War type situation in a world with some weird sun/moon issues and an undead problem? Tone down the fantasy a bit from the first suggestion, but keep alot of it and put it into a grittier, more low-fantasy type setting?
Edit: I like the idea of a decadent not-France ruled by vampires warring with not-English/not-vikings....
Edit 2: missed the part about a sample post. See below, from this RP by HeySuess.
yep.
New post on its way from me this week.
Olms rode into Zar Yiin as the last light of dusk bled from the sky and rain began pattering down amid the square mudbrick storefronts of the town. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
His mount gurgled with pleasure at the moisture, and Olms swung down from the saddle and gave the lizard's gnarled hide an affectionate slap, bidding her farewell as they parted ways- him into town to get falling-down drunk while she - not a gaan that took well to tyin' up- prowled the rocky wilds just outside Yiin's low clay palisade, digging up a dinner of ashcrabs and centigor eggs.
The few locals still outside, in keeping with the legendary hospitality of Ashlanders, gave Olms suspicious glares and growls of disapproval as he sauntered down the main road. Olms tipped his hat to them as he passed.
Yiin wasn't much of anything, just a handful of buildings huddled together around a brackish spring in the vast emptiness of the Ashlands. Besides the spring- little more than a bubbling, nasty smellin' pond- the only features of any note were the great iron pens in the village square where the Slaver-Clans would display their captive wares to the caravaneers and traveling Drathan magnates come summer. The cages were empty now in the off-season, save for a few silent and desultory Nyr'kiin that clicked and buzzed at Olms as he walked by. He tipped his hat to them, too.
The tavern was the biggest building in town, built in cheap imitation of the pagoda-palaces of the Drathan lords. It was sagging and leaning and weather-beat from years of monsoons and ash storms, curving eaves hung with thorny and leafless vines. Flickering light and thick blue tarric-smoke and the threats and hoarse laughter of dangerous men drinking themselves numb spilled from the doorway.
Olms clicked the hammer back on the flintlock holstered on his side- best to be prepared in these places- and went in to join them.
It was hot and smokey and crowded mostly with the poorer sorta slaver and also, therefore, the poorer sorta whore. Bug hunters, most of 'em. Sallow men with narrow eyes filled with all the meanness comes from a life of huntin' something that can hunt you right back.
Olms gave the dim, long room a leisurely once over. Got plenty of glares and threats back, but saw no sign of his new employer. Must be runnin' late. That was fine with Olms. After six days on the Dust Way, he was ready for a drink or two or seven.
Girl tendin' bar was a stunner. Musta had some Drathan blood in her, on account of the dark hair and eyes and the pale skin. Would also explain why she could serve drinks in a place like this with no one layin' a hand on her.
Curdled, the warlocks called their half-breeds. Good blood gone bad. Olms'd killed his share of wizards in his long life, and knew they bled bright red just like all men did. Usually shit themselves when they died, also like regular folk. But the good people of the Union didn't think so, and so gave even half-Drathans a wide berth.
"What's the strongest thing you got?" he asked her.
She tilted a bottle of something greenish at him and he threw a couple of silver fangs down on the splintery bar. She poured him a heavy measure of the stuff- nestwine, they called it here, on account of it bein' fermented from the fungus the Nyr'kiin grew in their burrows.
He knocked it back in a gulp, threw another few fangs on the bar, gestured for another.
She raised an eyebrow and twisted those pretty lips into a skeptical smirk, but she poured.
"Where you headed, stranger?" she asked.
"Right here, darlin," he said, this time sippin' his booze.
"The only man in Zar Yiin who wants to be here," she said.
"I reckon that's not true," said Olms, "Plenty a boys'd stick around just to get another look at you."
It was then that the tavern got real silent real fast, conversations drifting off mid-sentence, laughter muffled too quick, and all eyes went to the doorway.
The man standing there was dressed all in black, face obscured mostly by a dark-colored scarf and a broadbrimmed hat tilted low over his face. Pale skin on his bare arms traced with obscure and beautiful tattoos. A Drathan. The real article.
Eyes the color of volcanic glass, no whites, like a shark.
"Olms," said the Drathan.
"Good to see you again, Gabul," said Olms, who alone in the bar was not wearing an expression of confusion or horror. He was sitting relaxed on his bar stool, glass in hand, a resigned smile creasing the crags of his sun-beaten face, "Come have a drink."
His mount gurgled with pleasure at the moisture, and Olms swung down from the saddle and gave the lizard's gnarled hide an affectionate slap, bidding her farewell as they parted ways- him into town to get falling-down drunk while she - not a gaan that took well to tyin' up- prowled the rocky wilds just outside Yiin's low clay palisade, digging up a dinner of ashcrabs and centigor eggs.
The few locals still outside, in keeping with the legendary hospitality of Ashlanders, gave Olms suspicious glares and growls of disapproval as he sauntered down the main road. Olms tipped his hat to them as he passed.
Yiin wasn't much of anything, just a handful of buildings huddled together around a brackish spring in the vast emptiness of the Ashlands. Besides the spring- little more than a bubbling, nasty smellin' pond- the only features of any note were the great iron pens in the village square where the Slaver-Clans would display their captive wares to the caravaneers and traveling Drathan magnates come summer. The cages were empty now in the off-season, save for a few silent and desultory Nyr'kiin that clicked and buzzed at Olms as he walked by. He tipped his hat to them, too.
The tavern was the biggest building in town, built in cheap imitation of the pagoda-palaces of the Drathan lords. It was sagging and leaning and weather-beat from years of monsoons and ash storms, curving eaves hung with thorny and leafless vines. Flickering light and thick blue tarric-smoke and the threats and hoarse laughter of dangerous men drinking themselves numb spilled from the doorway.
Olms clicked the hammer back on the flintlock holstered on his side- best to be prepared in these places- and went in to join them.
It was hot and smokey and crowded mostly with the poorer sorta slaver and also, therefore, the poorer sorta whore. Bug hunters, most of 'em. Sallow men with narrow eyes filled with all the meanness comes from a life of huntin' something that can hunt you right back.
Olms gave the dim, long room a leisurely once over. Got plenty of glares and threats back, but saw no sign of his new employer. Must be runnin' late. That was fine with Olms. After six days on the Dust Way, he was ready for a drink or two or seven.
Girl tendin' bar was a stunner. Musta had some Drathan blood in her, on account of the dark hair and eyes and the pale skin. Would also explain why she could serve drinks in a place like this with no one layin' a hand on her.
Curdled, the warlocks called their half-breeds. Good blood gone bad. Olms'd killed his share of wizards in his long life, and knew they bled bright red just like all men did. Usually shit themselves when they died, also like regular folk. But the good people of the Union didn't think so, and so gave even half-Drathans a wide berth.
"What's the strongest thing you got?" he asked her.
She tilted a bottle of something greenish at him and he threw a couple of silver fangs down on the splintery bar. She poured him a heavy measure of the stuff- nestwine, they called it here, on account of it bein' fermented from the fungus the Nyr'kiin grew in their burrows.
He knocked it back in a gulp, threw another few fangs on the bar, gestured for another.
She raised an eyebrow and twisted those pretty lips into a skeptical smirk, but she poured.
"Where you headed, stranger?" she asked.
"Right here, darlin," he said, this time sippin' his booze.
"The only man in Zar Yiin who wants to be here," she said.
"I reckon that's not true," said Olms, "Plenty a boys'd stick around just to get another look at you."
It was then that the tavern got real silent real fast, conversations drifting off mid-sentence, laughter muffled too quick, and all eyes went to the doorway.
The man standing there was dressed all in black, face obscured mostly by a dark-colored scarf and a broadbrimmed hat tilted low over his face. Pale skin on his bare arms traced with obscure and beautiful tattoos. A Drathan. The real article.
Eyes the color of volcanic glass, no whites, like a shark.
"Olms," said the Drathan.
"Good to see you again, Gabul," said Olms, who alone in the bar was not wearing an expression of confusion or horror. He was sitting relaxed on his bar stool, glass in hand, a resigned smile creasing the crags of his sun-beaten face, "Come have a drink."
@gorgenmast Bravo dude, great post
Nice posts, everyone.
I know I am slacking a bit here, but I'm reading on and looking for the best time to jump in.
Quit slackin!
Also, I hope to have a few posts up this weekend/early next week.
Same here. Hope its cool if I just kind of post ancillary stories to what (appears to be) a wider story arc-the transition of power in the Salished Empire. Basically, the rise of Flay as a warlord seems to be the direction I'm heading. Possibly becoming a major villain for someone to thwart later on-
Absolutely.
Alright, I posted part 1 of what is turning out to be a monster. More to come soon.
Huge and crimson and shimmering, the sun sank behind the jagged black line of the horizon.
The Dust Way was empty, 'cept for Olms and his gaan-lizard, plodding toward the disappearing light. Caravans out of Zar Pellos wouldn't be plying this stretch for a few months yet, waiting for the wet season to end, when the wolf scorpions went dormant and nyr'kiin raiders could travel less far from their burrows.
Olms wasn't worried about any of that, himself. The Dust Way was a straight thin line cutting through miles and miles of boulders and thorny brambles and not much else. He knew these parts and what lived in 'em. Knew the kinds of things that were big or numerous or stupid enough to try'n take down a full grown gaan and an armed rider. Knew that even without the lizard, he could take most anything south of the Smoking Forest. He and the Sword slung across his back.
He felt the weapon twitch very slightly in its scabbard as he thought of it. Or maybe at the thought of shedding blood.
He grimaced and took a long pull from a dented flask.
In the distance, a horn sounded, and dark silhouettes crested a slight rise in the road, just beneath the red horizon.
Olms frowned, squinting into the sun. A column of soldiers, looked like, headed towards him. In the direction of the Empire.
The Masters starting their bid for the Rainlands, he thought.
He thought about what to think about this. Wondered what was the lesser of two evils, the Congress or the Shashul.
Olms'd plied his trade in the ashen wastes of the Union for most of his life, working for merchant-lords, slaver-chieftains and often even for Drathan magisters themselves. He had few illusions about the glorified coven of bandits that presided over this place, an entire country little more than a vast slave-pen, so different from the Empire which, even now, even nearin' its own twilight, still provided its subjects with a good living, however modest, and with order, with settled laws rather than the whims of changeable warlocks. He thought of all those villages in the Rainlands without walls- without need of them, for centuries. Remembered ridin' through those places as a boy with his father, wondering at how they stayed safe from the muties and the bugs, and the old man sayin' they didn't need to, on account of the Sashul and his armies. How rare that was, to not live in fear!
What would happen to them when the Drathan lords divvied those little towns up among themselves in the course of their endless and pointless feuds? He thought of market squares turned into slave-auctions, of rice-paddies turned into grub farms.
He thought then of Yta, whom he had once loved. He thought of her dark eyes and her knowing half-smile. Thought of what the Salished priests had done to her in their Foundry Temples.
The Sword twitched again.
"Let the Drathans have it," Olms said quietly, to no one.
Not for the first time, he pondered how the coming war might be related to his current errand. Wondered whether this new contract would set him at odds with the ambitions of the Congress, or whether he would be serving the endless schemes of that canny old spider, Khalul.
The outriders put an end to this speculating. They surrounded Olms silently and in short order, four of them descending like ghosts from the flowering thickets of strangle-vine that bordered the road. Hulking aelg-men with their pointed eyes and teeth riding lean young gaans and the slender, swift horses of the Ashlands.
These men knew what they were about.
Olms reigned his lizard to a halt, unscrewed the top of his flask, took a long drink.
"Evenin'" he said, tilting his hat back on his head and meeting the gaze of the rider in front of him. The other man's face was a busy mass of scar tissue and he was holding a nasty-looking axe loosely in one hand. The buckler strapped to his other arm was painted with the sun-and-moon sigil of Zar Dratha.
"What's yer business on the Dust Way?" asked the rider.
"Headed to Zar Yiin," said Olms, "to meet up with an old, ah, associate of mine. One who pays well."
"Your line of work?"
"Sellsword," said Olms with a smile, "I believe that's tolerated in the Union?"
"You're ridin' west," said the rider, "With Salished steel strapped across your back. The real stuff, I think. The Soul Steel."
"Doesn't sound like something a spy would do, does it?" said Olms, "Not a good one, least ways. 'sides, I'm no braid-bearded Rainlander, am I? Not like the man I killed for this."
Slow and deliberate, Olms drew his sword. The mounts of the riders surrounding him shifted and growled uneasily.
It was a beautiful weapon. Curved, slender, single edged, it caught the dying light as Olms drew it, flashing scarlet.
Olms met the eye of the rider in front of him. There was a long moment of silence.
"If he's a spy, he's a dumb one," said the rider, the nervous edge to his voice was barely audible, "Let him pass."
The Dust Way was empty, 'cept for Olms and his gaan-lizard, plodding toward the disappearing light. Caravans out of Zar Pellos wouldn't be plying this stretch for a few months yet, waiting for the wet season to end, when the wolf scorpions went dormant and nyr'kiin raiders could travel less far from their burrows.
Olms wasn't worried about any of that, himself. The Dust Way was a straight thin line cutting through miles and miles of boulders and thorny brambles and not much else. He knew these parts and what lived in 'em. Knew the kinds of things that were big or numerous or stupid enough to try'n take down a full grown gaan and an armed rider. Knew that even without the lizard, he could take most anything south of the Smoking Forest. He and the Sword slung across his back.
He felt the weapon twitch very slightly in its scabbard as he thought of it. Or maybe at the thought of shedding blood.
He grimaced and took a long pull from a dented flask.
In the distance, a horn sounded, and dark silhouettes crested a slight rise in the road, just beneath the red horizon.
Olms frowned, squinting into the sun. A column of soldiers, looked like, headed towards him. In the direction of the Empire.
The Masters starting their bid for the Rainlands, he thought.
He thought about what to think about this. Wondered what was the lesser of two evils, the Congress or the Shashul.
Olms'd plied his trade in the ashen wastes of the Union for most of his life, working for merchant-lords, slaver-chieftains and often even for Drathan magisters themselves. He had few illusions about the glorified coven of bandits that presided over this place, an entire country little more than a vast slave-pen, so different from the Empire which, even now, even nearin' its own twilight, still provided its subjects with a good living, however modest, and with order, with settled laws rather than the whims of changeable warlocks. He thought of all those villages in the Rainlands without walls- without need of them, for centuries. Remembered ridin' through those places as a boy with his father, wondering at how they stayed safe from the muties and the bugs, and the old man sayin' they didn't need to, on account of the Sashul and his armies. How rare that was, to not live in fear!
What would happen to them when the Drathan lords divvied those little towns up among themselves in the course of their endless and pointless feuds? He thought of market squares turned into slave-auctions, of rice-paddies turned into grub farms.
He thought then of Yta, whom he had once loved. He thought of her dark eyes and her knowing half-smile. Thought of what the Salished priests had done to her in their Foundry Temples.
The Sword twitched again.
"Let the Drathans have it," Olms said quietly, to no one.
Not for the first time, he pondered how the coming war might be related to his current errand. Wondered whether this new contract would set him at odds with the ambitions of the Congress, or whether he would be serving the endless schemes of that canny old spider, Khalul.
The outriders put an end to this speculating. They surrounded Olms silently and in short order, four of them descending like ghosts from the flowering thickets of strangle-vine that bordered the road. Hulking aelg-men with their pointed eyes and teeth riding lean young gaans and the slender, swift horses of the Ashlands.
These men knew what they were about.
Olms reigned his lizard to a halt, unscrewed the top of his flask, took a long drink.
"Evenin'" he said, tilting his hat back on his head and meeting the gaze of the rider in front of him. The other man's face was a busy mass of scar tissue and he was holding a nasty-looking axe loosely in one hand. The buckler strapped to his other arm was painted with the sun-and-moon sigil of Zar Dratha.
"What's yer business on the Dust Way?" asked the rider.
"Headed to Zar Yiin," said Olms, "to meet up with an old, ah, associate of mine. One who pays well."
"Your line of work?"
"Sellsword," said Olms with a smile, "I believe that's tolerated in the Union?"
"You're ridin' west," said the rider, "With Salished steel strapped across your back. The real stuff, I think. The Soul Steel."
"Doesn't sound like something a spy would do, does it?" said Olms, "Not a good one, least ways. 'sides, I'm no braid-bearded Rainlander, am I? Not like the man I killed for this."
Slow and deliberate, Olms drew his sword. The mounts of the riders surrounding him shifted and growled uneasily.
It was a beautiful weapon. Curved, slender, single edged, it caught the dying light as Olms drew it, flashing scarlet.
Olms met the eye of the rider in front of him. There was a long moment of silence.
"If he's a spy, he's a dumb one," said the rider, the nervous edge to his voice was barely audible, "Let him pass."
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