Characters You've Never Heard Of: YENRAH

Chakram, the once-glorious capital of the once-glorious kingdom of Sem, was always cold now. Across the Black Moor, a hundred leagues to the South, a great evil was growing in the desert wastes of the land known as Yenrah. For ten years, Paice had devoted his life to fighting this evil, to protecting his country, his king and his family, but even as Paice’s own loss struck a crippling blow to his heart, so had the enemy struck a crippling blow against his kingdom: the weather and the very land itself were betraying the good people of Sem.

First the darkness came. Great clouds of inky blackness rolled out of the South, covering the sky for first days, then weeks at a time, blocking out the sun and draining all life and heat from the land. Crops died, plants and trees withered, and hope was lost. Just the day before, a light snow had fallen. Snow, in the middle of what should have been summer.  The world was changing, the tides of battle were turning, and the enemy was winning.

-from the unfinished manuscript "The Tears of Sem / The Shadow of the Wasp"

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Confession: Yenrah is not a person, it's a place. It's the name of a vast, mostly-desert kingdom that appears in several of my epic fantasy novels, stories, and games. (So sue me, I've been doing this for a month and I'm running out of characters).

Yenrah is an old land, and it wasn't always a desert. During the time of the Wasp King it is bordered by the Black Moor, a swampy, rocky expanse of bogs and hills. By the time of Wilhelm the Liberator, over 500 years later, the Moors have been swallowed up into the ever-expanding desert.

Before
(Source)

The cause of the change is the Desolation, a super-heated wasteland of unfathomable horrors south of "modern day" Yenrah. The Desolation has existed for time out of time, and it is said to be the home of all the monsters in the world as well as their dark gods. It is also slowly spreading and has been for millennium - except at some point between the time of Rigel & Valya and the time of Gregory & Queen Esmiralda there was a great, rapid expanse that absorbed the Moor bordering Yenrah and turned a once wet and dreary English countryside into a sun-drenched afternoon in the Tunisia. I haven't explored the exact reason for the change, but I'm sure I'll hit at some point during my overly-ambitious-and-sure-to-never-be-finished-saga.

After
(Source)

I suppose it is like a character, in some ways. It's a living, breathing, changing thing, that challenges the heroes and takes on a life and personality of its own. Not to mention I use way more words to describe it than most of my characters.

Characters You've Never Heard Of: VALYA

"Most men would have been terrified, hanging upside down with nothing but a thin silk rope between them and a gory death on the marble floor forty feet below, but Valya was not a man. She was a young woman of barely eighteen winters, little more than five feet tall and born of noble blood. 

She did not even break a sweat.

Did stablehands shake with terror when they groomed their horses? Did blacksmiths live in fear of their forges and anvils? No, they did not. Through this knowledge Valya had long since deduced that if they did not fear their vocations, then she would not fear hers."

- from "In the Shadow of the Wasp," an anthology containing the tale "Valya's Story"

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Valya comes from the same series of stories about hopeless love as Rigel (the story that made my wife fall in love with me). She was a noble woman who fell in love with a man her family did not approve of, and so they had him conscripted into the army and sent him off to his death. She rebelled and fled her pampered life to become a highly skilled and motivated thief and rogue who terrorized the nobility by stealing or destroying that which mattered most to them more than the happiness of their own children - their riches.

The four stories that comprised "In the Shadow of the Wasp" are kinda the Silmarillion to my fantasy world. Not to compare myself to Tolkien by any stretch of the imagination (though I kinda did that once), I just mean that those stories introduced a ton of ideas, elements, themes and characters that keep creeping into my stories and games twenty years later. The epic fantasy novel sitting in The Closet that I mentioned earlier this month is set in the same world, though many generations after the reign of the King of Wasps, and that novel has at least two sequels sitting in my head (I think I said last week there's a potential 7 books altogether). Of course it's also the world where many of my Dungeons & Dragons-style role playing games are set, and there's even a chance that the stories started as a D&D session - I don't remember anymore, they were developed pretty closely hand-in-hand.

So anyway, because I don't think I'll use the characters from the other two stories in this month's edition, I'll give you a bonus today and reveal them to you:

Lord Paice - You met him briefly yesterday. An older man, one of the greatest heroes and defenders against the King of the Wasps. When his daughter is killed by his greatest rival, one of the King's most trusted lieutenants, Paice goes on a one-man suicide mission to avenge his death. On his ways he meets a young woman and her family that gives him another reason to keep living.

Theodore - A bit of a schmuck and a hopeless romantic, he worked backstage at the theatre in the House of the Ruby Rose, a sort of temple/gambling house/high-end brothel deep in the Wasp King's domain. He falls madly in love with an actress and pines for her from the wings every night. Somehow his wildly flowing emotions unlocks an natural affinity for magic, but he has no training in the art and cannot control it. One night when the temple is attacked by the Wasp King's forces  Theodore uses his dangerous gift to try and save the woman's life, even if it may cost him his own...

So that's why I changed the name of "In the Shadow of the Wasp" to hopeless love, because all the stories were tales of people doing really dumb things for love...

Characters You've Never Heard Of: ULRIC

The guards let Paice through with barely a nod.  In many circles through the kingdom Paice held greater respect from the people than the king, and among the soldiers of the realm was one of those circles.  Those brave men of Sem who fought so desperately to defend their country would march into hell for their beloved commander, and Paice knew that many of them had.  He could not bring himself to think of all the men who had died under his command.  His superiors would point out that the enemy always lost five to ten times as many troops as Paice whenever he took the field,  but that was no consolation to the lord commander.  When he met Hades at the gates of the Under Realm—and he was quite certain that he would be recognized by the god himself for all the blood he had spilled—Paice knew he would have to answer for every one of the brave souls who had fallen under his watch.  He would agree to spend a hundred years in hellish torment for every one of them, if only the god of death would find it in his mercy to grant him just a few more hours with his precious little girl; to hold her one more time and to say the goodbyes to which he had been so violently denied.

Fresh tears were streaming down Paice’s cheek as he approached the throne across the vast marble floor.  Although his vision was clouded, the lord commander knew that King Ulric was not the man sitting on the throne before him.  King Ulric the Second would probably never sit on the silver throne of Sem again, and while the man seated there in his place did not currently wear the crown, he would very soon, and he would deserve it.

Prince Ambrose rose from his seat as Paice approached.  The lord commander did not bow. The half dozen guards at either side of the throne, dressed in polished silvered mail and carrying heavy shields and spears, must have seen the ridiculousness of a royal prince - the king’s own son - rising to greet a man who did not bow to him, but not a single one of them showed any hint of emotion at the strange occurrence.  It wait take far more than that to shake them;  Paice had trained them himself.

“My Lord Commander,” Ambrose said amicably, stepping down from the raised dais upon which sat the silver throne to look Paice level in the eye.  “I am glad to see you up and about.  Please believe me when I say the thoughts and prayers of my family and the entire kingdom go out to you now.”

Prince Ambrose was a handsome young man, with dark hair and complexion and a sturdy, royal bearing.  He looked like his father when his father was that age; an age which Paice remembered well.  Lord Paice had been no more than knight then, and Ambrose had been no more than babe suckling at his mother’s breast.  Now that tiny mewling child was fully grown and hardened by ten years of war on his doorstep and was about to become a king.  Paice had always respected and liked the young man, though right now Ambrose was just coming across to him like an ass.

“I do not need your thoughts and your prayers, your highness,” Paice said coldly. I need your army, he thought. “They serve me about as well as a piss pot would to besiege a castle.”

The slightest expression of insult flashed across the prince’s face, but Ambrose covered it admirably.  He was an even better diplomat than his father.  “Then please accept my own, personal condolences, Paice, from a man to a man.”

Paice nodded.  If anyone could understand his hardship, it was Ambrose. His sister had been taken the same night the Wasps killed Paice's daughter.  How a man half Paice's age could shoulder the burden better than he, Paice had no idea.  “How is your father, Ambrose?”

- excerpt from the unfinished novel "The Tears of Sem"

* * *

I had a tough time coming up with a "U," hence using a character that never actually appears in any of my manuscripts, having only been mentioned by other characters.

I've stumbled across some weird things while digging through old works for the A-to-Z exercise. One of those was a half-finished novel I wrote almost ten years ago that I had nearly forgotten about. It's an expanded version of "In the Shadow of the Wasp" I mentioned a few days ago, based on stories I wrote in high school. Ulric is the father of Anilita (the girl from the that linked story) and Ambrose (shown above). He's the king of a country about to be destroyed in a vicious, terrible war. He's lying on his death bed, poisoned by a traitor while his children struggle to hold the kingdom together. He doesn't appear in person in the manuscript I found, though his presence weighs heavily over numerous scenes.

Source

The story is set in the same world as "The Gate and Necromancer" that also came up a couple of times in the last few weeks. In fact, they're loosely part of the same, long story. Parts 2 and 5, if I were to guess. So there's yet another problem with ever finishing and releasing these stories: Of a potential 7-book cycle, I have book 5 finished and book 2 half-finished. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?

I also apologize because these posts are getting longer than I had anticipated, and I'm sure you all have better things to do that read hundreds of words of excerpts from unpublished novels.

Characters You've Never Heard Of: QUEEN MOTHER ESMIRALDA

Nathlan awoke in darkness.  He started and sat up from the soft bed upon which he lay.  Pain shot through his chest, he groaned, and slumped back down.  Where was he?

A candle flickered to light not far away.  A beautiful woman stepped into view holding a long, thin white taper, which she placed on the bedside next to Nathlan’s head.

It was Esmiralda.  She was dressed in a gorgeous green gown, cut scandalously low across her breasts, and dagged with silver across the long, flowing arms.  Her silky black hair hung loose and full around her soft, pale face, a face which looked concerned and slightly relieved.

“You’re awake,” the Queen Mother said softly.

Nathlan did not answer right away.  He was staring too intently at Esmiralda.

“Try not to move.  You are still in the palace.  Your wounds were serious, but we have nearly healed them.”

“Merryck stabbed me,” Nathlan said, the memories flooding back into his mind.  They came in pieces, broken and incomplete.  He did not remember very much after they entered the Vault, except that there was a battle, and Merryck had stabbed him in the chest with his sword.  Was it an accident?  Had the priest made it look like an accident?  “Why did he stab me?”

The Queen Mother nodded sadly.  “I do not know.  There is treachery afoot in this kingdom, and I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

Nathlan remembered, not long ago, speaking with Esmiralda in a garden somewhere in this palace.  He did not remember the exact details of their conversation, nor the face of the man who was there with them, but he remembered vividly that he had fallen in love with the Queen Mother that day.  He had not admitted it to himself before now, could not have admitted it, for what chance did he, a lowly son of a fisherman, have with the mother of the King of Yenrah?

Now, lying here, gazing into her beautiful face, at the perfect lines of her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, he felt something stir inside him.  He could not fight it anymore, could not hide it.

“You can trust me,” Nathlan said.

The Queen Mother smiled.  Nathlan felt his breath quicken, and his heart pounded harder to push thickening blood through his damaged body.  “I think I can, good Sir Nathlan.”

“Sir?” Nathlan asked, confused.

“If you are to be my trusted confident, you must be more than a lowly foot soldier,” explained the Queen Mother, placing her hand on the young man’s forehead. “Mina ‘ukea kiros sina,” she spoke in the old tongue, the words which every soldier and man-at-arms knew but few were fortunate enough to hear.  They were the words which could be spoken only by another knight or royal, words which by ancient law could raise any man or woman to the title of knight, and the chance to forge a better life for themselves.

Nathlan felt tears well up in his eyes.  “Your Majesty, I don’t know what to say,”  She was so beautiful.  “What can I do to honour you, and prove to you that you have made the right decision?”

“I fear Merryck is in league with these agents who plot to overthrow my son.  I don’t know the details of who is involved, or what they want, but I cannot wait any longer to find out.  Merryck needs to die.”

“I will kill him for you, Your Majesty,” Nathlan replied.  He did not know why he responded so quickly.  He had never actually killed anyone before.  But somehow, he knew he could kill Merryck.  For some reason, he had a deep, unrelenting hatred of the man, though he could not explain why.  More importantly, Esmiralda wanted him to do it, and he could not displease his mistress.

“Good,” Esmiralda said.  “Do it swiftly.  He will lead the mercenaries to the top of the mountain tomorrow morning.  They must not make it to the gate.”

-excerpt from the unpublished novel "Gate and Necromancer"

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Source

In the back story of my aforementioned epic fantasy novel that will probably never see the light of day, the kingdom was saved many years ago by Wilhelm the Liberator, a man born an outcast and a half-blood to a race of untouchable desert-dwellers. When he died his son took over the thone but was not half the man his father was. He coasted on the fame and good will of his father, and then died under unusual circumstances. Some say his wife Esmiralda murdered him, either for having an affair or so that her son would ascend to the throne and she could control him and rule at his side.

In the novel, Esmiralda is a 50-60 year old woman who looks 25, and is a dangerous and powerful sorceress. She has made dark pacts with powerful forces to maintain her youth and magic, and may be in direct cahoots with the main villain, though her treachery is always done in secret and at arm's length - she would never risk exposing herself by opposing the heroes directly.

Now that I think about it she's a pretty stereotypical evil queen kind of character, which I suppose is not a bad thing but she is strikingly one-dimensional compared to some of the other characters in the story, who I tried really hard to make more complex than your standard fantasy tropes. I may have to seriously revisit her character and motivations if I ever do a revision on that manuscript.

Characters You've Never Heard Of: GREGORY VALTAS THE FIFTH

“So who is this woman?” Gregory asked.  He strode immediately to his father’s huge, mahogany desk and sat upon it, raising one knee and planting his soiled boot firmly on the edge of the well-oiled wood.  “Who are you marrying me off to?”

“I’m not ‘marrying you off’ to anyone,” the Baron said, irritated.  He snatched a stack of parchment away from his son’s foot.  Gregory suspected his father knew he was annoying him on purpose.  It mattered little.  The knowledge did not make him any less annoyed.  “A very lucky family is going to gain the heir to Andorak as a son-in-law.”

“What kind of backwater shithole is this ælfish wench from, if marrying me is a move up?  She’s not a peasant, is she?”  Gregory knew she was not.  As small and insignificant as Andorak was—nestled between the vast, empty Klamath forest and the even vaster and emptier Desolation—Baron Gregory the Fourth had enough pride for ten men with twice his station, and would never dare soil his already questionable family name with marriage to a commoner. The younger man only asked so that he might see the look on his father’s face.

Baron Gregory twisted his lip into a snarl, as if he had bitten into a particularly sour lemon.  “Do not mock me, boy.  You will be married to a woman worthy of your birth, and both our families will benefit from the union.”

“But father,” the young man asked in mock concern.  “What if I do not love her?”

“You know I did not love your mother any more than you loved that dog you kicked to death as a boy.  A wife is the same thing; a loyal, trusting companion with but few—if very important—uses, but whom you must not be afraid to educate or discipline as necessary.”

Gregory the Younger’s humour drained away, and he felt his face grow hot even as his blood froze icy cold in his veins.  All joking aside, his father truly was a bastard.  Gregory’s mother had been a beautiful and loving woman, who had been a faithful wife and caring mother, undeserving of his father’s cruel and bitter scorn.  “Your lordship,” Gregory said, his voice flat as a still pool of water.  “Why did you ask me here?”

Source

Many years ago I wrote a lengthy fantasy novel based on a D&D campaign my friends and I played shortly after University (I've written about it a few times at ruleofthedice.com). It was the longest book I've ever written by far and had some deep characters and an expansive world, but I never really planned to do anything with it because I was kinda embarassed it was based on an RPG. That being said, the story has mutated and changed, and is no longer that closely tied to the original game (I've even changed the characters names and backstories, the original players may not even recognize their own characters anymore). If I did want to move forward with it, it could easily launch a series if I ever had the amibtion to return to epic fantasy.

Anyway, Gregory Valtas the Fifth, called Gregory the Younger (his father Baron Gregory was the Elder) was a minor character in the original game, the son of the Baron who was one of the main antagonists, but somehow in the book he became a major player. I think I enjoyed writing him because he was the one person who was entirely my own creation and had nothing to do with my player's characters. He started out as a selfish whiny little prick but had a tragic arc  that becomes very important to the meat of the book later on. I've always been attached to characters who start off as quasi-villains who are not blatantly evil but whom you still want to see get choked to the brink of death, but eventually turn out to have a redeeming side and do the right thing in the end. Diarmuid from the Fionavar Tapestry is probably my first and favourite example of this archetype, and now that I think about it was probably a direct inspiration for Gregory.

777 Challenge

So I happened to see a post about the "777 Challenge" on Loni Townsend's blog. The idea is to take a work-in-progress, go to the 7th page, scroll down 7 lines and then share the next 7 lines or so.

Here's my contribution:

* * *

“You’re a mercenary, for foul or fair, someone who fights and kills for coin.”

            Flood was mildly amused, though she did her best not to let her sick sense of humour show.  The old man’s words were partly true—though she had certainly fought and killed for money more than once, it was usually to take the money from the person she was fighting.  She had never taken money from a third party to kill someone.  That would have made her assassin, and she had never had the knack for poisons needed to succeed in that particular field. She had made it through less than a week at the Shadow Guild before accidentally exposing herself to an alchemically-modified wyvern poison that had cause all of her hair fall out and gave her bloody, uncontrollable diarrhea and vomiting for a month.

* * *

The next step would be to tag other folks in my writer's circle, but I am painfully out-of-touch with anyone in that group. So yeah, if you read this and you have something to share, feel free.  :-/