Seven Reimagined, A new view of an old story Options

[SubRosa]

A while ago I wrote Seven, which is set in Tamriel. Afterward I thought about adapting it to an original setting. I did a lot of world-building, remade the characters to fit the new world, and got started into translating the story over.

I ran out of steam when I started looking at my over-arching direction, and started seeing some problems. The biggest one was that I had in mind a big High Fantasy story - an ancient race rising to destroy the world, champions rising from the dead, the army of light banding together to fight off evil, and so forth. The twist I planned to this standard format was that the protagonists were trying to stop the war, rather than win it. With finding a peace between all involved being the end goal, rather than destruction.

But the story I was starting out with - Seven - is Low Fantasy (at least the way I define it). Farmers and mercenaries vs. bandits. Ordinary people, with ordinary problems. I like that, as it feels very accessible, and makes the characters, even the extraordinary ones, feel more relateable. So that made me want to continue in that vein, and do a series of stories about a pair of hired spells who are part mercenaries, part private detectives. Sort of like Spenser For Hire or Magnum P.I. with magic. That in turn meant scrapping the entire over-arching story. Or trying to bridge the gap between Low Fantasy and High Fantasy. It left me with a lot of questions, and I was not feeling excited about the answers. So I ended up setting it all aside.

Instead of leaving it all collecting dust, I decided to post what I did finish up here. Maybe it will fire me up to get back to working on it again. People who have read Seven will recognize most of the main characters. Names have been changed in many cases. Some because the originals were Bethesda creations, others to suit the new races/languages. Speaking of which races and the like are entirely new, as is the geography, flora and fauna, how magic works etc... I will put some of that here in this post, and start the actual story in a second post. Let me know if you want to see more of the background notes, and I will put them in this post.


This is a world map

This is the continent of Aulerci, where most of the action takes place



Aela

Loria



The Stone Forest (IRL The Shilin Stone Forest outside of Kunming)

Another example of karst landscape


An Oro (IRL Orodromeus)

A Crumhead (IRL Parasaurolophus)

RL Troodon (the inspiration for the Teodon race)

Troodon front

Troodon head

Ancient Rasen Armor (IRL Samnite bronze armor)

Bronze lamellar armor

Bronze lamellar armor again


Veia Map

Rasen street

Rasen city

Rasen apartment block

Rasen-style architecture





Phereinon

Phereinon again

Malediction

Owl Screeching

Owl Carving





Serves Camna



Wooden mug

Tamac (tomahawk)



Raven pendant

Hrafngoelir

Hrafn's shield

Hrafn's seax


Venca



Rasen bedroom

Rasen bedroom 2

Rasen bedroom 3



Lorcras armor

Hagalaz rune




Horse-Powered Ferryboat 1

Horse-Powered Ferryboat 2

Spirecrown - Saurolophus Angustirostris





Lambeosaurus

Parksosaurus

Ornitholestes

Hadrosaurs 01

Hadrosaurs 02

Orodromeus

Gasparinisaura

Ouranosaurus

Maiasaura

Tropical Milkweed Beetle




Teodon Coloration (this is just what their scale colors look like, not actual representations of the characters)
Alcheon's coloration

Daehyun (a very common peasant coloration)

Dark Eye (though his belly is not so brightly white

Sindeok



Banyan tree

Durian tree

Bromeliads

Bamboo forest

Solagea


Kye Rim Graves

Teodon Dok

Teodon village house

Teodon village house



Earthen rampart, wall, and ditch

cheavaux de frise


Shield Wall training




Fighting Moves
Dark Eye's finishing move against Daeso

Phereinon's belly to back suplex (German Suplex) that she used upon the Arvern Oathman of House Camna

Here is a link to Sindeok's killing move against Brown-Scales

Morte Strike and Half Sword Defense

[SubRosa]

Acadian: I wanted to show that with an item as rare and valuable as ancient Dark Elf armor, you didn't simply go to an ordinary armor shop to sell it. Instead you go to rich collectors, like with stolen art!

I went into writing this section without much forethought on what Camna as like. I found that pic of Orson Welles and stared it for a while, and he came together for me. A great black wolf, whose free time has gone to collecting historical and magical artifacts of all kinds (which in turn act as visible demonstrations of his wealth and power). All of the wealth displayed in his home is not mere vanity, but a calculated act meant to overawe visitors.

Aesensing is my own made up word, short for aetherial sensing. I will use it throughout the story.

Lora/Ungarion's background has always been vague and unplumbed. Changing that is one of my challenges with Loria. In this world his race does not mingle as freely with others as Altmer do in Tamriel. So I have been working on how it is he was born and raised in a human city. His father being an exile is the first part of that picture.


Chapter 5.1

"Perhaps we might take ship to Felathri." Loria paused to take a sip of wine from his cup. "It is said they are war with Priana. They probably want to make up for that land they lost to Alalia."

"Perhaps not," Aela frowned, "I still remember how Alalia dragged us out of the Ingenium and into that war of theirs. Thousands of people lining up and killing one another, and for what? So their highborns could have bragging rights for the next decade?"

"Well, there was that copper mine too..." Loria noted.

"And innocent people getting caught in the middle, only to be dispossessed, robbed, or murdered." Aela shivered. "Not again."

"I did not mean we would fight in it," the Light Elf said. "Wherever there is a war, there are always other opportunities."

"I think we can find enough opportunities here in Veia," Aela insisted. "You told me yourself that this city was built on gold."

"Aye, but I'd sooner not have to use a shovel to get it…" Loria murmured.

Aela shook her head and took another bite from her lunch. The hot piadina was filled with grilled chicken, diced tomatoes, strips of sharp cheese, and bubbling with extra flavor thanks to a sprinkling of basil. The sandwich was far too good for street fare, and she vowed to return to this hot food stand whenever they were in Veia.

The kiosk that sold the delicious food possessed a simple cloth awning to provide shade from the sun. Beneath ran a long stone counter, whose surface was lined with large holes filled with earthenware jars. Each brimmed with a different form of hot meat, fish, or mulled wine. Sprigs of garlic and other spices hung from the canvas awning, and farther back in the stand loaves of fresh bread and wheels of cheese were stacked on a table, with bottles of wine and ale sitting on the pavestones underneath.

Like most of the other patrons, Aela and Loria sat at a long table beside the food stand. Just a few feet away horse and hadrosaur-drawn wagons and carts clattered along the cobblestone street. Pedestrians dodged between them, and crowded either side of the avenue. It seemed that people of every race and animals of all kinds were packed into every square inch of space, along with their sounds, and especially their smells. Whitewashed stone buildings rose two and three stories high all about, and the streets went on and on like a tangled ball of yarn in all directions. The sprawling city was like a world unto itself.

Aela missed the smaller towns along the shores of the Bronze Sea, with their fresh air and quieter avenues. Or better still, the Stone Forest between Veia and Kye Rim. While rocky and often inhospitable, the karst landscape and its quiet earth spirits provided a welcome respite from the press of humanity. That rough land had little to offer people, especially when there was rich farmland along the coasts of the two seas which bracketed the isthmus upon which Veia and the badlands sat. So only a few daring, or desperate, folk lived there.

The rumble of laughter from a deep throat roused Aela from her ruminations and brought her head around to view its author. Across the street from her and Loria were their acquaintances from Agrigento. Towering above the Kye Rim farmers was the largest Skanjr she had ever seen, wearing mail armor and sporting a long axe nearly as tall as he was.

"Scalebacks make me laugh!" the blond giant guffawed in broken Rasen. He slapped Daehyun on the back with enough force to send the linen-clad Teodon stumbling away. Then the Skanjr lumbered off down the avenue while the other Agrigentans stared in shock and dismay.

"It seems our friends from Agrigento are not doing so well with their plan to hire mercenaries," Loria dryly observed through a bite of his own flatbread sandwich. "Perhaps we should lend our assistance?"

"Are you planning to pay off Mamarce the Knee with rice?" Aela shook her head and took a sip of wine from the worn cup the food stand had provided. It was far from the luxurious Recie or Amaron wines of Alalia, but at least it was not tepid water or stale beer. "In case you have forgotten, our education did not come for free."

"Thanks to those cultists, we have enough gold in the temple to keep Mamarce at bay for a long time," Loria insisted. "Besides, if these raiders pay out nearly as well as those cannibals did, I expect we will be making more than food and drink from this venture."

"There are fifty of them," Aela pointed out. "Don't you think that's a bit much for even us?"

"All the more for us to loot afterward," Loria waved a dismissive hand in the air. "Besides, I am sure we can conjure up a few swords to even up the odds."

Aela shook her head. She knew there was nothing she could say to sway the Silaine's mind. She had the feeling that it was not even the promise of loot that had set the hook in the wizard's mouth. Rather it was his sense of adventure. She had known him long enough to realize that he would do this sort of thing just for the fun of it alone. Money was only an added incentive.

The next thing the Arvern Witch knew, her friend was waving the four Agrigentans over to the table where they sat. Aela ate the last of her piadina in silence as they crowded around, and drew stares from many of the other patrons of the food stand.

"How goes your recruitment efforts?" Loria asked.

"I am afraid you just saw how well," Vesia frowned. "We even had an audience with the zilath in the castle, but he will not send troops into Kye Rim. We tried the White Company and the Frisverd this morning. The Whites are out of the city, fighting in some war up north. The Frisverd had just returned from some other place it seemed, and their leader turned us down as well."

"We have done no better at hiring individual mercenaries either," old Hyunsu lamented with a down-turned head. "No one will help us."

"Fear not," Loria declared. "Aela and I have discussed it, and we are with you."

Aela just shook her head again as she chewed the last bite of her basil-flavored chicken sandwich.

"Good!" Ranazu practically boomed. "It's about time we found someone around here with stones."

"Oh, it's not the stones that are the problem," Loria rose to his feet. "It's a matter of finding the right people, at the right time, in the right way."

"And with the right amount of hunger," Aela added.

Loria ignored the quip, and continued. "First, you need to stop asking people off the street. That is never going to work. They are either going to laugh at you like that Skanjr, or you are going to end up with some cutthroat who will murder you in your sleep."

"So where do we find these people?" Vesia asked. "I thought surely the Frisverd or the other mercenary company would conjure up any number of warriors."

"They have their bottom line to think of," Aela said, standing up beside Loria. "This is a contract that is going to tie up their resources for a long time. So it has to pay their expenses for that entire period. You just don't have the money for that, and they cannot gamble on the loot from the bandits making up the difference."

"What we need are people who are footloose," Loria said, "not tied down with families to support, rent to pay, that sort of thing. Hrollaug from the Frisverd is married and has children. For most men that would be reason enough to stay away from home as long as possible! But by some miracle he actually enjoys being a father, so he doesn't like hiring his company out for long stretches away from the city. Our prospects will be folk who can just pick up and wander to another part of the world at the drop of a hat."

"So where can they be found?" Ranazu asked.

"Why at the tavern of course!" Loria grinned.