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: Venca is indeed our Seven Magnificos' army guy. Given the new format, I was able to give him a much deeper background than he had in the Beth setting. In fact, I see an entire book about just who he was and what he did in the past. Of course Venca does not remember any of this. Yet.

The Mistress of Twilight is not quite what she was in the Beth setting either. I am drawing heavily upon comparisons to The Morrigan, Freyja, and Hekate for this world's goddess of death and magic. Hence the association with ravens (The Morrigan and Freyja), and the transgendered (Hekate, who was served by transgendered priestesses known as semnotatoi). Though as I will show later in the story, all magicians are people who walk between worlds. Likewise, so are all GLBT people, which I think is why IRL they were often considered the most powerful of all magicians by many cultures.


haute ecole rider: Venca is indeed our old friend Valens from the original Seven. He has undergone a lot of changes due to the new world, and his new history. Though on the outside he is still much the same.

I am glad to see you are still reading. I had a lot of fun building the world for this version of the story. I can see other tales taking place far in the past, that show major events which still effect the current story.. Such as the Sacerdotium conquering Rase, and the great war that destroyed the Dark Elves and freed humanity from slavery.

I am thinking of cutting out some of what I had about the Sluagh in the previous segment. A lot of it feels like telling rather than showing. Upcoming episodes also make references to the Sluagh, and in a more natural manner. Googling the name will give you an idea of what the Sluagh was, but that is just scratching the surface. It is a huge piece of the overall story arc I have in mind.



Chapter 7.1

Aela sat up in bed, allowing her brightly colored wool blanket to pool around her hips. Like all Rasen affairs, the bed possessed a wooden frame slanted up at the end to raise the head and shoulders. This one was only a simple wooden frame with a hay-stuffed mattress. She could only imagine what sumptuous devices wealthy aristocrats like the Camna's might sleep upon. Still, it was better than laying on the earth, or even the plain rattan bed her dorm room at the Ingenium had offered. However, it was not as fine as the feather-stuffed mattress she had slept upon as a child, long ago in Cymner. The freedom to be herself was well worth the trade in sleeping arrangements however.

Aela swung her bare feet out onto rug beside the bed. Again, it was no sumptuous Aymaran masterpiece. But it was colorful, and kept her feet warm. A quick drink from a cup upon the bed stand was followed by a visit to the chamber pot. In moments she was dressed in her white and brown adventuring clothes, followed by a Cleanse spell to chase away the funk of a night's sleep.

The room around her was simple. The plastered walls were painted light green and blue, and decorated with occasional images of ordinary Rasen women going about their daily lives. A few throw rugs surrounded the bed and plain dressing table. Otherwise the floor was bare wooden boards. A single window let in the morning sun, flanked by hanging pots of aromatic rosemary and basil plants.

Aela stepped to the dressing table, and reached into her small makeup kit. She opted for only a light touch of color to her lips and eyes. She was not trying to impress anyone today. Nor would she be for a long while. After an interminable period fighting with her hair, she put on a pair of short earrings of simple glass beads. No one was likely to see them though her hair, but she could still enjoy the feeling of them dangling from her ears. Finally, she settled her necklace around her shoulders, and enjoyed the warm feeling of mana stored within the spiral pendant as it rested between her small breasts.

She stared into the little mirror hanging from the wall above the table. Hair, makeup, jewelry. Simple things, that had taken her a lifetime to possess. Things that she had been forced to trade her old life for. She never doubted they were worth it.

"Be the person you see inside," Asaryl said. "Make that your reality. In time others will see her as well."

Aela allowed herself a brief smile. She missed the old elf. 'Old' being subjective of course. Her spiritism teacher had looked hardly any older than she did now. Yet what was he, a century old? A young man for his own people, ancient for her own. Who knew, with her own mastery of vitamancy, she might even live half and again those years. Assuming she did not get herself killed trying to pay off her debts.

"I will miss this room," Aela said to no one in particular as she took one last look around. She quickly loaded her scant possessions into a backpack. Makeup and some cheap jewelry, the mirror from the wall, a skirt and spare chemise, a few drakma novels, a cup, plate, and utensils, and other little odds and ends. She did not have many possessions to show for her life.

"A life is not measured in objects, but how it is lived."

Again, Asaryl's words came back to her from across the years. She nodded, as if to the elf, and shut the door to the rented room behind her. It was time to move on with life.

A few steps around the balcony that ringed the second floor of the boarding house's atrium brought her to Loria's room. She almost hesitated to knock. While she frequently rose with the sunrise, the elf was another story. Long nights tended to make for late mornings, and Aela was not sure how the Silaine had passed the time after they had returned from Waranari's. She had spent her own night in the aether, communing with the spirits of rock and air that predominated in the cliffside city. She suspected that Loria had spent his time in more earthly pursuits…

She rapped lightly on his door, and was about to repeat it again when the wooden portal slid partly open, revealing Loria's disheveled features peering out through sleep-fogged eyes. Disheveled with elves was of course just as subjective as age. Aela would have sworn that his crimson mane looked better than her own, even though he had obviously just risen from bed. Even in its wildest state, his hair only fell out of place when it would make him look more rakish. While Aela's own brown tresses always seemed to conspire to mortify her.

"Shhhh," the Light Elf whispered. "We don't want to wake our guest now do we?"

Aela made a show of trying to look past the bare-chested elf to see who was in the room behind him. She glimpsed a still arm and leg protruding from the covers of the elf's bed, but could not tell whom their owner might be.

Loria pushed out into the hallway, and gingerly shut the door behind him. Aela now realized that he was not scantily-clad, as she had first assumed, but completely naked. She resisted the urge to shake her head.

"Who is it this time?" Aela teased. "Someone you met on the walk home from Waranari's? Or did he just fall into your bed?"

"Well if you must pry it is Cai Atna," Loria whispered.

"From that clothier's shop?" Aela said, making no special effort to keep her voice down. "I didn't even know you liked him?"

"Well, like is so open to interpretation," Loria said. "A person might like a rosé one day, and dry white the next, and spicy shiraz after that. I was in the mood for a Cai."

"I thought you said he was too bony?" Aela could not contain a sly grin.

"Shhh, he'll wake up!" Loria exclaimed as quietly as he could. "Did you want something, or did you just come to bask in the glory of my love life?"

"Well, it is indeed majestic," Aela said, "and while I would love to soak up the warm glow of your amorous brilliance, we are supposed to be leaving today. Or did you forget about the cannibal bandits in Kye Rim?"

"Well of course I have not forgotten!" Loria declared. "We'll get there. Eventually."

"That's what I thought," Aela said. "I had better go on ahead to Waranari's, in case any new hopefuls arrive looking for us."

"And I shall rendezvous with our gracious employers and meet you at the docks." Loria said. "Before the ship departs."

"Remember that," Aela said, "Before this time."

"That only happened once." The Light Elf waved off the admonition with one hand.

"Once?" Aela raised an eyebrow.

"That other time does not count," Loria insisted. "It was not my fault."

"Then whose fault was it?" Aela asked.

"Well it was Aksil's of course," Loria breathed, "or was it Derrian? No, it was definitely Marce."

"Of course," Aela rolled her eyes. "What could I have been thinking?"

"Well I can tell you what I was thinking…" Loria grinned. "He had the most-"

"I can imagine," Aela waved off further descriptions. "I'll meet you at the ship."

The Arvern made her way around the second floor balcony and descended the stairs to the ground. Already there were sounds of activity in some of the other rented rooms, and she wondered if any of their occupants might catch a glimpse of Loria's naked frame before he returned to his room. It would be just like the elf to lock himself out with no clothes on. Not that any lock could stand in the way of his spellcraft.

Aela stopped at the landlord's apartment. As usual, her door was open, and on the table outside she found that the rotund woman had already laid out a tray filled with fresh rolls and a bowl of olive oil.

"Oh, you are divine Hennu," Aela said as she snatched up a roll and tore it in half. She dipped both pieces into the oil, and began a quick breakfast of the still warm bread.

"You are leaving today no?" the dark Aymaran woman said in broken Rasen. "Where is your friend the elf? He was out late last night."

"He's out late every night," Aela mumbled around a mouthful of breakfast.

"He still has to pay for his rent!" the landlord complained. "You, you are a good tenant. Sango bless you. I hope you come back when you are done, wherever you are going. But that one? Out all night, sleeps all day! Never thinks to pay!"

Never wants to pay, Aela thought, but wisely did not say.

"He will be down shortly," she said by way of explanation. "I am sure he will have the last of his rent for you then."

Aela sped out of the open air atrium and through the building's vestibule, pretending not to hear the Aymaran's loud complaints about her friend behind her. The Arvern was in the street a moment later, and made her way through lanes of white-washed brick buildings with red-tiled roofs. With the sun barely above the horizon, traffic was still light. It was mainly bakery employees making deliveries, and a few other early-morning workers.

Aela knew that would change soon enough, and transform Veia's streets back into the packed, noisy, smelly mass of humans and animals they usually were. She enjoyed the quiet and fresh air while she could, and was almost disappointed when she finally came to Waranari's. A quiet walk was always refreshing.



Aela's room