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]

Renee: The Shadowrun and Earthdawn rpgs were excellent at explaining magic, and making it an integral part of the world. No surprise there, since they had real life Witches like Steve Kenson on the writing staff. I of course drew upon my own experience as a Witch, and integrated that into the fictional world I created for Seven Reimagined. Check out Scott Cunningham's book Wicca: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner. It is an outstanding book to introduce one to magic and Witchcraft.

Simplicia the Slow raised Teresa. But it was Raminus Polus who taught Teresa her first spells. It was in a flashback chapter from her childhood, when she also first met Methredhel and Adanrel.


Acadian: I am enjoying writing Sindeok. He provides an excellent view into life as a raider. Since he is just as new to the outlaw life, that allows the reader to learn about it at the same pace he does. Of course being a former hwarang, he is killing machine of an order much higher than the other bandits. So long as he can adapt to a new life without honor or ethics, he will do well.

I liked what I was able to do with the barefoot nature of most of Teodon society, and how like their scales coloration, it is a means of denoting peasant from noble. Peasants have muddy feet, nobles are clean - above the common work of the earth.



I updated the first post with some examples of the scale coloration of some of the Teodon characters. They are from various dinosaurs, so they are not actual physical representations of the characters (Dark Eye is not an Allosaur!), just how their colors would look.




Chapter 10.1

Aela found that four days after leaving Veia, their ship finally came into port. The sun was at its zenith when the cog tied up at one of Telsin's stone quays. Loria led the way down the plank and onto the wharf. Like Aela, he was familiar with the seaside town. It was where they had boarded the hulk that had taken them to Veia just over a week before.

Situated at the mouth of the Nakdeok River, the small town marked the border between Kye Rim and the Stone Forest. The latter was nominally claimed by Veia. Not that any state in its right mind would waste its resources fighting over the rocky badlands. Surrounded by a stone wall, the brick buildings of the community were white-washed in the Rasen style, and roofed with red-glazed tiles.

Telsin sat upon the western shoreline of the river. A long stone quay jutted out into the water from the northern edge of the town. It was to this landing that their cog tied itself up, alongside other sea-going vessels. A wooden dock stretched the length of the shore to the south, and ended at another stone quay that bisected the river. The sheltered harbor cradled between the two piers was filled with small boats of many varieties, from sea-going dories to tiny one-man coracles.

Farther inland rose a line of warehouses and occasional ale-shops. Beyond them rose the small one and two story shops and homes of the town's inhabitants. Aela knew from experience that a single, cobblestoned road ran from the docks directly to the western gate of the town, the only other point of egress.

But Loria did not take them deeper into the city. Instead he led the group along the timber docks, to the southernmost stone quay. Situated farther up the river, this landing hosted a slew of small, flat-bottomed river boats. Among these the elf found a vessel willing to take them aboard.

The Nakdeok Queen was a curious affair. To begin with, she had not been tied up with her side to the dock as most vessels were wont to do. Instead her stern had been nestled against the quay, allowing horses and wagons to trundle directly on board and roll straight down the boat to the prow. Indeed, several teams of horses and saurians had already done so. The bow was not the usual narrow point that most boats possessed either. Instead it was flat, just as the stern. In fact, the entire vessel was rectangular in shape, with gently rounded corners. Either end appeared capable of functioning as bow or stern. She was long enough to accommodate three wagons from end to end, and two such conveyances side to side. Even after that there was still plenty of room for passengers on foot.

The most unusual thing about the Nakdeok Queen was the matter of her propulsion however. Rather than bearing sails or oars, Aela saw that she was driven by hadrosaurs. Not dragging her by tethers from the shore, but upon the boat itself!

At either side of the vessel a massive saurian stood in a stall that was cut through the deck, each pointed in opposite directions. Each hadrosaur sported a bony crest that began at the tip of its nose, and ran all the way back along the top of its skull. From there it jutted out from behind its head at an angle like a single, short horn. Otherwise they were just as large as a crumhead, and easily the mass of two draft horses.

The Teodon seemed quite familiar with the breed, and Aela heard Daehyun refer to them as spirecrowns. Hranfgoelir laughed that they should be kept away from bulls, lest they grow jealous of the other animals' two horns.

The Arvern Witch could see that once the spirecrowns began to tromp along, their feet would turn what appeared to be a disc hidden underneath the planks of the main deck. Because of this the enormous animals would remain walking in place as it spun beneath them. Aela imagined that there was other machinery hidden below the deck as well. Somehow it must cause the low waterwheels at either side of the ship to spin. Their wooden slats would in turn push the vessel forward or backward through the river. It was a very complex design, and Aela admired the engineering ability evidenced in its creation.

A canvas awning rose above the spirecrowns to give them shade, and Aela noted postholes spaced along the boat that would allow more tenting to be erected if need be. Aela saw no signs of there being a hold or lower levels. So far as she could tell the boat had only the single open deck, and either possessed a flat bottom or one with a very shallow draft.

Her captain was a Sea Elf named Hesari. Like all those of the Silisce race, his skin was the blue of a calm sea. Otherwise he looked much like a Silaine elf, with a similar willowy frame and graceful features. He was clad in a blue linen tunic that was open down much of its length, showing off the artistically-sculpted muscles of his chest. His long legs were bare, and likewise revealed wiry muscle. Finally he wore a simple pair of leather sandals upon his feet.

Aela found an open place near one of the waterwheels and sat down. She leaned back against the wooden awning that covered the wheels. The Arvern watched the brown water of the Nakdeok slide by as it fell behind the boat. The turning wheel churned up the otherwise peaceful water, and left a foaming wake behind the boat, marking a trail where it had passed.

Aela felt magic down beneath the water. She closed her meat eyes, and instead opened herself fully to the aether. Allowing her senses to sink below the waves, she was greeted by the powerful scent of an undine. As they cast off from the dock, the water spirit reversed the flow of the river around the boat, so that even though they traveled upstream, they were no longer pushing against the current. Just as with the hulk that had transported them to Veia the week before, The Nakdeok Queen still had to propel herself through the water. Hence the spirecrowns and waterwheels. But the intervention of the spirit insured that the boat would do so far quicker and easier than otherwise.

Aela traced a slender thread of magic from the undine to the boat, and found that it led to the captain. As the Skanjr said, wherever there is an alfar, magic is not far behind. Granted, they did not mean it in a flattering manner. But it was true more often than not. Given the Sea Elves' famous reputation for ruling the waves, Aela would have expected no less.

Still, the journey up the winding course of the Nakdeok River was a long one, even with Captain Hesari's conjured assistance. In spite of it being the edge of the Kye Rim, they came across numerous settlements as they traveled. Every few miles there seemed to be another farming and fishing settlement. All were fortified with strong timber walls, ditches, and moats of course. She doubted that anyone out here had seen a Rasen oathman or Teodon hwarang in years.

A glance to the west reminded her of the Dark Barrow that she and Loria had cleared such a short time ago, with the help of the Frisverd. It lay many miles in that direction, beyond the rainforest, and deep within the strange karst landscape of the Stone Forest. It seemed as if they were retracing their steps, for after the battle, they had taken this same river back to the coast, and from there boarded ship for Veia.

Everything happened in cycles, Aela thought. She had just not expected this particular one to turn so quickly!



Horse-Powered Ferryboat 1

Horse-Powered Ferryboat 2

Spirecrown - Saurolophus Angustirostris

[Renee]

Check out Scott Cunningham's book Wicca: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner. It is an outstanding book to introduce one to magic and Witchcraft.

Thanks! I'll see if our local Borders has this one. Oops, Barnes & Nobles. I studied witchcraft way back in my teenage years but never really got the hang of it. I'm too much of a surburbanite, I think. Got much more into astrology, meditation and (as you know) tarot cards.

Simplicia the Slow raised Teresa. But it was Raminus Polus who taught Teresa her first spells. It was in a flashback chapter from her childhood, when she also first met Methredhel and Adanrel.

Oops, I was close though. At least I remember Simplicia factored deeply into her background (My memory is not very good).

With those final words, Dark-Eye walked away through the mud. Sindeok noted that he did so with bared feet. He knew that the bandit leader had once commanded the Celestial Gallery company. His bones were born as pure as his own. Yet he walked barefoot through the mud, the same as any peasant.

Nice. And they're all barefoot, why is this? This scene reminded me of one of Darkness Eternal's stories from several years ago, in which a bunch of Morrowind slaves began having a food-fight or something.

I used to know a kid who was really good with ken-do by the way. This was back in high school. We'd watch a bunch of other kids (like four or five of them) grab large sticks out of the woods, and they'd ALL go up against the teenage ken-do master, but the master was really fast! Within seconds, there'd be four or five kids running away, only one left standing.

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 29 2018, 03:18 PM