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 could have just said "they sailed down the river", but instead I saw this as a golden opportunity to do some character development and world-building. So I am lavishing several installments on the flora and fauna of Kye Rim, and using the time spent traveling to get to know the Seven.

I was also thinking that Phereinon is easily the most mysterious of all the Seven. Venca is a mystery because his past is a blank slate. But because of that, there is not much to truly reveal about him. He is an onion with only one peel. At least until we get much later into his story (which would not be in Seven). Phereinon OTOH, is plainly more than she appears. There is the mystery of what she is, and that of who she is and where she has been. I am having fun peeling back one layer at a time through Aela's eyes.

No more pains staked out like vampires!



Renee: The Teodon and their footwear is something I have explored in previous parts of the story as well. Peasants are not allowed to wear boots or shoes (this is like laws in England where only nobles were allowed to wear velvet or silk, or how only the Roman Emperor could wear purple). Instead they go barefoot. High born Teodon like Sindeok and the other hwarang all have footwear. They literally do not get their feet dirty. I got the original idea from how in Ancient Greece helots and slaves were called 'dusty feet', because they spent all their lives toiling in the dirt.




Chapter 10.3

The next day went on much like the first. Venca and Hrafngoelir continued to provide both instruction and entertainment with their spear-fighting lessons. Phereinon was one of the few passengers on the boat to ignore them. Instead she continued her studies of seemingly insignificant forms of life, such as birds and lizards.

Aela herself took advantage of the spectacle of spear training to break away from the others and find some quiet time at the far end of the boat. It had been far too long since she had worked on her aura - and thus on her body. She may have had all a woman's parts for years. But she still lacked the ideal proportions in many areas of her body.

She sat and stared at her hands. They were too big for a woman's hands, fingers too long, palms too wide. They were man-hands, as she sometimes heard. It was time that changed.

Aela slipped the bonds of the flesh and blood world, and rose into the aether. Her aura was bright and strong all around her, glowing with power. She sent her consciousness into that brilliant display, and felt herself encompassed by warmth. She even imagined that she heard the sound of her heart beating, a slow yet thundering drum, along with the warm winds of air flowing to and from her lungs.

The fibers of energy that made up every facet of her body felt strong and supple in Aela's metaphorical hands. The closer she looked, the more complex the tapestry they wove became. Numerous threads wove in and out of one another in a tangle far more complex than any of her countrymen's knotwork art designs.

Aela recalled that when she had first tried to study her aura in detail, it had all seemed so overwhelming. Now, as then, Turtle showed her the way. She took her journey through her own aura one step at a time. One thread at a time. Just like a turtle walking across a meadow. She would reach her goal in the end. She always did.

She followed thread after thread of power, and finally came to those of her hands. Years of study and experience at the Ingenium's hospital had taught her to easily identify which of the numerous strands of energy governed her muscles, which her tendons, her bones, her skin, her nails, her blood vessels, her nerves, and so on. Most people probably never imagined how many separate systems had to work in perfect concert to perform an act as simple as making a fist. Aela saw them all here, enveloping her consciousness.

So she took the strands of power that shaped her flesh and bone, and went to work. Auras were abiding, not easily altered. They were meant to last after all. Yet they were not utterly immutable. They did change naturally over time. As a mountain was slowly shaped by wind and water, an aura was slowly changed through the natural process of living.

It took energy to pare, and snip, and shorten the filaments of flesh and bone, of blood vessels and nerves. Yet that was the easy part. The difficult part was making those changes permanent. An aura wanted to snap back into its original design. That is what made healing so easy. Aela almost snorted at the thought. Yet the truth was that stitching together arteries and bones with nothing but mana and will was child's play compared to what she now undertook. This felt like she was trying to bend iron with her bare hands.

But what was mere iron compared to magic? Aela willed her reality to change. The mana she now expended was prodigious. More than defending the Frisverd in the Dark Barrow. More than any act of healing. Her power became a forge, her aura the iron, and her will the hammer that shaped it.

So she hammered away at her aura. Not blindly, or even brutally. But with the skill and precision of a master jeweler. She had to be that careful, lest she go too far and literally break one or more of the threads of her aura. Then she might end up maimed, or worse.

She did not know how long she spent there, laboring in the forge of transformation. She did know that she was exhausted by the time she had finished. Her body was covered in sweat, and her hair hung down like wet a mop behind her head. She was thankful for the braids Hrafngoelir had put in, otherwise that sweaty mess probably would have been plastered across her face as well.

She looked around to find that the sun was fading in the west, burning bright and red like a giant torch above the horizon. Loria sat beside her, his cards laid out on the deck before them. He had been playing a game of patience. He took the time to coolly lay down one final card before turning to look at her.

"So how went it?" he asked softly.

"Let us see," Aela breathed. She lifted one hand before her palm flattened outward. The Light Elf raised his own to meet hers. His soft skin pressed against hers, and Aela noted that her fingers were notably shorter than his now, and her palm plainly narrower. Her man-hands were gone. Now they appeared as normal - and evenly proportioned - as any woman's.

"Magic is the quite literally the ability to reshape the world." Her own words to Alcheon a few days before came back to her. "To make reality how you will it to be."

Aela could not restrain the grin that blossomed from her features. Loria wrapped his fingers around hers and squeezed gently. Then she hugged him, sweat and all.

"Did I ever tell you that you are amazing?" he murmured. "Almost as amazing as I am!"