Foreigners are Always Interesting (Working Title) Options

[legionslayer]

Hello all! I'm new to the Chorral.com forums but I've been playing and modding in Elder Scrolls (mainly Oblivion) for some time. As of now I'm really trying to get a feel for the lore, speech patterns and beliefs of the various races, starting with those I'm most familiar with, the Nords and the Dark Elves.

For my first project, I'm posting the first draft of the start of some fanfiction set in the Third Era (3E?), Oblivion time period. Though this is still a rough draft, I'd appreciate any comments you might have. I'm particularly interested in errors in how I've characterized the various races, tips regarding how they talk and relate to each other, and any other backstory I might have misinterpreted from what little I got in the game (sadly, I hurried through most of Oblivion) and from the UESPwiki. I'd particularly welcome suggestions for making the dialogue fit better with each race, with links to appropriate samples if they're available. Also, if I've tripped up somewhere in the weapons or armor, feel free to point that out as well.

I've worked regularly with a writer's group for a good while and have a fairly thick skin when it comes to my work, so feel free to comment on anything you think could use improvement--it's doubtful you'll hurt my feelings. All I ask is that you provide specifics as to why it stuck out to you and a suggestion for how to fix it. And, of course, I'll happily return the favor by taking a look at anything you might have up.

Thanks all!



Foreigners are Always Interesting (Working Title)

1.

It was not the ringing sound of blades colliding that roused Tarel from his slumber underneath the overhang of massive Prayer Rock, nor the grunts and cries of men as they were struck or cut or fell with a crunch against the newly fallen snow. It was the cursing—-particularly, the shrill, female voice that was doing it and the strange, slippery sounding words she used.

The clash of blades as they spilled the blood of men was nothing to get upset about—-Tarel was a Nord, after all, as accustomed to blades clashing and men shouting as he was to breathing and eating—-but the cursing of so obviously foreign a tongue this deep in Skyrim had him curious. He laid quiet with his ears open and listened as the men screamed murder, the woman shrieked curses, and blades rang together in the cacophonous singsong of combat. Yes, the woman—-he'd assume she was a woman, because the idea of a man with such a high voice was unsettling—-the woman doing the cursing was doing it in a way that almost sounded like poetry, if poetry could be made of shouted statements that one's parents made babies with goats. Nords and most especially Tarel cursed often, and heartily, and with good reason, but never had Tarel heard a string of curses that sounded as pretty as this.

Tarel pondered a moment, the sat up and stretched his arms to the sky with a massive yawn. His brother Havel had the daytime patrol (Tarel had the night) and would certainly have roused him had the fracas Tarel heard been any threat to Lorna, the small hometown they shared. Whatever the fight was about, it was obviously none of their business. Even so, Tarel pushed off the pleasant sloth of his late morning nap and grinned. Foreigners, by nature, were always interesting. He stomped out his sputtering fire, took up his greatsword, and lumbered into the snowy wilderness beyond his shelter to see what all the fuss was about.

Tarel found 'the fuss' not twenty paces distant, stretched out in a tableau of blood-stained and trampled snow in a small pass, directly below his sheltered lookout. Three dead foreigners, Redguard and Breton by the look of them, were lying in pieces spread out in a circle around a pair of harried looking Dark Elves in tattered, flowing cloaks. Five more warriors in mismatched armor and gray snow cloaks ringed the two elves in the middle, circling warily.

The first elf they hunted was a frothing red-eyed maniac wielding what looked to be a claymore far larger than seemed practical. It was most likely the weapon responsible for cutting three of the unfortunate hunters into so many pieces. His thick black cloak had been tattered by blades and rocks, and it rippled in the wind to reveal hard boiled leather armor underneath. Pressing her back to his was a slight Dark Elf in a tattered brown robe wielding a glittering blood-stained dirk in each hand. A ponytail of dark hair whipped against her cheek, and her snarling mouth matched the curses flying from her lips. She screamed at the men surrounding them, all in that strange, foreign tongue that sounded so new and pretty to Tarel's ears.

Tarel watched as the remaining five foreigners moved in on the two Dark Elves from all sides, the motions beneath their mismatched leather armor and billowing gray cloaks suggesting a Khajiit, an Argonian, and a Nord, as well as a pair of fresh green Imperials whose swords were shaking in their hands. The Dark Elves had the experience, to be sure, but the five that ringed them had the numbers. As Tarel knew from his many scuffles in the Imperial Army before his discharge and return to his hometown of Lorna, even a cluster of relatively unskilled swordsmen could still draw blood from the best of veteran blades. All the mob had to do was attack all at once, from all sides, with absolutely no idea just how badly they were outmatched.

The large Dark Elf frothed at the mouth as he watched his hunters come, a mountain of barely contained rage. By comparison, the smaller female at his back was a picture of restrained energy, snarling and cursing as her dirks practically danced in her hands. Tarel settled cross-legged on the edge of his lookout and balanced the cool steel of his greatsword across the massive muscles of his thighs.

No matter how it turned out, this was going to be an impressive fight.

[legionslayer]

2.

The big Argonian was the first to break the standoff, perhaps confident the spinning arc of his large flail would keep him safe from harm. In response to his first few steps, the Dark Elf with the giant sword moved faster than an elf of his size had any right to do, lunging forward and downward and all but watching the spiked head of the flail streak by a hair's breadth above his head. With fluidity that defied its ridiculous size, the blade of his oversized claymore moved relentlessly in a great and terrible arc, finding cloak and leather and bone before it emerged from the Argonian's other side in a spray of red and white.

The Khajiit on the Argonian's left flank was impressively quick, Tarel saw, and his lithe body and claws ducked under the swing that passed him as the Argonian screamed. As he moved one clawed hand raked the Dark Elf's wrist, just where the boiled leather armor split at the joint. The Cat-man's glistening claws drew a bright splash of blood that seemed insignificant compared to the gore spouting from the two pieces of Argonian now falling to the snow. Even so, the Khajiit's blow was well-planned and superbly placed.

While the Dark Elf managed to swing his sword back around into a guard position using the momentum of its prior movement, as any good swordsmen should, he shuddered when he blocked the swinging longsword from the Nord to the dead Argonian's right. That told Tarel the Khajiit had not only ripped open muscle, he'd found bone. Tarel supposed wielding a claymore as massive as the one this Dark Elf carried was a bit harder when one's wrist was broken.

Tarel didn't worry much for the Nord—-it was no one from his village, he knew, because the man was wearing sheepskin boots, not lamb—-but he found himself intensely interested in the furiously angry and loud-mouthed Dark Elf female. In the time it had taken her companion to kill the Argonian and fend off the others, she had ducked under the first Imperial's clumsy strike and closed with both of them, slicing the first man's fingers apart with one dirk while her other slashed the second man's throat. Her blade came away from a bright, bloody grin deep in the neck of the second Imperial, whose sword grip was even now falling from his hands. Even so, he died with the edge of his blade in the woman's side, a small victory, but more than he deserved.

Numbers, Tarel thought with a shake of his head. It's always the numbers that do you in.

The Imperial whose fingers were now decorating the snow had just started to shriek when the woman spun the dirk she'd used to open the second man's neck, took a step, and turned the first man's screams into a bubbling wheeze with a single, graceful strike.

Poor choice, Tarel thought, to send the party's two most unskilled hunters against the smaller quarry, just because she happened to be a woman. One of the three experienced hunters facing the male could probably have taken the woman's head off, given the distraction and acceptable death of a single Imperial. The Dark Elf woman spun, twirled her dirks, and shouted another fervent curse.

She looked back to her big partner just in time to see his blade slice *through* the well-placed guard of the Nord. As the two halves of the Nord's cleanly cut sword sprang apart the Dark Elf's blade continued on, easily separating the man's head from his shoulders. The Khajiit took the opportunity the massive, heavy swing presented to again strike in its wake, a wicked fast hand tossing a dagger that glittered in the mid-morning light. That dagger buried itself, all the way to the hilt, in the right eye of the big Dark Elf.

Tarel frowned for the first time that day. Damn rotten luck, he thought, first for the Nord whose sword had been split (the man had parried the strike well—-that fact that the Dark Elf had a better weapon really wasn't his fault) and second for the Dark Elf himself who, even if the dagger hadn't cut straight to the center of his brain, would certainly lose the use of his right eye. Losing an eye was almost as bad as losing a sword arm, as far as Tarel was concerned. Neither was a loss from which any man ever fully recovered.

The woman's curses and snarls turned into an all but banshee-worthy shriek as she watched her big partner stumble back, clutching the dagger hilt protruding from his bloody eye. He fell with a massive thump. His oversized sword spun flashing for a moment, on its tip, then clattered to rest on a rock by the big elf's side. Blood was rushing from the hole where his red right eye had been, and though his mouth was open, no scream was pouring forth.

The Khajiit wasted no time, leaping forward and over the body of the fallen Dark Elf with claws extended to finish the hunt. He had, perhaps, misjudged how close he was to victory. The woman was inconsolable and far beyond reason now, as her violent and truly reckless charge showed. She dodged neatly around the Khajiit's clumsy looking leap, blades flashing as she came close to hacking off his tail.

The lithe cat-man landed, rolled, and bared his teeth at her, hissing as her two bloody dirks darted and danced before his eyes. Her speed was easily the equal of his, and he knew that, now. The cat-man backed off, darting forward and back, feinting left and right, as the woman matched him step for step. Her cursing had all stopped now. In a way, the utter silence in which she now moved was even more worrisome than the curses that had come before. At least before, at least with those, she had made *some* noise.

Circling around and around on a carpet of crunching, bloodied snow, cat-man and Dark Elf darted and dodged and feinted. At last, the Khajiit saw an opening. He darted in with a gleeful hiss, his claws raking the Dark Elf's face, but Tarel saw then that she had wanted that—-she had allowed him the opening because it allowed her to slice one dirk clean across his middle. The Khajiit's pleased expression of victory turned to mild surprise as he took a step back, glanced down at the bundles of unwinding intestine pouring forth from his opened midriff, then fell to his knees with a huff of puzzled alarm.

With speed that made even the Khajiit look clumsy, the Dark Elf woman *moved*. Her arms parted then closed in a moment of enviable grace. Her twin dirks crossed one over the other inside the cat-man's neck, taking his still surprised head off its body in one last spectacular burst of blood. The head hit the snow as the woman fell to her knees.

Her victory was an empty one, for her companion, her big, stalwart friend, lie unmoving at her side with a knife sticking out of his eye. The woman clutched her side as she leaned over him, and Tarel only then remembered she'd been cut as well, by the dying Imperial. She fell face and hand first across the chest of her partner, letting loose an anguished wail that echoed off the walls around her.

That mournful, tortured sound chilled Tarel in a way that the frost and snow of Skyrim never could.

[legionslayer]

3.

Rare and strange metals, Tarel thought as he rose, to cut so easily through blade and bone alike. Strapping his greatsword across his bare back with the leather strap he kept for just such a purpose, Tarel climbed backward and down from his post atop the rock, letting the Dark Elves leave his sight out of necessity. Royalty, then, or are all wild Dark Elves so armed?

Tarel was careful to place his boots on rock where the snow was fresh and the ice was thin. Even the greatest of Nord swordsmen would succumb to a broken neck if they didn't watch where they put their feet. After he'd reached the relatively safety of the ground, Tarel turned his attention back to the Dark Elf woman to find her kneeling over her fallen companion. As he approached, she ripped the dagger from his eye. Tarel winced at the violent motion, then relaxed when he saw her pouring the last of the liquid from an ornate bottle on her friend's face. A healing potion. It might be enough to save his life, if not his eye.

"Hullo there!" Tarel shouted as he approached, wanting to make certain the woman noticed and evaluated him before he was close enough to seem a threat. "Looks like you've had a bit of trouble!"

The Dark Elf's head snapped up. Her deep red eyes cut into him as keenly as a blade. The focused rage she directed at him was far more biting and personal than anything he'd seen in brawls among his brothers, or even from men he'd killed on the fields of the Empire's victories. This Dark Elf, though she cursed as prettily as any, could hate in a way far uglier than her fresh clawed face suggested.

"Easy now," Tarel continued, stopping well away from her and keeping his greatsword resting casually against his shoulder. "I've not come to do you any harm, fair Dumner."

Tarel hoped he was pronouncing the word for her species right. He'd heard from a passing Redguard that Dark Elves preferred to call themselves Dumners in friendly company, but given his penchant for making an boat of himself, he'd just as likely called her a Nine-damned fool.

"You've had a right hard time of it, judging from all these dead men, and I've no wish to add to your suffering or test your blades." Tarel grinned in a disarming manner that he'd always found useful with the local women. "I just wondered if I could offer any help."

"Foreign thug," the Dark Elf spit back in heavily accented Cyrodillic, the words far less pretty than those she spoke in her own tongue. "You watched us from your rock and you did nothing." She hid the bottle back inside her robes.

Tarel winced, surprised and a bit annoyed that the woman had noticed him far above her, while involved in a fight. Though it hurt his pride to know he'd been so obvious (he liked to think he blended well into the snow, despite what Havel said) he took her accusation in stride. Unlike the two Imperials whose throats she had slit with the ease of gutting fish, Tarel was not going to underestimate her.

"Yeah, well, about that. See, I am my brother Havel are the assigned protectors of our village, here, and you—-well, no offense, fair Dumner, but you and your big partner there are strangers here, just like the men, lizards and cat you slaughtered. Seein' as me and Havel are the only thing keeping the mountain lions and bandits from chewin' up the elders and women folk and young ones, it'd be right stupid of us to go and get ourselves killed in some skirmish that isn't rightly our affair."

The Dark Elf woman glared at him, then spoke again in her guttural Cyrodillic. "My sworn sword is dying from a cowardly strike from a bandit. Your blade at our sides could have kept that fate at bay."

"Could have," Tarel agreed, shrugging in a way that was both casual and uncommitted. "You were outnumbered, sure enough. But without knowing who had the right or the wrong of it, how was I to know you weren't hunted for raping women or murdering babes?"

The woman rose like a ghost and spun her dirks, starting toward him with a limping stride as her side bled freely in the snow. "You assume too much," she whispered, with rage that might well be melting the snow.

Tarel stepped back and raised a hand, keeping his greatsword balanced on his shoulder. "Now miss, I didn't mean no harm by that, just givin' you the reasons as to why a smart Nord doesn't get himself involved in what's rightly a stranger's business."

Tarel kept his disarming smile wide, but he did raise his sword as she approached. He settled into an easy guard that gave the Dark Elf pause, even through her blinding rage. Tarel wasn't a stranger to swordplay, having lived and breathed it since he could walk, and she could see that, at least. She stopped.

"That is, we don't get involved unless we're invited." Tarel grinned and took another breath, then let his guard lower when the woman didn't move. "See miss, you're wounded, as is your big friend there, if he's still alive. Regardless of the whys or whereabouts of you being here like this, I don't see why I can't offer you my help. We have healers in my village, not as grand as you're used to, I'm sure, but old and wise and good at what they do."

In the few moments the Dark Elf female had stood across from him, the snow below her had turned bright red with blood. At the rate she was losing it, Tarel knew she would soon pass out or die. He felt bad for her, and maybe a bit worse for her friend with the missing eye, but not bad enough to step closer then step back, like that Khajiit, watching his guts spout out around his ankles.

"How do I know I can trust you?" the Dark Elf whispered, her rage and her hate giving way to what even Tarel's eyes, untrained in Dark Elf facial expressions, couldn't help but think must be an all but overwhelming despair.

"Well now miss... I suppose you don't." Tarel let his grin fade, turning as serious as he felt he ought to. "But after considerin' your other many options--"

"No." Her face hardened again. "It's just the trick Kajel would use to finish us. Test us brutally with steel, and then, if we survived, slit our necks as we slept safe in the hands of miraculous *rescuers.*"

"Now miss—-" Tarel began, but he never finished. The Dark Elf screamed and rushed forward, her dirks flashing, then tripped on a rock and fell on her face. She landed with a thump that was loud enough to make Tarel jump. It was an inglorious, horribly unjustified end to her last valiant stand against a whole world aligned against her, but it kept her alive. The rock her head had struck beneath the snow had been gracious enough to knock her unconscious.

"Well," Havel said from Tarel's side, causing his younger yet bigger brother to jump yet again. Havel was a full foot shorter than Tarel and less broad in the shoulders, though he shared his brother's long blond hair, square jaw and hard, muscular frame. Tarel had always been envious that Havel could move so quietly in the snow, but he supposed that was because his big brother was smaller.

"What've we got here, little brother?" Havel asked.

Tarel lowered his sword. "A sprightly young woman who's been in her fair share of knife fights, and her big partner, close to a berserker as I've ever seen in a Dark Elf. They're both dying, and given it's neighborly, I'd say they need our help."

Havel nodded. "Lucky for her she didn't break those cute little dirks on a pair of Skyrim's biggest greatswords." He grinned at Tarel as he spoke and thrust lewdly, advertising just what 'greatswords' he was talking about.

Tarel responded with a grin of his own, though inside, he wondered about his brother's boast. After all, Havel hadn't actually seen this woman use those 'cute little dirks'.

"Well, I'll carry her, I suppose." Havel trudged over to the unconscious woman bleeding to death in the snow. "After all, you're the ox here, little brother, and so..."

Havel lifted the unconscious, bleeding woman from the snow as if she weighed no more than a winter dress. He walked quickly toward their village of Lorna. As he passed Tarel, Havel jerked his head to the massive pile of Dark Elf that had collapsed among an equally massive pile of dead enemies.

"You get to carry the big one."

[Shades]

Like you said, working title. It sounds like a 30's buddy movie.

The first paragraph is too short and the information doesn't seem all in order of how you should tell it. It doesn't feel necessary to be specific yet where he is sleeping or what is going on below, you unfold all that as the story goes on. In this first paragraph you should give the reader the same curiousity about the situation that Tarel has; not really knowing whats going on and feeling the need to find out.

You keep saying in the story "Nord do this" and "Nords do that" and so on, that also grates a bit. You kinda have to assume your readers are TES fans to get the most part of the story anyway, and they would know the stereotypes about Nords without being reminded. What you need to do is show your characters as individuals beyond stereotypes.

It's a little drawn out when Tarel decides that it's a woman's voice. As a reader I'm willing to take his best guess. You don't really need to describe the male dark elf as frothing twice, or someone with combat experience as a maniac I wouldn't think. It just gives me a weird picture in my head. Have him be very aggressive but collected so he can contrast the chick who is yelling. Which reminds me of something earlier, slippery words as a phrase invokes the image of a used car salesman more than someone trying to be offensive. Just think it over.

The large Dark Elf frothed at the mouth as he watched his hunters come, a mountain of barely contained rage. By comparison, the smaller female at his back was a picture of restrained energy, snarling and cursing as her dirks practically danced in her hands. Tarel settled cross-legged on the edge of his lookout and balanced the cool steel of his greatsword across the massive muscles of his thighs.

This whole paragraph doesn't resonate with me. He's barely contained, she's restrained, yet they're both just standing there? It's as if you're describing something repetitively, because you already went over what they were doing before. I'm not sure what you mean by the dirks dancing in her hands unless she is tossing them around or something, which seems inappropriate. The last sentence seems like something out of Peterotica, but you really just put in too many adjectives.

Tarel settled cross-legged on the edge of his lookout and balanced the cool steel of his greatsword across the massive muscles of his thighs.

The first fight between the argonian and the elf in the next chapter seems a bit implausible in that someone with a flail and no shield would have to be suicidal to try and attack someone with a greatsword. If he's there spinning it around he hasn't much chance. Make him more of a supporter to someone who may be able to defend against a greatsword, flail users without shields just can't defend themselves.

Then you keep telling us how big the greatsword is. We get it, really. You can trust the readers a little more to figure that wielding a large sword with a hurt wrist is going to severely hamper him.

Just for my interest, what is the difference between sheepskin boots and lamb skin and how can you spot it? And why would you use a lamb instead of sheep for making your boots?

As a general comment on the fighting, sometimes you present things as a little too epic. Cutting off heads isn't a likely thing to happen anyway, but doing it with a self described "ridiculous" sword when he's got a broken wrist? It could use a toned down approach where he is hurting them but not cutting them to bits. And the chick is way too busy to go around taking off heads.

Once again your wrap-up paragraph is strange.

Her victory was an empty one, for her companion, her big, stalwart friend, lie unmoving at her side with a knife sticking out of his eye. The woman clutched her side as she leaned over him, and Tarel only then remembered she'd been cut as well, by the dying Imperial. She fell face and hand first across the chest of her partner, letting loose an anguished wail that echoed off the walls around her.

The first sentence has three commas too many for what you're trying to say. We know she was cut by the Imperial, not enough time has passed that you need to remind the readers. Saying she fell face and hand first just inspires a "umm, whut?" in that it doesn't seem to matter about her hands at the moment. And then, what walls? Weren't they in a pass at the time?

Chapter three, you did the Nords are this thing again. It strikes me now that Tarel shouldn't know the relationship between the elves, so maybe it would be better (as you follow his perspective) to keep away from saying the elves are friends or anything that makes inferences about their relationship until he can find out.

During the conversation between Tarel and the dark elf his manner of speaking seems more British than backwoods. I'm not sure how to remedy this, but give it some thought.

Tarel was sitting on a rock, it's not reasonable to say he thought he was being inconspicuous. Just have him be impressed that she saw him while she was busy killing. Her suicidal rush works pretty well in defining her character, but Havel coming in doesn't work so well. He was supposed to be the lookout, why is he having to ask what's going on? The honoured user was sleeping on the job! Or something, but it seems he should have been better informed about the situation if he was awake and in the area the whole time.

This post has been edited by Shades: Aug 23 2008, 09:15 PM

[legionslayer]

Shades,

Just wanted to say I just got to check out your reply, been handling a cross country move the past week. Thanks for the detailed feedback, it's much appreciated and I'll take a detailed look tonight when I have more time. I'll try to return the favor later this week when I get some time--if there's anything specific you'd like comments on just let me know.

[Shades]

Shades,

Just wanted to say I just got to check out your reply, been handling a cross country move the past week. Thanks for the detailed feedback, it's much appreciated and I'll take a detailed look tonight when I have more time. I'll try to return the favor later this week when I get some time--if there's anything specific you'd like comments on just let me know.

You've got more chapters to write of your story here, it would probably be better to work on that first. I'm not working on a story in my spare time, so I have time to review. I kinda like being "The Critical Reviewer", it means everyone posting in this section is coming to me for their review. If there's two of us we'd have to form a club or something.

I'm kidding, have fun with whatever.