Authors Co-operate together to produce a short story/stories

ok heres my second attempt at a character. Again criti this please.


My Character Development


Character Name: Marc Landor.

Age: 21 Nationality: Unknown

Description: Medium height (5feet 6 inches), brown hair, broad shoulders, average strength, commoner, clean-shaven face, Green eyes. Short hair. Soft features. A few small calluses on his hands from his basic sword work and his time as a Seaman on board the Fairy Mother Ship. He has a dry sense of humour and most of the time is very tactless. He speaks his mind and it would have helped him in the past to not speak his mind at certain points. Jealous of the nobility and how they think they are above other men because of there birth and because they are richer than him. He believes that a man should be judged on his actions instead of how he was born. He knows there are many able people out there who are not given a chance to prove themselves because of being of a lowly station.

History: His Mum is a serving maid and his Dad is a drunk. His home city is Ankapoor. A passing sword master pitied him and taught him basic sword work. He found work on the ship the Fairy Mother as a cabin boy when he was only fourteen. He steadily progressed and became a normal deck hand. He didn’t have a lot of money, as he gambled most of his wages with the other sailors. He is not a very good gambler and in the time he was aboard the Fairy mother he had saved virtually nothing. He was strong and healthy but has no sense of cleanliness.
He soon got bored of his life on board a ship so he left. He spent time wondering seaports he barely survived and missed meals frequently. An “Air ship came into port so he sought work on the ship. They took him on for pity but soon saw an advantage of having him around. They soon made him do all the lackey jobs. He was set to scrubbing decks and repairing various parts of the ship. During his time he began to pick up tad-bits of spells. He tries one and gets it wrong and as a result was scarred along his right arm. The spell he attempted was an energy ball. He managed to conjure t but had no control over it and it badly burned him. This proves his naivety.
Skills: He can use a sword and has a basic skill with a short sword. Sadly the sword master didn’t bother to teach him the use of other weapons i.e. an axe, mace and flail. He’s adept at losing his meagre wages. He can fend for himself in the wild but just not very good and in cities. He tries to independent and intelligent but sadly fails a lot at the latter.

Magic: He possesses a basic skill in this. But after a failed attempt at magic he is very reluctant to try it again.



ok cheers

marc

p.s. has ne 1 else got nefink yet?:confused:
 
Sidwynspider, did you email your piece to everyone? My hotmail account was full.l
 
where is every1? its like ya all dead. We can't do this thing with out input but i understand if ya all busy but could u at least post a smallish reply on nefink or just to say ya still there.

plz


ok cheers,
Marc
 
I'm here, just smashed with work and school. I'll try to post some stuff over the weekend.

BTW, i like your new characterization Comp. I'll try and write something down. My character will be apprenticed to the Mage of the Ship. He'll be his nephew.

later days.
 
where is every1? its like ya all dead.
Click to expand...

You pretty much hit the nail on the head Comp. Believe me, tax law is not a subject anyone wants to study if they have any regard for their sanity.
Yeah, sorry about not mailing to you Rob, I meant to point out that your account was full but... Anyways, I don't think theirs too much point sending that same piece to you now seeing as the nature of the story has shifted so fundamentally.
Computer, I like your new character idea much better. I'm amazed that you 'dirtied him up' in quite such a literal manner. Personally, I'd maybe have made his scar a bit more obvious - like having a web of livid scarring scored into his face - but hey, that's just my preference.
As a final point, and just to reopen an old debate, about other species... For one thing: I never get to write about enigmatic new races :( - can I have one, pleeeaasse! I promise I'll feed it and take it for walks. :)
Secondly, consider Erikson. There you have tales predominantly concerned with the affairs of men, but there's always the shadow of the mysterious Tiste Andii and their relatives. I think if there were just a few of the race (or at least they were rarely seen) it would in some ways let the story be more gritty and dark - as the human parts could then be pretty well magic free - and similtaneously allow a stronger contrast with the fantastic elements.
 
Okay spider, go ahead. Make your "mysterious" species. If we all approve it, which i think we will, and you promise to take good care of it;), i see no problem.

I just didn't want any species other than human to be the predominant. And no!!!!!! known species, something original.
 
Go on spider. We can all add to it after(or not). Right?

I think the story would need a some darker characters, which I've been thinking about quite a bit, and dreamed something up.

I'm not certain what his name would be but perhaps Jaarn or Iaarn, its not too important. He's quite young but looks prematurely aged because of a combination of drug addiction of some kind, a very near death starvation experience, and perhaps a misuse or bad encounter with magic.

He has an outwardly comfortable, slightly foppish appearance, but actually has only a few years of life left. He lives in fear of death all the time, which could strike him at any time but maybe not at all. If this didn't happen he could slide into madness, become a severe cripple or just live out the rest of his life on a knife edge.

He is very very dangerous. His senses are on full alert all the time and could kill any man in combat.

He often thinks of killing himself, but can never bring himself to it.

He is selfish and arrogant, and has commited any number of wrongdoings. The many postions he's held so far are assassin (primarily) mercenary, smuggler, thief, magus apprentice (a long long time ago). Just about anything. He's not purely evil though, BUT would do anything, absolutely anything for a cure.

His father was a deeply commited death/devil worshipper and people of this kind are really the only he fears.
 
ok continueing on wiv ya char sir rob maybe the fact that he would do nefink for a cure could be that some1 could start blackmailling him in a way by saying they had a cure but he had to do tasks in return for it then we he does does tasks the person/persons could drug him up on something and then do a runner.

or

the drug could give him sme peace abd he gets addicted on it thus becoming a slave to the person/persons for his next fix.....


how about that?



Marc
 
Computer, thats exactly the sort of thing I was thnking about doing with the character.

Anyway, I would like to be clear on a few points about the world. What are the primary religions (or just religion) of the world. I would like to have one similair to the Medieval church.
Also, I would like there to be nasty creatures like vampires and demons. DO any of you mind?
 
vampire and demons and such are ok with me as long as there is not too much magic involved. do it a bit like buffy vampire slayer thing like there are loads of demons about it doesnt have to be summoned from magic or anything.


loads of demons are native to the world but hide away from ppl like..???


ne 1 ok with this?


marc,
 
I've got no problem with the idea of any number of fell creatures being introduced, but it does raise the danger of becoming 'too stereotypical fantasy.' I think, as far as demons and the like go, we should stick to the rule of no previously created species.
This brings to me another idea I've been thinking about. It follows from the idea that the floating islands were created by people trying to escape human persecution. What if it weren't other people but another species? Having fled centuries ago most people forgot they even exsisted. Now though, some of the new generation have decided to avenge past injustices and seek to vindicate their historic claims to their former land by forcibly evicting the humans. Although they are relativly few in number they are stealthy, swooping in on sky-ships and obliterating human colonies. Officially though, their government does not support this and therefore we can get both good and evil characters out of one species; thereby not deluging our world with various fantasy creatures.
As to the development of my new species should have something up in about three weeks once the holidays finally start.
 
I don't think having demons or vampires makes stories stereotypical. It just depends how you use them.
Another question I'd like to ask is do you think it would be bad to have muskets and cannon. Also, nobody has answered my question about religion.
 
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An idea of mine is that this world is not at its technological zenith but once was(bla bla sounds so typical). However the magic once weilded by the wind magi, which was enough to hold immense flying fortresess was derived from human blood, hence the vampires.

These 'vampires' were the warrior race of the world as well and the rulers of just about everything.

The opressed humans that fled to the flying islands have perhaps mutated (due to their circumstances) into an altogether different race in a few generations which is pretty close to the vampires of the past, since the islands were only put their by the blood power.

Consign this to the scrap heap if you want. It was just something knocking around in my head.
 
i posted this earlier and im saying so again. There isnt no muskets or cannons or artillery ok?



Marc
 
my reasoning for that is i hate gun powder and guns. i prefer writing about sword play and such plus would it really be that much fantasy if we have guns? it gets to modern for me if they have guns soz...

rob wot u mean: "However the magic once weilded by the wind magi, which was enough to hold immense flying fortresess was derived from human blood, hence the vampires."

i cant see vamps as fighting as warroris for a people or an army i can see an enclave of ifghting vamps who have teamed up wiv each other to plunder, loot, destroy, feed etc. so i can imagine a feared fighting force of hardcore vamp fanatics but they wouldn't field more that 100 fighters at any one given point in time. how about the vamps have there own mountain range wreathed in eternal shadow not many live there about 150 vamps total. they are an extreme fighting force wiv no laws they need to abide and such. they pretty much do what they like. air ships avoid the area because vamps can "fly" to a certain extent they can fly for a brief period of time depneding on strength of vamp so air ships down wanna get boarded and raided by flying into the black mountain range. vamps im large no.s dont venture very far from there mountain range but single or small groups of vamps say 2-4 can be really any where. (that cocludes vamp part.)

maybe on a different island the people living there have mutated to new arms so they have four. these people are considered an superior fighting force as they can wield 4 weapons at any one point. but these are the main pirate people. they are feared and shunned so they took to raiding from the skys. they are the main priate problem. its not just them though there are normal human pirates on the ships as well.

or maybe there is one of the 4arms race who is the leader of a fleet of ar ships. (he can be a bit like the leader of the red ship raiders in Robin hobb)

i think we can have fun with mutating humans but we would need to set a limit on the mutations. else it would really get out of control. maybe working on the air ships sometimes changes a crew member(mutates him) as we agreed to very little magic in the story and we are focosing the little magic we have agreed on as being involved in the floating islands and air ships maybe certain people are affected by the magic and grow wings or somefink....lets chuck this idea round wiv us......


really we need to get some concrete ideas down. everyone needs to sort out there characters and their roles etc. we need a plot for this story is it going to be like stopping pirates from raiding like in the farseer trilogy or wot...we need an agreed upon goal for our story so we can start writing our chars with connections (however small and far between) to this goal and what it does to them/for them...

does any at least agree with me here? also we need and editor as well ne1 interested plz say so we can make a poll of it and vote for our editor.

cheers for reading my rather long winded reply,
Marc
 
Ok, as for Vamps. I personally don't really like the idea. They wouldn't have a whole lot of bearing on the story. As well, we would have to fight a lot of stereo types. So I personally want to scrap the vamps.

As to Guns and Cannons. I also don't want modern weapons included, but what's wrong with a few single shot pistols, rifles and cannons.

The floating Islands could have Cannons as a defense against Rouge/Pirate AirShips.

As to four arms. come on! The arms would just get in the way of each other unless they were spaced far apart, in that case it would no longer be feasible. If we're going to mutate them the obvious thing to do would be to add wings.

Or, just came up with this idea. How about we have Aeronaughts. These would be people who strap large wings of steel on their backs and fly through manipulation of the Magic Currents. Their title of the leader could be Icarus. The Aeronaughts wouldn't replace AirShips, but work with them, or against them, depending on what we decide.

As for different species. How about an avian race. The persecuted people need a place to find refuge. They look all over and then finally remember the Avians. They live in the sky, why not do that ourselves? So they build the Islands and throw them into the sky. The Avians could help them and as a reward they get to roost on the Sky Islands with the persecuted humans.

Just an idea, but i like it alot.

And just to let you know. I have exams next week, so I won't be on much and won't be able to work on many ideas. To much school work.
 
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Computer, I really don't think you quite understood what I meant. My idea was for times gone past and they wouldn't be (too) stereotypical vampires. Also please don't ry and rip off from books you've read. And you could have four armed creatures, but they would have to be very big. Just picture yourself holding four swords. Also whatever these four limbed creatures would be they wouldn't be very humanoid in shape.

I'll forget about my idea, whatever.

Perhaps the Avians are more powerfu,l Se'dray-on, in a slightly god like fashion. Perhaps they are (or actually are) the mutated descendants of long dead wind magi and there homes would be unreachably high.

They would have helped out the persecuted ground dwellers in the creation of their new homes, and now effectively rule them byt in a very unintrusive way. This way they have been tricked into slavery yet again.

Many of the settlers foresaw this and decided to break off in a different direction on the ground and their Free State is coming to a very bloody end.

The ones that went along with it, in the majority knew what they had to do, but they really had only two options.

No one in this world are quite sure who and what the Avians are.

Computer, as to your modifications of the vamp idea I think I would give it a miss.
 
Well what do you think of it? I'm just waiting for your opinions.

Sidwynspider, how is the work on your race going?
 
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