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Mirel
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 Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:58 am Post subject: Invitation---Chapter 3: Annoucements |
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Invitation
Overview
Every year, the Lord and Lady Avondale host a magnificent Gala Event in their country mansion. Their gala’s are legendary, wonderful, and from the tales of past party-goers near nigh the fantastical. Every year they invite different guest, never inviting the same guest twice to their legendary event. No one knows who will be invited, and invitations are not only often controversial but coveted. One year they might only the invite the crème de la crème, the next mere peasants attend. Each year’s theme is unique, exiting, strikes the imagination and the entertainment is guaranteed never to be boring. One year the entire mansion was transformed into a wooded forest where guest were invited to pursue the legendary white stag and white deer who turned out to be respectively, the royal prince and the royal princess. Another year, the mansion was a royal court complete with a jousting field. Yet another, the mansion was transformed into a peasant village celebrating the Winter Solstice. So it is that every year at the same time, people start watching their doorsteps for an envelope that contains a simple white invitation that contains three simple words: You’ve been invited.
Synoposis:
Chapter 1: In this chapter, we learn the history of Lord and Lady Avondale's Galas. A bit of their personal history, and a little of Lady Avondale's personality. We also learn that history has changed, and that the world we all know and love, does not exist in this strange world of Lord and Lady Avondale. Most of the historical information is given because the narrator has an obbession for history, but the most important facts boil down to this:
Due to a nuclear explosion in this world's US, a massive fallour occurred destroying life in America and affecting the worldwide over. Thanks to the expolsion, Technology is feared, History Respected, and the World lives as if it was 1860. Technology is limited if not outright forbidden, and science is outlawed.
We also learn that one of our main characters despite the anathma of Technology has established an University of History and Science.
A clue is given as to the theme of this years party: Lady Avondale choose a thick volume written by an English author to base her theme around. But which book or author did she choose?
Interlude-"The Garden of Rose": In this break, we meet the Courteasan Madame Falcon. Due to a break in decourum at last years party, Lady Avondale decide to only let Madame Falcon provide the music while forbidding the other Courtesans-called the "Roses"-attend. A hint is given about the history of the realtionship between the two women. The interlude also hints of a relationship between the Courteasan and Lord Avondale, an affair possibly? The interlude ends with a subtle threat.
Chapter 2-We are introduced to 3 characters of various backgrounds, professions, and histories. Each character has a somewhat shady past, and questions are raised over which should be trusted to guard the police. The audience was asked to chose between them and Inspector Marlowe, the sassy attractive female dectetive with an attitude was chosen.
Interlue-"Details, Details": We are introduced to the Jewish Tailor Marlone, who is hired every year by Lady Avondale to sew her elaborate customs. We hear Lady Avondale's order, and in so doing gain a clue to the theme. This vital piece of information tells us the party will be set in England in 1881-1903, concrating mainly in 1885-1887. Why and to what purpose?
Chapter 3-Stay tuned.
~ ~ ~
Welcome to my little storygame. Still a little confused as to what a storygame exactly is, I have decided to the very typical authorial thing to do, borrow liberally from the ideas of others… rather particularly from the ideas of one Chinaren who seems to be rather successful around here. This storygame was half inspired by the retired and unfinished (a shame really, should be started again, hint, very large hint) Lords and Ladies, and half inspired by the somewhat hilarious defiantly pernicious Wrath. Curious yet? I sure hope you are. I only have one thing left to say.
Welcome to Invitation.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
Last edited by Mirel on Fri Dec 04, 2009 9:30 am; edited 12 times in total
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Crunchyfrog
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:20 am Post subject: |
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Now I am intrigued!
I'd like to know more about this one. If it's not been said already, welcome to IF! 
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DeadManWalking
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:41 am Post subject: |
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I too am intrigued and wish to know more.
Although that may be redudant.
STILL!
I am interested, and would also like to say "Welcome!"
_________________
When the dead walk, the living run.
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Mirel
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 11:35 am Post subject: |
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*smiles* Two bites already. Promising.
Before I post the introduction which will hopefully attrack, lure, and tempt you into reading my work no matter how pathetic the following chapters might become: let me explain my ideas.
Welcome to Invitation---Let's talk money.
*bows* I am your narrator. In this story I know everything. In this story I am everywhere. Well, perhaps not, but in this little world I am the mistress, your hostess, and the magician that blows the smoke and holds the glass. I will however hint, tease, and provock you. Before the end of this story, you may well want to kill me, strangle me, and relieve me of my entrails...but then again perhaps not.
Let me first introduce you to the cast of the story:
Lord and Lady Avondale: Your host and Hostess.
Assorted Guard must of whom won't have names.
Bob the Butler: Because all butlers seem to be named Bob. I also promise he has a completly horrible and terribly fake British Accent.
Helda the Maid: Toss up inbetween being extremly ugly with an unibrow, muscular, and a deep voice or thin skelton incredibly tight bun hair that hides a permicious nature.
Housestaff: List not all exclusive, but including a gardener with a country accent and possibly a telling limp, a maid who likes to collect shiny objects like a magpie, and a cook who handels knives way to comfortably.
Finaly, but not least 5 other characters who will be played by various Ifians who will pay well for their part, but who will ultimatly be controlled by me.
Now let's talk money.
Because I'm really nice, there is a bunch of free things which everyone will be able to enjoy.
Free stuff
A place in the audience where you can enjoy, hopefully, the tale that I will spin. You will also get to vote on critical decision points that can potentially change the course of the story. You will also be able to critic my work and tell me what I'm doing wrong....something which is always fun. You will get to wait impatiently inbetween chapters and you will hopefully be pleasantly surprised by the subtle plot twists.
Aren't I nice?
Not so free stuff
Besides the cast members that I will directly control, this storygame will involve the help of 5 cast members who will be played by various willing, and paying, Ifians. Because I want to keep the chaos to a min., slot cast will stay at 5. That means only 5 people who will take an active part in this story game.
Bidding for these slots start a minium of 5 fables. Only the 5 highest bids will win a slot. Payment will be made once the bidding is closed. Your first bid will determine what kind of character you will get. Your character will not change no matter how you go afterwards, you will be stuck so to speak with what you pay for. As a downpayment, you will have to pay me your first bid in advance. If you do not get one of the slots, I will pay you back.
First Bid Prices
No matter what you cannot purchase the characters of Lord and Lady Avondale, these are my characters.
5 fables will buy you one of the randomn housestaff casts. I will decide what they look like, how they act, and who they are. You can become the gardener, for example, for a mere 10 fables.
10 fables will buy a more specific housestaff cast member. You will get decide their name and their postion, but nothing else. You cannot be Bob or Helda for this price.
20 fables will buy a hoststaff character. You can describe them verbantum for me and I will attempt to describe them to a T. You still you cannot be Bob or Helda.
50 Fables will buy you Bob or Helda...but I will get to decide their description and character.
100 Fables will buy a customized Bob or Helda.
150 Fables will buy you a position as the personal staff (their man or maid) of one of the guest, their description, and their name.
200 Fables will buy you a position as the personal guard of one of the guests.
250 Fables will get you an invitation. Again, I will get to pick their name, appearance, and everything else. If you want more...pay more.
300 Fables will you get an invitation, the name, and where they are from. Everything else gets decided by me: appearance, accent, character, an position.
350 Fables: An invitation, the name, accent, character, and where they are from. I get to pick your position, welath, and apperance.
400 Fables: An invitation, and the character of your creation. I will have the final say on their apperance however, and must approve of what you submit. You still have a minor role at this point.
Roles in the story Prices
These prices are additional and do not have to be made with your first bid. But you can pay a few extra fables to increase your character's importance in the story.
0 extra fables: A minor role comes with purchase...you'll probably be mentioned every couple of chapter but won't have anything major done with story.
10 extra fables: A single mention in the story with a subtle to no effect on the plot.
20 extra Fables: slightly more significant role in the story. Probably mentioned every other chapter and a subtle but signficant effect to changing the story.
50 extra Fables: a secondary character role. Cannot guarentee a mention in every single chapter but you will be mentioned fairly often. You will be mentioned fairly often, and have something major to do with the plot.
100 extra Fables: A main character. Mentions will be often, and your character will servly effect the plot. [/blue]
Additional costs
Bids can be made, privately or publically, that can effect people's characters, events, and even the story itself. Everyone is free to bid, even the characters themselves. In the end, I will not necessarily take the highest bid...but the highest unique bid which means your bid doesn't have to be the most expensive to win...it's just has to be something I as the author of this story like!
[color=blue] Prices: Bid prices should be made to follow the guidlines of roles in the story. For example a bid of 10, will get your bid a single mention in the plot and it will not affect the plot. A bid of 100, however will get a frequent mentions and will have a sevre effect on the plot.
Bid Rules
1.) No bids can be made in regards to the decision point or any major part of the plot. For example you pay to have someone act like a child, but you cannot pay to have someone jump of a cliff.
2.) No bids can be made to change any specific characters apperance. For example, you can bid for someone to have blue hair but you cannot say who.
3.) Bids must be unique. For example: Someone bids 10 fables to have a character who hair is blue. You cannot then bid 20 fables to have a character whose hair is Green. This is no longer unique.
4.) No bids can be made to cancel other peoples bids. For example: Someone bid to have a character whose hair is blue. You cannot bid more for no one's hair to blue.
5.) Only bids for character slots are avialable now. Everything else will open up once I get my five guests....
Cast Rules
Anyone who chooses to become a character will not be able to vote in any poll. If they attempt to vote, their vote will be descredited. Each cast member will be issued hints, insights, and information along the way. These can be shared with other members of the cast, if you so choose, but cannot be revealed to the general public. As the story progresses, you will be able to 'respond' to what's happening in the story, tell me your character's reaction and their next move. What your character is will determine how much they know, how much they effect the story, and how many times they are mentioned. Of course, other peoples bids may also effect your character. In the end, I will decide the way the story goes...but your characters can...and will...signficantly change the plot.
Any cast member who is not heard from in a month will be forfit of their character and their character will then be controlled by myself. This is just a safety percuation, I don't want to have the story stalled just because someone goes on hiatus.
Oh, and one last thing...
Bidding starts now...
Lawyerbot's 2 cents.
The author reserves the right to add, change, or amend the rules at any time.
The author reserves the right to kill maim, injure, or signficantly change the apprerance of any cast member in her storygame.
The author cannot be held responsible for any deframition of character that may occur during the story.
By bidding, you are agreeing to surrender all rights to the author including, but not limited to: your ideas, copyrights of your ideas, copyright to characters, copyright to any pictures you give to the author to place in the storygame, your right to free will, your right to free speech, and any other right guarenteed by any consition of any free nation. You have surrender those rights with your bid. Just be thankful, the author declined my right to make you surrender your souls...
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
Last edited by Mirel on Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:45 am; edited 5 times in total
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Smee
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:22 pm Post subject: |
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Wow, those are some big prices! So much for bargains to pull in the punters to a new author's work. 
You do realise only Chinaren could afford the Hero, only 1 more (who is still around) could afford the Hero's assistant, and only 1 more could afford a hero helper?
All those people have been gathering fables for over 4 years. You expect them to hand them over in one unknown story, for a relatively unexplained bonus, whilst being unable to vote and possibly killed off at any time you choose?
I'm intrigued, and look forward to finding out more - but from strictly a freebie seat for now.
Happy Writing 
_________________
The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own Satanic Herd!
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Phantomfan
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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I agree with what Smee said- fables can be hard to come by.
Apart from that small detail, this sounds like an awesome idea! Count me in, as soon as the price goes a bit further down.
_________________
I've been pulled back from oblivion to lurk about the City once more. Though the music of the night always beckons...
Here's some stuff I started writing a long time ago. Orb. Nexus.
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DeadManWalking
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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O.o
You ARE ambitious. That's a rather large amount of fables right there.
I'm sorry to say this, but you probably won't get many bites. Smee is right; Not many can afford these prices.
For a good idea of how many fables are floating around, i would go here and set the sort method to Fables and Descending.
I wouldn't want to tell you how to run your storygame, but it seems like the prices might be more reasonable if you were to maybe cut out some of the lower positions than reduce everything to one-fifth (or maybe even one-tenth) what you have it now.
Unless this is your way of telling us that you REALLY want to make your own Hero. 
But yeah, still very interested, but at this point restricted to a relatively small role if i do sign up, simply because of financial reasons. :-(
_________________
When the dead walk, the living run.
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Chinaren
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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I applaud your prices Mirel. It's best to keep things high, out of the reach of the riff raff. 
I hope you know what you're getting into though. These kind of Sgames are quite high maintenance! Trust me on this one. 
Anyway, I'll keep an eye out for more. Maybe even submit a Fable, or even two, towards the enterprise, though things are pretty tight for me just now in that area.
Welcome to IF!
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Neil Hartley Books.
My Amazon page.
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Mirel
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry...still new and still learning. After taking everything in, I have changed the prices by cutting them almost in half, and cutting available character slots in half. Please tell me if the prices and my ambitions are more reasonable.
I'm work on the introduction and it should be up by no later than Friday. The introduction will not a have a decision point...but it will have an interesting ending, I promise you that. I hope this is okay.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
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Smee
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:20 am Post subject: |
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Looking considerably better, and whilst you maybe new and learning, you sure stepped in here like a pro.
Hmmm I put forth a bid of 200 fables for being the personal guard of one of the guests. If I can be a wizard guard that'd be great, and I'll up my bid by an extra 20.
Happy Writing
_________________
The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own Satanic Herd!
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Mirel
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:10 am Post subject: |
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*claps hands* A bid, a bid! Yay! *settles down*
You know you are doing something right when...
Made a couple edits that might make you want to change your bid Smee...and remember I need your first bids in advance, as a sort of downpayment.
Remember folks, there are only 5 spots, and only the 5 highest unique bids get it.
So far we got one spot gone for 200 fables for a wizard guard.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
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Crunchyfrog
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:11 am Post subject: |
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I shall bid 50 fables for a Helda.
(Edit to add - 50 fables now donated.)
Last edited by Crunchyfrog on Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:10 am; edited 1 time in total
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Smee
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:16 am Post subject: |
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I shall throw in the extra 50 to have some good mentions and plot effects.
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The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own Satanic Herd!
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Traveller
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:27 am Post subject: |
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At this point I am going to keep with the freebie seats but I will be watching to see if maybe I want to change my mind and take the giant padlock off of my Fable Vault...I am a miserly old Traveller afterall...
Seriously, I think I would like to see what I am getting into before I commit my hard earned fables into a storygame but I am interested to see what transpires here so good luck...T.
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The White Blacksmith
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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I'll bid 300 fables for a character called Claire Briarweb from Greater London.
And another 50 fables for her to be a fairly important character.
Will pay tomorrow- have to go right now.
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Phantomfan
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| Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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WOOT It's affordable!
I will bid 200 fables for a personal guard of one of the guests! (should I post a description here or pm it to you? Or do I even get a description?)
Aaaaaand an extra 50 fables for a secondary character.
(have been donated)
_________________
I've been pulled back from oblivion to lurk about the City once more. Though the music of the night always beckons...
Here's some stuff I started writing a long time ago. Orb. Nexus.
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Mirel
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| Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 4:04 am Post subject: |
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No description sorry...you'll have to go a little higher fable wise for that, but like Smee I will let decide what kind of guard you are. Seems only fair.
Introduction should be up tommorrow. Characters will not really come into play until about the third or fourth chapter or so...so character bidding will remain open until then. Created character bidding, where you pick your description etc, will be closed definatly by the fifth chapter. After that you'll be able to bid for one chapter for my own created characters already in place, then character bidding will be permenatly closed. General bidding will either open up in the third or fifth chapter. *smiles* You see I have it all planned...that's what so wonderful about this idea, I know whats going to happen...but yet at the same time, I do not. For now, my hand is hidden, waiting for the ante to go just a little higher before it is revealed.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
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Mirel
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| Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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Chapter 1: Familiarity
Picking the theme was always the hardest part. Everything came easy after that. The guest list, the decorations, the catering, all those tiny little details people worried about those were easy for her. The theme, the theme was always hard. It meant that it was beginning all over again, and beginning was always hard especially since it always brought back memories of that first party. She still remembered that first party, the one that had started it all. It wasn’t anything grand, nothing like the ones that had followed, the ones everyone praised and thrilled over. Just a few close friends, invited for an intimate party to celebrate life in a newly decorated nursery. They had been invited to celebrate life and had celebrated death instead. She had been six months along then, large enough to show the twins that were strived within her womb, but not so large that she could not move and be the perfect hostess she always was. Her hands trailed across her belly, flat, empty, and barren now. She was long past the grieving. It had been six years now. Yet that soft pain, that sadness that she always felt around this anniversary was still there.
For a theme, she began where she always began, at the beginning. Walking into a room painted a pale white and decorated with pale pinks, pale blue, and soft touchable fabrics. High in the far corners way out of the reach of tiny hands were two statues she had never removed. A shepherd holding a sling in one hand and a staff in the other, to protect her tiny child and a shepherdess play a lute to lull her little one to sleep. The crib was gone, of course, and all the other tiny little things that told you what this room had been for removed, but she had kept the decorations a tiny reminder that she couldn’t bring herself to remove. Instead the furniture had been replaced by white chairs with elegant French lines, mirrors, marble tables, and white ceramic pots full of green ferns that sprouted the tiniest blue flowers in the spring. Yet, when she closed her eyes, she could see two tiny cribs encircled by white thin netting stitched with silver charms to protect and keep her tiny children. Sitting down in a chair, she pulled her knees up into the chair, the simple calico dress rippling softly with the motion. She would never be caught like this, dressed this way, or sitting like this if she had guests, but when everyone was gone she like to put on her large rippling dresses run around barefoot, toss on a large straw hat, and play in the dirt. No guests were here. No one would see her now except for her staff who knew her well enough to call her by her first name rather than calling her Lady Avondale.
Leaning her head on her knee, she lost herself in memory. The day had begun well. She had been in the kitchen as usual, generally getting in everyone’s way, and making a mess of herself and the kitchen as she had rolled out cookies in the shapes of storks. Her guest would not arrive for another hour or so, giving her plenty of time, to go upstairs change and look the pristine lady she pretended to be but whom all her guest knew she was not. She had been humming a lullaby under her breath, glowing in her motherhood, and her joy at the prospect of having guest to whom she didn’t have to pretend. Then the pain started. At first, she thought it was nothing. A mere twinge of gas that she had been having problems with for the last few weeks, but then the pain got worse and more frequent. Then before she knew it she was screaming in pain as a rush of water and blood spilled on the floor. She had fainted then, paling to a ghostly hue, as eager hands caught her and before she had completely lost consciousness she had heard someone distantly calling for a doctor.
When she awoke, the first thing she had seen was her husband kneeling near her bed looking tired and wane. She had tried to smile for him, but it had only made him sob in an age old tune that made her feel bereft of something so great it couldn’t even be described. Confused she had turned her head, and looked towards a doctor whose hands were still bloody from the surgery he performed. Looking at him with the unasked question in her eyes, the doctor had merely shaken his head. She had understood then, her hands trailing downwards to meet a flat stomach filled with stitches, and she began to wail like a banshee confused and pained in a way only a mother could be. Later she had learned that she would never be able to have children again, the surgery the doctor had to perform that dreadful day damaging her body beyond repair. For the next six months after that, she had sat alone in this very room, unspeaking, silent, not even crying and barely even registering the figures that came and went in their attendance of her.
It had been Richard who had saved her, her dear, dear, beloved husband who knew her soul better she knew herself and who had grieved with her as deeply as she had grieved. Not wanting to lose both wife and children in the same year, Richard had acted calling up their closest friends and organizing the party that should have happened six months prior. It had done his best, bless his soul, but his decorations were shabby, the help and food ill organized at best and the party a thud.
He had held it in the ballroom, purposefully forcing his wife out of that dreadful room, and forcing her to dress her best. Her friends had done the rest. Laughter had been strained, the talk muted, and everyone had felt the tension in the best. Until that was her best friend, Lady Beatrice Castle de Villa had very untactfuly said in half joking voice, “I’m sorry Richard, but your wife could have thrown a better party in her sleep! What is this, a funeral or a party?!?” Everyone had laughed then, including herself and her husband, easing the tension in the room. It had all started then, the close sharing of friends who shared their own losses, pain, and grief helping their own friend past the grief she had not yet mourned. By the end of that party, she had cried all her tears. Dismissing all her guest except for Lady Beatrice, the pair of them had sat down to a cup of tea and looked at the streamers her husband had thrown up as decorations.
Looking around, Beatrice had simply said, “I know it is hard now dear, but you need to find something to do with yourself. After Harold died, may his soul rot eternally, as much as I hated that brute I found myself not able to live without him. I was simply lost without something to pour my passions in. That was when I decide to turn my mansion into an orphanage, you know, to give myself something to do. I don’t know what you can do, but you have to do something.” With that thought successfully planted in her friend’s head, Beatrice had left leaving her sitting alone in a room looking a bunch of pitiful decorations and marveling about how wonderful dear her husband was. Chuckling softly as a streamer fell directly on her head, she had toyed with the streamer when the idea had struck her. No one in the county threw a party as well as she did, everyone said so. Why couldn’t she use her skills for good? To raise money for charity?
That evening she had told her husband her idea, and he had told her his. They would both be busy the next six months. Her husband converting their mansion into a University of History and Science, and while she was organizing the charity ball that would fund it all. So it was on the anniversary of their lost, she had thrown her first party, a grand affair where her guest had donated generously to their hostesses cause without ever being asked directly for funds or having to pay for a single thing at the event. It had been a grand success. Within a year, their entire mansion had been converted to a university except for the left wing. The lower two levels hosting guest rooms, their grand ball room, a large kitchen, grand dining room, parlor, music room, and a billiards room for the gentlemen. Most of the upper floor converted into a second ball room and for servants quarters, and a small corner of the upper house being transformed into their own personal apartment including a private kitchen, dining area, and master suite. This room, which had been transformed into a parlor, led to a small study where her husband kept his research out of their bed chamber which adjoined with the study. The rest of their mansion was transformed, seemingly overnight, into the Avondale Institute of Historical and Scientific Research.
The parties after that had merely gone to providing scholarships for the students and to fund research projects must of which were led by her husband. She sometimes wondered if she did the right thing, throwing herself into her husband’s passions and causes, the way she had instead choosing something of her own to inspire her, but then she saw her husband’s smiling face peeking out of a pile of books or was greeted by one of the very polite university students and she knew that it was the right thing.
With a sigh, she rose up and said goodbye to her memories, left their private apartment and headed towards the University part of the mansion to begin her search for a theme that would both excite and inspire the imagination for years to come. Her first stop was the British Memorial chamber, a long hall which proudly displayed art work from various centuries by various artists displaying moments of significant British Victories and equally historically significant defeats. Nodding to the history students that were wandering hither and thither with arms full of notes they were studiously taking about the artwork that surrounded them. Wandering at a leisurely pace, she walked with hands carefully behind her so she wouldn’t be scolded for the thousandth time by a student easily ten years her junior for touching the pieces her little “charities” had helped purchase. She smiled at the thought. She knew very well that some of the pieces were very fragile, but also knew equally well that each piece was coated with a thin piece of glass that prevented the sunlight which streamed from the windows, the elements, or the oils from human hands from harming their fragile surfaces. The students didn’t know this of course, and the professors tried to keep it that way. The last thing the professor wanted was for some first year to go around with hammer to see how resistant the glass really was to human touch.
So she just smiled as a student frowned at her as she gently stroked the frame of her favorite piece, a picture of the legendary King Author and his half-sister wife and queen, Morgana. The couple was at play, he gently stroking her cheek as she sat in his lap stroking something far lower with their beloved son and British hero Mordred. King Arthur was famous for his acceptance and sponsorship of the old religion, and its magic, something which would have died out if not for him. Knightly virtues, the octagonal table, the knight’s code, right for rights own sake, the protection of the weak, and his infamous quest for the obsidian tablet, these were things of legend. Upon being killed by the Quest Beast pictured in the foggy background, King Arthur was replaced by his son, Mordred the Virtuous. Like his father, he furthered the ideals of the perfect kingdom were virtue and the old ways lived in peace with one another. However, he angered one of his father’s old knights, Sir Lancelot, when he married wild Pict lass who turned out to be the knight’s daughter by a young girl Lancelot had raped, Genevieve and was subsequently killed in a battle that had ended the time of Avalon and Camelot.
So much for virtue, was her thought as she went towards the next picture which was painted to picture a scene that occurred centuries later. A courtly scene of King Henry the 8th’s harem consisting of Henry, his six wives, his sixteen children all of whom were girls save for the oldest and the youngest, named Henry the 9th and Edward the 11th. She smiled as she remembered the story of King Henry re-instating the old religion which was borrowed, largely from their Irish neighbors whom had ruled the English until the famous War of the Tulips a generation before Henry himself was king. The story went that not being satisfied with the Holy Roman Empire’s anti-pope’s creed of one wife for a man, that Henry had washed his hand of the Holy Roman Empire, their weak pope, and had married as many woman as he wanted. Apparently, however, he was barely satisfied with his six wives for it had been found out after his death that he had sixteen concubines and kept two brothels in business serving no one but himself. King Henry the 8th was exactly a handsome man in her opinion, but according to legend he had more to recommend him then looks suggested and judging from the man’s activities had some endurance.
What had followed next was one of the saddest periods of British History. Henry the 9th proved to be as active as his father in the harlot quarters, and preferred the life of indulgence rather than leadership. He was found in a harlot’s bed with a knife in his back. It was widely speculated that a jealous lover killed the young King.
Next in line was Edward, who after an early childhood sickness, a miraculous recovery transformed him from pious child to insult louse. Banning everything in his life that made him sick as a child from meat to wheat, from dogs to cats, and from heavy perfumes to gunpowder the young king dismantled the kingdom and ruled after the French style that is pleasing himself while ignoring the plight of the country. With no standing army, no navy to speak of, and absolute no commanding authority whatsoever England had been ripe for the plucking, and they had been picked by their hated enemy the Spanish. A Spanish Armanda though largely battered by a storm the night before, was able to easily capture the king, kill him and his advisors, and proclaim England under Spanish rule.
A rebellion had been led for a time, by the subject of the next picture, the Sister’s Valiant Mary and Elizabeth. Mary the devout priestess and Elizabeth the warrior princess, they had made a striking couple and brilliant leaders as well. They had led the Resistant successfully for a while, but when Mary was captured in the battle of Westchester, and Elizabeth killed in the same pitched battle, the resistance lost all wind and hope. Realizing that they could never successfully control the region until it was sufficiently populated with their own friendly people, the Spanish had quickly booted all the nobles out of their traditional places and settled their own Spanish nobility in their places.
Resistance arose occasionally, but being as close as they were to the Spanish empire any resistance was brutally and quickly squashed. The Spanish plague had only spread from that point. At first the English had celebrated when they heard their old suppressor’s the Irish were squashed under Spanish heels, but the cheering soon stopped as they realized that Ireland soon suffered the same fate as they. Traditionally enemies, the Irish, English, Scottish, and Welsh became friends under the Spanish rule. Ignoring centuries of instilled hate as they grew together under a common enemy that suppressed them all. Spanish power had then spread to the colonies and the Spanish Empire had literally spread across half the globe, with their old friend and allies the French Monarchs following close behind.
The next picture was one of a brighter time in history. The next picture was one of the American brave, half Spanish, half English that had caught popular imagination and had heralded a brighter period of history. In a proud golden frame the General, and later King of New Espanola, George Washington was displayed who had led a rebellion of the 13 colonies of the middle colonies made up of the provinces from Miana to Floridia. The rebellion though not completely successfully was able to free the Northern provinces from French Quebec to Spanish Marianana which was later ruled by the General and his descendants. The south of the middle Americas had remained under Spanish Control where Spanish presence was stronger due to the Africanas the Spanish had won to their cause promising them freedom in return for their loyalty. Although not completely successful, the victory had told the world that monarchs could be defeated, and that the Spanish Empire was not invincible.
Rebellions had spread throughout the world. France had been first, peasants and lower nobility rising against the Monarchs that had long ignored and starved them, crushing the monarchs beneath their sheer mass. 300 years of bloody war had followed, with one corrupt Spanish controlled official after another trying to quell the wave that had started to spread across the world in France before it spread elsewhere. Until the next subject of the next frame arose, Napoleon Bonaparte, a curious Frenchman hardly taller than the pony he rode who had a skin disease that left him in the habit of having one hand stuffed down his jacket. Rising from modest means, Napoleon Bonaparte had organized and led a French army permanently kicking Spanish influence from French borders.
Everywhere he and his soldiers went they had spread the ideals of liberty, justice, and democracy. Ideals that had quickly caught repressed people on flame for Revolution. His first stop was Britannica, there had convinced the repressed English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh to arise up together assist him in his rebellion against the Spanish Empire and destroy the Spanish forever. His words, and his assistance, were hardly necessary they were merely the spark to the powder keg that had long been boiling under English skins. Leading a jointed rebellion, the English had arisen up against the Spanish on the islands of Britannica and Ireland just as Napoleon struck from the north against Spain itself. Spain had been unprepared and was quickly defeated. Much to the disgust of Napoleon, however, the English had quickly restored their old monarch and nobility. They had spent centuries under someone else’s culture, and they were not eager to spend the next few under anyone’s but their own. The Spanish had fled to their provinces in Mexico and southern Middle America, far from being destroyed, and Napoleon disillusioned suffered from his great disappointed and decided to keep his mind occupied with running the now expanded French Republic for the rest of his life.
The rest of history was less romantic in her eyes, and she spent very little time dwelling over the pieces that displayed the rest of history. The fates of Spanish were sealed when a rebellion in the Middle American south in 1836 freed themselves from Spanish rule to join with now much larger Ecouter Espanola Empire in the north. Fleeing south, history had finally been rid of the Spanish menace when a Mexican leader, Benito Juarez, led a rebellion against the Spanish. What was left of the Spanish empire dwindled away as the Spanish lost all their culture their intermarrying and an instinct for survival. It was no longer fashionable to be Spanish, or even half Spanish, and many in Britain who had inherited Spanish sounding names had changed them. Her own name, Maria, was a token from that time of long Spanish rule but like her friend Beatrice who kept her own Spanish last name, she had refused to change it appeal to popularity.
In 1890 and 1905, the British Empire renewed and the naval might they had been before Edward had checked the spread of the Ecouter Espanola Empire in China and Japan, helping the Asian people keep their historic culture. Germany had been aided in 1914 against the Ecouter menace, and was now a unified and strong ally of the British-Irish-Scottish alliance. They had suffered their losses as well, France had secured weak Italy and the Suez Canal in 1943, and the Indian Empire had become the new Ottoman Empire in the same year. A disaster and accidental explosion in a secret facility building super weapons, in Ecouter had brought the world to a standstill in 1947. After the disaster, Ecouter was forced to admit that they had been building something called the A-Bomb, and that the explosion had consisted of 17 bombs exploded at once. The result had been pure terrible nightmarish disaster.
The Ecouter mid-west where the accident had taken place was completely leveled by the blast, millions had died immediately from the explosion, and thousands more had died from the contamination of the materials that had made up the bomb. A black cloud had reigned the sky for next ten years, bring freezing cold and deaths. Ecouter was broken, and despite old prejudices the Continental Alliance was forced to help their old enemies grieving the loss of so many innocent lives of the people who had little say in what their government was doing, while at the same time stripping Ecouter of all its powers. Which what brought them to today, 1963, living as like it was 1860. Technology was useless, and even worse feared. Some people were trying to bring it back, but after the Ecouter disaster people were afraid of even the simplest advances in technology.
Her husband, Richard, was hoping to change that by encouraging the sciences and bring back those inventions that had been helpful to mankind before 1947, while leaving behind the disaster. It was slow going, but her husband was hopeful that within next ten years or so, electric lights and horseless carriages would once again be seen in the world. She was not so idealistic. His historic research would be applauded by cultures who idealized the past, but if her husband wasn’t careful his beloved scientific research would get him killed. Yet she couldn’t help but thinking that it could have all been so very different had just one or two things happened to change the course of history as they knew it.
Feeling depressed and uninspired by history, she went to her favorite place outside the gardens in the whole mansion, the library. A short walk soon found her strolling through the thick double doors of the five story library consisting of three upper floors and two basement levels. Here, every work ever written by a British writer and ever work ever written about Britain or for a British lady or gentleman had been collected. In addition, in the lower levels fragile manuscripts about the history of every country that made up the Continental alliance including Germany, China, Japan, Britain, Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Wales, France, and Poland-Finaldia.
As much as her husband loved the subject of history, she did not share his passions; instead she headed to the cozy nook filled with chairs and tea services on the third story that made up the fiction collection of their library. Helping herself to a cup of tea and a plate of crumpets from the small student run café that made this spot so popular; she browsed the books, stocking her favorite authors as she passed them. Here was Shakespeare who had helped inspire the resistance under Elizabeth, Charles Dickens the wealthy noble who pretended to write about poverty and ended sounding like a bore instead, Woodsworth, Longfellow, and Austin, all old friends but nothing struck her still. Sitting in a chair, the Lady Avondale let her eye wander over the collection of books searching for something that would inspire the theme that eluded her. Then she saw it, and a smile crossed her lips as she quickly picked up a particularly thick volume checked it out and went to their chambers. Humming a merry tune, the Lady Avondale finished her tea and marched off to begin many months of arrangements and careful planning.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
Last edited by Mirel on Fri Oct 02, 2009 8:19 am; edited 2 times in total
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Crunchyfrog
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| Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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Just on reading the first two sections of text this is a very detailed, well thought out piece. However, I found myself losing my place and know that it will be difficult to get to the end, especially since this is a long and detailed piece.
To make it easier to read on these forums, it may be a good idea for you to break it up into smaller paragraphs. For some good examples, take a look at the way some of the stickied storygames have been formatted, particularly in the Skiffyville (Sci-fi, Thriller and Horror) forum.
I can see a lot of work has gone into the character and backstory, and I'd hate for you to lose readers straight away just because of the large blocks of text.
Cheers!
CF
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Mirel
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| Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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Broken down into nice easier to read chunks. Anything else I need to change? Spelling or grammer errors? General annoyances or inconsistencies?
What do you think so far? Interesting? Not interesting?
Comments are helpful and encouraged.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
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Crunchyfrog
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| Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 1:23 am Post subject: |
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Yes, that's a lot better. 
Ok, here are some more in-depth comments.
For an introduction, this is an exceptionally long piece - over 4,000 words. The first half deals with the tragedy that underpinned the founding of the Avondale parties. The description of Lady Avondale and her environment were evocative and gave vivid mental images. It was poignant and moving, and you put the emotions over well. One niggle I do have with this part, though, is that the transition to the flashback (when she lost the twins) is not very clear, and as I was reading it seemed that everything was happening on the same day. See if you can make that transition clearer.
The second half of your introduction deals with over 1000 years of history brought to us via the exhibits of the museum. I am afraid that I felt the same way as Lady Avondale did by the end of it, and must confess that I had a hard time trying not to skim through the history. Having said that, the fact that some of it is an alternative history is curiously interesting, but I was left wondering why we were covering so much up front in the introduction. Will it affect the way we play the characters that we're bidding for? How significant is it?
Now of course I don't know what you've got planned for future chapters, but it may be a good idea for you to step back and ask yourself - what did you want to achieve with this introduction? How better off will your readers be for taking on board all this information before the game really starts? Will it ready them for what is to come?
A good tip for storygaming in general is to try and keep your submissions between 1000 and 2000 words if you can. There's no rule against extra long chapters (I've seen chapters of 7000 words plus on here in the past) but in the early days, especially as this is an unconventional style of SG, shorter submissions will pick up more readers.
On a technical note, there is a lot that needs cleaning up, and most of it will have slipped through the MS Word grammar checks. Most of these are where words are missing from sentences or words are there that shouldn't be - possibly as a result of previous edits.
Here are a few examples, although there are many more:
| Quote: | | It had been Richard who had saved her, her dear, dear, beloved husband who knew her soul better she knew herself and who had grieved with her as deeply as she had grieved. |
| Quote: | | It had all started then, the close sharing of friends who shared their own losses, pain, and grief helping their own friend past the grief she had not yet mourned |
| Quote: | | King Henry the 8th was exactly a handsome man in her opinion, but according to legend he had more to recommend him then looks suggested and judging from the man’s activities had some endurance. |
These little mistakes are prevalent throughout the piece. One method I use to erradicate these sorts of errors is to print it all out, read it out loud and then red-pen all the grammar and punctuation changes. It is then a lot easier to go through and make the changes online.
I hope some of this helps a little.
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Mirel
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| Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 8:28 am Post subject: |
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I'll see if I can clean up the more technical errors in the story. May take me a while, but I'll see what I can do.
As for my purpose, I know I gave a lot information in the first chapter, but I thought it sort of neccessary. Much of it was put in there honestly because of my own passion for history and my own sort of twisted sense of humor. Most of the information in this first chapter will be repeated, subtly of course, along the way throughout the story to remind readers of where they are in history and time. A few key pieces in the history will become very important later in the story, although I cannot tell which pieces or how they will become important. Mostly my purpose was to get the long boring details of this parrallell reality out of the way so that readers can enjoy the ride for the rest of the way. I'm going to strive to make it so you won't have constantly reference the first chapter to figure things out, and be picky about which of the elements is the most important.
Alrighty, that dealt with and discussed, I like to open up this story up for discussion instead of using a decision point for this chapter.
Throughout the first chapter, I've given you subtle clues of where I'm going and what I'm going to do with the story. The theme has been already hinted at subtly and indirectal in the first chapter. The theme of the party will become absloutly essential and critical to further chapters, in fact most of the plot will revolve around the chosen theme. Given the clues I've given you, what do you think the theme will be? Where do you think this story is going?
Theories, however wild, are welcome. Who knows maybe I'll incorprate your ideas?!?
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
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The White Blacksmith
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| Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:46 am Post subject: |
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I thoroughly enjoyed the history, finding it very interesting to see what effect you think small things might have on the larger picture. However, I am familiar with British History - a lot of people on here are not, so you may wish to introduce it in smaller chunks throughout the story to give the Americans among us time to look up the Wars of the Roses or somesuch.
The DP is which book she picks up, isn't it?
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Mirel
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| Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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Not the Dp no. A dp implies that you will choose which book she picked up. I already know which book she picked up.
I just wanted to see if you could guess which book she picked up...and what the theme will be. Call authorial curiosity to see if I have you fooled so far.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
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Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
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DeadManWalking
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| Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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I may be an American, but I do know the War of the Roses, Whitey.
This is amazing Mirel. You've obviously put a lot of thought into this. It's fascinatingly detailed, and has a lot of parellels to our own history.
But that said, there are some things that, I was wondering about. Not sure if you simply left them out of this chapter or didn't think about them.
First of all, the Hapsburgs. Ruling family of the Holy Roman Empire. Reason i bring it up is that in 1506, (around the time of Henry VIII) a Hapsburg also takes the throne in Spain. If the not too long after Spain becomes THE major power, would it not make sense for the Holy Roman Empire to combine or absorb it? Or did that actually happen in your version, but you kept the name of the Spanish Empire?
Also, what happens with the Ottomans? They're a major power in the late sixteenth century. Does Spain simply conquer that area before Islam really gets going as a political force?
And while we're on the subject of religion, what happens with the Reformation? The split of Henry the VIII is mentioned, but what about Martin Luther and John Calvin?
Before you conclude that I am unfairly haranguing you about random bits of history, know that I have no problem with this as a story. Nor do i actually have a problem with it as an alternate timeline. I'm simply curious as to what you thought of these events, since you clearly have a very well thought out sequence already.
But yeah, Kickass Story so far. Also, I'll bid 400 fables for a character of my own creation (but of course only as far as you will allow) and 100 additional for a main character. Are there any guidelines I should know about before i start thinking someone up?
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Mirel
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| Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:30 am Post subject: |
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| DeadManWalking wrote: | I may be an American, but I do know the War of the Roses, Whitey.
This is amazing Mirel. You've obviously put a lot of thought into this. It's fascinatingly detailed, and has a lot of parellels to our own history.
But that said, there are some things that, I was wondering about. Not sure if you simply left them out of this chapter or didn't think about them. |
Actually it is the former, not the later. I have actually thought all major powers out, but because I did not want this first chapter to be too long. (I mean it's around 6 pages already...and many have stated it's too long already) Some major players I purposefully left out include: Italy--Were they ever united?, Russia---what happened in 1905, 1917, did they ever become an imperial power?, The Holy Roman Empire---(800 A.D. to ?), Later Germany, Poland, Austria, and a few other key players in world history, The Ottoman Empire---They're fall from power and glory, also I hinted they got control over India--how and why?, Africa--What about imperialism, Germany--I hinted but did not say, France--I gave hints but never completled their history after Napolean, WWI & WW2, and few other items that were left out because I either A.) aren't interested in them for the purpose of this storygame or B.) didn't want to crowd the story with details.
| DeadManWalking wrote: |
First of all, the Hapsburgs. Ruling family of the Holy Roman Empire. Reason i bring it up is that in 1506, (around the time of Henry VIII) a Hapsburg also takes the throne in Spain. If the not too long after Spain becomes THE major power, would it not make sense for the Holy Roman Empire to combine or absorb it? Or did that actually happen in your version, but you kept the name of the Spanish Empire?
Also, what happens with the Ottomans? They're a major power in the late sixteenth century. Does Spain simply conquer that area before Islam really gets going as a political force?
And while we're on the subject of religion, what happens with the Reformation? The split of Henry the VIII is mentioned, but what about Martin Luther and John Calvin?
Before you conclude that I am unfairly haranguing you about random bits of history, know that I have no problem with this as a story. Nor do i actually have a problem with it as an alternate timeline. I'm simply curious as to what you thought of these events, since you clearly have a very well thought out sequence already. |
Actual history=In 1049 A.D. Holy Roman Emperor Henry 4th appoints a bishop dispite a papal bull that Pope Gregory the 7th issues saying that no one can appoint bishops but the Pope. The Pope angry that Henry dared defy him excummunicats Henry from the church and threatens to issue and indict (where a whole country is excummunicated) against the Holy Roman Empire. Not wanting to turn his people against him, Henry pleads forgiveness and Pope Gregory removes his excumminication and his threats. Once back in his own country, Holy Roman Emperor Henry 4th calls togther all the bishops of the Holy Roman Empire and they appoint their own pope called the Antipope, Cleminte the 2nd. His soul and his countries salvation no longer in danger thanks to his self created Pope, Henry 4th invades Italy to replace Pope Gregory with his own Pope. It was a close call in history, as Henry almost succedded in capturing Pope Gregory several times but was eventually stopped due to Norman (French) interference.
Whats hinted at="The story went that not being satisfied with the Holy Roman Empire’s anti-pope’s creed of one wife for a man, that Henry had washed his hand of the Holy Roman Empire, their weak pope, and had married as many woman as he wanted."
In this version of history, Henry the 4th is successful. The French (Normans) came to late and fearing that the more powerful Holy Roman Empire would invade them quickly recongized the new pope called the Anti-pope, or more popularly Papa. For as long as the Holy Roman Empire lasts, it is the King not the Pope who appoints bishops, and the next pope when the old Pope dies. The center of the Roman Catholic Church is removed from Rome and placed in Vienna under carefull Holy Roman Empire supervision. As a result, the Pope's authority in history is severally weakened. The Great Schism in 1570 never happens (maintianing one universal church), Orthdox Catholicism never created, and Slavic Orthdoxism never bloomed. The Catholic Church remained united but severally weakened. This in turn had several effects on History in General.
In Russia, not able to have as strong a hold on the people by controlling their religion and way to salvation the Tsars are more eager to grant the liberal and social demands the populace results. This results in a Russia who particpates fully in the Industrial Revolution, creating a much stronger Russia sooner, but also means that Tsar are loved not hated. 1905 happens but the Tsars realizing earlier min. social conscencions were no longer enough, and Nicholas granted the sweeping reforms the Russian people wanted. As for Rasputin, he accidentally kills Nicholas's son and is killed, never rising to power, and the nobles never assainate the Romanov family. In fact the Nicholas becomes the most beloved Tsar in Russian history known as the Great Liberator, and the Romanov family remains the ruling dystany to this day. In this history at least.
Fiercly Catholic Spain initally rejects the Antipope and attempts to re-establish the orginal line of Pope's in 1088. Initially, the Papa declares that he was "divinly selected by the Lord to replace the curropt devil which had filled the chair of Pope for too long, perverting judgement and spreading his evil throughout the church. The Holy Roman Emperor was merely the knife where with the Lord cut out the ineffection." Spain intially accepts this new papal bull passively, knowing that they were not miltarial speaking able at that time to take on the expanded Holy Roman Empire which now included Italy as well. In 1305, The Pope had a "heavenly Vision" in which he predicted the plague of 1337 which cemented his power in deeply Catholic Spain.
In 1447, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon were known as the "Catholic Monarchs" became the rulers of Spain, and made a wise political move to gain the Holy Roman Empire's support by issuing an official edict that finally official recongized the Anti-pope as the controller of the Church Universal. With the Holy Roman Empire's help they were able to kick out the Muslim menance much sooner...in 1452 in fact. This as you could imagine increased the rapid Spanish asscension to power. Togther the two empires then declare The Second Crusades which lasted the next 100 years, but eventually defeated the Ottoman Empire in 1553. Togther the Spanish and Holy Roman Empire forcibly removed all Muslims from the empire, banishing them on ships to some distant part of the world and filled the old Ottoman empire with Jewish and Catholic followers. However Spanish Interest in the area soon disappers when the Spanish Armanda successful captures England in 1588. The Hasburgs still ascend to power in 1515 in both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, however instead of trying to jointly rule both countries Charles 1 concertrates on Spanish Expansion and appoints a cousin to rule the Holy Roman Empire. This practice would continue for the next several centuries, Spain would conquer an area, replace the existing monarchary with their own friendly people or a distant relative assurred to stay loyal to the Hasburg throne. Each monarch in turn was then directly responsible to the Spanish Emperor, a title that would remain in the Hasburg line until 1700 when the Emperial line was taken over by the Burbons.
In a fit of luck, bad weather, and randomness I decided a randomn storm drove the old Ottoman's to India where Muslims quickly took over the Indian population and declared the Second Ottoman Empire which lasts to present day in this version of history.
The Holy Roman Empire's history remains much the same. The Hasburgs being the death blow to their imperial power, however it lasts a little longer under a Spanish Puppet rule until the 1700's when it was allowed to break up into several small states. As it would have happened in Italy, a Papal state was created that controlled much of what had been the central part of the Holy Roman Empire. Martin Luther occurs, but he and his followers are forced to flee to Poland where the Lutheran and protestant religion is able to florish. Unable to flee to America for protection and freedom of religion, Protestants instead flee east into Poland, Finland, Norway, and areas of Eastern Russia. The Protestant religion becomes influential in convincing Nicholas 2 to make the changes he did and in 1917, Lutheranism is declared the official religion of the Russian Empire, and the Russian's are granted such freedoms as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and many other freedoms which are listed in The American Bill of Rights. Shakers, Quakers, and other pascisfist religions instead of dying out do to the fact their congreation is not allowed to have children instead enourages children, and their religious gospel of loyalty, community living, peaceful simple living, and hard work becomes popular amoung the Russian peasants. Much of Russia becomes pacifist and although a great industrial power, Russia will never rise to be the great miltary power in was in the 1940's-1980's during the Soviet Union period.
I could go on and on forever with things I didn't include but this post is starting to look like a chapter itself.
| DeadManWalking wrote: | | But yeah, Kickass Story so far. Also, I'll bid 400 fables for a character of my own creation (but of course only as far as you will allow) and 100 additional for a main character. Are there any guidelines I should know about before i start thinking someone up? |
Not many guidelines. Just a few really. Let me list them for everyone interested in a self-created character.
1.) I have finally approval of characters. I will work with the creator to make as many concessions as I can, but in order to have the character fit within the story, I will still have the final say.
2.) Characters must fit within this parallell reality.
3.) Characters must be human and look realitively normal.
That's all I require. Just P.M. your details, and I'll start working out the details. Oh, and remember bidding will remain open for a while and only the highest bids will win. This means although all spots have already been spoken for, 5 bids already, you can compete for a spot by making your first bid (where you pay for your character) and then start bidding for the spot.
Example: You bid 200 for one of the guards of the guests and 50 for somewhat importance in the story. Since all spots are taken you must now bid at least 10 fables for a spot in the storygame. In order to maintain their spots, bidders must now bid for their spot as well.
Bids for spots start at 10 fables and must increase 5 fables per bid. Right now, everyone here so far is even, everyone that has a bid so far will be Invited to particpate in this story if no one else bids.
Helda and Bob are unique in the fact that if you want them for a charcter you must outbid anyone who bids for them. All other bidders simply have to bid to maintain their spots of which there are five.
Standing so far:
(1)Smee: Wizard Guard (secondary character)
(2)CrunchyFrog: Helda (if you want Helda...you have outbid Crunchy) (normal character...little to no effect on plot)
(3)White Blacksmith: Claire Briarweb from Greater London (main character)
(4)Phantomfan: Personal Guard, nonspecific so far (secondary character)
(5)Deadmanwalking: Created Character (main character)
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Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
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DeadManWalking
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| Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:11 am Post subject: |
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Ah i see. I wrongly interpreted Henry IV's appointment of his own pope and invasion to be the parallel to Henry VIII's schism with the Catholic Church (i.e. Instead of breaking because of divorce, breaking because of polygamy)
But yeah, you've really thought this through! I'm impressed!
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Mirel
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BetrayedYetLoved
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| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 11:42 am Post subject: I love it |
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| congrats. i dont completely understand what a storygame is either but i really would like to read more from you.
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Mirel
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 5:18 am Post subject: |
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Interulde: Le Jardin des Roses
“Madame surely jests,” The delicate French woman giggled gaily, waving a delicate crimson fan in front of an ivory face.
Lady Avondale regarded the tiny French woman known to her only as Madame Falcon. At only 5’ Madame, was at a height that would give most women a complex. However, Madame Falcon was a bundle of boundless energy, barely restrained passion, sharp wit and sharper humor, had a voice that most woman would die for, and a body that men would kill for. In other words, she was a perfect French woman and very good at her job. Lady Avondale’s mind always shied away from the thought of what this woman did, skittering around the concept with a careful modesty and mild jealous that she had rather not admit to. Yet, for her purposes, Madame Falcon was perfect. Blond haired, blue eyed, a wide swelling chest that was barely concealed by the woman’s dresses, large swaying hips, and a mind that made the woman as equally skilled in playing men as she did the piano.
“I never jest.” Lady Avondale said making sure to keep eye contact with the elusive hornet that was hidden underneath the guise of the flirty butterfly that was Madame. “I am very serious, Madame Falcon. Three years ago, when I started took you into my employ for these little affairs of mine, I made myself very clear. You were to keep you and your collection of roses that you bring with you, downstairs and discreet. Your assignments could not have clearer.”
Madame sighed dramatically waving her fan dismissively, “Yes, yes, flirt with the men, make friends with the women, and encourage them to give you their winnings from their games and little bets. In exchange, we received a generous donation at the end of year, my business would be discreetly mentioned, and you would guarantee us your full protection as long we kept to ourselves. “
“And one other thing, the one thing I insisted on and warned you that if you were ever to do you would find yourself unemployed. Stay downstairs, that if I ever found you or one of your little roses ‘entertaining’ a guest underneath my roof you would find yourself on the street quicker than you could say Viva la Revolution. Yet last year, I personally found Isle Krohn and a certain son of a gentleman, Alfred Carriere, in my private chambers and let me tell you Madame…she wasn’t sewing on his buttons, although from what I saw, that act was certainly necessary afterwards.”
“Ah, but Madame, Isle Krohn, yes, she was very new and did not know better. Amour, not argent, Madame is to blame in that case. Premier Passion, first love, the young, they do not know better. They think men who make promise keep them, but mia Isle she has learned better. She knows now. A man they will say anything to get into our skirts, yes?”
“Whether any money was exchanged is not the issue. The issue is that I made myself very clear and you disobeyed by orders. It was your reasonability to keep your Rosas in line, if you did not think that one girl could keep her head when a man gave her a couple of compliments you should have left her in your Jardin. I am not sure if I should trust you again. If your judgment Madame was faulty once, it could easily be faulty twice.”
“Madame is serious? She would throw us out? After all we’ve done for Madame? Have you had no satisfaction?”
“I have been very satisfied. Until last year not even so much as a kiss was seen exchanged between the Rosas and my guests, and believe me if there was I would know.”
“Yes,” Madame Falcon sneered. “Servants talk.”
“Other than that, you have been very good at your job. I have raised more than just the 10% of winnings from my guests had initially hoped for when you started this job, and your record is amazingly clean considering. Your girls are well cared for, healthy, and most are only employed by a single man. The Tea roses, your children, they are raised well by the Faded Blooms, the ones that have retired from your order, and most if not all of your girls can at very least expect a generous payment at the end of their five years with you if not a permanent engagement somewhere. I have never had caused to be embarrassed by you, whatever I think of you and your trade.”
“Madame, is very….kind.” Madame Falcon sighed, “We have never been friends.”
“No, we have not. Allies, yes. But never friends. I think you know why.”
“Yes.” Madame Falcon snapped her fan shut, “You know, what I meant briefly to your household. I do not think Monsieur will be pleased to know I’ve been dismissed so suddenly from your employ.”
Lady Avondale blushed, she had been hoping to dismiss Madame Falcon and quietly find another means of making up for the loss without this subject come up.
“Do not worry, Madame, I will not bring it up. I know it is uncomfortable for you. We have never been friends, yet for friendships sake I beg you reconsider. I wonder, Madame, does he know you know?”
“No, he doesn’t and it would be wise for it to remain that way.” Looking away, Lady Avondale let a silent tear fall. “I was glad in a way, when I found out, sad perhaps but never jealous. In a way I understood, you see, you are desirable, you are….” She couldn’t bring herself to say fertile, instead she merely clearly her throat and waved her hand in front of face. Taking a breath she continued. “Besides, I am not dismissing you completely. You are welcome to stay, my guest would wonder whatever happened to the young musician and skilled singer if I stopped employing you, and they would talk. It is merely your girls who are no longer welcome in this house. Yet a musician is all you’ll be now, I will find another way to make money from these parties. In addition, our contract besides this small change remains the same. You are free to remain on my estate as long as our earlier agreements are maintained. Your pay, of course, will be considerably less.”
“I understand, Madame,” venom now in the sweet honey toned voice. She had angered Madame Falcon, by being so blunt. Madame Falcon had never been one to be direct, she always delicately avoided a subject in hopes that the subtle hint in her voice was enough to get her point across. Yet, Lady Avondale had never been one to dance around a thing. She went straight to its heart. It was one of the many reasons they could never be friends. Rising, Madame Falcon curtsied, “but I think you have made a very bad mistake. We would have been loyal to you Madame, until your death. I will give you time to reconsider, yes? This party, it will change your mind. You will see, Madame, that you need me.”
“Good day, Madame Falcon.” Lady Avondale snapped, hating the harshness of her voice as she even said it. Her dismissal was hardly necessary, Madame Falcon was already gone, slamming the door behind her. Along, Lady Avondale took a long look in the mirror, and with a quick choke began to cry.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
Last edited by Mirel on Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:22 am; edited 2 times in total
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Mirel
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 5:28 am Post subject: |
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((Orginally this second chapter was to be much, much longer, and currently is. However due to early advise that long chapters should be avoided at all costs, I have divided this second and very long chapter into two parts....so you, my dear readers, aren't overwhelmed with too much information at once. In addition, each part will now have a decision point, but each chapter will only have 1 vote...that will present a combination of both dps. i beg you to pardon the lamness of my dps until I get the hang of them.
So this parts dp is: What is Lady Avondale's reaction to Madame Falcon's visit, subtle threats, and even less subtle challenge to succeed without her help?))
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The White Blacksmith
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:42 am Post subject: |
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... Ow. Please consult anyone before you choose to make a title French again. For a start, 'jardin' is masculine, so should be 'le', and 'de' would decline here - into 'des', as I presume you want a plural. The french word for a rose is, unsurprisingly, 'une rose', so you need to change that as well.
I've not even read the chapter yet. I really should.
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Mirel
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 8:09 am Post subject: |
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Sorry used the internet for translations. Really no comments...how disappointing. Ah well, part 2 will be up by the end of this week, beginning of next depending wether or not anyone comments.
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The White Blacksmith
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:41 am Post subject: |
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Never mind. In future, give me any translations you need done. It wasn't that the French here was bad, it was just mixed with other languages. And now you've changed the title, I managed to read it - it's just as good as it was!
For the DP, I say she does nothing. Her postion isn't going to be threatened so easily, and her little parties are famous enough to get by without Madame Faucon. If she does anything she can react, but pre-emptive steps aren't really nessicary.
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Phantomfan
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:04 am Post subject: |
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I must say Mirel, I love your style of writing. It really grabs the attention, and your little details are placed so well that the story has huge amounts of depth and history. Absolutely fabulous.
That being said, there were a few small technical errors, easily fixable.
| Quote: | | You are welcome to stay, my guests would wonder whatever happened to the young musician and skilled singer if I stopped employing you |
| Quote: | | I have never had cause to be embarrassed by you, whatever I think of you and your trade.” |
| Quote: | Along, Lady Avondale took a long look in the mirror, and with a quick choke began to cry.
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Not quite sure what the "along" is doing in this sentence- I may be missing something, or it could just be a word that managed to not be deleted in the final revisions.
As far as the DP goes... I'd have to agree with Whitey. I don't think she needs to do anything. Unless Madame Falcon has some unspoken power within the higher ranking individuals (completely possible, as far as we know), there is little she can do to mess with Avondale's position.
Well done, and I hope to read more soon!!
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Here's some stuff I started writing a long time ago. Orb. Nexus.
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DeadManWalking
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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I have to respectfully disagree with the previous commentors. I feel like fluff at a party is of larger concern than most realize. (Note that I was pretty close to adding the word girls after most. )
But I do have to agree with not giving in to Madame Falcon's "request" to allow her to resume her usual activities. While Madame's roses are important, they are, as Whitey says, not essential for the parties. But perhaps put this in as a temporary message; tell her that BEFORE the party that she will be welcome back next year. Or ask for the license to veto any choices of the "roses" Falcon would bring. Either choice has its problems. However, note that you would definitely have to tell her before, unless the party is a rousing success and is KNOWN to be a rousing success. After implies that not enough money was collected. Also, the second would make her more involved with the Falcon's business, something she might find distasteful.
I feel like anything more lenient than the things I've suggested would cause the Madame to feel like her influence with Lady Avondale is greater than it is.
But yeah very nice so far! Again, you've put a lot of thought into this. Way more than I usually put in mine. T_T
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| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 5:35 am Post subject: |
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Chapter 2: Casting Call
First Candidate: Inspector Marlowe
Lord Avondale sighed. It was going to be a long day. He had known that fact since he had rolled over this morning only to find his wife already gone for bed no doubt to attend to the million details she always attended to this time of year with the Gala fast approaching. He knew he should be grateful to her, for without his wife’s abilities, the Avondale University of History and Science would have never began, and certainly never been able to continue with as many scholarships they gave to the poorer village children every year in an attempt at improving their meager lot. He was grateful, he supposed, but sometimes he wished that if his wife most attend to details, she would attend to details a little later in the morning so that he could attend to the details of calculating how long it took to unhook all those buttons and hooks on his wife’s night wear.
Things certainly hadn’t improved since this morning’s example of the disappointments of matrimony. Although his wife attended to every other task associated with these galas of hers, she always passed off the abdominal task of selecting extra guards for the events to him with the excuse that she had no head for such things. Pish, Posh, he always wanted to say, stuff and nonsense, she was ten times smarter then he, and a far better judge of character, yet every year she passed this task of to him again and again in some vain attempt to make him feel flattered and needed. Muttering something to the extent that he rather feel rejected and helpless than attend to this task with a few choice British expletives thrown in for good measure, Lord Richard Avondale raised his head as a his butler, Bob, entered the door.
“Inspector Marlowe, my lord,” Bob said with a stiff lip and a even stiffer accent that all British butler’s seemed to possess. Bob had been working for them ever since they were first married, and had possessed all the credentials and quirks that seemed to be required of a butler. Wispy gray hair, a slightly wizened thin figure, slight wrinkles around the eyes and mouth from frowning, a Londoner accent, a carefully concealed and mysterious scar on his right shoulder that he refused to speak off, descended from a long line of Butlers so old that their last name was Butlerbutler, and had attended Smith and Bob’s Academy for Highly esteemed and Proper Butler’s. In addition, Lord Avondale would be willing to bet his last shilling that man was not actually from London or Britain for that matter and that his name, whatever it might be, was not actually Bob. Yet, Bob asked no questions, kept secrets, took no bribes, was excellent scribe and accountant, handle the blade as well as a carving knife, and had served him well and true for ten years with only stipulation being that his Lord provide him with a decent room, a decent pay, and returned him the favors of silence and secrecy that he gave his Lord. Lord Avondale was more than willing to oblige not being, despite being a scientist, a curious man by nature at least in regards to others personal affairs.
“Very well let him then.” Looking down to his list, Lord Avondale saw with pleasure that only one appointment now remained after weeks of interviews that had seemed to last for years. The moment of exhaulation and self congrationlation was brief however as he soon saw that despite there being only one position available, he had three interviews scheduled for today. He would have to interview all three to be fair, instead of just appointing the first one his gut trusted and had the right recommendations. Which meant that he would have to do a lot more prying and lot less relying on instincts, or else would hear no end of it from his wife…which meant he would be able to calculate buttons or hooks tonight either, something which would he wished to avoid at all costs.
“Her, my Lord.” Bob Butlerbutler intoned raising an eyebrow.
“Her?” returning the gesture, and twirling his slight mustache.
“Her.” A nod and a slight shrug of the shoulders.
“Interesting. Very well, let the Inspector in.” Returning to stare pointedly down at his desk, Lord Avondale shuffled through his papers until he found Inspector Marlowe’s resume, recommendations, and a letter from the Bristol Inspector Master General’s office. Even when the Inspector entered, still he purposefully studied the papers before him until the sound of footsteps and a small clearing of the throat announced that his interview had arrived at the back of the chairs and waiting impatiently to be given permission to be seated.
Shuffling a page to the back as he continued reading, he made a small gesture with his hand indicating that a seat should be taken. A scrap on the floor boards as the woman did so, a soft sound of her sitting, one foot trailing across the floor boards before being lifted and crossed over the other, and a crackle in the enduring tapestry that covered the hard wing back chairs that occupied the opposite side of his desk in his office indicating the woman leaning back. Lord Avondale continued reading. A small sigh, a crack of the knuckles, still Richard Avondale read. A tap of the fingers, the smell of sulfer, the faint whisp of smoke, still Richard kept reading pausing only a moment to push an ashtray in the Inspector’s direction until he finally finished reading the sheets before him, tapped them back into order, placed them on his desk, folded his hands before, and then finally he looked up. A single eyebrow, delicate for a man and brown, shot up at the woman’s choice of clothing. Lips pierced, he kept his head straight as his eyes skimmed the form before him.
Inspector Erin P. Marlowe, age about mid thirties possibly early forties from appearances although her actual age her papers had refused to disclose just as they had refused to disclose the inspector’s general, formally of Her Majesties Navy, formally of Bristol Yard, trained in baton, gun, and sword, was an attractive woman. Deep auburn hair, more red than brown, spilled down her neck in an elaborate twist that showed off it luxurious curls trailing down idly over a bosom covered by an almost transparent white bloose whose top buttons had been left unbuttoned before the small hint of the pale roundness of her chest was hidden by a white naval vest with its dark buttons that hugged first one curve of her body, than her slender waist, before surrendering to the large sway of her hips. A red naval jacket, with its high collar and its intricate gold braiding highlighted the red sheen in her hair, brought out the cheery in her lips, the pale pink of her apple cheeks, the sparkle within her deep brown eyes that sparkled with gold and hinted at a hazel green underneath their dark layer, was a choice that both made one both intimately aware of her body as well as her naval past. Even more shocking was the tight white breeches that disappeared into tall knee high black boots that buttoned up the slender expanse of swelling calves. The coup de grace lay sheathed at the Inspector’s side, an officer’s sword that caused him to raise his eyebrows at the woman’s rank that the sword told him she had achieved.
Inspection complete, Richard raised his eyes purposefully locking his blue own with her brown ones struggling against the baser instinct to stare at the hollow of her throat and the flesh the woman so clearly displayed beneath it. “I must say, Inspector Marlowe, from your resume I was expecting someone quite different.”
The woman smiled, a quick flash of teeth as she expelled a delicate stream of smoke from her mouth. “You mean, of course, Lord Avondale, that you were expecting a man.”
“In part. But I was told to expect a police inspector, not a naval officer.” A calm voice informed her, as Lord Avondale leaned lazily back in his comfortably padded leather chair. “Your choice of uniform is quite shocking.”
Again a smile and a small shake of her head, teasing several churls free from the knot that lay on the right side of her neck. “I worked hard to become an Inspector, my Lord, and I am proud to say that I solved enough cases in Bristol that I had begun to make a enough nuisance of myself in criminal circles that some among them began to make attempts on my life, which I must say was a very bad decision on their part as it left several of their own dead and me still very much alive, and even more of a nuisance. Yet as I proud as I am of my performance within the inspectors’ ranks, I am more proud of my military accomplishments. It is very difficult, as a woman in these days to be accepted as an inspector, but it was even harder still to be accepted into the navy, and more difficult than that to prove myself worthy of both an officer’s rank and an officer’s respect.”
Nodding, Lord Avondale tapped the papers before him. “Both your military records and your results as an inspector speak highly of you, Inspector Marlowe. Both your superiors marked you as going higher than you ever achieved, and still more interesting made no mention of your gender, not even a hint, when discussing your credentials. It makes one wonder why you left either profession.”
“I left the sea, because although it satisfied the body’s need for new locations and adventure, it left the mind sadly unemployed. Ships, my lord, are not known for their intellectual stimulation. As an inspector, I achieved my need for intellectual stimulation by solving an endless number of crimes. Yet most were at best mundane, and one soon grew weary of the endless repletion of the same beat with the same crimes that soon all began to look alike. I need adventure as much as I need to solve puzzles, and I am hoping that serving a gala will introduce me to a post that will allow to satisfy both my desires.”
Lord Avondale smiled and leaned forward, pulling a single sheet from the pile. Tapping a particular paragraph on the sheet, Lord Avondale spoke softly, “Ah but your superior in the Bristol Yard seems to suggest here that you left Bristol in a great hurry, in shady circumstances, and with a slight stain on your character.”
“The circumstances under which I left Bristol are none of your concern.”
“Respectfully, Madame,” Lord Avondale said leaning slightly forward now, pleased by the slightly angry tone in the Inspector’s voice. “Those circumstances are very much my concern. If you were involved in anything untoward….” He left the rest of the statement unsaid knowing his meaning was clear, “I cannot respectfully engage you as a guard for my guest if I do not trust you, nor if you do not trust me.”
A long pause followed as Inspector Erin Marlowe took a slow draw on the dwindling cigarette in her mouth before exhaling the smoke, and squashing the butt with a gesture of slight impatience and resignation. “Are you familiar with how an inspector operates, my Lord?”
“Sadly I am uninformed of your methods.”
A slow smile as the woman uncrossed her legs, planted both feet on the floor and leaned ever so slightly forward revealing more of her ample bosom than Richard was entirely comfortable with. “We investigate, my lord, following trails, clues, and tiny pieces of evidence that sometimes leads to nowhere. Often we rely on certain…sources, for pieces of information that would not otherwise be able to acquire. Such information is usually not cheap. Very, very, very rarely we are called to go undercover, to disguise ourselves and act a part to solve a crime. My last case called for me to play such a part, a pretty face to hide ulterior motives and as a woman, not many inquired too closely to those motives as they were far more concerned on how to get into my bed than asking hard questions about my flimsy cover story. Long story short, I left in a great hurry because my cover got blown by someone I thought I could trust, and I left with a stain on my character because I had a momentary lapse of judgment with someone who didn’t even seem remotely involved in the case but finished with the discovery that they were very much involved. Such a circumstance even when it is with a man is enough to make one leave anywhere in a hurry, but it is double worse when one is a woman.”
It was Richard’s turn to smile, “Thank you, miss, that will be all. I will inform you of my decision tomorrow, but if you excuse me, I have two more interviews to conduct before I can make that decision.”
Standing, Richard extended a hand to the Inspector who surprised with him with a remarkable firm grip. “A pleasure,” the woman said with a slightly feral smile, “I’m sure. Till tomorrow then.”
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
Last edited by Mirel on Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:22 am; edited 4 times in total
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Mirel
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Joined: 25 Sep 2009
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Location: The land of possibilty
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:15 am Post subject: |
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Chapter 2: Part 2-Casting Call
Candidates Sir Othwain Greendale, Knight of the Order of the Unicorn, and Shadua Mirel, Shadowean
As Lord Avondale awaited the entrance of his next applicant, Sir Othwain Greendale, he repeated same process that he had put Inspector Marlowe through, purposefully reading and waiting for his guest to be seated to see how long they would be patient. This time, however, his results were a little different than the first interview.
The steady clank of spurs against wood flooring echoed through the chamber along with the slight rustle of chain mail and the rustle of a sheathed sword against the rough fabric of a tunic. The cessation of the noise announced that the knight had indeed arrived at the back of the chair, but when the gesture to take a seat was made no noise followed announcing that the knight had no intention of taking a seat. Frowning as if in concentration over the flowering wording of the recommendation letter he was reading, Richard took extra time reading the knights recommendations, but still no sign of impatience came from the man. It seemed as the knight was willing to await eternity standing like an irremovable statue in his office until properly recognized.
Finally Richard looked up, and found he still had to look up still further as his eyes only regarded a green tunic with a rampant* unicorn with an annulet on the man’s left shoulder. Straining his neck slightly, Lord Avondale looked up further to look the Knight full in the face. “Sit down Sir Greendale, or are you going to make me crane my neck like a bird the whole time?”
Blushing, the knight sat down. Regarding the knight, Lord Avondale was somewhat surprised that the knight was indeed very much a youth, being in age probably only 20 or so. Being so young probably meant that youth had only recently been knighted, which made him why so young had chosen such an order.
The Order of the Unicorn was known for one single thing that divided it from all other knightly orders who each equal in honoring the knightly code but unequal in terms of honor. Alone in all the orders of knighthood, the Order of the Unicorn demanded the Purity of the knights and required them to take an oath of perpetual virginity before being sworn into the Order which distinguished itself as the only male order which could be trusted to guard engaged or married women, but not young girls, at least not until the knights were much older. Even an order that demanded virginal knighthood wasn’t that simple as to dangle temptation in front of their knights, especially the recently sworn. Whatever his reason, it certainly wasn’t his looks: blond, blue eyed, a slight dusty of freckles, and a Greek profile, the young knight probably hadn’t lacked for female attention once his voice had broken. Tall and muscular, the man was in addition the perfect picture of ideal knighthood.
“Tell me Sir Greendale, why do you wish to be employed as a guard when you are distinguished as Knight of an order whose virtue is renown throughout the Kingdom?”
The man took a deep breath than proceeded to bark in a rumbling brass a passage from some arcane book, “A period of one year shall elapse from the ceremony of Knighthood to the swearing of oaths. It shall be required of the Knights who wish to swear within the Order of the Unicorn to go forth and journey for one year before swearing themselves’ to a Lord and his service, in order to prove their valor, their honor, and the sincerity of the oaths which shall bind the Knight errant at that end of such time.”
“Sir, if I am to hire you into my employ let me make one thing crystal clear. You may speak Manchurian for all I care to everyone else under my roof, but when you speak to me, you are to speak clearly and to the point.”
“Very well, sir. Let me restate my earlier utterance to your satisfaction.”
“That is not necessary. I understand that although knighted by the Order of the Unicorn, you have not foresworn to that order as of yet, but you intend on doing so as soon as the required year of shall I say mediation and reflection has elapsed. I am correct?”
“Yes, milord.”
“Very well then, that cleared up, let me ask you another question. If you are on a journey to prove your ‘worth’ so to speak, why do you wish to come under my employ?”
“Our order allows us to take on temporary duties until we are sworn to both order and a Lord to provide for our physical necessities.”
“That answers why you will wish to be employed at all, my dear sir, but does not answer why you choose me to provide you with ‘temporary duties.” Folding his hands in front of him, Lord Avondale looked gravely at the knight before continuing. “I am led to understand that your potential order of a policy does not tempt fate by dangling young unattached girls in front of their newer recruits for fear the temptation would be too much for them. In case the obvious escapes you, several very unattached, sometimes wealthy, but very beautiful, and very elegant young women can and do attend my wife’s parties. Are you sure that not bound by oaths as you are that you can maintain the dignity of the Order of the Unicorn without its binding over you?”
A small smile, a mere jerk in a corner of the lips, hardly congenial but passing for an excuse of a smile. “I am confident of my abilities to live by the Oaths which I have bond myself, if not formally, privately. In addition, I find my potential orders lack of faith appalling and intend to prove their assumptions to be falsely based.”
“Hmm…we shall see my man, we shall see.” Surrendering his hand to the knights large and strong shake, Lord Avondale saw out the door adding as he had with his first interview one last fact, “I shall contact you with my decision by the morrow, but if you excuse me my man, I have one last interview to conduct.”
~ ~ ~
[*rampant: a heraldic term meaning that the charge (or animal displayed on the coat of arms) is standing on their left hind foot, the rest raised in the air as if pawing at the air. Think of a rearing horse and you pretty much got the picture.
*annulet: a ring, or round circle which in English heraldry signifies a fifth son
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
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Mirel
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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Looking at the grandfather clock situated next to one of his many sturdy bookcases, Lord Avondale noticed that the time was growing near for his next interview. Looking for the small stack of papers that came with every interview, Lord Avondale discovered that the resume, letter of recommendation, and letters of referral for his next interview were mysteriously nowhere to be seen. Checking his calendar again to make sure he did in fact have another interview and that his old age, hardly old being in his mid forties, wasn’t catching up with him he scanned an ideal finger over the date. Sure enough the name and title, “Shadoua Mirel, Shadowean” was written in the five o’clock with small note denoting to expect his guest, ‘precisely on time’. Yet the note was not written in his own hand, but one that seemed mysteriously familiar. Pausing to remember who had informed him of this next candidate, Lord Avondale wrinkled his forehead and lightly called, “Bob.”
“Yes, sir?” And there Bob was, appearing at the door as silent as cat as if beckoned by his very thought.
“The papers for my next interview seem to have been misplaced. Did one of the maids try to ‘tidy’ my study again?”
“No sir, there were no papers.”
“No papers. Why in the heavens not?”
“Because I recommended her, my lord.” A melodic voice from the shadows stated calmly. Jumping at the sudden and certainly unexpected presence in his room, Lord Avondale turned around to see his wife’s shadow standing calmly in the corner.
“Ah, Ermine Lyon, I didn’t see you there. You gave me quite a start woman.”
“Don’t worry sir,” another voice, this time deeper, came from Or Harp Avondale. “I let her in through the study window when you were dismissing Sir Othwain. And if you remember sir, I also seconded my wife’s opinion. Since I am your Ka’bonded, sir, we knew that you couldn’t object to having a Sable Shadoua as being untrustworthy since you trusted an Argent Shadoua enough to let them become your own Shadoua.”
“Um…I see.” Lord Avondale said, nodding, not understanding at all. Despite having entered into the strange world of the Shadowean due to his marriage to a woman just distant enough from the line of royalty, being 18th in line, to be able to marry a mere Duke who was 43rd away from the throne not raise too many eyebrows. A very strange world indeed.
After Maria had joyously accepted his offer of marriage everything had seemed to go all too well, but in the carriage away from the church his wife had told him that they ‘needed to talk’. The three most dreaded words in the English language to any husband anywhere. It had been then he had been introduced to the world behind the spotlight of royalty. Like the general populace, Lord Richard Avondale had never even been informed of the Shadowean’s existence let alone knowing their purpose. From there his world had only grown, from the shadowean’s existence, to existence of magic, mental powers, and the paranormal. In fact, he had been so incredulously to the whole idea that he had joked with a kind of sarcastic candor, “Next you’ll be telling me aliens or vampires exist.”
He had only realized how serious it was when his wife, not one to joke or go around a thing had merely said with a straight face, “Aliens do not exist. But the things of nightmares, yes, those very much exist, but so do the things of dreams. Vampires may haunt our nights, we may have to worry about the “thing” under the bed, but young virgins can still sit the day before the wedding with a unicorn’s head in their lap and a very privileged few will see the phoenix’s flight. Fairy tales are real, Richard, and that’s just the beginning of things I have to tell you.”
For the next three hours, his new wife told him of the shadowean. After the British assistance to the China and Japan against the imperialism of many European nations and the United States, the British had become fascinated with the Chinese and Japanese culture. Similar to the British, the Chinese and the Japanese had both respected the past, revering it to the point where some of their main religions centered on the past and its related ghost. Throughout the next couple of centuries, the three countries saw the mutual need to protect their ancient cultures against the rising rush of world powers and the desire to protect the nobility which each held to be reprehensive of those ancient cultures. Yet in the late 1800’s, no organization existed to be those protectors.
The solution had been presented by ancient Chinese monk, a Japanese Samurai, and a British Mage soon afterwards. The problem was very straight forward at least at first. They needed to create two organizations: one that would maintain and preserve their perspective ancient cultures while reliably chronicling the ongoing history of their nations; the other, an absolutely trustworthy highly trained honorable and most importantly secret organization that would protect royalty, direct heirs, upper nobility, and other important personages on whom the countries to depended on for their government. The solution was a little bit more complex.
Combing the ancient traditions of martial arts, the training of the samurai and the ninja, codes and training of knighthood, and magic resulted in the creation of the shadowean. In order to guarantee these new elite highly trained guards could be trusted absolutely by those whom they guarded, the shadowean would be bonded magically to their ‘substance’ or the person they guarded in a way that would allow them to feel their physical pain, emotions, and to some extent share a mental connection that in rare cases would allow the pair to communicate mentally. These shadowean would be taught the basics of every martial and magical art of every nation, but each would be personally trained to exploit their natural and magically gifted abilities.
Since the process was highly technical, only those infants of approximately the same age could be paired. In addition, ceremonies to determine elemental characteristics that even the non-magical possessed were necessary to match the two infants so that their personalities would not conflict. The then magically bonded children would then do everything together, learn together, take the same lessons, eat the same meals, sleep in the same bed, marry together and live together for the rest of their lives. Then at night, the shadowean would be taken by the more experienced Shadowean in their household or nearby village and trained secretly at night in the shadowean arts where they learned of such things like how to kill the undead, how to cast spells, and all the shadowean arts combined until they were able in a 24 hour long trial on the sixteenth birthday called the Shadowean Trial prove their worth and earn their title.
Those who were highly advanced would go to pass the test of Shadorin, to prove that they were not merely students but masters of their arts. Secrecy was kept through oaths of silence among the nobility, upper government levels, and the such while the shadowean did their best to deceive the world by appearing as either nobility themselves, hiding in the glare of the spotlight, or as personal servants, slipping beneath the unnoticed shadows. In addition to providing companionship and guarding their ka’real*, or their master or mistress, the Shadowean would literally be living in the ‘shadows’ of history and thus could record it.
Lady Avondale had informed her that due to her close proximity to the British throne, she had a Shadow, and that it was required that once their ka’real married the shadow would marry on the same day. If the ka’real married the ka’real of another, the two would be married, but if the ka’real married someone who had no shadow, a shadow would be selected. Not every baby selected through magical process as able to be bonded was able to be bonded within the first years of their life, the only time such bonding was possible. The result was that those who were not bounded were still trained and those who wished to became the scholars of the group, maintaining and preserving their nation’s ancient culture while adding the records the titled Shadowean provided them. Those who did not wish to or were not skilled enough to be a scholar became traveling teachers, called the Shadoua since they were unable without a bonded or ka’real to earn the title of Shadowean, until such time they could find themselves with oaths to a master or mistress to become a Shadon, which far from being equal with a shadowean was the closest such could ever become.
The next couple of months had been spent not only planning an elaborate wedding but spending time with the help of a priest and mage choosing a shadoua to become his Shadon. He was told of course, that the Shadoua were less trusted of the Shadowean since they were not magically bond to literally risk their lives for their bonded. Yet during the same time he had grown to know Ermine, his wife’s own shadow, very well and learned to trust the girls instincts as well as coming to the conclusion that the girl’s own personal feelings should be consulted as well. So when Ermine had confessed to Maria and him that she was in love with a young Shadoua named Michael, he had thrown tradition out the window and immediately had arrangements to be made for the semi-ceremonial taking off oaths to take place. There the young man had sworn his oaths entwining his own life with Lord Avondale’s at the price of death, and like all shadowean been given a name from the Avondale Family’s heraldry. Later on the date of his and Maria’s marriage, in a small chapel at the back of the church at the same exact hour the shadowean and shadon had been married. By giving the man the one thing that both he and his beloved desired most, he had earned the man’s loyalty in a way that he trusted far more than any magic.
“If I may, what’s the different between an Argent Shadoua and a Sable Shadoua again?”
As he expected, Or Harp answered. “An argent shadoua, as you well know ka’bonded*, is one who was selected for the bonding process at birth but was unable to be bonded before their third birthday. In contrast, a sable Shadoua was once bonded, and thus full Shadowean.”
Placing a gentle hand on her husband’s arm, Ermine continue her face contracted with pity and empathy, “Shadowean share our ka’reals’ pain and fear, but only on a mental level. If they bleed, we do not, but we do feel the pain of that bleeding. As result, when our ka’real dies, we do not die, although those who suffer the loss of a ka’real often wish they also died. It used to be when a ka’real died, the shadow would commit ritual suicide but the monarch’s have outlawed such practice so that those who suffer such a loss are forced to live on. Sable merely denotes the color of morning and black emblazed crest the former shadowean wears until they chose their oath sworn, their ka’bonded, and become Shadowoni at which time they are re-christened.”
In the background, the clock began to chime the hour, sounding the first chime. “Ah, now I remember. Tell me who was this Shadoua’s ka’real.” A second chime, a third, “Since she seems to be late for her appointment.”
“Perhaps I should answer that question,” a voice came from the chair in his office as the last chime sounded and then ceased.
Turning, Lord Avondale found himself looking at young woman of no more than 20 years. Sitting calmly in the chair, the lithe figure sat primly straight in the seat her steely grey eyes flicking like a hawk as if taking the room and its inhabitants all in although her face registered nothing of her thoughts. Clothed entirely in black, the girl wore the sleek black sheath of the modern Japanese kimono dress that was so popular among British nobility, a tight fighting number with capped sleeves, a high kimono collar, and the high slits that extended from the bottom of her hip to just above her ankles modestly laced up with black ribbon that he guessed could be undone to allow for greater ease of movement. Modesty, however, certainly was not wanting because a shift in the woman’s legs to cross her feet in a ladylike fashion temporarily revealed not only a pair of calf high boots but a pair of tight fitting black slacks tucked into the girl’s boots.
Returning his eyes upwards, Lord Avondale regarded the girl’s rounded face with apple cheeks, pale pink lips, slightly rounded nose, steely grey eyes that peered underneath perfectly groomed black eyebrows, and straight black hair slicked severely back into a simple black bun that was tied even more simply by a single black ribbon. At her side, a katana in a black sheath was tucked into a black sash that surrounded the woman’s slim waist. The woman was perfectly unremarkable. Other than the steely grey eyes with their hint of blue that reminded on uncomfortably of a hunting bird, nothing was out of the ordinary about this woman, and Richard was quite sure that if he ever met her casually he would have dismissed her instantly as merely another nobleman’s servant in the crowd.
“Please, do.”
“Myself was called Emerald Mirel, of the Mirels. The Mirel family is renowned jewelers and one of the wealthiest families in all of Britain. They are also the second family in line for the Russian throne through an uncle now long deceased. ”
“Myself?”
“It is what the shadowean call their ka’real, Lord Avondale, if they are particularly close or trained by an old Shadowean.” Or responded. Turning towards Or, Lord Avondale discovered that Ermine had disappeared, apparently to attend to her own ka’real.
“I see,” clearly his throat he bought himself some time while trying to avoid intense eye contact with the girl who seemed to see right through him. “I have heard of the Mirel jewelers, of course but had no idea they were Russian, let alone in line for the throne.”
“They changed their name when they fled Russia in 1918 when Russia allied themselves to Ecouter. They didn’t approve of the alliance, and they lives were at risk if they had stayed. Out of the knowledge that Russians are not liked within Britain, the family changed their name and appealed for amnesty, which they were granted by your monarchs in 1923. They have remained the crown jewelers, designers, and organizers ever since.”
“I see, and may I ask how you lost your ka’real?”
“No, you may not.” The calm mask slipped a moment revealing a sharp pain before being replaced by a sharp look and even sharper tone.
“Na e, Shadoua!”* Or Harp barked clearly reprimanding the girls tone and response.
“Asush, Argent,” the girl remarked with even calm, “e, el na requit sa.”*
“Excuse me, if you two are through,” waiting until the girl stopped glaring at his Shadon and until the calm returned to her face, Richard continued. “Do you mind telling me what happened?”
“Your shadon, corrected me for my tone and my answer. But with all due respect, the manner of my ka’real’s death is none of your business, respectfully. My ka’real and I, we were as close as shadow and substance could ever be, and the loss. It still hurts. Surely you understand.”
Pity filled Richard, he did understand. He understood all too well. “How long ago?”
Pain filled the girl’s face breaking her calm and for a moment her gaze went towards her folded hands, “It will be a year in exactly two months, three days from hence sir.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
Richard got the feeling that the response was merely an automatic one so he continued. “Why do you wish for this post?”
“The Mirel’s….I reminded them to much of their daughter, a living memory to constantly remind them of their loss. They dismissed me as is their right, promising that despite my dismal the payments to my birth family would continue. They gave me a horse, let me keep the weapons and the clothing which they provided, and gave me enough coins to see me secure for at least a month. It was more than they were required to do, and more than I ever asked. They would have given me more, but I could not allow them to cheapen my ka’reals’ death like that, as if it was something that could be paid for and dismissed. I know that’s not what they meant, they loved me in their own way and meant only kindness to me, but everything and anything they gave me…I knew it would remind me of…of her. I have traveled a year now, going as far as I could away from the territory I have known, and I am afraid that my purse has been empty far too often than I have been comfortable with. As Sable, I am allowed to hire myself as a guard to anyone who will have me, relying on my title to those who know of my order to make my way and as my only reference. Yet if I was to be honest, I would have to say that I do this as a distraction. I way to keep myself busy so I do not have to remember too much.”
Nodding his acceptance, Richard opened his mouth to say, “I understand. I’ll be making my decision on whom to hire, and will…”
“…let you know tomorrow.” The girl sighed, her face once again a picture of icy calm. “Lord Avondale, Shadon,” the girl nodded to both of them. Then she was gone, having disappeared from the office in the brief moment it took for Richard to turn to look at Or’s face to view his reaction of the gesture.
Smiling when he discovered the girl gone, “What do you think of her?”
“I knew her master, Koi. He was Shadorin. From what I heard former Shadowean Silver Mirel could have been a Shadorin too but chose not to take the trial, yet…”
“And yet…” Richard questioned.
“And yet,” Or said in a low grumble that told Richard his Shadon was displeased, “I don’t like her.”
Richard smiled, “She got under your skin, didn’t she? Calling you argent?”
Chuckling, “You are her equal Or, don’t let something like that rankle you, it’s a weakness that can be exploited.”
Pausing, Richard leaned back in his chair and starred at the ceiling. “Three choices, my friend, one post. I wonder, however, which would be best for the job.” He found himself, however, addressing an empty room. Left alone to ponder his choice, Lord Avondale contemplated his options.
~ ~ ~
*Entirely made up, Na=negative. e=necessary, the letter being the most used letter in the alphabet sa=know, masculine from Saber Spanish. Asush=shush, quiete. Requit=need. In other words, the conversation went like this:
“Not necessary, shadowua!”
“Hush, Argent,” (i.e. insulting him for the fact he wasn’t full shadowean and thus had no right to reprimand her), “ it was necessary, he doesn’t need to know.”
For clarification the Order of the Shadowean is roughly organized like this:
Shadows: Founders
Shadorin: Masters. To qualify a Shadowean most past the Shadorin trial, the cermonies of which are kept highly secret and most be a master of 3 specific arts, as well as being extremly proficient in all other areas of the Shadowean arts, with the only exception being that of magic as not everyone has magical abilities.
Shaderin: Mage Masters, not mentioned in this chapter, but they are equal with the Shadorin in everyway except they are also wizards of moderate to high skill.
Shadowean: Pural for Shaden, or Shadow. Applies to anyone who has past the test of the Shadowean on the 16th birthday and was successfully bonded.
Shadoua: One who has lost their ka'real to death or was never bonded, but had past the test of the Shadowean. Often considered untrustworthy and not true shadowean by many of that order. Two types:
Sabeled: Refering to the black of morning. A shaden, or Shadowean (being the proper title), who has lost their ka'real to death. They are given four choices, to remain in their ka'real's family as Shadon, to become mercaneries for hire, to become a scholar among the shadowean, or to become a Shadon to the noble of their choice.
Argent: Those who were selected for bonding, being magically qualified for the process, but who were not bonded before they reached the age of three the eldest age they can magically bonded. Unlike Sabeled, if they wish to become Shadon, their masters choice them, not the other way around. The argent often either become wandering teachers or the scholars of the Shadowean.
Shadon: An oathsworn Shadowean who is not bond by magic to their ka'bonded.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
Last edited by Mirel on Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:25 am; edited 3 times in total
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Mirel
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Joined: 25 Sep 2009
Topics: 1
Posts: 65
Location: The land of possibilty
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:42 am Post subject: |
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Alright folks Dp pretty easy for this part. For the next couple of parts of this chapter, you will be witnessing the interviews as Lord Avondale conducts them. Your decision then is rather straight forward. Who gets the job and who gets nada?
I apologize for the unpolished nature of my last couple of posts...but as I stated in the Nanowrimo thread this story is my submission meaning that this story is going to be fast and furious, overall horribly spelled, and generally mudering all concepts of the English language.
Btw, how do I change a poll? I thought I could do so by editing my first post...but the poll doesn't seem to be there.
_________________
Possibilities are the food of the imgination.
~ ~ ~
Some things are too good to be missed: Get Invited.
Last edited by Mirel on Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:44 am; edited 1 time in total
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