Ideas... A picture is worth a thousand words

For anyone following this, my fantasy story is, at least tentatively, "Roses of the Dawn". Roses coming from their hometown name, Rosenford. The Dawn refers to the start of these kids' lives. They are on their way to adulthood, and they are starting to realize what life is about, and it just so happens to take place in one of my favorite settings, in a fantasy world, where literally anything is possible, good and bad, and believe me, it exists here in this world in both extremes.

I've been trying to develop a way of creating my characters and their stories surrounding them. I basically have a good idea of who they are when they start their journey, and I kind of have an idea of where I want the characters to be by the end of the story. But betwixt point A and point B... not a whole lot is going on in my brain. Geez... as much as I've thought about these guys if I had some idea of what they would be doing between point A and B, I could have the tale written by now. I know some of what I want the characters to go through, but the main part of a fantasy adventure story is the fantasy adventure.... right? But I want to present these kids growing into adults as real people. They get their hearts broken (and recover from it), they lose people they love, they make stupid decisions and recover from their mistakes, learning from them, and sometimes, just dumb luck hits them at just the right time and things work out.

Most stories that I've read, just simply focus on what they're doing, with an occasional love interest or attraction somewhere... and friendship. But in real life, you sometimes have to work with people that you really don't like. You get along with them, because you need them to help complete something that has to be done. Sometimes, you don't always make the right decisions, but with any luck, you do learn from your mistakes and are better prepared IF a similar situation happens again.

I've been thinking about a idea, at least to help get me started on the people, and helping me define my character's relationships with the other people around them. I want someone that reads my final story to almost "see" with their minds' eye the movie of the story I'm telling, so I'm taking the concept of a picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe a thousand words (or more) will paint the vivid picture I want in my reader's mind, so I can define the characters and what they are going through personally, maybe then, the rest of the story will develop.

Picture one of Roses of the Dawn... (yes, I know, this story is going to take place in a medieval fantasy world, with no cameras, but just shut up and listen. LOL) A group of youngish kids are busy around the town of Rosenford. The group is all about the same age, within a year or two, but from various backgrounds. They all grew up with each other, and at least tolerate each other, but most are good friends. There is the blacksmiths' son that has a perpetual smoky scent from his father's furnace. He is very strong and muscular, and has a HUGE crush on a girl that is the seamstress'/tailor's daughter. Evident to all but her, of course. The next fellow is somewhat of a loner, he loves the woods and the delights it hides in its' depths. He currently makes his living hunting for the local townsfolk, and also helping the tanner. The girl is a naive, but isn't dumb. She is a talented seamstress already, and loves to dress in her own creations. Some are more successful than others. The last lad in the picture is quietly hanging out in back, chatting with the hunter. He's expected to be another herbalist with the rest of his family, but doesn't enjoy it. His mother is making him go with this group. He knows it's for his safety, but WHATEVER. The hunter is probably is best friend. I haven't decided, but there might be one other character, possibly a girl. Not sure about her yet. These kids are getting ready to go through their village's rite of adulthood, the journeymanship. They have apprenticed with their families all their lives. They are to go out into the world and learn more about their trade, or a specialty within their trade from others out there. The group has met today to discuss their trip. For safety, they are going to take the long journey to Deepwell Valley. A town of artisans and craftspeople that reside in the edge of the empire in the mountains, about a weeks' travel on foot away.

Rosenford is just a small town, at a minor intersection of two trade routes. The township is pretty small and unimportant, with it's biggest export being the town's rosewater, created by the local herbalist. Rosenford is quite literally named, for the ford in the largish river that flows South East through here. On the banks of this river, near the ford, is an abundance of sweet smelling wild roses. When the roses bloom, many of the residents gather blooms and make their own rosewater for perfume, but the herbalist is the only one that actually makes enough to sell. She has customers in many of the large cities and even in other countries.

Well, that's it for now... Maybe picture 2 of the start of their adventure will come next week.

Peace peeps!

K@

More thoughts

OK.. so I haven't exactly written as much as I should have lately, but I'm going to try to remedy that. Ideas for the book:

With my bad guys in the book, I'm thinking about making them bad, but not just evil creatures. They are fighting because others in positions of power have told them lies about the human/elf/etc. populations that live across the mountains, or at least have told them that the worst of the civilization is commonplace for all. Humans can be a greedy and violent lot.

Across the mountains in the heartland of the continent, live a race of wolf like humanoids. The are generally peaceful people that live in smallish, wandering tribes. NAME?? This people have their own wars and disputes, but some of them are settled peacefully, others in all out wars. Very proud people. However as in most societies at one point or another, there are a few power hungry leaders whom leading their group is not enough. They start sending raiding parties into the human and elven lands... breaking ancient treaties. First it was gold, metals, livestock ... then they started destroying farms, raiding trading caravans, and so on. They wanted to push back the humans and elves, wanting to reclaim the land for themselves, but the humans and elves were not so easy to push.

An idea to start

I just thought of something... I want the story to start with a BANG per-se, but I don't want to start the group out in a fight.. *yawn* I had an idea this morning to start the story out with some largish creatures gathering up forces of some smallish, creatures. I want to stay away from the traditional D&D creatures b/c I think it's just been overdone and I want to come up with something fresh. These creatures are not that bright, but they are strong and they are territorial and fight a bit. I would want these creatures to have a culture, and a village (of sorts) and families, which are torn from them by the big, bad guy and they are given a choice, fight for me or we kill you and yours. I would probably have their society very strict and definate gender and class roles would come into play. I am thinking that their society might be somewhat reminesceant of the "traditional" brutish Indians of the movie old West. ***Please don't think I believe that the Native American tribes are brutish, I just want to portray these guys similarly to the way the old black and white westerns (mostly wrongly) portrayed the Native Americans. ***

A Quick Decision

I saw a solitary D6 on my desk and I thought, I"ll let the dice decide... so here is what came up with for my characters...

Fighter - male
Sorcerer - male
Cleric - male
Ranger - female

That should make an interesting party, shouldn't it? Now, for names and backgrounds for each... more later tonight maybe...

A start

As the sun crests the horizon, the sleepy village of Rosenford awakens. The birds sing a joyous chorus that celebrates the wakening of a new day. Soon, the shutters open on the windows, the doors open, the forge fire is stoked and built up, and the inhabitants of Rosenford stir about on their daily business.

Sighs... this might be ok later on, but from what I've read, a book needs a jumpstart to get the reader hooked and to keep reading the book. But, this is going to start out with the kids with their families, in their hometown. Maybe give the reader a sneak peek at what's happening to the northwest? Maybe a "fight" of some sorts that involves the pc's? A fight between a pc and their mother/father/sibling/etc.? A spar where the reader isn't aware that the fight is just a spar? (Why would they be sparring??)

Here' the outline of some things I jotted down during lunch.

• Quick town overview - we briefly see the highlights of the town and meet the main characters briefly.
• The kids are ready and eager to be off, and they head out
• First couple of days, the travellers have good weather, albeit a little cold in the morning and evenings, but it almost seems a grand party for them. The last couple of days are wet and cold, and the whine and bitching quickly begin.
• They make it to town about mid-morning of the 5th day.
• They go out into the town, getting a feel for the place and finding where their mentor's reside. They start to get settled into a routine.
• After a couple of weeks, the town is raided by a largish party of gnolls. They come in the hours just before dawn, and more or less do a smash and grab at the town. The steal livestock, foodstuffs, or anything they happen to see that is of obvious value. Just as they are seen, the alarm goes out, and the gnolls make a break for it, but meanwhile left 1 guard dead, another injured, and several items stolen. (A sack of flour, a small cask of ale, and a couple weapons). The next morning, once the town's leadership has assessed the damage done, they call a meeting. Every able person in town, that is unmarried and over the age of majority (16ish) is asked to join the guards. They will primarily only be needed at night, but meanwhile, they will be trained in basic combat arts of defense and offense. While on duty, they will be given armor and weapons to wear, and will be paid a stipend for their service. Their main duty is to watch out for the attacks, sound the alarm if one does happen, and then last but not least, stay alive if an attack does happen.
• These attacks have been happening for several weeks now at seemingly random intervals. There was once a raid 2 days after one, yet the last attack was a whole month of ago. The village doesn't know what's going on. They've sent messages explaining the situation to some of the nearby villages, including the elven village of Lorithon, but so far, they've had no response.
• The pc's, along with 2 other villagers/craftspeople are recruited into service.
• The local wizard hasn't had any problems at his tower, but there are spells in place that misdirect people looking for his place. He says he will see what he can do in the way of helping protect the town with his arcane knowledge.
• The cleric of the group has been studying at the local temple with the acolytes, and they are able to heal the wounded guard.
• ** note** need to come up with a name for this "artisan's" settlement.
• Within the next week, 2 elves arrive in town, to help defend, and also to help train any new guards. The ranger in particular quickly takes up with them, and soon becomes quite the expert at gnolls. They also sharpen their tracking and fighting skills with them. The others are trained with the elves as well, but the ranger has an affinity for many of the same things that these elves do, not to mention one is a ranger as well.
• The elves also tell them that they have had a noticable increase in creatures crossing their lands.
• From the South, a couple of rough looking fellows come into the settlement. They are retired mercs, that settled there, and since their own guardsmen have their hands full with attacks on their village, they come to offer their support. They own a tavern in their village and get quite a bit of their spirits through an artisan here in ???? that distills all sort of product.

Just some ideas I wanted to get down. How's it sound? Does the plot line sound predictible? too familiar, or overused from other stories you've read or heard about or seen in a movie or something.

More Thoughts on Characters

OK... Here are somethings I know about what I want in my story.

1. I know that I want this to happen in a D&D style world.
2. I know that I want this story to be about 4 kids as they head out into the big world, but somehow get caught up in things and become "adventurers".
3. I know the classes that I want my adventurers to be are: sorcerer, cleric, ranger and fighter. I have yet to decide who is what and what gender each are.
4. I want a minimum of one character to be female, but I'm thinking of two, but I'm afraid that would be a little too expected.
5. I know that I want my kids to have a profession that they've been training in, that they can fall back on, or even possibly use once they are trained in their adventuring class.
6. I know that I want this story to primarily focus on the characters, not what they're doing. I want this to be a story of the kids growing up to be young adults, and maybe in later stories, to adults, parents and leaders.
7. I want this story to show that life isn't fair, but you have to at least try to make life what you want it to be. If you don't try to make the best of things, you probably will be miserable, no matter what material possesions you have or don't have.

Questions:

1. What rules system do I use from D&D? If I want a hope of even possibly publishing this, I'll probably need to use the 4.0 set of rules. If I'm not going to publish, it would be easier to write this using a system I know, 3.0.
2. What kinds of things can my guys do that won't just immediately kill them off? I'd actually like to kindof roll things out as they go, but instead of people "roleplaying" the characters, I'd be writing out their actions/reactions as they go... to a point. If the dice go too badly for them I'll interviene of course.
3. Once they get started, what will keep them adventuring once they get started?
4. Sorcerer will probably start realizing that he/she has "powers" shortly after they've hit puberty. How will they manage to "hide" their skills? How long will they have been able hide this? Maybe this character isn't quite "of age" to go on the journeymanship, but they are a brother/sister/cousin/neighbor or the other of one of the ones leaving, and there is a sorcerer or wizard in the first town that they are going to be staying at that might be able to train them.
5. Ranger - this could be male or female, but what would their skills or training be? Possibly a hunter for the townsfolk and also is training to cure the hides for leather and furs?
6. Cleric - This person would probably be a bit of a "hippie" type, believing in hug a tree, make love not war (unless it's an orc or something.) I was also thinking about this character having an addiction of some sort, possibly 'shrooms or some sort of "herbal". How would this hinder or possibly even help the group?
7. Fighter - This could be either sex as well, but I'm leaning towards a male for this one. Mainly because I want him to have a kind of relationship with one of the females, and he is a little bit over protective of her, and she ends up saving his rear.

My people....

My main characters will start out as just normal kids (all human btw... elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. are in the world, but they the aren't in this particular area). They are crafts people, and are going on their journeymanship tour to aquire new skills, make contacts, and see the world. The world is primitive, but the people are happy. The kid's go with their basic supplies and their hopes and dreams to the north and west of their sleepy town to their first destination. Along the way, they learn more about each other and they learn that the cleric has been called, and the sorceress slips that she can do "things" using her mind.

One thing that I think is going to be different, is that the kids are going to know each other, and they, in the normal town setting would have been a couple of friends and then the friends of a friend type relationship. They aren't that close. But before things are over they will be like brothers and sisters (or closer).

I did a guesstimated census for my street, and the small town, quiet and hardworking people here are very similar to what I would like for my "hometown" of Rosenford. A quick estimation, I count 24 houses on my street. Out of these 24 homes, there are about 16 elderly people that live on this street, about 30-34 adults, and about 12 kids under the age of 18. I think there are 2-3 kids that would be in the age ranges that I have in mind for the characters in my story. I know in the world that I have, more people would tend to live in a home than just a single elderly couple, and a single mom would probably be quite a bit more rare. Here there are 24 houses, almost a third of those houses have elderly people in them, and only about 2 or 3 of those eight have more than just the elderly person or couple in them. The other 16 homes house on average 2 adults and either have 2 or more kids or none. I'd say only here the average of households with kids would be around 25% (4). In my world, it would be much more manual labor to be done, so that would tend to have more kids and more people in each household. In my world, I would think that in an area of 24 households, there would be on average 1-4 elderly persons, 2-6 adults, and 2 - 8 kids. That would be an average population of 8 people per household. Some would have no elderly, with parents and only a couple kids maybe, but then there could be a farm with 3-4 generations there with 20 people in a 3-4 bedroom house. Also where my street is about a half a mile, the same number of households in my world would be considered to be fairly densely packed if they were in an area within a couple miles. I read in a medival history book about village life that it was thought that it took 10 acres for a family to raise their food, livestock and food for the livestock. That would be 240 acres for just 24 households, where here, the 24 households are probably on less than 30 acres. But then again, there isn't any livestock here besides maybe a chicken or two, and most gardens are for decoration, not food. There are a couple small vegetable gardens, but they are mostly for suppliemental food. I completely understand 10 acres per family being needed to supply a family with food. So my population would jump from modern day 50 to 100, but on almost 10 times the land.