The number of obviously sentient species in the world of Black Steel is significantly greater than the number on Earth, a fact which is almost certainly a consequence -- at least in part -- of the presence of sorcerous forces. Any species that can manipulate such forces in even primitive ways is likely to evolve in the direction of greater intelligence, but even were this not the case, existing sentients who wield great sorcerous power might well be responsible for "creating" new sentient species (from existing ones or other "raw material") by sorcerous means.
Nonetheless, the most numerous known sentients are humanoid creatures, and the majority in fact are genetically /Homo sapiens/, though -- like modern humans and neanderthals -- they may represent different subspecies or races of the same species. In the context of this game, "human" always refers to genetically modern humans, but it can be important to remember that the goblin and elven races are genetically similar enough to interbreed with humans and bear healthy, fertile children -- even if they rarely do so. Likewise, "race" is generally used to distinguish between e.g. elves, humans, goblins, and (if any were to survive) neanderthals; starlight elves and moonlight elves might be said to be of two different races, as might the dark-skinned humans of Grat'ha and the pale-skinned humans of the lands north of Illenia, but this usage is rare to the extent it exists at all, as the differences between "true races" like elves and goblins are vast in comparison with those between "sub-races" of humans or of elves. Finally, note that humanoid races cannot necessarily all interbreed with one another; indeed, though humans are known to have borne fertile children of both goblin and elven parentage, there are no presently known cases of goblins and elves interbreeding.
See Also:
Beastmen (such as Horned Men, Lizardfolk, Merfolk, Seashore Sirens, Serpentfolk, Werebeasts, and Wolfmen)
Dragons
Dwarves
Earth Giants
Elvenkind
Goblinkind
Humankind
Legendary Giants
Nethygi
The Undead
The Unknown
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Magic in the Black Steel World
Existence in the world of Black Steel can be imagined as propogating through two very different but powerfully interactive "realities" -- one very like our own in terms of physical law, the other a "magical world" that few humans can witness directly, governed by very different laws indeed. In general, anything that exists in one world necessarily exists in both (though its form in the "magical world" does not resemble the one it holds in our own) but exceptions can be created by the proper exertion of will by someone who knows how to do it, and these exceptions can have significant effects on the reality of both worlds, usually in the course of restoring the two worlds' equilibrium (that is, in the course of ceasing by one means or another to be exceptions). The act of creating such exceptions, at least as humans have learned to do it, typically involves mystical-looking motions of the hands or body, carefully modulated speech or singing, and exertion of will in the magical world, and is generally known as "weaving spells." Human beings are not alone however in their use of the interface between worlds; dragons and elves are known to have special relationships with this interface, other races have been known to wield sorcerous power as well, and even some unthinking beasts appear to have evolved means of creating certain "magical" effects. Moreover, there is a great deal of evidence that magical spell-like boons are granted to priests of the world's various pantheons, not by the priests themselves but by something deeper within the magical world. Some have theorized that the will and worship of each major religion's faithful is sufficient to create these effects, or perhaps to create (or draw unknown beings to fill the roles of) "deities" that provide the boons themselves, most likely at one or more removes. Others argue however that priests are merely passing down traditions of ways found long ago to exploit laws of the magical world not yet known to humans in detail (a faint parallel might be drawn with "Eastern" vs. "Western" medicine in the modern world).
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The World
(NOTE: I'm taking a break from campaign history to get some basic information about the world itself posted, preparatory to redesigning the site somewhat to make it more useful as a reference source. This might take months, but should make a lot more sense when it's finished. Or it might be finished soon. In any case, I do intend to finish the campaign history, at least in overview, as the opportunity arises.)
The world of the Black Steel campaign has been made as much as possible like our own, apart from a few key differences with wide-reaching consequences. The design of the world, from the laws of physics to the diversity of the plant and animal population is intended to balance three main goals:
1. Familiarity: Most of the time, characters in the game should be able to behave as though they lived in a normal medieval earth society, without trying to work out (for instance) the physical requirements and consequences of a world where gunpowder wouldn't burn, the social consequences of one that lacks horses, or the tidal effects of multiple moons. As a result, the basic laws of physics, most familiar animals and plants, and important astronomical features are essentially the same in the world of Black Steel as they are on our Earth.
2. Explorability: The shape of the world's land masses, the locations of different societies and ancient ruins, and some of the animals and plants the characters can expect to encounter, are wildly different from those found on Earth. Some of these are natural consequences of each other, or of the presence of sorcerous power in the world. Others are present simply because a fantasy world whose secrets could be discovered in an almanac as easily as within the story just wouldn't be very interesting. As such, the world map is completely different from Earth's, strange races of humans and other sentient beings dwell across the world, usually in places hidden to "normal" people, and various plants and animals not familiar to us dwell in the world as well, from creatures with ties to magic to those that went extinct on ancient earth but survived in pockets in the Black Steel world to those that evolved naturally but differently than they would have here due to the differences already described.
3. Fantasy: The Black Steel world features magic, dragons, and various other hallmarks of medieval fantasy. Laws of magic allow apparent "violations" of the laws of physics within their limited scope, and fanciful or archaic animals or plants -- where they happen to appear -- fill or obviate the ecological niches that would otherwise have been used by various "normal" creatures. Balancing these facts with my goal of "familiarity" means taking various steps to limit the impact of these fantasy elements on normal people's everyday lives without putting them beyond the reach of player characters or their stories. It's a fine balance, but by no means impossible, and as long as the world is familiar in its workings in most times and places, for most humans and other creatures, it's fine for important fantasy events to be discoverable and even to have major impacts on the world's history. Occasions can arise when fantasy elements loom large in people's everyday lives, but these will be important, story-driven events, significant in their rarity.
The world of the Black Steel campaign has been made as much as possible like our own, apart from a few key differences with wide-reaching consequences. The design of the world, from the laws of physics to the diversity of the plant and animal population is intended to balance three main goals:
1. Familiarity: Most of the time, characters in the game should be able to behave as though they lived in a normal medieval earth society, without trying to work out (for instance) the physical requirements and consequences of a world where gunpowder wouldn't burn, the social consequences of one that lacks horses, or the tidal effects of multiple moons. As a result, the basic laws of physics, most familiar animals and plants, and important astronomical features are essentially the same in the world of Black Steel as they are on our Earth.
2. Explorability: The shape of the world's land masses, the locations of different societies and ancient ruins, and some of the animals and plants the characters can expect to encounter, are wildly different from those found on Earth. Some of these are natural consequences of each other, or of the presence of sorcerous power in the world. Others are present simply because a fantasy world whose secrets could be discovered in an almanac as easily as within the story just wouldn't be very interesting. As such, the world map is completely different from Earth's, strange races of humans and other sentient beings dwell across the world, usually in places hidden to "normal" people, and various plants and animals not familiar to us dwell in the world as well, from creatures with ties to magic to those that went extinct on ancient earth but survived in pockets in the Black Steel world to those that evolved naturally but differently than they would have here due to the differences already described.
3. Fantasy: The Black Steel world features magic, dragons, and various other hallmarks of medieval fantasy. Laws of magic allow apparent "violations" of the laws of physics within their limited scope, and fanciful or archaic animals or plants -- where they happen to appear -- fill or obviate the ecological niches that would otherwise have been used by various "normal" creatures. Balancing these facts with my goal of "familiarity" means taking various steps to limit the impact of these fantasy elements on normal people's everyday lives without putting them beyond the reach of player characters or their stories. It's a fine balance, but by no means impossible, and as long as the world is familiar in its workings in most times and places, for most humans and other creatures, it's fine for important fantasy events to be discoverable and even to have major impacts on the world's history. Occasions can arise when fantasy elements loom large in people's everyday lives, but these will be important, story-driven events, significant in their rarity.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Character Histories: The Orphans
It has been said that the government of Black Steel is the most powerful orphanage in the known world. The point is exaggerated -- many of Black Steel's top-ranking officials have living parents even now, though none of them have stayed in touch over the years -- but a disproportionate number have parents who died when they were very young, a fact that is perhaps less remarkable when you consider that four of them met and grew up together in an /actual/ orphanage.
The great orphanage of Venighas was run when Theril first arrived by the popular church of Shaer in the city. As the churches of Frei and Forseti grew in power however, they struggled for control of the beautiful building and its many parentless children, impressionable and open-minded, fertile ground for the seeds of their faiths. Political and economic maneuverings led the orphanage to change hands several times in the next few years, and with all the conflicting messages being taught from one hand-over to the next, all three churches lost the hearts over whom they were fighting -- at least in the cases of Nimlo, Theril, Dargon, and Quix. They did manage to benefit the children in between attempts to indoctrinate them however, and during one period when it held control of the orphanage for almost two full years consecutively, the church of Frei introduced the custom of bringing groups of orphans to homes it had established for elderly citizens who followed or converted to the faith. This plan was a great success, as the presence of troops of children was a delight to the church's aging parishioners, and the children loved to hear the stories that the old folks shared with them. Though the church lost control of the orphanage again some time later, the ranks of their elderly converts swelled in the meantime.
Theril and her friends were as interested in old stories as anyone, and conspired to make as many visits as they could to the home for the elderly, but the stories weren't the only draw: It was an opportunity to get out of the orphanage for a while, and to hear something other than lessons about the glory of the god of the year or the week. Theril collected friends and stories, Dargon and Quix collected tips on everything from King's Men strategy to cleaning bloodstains, and Nimlo collected opportunities for mischief, from which -- or from the blame for which -- his friends delighted in extracting him. More and more however, led as always by Theril's instincts, the group gravitated toward a certain forbidding old woman with wild hair and a habit of mumbling incoherencies. She didn't live at the home they were visiting, but they always passed her on the way, sitting on her porch and glaring at the world, and Theril liked her instantly without being able to say why, except that it was perhaps for the same reason that she had first been drawn to Dargon and Quix.
One day, they all made a daring escape -- daring because they risked never being allowed their trips to the elderly home again if they were caught -- and went right up to the old woman's porch together. The old woman glared at them, still muttering under her breath, and when it became impossible to pretend they were just going by on their way someplace else, she demanded in a croak, "What do you want?"
At once, Theril answered brightly, "We want to be friends. Didn't you ever go to make friends with someone when you were a little girl?"
The old woman scowled. "I did once, and forever regretted it." She might have intended to leave it at that, but inside of a minute, Theril had her spinning out the story, which was thrilling and heartbreaking, and before the hour was spent, she was smiling down at Theril in a way so unfamiliar to her it seemed to go against the grain of every wrinkle on her face. "You're a good child," she said to Theril. "Come inside, and I'll show you the secrets that I've shown to no one else."
Utterly fearless, surrounded by her friends and comfortably familiar with the old woman herself, Theril didn't hesitate. She and Dargon and Nimlo and Quix all helped the old woman up, put her stick into her hand, and piled into the house on her heels. She went to the hearth and told Theril to take out a certain brick, then to unlock the door of the iron box set into the brickwork behind it with the key the old woman wore around her neck. Inside was another key, old and dull, but intricate. "Go down into the cellar," the old woman told Theril. "I don't like to climb the steps anymore. There's an old iron woodbox in the corner, but no wood. It will seem to be rusted shut, but in fact it is locked. I made the lock myself, and disguised the keyhole so it looks like a hole in the rust, near the right hand corner. Bring a candle, and you will find it, because you are a clever child. Inside, you will find my treasures. When you see them, you will know. They are heavy, so bring me only the one on top." Her eyes gleamed wickedly and softly, the only way perhaps that they still could gleam at all.
Theril did as she was told, shining a candle to light the childrens' way down to the dusty cellar. Dargon and Quix looked suspiciously at the cellar door to see which way it opened and how easily it could be locked, but when Theril unlocked the woodbox and pried up the top with the help of her friends, they all saw the treasures of which the old woman had spoken: Great, heavy, leather tomes, covered in words of a language that none of the children understood. The boys carried the top book up together, as Theril led the way with the candle, and when she saw them emerge with it, and saw the expressions of awe on their faces, the old woman smiled once more. "Go ahead," she told them. "Open it up."
The book was filled with diagrams of nothing they could understand, with notes clearly, precisely recorded in a language strange to them all. The books were somehow beautiful, but in an alien way, with no jewels or precious metals or even dyes to enhance their simple letters and diagram lines. Dargon and Quix turned page after page, trying to spot a pattern and puzzle out the meaning of the strangeness. Nimlo's eyes and mind wandered around the little room to tricks he might play on his hostess. Theril was the first to look up and ask the old woman, "What does it say?"
The old woman laughed hoarsely in reply. "Here, let me show you," she said. The children brought the book to her, and she turned it back to the first page, and pointed a cracked and dirty nail at the diagram. "This is a symbol made for tradition. You don't have to worry about it. It's only a way to organize the text."
Dargon frowned, but Theril said quietly, "No; it's more than that."
"Is it, child?" The old woman looked at her carefully, as if deciding whether to still like her or not, and finally settled on asking, "Then what is it, my child?"
Theril examined it carefully once more, but finally shook her head. "I don't know. But it's not just for the words. It's important. It's an important book." Earnestly, she met the old woman's eyes.
"Ah," the old woman agreed. "There is power in tradition. Perhaps you are right. But you need not concern yourselves with the pictures. They just help to guide the eyes. Now the words..." and she read them off, and the children didn't understand them, for they were in another tongue, but the old woman's creaking voice was suddenly strong and steady, a voice of power, and the words were beautiful. And then she explained in her old, creaking voice, empty of strength once more, what each word meant in the language they shared.
They mostly didn't understand even then; the words were strange and specialized, and the old woman's explanations were beyond even Dargon and Quix. Nimlo's eyes and thoughts started wandering again, but Theril was attentive, and her bright blue, eager eyes were all the old woman needed to see. Theril asked quiet, awed questions, and asked very politely if she might please see an example of what the words meant, and when the old woman cackled and reached into the air to pluck at emptiness, and Dargon decided once and for all that she was batty, Theril straightened, and her eyes gleamed, and her smile was bright as she said, "Oh! It's magic! They're books of magic, aren't they?" The old woman stared at her, and she suddenly had all her friends' attention again; Theril was rarely wrong.
"How do you know this is magic?" the old woman sputtered, as though she were growing afraid, as if doubting her judgment of the children for the first time.
Theril was unfazed. "It's like what Elhuvin would do when she wanted to weave a spell. Only that was a long time ago, before I had to go away and find the orphanage."
Slowly, carefully, the old woman controlled her breathing. "Elhuvin is not a human name. My eyes aren't what they once were. Are you then elven children?"
"No, not real elves," Nimlo piped up. "Everyone just says 'elven blood.'"
The old woman turned her hazy eyes on him. "Ah," she said at last, with quiet satisfaction. "I see now." She smiled slowly. "So. You have elven blood, but no parents. You barely comprehend your heritage. You live here in the orphanage, where no one understands the potential of your blood. Am I right in this?"
Theril shuffled a little on her feet, but Nimlo agreed cheerfully, "That's right! I'm going to compy-rend my terry-hage someday though, all the way, and then just look out, world!"
The old woman laughed, a soft cackle. "Indeed. And how did you find your way to my porch from your orphanage?"
"It's right on the way," Nimlo answered, while Dargon and Quix did everything they could to persuade Theril to silence without drawing attention to themselves -- if the old woman was impressed by elven blood, and imagined they all had it, they had both independently come to the conclusion that it was best to let the one true child of elven blood among them do the talking. Still explaining, Nimlo said, "We go to the what's-it place all the time; that place for old people who're in love with Frei and don't have their very own houses like you have."
"The 'Love House'?" The old woman's voice betrayed a slight but sudden anger and disgust.
"Yeah, that. They're all right, the people there, as long as they're not talking about their goddess, but they don't have books like this one. They don't have any really good stuff."
"Well," the old woman said, rubbing her hands over each other. "Well, we'll have to do something about that. Run along now before you get caught. I'll keep the book out for you. There's much more to explain now since you're all of elven blood. Perhaps the orphanage can be ... persuaded ... to let you visit me instead of that Love House." She chuckled to herself a little, quietly.
Nimlo told her, "Okay; bye!" Theril thanked her with a formal courtesy, and Dargon and Quix added their thanks in the best imitation of Nimlo's voice they each could manage -- he was the only person with elven blood that either had met after all -- and they left the house together to find a good place to lie in wait and rejoin the parade of children to and from the orphanage once more when it passed. Whether thanks to their own clever ruses, their minders' lack of vigilance, or other uncertain causes, they managed to sneak back into their proper group without their absence ever being recorded.
After that, whenever the four went to visit the elderly followers of Frei, their minders always happened to be distracted or looking away when they passed the old woman's house, and they always slipped away. Sometimes they looked back, and got the impression that they saw themselves milling among the other children, though they couldn't be exactly sure -- except for Theril, who assured them the first time she saw it that there was some kind of magical spell there. Overhearing, the old woman agreed, "There is a spell, and it is my doing -- but hush about it; no one must know that magic is being done here." The children were happy to keep the secret, the more so as the old woman began to teach them to work magic themselves. She warned them never to show it in public -- "Not yet; not until you are strong" -- but it would be a long time before they were far from ready even to weave the simplest spell. Rare among human beings, and not as common as was believed even among people of elven blood, all four children were able to grasp the concepts of magical works, and eventually to weave spells. The old woman supposed it was their elven blood, knowing no better; the children never doubted their capacity. It was not until many years later that Theril came to understand how the coincidence was no coincidence at all.
When the church of Forseti took over the orphanage some time later, the visits to the "Love House" were discontinued, but other arrangements were made to fill the gap, and Theril managed to persuade the priests who ran the orphanage to let her and her friends visit their old mentor openly. She spoke of having passed her so often on the way to the Love House and feeling sorry for her; the unfairness that she never had visitors just because she didn't worship Frei; the power of Forseti to redress such wrongs; the season being propitious for such an enterprise. In the course of the orphanages many changes of ownership, Theril had learned the language of religion and of the church of Forseti in particular as ably as any foreign tongue, as skillfully as she had learned the language of her elven foster parents and the trade language of the Fire Coast, and she used her knowledge and the seeming innocence of her clean, childish beauty, perhaps as well with some small sorcerous assistance from her mentor, to great effect. She and her friends were soon granted the privilege of visiting their tutor openly, a privilege that they would not relinquish even with later changes in the orphanage's patron church, while they remained in the orphanage at all.
They studied sorcerous principles constantly, Nimlo with an apparent laziness that concealed a fiery interest, Dargon and Quix in heated competition with one another, Theril with pleasure and natural ease, and in time mastered the art of finding and weaving spell cords, and then their first, simple enchantments. Theril loved subtle magics that helped her to persuade, and to get her friends out of their inevitable bouts of trouble; Dargon and Quix prefered impressive magics, and gave Theril lots of practice trying to explain impossible things away. Nimlo liked a different kind of subtlety than Theril, and a different kind of punch than Dargon and Quix, but he soon won the other two boys over to helping him with his schemes -- for Nimlo, magic was a brilliant new means of making mischief: Creating chaos, stealing secrets, and playing ever-less-harmless tricks. As they grew surer in their abilities however, their old mentor began to give them practical tasks to accomplish as well -- supposedly, and in part actually, to improve their skills and apply them in real-world situations -- which mostly came down to stealing things that she wanted or needed from people more fortunate than she.
The children regarded this as extremely practical training; Dargon and Quix would soon be too old to continue at the orphanage, and had no intention of making a living in any of the boring ways they were taught to seek by the orphanage. As they grew into skilled young wizards, the four friends came to support one another and their teacher alike through various forms of magical larceny.
Of course it couldn't last. In the course of attempting an especially ambitious heist planned by their mentor, the four young wizards were caught. They tried to use what sorcerous power they had to extract themselves, but were in too deep for subtlety, and not nearly skilled enough for sheer power to succeed. To their credit or discredit, they shielded their mentor to the end, never admitting any connection between her and their crimes or sorcerous abilities, so when the judgment was handed down -- exile, for Venighas had no tolerance for sorcery outside the bounds of law, but could not execute them, least of all young Nimlo, for their relatively minor offenses -- they were sent away with neither the teacher nor the books from which they had learned.
The great orphanage of Venighas was run when Theril first arrived by the popular church of Shaer in the city. As the churches of Frei and Forseti grew in power however, they struggled for control of the beautiful building and its many parentless children, impressionable and open-minded, fertile ground for the seeds of their faiths. Political and economic maneuverings led the orphanage to change hands several times in the next few years, and with all the conflicting messages being taught from one hand-over to the next, all three churches lost the hearts over whom they were fighting -- at least in the cases of Nimlo, Theril, Dargon, and Quix. They did manage to benefit the children in between attempts to indoctrinate them however, and during one period when it held control of the orphanage for almost two full years consecutively, the church of Frei introduced the custom of bringing groups of orphans to homes it had established for elderly citizens who followed or converted to the faith. This plan was a great success, as the presence of troops of children was a delight to the church's aging parishioners, and the children loved to hear the stories that the old folks shared with them. Though the church lost control of the orphanage again some time later, the ranks of their elderly converts swelled in the meantime.
Theril and her friends were as interested in old stories as anyone, and conspired to make as many visits as they could to the home for the elderly, but the stories weren't the only draw: It was an opportunity to get out of the orphanage for a while, and to hear something other than lessons about the glory of the god of the year or the week. Theril collected friends and stories, Dargon and Quix collected tips on everything from King's Men strategy to cleaning bloodstains, and Nimlo collected opportunities for mischief, from which -- or from the blame for which -- his friends delighted in extracting him. More and more however, led as always by Theril's instincts, the group gravitated toward a certain forbidding old woman with wild hair and a habit of mumbling incoherencies. She didn't live at the home they were visiting, but they always passed her on the way, sitting on her porch and glaring at the world, and Theril liked her instantly without being able to say why, except that it was perhaps for the same reason that she had first been drawn to Dargon and Quix.
One day, they all made a daring escape -- daring because they risked never being allowed their trips to the elderly home again if they were caught -- and went right up to the old woman's porch together. The old woman glared at them, still muttering under her breath, and when it became impossible to pretend they were just going by on their way someplace else, she demanded in a croak, "What do you want?"
At once, Theril answered brightly, "We want to be friends. Didn't you ever go to make friends with someone when you were a little girl?"
The old woman scowled. "I did once, and forever regretted it." She might have intended to leave it at that, but inside of a minute, Theril had her spinning out the story, which was thrilling and heartbreaking, and before the hour was spent, she was smiling down at Theril in a way so unfamiliar to her it seemed to go against the grain of every wrinkle on her face. "You're a good child," she said to Theril. "Come inside, and I'll show you the secrets that I've shown to no one else."
Utterly fearless, surrounded by her friends and comfortably familiar with the old woman herself, Theril didn't hesitate. She and Dargon and Nimlo and Quix all helped the old woman up, put her stick into her hand, and piled into the house on her heels. She went to the hearth and told Theril to take out a certain brick, then to unlock the door of the iron box set into the brickwork behind it with the key the old woman wore around her neck. Inside was another key, old and dull, but intricate. "Go down into the cellar," the old woman told Theril. "I don't like to climb the steps anymore. There's an old iron woodbox in the corner, but no wood. It will seem to be rusted shut, but in fact it is locked. I made the lock myself, and disguised the keyhole so it looks like a hole in the rust, near the right hand corner. Bring a candle, and you will find it, because you are a clever child. Inside, you will find my treasures. When you see them, you will know. They are heavy, so bring me only the one on top." Her eyes gleamed wickedly and softly, the only way perhaps that they still could gleam at all.
Theril did as she was told, shining a candle to light the childrens' way down to the dusty cellar. Dargon and Quix looked suspiciously at the cellar door to see which way it opened and how easily it could be locked, but when Theril unlocked the woodbox and pried up the top with the help of her friends, they all saw the treasures of which the old woman had spoken: Great, heavy, leather tomes, covered in words of a language that none of the children understood. The boys carried the top book up together, as Theril led the way with the candle, and when she saw them emerge with it, and saw the expressions of awe on their faces, the old woman smiled once more. "Go ahead," she told them. "Open it up."
The book was filled with diagrams of nothing they could understand, with notes clearly, precisely recorded in a language strange to them all. The books were somehow beautiful, but in an alien way, with no jewels or precious metals or even dyes to enhance their simple letters and diagram lines. Dargon and Quix turned page after page, trying to spot a pattern and puzzle out the meaning of the strangeness. Nimlo's eyes and mind wandered around the little room to tricks he might play on his hostess. Theril was the first to look up and ask the old woman, "What does it say?"
The old woman laughed hoarsely in reply. "Here, let me show you," she said. The children brought the book to her, and she turned it back to the first page, and pointed a cracked and dirty nail at the diagram. "This is a symbol made for tradition. You don't have to worry about it. It's only a way to organize the text."
Dargon frowned, but Theril said quietly, "No; it's more than that."
"Is it, child?" The old woman looked at her carefully, as if deciding whether to still like her or not, and finally settled on asking, "Then what is it, my child?"
Theril examined it carefully once more, but finally shook her head. "I don't know. But it's not just for the words. It's important. It's an important book." Earnestly, she met the old woman's eyes.
"Ah," the old woman agreed. "There is power in tradition. Perhaps you are right. But you need not concern yourselves with the pictures. They just help to guide the eyes. Now the words..." and she read them off, and the children didn't understand them, for they were in another tongue, but the old woman's creaking voice was suddenly strong and steady, a voice of power, and the words were beautiful. And then she explained in her old, creaking voice, empty of strength once more, what each word meant in the language they shared.
They mostly didn't understand even then; the words were strange and specialized, and the old woman's explanations were beyond even Dargon and Quix. Nimlo's eyes and thoughts started wandering again, but Theril was attentive, and her bright blue, eager eyes were all the old woman needed to see. Theril asked quiet, awed questions, and asked very politely if she might please see an example of what the words meant, and when the old woman cackled and reached into the air to pluck at emptiness, and Dargon decided once and for all that she was batty, Theril straightened, and her eyes gleamed, and her smile was bright as she said, "Oh! It's magic! They're books of magic, aren't they?" The old woman stared at her, and she suddenly had all her friends' attention again; Theril was rarely wrong.
"How do you know this is magic?" the old woman sputtered, as though she were growing afraid, as if doubting her judgment of the children for the first time.
Theril was unfazed. "It's like what Elhuvin would do when she wanted to weave a spell. Only that was a long time ago, before I had to go away and find the orphanage."
Slowly, carefully, the old woman controlled her breathing. "Elhuvin is not a human name. My eyes aren't what they once were. Are you then elven children?"
"No, not real elves," Nimlo piped up. "Everyone just says 'elven blood.'"
The old woman turned her hazy eyes on him. "Ah," she said at last, with quiet satisfaction. "I see now." She smiled slowly. "So. You have elven blood, but no parents. You barely comprehend your heritage. You live here in the orphanage, where no one understands the potential of your blood. Am I right in this?"
Theril shuffled a little on her feet, but Nimlo agreed cheerfully, "That's right! I'm going to compy-rend my terry-hage someday though, all the way, and then just look out, world!"
The old woman laughed, a soft cackle. "Indeed. And how did you find your way to my porch from your orphanage?"
"It's right on the way," Nimlo answered, while Dargon and Quix did everything they could to persuade Theril to silence without drawing attention to themselves -- if the old woman was impressed by elven blood, and imagined they all had it, they had both independently come to the conclusion that it was best to let the one true child of elven blood among them do the talking. Still explaining, Nimlo said, "We go to the what's-it place all the time; that place for old people who're in love with Frei and don't have their very own houses like you have."
"The 'Love House'?" The old woman's voice betrayed a slight but sudden anger and disgust.
"Yeah, that. They're all right, the people there, as long as they're not talking about their goddess, but they don't have books like this one. They don't have any really good stuff."
"Well," the old woman said, rubbing her hands over each other. "Well, we'll have to do something about that. Run along now before you get caught. I'll keep the book out for you. There's much more to explain now since you're all of elven blood. Perhaps the orphanage can be ... persuaded ... to let you visit me instead of that Love House." She chuckled to herself a little, quietly.
Nimlo told her, "Okay; bye!" Theril thanked her with a formal courtesy, and Dargon and Quix added their thanks in the best imitation of Nimlo's voice they each could manage -- he was the only person with elven blood that either had met after all -- and they left the house together to find a good place to lie in wait and rejoin the parade of children to and from the orphanage once more when it passed. Whether thanks to their own clever ruses, their minders' lack of vigilance, or other uncertain causes, they managed to sneak back into their proper group without their absence ever being recorded.
After that, whenever the four went to visit the elderly followers of Frei, their minders always happened to be distracted or looking away when they passed the old woman's house, and they always slipped away. Sometimes they looked back, and got the impression that they saw themselves milling among the other children, though they couldn't be exactly sure -- except for Theril, who assured them the first time she saw it that there was some kind of magical spell there. Overhearing, the old woman agreed, "There is a spell, and it is my doing -- but hush about it; no one must know that magic is being done here." The children were happy to keep the secret, the more so as the old woman began to teach them to work magic themselves. She warned them never to show it in public -- "Not yet; not until you are strong" -- but it would be a long time before they were far from ready even to weave the simplest spell. Rare among human beings, and not as common as was believed even among people of elven blood, all four children were able to grasp the concepts of magical works, and eventually to weave spells. The old woman supposed it was their elven blood, knowing no better; the children never doubted their capacity. It was not until many years later that Theril came to understand how the coincidence was no coincidence at all.
When the church of Forseti took over the orphanage some time later, the visits to the "Love House" were discontinued, but other arrangements were made to fill the gap, and Theril managed to persuade the priests who ran the orphanage to let her and her friends visit their old mentor openly. She spoke of having passed her so often on the way to the Love House and feeling sorry for her; the unfairness that she never had visitors just because she didn't worship Frei; the power of Forseti to redress such wrongs; the season being propitious for such an enterprise. In the course of the orphanages many changes of ownership, Theril had learned the language of religion and of the church of Forseti in particular as ably as any foreign tongue, as skillfully as she had learned the language of her elven foster parents and the trade language of the Fire Coast, and she used her knowledge and the seeming innocence of her clean, childish beauty, perhaps as well with some small sorcerous assistance from her mentor, to great effect. She and her friends were soon granted the privilege of visiting their tutor openly, a privilege that they would not relinquish even with later changes in the orphanage's patron church, while they remained in the orphanage at all.
They studied sorcerous principles constantly, Nimlo with an apparent laziness that concealed a fiery interest, Dargon and Quix in heated competition with one another, Theril with pleasure and natural ease, and in time mastered the art of finding and weaving spell cords, and then their first, simple enchantments. Theril loved subtle magics that helped her to persuade, and to get her friends out of their inevitable bouts of trouble; Dargon and Quix prefered impressive magics, and gave Theril lots of practice trying to explain impossible things away. Nimlo liked a different kind of subtlety than Theril, and a different kind of punch than Dargon and Quix, but he soon won the other two boys over to helping him with his schemes -- for Nimlo, magic was a brilliant new means of making mischief: Creating chaos, stealing secrets, and playing ever-less-harmless tricks. As they grew surer in their abilities however, their old mentor began to give them practical tasks to accomplish as well -- supposedly, and in part actually, to improve their skills and apply them in real-world situations -- which mostly came down to stealing things that she wanted or needed from people more fortunate than she.
The children regarded this as extremely practical training; Dargon and Quix would soon be too old to continue at the orphanage, and had no intention of making a living in any of the boring ways they were taught to seek by the orphanage. As they grew into skilled young wizards, the four friends came to support one another and their teacher alike through various forms of magical larceny.
Of course it couldn't last. In the course of attempting an especially ambitious heist planned by their mentor, the four young wizards were caught. They tried to use what sorcerous power they had to extract themselves, but were in too deep for subtlety, and not nearly skilled enough for sheer power to succeed. To their credit or discredit, they shielded their mentor to the end, never admitting any connection between her and their crimes or sorcerous abilities, so when the judgment was handed down -- exile, for Venighas had no tolerance for sorcery outside the bounds of law, but could not execute them, least of all young Nimlo, for their relatively minor offenses -- they were sent away with neither the teacher nor the books from which they had learned.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Character History: Thaqz
(Pronunciation: The "Th" is pronounced as in "thanks" or Scottish "Thane," and the full name rhymes with "axe.")
Thaqz doesn't know who his parents were -- his father was nowhere around by the time he was born, and he has no memory of a mother. The tale he heard when he was growing up on the streets was that his mother had died in childbirth, and he's taken it for truth. Sometimes, when he wants to make a certain impression on someone, he'll say, "The first one I killed was my mother, before I could walk." If the stories with which he grew up can be relied upon, his mother had nothing to leave him but long-suffering friends, and his father neither knew nor cared that Thaqz existed. He was raised for a while by a disorganized chain of women, some married, mostly not, who lived in the streets of Venighas, poorer than the dirt in which they lived. One would-be mother would care for him for a while in spite of his not being her own, then hit worse times than usual, and need to cut costs somewhere, and pass him off to some other woman who also knew his mother. The city had a very well-maintained orphanage, but Thaqz never wound up there; the loose network of street livers to which his mother had belonged had a kind of code of honor that meant taking care, such as their care was, of their own. Thaqz ran away from time to time as he got older, but didn't like what he saw of the world, and got hungry, and came back again and again ... until he finally found an outsider he was willing to trust.
Glaxtiks was twelve years old when he first spotted Thaqz, not yet ten, scrounging for food in a refuge pile. There was something feral about Thaqz, especially the way he was burrowing for scraps, more animal than human, young and all but helpless. As slowly and cautiously as with a strange dog, Glaxtiks approached him, and quietly announced his presence. "Hey." Thaqz spun and backed away, sending refuse tumbling, but didn't back far. Glaxtiks kept to his poised, non-threatening stance, and said neutrally, "You're digging too deep. This pile's ten days old. Rats and bugs've eaten anything worth eating that far down."
Thaqz was listening, uncertain. "Who are you?"
"Glaxtiks," he answered, simply enough. "Take a look." He looked up near the top of the pile and found something fetid and dripping and best left undescribed. He took a broken wooden handle from lower in the pile and started digging through the mess. "You find something grown-ups don't want to even touch. Even animals maybe; most of them can't get at the insides without eating the nasty part." After a moment, he pulled out a chunk of slime-covered, moldy bread and even a piece of meat, tossing them on the ground. You'll want to wash them, maybe even cut off the outside. I don't know about the meat, but it'll probably be all right if you cut it thin and burn it through. Been a long time since I ate this stuff."
Thaqz was all attention by then. "What do you eat now?"
"What I take, or what I buy if I take somebody's money." He watched Thaqz, who mostly just looked impressed. "I'll show you. Come on."
Thaqz never went back to the women who raised him. He doesn't believed he was missed. He was simply in awe of Glaxtiks, more than two years older, and far more capable, than he. Glaxtiks shared food and warmth and shelter with the child, and most important of all, his knowledge. From awe that never entirely left him, gratitude, and respect, Thaqz developed absolute and undying loyalty. Glaxtiks had found someone he could trust enough to care for -- someone at first nearly helpless and feral, and soon deeply faithful to him. Thaqz had found a mentor, a father figure, a source of better living than he was used to, and someone who would never just pass him on to another stranger. In keeping with his own code of honor, having found someone he could finally trust, Glaxtiks would never abandon or betray him.
Thaqz learned from Glaxtiks to live on the streets, and they found ways to work better together than they could have on their own. At first, Thaqz was just a decoy in their mutual operations, but Glaxtiks taught him, and he learned, and he became more and more Glaxtiks's assistant, and then partner in crime, as they grew. The first time Thaqz saw Glaxtiks kill, he beamed with pride: His chosen mentor was capable and strong. He'd been warned not to scream if he saw blood or death, but had no need for the warning; it wasn't his way to scream. Thaqz killed a man himself, finishing a street thug Glaxtiks had hamstrung and pinned, before he was in his teens. The thug had come to take the boys' money. He enriched them instead when Glaxtiks sold the skull and a quantity of blood to an unscrupulous apothecary. As they got older, they suffered fewer attempts to steal from them; no special word got around, but anyone who looked at them could see that in spite of their youth, they were not easy prey.
Glaxtiks was careful and clever and observant, and trained Thaqz to be a skilled lookout as well, especially when they worked somewhere with no animals for Glaxtiks to watch and confirm that all was well. He chose their targets carefully, and took as few risks as he could manage, whether that meant avoiding confrontation or killing without mercy and disposing of the body. He and Thaqz were successful for years, sometimes injured, always recovering with the resilience of youth, and never caught by anyone who survived. They might have been successful longer still, but Thaqz looked at killing differently from Glaxtiks. What his mentor regarded as a sometimes-necessary means of continuing survival and freedom, Thaqz considered a pleasure and a proof of strength and skill. Out scouting one evening, he spotted what looked like easy prey for a quick take, didn't think through the situation as Glaxtiks would have, and struck. Someone spotted him from a vantage he hadn't considered; an alarm was raised; he tried to escape, but enforcers arrived on the scene, and he was caught. Unlike Glaxtiks's father, he didn't try to fight them; Glaxtiks had warned him again and again never to fight against overwhelming force. Escape if you can; surrender if you must, and wait for another opportunity to get away. Thaqz ducked and dodged, and was tackled, and let the enforcers take him to prison.
It didn't take Glaxtiks long to find out what had happened when Thaqz failed to return. He retraced Thaqz's route, kept his eyes and ears open, and asked questions where he knew they'd do him no harm and might get an answer he could use. Freeing Thaqz from prison would involve more risks than he ever liked to take, but it couldn't be helped, he believed. He made the attempt, and was caught in the act, and was thrown in a cell of his own. He took it stoically, accepting his own advice, and communicated with Thaqz in a code they had used for years: "Wait. Be patient. We will have another opportunity."
Thaqz was a child, still in his early teens, and the magistrate's horror at his bloody deed left no doubt of the outcome. He could no more order the execution of a child than he could ever allow him to return to the community. Glaxtiks was little older, and was not known to have committed any other crime than trying to break his "brother" -- as they insisted they were -- out of prison. His sentence of exile was a practical matter; it was clear that if he ever were set free again, with Thaqz on Lost Souls' Island, he would only end up stowing away on the next exiles' boat. The magistrate didn't like either sentence, but felt he had no choice. The two therefore waited in prison while other criminals with like sentences were gathered from around the city and the kingdom, waiting for the next departure for the isle.
Thaqz doesn't know who his parents were -- his father was nowhere around by the time he was born, and he has no memory of a mother. The tale he heard when he was growing up on the streets was that his mother had died in childbirth, and he's taken it for truth. Sometimes, when he wants to make a certain impression on someone, he'll say, "The first one I killed was my mother, before I could walk." If the stories with which he grew up can be relied upon, his mother had nothing to leave him but long-suffering friends, and his father neither knew nor cared that Thaqz existed. He was raised for a while by a disorganized chain of women, some married, mostly not, who lived in the streets of Venighas, poorer than the dirt in which they lived. One would-be mother would care for him for a while in spite of his not being her own, then hit worse times than usual, and need to cut costs somewhere, and pass him off to some other woman who also knew his mother. The city had a very well-maintained orphanage, but Thaqz never wound up there; the loose network of street livers to which his mother had belonged had a kind of code of honor that meant taking care, such as their care was, of their own. Thaqz ran away from time to time as he got older, but didn't like what he saw of the world, and got hungry, and came back again and again ... until he finally found an outsider he was willing to trust.
Glaxtiks was twelve years old when he first spotted Thaqz, not yet ten, scrounging for food in a refuge pile. There was something feral about Thaqz, especially the way he was burrowing for scraps, more animal than human, young and all but helpless. As slowly and cautiously as with a strange dog, Glaxtiks approached him, and quietly announced his presence. "Hey." Thaqz spun and backed away, sending refuse tumbling, but didn't back far. Glaxtiks kept to his poised, non-threatening stance, and said neutrally, "You're digging too deep. This pile's ten days old. Rats and bugs've eaten anything worth eating that far down."
Thaqz was listening, uncertain. "Who are you?"
"Glaxtiks," he answered, simply enough. "Take a look." He looked up near the top of the pile and found something fetid and dripping and best left undescribed. He took a broken wooden handle from lower in the pile and started digging through the mess. "You find something grown-ups don't want to even touch. Even animals maybe; most of them can't get at the insides without eating the nasty part." After a moment, he pulled out a chunk of slime-covered, moldy bread and even a piece of meat, tossing them on the ground. You'll want to wash them, maybe even cut off the outside. I don't know about the meat, but it'll probably be all right if you cut it thin and burn it through. Been a long time since I ate this stuff."
Thaqz was all attention by then. "What do you eat now?"
"What I take, or what I buy if I take somebody's money." He watched Thaqz, who mostly just looked impressed. "I'll show you. Come on."
Thaqz never went back to the women who raised him. He doesn't believed he was missed. He was simply in awe of Glaxtiks, more than two years older, and far more capable, than he. Glaxtiks shared food and warmth and shelter with the child, and most important of all, his knowledge. From awe that never entirely left him, gratitude, and respect, Thaqz developed absolute and undying loyalty. Glaxtiks had found someone he could trust enough to care for -- someone at first nearly helpless and feral, and soon deeply faithful to him. Thaqz had found a mentor, a father figure, a source of better living than he was used to, and someone who would never just pass him on to another stranger. In keeping with his own code of honor, having found someone he could finally trust, Glaxtiks would never abandon or betray him.
Thaqz learned from Glaxtiks to live on the streets, and they found ways to work better together than they could have on their own. At first, Thaqz was just a decoy in their mutual operations, but Glaxtiks taught him, and he learned, and he became more and more Glaxtiks's assistant, and then partner in crime, as they grew. The first time Thaqz saw Glaxtiks kill, he beamed with pride: His chosen mentor was capable and strong. He'd been warned not to scream if he saw blood or death, but had no need for the warning; it wasn't his way to scream. Thaqz killed a man himself, finishing a street thug Glaxtiks had hamstrung and pinned, before he was in his teens. The thug had come to take the boys' money. He enriched them instead when Glaxtiks sold the skull and a quantity of blood to an unscrupulous apothecary. As they got older, they suffered fewer attempts to steal from them; no special word got around, but anyone who looked at them could see that in spite of their youth, they were not easy prey.
Glaxtiks was careful and clever and observant, and trained Thaqz to be a skilled lookout as well, especially when they worked somewhere with no animals for Glaxtiks to watch and confirm that all was well. He chose their targets carefully, and took as few risks as he could manage, whether that meant avoiding confrontation or killing without mercy and disposing of the body. He and Thaqz were successful for years, sometimes injured, always recovering with the resilience of youth, and never caught by anyone who survived. They might have been successful longer still, but Thaqz looked at killing differently from Glaxtiks. What his mentor regarded as a sometimes-necessary means of continuing survival and freedom, Thaqz considered a pleasure and a proof of strength and skill. Out scouting one evening, he spotted what looked like easy prey for a quick take, didn't think through the situation as Glaxtiks would have, and struck. Someone spotted him from a vantage he hadn't considered; an alarm was raised; he tried to escape, but enforcers arrived on the scene, and he was caught. Unlike Glaxtiks's father, he didn't try to fight them; Glaxtiks had warned him again and again never to fight against overwhelming force. Escape if you can; surrender if you must, and wait for another opportunity to get away. Thaqz ducked and dodged, and was tackled, and let the enforcers take him to prison.
It didn't take Glaxtiks long to find out what had happened when Thaqz failed to return. He retraced Thaqz's route, kept his eyes and ears open, and asked questions where he knew they'd do him no harm and might get an answer he could use. Freeing Thaqz from prison would involve more risks than he ever liked to take, but it couldn't be helped, he believed. He made the attempt, and was caught in the act, and was thrown in a cell of his own. He took it stoically, accepting his own advice, and communicated with Thaqz in a code they had used for years: "Wait. Be patient. We will have another opportunity."
Thaqz was a child, still in his early teens, and the magistrate's horror at his bloody deed left no doubt of the outcome. He could no more order the execution of a child than he could ever allow him to return to the community. Glaxtiks was little older, and was not known to have committed any other crime than trying to break his "brother" -- as they insisted they were -- out of prison. His sentence of exile was a practical matter; it was clear that if he ever were set free again, with Thaqz on Lost Souls' Island, he would only end up stowing away on the next exiles' boat. The magistrate didn't like either sentence, but felt he had no choice. The two therefore waited in prison while other criminals with like sentences were gathered from around the city and the kingdom, waiting for the next departure for the isle.