Day 17 – Moody Review

1. Pull out the list of adjectives you wrote down that set the mood for your novel...Read them out loud.

2. Take out your notes on your speculative element. Read your rules out loud.

3. Try describing how your speculative element works in your novel. How do you feel when you describe it?

4. Look at what you decided to name your speculative element. Say the name out loud and decide if you feel the way you want to feel when you read your novel.

5. Rename and rework your speculative elements and their rules if you need to.

I was thinking of recording myself reading these things and posting the audio link, but that would just be silly. You can read them out loud yourself if you want.

1. ADJECTIVES: Sexy, Dangerous, Magical, Larger than life, Erotic, Powerful, Action-packed

2. Rules, they were just back one post.

3. I won't write the description, but when I describe the parts that the Priestesses use, I think they're a bit naughty (which IS what I'm shooting for) and the Wizard stuff is a bit mundane, but it is supposed to be mysterious simply because Wizards love the details so much that no one not a Wizard can penetrate the jargon. The heroic feeling comes from the Paladin's use of magic, just as it's supposed to.

4. Name? Name? I haven't really (cough cough) named magic yet. I guess I'll have to do that now huh? How about the power, the force of magic is called klik and the use of magic is called magklik.

5. NA yet.

Day 16 - More Speculation

"Well, today is another day to nail down the rules for how your magic… work[s] in your story."

I'm conflicted. On the one hand that's what I've been doing right along and it was even the start of the idea for the story in the first place. On the other hand the details have been escaping me and that's why I came to the 30 Days of World Building in the first place, I was looking for a guide for generating a Magic System.

I haven't really gotten any help with creating a Magic System in these exercises. I can regurgitate what I already have for rules, but I still have a lot of questions.

What is magic? What is the power that the Sourcerers produce? How exactly do the Wizards, Priestesses and Paladins use it?

Let me give you the rest of the exercise for today and then I'll compile all the rules I have so far in this post.

I boiled the exercise down to three bulleted question and two bulleted instructions:

1. What are the limits of your speculative element?
2. What is that cost? If there's no cost, then what's the trade-off?
3. What keeps it from being used all the time, for everything, or is it used that much after all?

1. Write down your rules, specifically focusing on what's impossible…
2. Establish the limits and boundaries of your spec element today.

Things we already know about Magic:

From Day 7 – Recent History:

1. The people of the GOE don't have magic at all and think they can sacrifice Sourcerers to get it. It doesn't work that way.

2. Wizards can make magical devices, given magically "charged" raw material to work with.

3. Magic is known/available only to descendants of the aliens, but it was not known to the aliens when they lived in what is now Emptyland. It also didn't appear as soon as the Mega volcano erupted, but thousands of years later.

4. The most powerful source of magic is the Sourcerers of the Golchin, followed by Sourcerers of the Fidchin, the Paladins of Fjordland and least of all by the Sourcerers of the Desert people.

5. Several groups have been formed to control magic. This started with the Old Priesthood of Magic (OPM), then the Klelryn Priestesses and the Wizards. Each had a slightly different way of using magic.

6. Magic can be and has been used to great effect in war, but it is not all powerful.

7. People without magic can be very powerful, but they must acknowledge and respect the power of magic wielding people, even among Golchin and Fidchin.

8. Once you have set your magic system in place it doesn't seem that you can waver from it (e.g. Wizards only work with inanimate objects and are powerless to affect people directly).

9. Sourcerers are really not in control of their own lives or destiny.

10. Magical devices (not just magical items) had to be invented.

11. Magical devices are more effective in war than the way the Klelryn use magic.

12. Wizardry is regulated by a Wizards' Council. Though I hadn't thought of it at that time, this council would be subject and under the control of the Academies.

13. The Klelryn didn't always lock every Sourcerer away. This development somewhat mirrors the development of insane asylums as the industrial revolution grew.

From Day 8 – Economics and Politics

14. Magic seems to be a byproduct of the alien originated races and so it is absent from the people of the GOE. They never really needed it when they didn't regularly encounter magical people. They substituted community.

15. The greatest resource of Goldland [Goldan] is Magic. Only Golden [Golchin] people produce pure Sourcerers. They have fought over this resource among themselves for hundreds of years, but recently it has become a valuable commodity outside of Goldland [Goldan].

16. Sourcerers born to Forestlanders [Fidchin] are usually less autistic and less powerful magically. They are always abducted by the Klelryn.

From Day 11 – Focus In

17. The Klelryn are divided into Village Priestesses, who have no interest in any more power than to be able to aid and nurture their villages; and the Klelryn Web, or the "nobility" of the Klelryn who fight amongst themselves and with and against the nobility.

From Day 12 – Speculative Element

18. Here was where I wrote about many images of things within my magic system.

19. Wizards do not cast spells, they create magical artifacts that can be manipulated and/or triggered.

20. Klelryn Priestesses do cast spells, with words, song, music, dance, gestures and most potently with sex.

21. Fjordlander magic was explained pretty thoroughly.

Then there is Day 13. Day 13 is almost all about the magic, so go there and read it.

Day 14

This was about education and there we found out that Wizard magic can be learned by anyone bright enough and with a flare for it, just like any advanced degree we have in reality. Priestesses learn their craft in seminaries and abbeys. Sourcerers are born, but they can be coaxed and taught to go into deeper, longer trances if they aren't particularly powerful. The most powerful are the most like people with autism; no one can teach them or coach them to be more or less than they are.

Paladins are born with abilities and have to be taught to use them. They must devote their lives, and must be trained as clerics.

So there you are. What is magic? I'm still not really sure. How exactly is it manipulated by Wizards and Priestesses? It is drawn out and stored until it is used, like energy, but there are still details I haven't decided.

Day 15 – Resources

This is a gimme day. The 30 Days of World Building exercise takes this day to tell you to read some world building books. I have read several and I have gone to several of the websites suggested. So I can sit back and relax today (I've been waiting for this day for a long time).

Day 14 - Education

I've been trying to get back here for days, but other things keep coming up.

As I was exploring this idea a very interesting line of thinking occurred to me.

The Fidchin value knowledge and the sharing of knowledge among the highest of virtues. Accordingly, very early on in their history they established Academies for the collecting, archiving and sharing of information. Each clan had it's own academy and they were clan based rather than subject based. In the poorest clans it was something of an invisible college, but in the larger, more powerful clans it could be a building or several.

Whenever a craftsman or scientist reached the skill or knowledge level of master they were automatically invited to be a member of the academy. They would teach and share their knowledge and skill. They could also retire to the academy and become a professor.

This is where it got interesting, because I wondered about the organization of the Fidchin people if instead of being clan based they were academy based. I thought it would be very interesting if, after a few hundred years the academies became the ruling groups themselves and the clans died away. The academies would have to control things like banking and marriage and law, which seem a bit congruent, but that may be okay since the Fidchin don't care that much about all that.

The Fidchin aren't interested in power or in getting credit for knowledge, but in gaining more and sharing it all around, so the academies tend not to fall into the problems of the school systems of our world.

The academies started out a invisible colleges, grew into something like Plato's Academy, then into something like a national institution for controlling teaching and knowledge with actual teaching branches (much like the French system, and the National Academy of Sciences in the US). Eventually the clans became less important and the academies took over all the roles of government.

Then the Golchin influence started. The Golchin established a king among the Fidchin in 2100EG (500 years before the story began). They also forced hierarchical structure to the Fidchin government. The Fidchin don't really pay much attention to that, but there were Universities established under Golchin influence. The Universities are an attempt to stratify the teaching systems within the lands of the Fidchin. Universities were supposed to outrank High Schools which outranked Elementary Schools.

Currently there are three Universities in the land of the Fidchin, but they aren't any more than the highest level of the teaching branches of the academies in those provinces. They are still answerable to the academies.

In the Golchin lands the stratified schooling system is in place and functioning as the Golchin intended. There are three major universities there. They all have Fidchin professors with boards made up primarily of Golchin.

From early times Fidchin children were all expected to learn to read, write and do arithmetic up to multiplication and division. This would take about 2 to 4 years. They would learn through the academies.

After a time the schooling became more structured and a four year elementary education became mandatory for all Fidchin children, culminating in a test and a determination of where the child would best be placed for apprenticeship. A member of the academy who was a master would supervise the child's professional education from there. This included boys and girls and was based entirely on ability.

This still happens for the most part at the time of the story, but the schooling is longer and even more structured.

The Golchin influence on this process was to make appointment to the universities very prestigious and difficult to obtain. Appointments could be bought through money or political pressure. In Fidchin lands that very rarely occurs and it is more often the ability of the student that controls his/her higher education.

In Golchin lands this it is very true that only the highest born and brightest go to university. Think rich ivy-leaguers.

For the Fidchin, your education is your passport to your future. You become what you make of yourself and it is actually rare that a child will follow in the parents' profession.

For the Golchin education is just another mark of status, and/or a way of becoming better than your neighbor so you can overcome him and eventually outrank him. Children are born to their rank and only through overcoming others can they elevate themselves. School can help you learn better business or better military skills.

The Desert people follow a more traditional mediaeval system of apprenticeship. Children follow in their parents' professions. Rarely might a Desert child be adopted into a Fidchin academy (it would be based mainly on the child's abilities) or maybe be sold/bought into a Golchin household because of their ability or their parents' greed. The most common instances of Desert people attending Fidchin schools is when they are ships' officers. About half of the officers aboard Desert ships (air, sand and water ships) are Fidchin trained. All of the Desert officers of Golchin Royal Fleet ships are Fidchin trained, it's a requirement.

Fjordland people too follow the traditional mediaeval system of apprenticeship. They have too little contact with Wispollil to ever have any of their children attend any of the schools there.

I've Signed Up for Another Tour

Of Rugby I mean. I talked to the president of our local Rugby Club (DII Lake County Men's Rugby Club) yesterday and told him that I could go to practices and most likely all the games this season.

The club was on it's last legs (they are down to 19 committed members before I said I'd go) and there was a chance they would disband.

I figure this is the first full year that I have no Guard, family committments or FRG on weekends, so really in the 25 years I've been playing Rugby (Yes, Jac and I started in Feb of 1985) this will be the first year I don't have something that stops me from going.

Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted of how the season goes.

Day 13 - Plot Hooks and the Speculative Element

I've been very busy lately, and I'm losing steam. I don't mean that I'm losing steam for the story, well, alright I am a bit. I'm mainly losing steam for the exercise, but I'm also losing a bit of steam for Fantasy. It's been foggy and cloudy and great weather for Mystery, and I haven't finished my NaNoWriMo novel from November yet. I will stick to this exercise though, because I said I would and I think the Mystery could stew a bit more.

- "If you have some idea of your plot by now, get out whatever plot notes you have and write down ten things (minimum) that your speculative element can do to your plot."

- I guess I should tell you what my plot IS then. There are a small group of people trying to smuggle Sourcerers away from Wispollil, as part of an underground railroad called, "The Movement." They're chased off track and they find a new land, new allies and new enemies on their way to the Empty Lands.

With that in mind here are ten things affected by my Speculative element of Magic:

1. Magic allows for flying machines (airships, gunbirds) that allow the heroes to fly over the North Pole.

2. Magic comes from people called Sourcerers who are afflicted with a kind of autism and must go into a trance to produce magic. They are vulnerable because they can't use the magic themselves, but they are very valuable. Because they can't defend themselves and are being abused. Because they are being abused and can't defend themselves, the Movement was formed.

3. Magic can make their pursuers able to track them.

4. Magic can help them hide.

5. Magic helps both sides fight.

6. There are no true Sourcerers anywhere else in the world. They are valuable to everyone everywhere. They could be a cause of danger in foreign lands.

7. Wizards are magic users who only perform magic on non-conscious things (plants and inanimate objects). They are in conflict and competition with the Preistesses, who can only perform magic on conscious things (animals and people), but they must work together to get to the Empty Lands.

8. Magic is a power that corrupts, as it becomes available to those who didn't have it before it could corrupt those who hadn't known it before.

9. What do the Sourcerers think of the Movement? Most are grateful, but wouldn't some be resentful and want to use the magic themselves?

10. Fjordlanders have Paladins who are a mix of the three elements of the Wispollil magic system. Do the Sourcerers look to them as inspirations? How much of a threat are they to the Wizard and Priestess?

11. Will magic be too much to keep the alliance together, with Wizards, Priestesses, Sourcerers, Desert people and Fjordlanders? Who will split off first? Who will split off and stay split off?

12. Priestesses use magic to enchant others, most powerfully with their sexuality and through sex. Can the males trust that their feelings for the Priestess are their own true feelings and not magically influenced feelings? When/if the Wizard and Priestess get together romantically, won't magic cause him to doubt himself and his love? What about her, is she confident that she hasn't enchanted him or herself unintended?

EDIT (Additions):

13. (in association with 8 above) What does magic use do to your ego? Doesn't it make you full of yourself? I think in a lot of people it does. It also makes people jealous and/or put off. It's kind of like people who are literally geniuses. Some of them are regular people and some of them are either always saying, "I'm a genius you know," or giving you the impression that that is what they are thinking. The non-magical peoples (like the desert people of Wispollil and the people of the Great Old Empire) react this way toward magic users.

14. Are Wizards standard crew members of magical vehicles (airships, dirigibles etc.)? I think they are. They are usually found in the bowels of the "ships" and if the ships are owned/operated by non-magical people (Golchin nobility (rather than the Priestesses), the Desert people of Wispollil, and others) then they downplay the indispensable role the Wizards have to play with the operation of the ships. Like the British Navy in the early days of Steam, the engineers were often working class people who were looked down on by the line officers who were more often of higher birth.

EDIT (Additional Addition):

From a friend I got this line of questioning:

15. Can a priestess control what type of baby she will have (gender or if it's a Priestess or a Sourcerer)? I'm thinking that they can to some extent, but they don't let on to the nobility. Some of the nobility suspect. An alternative is that they negotiate it when they negotiate the reproductive contract. I think I don't like the second scenario as much because it makes the Priestesses seem more cold hearted and less sinister. I think I will go with they can to some extent (some are better than others), but they generally don't let on and it normally doesn't enter into the contract unless both the noble and the priestess are both cunning and conniving.

Day 12 – Speculative Element

From 30 Days of Worldbuilding:

1. "Write down the snippets and images that you already know you want in your story."

2. "Next, ask yourself the hard questions. 'What if?' What would that do to them? Would that change my plot?"

2a. "Drill down on the big things and the details, decide what would happen if they work one way vs. another."

One thing that I forgot to mention is the influence of Jules Verne. Originally, when I was first coming up with the idea for this story I was playing with the title of Magicpunk. My speculative element, as has been very clear is Magic, as produced by Sourcerers and used by Wizards and Priestesses. What hasn't been clear is it's roll in the society on Wispollil.

I'm thinking Gilded rather than Ironclad, Filagree and Inlay rather than Boilerplate and Rivets. Wispollil is physically larger than England, but has less than one quarter the population. Think Victorian England without the population pressure to drive industrialization (also without all the sexual restrictions). This is a much younger society than Europe was by the time they entered the Gilded Age, there was no Roman or Egyptian Empires, no Classic Hellenic Age to look back on and model themselves after. This isn't Neoclassicism, but it is the dawning of Humanism (at least for the Fidchin).

The story leads the characters to Fjordland, a place that is more wild and dark ages, more Conan, Den and Tarzan, but they are coming from what they consider to be civilization.

1. Images of things within my magic system:

· Flying ships with great bird-like wings
· Dirigibles
· Magic-drawn carriages
· Magic Railroad (there is a single "railroad" between the Golchin capitol and the Fidchin capitols, it is a marble half pipe that runs absolutely straight, there is a single "car" that is more like a cross between a luxury steamship and a Roman pleasure barge, the car runs two round trips a day with only the rich and powerful as passengers).
· Ballistae as cannons, propelled by magic. There are no guns, but there are crossbows of all types and bows. Arrow and bows being better for use with magic than small lead pellets.
· Cathedral temples erected by Gray Wizards
· Brick and stone castles erected by Gray Wizards
· All Fidchin cities and towns have been rebuilt by Gray Wizards of brick and stone with very square dimensions and restrictions (some villages have not been rebuilt, but there had always been great order in Fidchin villages and they are laid out logically)
· Golchin cities have been rebuilt by Gray Wizards, but more noticeably by Gild Wizards.

While Fidchin cities are elegant in their utilitarian efficiency, Golchin cities are elaborate and ornate, but with a light and airy feel, a cross between Baroque and Gothic Revival. Something like Jackson's Rivendell, but without the connection to nature.
· Communication through magical means, (eg. palintae)

· Cities are lit by magical streetlamps

Wizards do not cast spells, they create magical artifacts that can be manipulated and/or triggered. Klelryn Priestesses do cast spells, with words, song, music, dance, gestures and most potently with sex.

What if? The idea here is to flesh out how the elements mentioned affect society, but I think I sort of gave that answer in the first few paragraphs about a magic driven gilded age. At least this is true of Wispollil.

The Fjordlanders have a different relation with magic. They have no proper Sourcerers or Wizards. They are just as sparsely populated, but they have no highly organized system of government or magic. They have Paladins, who serve the function of Sourcerers and Wizards combined into one person. It is more the age of heroes with a Viking feel. Magic is reactive to events rather than being a proactive system.

Some elements of Fjordland magic:

· Live in A frame houses (this is the predominant architectural style along with the upturned boat style).

· Heroic deeds done by Paladins in rescue or protection.· Paladins are honored and respected. They NEVER hold public office.
· Paladins are like a cross between Cincinnati and Achilles (or Heracles), Superman and George Washington.
· Magical artifacts are VERY rare, the most common of which are swords and armor.
· Paladins MUST hold down a regular job because they are not allowed to take compensation for their noble magical work. If they are craftsmen then they MAY create a magical item for themselves (to be handed down the generations). These are invarably tools of the Paladin art (thus swords and armor) or small trinkets like magical boxes.
· Magical artifacts are never everyday items (like magic pots or brooms).
· Magical artifacts are never to be made to woo the favor of a love interest. This has happened on occasion so those artifacts are out there, but they invariably disqualify a person from being a Paladin (misuse of magic for personal gain).
· There is a single romantic story of a Paladin forsaking their calling by making an artifact for a love or using magic to save a love over the community (depending on how the story is told). There are many morality tales of Paladins doing the same thing and paying dearly for it.
· Honor and duty are looked upon as higher than love (love is too easily confused with sex and infatuation), especially when the individual is blessed with magical abilities.
· When Fjordlanders encounter people of Wispollil and their banal attitude towards magic and magical items they are offended. They are particularly offended by their treatment of Sourcerers.
· They are also confused by the fact that the practitioners of magic (Wizards and Sourcerers) are looked down upon by the exploiters of magic. To them that would be like the normal people looking down on the Paladins.
· Fjordlanders are awed by the number and power of the magical artifacts a Wizard can weild.

Day 11 - Focus In

30 Days of Worldbuilding says to choose one of the following:

1. "Write a complete timeline for your setting (last 500 years or so should do) and for your protagonist's life up until the novel opens."

2. "Write a 1-paragraph description of each major political body (churches, governments, kingdoms, factions, economic forces, guilds, etc.) and name them
2a. "write one sentence about how 3 of your groups (the 3 most important groups) feel about all the other groups."

3. "Write a short glossary or lexicon for some common or important words (like rock, bird, horse, king, ford, river, stream, mountain, holding, village, magic, outsider, etc.)"
3a. "Write down five place names and five character names"

I've done #1 and #3 except for character names based on the sylabary.

2. In the history I talked about the "political" forces, but I may not have made it clear that the nobility of the Golchin are a major political force and it is subdivided into different factions. Outside the nobility hierarchy are the Fidchin, and the wizards who predominately come from that group. The nobility have tried and continue to try to bring the wizards under their own hierarchy, but the wizards don't really fall that way and are a potent political force with little interest in exercising their power. The Fidchin themselves are a political force, but they had been effectively brought under control several decades ago. The other truly powerful force are the Klelryn Prestesshood. They are divided into Village Priestesses, who have no interest in any more power than to be able to aid and nurture their villages; and the Klelryn Web, or the "nobility" of the Klelryn who fight amongst themselves and with and against the nobility.

3a. The first name I had was
Letzitiel = Violet beauty girl (Let = violet, zit = beauty, -iel a girl suffix)I had Thahn as a character from my earlier stories. By the work I did the other day it his name would now be Thanar, pronounced Thahnahr by Golchin folks. The Priestess Hwah will become Hawahiel.

Another Race Tweek

I originally wrote a couple short pieces for Heavy Magic and had the same basic ideas that I'm expanding with the 30 Days of World Building.

One thing that I thought about as I was thinking over those original pieces was that I never intended the Fidchin and the Golchin to be different races, more like different classes.

I'm not sure how to annotate that to stress that they are really the same race. I kind of moved them closer by giving them the same language, with accents.

The desert people on Wispollil are a different race as are the Fjordlanders, but they are all much more closely related, being descended from the alien settlers and not of native stock like the people of the Great Old Empire.

I don't think I'm going to go back to the other posts, but let this be enough of a note and continue to treat them in further posts like they are part of the same race.

Day 10 - Mood

" Take a deep breath and think "When I read this story, I want to feel....." what?"

"That's your mood. Now think about that emotion and write some concrete words that make you feel that way."

"Settle on the overall mood for your story if you haven't already. Look through your timeline, political groups, and language notes and mark for revision anything that doesn't fit your mood. If you have time, revise those things. Otherwise, leave them for later."

I think I've pretty much done that, but I'll keep looking at the words and modifying them to make sure they sound moody.

I've said before that I want the feeling of Corben and Frazetta; Den and Princess of Mars and Conan. To put the mood in a few "concrete words":

Exhilarated, edgy, slightly aroused, on endorphins, alienated but you can handle it.

If I had to say what the THEME is I'd say alienation, struggle for the oppressed and magic.

Important to the story is not to take cultural norms at face value. Women and sex and heroes and villains.

For instance, the Klelryan priestesses treat sex like a commodity, with value and power. They are able to control their reproduction so they can sell that specifically, or just the pleasure. No one can own them because they aren't allowed to marry, but they are too powerful to be treated like sex objects or owned. Sex is also one of the most powerful enchantments available.

Day 9 - Language

EDIT: Okay, I mis-read the 30 Days of Worldbuilding exercise for this day. Apparently I was only supposed to come up with the general sound of the language and some syables. Well, you can see the sylables in the words I provided, but I'll give you a bit more of the sound of the language in orange.

The Common language of Wispollil is the language of the Forest People (hereafter called by their name Fidchin). The language is called Slansus (meaning our manner of speech). I actually have much more than this, but this will give a taste.

The map is rather difficult to label so I'll give the list and label it later.

SOUND
- Sounds like leaves rustling in the breeze or a brook
- Fidchin pronounce vowells as thinner and lighter, Golchin pronounce them as longer and lower (Ne-vah-dah, not Nevada)
- Soft stops common (B, P, D)
- High vowells common (I, E, A)

RULES
Word order: Subject - Verb - Object

Descriptors follow the words they are describing (Etas Unis)

All verbs are regular

Many suffixes, no prefixes
Suffixes
Comparative -er
Superlative -est
Plural -eh
Past -ed
Future -il
Male names -ar -an -ak
Female names -iel -et -en
Possessive -el (my dog = dogel)
Without -ozor
Negative -onot

First -elon
Second -iow
Third -id
Fourth -oir
Fifth -efif
Sixth -esix
Seventh -esev
Eighth -etaet
Ninth -enaen
Ten(s) -edek (nineteen = naenedek)
Hundreds -ehek (400 = foirehek, 453 = foirehek fifedek thid)
Thousands -etek
Millions -emek

SPECIFIC PLACE NAMES

· Capital of Nokkatlad and Wispollil
o Chinhigbaw
· City in the mountains (Nokkatlad)
o Baelmohbaw
· City on the bay (Nokkatlad)
o Chalbaw
· Eastern river
o Selsumriz
· Forest in the East
o Fidriz
· Forest in the middle
o Jaltianfid
· Forest in the North
o Nolfid
· Great Desert
o Ladduhsur
· Mountains that divide Wispollil
o Jadmihmortak
· Northern Bay
o Ladsaknol
· Northern mountains (hills that hold the glaciers back)
o Mortakshash
· Northern Penninsula (land of the Golchin)
o Nokkatlad
· River with the delta
o Missiap
· Southern Bay
o Ladsaknol
· The kingdom, the land of the story
o Wispolil
· The land, our land, the world (Fidchin land)
o Laddan (LAAD daan)
· Town in the far West (Town Lino the blacksmith is from)
o Lyntohbaw
· Town of Duke Barrett Mrozek
o Munabit
· Western Bay
o Ladsakwhap
· Western River (lit. fresh water (sel) flowing (sum) in the west (wes))
o Selsumwes
· World
o Whol


PROPER NOUNS

· Clergy
o Klelryn
· Creator God
o Yworah
· Forest people (fid = forest and chin = people)
o Fidchin (FID chin)
· God(s)
o Eng(s)
· Golden people
o Golchin
· Gray Moon
o Garmon
· Heaven
o Hadnywharo
· Language of the Finchin and Pichchin (Language of Us, or our language)
o Slansus
· Nickname the Fidchin give the Golchin (Golden people)
o Pikchin (PICK chin)
· Sun
o Daxmon
· Universe
o Wholkosmos
· White Moon
o Witmon
· Yellow MoonJilmon

7,000!

Illini6 has gone over 7,000 visits. That's big for us. We averaged 26 visits a day last week.

Great job everybody, don't feel shy about commenting too. Let me know what you guys are reading.

I'm still working on the 30 days of world building. The next day is language and I get into that so it's taking me a bit of time. She suggested throwing in a few words, but I have to create a whole system and some lexicon.

I was going to try to build several languages, seeing as I have several races, but it is just too exhaustive, so I'm going to get the main or common language of Wispollil together and post it.

Day 8 - Economics and Politics

30 Days of World Building gives this as the exercise for Day 8.

It really boils down to:
1. Mark resource areas on your map
2. Check your timeline for pressure points caused by resource needs
3. Which groups care about which resources?

EMPTYLAND
The Emptyland (brown) is only useful as an empty, unoccupied land. That's why The Movement is relocating Sourcerers there. The town on the northern shore of the Great Inland Sea is where they are being brought. I'll need to flesh this out more.

FJORDLAND
Fjordland has great mineral wealth and easy to get to. It is for that reason that the Great Old Empire had established a trading relationship with those people. That trade ended when the GOE trading fleet was destroyed 100 years ago when the Comet hit. The Fjordlanders have felt the pinch of that lose of income. They were being terribly exploited by the GOE who did not give them fair prices, but some of the people who were making the most money out of it are still looking for ways to replace it. Some have turned to piracy, but there is little trade to raid. Most have sought other markets and the Golden people are buying.

Fjordland also has a wealth of trees, but that is being squanderd because it is being used on building high quality boats. There aren't enough trees to export, but no one is buying anyway.

GREAT OLD EMPIRE
The GOE started on Orangeland originally. Orangeland was good farmland and had many domesticatable animals, but lacked mineral resources. Early in their history they expanded to Yellowland which is richer in gems and precious metals, but lacking in stones appropriate for building. Between the resources of the two islands the GOE developed an unequalled porcelain industry. Their fine porcelain is traded and highly valued. The construct many things out of different qualities of bricks and porcelain. The two most important resources they didn't have were building stone and Magic.

Magic seems to be a byproduct of the alien originated races and so it is absent from the people of the GOE. They never really needed it when they didn't regularly encounter magical people. They substituted community. As they started dealing with the Fjordlanders, who have rudimentary magic, they realized the value of magic. In their dealings with the Golden people they are convinced that they need magic in order to compete with the Golden people. They are willing to go to war to get it, but they aren't quite strong enough to lead an offensive war unless some great leader shows up to lead them.

When the Comet struck in 2500EG the GOE took a great hit. They contracted their borders to west of the crater on Yellowland and north of the crater on Orangeland. A good deal of farmland was destroyed and a great number of their population. They haven't quite equaled out and there is barely enough farmland to support the population. On Elorih only the GOE is overpopulated.

WISPOLIL
On Wispolil (the purple land) There are quite a few things going on. Basically the continent is divided into Goldland, Forestland and Desertland.

Goldland has some precious metals, huntable animals and productive grasslands. The greatest resource of Goldland is Magic. Only Golden people produce pure Sourcerers. They have fought over this resource among themselves for hundreds of years, but recently it has become a valuable commodity outside of Goldland.

Forestland has, of course, trees. The Forestlanders carefully harvest their trees. They don't cut down whole, mature trees unless as a last resort. They try to harvest the fruit, leaves and even limbs without taking whole trees. They do not export lumber, even though they have an abundance. Their greatest export is technology and science. Sourcerers born to Forestlanders are usually less autistic and less powerful magically. They are always abducted by the Klelryn.

Desertland's greatest resource is transportation technology. The Desert people developed airships (ships that fly with wings), dirigibles, balloons, sea ships, sand ships and caravans. They are the world's great traders. They like nothing better than their freedom, but they also like good food, wine and company. They charge very little for their transportation services, just a small percentage and the freedom of being left alone.

In summary



I've made a few edits from earlier posts based on this work.

Day 7 - "Recent" History

From 30 Days of World Building: "Spend 15 minutes outlining the major historical events of the last 100 years before your novel begins. "

Well, it took more like an hour.

1. Who lives where, and what wars and conflicts have they had?
a. 100 years ago the GOE was at the height of its power. They had well established trade routes with Fjordland for stone and were about to invade Wispolill with the thought that they could capture and sacrifice Sourcerers to gain their magic. The comet strike ended their trade ability by destroying the fleet. It also wreaked havoc on the infrastructure so much that the GOE retreated back onto Orangeland for the most part, leaving the smoldering wreck of the main part of their empire behind on Yellowland (much like The Eastern Roman Empire left the West to its own defense).
b. 100 years ago a blacksmith of the Forest people invented the very first magical device and presented it to the ruler of his land, a Goldenman Duke. this was the beginning of the Wizards and the beginning of the rise of this Duke's power which eventually led him to King. The Golden people incessantly fight wars to establish and reestablish their elaborate hierarchy. They are also needlessly violent and cruel so that the Forest people (who normally wouldn't fight) fight to keep their human rights. They have also become very put upon by the Ice Age and lost half their land. This forces them into wars of conquest and to make plans to conquer other lands. they have made a few raids into Fjordland, but they are most interested in taking over the GOE.
c. The Fjordland people mainly fight among themselves, from one valley to another. They are too few in number to launch overseas attacks like the Vikings did.
d. The Forest people cherish innovation, resourcefulness, curiosity and diligence above all else, they have no interest in conquest of ruling. They allow themselves to be dominated by the Golden people.
e. The Desert people love freedom of movement. They don't lay claim to any land. They don't like being dominated by anyone and fight for freedom any time they see it being put down, but they have never gotten into a protracted war.
2. Who keeps the peace? - See above.
3. How do borders stay in place? - Basically the peoples are divided by being on different islands, but they are also divided by the scarcity of the population (which was thinned out when the Comet struck).
4. What happens when power shifts? – See above with the shrinking of the GOE and the expansion of the Golden people.
5. What major resources are considered necessary to staying in power? – This is the most germane to the story. The power that is most fought over is MAGIC. The descendants of the aliens have it in the Sourcerers (the Fjordlanders have their own watered down version that are less powerful, but also less autistic, they are Wizards/Priests/Sourcerers all rolled into a single individual called a Paladin).

1. Dates when power shifted in your civilization(s) (through coup, death of a monarch, revolution, election, etc.)?
a. GOE was established 1,000 years ago, on Midsummer in the year 1,000 of the GOE calendar the comet struck.
b. The Golden people keep their calendar from what they call The Year of Eruption (they don't know why, they think it was their eruption onto the world), but they date it 2,500 years ago while it was actually 10,000 years ago when the mega-volcano erupted and forced the peoples of the alien race to spread. Golden years are noted as EG (Eruption of Gold, or BEG). Year 1000GOE was year 2500EG.
c. 1EG – the first true Sourcerer is recoginized as such (probably born 10BEG).
d. 500EG – the Old Priesthood of Magic (OPM) was established by the Golden people to control magic. It was also the time when the Forest people had developed agriculture and domesticated animals.
e. 600EG – the Golden people raided the Forest people to steal their technology, with the magic wielded by the OPM they swept through easily.
f. 700EG – the first Golden cities were established
g. 700EG – 1500EG – innumerable wars were fought to establish the hierarchy of the Golden nobility, they mostly used the OPM as they wished.
h. 1500EG (1GOE) – The Great Old Empire was established with the capital city of Southopolis.
i. 100GOE (1600EG) – GOE conquered Yellowland.
j. 1800EG – Cardinal X established the Priestesshood of Klellryn to wrest control of magic and the Sourcerers from the nobility.
k. 1800 – 1900EG - The Klellryn fought the OPM to establish themselves as the magic wielding authority
l. 1900 – 2000EG – Klellryn wrangled with the Golden nobility to establish their relationship as outside of the noble hierarchy. Before this all Golden people had ranks which placed them in the hierarchy of the nobility. The Klellryn "wars" were a way to establish the Priestesshood as outside but interacting with the noble power structure. This was mainly done through magic manipulation and subversion rather than physical wars.
m. Treaty of 2000EG – It was officially agreed how the Klellryn and Golden nobility would interact. From this point on the Klellryn would wield power through magic and sexual favors. Subversion, espionage and physical force were given up by the Klellryn as weapons.
n. 500GOE (2000EG) – GOE capital was moved to the new and glorious city of Northopolis on Yellowland.
o. 2100EG – The Golden people established a kingship of the Forest people, but this was just a puppet so that the Golden people could have one point of contact with which to deal.
p. Treaty of 2110 (2010EG) – The King of the Forest gave up all power to the Golden people. This made the Forest people completely under Golden control.
q. Forest Revolt (2200EG) – Because of terrible abuses by the Golden people the Forest people had finally had enough and revolted. The war only lasted a year and the Golden people eventually won by using the Klellryn excessively. It worried the Golden people because all of their infrastructure stopped without the Forest people to run it. The nobles resolved to not control the Forest people so directly, but to contain them even more than before. The Klellryn were of mixed feelings. Many welcomed the ability to be assigned as Village Priestesses and help the Forest people, village by village. Some others saw it as a chance to really use their powers to complete control a population, like they couldn't with the Golden nobility.
r. War of Magic (2300EG) – using basically what amounted to a zombie Forest people army a faction of the Klellryn tried to wrest all power from the Golden nobility. It failed only when the free Forest people, Village Klellryn and Golden nobility joined forces. Some of the proponents of that revolt are still at large.
s. 2500EG (1000GOE) was the year when the blacksmith presented the very first magical device to Duke XY and Cardinal XX.
t. Comet Stike – Midsummer 1000GOE – the Ice Age began. The GOE began to collapse.
u. All Winter (2509EG) – the first year that the northern half of the Golden land did not see summer. This was the coldest year yet in the early Ice Age and the first year that the northern most tip of Goldenland was permanent ice bound.
v. 1010GOE (2510EG) The capital returned to Southopolis on Orangeland and the outlying provences were left to fend for themselves. The GOE was essentially reduced to two provences with most of the wealth and power moving south.
w. 2510EG Wizards were firmly entrenched in the system of the Golden people when Duke XY became King through the use of his wizards in battle.
x. 2511EG the wizards got together to form a council to regulate wizardry and established different classes of wizard based on what medium they worked on and in. This Wizard Council allowed the wizards to control their own destiny more, especially the non-Black Wizards, who were the ones most employed by the Golden nobility.
y. Winter Wars (2515EG – 2540EG) – The Golden people, pushed by the Ice Age moved further and further south eventually conquering all of Wispolill by 2540EG.
z. 2560EG – The Wizard Council had been very close to gaining some sort of control of some of the Sourcerers so that they didn't have to go to the Klellryn for all their magical needs. This and the fact that the Wizards were gaining strength outside the nobility (though they still officially had ranks within the hierarchy, they seldom paid any attention to them themselves and neither did the nobility) those in the Klellryn Web (as their ruling class is called) decided to increase their own power base. A systematic exploitation of Sourcerers was established. This took away any human rights that Sourcerers had.
aa. The Great Raid (2581EG) – The first raid of Yellowland by the Golden people. It had mixed results. The Golden people lost some of their fear and awe of the GOE, but the GOE had won some battles (most notably the defense of Northopolis) and succeeded in ejecting the Golden Expeditionary Force (GEF I) out of Yellowland. They also took prisoners and sacrificed the Sourcerers they captured in order to gain their magic (whether it worked or not is to be seen).
bb. Crackdown (2582EG) – with the sacrifice of the Sourcerers at the hands of the GOE, the Klellryn locked all Sourcerers away in dungeons.
cc. The Movement Begins (2590EG) – Golden nobles of low rank, some wizards, Forest people in general, village priestesses and Desert people began smuggling Sourcerers away from the Klellryn Web and out of Wispolill.
dd. Establishment of Seasideton (2595EG) The Movement decides to establish a colony for escaped Sourcerer on the northern shore of The Great Inland Sea on Emptyland. The colony is established with only three houses.
ee. 2600EG – the time of the story. Seasideton is up to ten families, but the transport is extremely dangerous with about 75% of those trying to make the journey either dieing or being recaptured. 75% of Sourcerers and those helping them don't even know that Seasideton even exists.
2. Whether the power shift was smooth (as it might be when a monarch dies and their offspring takes their place) – see above
3. Dates when a natural event reduced or increased the amount of natural resources (food, usually, but also water, timber, and other resources). – see above
4. Dates when an unnatural event (such as a magical or technological event) changed the resources as well. – see above
5. At the high-pressure points, write "battle/conflict" – see above
6. Date your novel begins – 2600EG (1100GOE)
7. Date your character was born
a. Cardinal XXI – 2100EG (500yo) – the Cardinal who chases the characters across the North Pole and dies by Wizard Thanh's arrow. She had been involved in the War of Magic but escaped.
b. Captain Nagao of the Thrice Blessed airship – 2565EG (35yo)
c. Village Priestess Hwah – 2578EG (22yo)
d. Wizard Thahn – 2579EG (21yo)

Day 6 - Da Races (A little bit more and some edits)

I've been thinking about the whole thing a lot and it's kind of like a puzzle where you have to try to see how things fit.

So I made some edits to the Day 4 World Scars stuff (changes are in red and additions are in green).

Additionally, the people of Wispolill and Fjordland are really part of the same overall "race" because they both came from the aliens. All the people of Wispolill are closer related than any is to the people of Fjordland. The people of the Great Old Empire are from a completely different race and are actually developed from a native species, rather than derived from alien stock.

The people of the GOE are actually furry. The men have curly fur and the women's fur is silky and short. If you think of a cross between Neanderthals and wolves for the men and Neanderthals and vixen for the women (they even have six breasts). They are as attractive as any healthy animals when they are youthful and healthy, but of course the other races don't see them as attractive people.

They do have exceptional hearing and smell. Their art reflects this by being musically oriented. They also don't see colors very well so their physical art tends to be more pattern oriented. They have a very tight knit social structure bordering on a hive structure. Think how Japanese people always seem to have conferences before doing something and how they don't hesitate to have group exercise. The people of the GOE are twice as close knit as the Japanese, and just as racially pure. 95% of Japan is Japanese, but 100% of the GOE is GOE. There are some very slight differences between the people of Yellowland (north island) and Orangeland (south island).

The people of the GOE have a kind of group telepathy that they can use for magic, but they have nothing strictly magical like the people of Fjordland and Wispolill.

Day 6 - Da Races (Addendum)

I was watching some stuff the last couple of days (Conan and Barbarians (on the History Channel) and I came up with a couple more ideas for my Heavy Magic world (working name Elorih).

The people of the orange and yellow lands (Orangeland and Yellowland for working titles) are elf-like, in that they are not quite the same species as the Fjord people, the Forest people, the Southern people and the Golden people. They were about the height of the Forest people, but stouter with thicker, dark, curly hair (actually fur) and more of it all over their bodies. They had dark skin, but not quite as dark as the Southern people. They all belonged to The Great Old Empire (working name).

There are no people on the brown land (originally named Brownland before the mega-volcano erupted), or, almost no people. When the Great Inland Sea (working name) was created by a super volcano the people who had lived there were all killed and their civilization destroyed (it was older than the Great Old Empire). There are three small villages on the entire continent now and they are peopled by a race that was developed by the traders and fisherman who had been blown off course and ended up stranded on that desolate land. The land is open (most trees were destroyed as well), but it is coming back from the disaster and is very beautiful if sparse. The people are physically a combination of all the other races. The land is called the Emptyland now.

Final Thoughts of 2009

So I have only a few minutes of 2009 left, only a few minutes left of the Double Aughts (00's). These are my final thoughts for this year and decade.

I've been thinking about New Year's Resolutions. I like to make resolutions and occasionally I actually do accomplish them. They do give my years a purpose and goal, so I'll continue for next year (later, in my next post).

I want to have my family make a Family Resolution. I checked out "Making a Family Mission Statement" from the library. It's from the Franklin Covey people, but I doubt I'll get my family to sit still and listen to it. Maybe if we have a common goal we will work together better.

I'm not saying that I am dissatisfied with my family, I am very happy with my family. In this first decade of the new millennium we increased our nuclear family by our youngest member. I've been very happy and proud of them.

In this decade I lost my maternal grandparents. I will miss them very much. Now I have no living grandparents, maybe that makes me an adult. I'm going to try my best to keep their memory alive, and to make sure my children and grandchildren know about my grandparents.

I started working for my current employer in 2001. It's been good for the most part, but most importantly it has been the longest time I've worked for one place. In that it has been entirely successful, because that was why I moved to this employer.

In this decade I left North America, first to go to Ukraine for about 3 weeks and then to go to Afghanistan for a year. Combined with the month I spent in the New Orleans area to help with the Katrina recovery, I had some very enriching experiences and memories. I left the National Guard in this decade and I have very mixed feelings about that. I miss being a part of an important team, I miss the service to my country, and I miss the special knowledge I had, but I don't miss leaving my family and I don't miss all the silliness and non-sense that surrounded it.

Well, I only have about 15 minutes left and I want to get ready to be with my family. I will write again next year.

Day 6 - Da Races

Ok, so this is going to take me longer than 30 days since I can't post daily, but here is what the exercise has for Day 6:

"1. Spend 10 minutes figuring out what people who evolved in each major area of your world would look like. Then spend another 5 minutes asking "2. what if this group encountered that group?" Would they fight? Trade? Both? Inter-marry and blend their genetic types? Would they remain largely separate, with pure strains of both racial groups co-existing (not necessarily peacefully)? How would that encounter be brought about in the first place?" [I added the numbers]

The land is called Wispolill (the exercise says not to name things yet, but I need working names). It's the purple continent in the top right corner. It has three areas, that northeast peninsula (Goldland), the northern half of the mainland (north of the tan, desert - called Forestland), and the southern land (Desertland).

1a. The people of the peninsula are the golden people. They are blond, from gold to platinum. Their hair is generally thick and wavy. The men almost never go bald. They have gold to bronze skin. They have gray to blue eyes and long straight noses. They are tall and slender build.

1b. The people of the northern mainland are forest people. They are shorter with dark, thin, straight hair. They have brown eyes and tan skin.

1c. The people of the desert and the southern end of the mainland are very dark skinned with nappy hair. The are tall and athletically built with swimmers' physiques. They have dark eyes.

1d. Gray land mass doesn't have a name yet, but the people of the northern part live in the fjords in small villages like the Vikings used to. The people are barrel chested with thick short limbs and fingers. They are exceedingly tall with round heads, flat, round faces. They're eyes are shades of green from hazel to deep sea green. The have very high foreheads with thin, straight black hair. Their noses are thick and wide, but flat to their faces.

At the time of the story the people of Wispolill are about to spread to other lands, being the only people with a well developed magical system they are poised to conquer.

2a. The people of the northern forest people of Wispolill have had off and on relations with the fjord people. They have fairly easy trade relations.

2b. The Golden people have always dominated the forest people. They look down on them. The forest people developed agriculture, domesticated animals and even mechanical magic first, but the Golden people always exploited their developments.

2c. The southern people have always kept to themselves and prided themselves in their nomadic history. They had trade relations with the lands to the south and the forest people, but they avoided the Golden people. The Golden people tended to treat the southerners as animals and hunted and killed them when they could. The southerners first developed flying machines, airplanes and dirigibles.

Day 5 - Da Map

"Draw out the physical contours of your map, and then identify at least three places that your people might live. You don't need names for them yet-- we'll worry about names next week, when we give our people language. Just draw a dot on the map or maybe sketch a little "house" symbol to indicate that people have settled that area. "

This is the world map for the Heavy Magic story. The actual map is really much clearer. The red dots are the cities. The tan areas are deserts. The white at the top and bottom are the ice caps. Each square is 50 miles by 50 miles.

Day 4 - World Building Scars

The instructions: "Jot down some of the Really Big Land Features you want in your story and just think "what if that were made by...." Write down a couple of causes for those features and scars."

Heavy Magic:

1. The world is 1/4 the size of the Earth and 1/4th as old (about 1 billion years). The year is 400 days and the days are 24 hours long.
2. The three moons were made about 250 million years after the formation of the planet by an asteroid collision. The largest, furthest out is Yellow Moon, which orbits ten times a year. The next is the White Moon, which orbits once every ten days. The smallest and closest in is the Gray Moon, which orbits four times a day. The moons all align on the Spring Equinox so that's new years. There are ten months in a year and four 10 day weeks in each month. You can also tell time at night (or on certain clear days) by the Gray Moon.
3. Cenotes and circular craters were formed from asteroid and meteorite strikes. There was a great slew of them between 50 million years ago and 10 million years ago.
4. Aliens landed about 100,000 years ago. They colonized Brownland and brought with them many species that eventually became dominant over the natives. They genetically engineered the people of the Great Old Empire on Yellowland.
5. The Great Inland Ocean was formed when the mega volcano blew about 10,000 years ago. This destroyed the civilization of the aliens and buried it. Almost none of their artifacts have ever been found. Many of the people escaped, but a very few sailed east and west to establish themselves on Fjordland and Wispolill. None of those people have any memory of the original alien civilization.
6. About 100 years ago a broken comet struck and started an ice age[strikeout], and also released the energy that would end up being magic.[/strikeout] It caused the Great Old Empire to go into decline, especially on Yellowland (north). Before the ice age the polar caps only touched land in the winters.

Seekretya (the name of the country in the children's fantasy)

1. Seekretya was once a ley line nexus where powerful magic accumulated. When the scientific method was developed, about 1000 AD in the Muslim world, it started driving magic creatures, items and magic itself along the ley lines. As time went on Seekretya became the ultimate sinkhole for all things magical. The more modern society developed the more it drove things there. Specific events included:
2. 1492 - When the new world was discovered it forced all the magical animals into Seekretya.
3. About 1600 - Galileo's work forced all magical races into Seekretya
4. 1687 - Newton's Principia forced all magical items, the last of anything magical into Seekretya, which at that time became the last refuge of magic in this world.
5. 1880 - Tesla's work with electricity, and the spread of electricity, led to the collapse of Ley Lines. With the Ley Lines gone, no magic could ever get in or out of Seekretya by magical means.
6. 1950s - The use of atomic weapons super-charged the magical energy in Seekretya, giving it enough power to avoid detection, and travel by any means. This also prevents any electrical devices from operating correctly in, above or below Seekretya.

Day 3 Mood and Setting; A New Look

Continuing on my world building journey, I'm at day 3.


I actually did this last night, but I had trouble because I have so many fantasy worlds swimming around in my noggin that I couldn't really decide which one to use.


I tend to get an idea and then stories grow from there. Whole stories blossom from tiny acorns of ideas. The trouble with this exercise is that it's a whole tree full of acorns and I was having trouble with whole forests of stories cropping up. I hate to thin.


My other problem is MOOD. This drives stories more than anything else. When I'm in a mystery mood I want to write a mystery. My trouble is, how do I maintain a mood long enough to get the story out?! This is a real problem for me and the main cause of my waffling and not finishing stories.


The first parts of this exercise were taking me all over the mood-map. I couldn't get settled. I have a couple of ideas/moods I wanted to keep and use, but I was being tossed around in the moody sea.


This morning I realized that I was trying to use this exercise to pull me "outside the box" and make me think of things in a new way. The trouble with this is that I have no trouble coming up with ideas, and often they are all very different. What I need is focus and decisions. Sometimes it feels like I'll loose something if a choose a certain path. I want to go down all paths at once.

I think I need a new way to approach these exercises. I have two fantasy story lines I want to pursue: "Heavy Magic" and a children's Christmas-y/bedtime story line.

Heavy Magic is a story line I've been stewing over for a while. I want the flavor, or mood if you will, of Richard Corben's Den; and Conan and Burroughs as imaged by Frank Frazetta. Basically I want to write a fantasy story with lots of sex and magic, a story that has all the eroticism of the old pulp sword and sorcery, but told in a modern way and with a more favorable view of magic. It has gritty realism without wallowing in the blood. It's mysterious, dark yet hopeful.

The children's story is a lot different. I want that to be warm and fuzzy, lush and rich, homey and inviting, teaching and challenging, difficult yet attainable.

With all that in mind I'm going to move forward on those two paths for my world building, to make a world for each of those story lines.

BUT FIRST, I'm going to post what I did last night when I was originally thinking about this exercise, then I'll post what I think using this new approach.

From 30 Days of World Building:

"Write down four words that fit into that feeling: two adjectives, a verb, and a noun. Now return to the page with your list of climates and emotions. Do any of them match up? If they do, you have your climate. If not, try to find closest-match words.

If you spend 10 solid minutes thinking about this and still can't decide, pick two climates that express moods you like. You can make up your mind later, and you can even build your world with both climates containing equally probable sites for your story."


And this is what I came up with (again, this is without regard to my story lines):
1. ADJECTIVES: Mystery, frustration, challenge
2. VERB: Grow
3. NOUN: Quest

1. Temperate Rainforest/Far Eastern Beaches, Great Plains, Great Lakes
2. River
3. Temperate Rainforest

Alternate (totally random):
South Atlantic Seaside / Desert

OK, SO LET'S LOOK AT THIS AGAIN:
Here is my new version:

Heavy Magic

1. ADJECTIVES: Sexy, Dangerous, Magical, Larger than life, Erotic, Powerful, Action-packed
2. VERB: Swashbuckling
3. NOUN:

The climatic responses are:

• High desert
• Arctic
• Temperate rainforest
• Nordic fjord (they aren't all from my previous list, but if I go from the feeling to the places that's what I come up with).

Children's Fantasy

1. ADJECTIVES: Cuddly, warm, fuzzy, lush, rich, inviting, homey, difficult, attainable
2. VERB: Teach
3. NOUN: Challenge

The climatic responses are:

• Green valley
• River
• Smokey Mountains
• Temperate forest

Day 2 - Baby It's Cold Outside

"Your exercise for today is to jot down ten plot devices that relate to weather, and what you think they do to the story." From 30 Days of World Building.

The phrase "plot device" makes me cringe, but here goes:

1. Blizzard - slow the heroes down and isolate them, blind them
2. Monsoon - make the roads impassable, make the heroes put up tents, flood the caves and dungeons. Will the river flood, can the heroes stop it?
3. Sunny day - make travel quick, make the heroes yearn for adventure
4. Tornado - (rash of tornadoes) make the heroes dodge them, try to use the weather to their advantage and as a weapon against the enemy
5. Hurricane - Make the heroes anxious, batten down the hatches, be they on land or sea. In the eye they try to hurry to get things done or reinforce what has shown to be weak.
6. Tsunami - Make the heroes run to higher ground, maybe make the bad guys take advantage of the confusion. The heroes will come back and try to help those caught in the wave
7. Sudden Thunderstorm - cut the plans short, allow short bursts of vision as the bad guy tries to take advantage of the situation and the good guys try to find shelter
8. Freezing Rain - makes everything dangerous by degrees, slowly icing things up so that they don't work, will it end or will the heroes find shelter soon enough or will everything go bad?
9. Fog - Quiet and foreboding. You need a friend in a fog that knows the area well enough to get around blindfolded. Can the friend be trusted? Can you move quietly enough to get past that guard?
10. Heat Wave - Don't move a muscle, maybe it will be cooler that way. Everything slows down, need shade. Travel at night, hunker down under shade in the day.

(I gotta get me a new photo from the blizzard of '79)

Day 1 - Turn Left to Go Right

There are some among you who will cry, "Stick to ONE thing and finish it!"

Seeing as it's the Christmas season, and Winter Solstice today particularly, and everywhere is lush with the MAGIC of the season I can't help the pull of wanting to write fantasy.

I know I haven't finished my mystery novel, but I have plotted it all out, the characters have been very friendly and helpful to me, and I really do want to write it and love ready mysteries. I know I can and will return to it, it has no insurmountable flaws (do you hear that The Larch, I'm thinking of you now).

Anyhow the Fantasy Muse has mugged and kidnapped the Mystery Muse so I'm going to have to obey her (and secretly enjoy it). I have a two pronged plan. I want to write children's fantasy so I'm going to be writing and sharing short stories here with that bend. I feel guilty about not telling my youngest the same type of stories I made up for her older sisters anyway.

The other prong, if you will, is driven by a site I found today, 30 Days of World Building. I'm going to be following the advice and exercises there and post the results here. To show you my earnestness, I'm going to post Day 1 here and now:

Climatic Zones and the Feelings They Invoke:

1. Temperate Rainforest - mysterious and magical
2. Rocky Mountains - beautiful and cold, distant and unapproachable
3. Smokey Mountains - hidden meaning, ancient and guarded, wise
4. Great Plains - vast, open, boring
5. California Seaside - surf fun, dangerous
6. Southern Atlantic Seaside - gentle fun, old
7. Far Eastern Beaches - exotic and mysterious, longing, wishful
8. Low Pacific Islands - sandy, warm, crystal, pure
9. Great Lakes - surprising and helpful
10. River - stretches off into the unknown distance, but helpful
11. Swamp - hidden danger, soggy and sad
12. Dry Riverbed - disappointment, broken promise
13. Desert - Hot, uncomfortable, unwelcome, lost
14. Tropical Forest - tiny close danger
15. Arctic - wet cold but full of life
16. Antarctic - desert cold almost unimportant
17. Open Sea - vast with many pop-up surprises

Not Firing on All Cylinders, or Dancing with the Muse What Brung Me

I'm missing days. I write on some and not on others. I'm still working on The Boys of St. Leonard's, but I can't get to it every day. I WILL finish it, but it may take longer than I expected (or planned).

I did figure something out about myself. I'm mostly interested in antique mysteries. I'm not talking about historical mysteries. Those are stories set in the past. No, what I'm interested in are stories written a long time ago, but that were contemporary at the time. Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, and M. Dupin are all favorites of mine.

I had flirted with writing an historical novel this November, but I went with the Boys. I think next time I'll write the story I was thinking about with a detective that is a WWII vet.

I'm guilty of writing some of it today, so the least I can do is share the snippet.

Captain Thomas Selfridge – WWII Disabled Vet Detective

"So, glad to be home for Christmas, Tom?" Uncle Vernon sipped punch with a ridiculous smile on his face.

Tom Selfridge grunted as he shifted his weight on the kitchen stool, "Not really. There's still a war to be won."

"But Tom, you did your duty, you gave an eye and your right arm." Vernon grimaced, he was not drunk enough to see that he had offended the veteran.

"It's just my hand, and that doesn't really matter to all those boys who lost and are loosing their lives does it?" he stood. He was a tall man who had grown lanky in the service of his country. He was sun-leathered almost as dark as the uniform he wore. He insisted on wearing a mustache, even though it came in too blond and sparse. He eyed his uncle with his remaining pale gray eye. Then he softened.

The older man was round and soft from good living, but he had a good heart and loved his family. He had never known war, nor hunger, but he had worked honestly and earnestly his whole life.

"Merry Christmas Uncle," Tom patted him on the arm and moved away to gaze out the window at the snowy Chicago street in his own anguish.

Slipping

I missed a day yesterday, I was thinking about the Boys, but I didn't actually write anything.

I took off Monday through Thursday with the idea that I could finish the book and get some Christmas decorating done, BUT I ended up painting and stuff because our first floor renovation isn't done YET.

We are THIS close to being done enough to bring up the tree and stuff, but I still have some things to do and now I'm back at work.

None of this helps the book.

Let me give you the first chapter and let me know what you think.

The Boys of St. Leonard’s

Chapter 1 – The Nightmare

The screaming woke Clovis Murphy from a sound sleep.

He heard it again, glanced at the clock, 2:00 AM. He was out of his bed and his room like a shot. He crossed the dorm suite common room in a single stride and opened Nick’s bedroom door. The window was closed and the light was off. Clovis turned it on and saw Nick sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead and panting.

“You okay buddy?”

Nick’s breathing slowed. Clovis looked down where he thought Nick was staring, at the stumps below his knees, but Nick was just staring straight ahead. He was covered in sweat.

Clovis sat on the edge of Nick’s bed, “Buddy?”

Nick took a deep, ragged breath and glanced up at Clovis, then looked forward again.
.
“Was it Iraq?”

Nick breathed out forcefully. “I’m okay.”

“You want me to do something, make you some tea?”

“You make tea?” He laughed.

“Well, if you don’t want…”

“No, that’s fine. Thanks for coming over. Sorry I woke you. I’ll make some tea. You want my special herbal?”

“If that’s what you’re having. I can start the water boiling.”

“Boiling? You don’t boil tea.”

Clovis gave him an angry look.

“I must be fine if you’re mad at me. Hand me my feet, would you?”

Clovis smiled as he handed Nick his prosthetics and went out to get the tea set out. When he went into the common room there was a knock on the door. It was Juan Vega the seminary student who was their floor RA.

“You guys alright in here?” He was in a ratty green robe, tee shirt, boxers and slippers.

“Fine, just nightmares.” Clovis answered as Nick walked into the common room.

“Oh good. I didn’t know with you guys, I mean, I mean you guys have been doing some strange things, I mean with the investigating stuff, you know.”

“I know.” Clovis said.

“I’m making some herbal tea, would you like some Juan?”

He took a step in the room and threw himself in one of the lounge chairs even before he said, “Yes please.”

Before the water was ready La Bamba started playing from somewhere inside Juan’s robe. He struggled to find his phone, wriggling his bulk in the chair until he found his pocket and phone.

“Juan Vega, yes. Yes. What? Now, I mean now? Yes ma’am. Ok. Right away. Ok, thank you.”

“What is it?” Clovis asked.

“You guys know Chet Reese?”

Before Clovis and Nick could answer, Juan blurted, “He’s been found dead!”

“Dead?” Clovis asked.

“I have to go down and identify the body, do you guys want to go with me? They’re still at the crime scene. You guys investigate stuff, maybe you can help the cops.”

“I don’t think so.” Nick said.

“What?” Clovis turned to his roommate who was leaning near the electric tea kettle.

“We weren’t invited, and we don’t investigate death. Death isn’t a game or a tourist attraction.” He turned away.

“Still, I would really feel better if you guys would go with me. I’m kind of nervous around cops, you know it’s a Latin thing.”

Clovis gave him a cockeyed look.

“What?”

Clovis raised his eyebrows and pointed at his ebony face and short dreadlocks, “Don’t try to play the race card with me.”

Nick chuckled over the kettle as it whistled.

“Ok, right, well, you guys know the campus cops and they found him on campus. Would you please come with me?”

“Okay,” Nick said, “at least let me put together some travel mugs first.”

Stay on Target, Stay on Target

I have a serious itch to write a fantasy story. I need to finish my mystery story, but the Christmas season and our new decor in our house are driving me towards fantasy. My muse is dressed all in yuletide garb and is dancing to a carol. How can I write a noir-ish mystery with all that going on?

NaNo NO!

Funny that this comes after a post on Oxi Day. I'm not going to make it, I'm not going to get 50,000 words done this month on my book.

I have my excuses all lined up, I was renovating my entire first floor, Dad with cancer, wife got the flu, kids' concerts and games, computer at work crashed. Bottom line is, I'm not going to make it again this year.

The good news is that I like the story. I'm going to try to write an hour a day until it's finished. At that rate I should have about 70k words by the end of the year, which is probably a better length for this work anyway.

I've really enjoyed creating the characters, town and the college (University of Senachwine in Illinois). There are still lots of blanks to fill in on the map and they aren't screaming at me, just calling seductively.