A New Chapter 7 for Notes From the Abyss P2

So this is getting placed in the middle of NFTAP2 to establish a history for a few things I want to work with later. This isn’t the only large scale edit I’m going to be doing to NFTAP2.

So, here we go!

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Gulch of Fire

I don’t know what else to call it yet. Anyway, here goes.

Eighty years ago, things changed.
Eighty years ago, the Great Kingdoms were attacked by the Famine and people died. Civilization died. Things changed.
Eighty years ago, the mountains shook and shuddered and rumbled. Down from the peaks came whole clouds of the Famine-Flyers. Insects as big as a fist that’d eat anything. Especially steel. Especially the flesh and armor of the great Knights, our Heroes, our Kings. They ate up all of the defenses and all of our food until we adapted. Until things changed.
Eighty years ago, the Famine started. It lasted for five years and killed nine in ten. If not from the Famine-Flyers, from the starvation. From the cold. From the fear. Now things have changed and the world’s moved on. The knights and soldiers carry hard iron now. The wizards and will-workers use science and genius to supplement their magics, since the world is weak and faithless. Clerics have taken up The Black and the serve the Saints in their own ways, burying the dead and healing the sick. Trappers, Trackers, and Scouts have taken up the Rifle to claim the land back from the Famine-Flyers – even if it is just a desert now. The common people have had to become hard-bitten and competent, honing their skills to razors. And over them all are the Marshals, keeping the peace and serving the Righteous Law since the Temple Knights all died fighting the Famine.
Things changed, the world’s harder now. But we get along.

Taking Back the Future

Humanity was born out of the blood, the mud, and the beer of nature. As it were. We are creatures of the environment we find ourselves in and much of our presumptions about the world, much of nature, is formed of emergent systems. The fact that we’re social animals is an emergent system. However, we’ve risen above our natural organization, our natural programming, and we’ve moved past living purely on instinct and survival. Our primate ancestors figured out tools and society, and our ancestors laid down the foundations of our world. They did this using one very powerful technology that we, the progressive people of the world, need to take back and make our own. It’s a technology that’s been instrumental in all of us becoming part of the progressive, radical, and liberal movements that we come from.

That technology is the power of the story. That technology is narrative.

The Hub

More of a project I’m working on with a friend of mine.

I hope you enjoy it!

As I’ve mentioned before, if you do enjoy it, please consider sending a link to this, or to the blog itself, to friends and fellow readers. If you like it a lot please consider donating to The Writing Engine over on the right hand side. I’m currently supported by a wonderful woman who can’t quite keep me up on her own and I’m slowly working through unemployment payments. Every penny that’s sent is treasured dearly for the food, clothes, and stability it gives me.

Now to work on my post for Wednesday.

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Thought I Owed You Something

Here’s a couple of characters that I’m working on for that steampuunky fantasy humor thing I’m trying to write.

Hope you like them!

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An Odious Duty

I cannot claim ownership of this piece in its entirety, the seed comes from a dear friend of mine that has helped me do some of my editing and continues to be a great friend and confidant.

This, as well, is just the beginning. There is, potentially, much me to come.

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[Open Thread] Greatest Villain!

In the annals of evil, throughout all the books and movies, songs and shows that you have consumed, who is the greatest of all evils? What villain has stood apart from the others as the most vile?

It could be Saruman, it could be Torak, it could be Sidius, but it’s gotta be somebody.

Experimentation

I’m still playing around with my newish steampunk fantasy setting. Hopefully I find something really nice through all this digging around.

Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying everything, sharing links with your friends, that kind of thing.

See you all around!

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I don’t know. Don’t ask me to explain.

Please, if you can, consider throwing a few coins in my hat through the donate button on the right.

For now I’m going to shower and make sense of what the hell I just wrote.

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[Open Thread] Having Trouble Writing Today – Let Us Chat

I have just finished reading the Belgariad for the…fifth time, I think. Next I’m tackling the Grand Admiral Thrawn trilogy. I’m kind of out of ideas for today, so instead let’s talk about what you enjoy. Specifically, the kinds of fantasy that you enjoy. The setting that I’m most enamored with right now is Royan, my fantasy setting, and I’m culling ideas from as many great fantasy settings as I can. So tell me about the settings and world and fantasies you love.

Tell me how to write a better fantasy.