Unity RPG Q&A with Project Director Anson!

Q&A with the man behind the Unity Tabletop RPG

As you might know, last October I backed a Kickstarter to fund the development of a new tabletop role-playing game system called Unity being created by Zensara Studios.  As a writer and lover of high fantasy worlds, I asked the head of the project, Anson Tran, if he would like to answer some questions.  The following is the Q&A that follow, which was conducted via email.

Unity:  Four Factions.  One Destiny

Draconic Author:  So tell me about yourself. Who is Anson and what inspired you to create your own tabletop role-playing game?
Anson Tran: These questions are always hard. I’m a working professional in the IT industry who’s always had a love for stories and games. I was introduced to tabletop gaming a little over 13 years ago and I fell head over heels in love with it as a hobby because it combined my two favorite things when it comes to entertainment. Before tabletop gaming, I had been an avid fan of video games since I was a child. I was blown away by the freedom and openness that tabletop roleplaying afforded me while still giving me the same feelings I get as I sink my teeth into a good video game. Growing up, I always had this burning desire to create my own game but it was very daunting when the only medium I was familiar with were video games. I would ruminate a lot on game design ideas and it was a nice escape for me from the real world. This was done with the caution and understanding that I’ll probably never get to design a video game. Stepping into the tabletop gaming world blew the doors wide open on what was possible and made design and creation a very real thing – I feel the very act of GMing games acts like an educational institution for design.  Certain unfortunate life events (that might have been a blessing in disguise) coupled with my burning desire to create something and fulfill a dream I’ve had since I was a kid pushed me over that edge of “this would be a cool idea” to “oh my god I’m doing it!” I was afforded a small reprieve from work and I started creating Unity and testing it with my local groups of players. The feedback was positive and it spurred me to continue down the path that I am currently on.

DA:  That's a great feeling to have, and anytime I share my own work with people it encourages me work on it even more.  Now. I’ve been a fan of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and role-playing games (RPGs) since I first got Baldur’s Gate on the computer almost 16 years ago. Things have changed a lot since then, especially how people play. What was important for you to make part of your game that you enjoyed over years of gaming?
AT: Baldur’s Gate! Many, many a good hours were lost over that game and its sequel for me.  I think for me, gaming and how we game may have evolved significantly over the years but the feelings remain the same. It was important for me to understand those feelings and really drill down to get to the heart of them and what were the triggers that made them possible. I believe it’s subjective so I can only speak from my own experiences, but some of the best gaming moments I’ve had were shared with friends. There are some amazing single player experiences out there and I’m a huge fan of the single player experience, but for me, working together with a buddy or two to accomplish goals and sharing in the adventure as we reach those goals was paramount and the reason that I kept playing. When designing Unity, I focused a lot on teamwork, synergy, and gently prodding players into a dialogue with each other and rewarding them for it. Those were the most fulfilling moments for me when playing games over the years, video or tabletop. Something that ties in with this was also remembering the frustrating moments in my gaming career where there were barriers or obstacles that made it difficult to achieve those fulfilling moments I previously mentioned. It helps to keep me cognizant of designing rules that might impede the central concept of Unity.

DA: You mention in your Kickstarter Project video that your professional career makes you a good candidate to trust with completing your goals for Unity. What exactly do you do and how does it make your project one that Backers can take comfort knowing their money will be used as they intend: to complete the project and provide them with a product?
AT:  As mentioned earlier, I work within the IT industry and have held roles as a project manager and analyst. The stakes are higher in my industry as it’s focused on healthcare IT but the general challenges are the same when it comes to the majority of project work. Doing the Kickstarter and entering a new industry (tabletop gaming) has been an incredible learning experience and part of that has been translating the skills and knowledge from previous IT projects and finding a way to fit them to some of the more specific/unique challenges that have cropped up with designing a tabletop RPG.
Planning is so critical to project work and even more so when you are dealing with systems that save lives. Being immersed in the industry for 5+ years really drills this into your head and I’ve done my best to let this rigor spill over into everything I do for Unity. As it’s a new industry for me with its own unique challenges, I tried to install as many safety nets as possible to provide my backers with confidence that completion and delivery are inevitable conclusions. One of these would be the fact that I invested a large portion of the money, time, and effort upfront to have something substantial to show the world that I was dead serious about delivering a quality product. Another would be having contingencies – backup printers, backup artists, back up fulfillment etc.

DA:  If you could have included something into Unity that didn’t make the cut and wasn’t revealed as a stretch goal, what might it be?
AT:  I would have loved to include an additional bestiary, a separate supplement just filled with monsters and foes to fight.

DA:  You released your Kickstarter under Zensara Studios. Where does the name come from and who makes up the studio besides yourself?
AT:  I’ve always been a pretty spiritual person and that’s reflected in the name. Zensara came from Zen and the “sara” is from Samsara (which alludes to the infinite cycle of life and death). Zensara Studios is largely myself with my contractors for artwork and things that will take me far too long to learn (like animating videos). I have a business partner who is hands-off creatively but helped me get the company going initially. As the Core Rulebook nears completion, we’ll be looking to expand the company a bit by bringing in additional writers to help with the stretch goals.

DA:  How far do you see this project going? Dreams of a phone call from Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast? Paizo Publishing? How high is the ceiling for Zensara Studios?
AT:  Honestly Shane, if people are enjoying Unity and want more then I’d love to deliver more. One thing I’ve learned from this whole experience is that it can be a balancing act to make sure you don’t burn out on the thing that you love and you don’t slowly turn the thing that you love into a chore. Because I own all the creative aspects of my game, I’ve found the balancing act achievable and it sometimes makes me wonder if I could maintain this level of passion if I was making someone else’s game. Because of this, I haven’t really been spending my daydreaming hours thinking about a call from the big dogs.  Thought it would be better spent trying to see how I could fit more lizardmen into Unity because I know that makes certain people giddy.

Giddy is an understatement.  Have you seen my page banner?  

DA:  Just from your Kickstarter page, any veteran D&D player would recognize the page style used in your samples, but your book looks to be much more colorful than the standard D&D handbook. What considerations did you put into your design style? Do you think the benefit of having a full-color book outweighs the added costs of production?
AT:  Unity has been a passion project since the beginning. I knew I would probably lose money but I’ve been enamoured with the idea of a little guy like myself releasing a high quality product, not just content wise but production values as well. When you ask if I think the benefit of a full-colour book outweighs the added costs of production, the answer would be that it depends on the creator’s goals. My goal as mentioned just now, is just to have the kind of game book that I would be salivating for myself, that I would feel really good to hold in my hands and flip through, that I would be super excited to bring and show my friends and try to rope them into trying the game with me. In that sense, yeah it’s worth it.

DA:  I’m a huge fan of what Wizards/Hasbro did with the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, especially coming from 3.5. Before 4th, melee characters were limited in most combat situations to just swinging their weapon, even with the horde of supplementary content, both official and home-brewed, while the casters had a plethora of effects and options. 4th gave everyone a ‘spell book’ of sorts to choose from, each with effects that could help allies and hinder enemies while adding flavor and appeal to combat.What was it about the Power Card system that you liked so much, and in what ways do you think you improved it?
AT:  The Power Card system gave me that video game feel and as an avid gamer all my life, it was incredibly comforting tucking into that when 4th first came out. It also spoke to video gamer sensibilities about ‘balance’ in that you didn’t have caster types having all the fun, and martial types had variety and depth beyond “I swing my sword.” as well. I’ve always been a huge proponent of every type of class having depth and variety. I felt pigeonholed into playing a caster in earlier editions of D&D and some other tabletop RPGs because they actually had a bunch of different things they could do (fun!) even though sometimes I really wanted to play a warrior type.
One thing that became apparent as we played 4th more that didn’t jive too well with my groups was that there were a lot of fiddly bits and coupled with an individual turn/initiative system for all units on the battlefield, combat began to feel incredibly long and tedious. I understand a lot of folks don’t mind this and embrace the long combats inherent to 4th but it wasn’t our cup of tea even though we loved the variety of powers and the tactical nuance that was afforded by them. I’m always loathe to say “we tried to make X better by…” because tabletop gaming is so largely subjective to individual tastes but for us streamlining the powers on top of a system that supported simultaneous turns made combat feel smoother and faster while still remaining a fulfilling and thrilling experience that rewarded smart and creative thinking.

DA:  We had our problems with combat taking forever too.  Fourth Edition also made role-playing feel secondary to combat. With so many combat choices, role-playing (in my experience playing) could feel stunted by confusing skill categories and ‘Skill Challenges’ which made the game more about ‘roll playing’ than role playing. That said, a good Game Master/Dungeon Master (GM/DM) can make any system better with effort. Did you have similar experiences? Was and is making role playing a key foundation in Unity as important as making players feel powerful?
AT:  Absolutely. Unity is this abomination child (said with all the love a father can muster) that has both parts roleplaying and gaming tweaked to the tastes of myself and the groups I play with. You have the combat and the powers that are rigidly defined with rules and conditions, and then you have something like Core Paths which are open, free-flowing, and a bit nebulous. I tried to make the game in a way where I could have my cake and eat it too. Roleplaying is hugely important to me and speaks to that side that loves hearing and telling stories. I like being taken on a rollercoaster of emotions and I’m always trying to find ways for players to buy tickets to that very ride. Things like Core Paths, Spark Points, and Failing Forward are my way of saying this isn’t just a game but also a story that you’re all writing together.

DA:  While reading through the Early Access Packet I saw an interesting side-bar titled “Shades of Grey” describing Unity as a game of heroes and cooperation. The most important aspect of an RPG is the role playing. While I always play some form of Good Sword-Wielder, I know people who love to play the villain who is out for himself and more than willing to leave the ‘meat shields’ behind. What made you point this out in your game? Why did you feel it necessary to tell players that the game isn’t meant to be played as an evil character? Could you have worded that differently?
AT:  I pointed it out specifically because I wanted to inform the reader in a nice way that I did not put a single thought into making the game support evil campaigns. In fact the name of the game itself is about cooperation and working together. I actually am unsure how Unity would play if someone decided to make an evil character. Could be a fun experiment. I also might have something tucked away in the corner of my mind about another game where you are encouraged to make evil characters.

DA:  Okay, last question for now.  The idea of Synergistic Combat Solutions (to paraphrase my favorite nonsensical Cards Against Humanity card) is one of the reasons I Backed this project. The scene in The Avengers when Captain America deflects Iron Man’s repulsor blasts around a corner is visually appealing, and to be able to create combos between players is a first in my tabletop experience. Sure, casting Magic Weapon on an ally's weapon is a neat buff, but throwing the barbarian over a wall so his ground slam attack inflicts more damage is usually something done at the DM’s discretion, not built into the rules. What gave you this idea, and what sort of crazy combos did you build into the game? Do you expect players to find new ways to synergize powers that may be ‘broken’ or overpowered? What (if any) is one that you didn’t add that sounded like a good idea in theory but didn’t work out when the rules were applied?
AT:  What you describe about throwing the barbarian over the wall so he can land with grand aplomb and send his foes scattering through the air while possibly caving in some ogre’s skull with his hammer from the force of his landing is pretty much what gave me the idea for this “Synergistic Combat Solutions” :P We found over the years, we were doing a lot of these GM discretion moments when we gamed and almost every time, it would be AWESOME. It made us look voraciously around for a game that had this built into the rules and supported it but we came up pretty short of what we envisioned.
There are a lot of combos that come to mind and many more still to be discovered. One thing that surprised me in a session was watching my players utilize a 3 person combo to land some significant damage on a monster. The Primalist class has an ability called Aspect of the Rhino that encourages the Primalist to move before they attack as every range band they cover adds a chunk of damage on top of their normal attack damage. The 3 players tried to create and cover as much distance as possible between the monster and the Primalist. The Dreadnought in the group used a power to swat the monster back a range band further and the Sentinel crouched down low with her shield braced to launch the Primalist another 2 extra range bands, who was charging across the battlefield with Aspect of the Rhino up. The resulting hit was massive and instantly killed the monster. Having players discover these combos is an incredible feeling.
I absolutely expect folks to discover some broken combos out there. The nature of this type of system creates many different possibilities. As you add more powers or more classes etc, things begin to multiply. But now that the Early Access Packet (EAP) is out and folks are playing, we’re getting a lot of good feedback and will hopefully catch some of these overpowered combos. With regards to your question about something that I wanted to add but didn’t, to be honest, I didn’t have this struggle BUT you might notice the Overdrive power Prismatic Shard for the Primalist in the Early Access Packet. It’s an idea that I’m fond of but I’m unsure if its execution and rule set are easily understood by the player/GM. I deliberately left it in there to see how folks with fresh eyes will utilize it (if they can) and I’m watching the feedback on that power closely. I’m hoping it makes sense and people see what I’m trying to do there but it could very well end up removed/replaced and that would be my answer to your question.

Thank you, Anson, for your time and for answering these questions for me.  I look forward to more meaty updates to test and possibly another -more punctually delivered- round of questions with you.  For those who want to learn more about the Unity RPG, please visit the links below.

• Kickstarter Page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/215931791/unity-tabletop-rpg/description
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ZensaraStudios/
• Website: http://www.unity-rpg.com/

Game Review: Unity Table-Top RPG (In Development)

 A look at an In-Development Tabletop RPG that focuses on story

Back at the beginning of August, I found an intriguing link on Facebook about a tabletop role-playing game in development that was raising funds on Kickstarter.  Curious, as I am about any new RPG, I clicked to see what it was about.  Going by the title Unity, the game is an interesting blend of the fantasy, Steampunk, and post-apocalypse genres.  Set in the titular world, Unity is a realm devastated by the very deity who so lovingly created it.  Once a paradise among the stars for the Children of the Skyfather and Ivory Queen, the deities who created it, it is now a shattered world where the material world and the spiritual world are open to one another in devastating ways.  Now four factions must find a way to unite once again to save their world.

The game sets you in this world to do as you will.  As either Human, Afflicted, Furian, or Valla, you must chase destiny and make your way in the world.  But what will you do in a world of murky morals where surviving outweighs compassion? Do you seek to make the world whole again and heal the wounds of the past?  Do you seek to amass your own small empire to live in luxury as the world burns?  Unity leaves these choices up to the Game Master and his players, and with a focus on story more than strict rules, the game is designed to reward players for being actively engaged in the storytelling, and not just rolling the dice, and where even failure can mean moving both combat and the story forward.

The themes of Unity are part of what makes me want to delve into it.  The first is Murky Morales, which I mentioned above.  Unity throws you into the world where the worst has and is happening, and being 'good' isn't always as important or even as desired as simply surviving.  Then there is the Culture Clash of four (or more) different cultures that are forced to work together even when they'd rather kill each other.  Another is finding the surviving Technological Wonders of Unity's Golden Age, when the world was indeed united in common purpose and rose to challenge their creators.  And of course Discovery and Exploration plays an important part of this game world, as many mysterious, treasures, and safe places await those daring enough to search for them.

The Kickstarter

As the Kickstarter progressed, and more money was raised, I become more and more interested in what the final product would be.  The team at Zensara Studios provided a preview of their core rule book, and after reading through it, I was sold.  Their philosophy of design looks to resolve many of the issues I've always had with the typical D&D style games that reward shrewd character creation over inventiveness and experimentation.  While I have yet to get the playtest for Unity (which should be available in November) the system offers a surprising amount of options for each of the game's nine original classes.  Some of these design choices are similar to what D&D 4th Edition tried to do by offering different tiers of powers that had different effects as well as catch names to make using them feel more empowering than just, "I swing my +2 Sword of Shocking."  Some, though, were different than what I've experienced, such as these same powers having synergy with certain others.  Have a power that stuns enemies, and your friend has one that does extra damage to stunned enemies?  What about a charge power with limited range, but your friend can throw you farther so you can reach your target AND have added momentum (damage) when you land?  You can do things like that.

From Left to Right: Driftwalker, Berserker, Phantom, Sentinel, Primalist, Priest, Fell Hunter, Mystic, Judge

My favorite aspect of their system is how instead of a strict and either limited or far too comprehensive list of skills that your character can use (for instance, just how many things count as Acrobatics?) your character instead gets Core Paths.  As an example, you may have three core paths, one worth 3 points and two worth 1 point each.  These paths each cover some aspect of your character.  Continuing the example, if your 3 point Path is called A Warrior's Heart, it might cover any skill a warrior might have, from running long distances to climbing to breaking down a door.  So, if your character wants to do any of those things and get the full 3 point bonus, the player would tell an anecdote about how that aspect of their life resulted in them being able to bust down that door, or climb that wall, etc.  The DM would then decide how well it applies, and also if the story telling deserves the bonus.  For a better idea of the total character creation process, as well as the team's more succinct explanation of Core Paths, check out their video at the break.

Unity's Character Creation Demo Video

Since this system focuses on the story a good deal, one of the other interesting aspects of this system is how the Game Master (GM), or the person managing the game for the group of players, can do so without having to rely on the constant rolling of dice to determine outcomes.  While most of the specifics of the rules have not been released yet, the idea is that the system will have structures in place to allow the GM to make decisions on the fly so as to keep the narrative going and not interrupting it with mechanics.  One such structure was the Core Paths mentioned before, which allows players to relate their characters experiences to things they are attempting to achieve in order to gain a bonus.  Another will be Honor Points.  These points are rewarded for describing what your character is doing in an interesting or highly detailed way.  The idea is to encourage people to say more than, "I hit the goblin with my sword," and instead embellish their role-playing with, "I draw my katana, waiting for the monster to raise his club.  Then, in one swift stroke, I slice the beast across its abdomen."  Combined with the descriptions given to the Powers available to characters, players will have springboards from which to give great descriptions of their actions.  These points can then be used to receive bonuses to actions to create those epic moments players of such games play for.  And to prevent this system from unfairly punishing the less imaginative or creative, the points can be used by any player in the group, promoting cooperation.

I wish I had the foresight to get a blog post out there before their campaign ended on August 14.  That said, the managed to raise $70,736 CAD which not only funded their base product but unlocked this list of extras which will be developed after the original goal of releasing their core rulebook is met.

So close to getting the Monk!

One of the stretch goals, Unity Extended: Allies, introduces a new playable race, the Sarathi.  When I realized they were lizard people, I was sold.  While originally one of the antagonistic NPC races originally designed for the base game, this stretch goal (which unlocked after I had already pledged) made this project so much more meaningful to me, considering my own goal of publishing.  

For those interested in the game, please check out Unity-RPG.com or their Kickstarter Page for more previews of classes and creatures.  As of this posting, their post-campaign pledge manager is not finished yet.  Anyone interested in picking up either the book and/or any other extras they make available should sign up for their mailing list here.

WIP Shot of the cover of the Core Rule Book

I will be writing further on this game, so check back here in the future for more news about the Unity RPG.  I encourage anyone looking for a more story focused version of some of the classic table top RPG games to try Unity!

9/21 UPDATE!  The Pledge manager for Unity is up!  For a limited time, you can pledge for the Core Rule Book and select bonuses like the World Map and GM Screen.  Follow this link!

Questions Authors Ask: How often would Lizard People Lay Eggs?

Or, "The Ovulation of Fictional Beings!"

Another fairly unscientific look at something only an author would bother thinking about

You know what most people don't ask themselves every day?  "What would it be like to be a sexually mature female lizardfolk?"  You know why?  Because... well... why would you?  "Because you're an author writing about anthropomorphized lizard/dragon people and when and how they ovulate is something that you want to know!"  Now why would you want- "Stop asking me questions and read the blog!"

My novel features lizardfolk, if you haven't noticed, so one thing I recently started wondering was how they reproduce.  It may not come up explicitly in my novel, but it affects the language you use when discuss their culture and life cycle.  Do you call an infant a baby or a hatchling?  Do you say," When you were born," or "When you hatched?"  Do they build a sort of nest?  Do they incubate?  These questions need to be answered as they impact how the characters go through life.

My answer was for them to come from eggs, and that was enough for me to answer what I needed to know.  Later on, however, I began researching how eggs are fertilized in order to understand what would be involved for harvesting eggs from a different chicken-like creature without them becoming fertilized.  That sent me down the mental rabbit hole of egg laying frequency in chickens, which made me realize that my lizard people might have a situation on their hands.  If you're an egg eating, child-rearing, sentient species, what would your people do if mature sexually-inactive females laid an infertile egg at semi regular intervals?

If you think about it, humans do this, if in a very different way.  Female menstruation is quite literally the human body passing an unused egg out of its system.  Now granted, humans don't lay eggs covered in a shell filled with nutrients for the potential fetus inside.  They pass a microscopic cell and an internal lining along with some blood.  Messy, inconvenient, and often painful due to cramps.  Birds and reptiles, however, can lay unfertilized eggs complete with shell and yolk, and a humanoid bird/lizard person might do the same.

Now, these creatures I'm thinking about are completely fictional, and the answers to these questions of how, why, when, and what are entirely up to me, their creator.  It could be said that there is no need for me to decide or go into detail about any of this especially when it may not come up directly in the story.  But knowing how this might work will proactively answer questions I would need to ask if my characters have children.  In my book's case, the answer to "what came first: the chicken or the egg?" is the chicken, but that just means I have to figure out the eggs before they show up in my story.

Questions Authors Ask: Do Dragons Have Ears?

Or, "How do reptilian organisms hear?"

This post will not be very scientific at all

As a writer, one might find themselves trying to include, describe, or understand a concept that is foreign to them.  For instance we humans have these specialized flaps of skin and cartilage on the sides of our heads that assist us in being able to hear a specific range of acoustic vibrations that allow us to detect danger and communicate.  Many other mammals have similar structures that allow them to hear the specific sounds that are pertinent to their lives.  And science tells us that most creatures have the ability to detect vibrations in order to receive information from their environment.  So to be wondering why the creature you made up in your book is able to hear something seems like a trivial issue.

Until it keeps you from writing because you are struggling over whether your characters have "ears" or not.  Well, you might say, "Yes, Shane, your creatures have what science would call an ear if they can hear anything at all."  Okay, I grant you that, but what kind of ear?

Have you ever stopped to consider how an ear works?  Because I sure have!  More than I ever thought I would need or want to!  For instance, most reptiles have an ear that works like a drum: a membrane stretched over the aural cavity that transfers vibrations to the inner ear and thus the eardrum, allowing for the ability to hear sounds.  Inside the ear, there is a bone that vibrates and transfers the vibration into the inner ear, where the auditory nerve is.  But because of the structure of reptile skulls and ears, it is most likely that these vibrations are not received as distinct sounds.  So what do lizards hear?  Probably something akin to having your hands over or plugs in your ears: muffled or somewhat distorted noise.  Mammals, however, have ears with the external flap that is meant to funnel vibrations into the ear, which seems to allow mammals to differentiate between sounds better than lizards.  Also, there are three separate bones inside the ear that transfer the vibrations differently, allowing for seemingly more precise auditory sensations.  

This may be directly related to how these species communicate with each other.  Lizards and reptiles tend to use color, scent, and body language to communicate, which is also supported by the general lack of specific vocalizations among reptile species.  Mammals on the other hand use vocalizations exclusively in some species, while others mix in body language, color, and smell.  

"But Shane," you say, "Birds, frogs, and whales use vocalizations constantly and they don't have external ear flaps or whatever you're talking about."

Yeah...  I know.  However, those creatures tend to rely on either very high pitched or very low pitched vocalizations.  They do not tend to have the subtleties of speech or even the whimper of a sad puppy to them.  (But then again whale songs can be very complicated and full of subtlety so what do I know."

Ultimately, this may all be a meaningless distraction.  Then why am I so torn up about it?  I don't know!  Maybe I needed to just write this to vent my frustration with my lack of writing.  It ultimately will not matter much to the story.  My characters communicate, and as long as readers accept that it doesn't matter if they have ears like humans, mammals, or anything else.  

World Building, Part 6: The Sword!

Because Heroes Prefer Swords

My own sketches, pre-Graey Erb

This is not news.  A trope older than Beowulf and Iliad, literature both ancient and modern is full of examples that prove the trope.  Some ask why, and the simple answer is that a blade has been present in warfare for almost as long as war has been waged (considering someone had to figure out how to make them, first).  Even today soldiers bring a knife to their gunfights, and while there are no longer epic sword fights outside of Medieval Times and Renaissance Fairs, swords remain strongly embedded in how we think of war.  Therefore, it is natural that in fantasy settings, swords seems to always find their way into the hands of a hero.  The above link goes into some detail regarding examples in literature, and literary trends related to it, so instead I will tell you about The Sword of my book, and why I found it necessary to design this particular aspect of the book and bring it to life through art so early in my writing process.

My pommel design sketch.

Before I hired Graey Erb to create artwork, I tried my hand at drawing things myself.  Above I was toying with the shape of the blade.  I was inspired by the design of Orcrist from "The Hobbit" movies (shown on the right).  Big surprise, I'm sure.  Truth is at the beginning, I imagined The Sword for my protagonist would be like Anduril, considering my unrefined excitement for "The Lord of the Rings."  Further thought and time eventually told me that a European long sword seemed out of place among lizard folk.  It is much more common to find lizard folk or any of the other 'evil minion' labeled races having some manner of cruelly shaped curved swords.  This comes from history as much as literature, as European Christians demonized the pagan tribal peoples of Eastern Europe and the Muslims of the Near East, both of whom of battled various European kingdoms either across land or the Mediterranean Sea (Crusades, anyone?).  These cultures used curved blades that fit their tendency to attack from horse back, where a curved blade would be more practical than the straight edged blades that dominated Western Europe's armories.  This allowed me to tackle and subvert another common trope, referred to as the Sinister Scimitar.  In essence, my desire to subvert the "Reptiles are Abhorrent," which claims that lizard-beings are almost always evil, gives me the chance to subvert the trope claiming bad guys use curved swords.

Curved swords!

The first draft of Graey Erb sword concepts.

In order to create a fitting visualization of the sword I wanted, I emailed Graey (after discovering his art on Pinterest of all places) with a 20+ page project proposal that included my own sketches for designing the sword.  The first draft of concepts were very different from each other, as I did not have a clear idea of what the sword would look like.  The initial idea was that the sword was created during a Golden Age of the World.  Since the Deities of this world have (or can choose to have) a draconic form, the weapons are made to evoke that.  The pommel is shaped as the head of a dragon, the hilt is the neck/body, the crossguard the wings, and the blade has a tail either engraved or embossed upon it in some fashion.  After seeing the first draft, I pointed out what I liked and disliked, and Graey went back to work, creating a second set of concepts.  The one I liked the most, and that Graey iterated upon, was a combination of features from #1 (The pommel, crossguard and blade shape) and from #3 (the hilt texture and the style of detail on the blade).  I also asked him to work on the proportions of sword, such as making the blade longer and thinner.  The other designs, despite not being quite what I had in mind, actually gave me some ideas.  Numbers 5,6 and 10, with the angular design elements reminded me of the dwarven architecture in "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" movies, so it gave me the idea that these designs could be reused when I get around to developing the other cultures that will be in my book.

Concept Pass 2

The second set of concepts nailed down the size and shape of the sword, leaving the details on the blade itself to be choose.  I again went with #1, as the sunburst at the top seemed appropriate. It seemed too plain, still, so Graey and I came up with a stylized sun to replace the plain circle.  It ended up being two pointed starbursts overlapping each other  Next, something needed to go on between the lines radiating from the half circle.  We narrowed it down to either a diamond or a four pointed star, and settled on the four pointed star.  From there the sword was more or less complete.  With some color, the sword came to life.  There is one feature that I found unique which came from the original concepts: a medallion hanging off the pommel.  It is common among the practitioners of Wushu, a style of the 'kung fu' martial arts in China, to have a tassel hanging from the pommel of their dao, a type of broad bladed sword.  I like it as a way that my character, upon getting the sword, to personalize it without changing the sword itself.  A common trope in fantasy is the named weapon, which either comes from the blade being historical/legendary or from the character being sentimentally attached to the weapon.  I have not decided yet if I will name it or how it would be named, so the medallion seemed a good alternative.

Final Concept Pass

The Sword of the Hero!

A Few of my favorite things: Role Playing Games

Yesterday's Post Today!

Despite all the kinds of games out there, Role Playing Games (RPGs) are my favorite.  They allow a player to take on the role of a character or cast of characters as they pursue a goal.  Those goals can be noble, such as saving the world/kingdom/town/self from something, or something sinister, like stealing cars and kill people (or taking over/destroying the world).  Different games offer this range of moralities with their own justifications.  The Grand Theft Auto series has always been about being a criminal, and while they sometimes offer some kind of justification for the murders and thefts and destruction you will no doubt cause over the course of the game, most people who play them do so to experience that thrill of being 'evil' without the real life consequences.  On the same token, games like Dragon Age: Inquisition offers the player a spectrum of options to choose from in pursuing the goal of stopping monsters from overrunning the world, and some are more noble than others.  And then you have Zelda, where you're always the good guy, and the worst thing you can do is murder a chicken and smash peoples pots.

The games I just mentioned are video games, but RPGs also come as table top games.  By table top I mean a game you play similarly to a board game, on a table with other people, and usually involves dice and a set of rules for how to use those dice to play the game.  The game is also usually one by a player whose job it is to tell the story and take the role as the antagonists. These players are generally called Game Masters (GM), since they also enforce the rules.  Because of the nature of the game players have virtually unlimited choice of how they want to proceed, tempered by the consequences and results determined by the GM.  So unlike a video game, which has a goal in mind and certain limits as to how you can accomplish them, a table top game's only limit is the imagination, with the GM and the results of dice rolls the only thing that holds you back.  A good GM will generally take what you come up with in mind, but if you're trying to kill 100 orcs with one arrow by bouncing it off rocks, you are asking to fail.  There are still levels of success based on game rules, and some times things are just too ridiculous to work.

For instance, Dungeons & Dragons, one of the most popular table top RPGs in the world, uses a system of tiers call Levels (something many games both digital and physical use) to determine a characters abilities, powers, skills, and more.  At level one, killing a single orc with an arrow can be hard,but not impossible.  A lucky shot can take an orc out in one hit, or just make it angry and come after you.  By level ten, however, one-shotting an orc should be easy, and you begin to be able to do feats such as making an arrow go through one orc and hit another standing behind him.  By level twenty, you might even shoot four arrows at once, have them all punch through the orcs, hit the ones behind them, and maybe make the arrows explode for even more carnage.  But the trickier the shot, the better your skills and dice rolls need to be.  And by level twenty the orcs may just run at the sight of you.  The dragon on the other hand...

The thing I like most about table top games, though, is the story.  I've played noble paladins fighting for the honor of their deity while slaying the undead that plague the world.  I've played warriors who seek to amend a disgraceful past and die gloriously in battle in the name of their ancestors.  I've played a selfish, short sighted rogue who thought her (yes, I play female characters sometimes) way was the only way, and hurt both friends and enemies on her personal quest for justice.  Table top games allow you to make your own history and goals for your characters, instead of having to follow the script of a video game.  I enjoy Skyrim and Dragon Age as much as the next gamer, but even they limit your choices, and your goals.  In the table top realms that come either ready to go from the publisher, or you make one up with your friends from scratch, you can do anything in them (GM and dice permitting).  Want to be a sorcerer who comes from a cursed family seeking to enslave the very demon lord that cursed your ancestors?  Go for it!  Want to be a barbarian chieftain set on claiming the civilized world for your people so they no longer need to fear the night?  Go for it!  Want to help resurrect the God of Murder and watch the world bathe in blood for his glory?  Umm, okay, sure.

Your goals don't even need to fit the fantasy genre, which D&D and many other games inspired by Tolkien focus on.  There are games that take place in a world of Gothic Horror inspired by authors like H.P. Lovecraft.  There are games based on Star Wars, Star Trek, even video game franchises like Warcraft and Dragon Age.  You can be a Werewolf, a Vampyre, a Mummy, in the White Wolf "World of Darkness" setting.  You can be a super hero, a super villain, a pirate, the options are as endless as the imaginations of players.  You can even take a rule set you like and make your own setting where dragons with lasers fight pirates in flying space ships and people drink potions to gain super powers if you wanted.

In every way, an RPG is like getting to actively engage in writing a book in a manner that's unique.  You don't have to think about how a battle will turn out, you roll the dice, and fate decides it.  And that's what makes it so thrilling.  I remember a game where I played a Half-orc samurai-esque warrior just beginning to uncover a plot to turn a peaceful valley into a gateway to Hell.  Facing long odds and enemies several steps ahead of he and his allies, he remained determined to stop the evil plot, even at the cost of his life.  Though the story ended up left unfinished due to the unfairness of real life not allowing people's schedules to mesh, I always imagined his end to be found stemming the tide of the demons, alone with no hope of victory, as his allies raced to close the bridge between realms, giving them as much time as possible before joining his God, Kord, on the battlefields of eternity.

Some day...

In a time where writing my novel was a chore, table tops gave me a creative outlet that I could use to try out tropes and ideas in unrelated settings, and seeing how a character might develop in a more natural way (as opposed to an author forcing things to happen, which might be described as artificial).  That is why I write, and that is why I game.

Things that Inspire, Part 1: Long Live the King!

Large and In Charge

Many things inspire my writing. Chief among those is "The Lord of the Rings," which I've mentioned many times, but even more so, specific things in "The Lord of the Rings" inspired specific things in my novel. For instance, my main character. In my earliest drafts, my Protagonist was inspired by my favorite character in TLotR:  Strider, aka Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir to the throne of Gondor

Aragorn II Elessar, son of Arathorn, King of the Reunited Kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor, and all around bad ass. Early on, my main character was almost a rip off of the movie adaptions' version of Aragorn: ratty clothes, soiled leathers, elven hunting knife, born of some special legacy, gets "The Sword" and becomes "The Hero." I won't use that 'C' word but, yeah. I was a teenager and that was what I liked. Not much has changed but my character has, for the most part.

Apart from the tropes I liked, the character also appealed to me because of how the actor, Viggo Mortensen, portrayed Aragorn. In the novel, Aragorn is a character who knows that he is the heir to a kingdom and a mighty legacy, but he tends to make sure everyone knows it, too. He leaves Rivendell with the Sword of the King (unlike in the movie) and basically lets anyone who doubts him because of his vagabond appearance just who he is and why that sword he's carrying shines with the light of the sun and moon. Some quick literary analysis: Tolkien based Aragorn on the heroes of myth and legend from Northern Europe, such as Beowulf. Beowulf, if you read the translations of the surviving manuscript, is pretty much that guy who knows he's the best there is and decides, "Yeah, I can kill that beast Grendel unarmed and naked." And then does it. Then takes the next step and kills Grendel's mother. And then a Dragon. Solo. While no one-on-one monster slaying is done by Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings books, he does have some suitably heroic encounters. He faces off with all nine Ringwraiths, some of the most deadly fiends in Middle Earth, with nothing more than a mundane sword and a torch in the Fellowship of the Ring.

In the movies, however, Aragorn is portrayed as a reluctant hero. He still knows that he is the heir to a great legacy and the elves can't wait to remake that awesome sword so he can go save the world with it, but chooses a humble and honorable life as a ranger to protect those in need, fearful of the corrupting influence of power. It was that version of Aragorn, the hero that's heroic only because duty calls and would rather just be left in peace, that inspired my character. In my story, the protagonist just wanted to be a respected hunter in his village, but an encounter with an ancient plague and a need for someone to do something about it (and a dash of certain people not liking him) ends up propelling him along the heroic story arc. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't go on any further about the plot. The other part of the character of Aragorn that inspired my own character wasn't so much something specific to Aragorn, but it's something common to the archetype Aragorn represents: The Hero. And in myths and legends, the Hero almost always has The Sword. I mentioned a few times already that Aragorn gets "The Sword" for his particular book. That sword is Anduril, the Flame of the West, forged from the shards of Narsil! Basically it's the weapon that the Bad Guy even fears because it can hurt him. Common trope. And teenage-me loved it. Get the awesome sword, be the awesome hero. Simple formula. Works just about every time. From Luke Skywalker to Eragon to Bilbo to Arthur. Getting "The Sword" means you're "The Hero," and so it shall remain for my book. Nothing new, I know, but hopefully the context within the book itself will make it better. That tends to be how these tropes work. It's not the trope itself but how it's used which makes a book unique. Again, won't divulge much, but you will see "The Sword" of my book soon. It's pretty cool.

NaNoWriMo update: Another busy day as you can tell by the late posting, but productive. Chapter 7 is under way with another 261 words typed, totaling 1277 words so far. I'm pretty sure I will get this one done this month. I have it planned out almost from start to finish, so just need to add the details. But you know what they say: The devil is in the details. Wish me luck!

Quick note:  This had pictures in it but Blogger must have messed up the html somehow, so I removed them until I can fix them.

World Building, Part 5: History

World Building

Artificial Historical Artifacts

Ever heard of Excalibur?  Durandal?  Patton's Ivory-handled Pistols?  What about the Rosetta Stone?  The Liberty Bell?  The Magna Carta?  These are examples historical artifacts and ancient wonders that give backstory to our world.  History both tangible and lost that shaped culture and events; a few the stuff of legends.  Now while works of fiction are planned and constructed, as opposed to seemingly random chance, these things all influenced the world at some point, and the fact that some of these things are still present in modern culture shows how much wonder and awe they inspired.  

The same principle applies to fictional worlds.  Without backstory, without history, we are left without context for the events of the story.  What would "Harry Potter" be if Hogwarts was a brand new wizard school without the secrets and mysteries that fill the halls?  What if the Deathly Hallows didn't exist?  If the fear that still existed after Voldemort's defeat (the first time) was absent?  It would be a very meaningless story about a wizard whose parents never died, who never had to outsmart the most terrible wizard ever to exist, and the books would be about mundane concerns that really don't seem that compelling.  Imagine "The Lord of the Rings" without the Rings.  Why would Frodo leave the Shire?  To buy groceries?  Gandalf would be pretty bored, that's for sure.  And if Morgoth and Angmar and all the other things that gave the novel its scope were absent, why would we care about these diminutive hobbits?  My point is: everything I discussed this week relates to a world's history.  The races, the cultures, the language, the mythology, all make the history and are made by the history.  

The Symbol of the Deathly Hallows

In fantasy, artifacts tend to usually be the goal of a quest, or needed to defeat an evil power.  Sometimes they do things that no one can explain, and others do things no one has a use for.  For my book, artifacts were one of the first things I thought about when first creating the world, and considering my age at the time most of them were weapons.  This has a lot to do with the numerous 'artifact weapons,' such as Glamdring, Orcrist, and Narsil, that have histories going as far back as the first great wars of the worlds history (many thousands of years old in most cases).  The only other artifact I came up with in my original drafts was something I called "the Omnicron," a stone that had undetermined power.  It was the goal of both the Hero and the Big Bad to get it before the other in order to accomplish their respective goals (killing each other, basically).  But I found that initial idea too simple (and way too over used in the genre).  However, the idea was morphed into something else, and is still the focus of the plot, but its origins and its purpose changed.  So maybe only changed superficially, but my beta readers have enjoyed "the orbs" in my work.  From there, other artifacts begin to take shape.

The next most important artifacts for my story are a collection of "Hero Weapons" for my protagonists.  A common trope in video games, Hero Weapons are usually something special that a hero uses in battle, and one of the most famous in literature is Excalibur.  Not to be confused with the king-maker Sword in the Stone, Excalibur was a sword wielded by Arthur and made him unbeatable in battle (until someone inevitably betrays him).  For my heroes, we have a sword, staff, a special arrow (not a bow), and a pair of daggers.  Who gets them, you'll have to read the story.  But I will let you all know about the Sword next week.  You've seen it already, and I look forward to explaining the process of how Graey Erb and I worked together to design it.  

Have a great weekend and a safe Halloween!  Look forward to a review of Halo 5 over the weekend.  Best wishes!

World Building, Part 4: Culture

World Building

A starting point for Culture

A bit of a continuation from yesterday's post

Last time I mentioned how including numerous cultures in a work can add depth and variety that makes improves the work (or it could detract from the work if done poorly).  To add to my world, one of the first decisions I made when I ultimately began the project was that it would start in a forested valley 'somewhere' beyond the borders of the more civilized parts of the world.  While the valley once was the center of an ancient civilization, wars between both mortal and immortal beings left the valley abandoned except by the few who felt it was their duty to remain and protect what had been left behind, while the rest moved on.

The people that still lived among the ruins are part of a culture I referred to as 'the Faithful' because they had chose to remain in and protect the cities of their ancestors, while 'the Exiles' were the ones who moved on from the Valley and chose not to cling tightly to their past in order to accept a new future.  A third culture, that I refer to as 'the Forsaken,' were on the wrong side of the aforementioned wars, and were driven away by the victors.  The latter two cultures I will not be discussing this time, but that they come from the same origin culture is important.  The Faithful are the predominant culture in the valley save for one village of refugees from a Exile town that was integrated into the valley and has a mixed cultural identity.

The Valley.

The Faithful are called such for they were (and still are) the pious citizens of a civilization that revered a Sun God, among others, in a henotheistic/polytheistic manner.  When the god of Night, Sun's brother, decides he wants to be king of the hill, a terrible war rages across much of the world.  Now this isn't a spoiler (you learn about this in the first few chapters) but the Night God loses, and the Sun God vanishes, assumed to have died stopping the Big Bad Night God by trapping him 'in the Path between worlds.'  The war, however, left the valley a mess and a city in ruins and a whole lot of smaller settlements uninhabitable without the infrastructure maintained by said razed city.  So the Faithful go native and become a more simplistic culture, hunting and gathering, in order to protect what's left of their ancestral home.  But what if the Big Bad comes back?

That is where the group that gives us the title of my book comes from:  The Pathkeepers.  Tasked with watching for signs of the Big Bad's return, the Pathkeeper philosophy is the driving force behind the valley culture.  And they became the stuff of legends across the world as stories of their (sometimes alleged) deeds filled taverns around the world.  But in truth they were a simple people.

The valley culture is sustained by hunting local wildlife and harvesting as much edible flora as the valley can sustain.  Without the infrastructure of a large city or civilization, the level of technology is somewhat primitive in certain ways, such as clothing being all animal skins, and yet they can still make more refined things like flax linen and tools (when they have the resources).  They also do not keep themselves completely separate from the larger world, except to keep potential threats out of the ancestral lands.  Instead, members of the culture are encouraged to leave the valley to see the wider world.  Divided into separate villages overlooking different ruins, the culture differentiates between the village in the skills the village needs the most, such as one village exists floating on a lake, and spear-fishing and swimming are skills they value more then others in other villages like archery or hunting on foot with a spear.

I could go further into explaining the culture and the Pathkeepers but that feels like I'm spoiling learning these things along with the protagonist.  I will instead leave you with some early artwork from which the symbol for the Pathkeepers evolved from.  This was of course from Graey Erb, Earl_Graey on DeviantArt.  Be sure to check him out at www.GraeyErbIllustration.com, or on DeviantArt.com.  I'll write a post further explaining the evolution of the image some other time.  I don't want to spoil anything before the book is even finished being written!  Thanks for reading!

World Building, Part 3: Creating a Living World

World Building

A whole new [living] world!

A dazzling place I never knew.
Aladdin © Disney

Don't judge me.

Every great story has a great setting created by a great author.  JK Rowling created Hogwarts.  Tolkien created Middle Earth.  Terry Pratchett created Discworld.  Suzanne Collins created Panem.  Whether the setting is on an imagined world, tucked creatively within our real world, or is a dystopian version of our own, these great settings did not spring forth from the ether fully fleshed out and ready to have stories told about and within them.  For Tolkien, it was his life's work that created Arda and Middle-Earth.  Years of studying old languages, creating new ones, and writing (either poetry in the trenches of The Great War or the first lines of "The Hobbit" on the back of a student's exam) culminated in the fantasy realm that inspired so many others.  The same goes for most authors.  Each took their passions and their life experiences and used them to craft their world.  And these works become the experiences of others, which then shapes the world.  There's a reason D&D, Dragon Age, and EverQuest, to name a few, all involve elves, dwarves, wizards, and dragons.  His name is Tolkien.  JK Rowling will no doubt shape the future of how people think of magic, as games, music, and even plays take inspiration from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter TM.  Each author's world has become a place others love to dwell in.

Every author seeks to draw you into their setting one way or another.  A friend of mine, Robin Dilks, self-published a paranormal romance novel that takes place in both the historical past and the present, redefining the mythology of the Biblical character Lilith in "Rachael Awakened."  (Still reading it.  Review pending.)  I was drawn into how she mixed paranormal tropes like demons, werewolves, and vampires, with historical eras like renaissance Italy.  With mine, I hope to appeal to high fantasy readers looking for something a little different, by playing with the established genre enough to make things unique and fresh.

For my story, creating the world started by figuring out some of the mythology that would be present.  Since I was following Tolkien for inspiration, that started with deciding that there would be a pantheon of deities.  From there, I had to have some sort of explanation for their existence, as well as an explanation of where the physical world came from.  I'll save the specifics for now but I ended up going with something slightly more cosmic than creationist, meaning the deities did not necessary "create" the world the story takes place in.  Shaped it, sure, but they did not "sing it into existence" like Iluvatar and the Valar did at the very beginning of "The Silmarillion."

My next step was, silly as it sounds, finding conflict.  In Tolkien's mythology, Melkor is the Big Bad Dark Lord from Day: Zero, and I sincerely wanted to do something else.  While I still wanted to play with those two tropes, I did not want my work to come off as even a little cliche (even though it probably will anyway), so I choose to take a more Lovecraftian angle toward the the Big Bad, while saving the Dark Lord bit for something else.  But I won't say more.  You'll have to read my book!

From there it was trying to decide what the world contained as far as sentients.  Most fantasy works, and especially science fiction works, have different kinds of mortal beings who interact and sometimes represent different thing.  Most times they are allegories for different real world states, religions, philosophies, or ethnicities.  "Redwall," a classic about a mouse who becomes a hero to save his little town, uses animals like mice, badgers, otters, and cats, to represent different kinds of people, with some being summarily bad (like evil rats opposed to the good mice).  Sometimes these allegorical pieces are intended and other times not, and only revealed through analysis.  I am doing some of this, but in a way where the individual cultures of my lizard people, and of any other sentients I include, will say more about what they represent then the being itself, while still letting the nature of certain beings influence that same representation.  If that sounds confusing:  You'll have to read my book!

And then it's identifying what sorts of cultures this world will have that comes next.  My story starts in a very tribal setting for a few reasons, it never stays there.  Just as LotR moves from the Hobbit filled Shire culture to the many Mannish cultures across Middle Earth (from Bree to Rohan to Gondor and back), so too will my story explore the world and its cultures.  That I think is one of the most important aspects of world building.  If you try to write a white washed world where Good here is Good there and everyone agrees that Good is Good, well it just doesn't reach the level a world that's complex and diverse.  What's Good in the protagonist's hometown might not be looked upon the same in a corrupt city where the only way to survive is to commit crimes.  That creates conflict, and conflict is what drives a story.

I wrote previously that I bounce back and forth between world building and actually writing the story.  I'm still not sure what would work best (for me or other people) but I have to say that without knowing enough about the places my characters are going, I can't write.  So if you're reading this for writing types, consider what works best for you, first, and then accept advice that you find helpful.  And always remember that if you think it will work and it doesn't, try something else.  Don't force it.  I never write well when I force it.  Thanks for reading. 

World Building, Part 2: Creating Language

World Building

Creating a language when you have terrible grammar

In my quest to emulate my chief inspiration, the late great Professor Tolkien, I aspire to create a language for use in my book.  That said, I know I will not be able to do even close to as good a job as the Professor, primarily due to the fact that he wrote his great works as a linguistic exercise.  Tolkien was fascinated with languages his entire life, teaching himself Finnish and Welsh and going on to study old Norse and Latin and Ancient Greek as he studied works such as The Kalevala and Beowulf.  He studied the old Welsh Arthurian legends and most of his scholarly work was based on this, while his creative works were a way for him to come to terms with a fantasy he held of what Britain might have been like if the Frankish Normans did not invade and conquer Britain in 1066.  So Quenya, and Sindarin, Black Speech, and a few others from the LotR related works he created, and he created the world of Arda (the planet Middle-Earth is on) around these exercises.  So, while I do not have the linguistic skill or desire to do quite the same as Tolkien, I wanted to at least create one language for my own use.

The Bible
(Of made up languages)

Now this practice of creating fictional languages is not limited to Tolkien's genius. In fact, I possess a book called "The Dictionary of Made-Up Languages: From Adunaic to Elvish, Zaum to Klingon -- The Anwa (Real) Origins of Invented Lexicons."  And yes, that says Klingon.  Qu'pla!  Authors of Science Fiction and Fantasy have been creating languages for decades, and even some were meant to be used in everyday speech (such as Esperanto).  Why not try my own hand at it?  So I tried.  And failed.  Because I had no idea where to start, at first.  This book is actually what got me started.  In the back of the book is a section about creating a language with some very generic advice.  Nothing world shaking, and definitely less impressive than a linguistic textbook, but part of this section is a list of about one hundred words that a common across most languages.

Having a list of words to make, I had to decide what the language would sound like.  Deciding that the longer snouts and the more limited motion of lips, there were certain phonemes I decided probably wouldn't be common, or exist at all.  Sounds like bah, mah, puh, fuh, poo, boo, moo, foo, etc., considering those sounds require the pursing of lips.  "But Shane, you characters speak Engl-" Suspension of disbelief, darn it!  To be fair, Tolkien thought of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" as being part of a fictional historical text called the Red Book of Westmarch, originally written in the language of "Mannish" and translated 'by' Tolkien in the modern era, making his works a pseudo-history of England.  (I may write another blog on this concept and what Tolkien was trying to do some time.)  Tangent over, moving on.  So my language would lack certain sounds, but I still had no idea what the words themselves would be.  While I studied Latin in high school and Italian at Rutgers University (Go R U!), those who took the class with me could tell you how terrible my understanding of grammar is, and therefore aside from vocabulary, anything besides English makes me sound incoherent.  So instead of using a real language and bastardizing it to fit my needs, I decided a more noble course.  I bastardized a fictional language instead.  My choice, quite fittingly, was dovahzul (literally Dragon Voice), also know as The Dragon Language.  And if that name sounds familiar, it should, if you've played as the Dovahkiin in "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim."

Learn more about the Dovahkiin at
the Elder Scrolls Wikia Page

Using the website www.Thuum.org as a starting place, I read through their lexicon of words both from the game and invented by the fans to see what words might sound like in a draconic language.  And then I began to either mutate an existing word from dovahzul or made up my own, basically by making noise until something sounded good.  Not the most elegant strategy, but I also used their website to understand the supposed grammar of dovahzul, giving me a template of sorts to work from.

At the moment, I have less then 20 words.  Most I came up with myself, but a few are mutated dovahzul words.  Everything else has some place holders taken right from the dovahzul dictionary that I just haven't gotten around to creating proper words for.

So that's it for this part of world building.  I've seen other fantasy worlds steal straight from old norse or other dead languages, which makes me feel less bad about co opting some words for the time being, but make no mistake about my intentions.  Linguistics is not my strong suit by any means, so working from an existing language is some what my only option.  Besides, imitation is the finest form of flattery, right?

Leave a comment!  I would love to hear from my readers!  What do you think of my strategy?  Stay tuned for more world building!

World Building, Part 1: Designing the Protagonists

World Building

Creating a Race from 'scratch'

I'm not sure if this is as much fun for other authors, but the planning out my world while planning out the story that will be told within that world is a great deal of fun for me.  It started with my main character and quickly into the race of people he belonged to.  As far back as 2003 I knew I wanted my main character to be a 'dragon guy,' probably because of my mild obsession with the anime 'Dragon Ball Z' at the time, but it never got more complicated than that.  I was constantly changing what they could do, starting off as near analogs for DBZs saiyans that turned into dragons, to fire-breathers, to having or not having wings.  Eventually I boiled it down to the basics after reading "The Lord of the Rings" and seeing the films and maturing in my tastes and ideas a bit.  It wasn't until I had to write about them and describe them without walls of text that I began to seriously wonder what they really looked like.  So in May of 2015, I contacted an artist I discovered through Pinterest, of all places, and asked him if he would be interested in working with me on a project to design my main character, the race he belonged to, and a sword that would be at his side during his adventure.  He would later also help me create the design I use for my profile picture, which is also an important symbol in my book.  His name is Graey Erb, and he can be found on his website GraeyErbIllustration.com or on Deviant Art as Earl-Graey (We see what you did there, Graey).

The Captain Approves.

To make the task easier for Graey, I assembled a document of things I wanted to see in my new race of lizard people.  I had seen a few years ago a piece of art on Deviant Art by another artist, koutanagamori, called "Lizard Man," that served as the chief inspiration for my own lizard man.  It showed a creature with digitigrade feet, a prehensile tail, an arched neck and a pointed snout, and some horns or spines coming out of the rear of the skull, and wielded a pole-arm, with sketches of the character expressing different emotions or movements in the background.  I knew that this was close to what I wanted, but needed my characters to still be different.  And that difference was to make take them from just being a somewhat standard lizard people, to having some more draconic (dragon-like) and dinosaur-like traits.  

Lizard Man by koutanagamori @ DeviantArt.com

With that in mind, I used the physiology of the "Lizard Man" character to describe the basic body of my own lizardfolk, I went on to explain the features I wanted my race to have.  I proceeded to research lizards, reptiles, and even dinosaurs for traits that I wanted to appropriate for my race, then use pictures of the lizard/reptile/dinosaur to give the artist a visual rather than verbal explanation.  The first specimen I found is a lizard that takes it's name from the terrible antagonist of Tolkien's "The Hobbit," Smaug!

The Smaug lizard, Smaug giganteus,
aka the sungazer, giant girdled lizard or giant dragon lizard.

Clearly a reptile after my own heart, the sungazer was a natural choice to be used as inspiration for my own creation, and I choose the horn-like protrusions on the back of his head, and the texture of his scales, to add to my lizardfolk.  Now, these features are more prominent in my main character than in other characters featured in the book, due to their being multiple sub-races (some with horns and some without, for instance), but still carried over to the general flavor of the people.  From here, I had to find features for the lizardfolk my main character interacts with through the majority of the story, which are the lizardfolk without horns.  These characters, though part of the same race, had some slightly smoother features when compared to the sungazer, so I choose another lizard friend that I'm pretty sure the internet loves.

The face of a happy lizard.  Or one about to steal your crickets.
Thank you, TheLioness24 @ DeviantArt.com, for your
beautiful gecko picture!

If ever there was a friendly (looking) lizard in the world, it's the leopard gecko.  So I wanted to incorporate them into my own lizard people.  Their 'trademark' grin and skull shape along with the eye placement made them seem an ideal candidate for my needs.  They even looked similar to koutanagamori's own lizard man that they seemed to be meant to be - um - appropriated.  

But how was I supposed to say it, Ariel!

The final piece of the puzzle was the clothes, and for that I moved away from lizards and towards native peoples.  Inparticular, I focused on the Cherokee and Iroquois for inspiration, being peoples I was familiar with and lived in a region similar to where the story begins.  Since most native peoples wore leather, the most basic material I suggested Graey to think of was such, while also suggesting that fur might make sense to include in a temperate climate like that of the north-eastern part of the United States of America (where I live).  Flaxen linens were not unheard of in other native cultures, so that was suggested as well. Also, I gave suggestions on motifs and symbols that may find their way into their clothing, since these people revere fire and light.  Ultimately, Graey took all of my notes and suggestions and produced the follow pieces of art, in order.  As a quick note, I have to point out that his first version of my lizard folk was so spot on that I was immediately in love with them, and couldn't wait to get my main character finished.

The first piece of work Graey sent me, and I was in love.  Here we have my main character, #1, an average male, #2, and an average female, #3, with crest variations.
Concept © Shane Press.

Here we worked out the colors.  The females of this race have feathers as their attractive features, and the crests and colors vary according to genetics.
Concept © Shane Press.

Here we are working out the pose for the final image.  We did this after designing the sword, which will be discussed in a separate blog post.
Concept © Shane Press.

Here Graey working on an idea I had of putting an action shot behind the fully colored finished piece.  We settled on a pose where the main character is admiring the sword.
Concept © Shane Press.

The first pass when designing the clothing.  The finished piece took parts of both and worked them together, though each was good enough to be left alone on another character.
 Concept © Shane Press.

And the original final piece.  Note the shot in the background.
This was such an amazing experience getting this in my inbox.
Concept and Design © Shane Press.

I have to thank Graey Erb again for the fantastic work he did on this project.  If it wasn't for his patience and hard work, I would not have such a great piece of art to draw inspiration from when writing.  This artwork, all of it, makes writing so much easier when I can just reference them to help describe my characters.  Please take a moment to check out his work at www.graeyerbillustration.com.  And thanks for reading!