The political situation on Caosgi, the world Saeli and Co. are currently on, has always been the most difficult and complex bit of the overall story. I’ve rethought it from the ground up at least three or four times, and in this last rewrite alone I’ve added and tweaked a number of things.

I changed the people of Gephina to look physically different from the native Teyae people. The Gephinans now resemble something like emaciated elves or dryads. I did this because I decided that while the Gephinans are native to Caosgi, the Teyae are not. Caosgi is the First World, where all immortals and spirits are born. On such a world, where spirits are simply a fact of life, it doesn’t make much sense to have a people with such an immense dislike of spirits…unless they imported it from elsewhere. So the story is that sometime in the distant past, a tribe of Teyae blundered through the Waters, found their way to Caosgi, and settled there.

They brought with them a large chunk of rock from their homeworld, which they believed had magic properties. And it does; in fact it interferes with and dampens the expression of pure energy. Which means it can repel spirits and prevent qi forms from manifesting. They shape chunks of this rock into spheres, which they attach to portable staffs carried by their shamans. I had to give the Teyae a way to hold their own against the far more powerful Gephinans and their spirits, and also to capture Saeli and the Cowls.

In the scene where the Teyae drifters, carrying Saeli and Co. prisoner, are overtaken by the Gephinans, I was always going to have the group split up…half go with the Teyae, half to Gephina. Because Raphel was going to use the Teyae and start a war between the parties as a distraction, blah, blah, blah…and I realized this was starting to sound exactly like Hands, Like Secrets. I’ve already written that book. Raphel needs to do something else this time around.

Well, Raphel decided then and there, on the Teyae ship, that there was no way in shayol they were going to split up. At that point, I had to stop writing, go back, and completely scrap the outline I’d been using up until that point because it just didn’t remotely work anymore. Wrote a new outline from that place onward, one that didn’t hinge upon a war and a split group. Now it hinges upon Raphel’s inexplicable insistence on seeing the inside of the Keeper’s grotto.

I’ve also discovered, in rewriting, how little work I’d put into Caosgi in general and Gephina in particular. What does “a city teeming with spirits” look like? How many kinds of spirits are there, how do they interact with the mortals, are they visible, what forms to they take, what exactly do they DO, etc? So far I’ve just been pulling ideas out of my arse, as it were, as I need them. Thus, Gephina needs wards…I give you guardian spirits that look and act like spiders and build ethereal webs all around the city.

Then there’s Gephina’s government. Having not really thought about it before, I gave the city a Mayor and maybe some kind of city council and let it go at that. But then I realized that every single government in Shades, on every world, is some kind of combination orligarchy/theocracy with elements of representative democracy.  Verre: Mantle city-states are autonomous, governed by a High Priestess and a Council which represent the various guilds and such. Cowl city-states: much the same. Dheu: villages are autonomous, governed by a council of spirit walkers/judges. Caosgi: various Teyae clans are governed by their individual Chiefs, who occasionally get together to make bigger decisions that affect all Teyae. Gephina: autonomous city-state with a Mayor and a Council.

But why? Well, I suppose it’s the least complicated (no voting, no term limits, little bureaucracy) and most fair (no rulers-from-birth, no dictatorships, everyone is somewhat represented) system of government one can have in a fantasy story. (Oh, and too much high fantasy seems to focus on the doings of various royalty. Blech.)

On Verre, it makes sense. Verre has two ruling deities. Two extremely visible, extremely involved deities. You don’t get to pretend the gods don’t exist on Verre; they are as real as the priests who serve them. It would make sense for said deities to appoint people to speak for them, to handle the mundane day-to-day issues…thus you get High Priests and Priestesses. However, these will never hold absolute power, because everyone knows they only rule at the behest of the gods, and that the gods could smack them down at any time if they step out of line. It would make sense for the High Priests and Priestesses to build a small, trusted group of advisers that will keep him/her informed of what’s going on with the various groups in their cities. Thus, oligarchy/theocracy.

On Dheu it makes sense because we’re only talking about a small village. And the spirit walkers don’t “rule” or even “govern” in any real sense of the word. They offer themselves as judges, arbitrators of disputes…and as they have the backing of the angels, no one really challenges that. What sort of government the Dheuans had while the three goddesses still ruled, or what sort they developed as they grew more urban…I don’t know and don’t intend to spend time on, because it’s not important to the story.

On Caosgi, though…Gephina, if it’s ruled by anyone, it’s ruled by Ge’shandris, the monsoon spirit. And spirits don’t really talk to mortals, like immortals do. Spirits commune. It’s all feelings and nudging and gut instinct. Someone, ideally someone with a particularly close connection to the spirit, has to listen and interpret what the spirit said. And it’s not nearly as obvious when that person misunderstands, or decides to exaggerate, or outright lie. Thus, you could potentially have a situation where one person speaks for the resident otherworldly power, and what that person says cannot be easily proven false.

That, to me, suggests the makings of a monarchy. Gephina’s Mayor should be a Queen. And since I also established elsewhere that Gephina has “colonies”, people that don’t live within the confines of the city itself…the Queen needs advisers. So I’ve decided she has a Chamber, which is something of a combination of a Council and a Senate. And I may even make the position of “Queen” an elected position…as the primary purpose of the position is to speak for Ge’shandris, and you need to find the most sensitive person for the job. Makes royalty-by-birth unworkable in the long run.

Geez…all this just to set up the background situation Saeli and the others find themselves in. But the shift from Mayor Adna to Queen Adna is kind of a major one, especially since Saeli comes from a world that’s never had an actual monarchy.

In other news, Nightwish’s new album Imaginaerum is glorious. Absolutely glorious. And I can’t write to it because I’m too busy listening to it. The imagery is pretty intense. However, between Two Steps From Hell and an album I just acquired by one of the composers from that project: Illusions…I have plenty of writing music.

Imaginaerum has one song that’s, IMO, all about fantasy writing:

Nightwish - Storytime

“I am the voice of Never-Never Land
the innocence, the dreams of every man
I am the empty crib of Peter Pan
a silent kite against a blue, blue sky
every chimney, every moonlit sight
I am the story that will read you real
every memory that you hold dear”

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Here’s the situation. Saeli, Raphel, Mora, and Kaladan are on a world that is, due to a series of unfortunate events involving three jealous goddesses, one naive god, and a very angry angelic…well, doomed. Said goddesses created an extremely infectious disease that eventually rendered every single female on the planet unable to bear children. The last generation has reached their mid-50s or so, and they’ve essentially lost hope.

Enter Saeli and Mora, two young women of childbearing age who, due to their not being born on Dheu, are immune to this disease. You can see how this might interest certain parties. The two women get kidnapped, and are currently trapped in a cave surrounded by twenty or so men who are so desperate to not be the last generation that they’re willing to rape female strangers and force them to live out their lives on Dheu bearing children.

Saeli and Mora are both trained in the art of using their qi to do all sorts of extraordinary things, like fire and ice and wind and teleportation spells. None of the men who have captured them have any such power. (Although half of them are what they call “spirit walkers”. They can essentially thrust their spirits out of their bodies and travel about the “spirit realm”, where they receive guidance from the angelics who live there. This is, of course, of no practical use whatsoever against someone who can lob a fireball at them).

The first obvious question: how did a couple of magically inclined characters get captured by a bunch of non-magically inclined characters in the first place? Especially Mora, who, being second-in-command of Raphel Kailar’s infamous cabal, should be neigh unto impossible to capture WITH qi. The answer? The two were taken by surprise and drugged. Saeli didn’t react in time because she’s never really been in a real fight before, even though she was expecting the attack and knew what the assailants were after. Mora didn’t react in time because Saeli hadn’t yet gotten the chance to warn her what was coming.

The drug, nepthas, is one that specifically neutralizes one’s capacity to draw qi. The idea of qi-altering drugs is not new to the overall story, having been introduced in the first book. It would make sense that what the spirit walkers of Dheu and the majahel of Verre draw from the same source of energy, and that the spirit walkers of Dheu would have discovered a means to keep novices from jaunting about in the spirit realm unsupervised. In high doses, nepthas renders the victim unconscious, and can actually stop the heart if too much is given. It allows a group of non-magic wielders to knock Saeli and Mora out for several hours and spirit them away.

So now they are in a cave…the drug has worn off and both girls are awake…Raphel and some others are on their way but haven’t arrived yet…and the men, not quite desperate enough to assault female strangers while they are unconscious (although they considered it), have been waiting for this moment.

Now I have to create an impasse. I’ve given Saeli and Mora back their qi for this scene, because I can’t have the men actually assault them until the cavalry arrives. Yet I cannot have the two girls whooping up on the men and escaping just yet, either…but given their powers, it’s very difficult to imagine a scenario in which this realistically would not happen. You can’t just not have them consider using their powers because, well, it’s their primary weapon. It’d be like a trained swordsman stepping into a battle and forgetting he has a sword. Ain’t gonna happen, you know? And if they were to use their power, there’s really nothing the spirit walkers can do to stop them. So I’ve got to do something that will even the odds, at least until Raphel and Co. show up.

Even the odds #1: Reintroduce nepthas.

I had one of the spirit walkers throw a handful of nepthas leaves on the campfire. I’ve already established that nepthas is an inhaled drug (the first time they took cloths soaked in a wet mixture of the drug and slapped them over the girls’ faces)…so given that they are in a small space, it shouldn’t take too long for the tainted smoke to take effect and render Saeli and Mora helpless again.

Problems: It will still take time, several minutes at the very least. Saeli and Mora could easily escape in that amount of time. Rather than evening the odds, nepthas merely functions as a ticking clock.

Even the odds #2: Establish what can and cannot be done with qi in a small space.

The cave, while small, is nevertheless big enough to contain about twenty men and a small fire around the entrance area, and Saeli and Mora further back. (I’m going to have to assume the men stashed their horses elsewhere; perhaps in a nearby cave, with someone to guard them.) The roof is high enough for everyone to stand comfortably, although it may be *just* that high. If I wanted to be specific, I could have Mora’s head brush the roof. It is deep enough for Saeli to create what amounts to an electrified web between the two parties, where the men would actually have to approach to be zapped by it. So I’m imagining a space that is something like a crack in a wall: deeper and taller than it is wide. Let’s say at its narrowest (which is where Saeli and Mora would be)…wide enough for two or three people to stand with arms outstretched and fingers touching. Wider at the entrance.

I began to write some dialogue between Saeli and Mora, in which they each brought up and discarded various forms they could use to escape. It helped me sort of figure out in my own mind what can and cannot be done with qi, and how environment shapes that. There are basically two “methods” in which qi is used, once you’ve drawn up the appropriate elemental energy: 1) Use the energy to manipulate its physical counterpart; ie, using Air to make a breeze, using Earth to create an earthquake, etc. Easier. Faster. Or 2) Manipulate the energy itself. This is how majahel sight works, and how you create shields, like Saeli’s lightning net. Also, most anjahel skills rely on this method. Any qi form that does anything more complicated than moving matter around probably uses a combination of the two methods.

The physical element does not have to be present, but the energy does. Luckily, most latent energy sitting around contains the four basic elements, so finding sources of energy is not usually difficult. One might have a little trouble using Water in a desert, or Fire in a lake, but it would not be impossible. However, elemental energy =/= physical matter. One may be able to draw Water energy from a dry place, but unless there is an actual source of water on hand (even moisture leeched from the air), one will not be able to spontaneously create physical water. One may be able to draw Air energy, but one cannot create a breeze if there is no physical air to move. The single exception is Fire, which is why fire forms are popular among both Mantles and Cowls.

So, back to Saeli and Mora’s non-predicament. My goal was to run through every possible form and see if there was a logical reason why said form could not be employed (because that’s what any intelligent majahel would do, and I have to assume the reader will, too). Make sure there was no way someone could say, “Well, they can do ___ and ___, right? Why don’t they just  ____?” with me going *facepalm*.

I began with “put out the fire”. Saeli suggests blowing it out. Mora explains that the act of pushing all that air OUT of the cave will draw an equal amount of air back IN, along with all that tainted nepthas smoke. They’d drug themselves in the act. They discuss putting it out with water (Saeli has heard dripping water in the cave somewhere), but again, what happens when you dump water on a fire? Clouds of smoke. Putting out the fire will do no good if they render themselves helpless in the process.

Then they move on to “neutralize the men”. Blast them all out with air or water? They’d just come back in, and also, see above. If they used fire, they’d probably incinerate themselves in the process. Saeli is actually the one to suggest killing them all, but only in the context of “Gee, I’m surprised you didn’t suggest that right away, Mora”. Neither of them, especially Saeli (who knows more of the story), particularly wants to seriously hurt or kill the men…partially because they empathize with their problems, and partially because killing “cowens”, ie, non-magical people, is the moral equivalent of shooting an unarmed person with a gun.

But they could paralyze them (Snake Creeps Down). They could also freeze them (Cross the Courtyard + Water Flows Downhill). And those are forms that the reader has already seen, via Raphel’s battle with the High Priestess. They could bind them up with cords of air (also something we’ve seen Raphel do). Plus we know that Saeli knows how to put people to sleep and influence the mood of a crowd, per her anjahel abilities.

After about a page of writing, and a lot more thinking, I was forced to conclude that, while Saeli and Mora’s environment limits their options some, it was not enough to realistically keep them from escaping. So…now what? How do I contain two magic users who have a very, very good reason to want to escape, now? (The nepthas on the fire effectively eliminates the weak but semi-plausible “oh, let’s just wait for Raphel, we don’t want to hurt these guys and they can’t do anything to us in the meantime” solution).

Then I remembered a chapter from the first draft, one I’d planned to eliminate, where Saeli and Mora are being guarded by a dark angelic that the spirit walkers had summoned. Random tidbit about Dheuan spirit walkers (that only I know): they have the ability to summon angelics, just like Verre anjahel. They can enter the spirit realm at will, after all. However, since their whole society is built around conversing with, learning from, and building relationships with angelics, summoning is very much a forbidden practice. It’d be like treating your teacher with respect, but ordering his children or servants around like animals; it just isn’t done.

That doesn’t, of course, mean that no one does it. As it happens, Othau and a few others have learned how in secret. So it would make sense that, faced with a couple of magic users that they need to subdue (but not hurt), they’d summon up an angelic as backup. I decided upon a marilith, since it’s 1) the only other dark angelic besides vrock that have been mentioned by name so far in the trilogy and 2) they are bigger, scarier, and much more intelligent than vrock. Inadvertently, this beings a whole new dimension of problems, because marilith are difficult to control. Mora senses, correctly, that the spirit walkers don’t really know what they are doing (or they would have chosen a more suitable angelic!), and thus, their control over the marilith they summon is tenuous.

Even the odds #3: Introduce a marilith.

And this finally does it. Because now Saeli and Mora cannot afford to do anything that is going to hurt or even distract the summoner, for fear of loosing the dark angelic from his control. Now they even have to worry about what will happen when Raphel does show up…because if he charges in with qi blazing, he could cause as much damage as either of the girls. Also, having a dark angelic around will give our other angelic friend Isharyel something to do besides stand there and be all wise and stuff.

So that was the process I went through, more or less, to make this scene work. I guess the lesson here is, when you have to put magical characters in a perilous situation, there are two things you can do. Introduce limits to their magic, and make the environment play to those limits. If that fails, introduce a second magical force to oppose them.

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Like, for example, the evokation magic system, which I’ve been primarily concentrating on this week. Evokation in this game is essentially elemental magic, similar to what most WoW type players and such would picture with the word “mage” or “wizard”. The player evokes the elemental forces, using simple geometric symbols as shaping tools. The world contains six elements: the four standard (earth, air, water, and fire), plus two ephemeral ones. Life, or making, is the element that binds and sustains the living…the Force, if you will. Entropy, or unmaking, is the force that breaks down, forces apart…it is the essence of death, though those who use its power don’t like to call it that. These elements are called upon and shaped using twelve geometric symbols, 1-12: point, cross, triangle, double triangle, pentagram, hexagram, heptagram, octagram, enneagram, dekagram, endekagram, and dodekagram. These shapes loosely determine what shape the elemental power will take when it manifests, and thus what the “spell” will do.

As you can imagine, six elements + twelve shapes = a whole lot of potential combinations. Especially when it’s possible to combine several elements into one shape. The one limitation I’ve placed is that an element cannot be combined with its opposite: fire cannot mix with water, and air cannot mix with earth. However, *insert evil chuckle* even this can be gotten around with some creativity. Also, the maximum number of elements that can be evoked at once is two. (Well, actually, three, if one of those three is life or entropy. But I want some clever player to figure this out through experimentation.)  I did it this way because I want players to experiment. I want them to try combinations of elements and shapes just to see what they do.

At the kickoff of the game, there will only be six “schools” of magic in place: one for each element. I want players to discover the other four combination schools: frost, geothermal, mists, and electricity. I want them to decide whether these schools belong to their respective parent elemental schools, or whether they qualify as separate disciplines. I also want them to discover the five “hidden” schools, made from combining the elements that can’t be mixed:

Steam. (water, life, fire)(Yes, I want the game to support steampunk technology).
Corrosion. (fire, entropy, water)
Anabolism. (air, life, earth)
Catabolism. (earth, entropy, air)

And necromancy. (life, entropy)

Necromancy is a new development this week. I never intended it to be a skill, because one: I don’t like it, and two: death magic is cliche and feeds into the whole “RPGs and the fantasy genre are demonic” mindset. But I realized that someone was eventually going to try combining life and entropy, making and unmaking. And if blending fire and water is possible with the right knowledge, then I don’t want life+entropy to do nothing. And the most logical thing for a blend of life magic and death magic to do is give life to the dead. Necromancy exists as a possibility in this game with this magic system whether I like it or not.

The solution, I decided, is not to take necromancy off the table, but to make it terrible. Necromancy will be one of the most powerful disciplines, and by far the most costly. A player must want that power more than anything, and be willing to sacrifice anything to gain it and keep it. In other words, only players with the heart of a necromancer (or willing to play a character like that) will even want to pursue the skill.

Now, there are several things to consider when creating a magic system, whether it be for a game or for a story.

- What can it do?
- What checks/drawbacks/costs exist?
- Do variations exist, and what are the rules for these?
- Can it be learned, or it is only born in certain people? How common is it? Can it be un-learned?
- What sort of culture exists around the magic? Who, if anyone, governs its use? What are the consequences for breaking the rules?
- How does the non-magic community view magic users? Are they loved? Hated? Feared? As common as sliced bread? How do magic-users view normal people? Do they feel superior? Do they envy the normal?

In designing a sandbox game like Amphitere’s Vision, many of these questions will be answered by the players themselves. Will the first magic-using players act in benevolent ways, or will they be tyrants? How much political power will they seize, and what will they do with it? However, the nuts and bolts of the system are up to me to design. What do the spells do? What do they cost? Obviously, since it’s a game, anyone can choose to become an evoker.

Game magic, in some ways, is easier to design. Effects and cost are concrete, built into the system, and I don’t have to predetermine the consequences on the individual, the culture, and the world. In other words, I have to know how far a player can lob a fireball and how much damage it will do, but I don’t have to worry about how the character feels about killing someone with a fireball and how that will influence their life. (I have to be mindful of the possibilities, but my job is to provide the tools, step back, and let the players write the story.)

My main challenge is maintaining a balance between the usefulness of the spell and the cost. If the cost is too low and the spell too easy, players gain too much power too fast and the game is no longer challenging…but if the cost is too high, or the ability too complicated, players won’t use it. RPG game magic, at least of the online variety, comes with an innate cost: a pool of “mind power”, “mana”, or “spell” points. Every spell uses a number of these mana points (or whatever the game calls it), and when you run out, you can no longer cast spells until you replenish your pool.

But for necromancy, that isn’t enough.

So, here’s what I’ve come up with. The ability to successfully combine the life and entropy elements will only be bestowed at the end of a long, difficult, and harrowing quest. The player must locate the NPC (non-player character) necromancy master, who probably will not want to be found…and even then, he (or she) will require the player to do some pretty heinous things before (s)he’ll consent to teach. Players who have not reached a high enough level of stats and abilities, this master will refuse to teach (and will probably kill the player for their impudence). The player will only get so many tries to successfully carry out the master’s orders…too many failures, and the master will not take them on as a student, ever.

In order to become a necromancer, the player will have to have some sort of artifact implanted on their body. In addition to allowing the combining of life and entropy, that artifact will have some rotten effects. Ideas are: physical disfigurement, healing abilities no longer work on the player, herbs and potions no longer affect the player, many NPCs will shun or become openly hostile towards the player, animals flee from the player, etc.

Also, the player will have to continue to train with this master, who will likely be difficult, obtuse, obscure, and treat the player like dirt. If the player attempts to back out, or remove the artifact, that player will be hunted by the game’s population of NPC necromancers forever after.

Compensation: You can walk freely between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. Dying becomes little more than a minor annoyance. Your necromancer attacks freaking HURT. You can make zombies.

I’m hoping that a couple of players will, upon becoming necromancers, set themselves up as rival masters, taking students of their own. Maybe they will try to be more terrible than the original NPC master. But I’m leaving the door wide open for someone to attempt to be a benevolent necromancer, as almost every skill in the skillset could be used to help people, if played right. For example: hijacking. A necromancer can temporarily take over the body of a player with more than three afflictions (like a broken limb, or paralysis, or poison), controlling them like a puppet. Now, that sounds really bad, right? Make a player turn on his allies, or attack himself, or move into danger, etc. But the interesting thing about hijacking is that the necromancer’s commands override whatever afflicts the victim. Meaning that a necromancer could take over the body of someone who couldn’t move, and force them out of danger.

The nature of the skill, the effect of the artifact, and the reaction of the game’s denizens will make it very easy to play an evil necromancer. But I will be creating one NPC who has made it their goal in life to redeem the practice of necromancy, and make it into something beneficial instead of terrible. The opinion of the game world at large is that this NPC is cracked in the head.

I’ll let the players decide if they agree.

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Part of the idea is that children are kidnapped by faeries when they are babies and toddlers, because children who grow up in Arcadia make better, more docile slaves. It’s all they know. All my Grimms are kidnapped as toddlers, and rescued as teenagers. But the problem with that is, and I can’t believe this never occurred to me before:

See title of post.

Kids who grow up in Faery don’t go to school. They don’t learn to read or write unless it amuses their Faery masters to teach them. The only education they get is whatever their Faery masters choose to teach them, and that may or may not be useful outside Arcadia. There’s even the distinct possibility that Faeries speak their own language amongst themselves, and thus any human children would grow up with Faery as their native tongue. There’s so much basic education and social conditioning that we just take for granted by living in a human society. Even homeschooled and un-schooled people get this. My Grimms have none of that upon being rescued. The other children they rescue are all going to have the same problem. Aside from whatever trauma they’ve endured, they don’t have the education or skills to be rescued and simply dumped back into human life.

How is a sixteen-year-old who has never been to school, cannot read or write or even speak his native tongue, going to last a day in high school? They’d need years of special tutoring to catch up, and how are they going to explain themselves to anyone who might offer such lessons? Especially since the best way to keep from getting recaptured is to not draw attention to yourself.

There are several ways around this problem, and it might even lend some depth to the world and the characters. Certainly I can play with my Grimms’ lack of social skills, which will inevitably lead to some embarrassment and bad situations.

Thankfully Alan Hunter’s backstory can stay intact. He was a teenager when he was captured, so basic education isn’t a problem for him…he’s just been out of the human loop, per se, for about ten years. Which is, perhaps, how he had the will and the knowledge to escape on his own in the first place. Savannah (Mother Goose), was also a teenager when captured…it just took her a hell of a lot longer to escape.

My Grimm team is more troublesome. Rapunzel was six when she was taken, so she at least could talk, and had some basic reading and counting skills. Rora and Cinder were four, so again, they knew some words…although since Cinder doesn’t speak, it’s hard to tell how much she knows. But the rest were mostly two and three years old. However, the Grimms have an advantage, because Mother Goose can homeschool them. She’s the ideal person to catch them up to where they need to be, since she knows what they’ve been through.

I imagine she is posing as a foster mom…which could make for some interesting episodes. She might have to actually be certified for foster care at some point, which means she could get actual foster kids placed with her besides her Grimms. That’s an immediate secrecy problem, not to mention dangerous for the children who don’t have a clue. On the other hand, Mama G can’t afford to have human authorities taking an interest in her. How would she explain eight teenagers who have no family and no official identities?

It’s the children they rescue that pose the biggest plot challenge. Now, presumably all the Grimms can speak and understand Faery, to some extent. So communication with kids who speak nothing else won’t be an issue. But the education problem means that every child they rescue, they also have to rehabilitate. Teach them to speak English. Teach them to read and write. Teach them basic human interaction. Give them what schooling they can. On top of all that, they’ll have to discover what Faery abilities the child has absorbed, teach them control of those, and show them how to keep “under the Fae radar”.

This means that each child they rescue becomes an investment requiring weeks, maybe months of the team’s time. When they aren’t on a mission, the Grimms will be full-time schoolteachers and counselors. Every child they rescue will practically become part of the team for a time, and undoubtedly the Grimms will get attached to each one. That’s a weakness if any of them ever get recaptured, and the Faeries use them against the Grimms.

This means that they cannot rescue groups of children at once, because they can’t possibly teach and rehabilitate them all, and they cannot send them to anyone else for that. That means that the team may have to make difficult decisions when choosing targets to rescue, on the basis of “can we handle this case after we get them out?” Because they know it would be better to leave a child in Faery than to sneak him out, fail to rehabilitate him, and risk him being sent to a mental institution, or being recaptured and taken back to Arcadia.

It may mean that the team will end up targeting mostly newly-captured children, who are still babies and toddlers. These can be turned over to human police (probably covertly), and given back to their parents with relatively little drama. Perhaps such rescues will be the “meat” of their missions, and rescuing older children and teenagers is something they do only every few months.

Another possibility I played with and liked was the idea of an underground school co-op within Arcadia itself. Perhaps an older slave, one captured late, one who still remembers the human world, became distressed at being the only one who could read, and set out to teach some of the younger children behind their Faery master’s back. The movement spread. Maybe on the rare occasions when humans are sent into the human world on some Faery errand, they also smuggle in textbooks and such. These books are passed amongst the various populations of slaves. The older kids (and adults) teach the little ones (once they are old enough to be trusted to not babble to a Faery). I was thinking of calling this co-op “the Hedgerow.”

I imagine that some or maybe all of my Grimms were a part of the Hedgerow before they were rescued. In fact, the Hedgerow could be the primary means by which Mother Goose and the Grimms keep in contact with humans in Arcadia, and decide who to rescue. If I divide the Grimm premise into episodes and seasons, I imagine the big Season 1 ending reveal would be that the Hedgerow is not as secret from the Faeries as they all assumed it was. In fact, most Faeries know about it, but they let it continue because watching the humans sneak around and hide things amuses them.

But so. Thank goodness I stumbled upon the education problem before I actually started writing any episodes.

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So what does that make us writers?

Anyway, I just finished The Maze Runner by James Dashner. It was good, but not the sort of book I’d write. Although I could take a page or two from him on how to pace a YA story, and how to sustain a mystery throughout a book in a way that’s intriguing, but not irritating. My only complaint was that sometimes the kids’ relationships in that book didn’t quite ring true. Honestly, they weren’t mean enough, petty enough, cruel enough. There wasn’t enough Lord of the Flies for me to quite believe it. But maybe that says more about me than it does about the author.

On the recommendation of several different people, I have started The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I’m enjoying it so far, but I don’t think it’s going to quite match the sheer scope and power of The Way of Kings. However, one quality that I appreciate is that fact that it’s not as fast-paced as most epic fantasy, and far less fast-paced than the typical YA fare I devour.

It puts me more in mind of Robin Hobb’s Assassins trilogy, in that the main character is telling the story of his life, and is in no particular hurry to get to the “good” parts. The character’s voice is equally if not more intriguing than the events taking place. It’s not that there’s nothing interesting going on, but it’s a book than I can read a few pages and then put down again without…pain? Can’t do that with The Wheel of Time. Can’t do that with The Way of Kings. I don’t think this is a book I could just sit there and read for hours and hours at a time…it doesn’t spur you on and on and on. He eases you into the character at a nice leisurely pace. Yet it’s interesting enough that I want to get back to it.

I think that’s the sort of pace I want my Tindaari epic to have. Because while it’s an epic, it’s a character epic. I’m following five or six people throughout a large chunk of their lives…several decades. Stories like that just can’t run at a breakneck pace. Tindaari is also less about War (like most epic fantasy), and more about the interaction of Religion, Intrigue, and History. Yes, there is war, but the story is much more about all the threads that led up to the war…the war itself is rather short, and right at the end. More like an almost-war. I will reserve final judgment until I actually finish The Name of the Wind, but so far I think it’s one I will definitely try to emulate in pacing.

My chief complaint about the book so far is that even though it takes place on a completely different world, the author keeps using specific fantasy tropes from our own world. (And I’m not talking about demons…that’s become a fairly generic class of creature.) For example: The Fae. I can accept that another world might have fairies, but I would expect those fairies to be somehow; in language, behavior, lore, whatever; connected to that world. Rothfuss is not doing that with the Fae in The Name of the Wind. He’s using OUR fairies, OUR faery lore, OUR conventions to characterize them. (Allergic to iron, sometimes called the folk, same organizations: Twilight Court and such, graceful, ethereal, elusive, mischievous, cloven feet, etc.) And every time he does it, it throws me out of his fantasy world…because I associate those kind of faeries with OUR world. They’re too specific, and thus they don’t mesh with the rest of the world he’s created.

I think maybe he’s trying to follow the rule of not calling a rabbit a shmeerp, just because it exists in an exotic world. He wanted Fae in his story, and so he simply called them Fae (instead of making up some word for essentially the same beings). The problem, however, is that the history and existence of the Fae are all tied up in the history of Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, and other real countries.

Same thing with using words like Aleph or Ruach. Those are actual Hebrew concepts…with Hebrew connotations, weight, and subtleties that just don’t make sense and would probably never develop in a world where Hebrew culture never existed. It’s like the author has taken these ideas without bothering to really integrate them into the fabric of this other world he’s created. Aleph and Ruach don’t naturally arise from the history, lore, and mood of the his world. He hasn’t provided any reason for Fae, or words like Aleph and Ruach, to exist as they do in THAT world. It begins to feel like a cheap substitute for worldbuilding.

Which is odd, because other elements of that world are completely unique…like the Chandrian…and those play right out of the history and fabric of the world. Those belong, in a way that the Fae do not. It’s not like the author didn’t do his worldbuilding. The history of this world is actually quite interesting, and seems very well-thought out. I think maybe he though he could use the Fae like he used demons…in a generic sense. But to me, the Fae are too specific, and too tied into this world to transfer. It’d be like, instead of angels and demons, using Lucifer and Christian saints in a completely fantasy setting where Christianity never existed. You can’t do that. They don’t belong there.

That turned into a bit of a rant. Let me be clear that otherwise I’m really enjoying this book, and would recommend it.

Also on the reading list:

Finally finished White Cat by Holly Black. Not bad. Will be reading The Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Claire as soon as I get my copy from the library. Also thinking of reading the Coldfire trilogy by C. S. Friedman. I’ve read two other of her books and quite like her writing style. Going to see if I can find the Uplift trilogy by David Brin as well, on the recommendation of the guys on Writing Excuses.

And um, I’m going to be writing in there somewhere, too. I hope. Like I said, good books are dangerous.

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I will start thinking about a set of characters, and playing with bits of dialogue in my head. Often, what they will say to each other is surprising, revealing solutions to plot and story problems that I would have never thought of on my own. (Of course, given that this is all going on inside my head…eh, who says writers are sane?) And I will have “Oh. OH! Oh, hey, that’s perfect!” moments.

Well, last night I was thinking about Alex and Lauren from my Waters story. They were standing on the bow of the Kalianne, looking out over a contested Shallow. Our dear antagonist Meeley had brought in her airships and the fighting was pretty fierce. Alex was debating whether to take the Kalianne in, and decided he didn’t want to risk a confrontation with Meeley just yet. So they’re watching from a distance.

Lauren frowns and says, “Why do they fight like that? What do they really want?”
“They want what everyone who gets stuck in this desolate wasteland wants.” Alex sighs. “They want to go home.”

Oh, so much to unpack from that single exchange. I already knew Alex was a pirate, and that his ship is not the only pirate ship on the Waters. I imagined that they do what pirates do: pillage, plunder, and acquire loot. But what if said loot is not riches and such? What the heck are you going to do with money on the Waters anyway? The most valuable asset on the Waters are the ways out: Docks, and Shallows.

Now, Docks can be built, and destroyed, but they are permanent in the sense that once a Dock is established between the Waters and a world, that Dock does not move. But Shallows…wander. The worldside effect is that Shallows come and go…that misty grove that was a Shallow yesterday may not be one today. The Waterside effect is that the Shallow that leads to one particular place and time today may lead somewhere (or somewhen) else tomorrow. The Waterside location of a Shallow is permanent, like an island, but where and when that Shallow will take you is always changing.

Perhaps Shallows occur in “clusters” on the Waters (like islands), and because of proximity, the Shallows within a clump of clusters, and more within individual clusters, will have something in common. One particular clump of Shallow clusters may all lead to Earth, for example, but each cluster will lead to a specific “time zone” within Earth’s timestream. So one cluster might take you to Earth, circa 1600 CE. A nearby cluster would also take you to Earth, but circa 2100 CE, or circa 2300 BCE. The individual Shallows within a cluster mark different places (which change, and migrate), like the Bermuda Triangle, Avalon, Roanoke, etc…and specific hours, days, weeks, months, or years, like June 11th, 2010 CE 12:04 PM EST- 5:06 PM EST… or March 1374 CE, or 1751: January – December. Shallows have a start time and a stop time: they drift to a spot in time, exist there for a little while, and then meander on.

And perhaps clusters are arranged in such a way on the Waters that in order to access specific clusters, one is actually forced to go through other Shallows, or skirt them very close.

(Docks are different. They are anchored to a place, not a time. Therefore, if a Dock was built in the Edinburgh Vaults of Scotland in 1800 CE, there will still be a Dock there in 2010, unless it is deliberately dismantled. Docks are valuable because they give pirates a steady access to supplies (like, you know, food?), and it’s useful to have control of a Dock within easy sailing distance of the Shallow clusters you control…but it’s not necessary. Thus, Docks are not as contested. Some Docks maintain their own small governments, world-side or Waterside, that require pirates to fly a flag of truce to “dock” and resupply there.”)

Now, if it is as Alex said in my mind, and most pirates marauding on the Waters are really just trying to get home, then Shallows are by far the most valuable commodity on the Waters. Especially if one of the quirks of Shallows is that the more people are around them, the more likely they are to shift. If it gets brushed by a few times, it may shift places sooner than it would naturally…which is no big deal. (Hey, if it takes you to Earth, October 6, 2010, who cares if it takes you to Bermuda or Japan? You’re home.) However, if too many people start passing through or around a Shallow cluster, they could start shifting times, eras, even worlds.

If that’s the case, then it behooves you to not only position your own people near certain Shallow clusters to monitor them, but also to keep other people away. Sometimes you can deliberately “agitate” a Shallow, in hopes that it will shift to a time or place closer to what you’re looking for, but it’s a delicate line to walk. You don’t want to shift a Shallow out of your general era (or world). Thus, you only want your own people agitating a given Shallow. And the best way to ensure that is to control the area around that cluster, and sink anyone who gets too close.

That gives a solid base for Alex and Meeley’s rivalry: they both come from Earth. Perhaps the Earth 1600 cluster and the Earth 1900 cluster are very close together, forcing each party to risk screwing up the other set of Shallows in order to reach their own. Add Lauren to the mix, with her needing to find an Earth 2000 cluster, and we have a pretty good setup for some juicy conflict.

(Incidentally, Earth does have Docks. However, the Docks that Alex tends to use aren’t Earth Docks, so Lauren will get to see some pretty interesting sights while aboard the Kalianne.)

~~~~

In other news, I’ve been working on the conference registration booklet for the SCWG again this year. Much easier, since I was able to recycle a lot of the formatting from last year’s book. My pen-wielding mouse from last year got to make a cameo appearance.

Also, I’ve finally tracked down a plugin that allows me to block spammers from registering on the blog. I get tired of having to clear out the approval box every few days, especially when it’s the same durn spammers over and over again. I was able to use my email backlogs to create a blacklist, which makes me glad I didn’t clear out that box.

Now, pray it actually works. And do let me know if you are a legitimate person and are getting blocked for some reason.

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Saeli’s world lacks that. Verre is both like and unlike Earth, but I really haven’t given much thought to those differences. Dheu is a bit more detailed, but Dheu is actually even more Earthlike than Verre so it’s kind of a moot point. Caosgi has the most detail, but that’s because it’s significantly different. (Different is actually easier to worldbuild.)

What I’ve been doing so far is just making up plants and animals as I need them. A number of them came from qi forms: stripers, gilas, kraits, koel birds, yellownape birds. (The forms themselves came from a combination of Tai Chi moves and Robert Jordan’s sword forms). Others, like sariskan, I pretty much just pulled out of my, um, you know. But last night I really gave some thought to what sort of creatures Saeli’s world would have.

It’s challenging because Verre is so much like Earth. There’s no defining aspect of the world that shapes everything, like Pandora’s interconnectedness or Roshar’s highstorms, upon which I can build the ecology. And I have no desire to redesign Earth’s diversity. So I asked myself: What does Verre have that makes it different from Earth?

Well first of all, humans on Verre are far more sensitive to energy than we are. Although majahel are the only ones sensitive enough to do extraordinary things with their qi, all humans can feel it to some extent. Some can just barely touch it. Some have the capacity to maybe light a candle. Anyone can be trained, but only those whose sensitivity is already at a certain level actually are trained. It would make sense then, perhaps, for humans not to be the only energy-sensitive creatures. However, that wasn’t quite enough of a starting point.

Two, Verre has sariskan. It’s the one creature I’ve really developed. Sariskan are lizard-like creatures, about the same size as a horse (and they serve the same function). Slender bodies, long necks and tails, small heads. Clawed feet; claws are kept blunted on domesticated ones. Scaled, wingless, and slightly cold-blooded. Lethargic in cool weather, spry and fast in warm weather. Omnivorous: eats greens, fruits and insects. Live young (doesn’t lay eggs). Range in color from black to mottled greens and browns. They are naturally more aggressive than horses, but are quite docile if raised from birth and trained. Wild sariskan are difficult (but not impossible) to domesticate. They do not spook as easily as horses (though sudden bright light and loud noise does bother them). They are more likely to respond aggressively when spooked.

In thinking about sariskan, two things occurred to me. Aschera is in the northern part of the world, and has weather comparable to, oh, let’s say Ohio. It only really gets warm during the few weeks surrounding midsummer, and gets very cold in winter. Nights are always cool. But most Cowl territory is in the southern part of the world. Lanschport, in fact, is very nearly on the equator, and Iadnah is not much further south. This, and the fact that sariskan are somewhat cold-blooded, would very neatly explain why Cowls ride sariskan and Mantles do not. Cowls in the south would observe sariskan as fast, frisky beasts, and thus excellent for getting from place to place quickly. Mantles, living in the north, would observe sariskan as lethargic, slow moving beasts, more useful for pulling carriages and such. There is actually a noticeable difference between northern and southern sariskan now, thanks to breeding with these different goals in mind.

In any case, I’m going to have to put temperature controls in the Ascheran stables, and perhaps have a sunning area.

So my main creature is a reptile. That got me thinking that maybe Verre could be a world of mostly reptilian animals, with humans being the largest mammal. And avian creatures, since birds are somewhat related to reptiles. I kind of liked the idea of a world full of birds. It would become a way to add some color and variety to my sets. Birds swooping through the streets would be so common that people don’t even notice it. Birdsong and bird calls would be so pervasive that you’d only notice it if they stopped. Part of the culture shock of Dheu could be simply the lack of birds; the sky would seem disturbingly empty and it would be too quiet.

And of course, people would constantly be cleaning bird poop off of things. Not as bad as ashfall in Luthadel, but there’d probably be an entire city department dedicated to keeping the streets clean. Maybe they’d find some clever uses for it, like people have for bat guano. And feathers…people would wear feathers, and use feathers in crafts, and all sorts of folklore would spring up around different kinds of feathers (like with flowers). It also gives me a perfectly legitimate reason to make them use feather pens, besides the whole fantasy-esque atmosphere it creates.

Plus, perhaps the first majahel got the idea of manipulating qi with the body by watching how birds flew, swooped and dove? All the motions could somewhat imitate the movement of birds: very quick and very graceful.

I already have three birds to work with. One of Saeli’s forms is called Koel Bird Stoops. I’m imagining some kind of wading bird. I have the colloquial expression: “pluck the last feather from a dead krait”, which is something like “the last straw”. That gives me the impression that kraits are both common and irritating…like a crow or blackbird, perhaps? And I have the form Yellownape Takes Flight. Definitely some kind of songbird.

The hubby had a wonderful idea, too. The derogatory name Cowls have for White Mantles is ankarka, which in my mind had simply been an alternate word for a long white piece of clothing. But what if I changed ankarka to mean bird poop? Bird poop is white, it’s everywhere, and it’s shit. Mantles wear white, they’re everywhere, and according to Cowls, they are full of shit. It’s perfect.

The derogatory name Mantles have for Black Cowls is gila. Gilas were always a type of poisonous, nocturnal lizard that lived in small spaces, but then I started thinking that maybe they could serve the same function as a rat. I could even make two types of gilas: desert gilas, who are a little bigger, more reclusive, and a bite from one of those could kill an adult. And then common gilas, who are maybe the size of small iguanas and live anywhere there is refuse. A common gila bite wouldn’t kill, but it might make a person mildly sick. So the correlation is that Cowls are at best annoying pests who hide in the dark, and at worst very dangerous…depending on one’s tone of voice when delivering the insult.

So now I have rats for my cities. I have horses. One creature I’m in desperate need of is a cow, or some beast raised specifically for meat. In a world where there are a lot of birds, I figure people are going to eat, well, bird. So what if my “cows” were some species of large, flightless bird? They couldn’t be like ostriches or emus, though; they’d have to be placid, slow, and probably not very smart. And then of course, what do they eat? Not grass. Seeds, or insects…something like that. Maybe there’s a certain kind of slug or worm that’s easy to find…or maybe these birds could eat wheat kernels, or hayseeds, or corn, or just plain flower seeds, or something like that. Maybe there’s even a kind of flowering plant that attracts worms. So you’d plant a field of it, and the birds could “graze” by picking the seeds, or digging up the worms. And then you could supplement their diet with other kinds of seeds.

Hmm. That would mean birdseed would always be in demand. That also means that in any given area of farmland, there are going to be fields completely devoted to growing flowers. Flower-farmers. Pretty. Verre is turning into a colorful world.

In the cities, people would probably have pots and little gardens for growing flowers…for color, and for attracting certain kinds of birds. But perhaps common gilas like to eat the seeds, too…so there’s going to have to be some kind of pest control. I need…cats. Maybe instead of keeping cats and dogs as pets, people keep birds, lizards, and snakes. Perhaps a type of larger bird or snake could be trained to catch gilas, like you’d train a cat to catch rats. Some birds eat lizards, right?

So I need to name:
my cow-birds
the kind of seed they eat
some other flowering plants that produce birdseed
my house-birds/parrots
my house-snakes
my house-lizards
other city birds

I think that will be ecology enough for Saeli’s story, as it really doesn’t move outside of Aschera at all. One might ask why I didn’t do this kind of brainstorming beforehand. The answer is I didn’t need to know it then. Now I do. Shades is a story I’ve been developing piecemeal, worldbuilding the parts I need as I need them, instead of beforehand. In future stories, I will probably do more of this up front.

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I was able to get some work done on both Shades and Smell of November, and did some more brainstorming/researching on To Wake a Windmaker. Tennessee is where the kudzu is, after all, and one of my creatures in that story is a sort of kudzu giant. Took some pictures, and decided to base the anatomy of these creatures on gorillas. Long arms, short legs, walk kind of hunched. Found out that the whole Appalachian Trail can take anywhere from 3 to 6 months to hike…not a weekend sort of thing, you know? So I’ve decided that Quintin and one or two of his buddies try to start a software company, or something, and it fails rather miserably. This isn’t the first of Quintin’s failed business ventures, and he’s become rather discouraged. So he decides to basically drop off the face of the planet for about 6 months, and do something he’d never normally do: hike.

Which is how a non-outdoors-ish computer software designer has the means/time/motivation to hike the Appalachian Trail.

Also, what vacation would be complete without me coming up with yet another story idea? Rather than coming from a dream, however, this one came from a random notion while reading Elantris (again). You know how many religions have a list or set of circumstances which must be accomplished in the world, and once they are, their God will supposedly come down to earth and reign? (Fjordell) Usually those circumstances involve making believers out of everyone in the world, by sword if necessary. And usually the protagonists of any given story will be pitted against said religion, so that the whole world doesn’t get conquered.

But what would happen if Fjordell had managed to destroy Elantris and convert the entire world…and then Jaddeth never showed up? Would the leaders freak out, or uncover/invent some unfinished clause that’s preventing their God’s descent? Would the people become disillusioned? Would they rise up against the religious leaders? Would the system collapse? What would take its place? (The answers to all these questions probably lie in how sincere any given believer is).

That was my random thought. It was particularly intriguing to me because there are several sects of real world believers who hold to a similar doctrine. One day every knee will bow, and so on. Once a certain set of circumstances are fulfilled, God will come and reign on earth. Whether or not it is thought that believers have any control over how and when said events will happen depends on how fringe the sect is…some believe that they have a responsibility to hasten the Apocalypse, through violence if necessary. So what would happen if every event in Revelation happened just as it was written, except Jesus never made that second appearance? What would happen if human hands had wrought said Apocalypse in the hopes that Jesus, or Allah, or Yahweh, or whoever, would come? I mean, what would a religion do if its God failed it that spectacularly?

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Right now I’m working on Inkheart, another book that I’ve seen the movie of. Pretty good so far.

I have a ridiculous weakness for M&Ms. In case the blog itself doesn’t give that away.

You might notice that I’ve tweaked the sidebar a little bit. That picture (and yes, that is me) is one the hubby took while we were in North Carolina. It was a nice foggy day, which made for some very neat photo opportunities. I also finally figured out how to eliminate the search thingy at the top. I never liked it there. I’ll probably put it somewhere else in the sidebar, so the blog is still easily searchable.

I’ve been thinking about the logistics of the coup Raphel is planning for the city of Aschera. I’d only given it so much thought the first time around, and I’m realizing that I really need to know how it’s going to work. I need to know how the government functions. I need to know how Cowls occupy the cities they conquer. I need to know what they do with the cowan citizenry of conqured places. I need to decide what they will do with the majahel students at the school who don’t escape. I need to decide how many cabals it would take to occupy a large city like Aschera, and how Raphel is going to contact these cabals. I need to figure out all the complications that will arise when Raphel basically bails on his cabal right after they’ve captured the city.

Aschamon’s professors are also the governing body of Aschera. The High Priestess is the High Priestess of that entire region; her role as headmistress of the school is really more of a side job for her. As commander-in-chief of the forces from the Aschera region, she is occasionally called out into the field, and thus absent from the school for days at a time. Donnevan, the Angelic Studies professor, acts as head of the school in her stead. A group of nine or ten professors make the larger decisions for the city as a whole, and each has a number of guild heads and craftmasters that report to them.

Students pay a tuition to attend Aschamon, but those who can’t afford it are generally taken on scholarship anyway. (This only applies to local students…student from outside cities like Chisge pay tuition, and it tends to be a little higher). The city tithes to the school, and provides for scholarship students and generally what tuition doesn’t cover. Aschamon students are encouraged to work in the city, offering services only majahel can provide. The more a business or trade donates to the school, the cheaper majahel services become for them. In the last couple of decades, Aschamon also began demanding a tax on top of the tithe, to better fund the war. After the capture of Iadnah, the last really big Cowl stronghold, the war turned in the Mantles’ favor. Thus they stepped up their efforts, hoping to finish it in a few short years. However, the tax began to really hurt some Aschera businesses, which led to closures and the price of certain items rising. Fewer families could afford to pay for their young majahel to attend Aschamon, but since the war was “almost over”, Aschamon felt they really couldn’t turn any aspiring student away. Thus, Aschamon began to have a surplus of scholarship students, which then put more pressure on the city to provide for the school’s needs…and thus more business and families began to hurt, financially. It’s a vicious cycle that Aschamon’s professors are aware of, but choose to ignore…because they are still hoping that if the Mantles can just push a little longer, the Cowls will be defeated once and for all.

I need to decide how many people live in Aschera. Luckily I had already sat down at some point and worked out all the logistics of Cowl raider culture. A typical cabal of raiders has anywhere from 15-40 members, average being 20 or so. Raphel’s cabal has 17-18, but these are very, very good, because Raphel has the reputation to be selective in who he allows to join. I’m deciding that Geris’ cabal has closer to 40, but he tends to attract the scum of Cowl society and as such, his crew is more of a rabble or mob than an trim fighting unit.

When Cowl cabals join together to accomplish a bigger mission, the operation is called a raid. Yes, I totally stole that from Warcraft. The term works. The ras from each cabal get together and decide who is going to lead the raid, by duel if necessary. The other ras in the raid function like suras to the ras in charge of the whole operation, but maintain control of their own cabals.

I think there needs to be two, possibly three more cabals involved to effectively occupy Aschera. When both Raphel and Mora disappear through Saeli’s portal, Raphel’s cabal is probably going to be taken over by a fellow named Jaime. (If the ras of a cabal dies/abdicates/is captured/etc., command of the cabal goes to the suras. In the unlikely event that both the ras and suras are killed/abducted/whatever at the same time, command goes to whomever is strong enough to take charge.) The fifteen of them will probably be nominally in charge of the whole occupation effort…until Raphel returns, that is. Thus, Jaime will be ras of the Aschera raid.

We’ll have Geris’ cabal still there, under the command of Egan, their suras. However, Egan is going to be killed by the student resistance, and I think after that the whole cabal is going to fall apart. Some of them might migrate to the other cabals, but on the whole, they’ll probably just take what they can and slink out of the city in the night.

We’ll have Teja’s cabal. I didn’t introduce her until the third book in the first draft, and I may still save her for then. Teja has a relatively large cabal, let’s say 30 or so, and she’s reasonably competent. After Egan is killed and the remnant of Raphel’s cabal abandons Aschera when Raphel returns, Teja will claim leadership of the occupation and become ras of the Aschera raid.

So we need at least one additional cabal, possibly two. Maybe two smaller ones of about 15-20. These are probably going to be Cowls that Raphel or possibly Mora knows, and trusts. I haven’t decided which of them knew Teja.

Now, the occupation itself. As a rule, majahel don’t kill cowans if they don’t have to. It’s kind of like the soldier/civilian dynamic…you don’t kill civilians if you can help it, and you certainly don’t target them. Killing cowans is bad form. Using cowans as cover is cowardly. Etc. Thus, the Aschera raid isn’t going to kill everyone in the city. Also, Prof Micah and Prof Lo do manage to get a sizable chunk of Aschera’s citizenry away from the city before the other cabals get there, so probably large parts of the city are going to be empty.

The students are somewhat of a gray area. On one hand, they are all majahel. On the other hand, a lot of them are not trained enough to really be a threat. The senior red cords and the Anjahel students are obvious threats. Probably any student sixteen or older will be treated as a threat, though the Cowls might decide to imprison them instead of executing them. The younger Mantle students would be treated like cowans. The gray students may be given the opportunity to take the Cowl.

Aschera’s going to get looted and torched pretty bad. Cowls are more accepting of looting than Mantles. (Not that Mantles don’t loot. They do. They just pretend they don’t, or they call it something else.) Aside from Geris’ mob, many of whom are thieves anyway…every Cowl that enters the city is going to take stuff. Plus, taking Aschera is the ultimate payback for Iadnah, and I’m sure the raid is going to destroy everything they don’t need, simply for revenge.

Aschamon is going to become the staging ground for the raid, and as such, the dormitories are probably going to be where they all sleep.

This is what Saeli is going to come back to. Not to mention a very pissed roommate who blames her for it all.

Alas, it is late, so I must give off my brainstorming for the night.

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My ideas keep spawning bigger ideas. My queue is getting a little ridiculous.

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