I Ohtari Laurëava Emidalava

No matter how prepared one believes themself to be, no one is ever ready to countenance the madness when it comes to claim them. Not even a fatebringer of Invedea, and certainly not the last fatebringer of Invedea.

But what is often so intriguing about madness, is how simple it is to let yourself go when it comes calling.

"Blanchard of falling stones..." a voice seemingly from the very desert itself called to him. A cruel and hoarse voice that seemed to beat against ever crevace of his sun-seered mind. "...doom of the kingdom. Lost and gone and found again. Gold is the color of your DEATH!"

And suddenly he was no longer alone in the desert, men stood all around him. Their faces all too harshly familiar.

"Murderer." They called him. And murderer he was, each of their deaths had he caused. And each of their deaths must he revenge, or die trying if ever he deemed himself worthy of regaining his honor.

Mulbraith, Anasatz, Caldoran, Artor, Mengleth, Dorothed all of his men. His brothers in arms, the men who had called him King. Men who had followed him into battle with Catarbai and died defending the dream of restoring the once beautiful white tower. All were here now.

And all bled the quicksilver of the unrested dead. Faces no longer gallant but gaunt stared at him. He hoped for long moments that it meant he had died of the heat fever and joined them, but there was no such luck. He felt the inauspicious beating of his heart.

'Stop ticking away like the great clock you red son of a bitch!' But his heart would not listen to his plea, instead it seemed to speak: HOW DARE YOU ASK THIS OF ME FATEBRINGER OF INVEDEA! Your putrid body may yet be weak but I have come very far for this, and will go farther still before you have the head of the pretender upon a pike in your great hall. Now stand and prepare yourself!

'I cannot, my flesh is but a loose covering of my bones. I could not lift a sword let alone fight anymore. You may be willing you black thing, but my spirit is sapped and I will die with or without you.'

"NONESENSE! The Darkening sky is calling to you Lord, he is close. Very close." The dead men chimed in eerie unison, far more rationally than when they'd called him murderer. "He is HERE!"

Within an instant they vanished and he saw a man in dark robes walking slowly toward him. New fire burned in his body. He did not know where the strength came from, but his sword was in the air before he realized it. And he heard himself begin to scream.

"CATARBAI! Ruination of Invedea, slayer of Fatebringers! Today you meet Invedean steel and die as I always knew you must!"

His legs began to move, much to the surprise of his back, and he started to charge at the man in the distance. But he had been right all along, his body was failing. Before he could reach the man he collapsed in the sand and dreamt of days gone by.

Desert creeping into his very soul, he walked. Through the ceaseless shadow of the desert he had been traveling for weeks, perhaps months. He could not tell you how long, for each smoldering day and each gallows cold night blended together as one. But the sun was creeping low one afternoon when he drew the last of his leaf and rolled himself what he knew might be his final cigarette. He let the smoke drift into him, as if it were his lifes blood and focused upon the way it danced in the air.

This was a form of meditation for him, as he found no other forms of prayer or meditation were answered in these times. But meditate though he did, he had not prepared himself for what he would see in the recesses of a mind seared by the sun.

"Gold, fatebringer. Gold is the color of your fate." The seer had said that to him so long ago he felt it had been another life.

And as he looked out over the golden colored sand, he realized that this is what she meant. His fate ended here in the harsh desert where all things come to die. He had failed, the white tower of Invedea would be ever empty... and he was to blame.

Been going through some old posts, and I don't know if I missed anything, but with what little time I have in my silly life of too many committments, I'd like to help

emidala and milestogo13

to design the basic framework of the world we'll write/live in.

Unless there have been some posts by either of them that I couldn't find buried somewhere in someone's replies, there hasn't been anything done much recently, and I wanted to at least suggest a small basic idea which y'all can feel free to change or veto:

Our world is a very very ancient one. It is so old that sentient beings native to it (can I call them human?) have several times gained and lost the power of space travel. There have also grown repeated lineages of sorcery as old as mountain ranges, some of which have completely dissappeared, some of which have gone into hiding, some of which still operate.

There are cities (some deserted and ripe for exploring!) which use technologies which are so eldritch they appear to be magic (for similar examples, see early Michael Moorcock stories like "Jewel In The Skull" and also "Shadow Of The Torturer" by Gene Wolfe).

There are no elves, but there are many different kinds of people; some of whom have been biologically engineered so long ago that they are now accepted as "natural", some of which have come from other planets (often forgetting their species wasn't born on this planet), some come from other planes of existence, also not knowing they are not natives half the time, due to the oldness of the cultures.

What say you?

ok. I'll be the first to admit that I am a lurker. I will never be a great contributor to this effort, but my love for Elvish won't let me rest.

I already have too many projects taking up my time; they all slow each other down, but it can't be helped. I won't drop any of them. My Buddhism studies, my job, my occassional lazy forays into learning Chinese, Swedish, Japanese, & various martial arts. To say nothing of my dead-in-the-water writing career, stalled due to lack of inspiration, dedication, and time.

I feel a need to at least slowly begin to learn some Tengwar.

I am curious to hear the opinions of Emma and her cohorts on the subject of which websites are good places to learn Quenya and Sindarin. I have done searches. Some sites I have found seem okay, but I would appreciate a more expert opinion before I dedicate time. And I think this is the place to ask, if there is one anywhere!

Once I knew some Tengwar, fifteen years ago at least. Just enough to crudely transliterate english; no grammar, but fun. I have a shoebox full of letters from a girl I loved then

It has been some time, my fellow warriors, since I have spoken. With my blade in hand, I -- the dark One -- will fight for the ohtari_maltava protecting my compatriots and vanquishing our enemies with the cruelest of spells.

We shall battle on and win our war.

I put this in a cut to keep the poll entry near the top of the page, but I'd like some thoughts on it, it's my first serious suggestion of how we might approach this story, and I believe it fits the requirements of most everyone who has spoken thus far. It's a repost of a comment, I felt it bore reposting.

( Collapse )

I know that it's hard to draw up a backstory without specific world information, but that will be coming soon.

In the meantime, this is just a reminder that the phase we are in right now involves your characters far before the army; the life they've led, and what made them who they are. You do not need to worry about trying to tie yourself into the golden army, or, unless your character is specifically connected to that of another author's, who the other characters are either in your stories. In fact it would be optimal if you didn't. We can't know who's going to fall where until we know why they're falling the way they are.

The best way I can put it is, write as if the golden army was never going to exist, because in all technicality your character doesn't know a thing about it, because it doesn't exist yet. That's what the middle of the story is for. Let's not have a battle of helm's deep before we've even left the Shire.

Once we have everyone's backgrounds, life stories, etc., then we can lay them next to one another and see how they might all lead to the same path, that being the glories of the golden army. One step at a time.

Phase One: Individual backstories and biographies, individual authors drive character development, the army or even thought of the army does not exist yet.
Phase Two: Compiling of individual backstories, beginnings of the journey toward becoming an army, authors can begin mingling ideas and characters, tie-ins begin
Phase Three: Stories come together into the founding of the army, all charcters being tied into the army should be made present at this time, authors begin working closely together to develop story and characters from this point on
Phase Four: Army is formed, major plot/second half of story begins, round table discussions by authors preferred method of moving story forward from this point on.
Phase Five: Story is concluded, we decide whether to break the army and write about what our characters do in the days after or to begin work on another story

please take a minute and do this! it is important.



if things are still unclear, please bear with me. I am doing this as fast as I can but I don't want the results to be poor because of hasty work. hasty is bad.

excitement!

I'm working. things are going very well. if you want to be part of this, introduce yourself now, or your character will have to wait. I know that most of you have already, so breathe: I am not after your skin.

milestogo13, let's meet soon.

I have read about this story that we are all creating, and I think it to be a good idea. However, despite kicking the character about a little bit, I still haven't gotten any good ideas. I've been extremely busy as of recent and really haven't had the time to sit down and work on something like this.

I'll see if she speaks to me over the weekend or something like that, though I have a character that is much louder vying for my attentions. Hope you all are doing well.

Ariana