One day and I've already diverted. But what the hell. A great idea barreled its way into my mind, begging to be written. The greatness of it isn't really the plot (it draws from several cliches) but the way the characters act throughout the story. Now, this isn't one of those, "Oh my characters are really morally ambiguous--all right, they aren't morally ambiguous and they aren't really three-dimensional, they're just rapists and killers with one paper-thin redeeming quality--so they are the most realistic characters you can read about in fiction," if you follow me. This is more like, um . . . Tolkien's derring-do mixed with, to reference cinema, The Prestige's obsessions and Blood Diamond's priorities.
Yes, it's a fantasy. It will probably be a more exciting alternative story I can write when I'm tired of cranking out the inner monologues and devious maneuvers, assassinations and all, of first-century Roman politicians.
Anywhoz, the idea may have originated as far back as 1999, when I was a seven-year-old twerp who wasted time watching his brother shear his way through bizarre humanoids on Asheron's Call. Another influence is the Myst series and its parallel worlds.
At the core of my story: millennia ago the gods were so disgusted with humankind that they sent down malevolent angelic creatures to wipe them out. But another group of angels splintered from the gods' will, and war raged between them and the baddy angels over the world. Eventually the goodies won and drove the baddies out of existence and lived side-by-side with man. Then came the big shakeup of power in the Cradle (heaven), and the old gods--the nasty ones--had to run for it, to no-one-knows-where, replaced by a newer, more benevolent pantheon. Now, of course, the old gods are coming back. First they have to rouse their malevolent angels, who have gone into hiding en masse far west of civilization. Their first target is a kingdom without a king, whose dominant families are already at its throat.
Magic plays a big role. It draws on the concept that there is a fifth dimension, beyond line, plane, solid, and "time." This dimension is the very fabric of the world. But first, within--or parallel to?--the solid of the universe, there are alternate planes of existence, often mirror images of each other, sometimes with the same terrain, etc., sometimes with different inhabitants, or no inhabitants at all . . . or sometimes, hauntingly, with the exact same inhabitants . . . only different. Scary, huh? It's easily to lose your way through these planes. So, the fifth dimension is the fabric, which is where magic really comes in. By manipulating the fabric and elemental forces, the magus does his thing. The fifth dimension, when combined with the second, can involve interplanar travel, or teleportation. But a certain pair of planes, or even solids, are so alien that a wall has formed between them, a wall ALMOST impossible to breach (impossible for the common man and pretty much impossible for the most powerful magi; it might require more luck than knowledge/talent/whatever to breach). If you do manage to breach the magical interplanar barrier, the Wall, good luck getting back, because it's even harder.
Curiously, an unexplainably important character in the story, first a tavern boy and then a Tinker, was born with the name of Jack Wall.
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accomplished
determined
lazy
giddy
creative
