Ancient Northernmost

“My father told me the story once.
To hear my dad’s people tell it, it’s our creation myth;
all people used to be Acians and all Acians were slaves.”
– Jest Rovanna

Hear then the tale of our people, of all people. For all people were once Acians, and all Acians were once slaves. Long was our enslavement, measured not in generations, but epochs, before there was such a thing as history or words. Our masters were of no tribe, no people. They were the masters of monsters and things for which we have no names. They tamed the universe and its secrets and for a time, our masters bowed to nothing.

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Protharious

Well, I told you there’d be fiction again! I figure after that doozy of a post, I should lighten stuff up. But I also want to stay on target somewhat. While thinking about what I wanted to write in the previous entry, a thought had occurred to me that I might have another outlet for expressing my anxiety, one that would also allow me to work on the well overdue The Priest of Smugglers’ Run. Of all my characters, the one that would absolutely struggle with anxiety — in fact, I think he does without me even having known about it — would be the titular priest, Protharious.

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Back to Work

It has been a while, hasn’t it?  Oh sure, there was that other site, and that took time.  And yes, there was a novel draft, which was finished literally as I returned to the states; somewhere above the Pacific.  That felt good, let me tell you.  So much so, that I immediately cashed in on the whole first class thing1thanks tiny Oregon shoe company and asked the flight attendant for two whiskeys on the rocks.  She brought me two of these fall-themed apple-infused Jack Daniel’s cocktails that actually were delicious.  So I asked for two more, and when auntie looked at me strange, I smiled and told her, “Hey, I just finished my book and I’m moving back to the States.”  Since we were still in the future, the looming nightmare of Trump was still visible and she took pity on me and brought me three and some ramen.

So passed draft three; with a toast as I hurdled towards the day before at 500km/h.

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The Writer Takes Time Off

So I made a big introductory post, spent many hours pouring over old posts and reformatting them, wrung my hands over how many words I’ve written about video games1oh my god I’m a dork and then…

silence.

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30 More Days: Favorite Name

This is part of a series in which I try to write a post every day on silly video game topics.  For the list of topics, click here.

I’ve probably already alluded to it several times during the course of this series, so let’s just jump right to it.  While I’ve had a lot of fun characters of various names, the one I always come back to is Jest.

I’ve had a variety of Jests through various games, but it never really caught on until World of Warcraft when I created my human paladin and long-time main.  “Jest Prime” (guild canon was that she was actually Jest “Lightbringer”, claimed to be Uther’s love child and was quite possibly an insane person) more or less set the imprint that would be all future “Jest” characters.  Red hair, preferably short, usually Paladin or some equally defensive/heavy armor character (whenever said archetype fits).  My wife can look over and see a character and know instantly, “Yep, that’s a Jest.”

The name came from an unfinished (un-started?) work of fantasy fiction I had dreamt up at some point.  “Jest” was the nickname of Jessaterra (sometimes Jessica) Rovanna, another name I’ve used often for characters.  The actual abilities and personality traits of Jest have migrated quite a bit in the stories I’ve imagined.  Early on, Jest was a love interest of another main character, only a slight bit more than the damsel in distress.  I grew attached the character, and I started to imagine Jest more as a gifted character and an fierce individualist.  More and more, I realized that it was her story I wanted to tell, and the early love interest roles were reversed.

Maybe I should take a peek at some of those old stories.