National Novel Writing Month – November 2009 – Novel ideas

The homebrew forum

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
tzor
Prince
Posts: 4266
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

National Novel Writing Month – November 2009 – Novel ideas

Post by tzor »

Back in 2007, I wrote a really crappy novel (hey it’s NaNoWriMo; quantity not quality) about Elves, Halflings, Kobolds, Dryads, Nymphs and Dragons in a fantasy like colonial America scenario. Taking place in what would have been around 1750 (the French and Indian War) the novel was called “It’s Revolutionary.” So I’ve finally decided to go for the trilogy effect and create the second in the series, “Points of Light.”

The Revolutionary Series started as a novel idea for the National Novel Writing Month program. Two guiding principles were put into play; the old world was a place where magic was for the most part kept in secret and the new world was a place of fantasy, where elves replaced Native Americans.

Elves have replaced Native Americans and the Iroquois Confederacy becomes a key player in the Revolutionary Series. The “Thirteen” colonies are trimmed to eight, so that the five nations of the Elves can bring the number back again to thirteen. The colonies are, New Ent, New Orc, New Journey, Mary, Purity, Pen, Charles, and George.

The five Elvin nations consist of:
  • People of the Flint
  • People of the Upright Stone
  • Keepers of the Fire
  • People of the Great Swamp
  • People of the Great Hill
One of the new key conceits about the D&D world is simply this: Civilized folk live in small, isolated points of light scattered across a big, dark, dangerous world. Most of the world is monster-haunted wilderness. The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn’t carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders.
The Revolutionary Series clearly violates one aspect of this 4E D&D definition; there are clearly nation-states and they care about their borders. But their borders are lines drawn in the darkness and war in the darkness is often a three way situation between two sides and the monsters of the darkness. But let’s run a little with the new D&D definition.

Roads are often closed by bandits, marauders such as goblins or gnolls, or hungry monsters such as griffons or dragons. The simple mission of driving off whomever or whatever is preying on unfortunate travelers is how many young heroes begin their careers.

Since towns and villages do not stay in close contact, it’s easy for all sorts of evils to befall a settlement without anyone noticing for a long time. A village might be terrorized by a pack of werewolves or enslaved by an evil wizard, and no one else would know until adventurers stumbled into the situation.

Many small settlements and strongholds are founded, flourish for a time, and then fall into darkness. The wild lands are filled with forgotten towers, abandoned towns, haunted castles, and ruined temples. Even people living only a few miles away from such places might know them only by rumor and legend.
Just as there is a definition of sorts for the nation-state there is also the definition of the city which will keep in contact with other cities and the Old World. Towns and villages, however, are fair game. Indeed one of the first colonial villages in North America did vanish almost without a trace. One of the Eight Colonies is mostly populated by Kobolds. Escaped Orc slaves are everywhere. Various Fey creatures of all kinds also can be found.

While it would make sense to derive the basic rules of the universe from the same source that drive the first book, (vaguely using the C&C rules) but the nature of the theme for the book “Points of Light” as well as the need for speed (this is NaNoWriMo) has encouraged me to consider doing this in the spirit, if not the letter of 4E. The reasons for using the spirit is two fold. The first reason is I don’t want the rules to get in the way of writing speed. The second is that I need to link in things that are not the norm within the standard 4E core books (Nymphs, Dryads, and Orcs, for example) but come from the first book based on the C&C setting.

Major Characters

Image

John Floyd Jr. is an 18 year old male Human (the oldest human child of John Floyd from the first book) who along with his younger brother James lives in a small village on Grand Island. A short distance away is the large oak tree of his half sister known as “The Dryad” (also from the end of the first book). He is currently being sketched as a Ranger.

Image

Aelflaed Adams is a 17 year old Nymph, the daughter of William Adams and Mignon the Nymph from the first book. She follows the great (and corny) tradition from the first book that all Nymphs have, for reasons never quire explained, modern West Coast accents. (Personally I blame Shelly Mazzanoble for permanently scarring my fantasy vision; well duh; pass the magic missile meatballs!) Nymphs aren’t in 4E (or at least the first MM book) and Dryad’s look too much like medium sized female Treents for my taste, so I’m casting them all as sort of like Eladrin with a few extra special features. Aelflaed will also be case as a fey type warlock. (All that zapping, dancing through the dimensions, disappearing and all that.)

Image

Adiya Hairfoot is a female Halfling. Halflings in the Revolutionary Series have an interesting situation and act as a metaphor for a class of displaced and often abused people. At age 25 she is the oldest character until George Washington is introduced into the plot (who is age 38 by the time of “Points of Light”). She is also a cleric, a double problem because even divine magic is looked with suspicion by most non adventurers and being non-Human, her faith is also at slight odds with the general faith that flowed from the Old World to the New World.
Post Reply