ESSAYS!!!

I have intended to put more posts on here this week. I am still reading blogs but also have essays to write so my creative side has changed to a worrying on. This means I have fallen behind on posting but something will be posted by the end of the week.

Travels

Although not related to writing or my fictional world I thought that these might be enjoyed anyway.

This Polish children's book is entitled "Children's painting book". This store is in Hong Kong and the Chinese reads "Mr Hong's hanging model establishment." Or more correctly Mr Hong's miniature hobby store. Read them faster and out loud if you don't understand it the first few times. 

Why the Confederate?

The Confederate is the name of my blog and also the name of a small country in one of my stories.

The Confederate (country)

Fortunately placed as a land bridge between the frozen north and the southern deserts. This nation enjoys great weather resulting in rich harvests. A large bridged river passes through the centre of the Confederate. Because of its ideal geographic location with the great sea to its west and the Spire Mountains to its east the Confederate is a natural trade route between the frozen north and the scorching south. It is not unusual to see many different types of clothing, arts and foods as well as many different races and peoples in the same city on the same day. The Confederate is considered a place of cultural exchange.

The Confederate is an alliance of lords all linked by blood. Their father Baron Uzen is the ruler of the lands, he has divided it between his twenty two children, nieces and nephews, giving them each the title of lord. Each lord runs their land according to their own laws and personal outlook. On their own the lords are weak, Baron Uzen works hard to keep them united and rules over any internal political problems between them.

The Confederate was a quiet place of mutual co-operation, a stopover for land trade and its economy was dwarfed by the great port city of Strang to the north west of it. However, since the city of Strang closed its gates and began invading the surrounding areas along with reports of massacres and untold horrors huge numbers of refugees have been flooding the Confederate which has also seen a huge increase in traders who originally would have made their way to Strang and eventually the north.

Being stretched in every area from basic sanitation and infrastructure to militarizing the border of the Confederate as defence from possible invasion by Strang. This period of time is either the making or breaking of the Confederate, things are changing at a breakneck speed. This will be a testing time of politics between the twenty two lords, their father and the people.

The lords at the border nearest to Strang have recently petitioned others to offer their support either with food or troops. Lord Frederick the youngest and least prepared of the border lords along with his brother Lord Razek have recently signed pacts exchanging Fredericks knowledge of the floating ships for trained military troops to defend his land.

More about Lord Frederick the crafty and Lord Razek the strong in later posts.

The Confederate (the blog)

I chose this name because “The elemental world” sounded too general and “World of Elements” just sounded like a rip off of World of Warcraft. Putting my own name sounded arrogant. I was thinking of a character I had invented but then realised I had more to put on it than details about that specific character.

So although I cover more than the Confederate in this blog it was the best name I could think of.

The Clown in the night.

I thought a break should be taken from explaining the world my characters live in and thought I would enclose a short story. There are many different ways of ruling an area. The one below is in a city just after a strict order has moved in and removed any form of entertainment.

Night fell and the city was quiet. The lockdown was working, the king’s new rules were implemented and all of those caught out of their houses would be punished. That's how it was to be. People would wake do their work, eat, sleep and that was final. Soldiers patrolled the streets. People should all be asleep now and any noise from anywhere or anyone was stopped with an iron fist.

The only noise that could be heard was the breath of the guards as they were patrolling and the night time chirping of insects. They turned a corner and saw a figure wearing bright red and yellow. He had a large hat with bells attached to them.

“Halt.” The sergeant ordered.The person shook his hat and the small bells rang. The figure wasn't moving, the patrol moved forward. “What’s your name?” the sergeant asked under baited breath. This was the kind of person he hated. The city was so much better off now that the new order had moved in. The new king had been crowned. There was no alcohol, no smoking, no homelessness, no rich and no poor. There was a small resistance especially when the pubs and bars had been shut down. They were not necessary. Nor was music or art. Science, hard work and magic were all that was needed. They would build and trade. A land of workers.

Then in front of him wearing non regulation clothing smiling wearing makeup and bells was this…. This clown.

“What’s your name lout?” the sergeant asked.

“Lout. You just said my name, it is lout.”

“No I’m saying you are a lout for breaking the curfew.”

“Well you are out past the curfew too.”

“So you have a document signed by the chief of guard do you?”

“Yes it is right here.”

The clown pulled out a sheet of paper, it was an application to break the curfew. The sergeant snatched it out of his hand.

“Well Lout it hasn't been signed explain that.”

“I was on my way to the chief of guard when you told me to halt so if you let me go and get it signed…”

“We are taking him in boys.” 

The sergeant moved to grab the clown who instantly jumped back avoiding his grasp. He pointed his arms to the sky and his arms were also covered in small bells he shook his arms and moved his legs frantically shouting and blowing raspberries. When one of the patrolmen stepped closer to grab him he spun around and leapt back out of reach. When he had taken about five steps he stopped and spoke. “My name isn’t Lout you silly sergeant of severity. My name is Freedom. Can you hear me? FREEDOM.” A cosh whirred through the air straight for his head and as it touched him it went straight through. The clown laughed and slowly started to disappear his being seeming ever more translucent by the moment. The last thing the guards saw before he disappeared was the clowns white backside as he flashed at them laughing.

The Contract

The contract is central to the world of the entities and is seen as a religious activity or sacrament by the main races. It can be used extensively throughout the game as a common everyday thing or as a religious sacrament to only be done on special occasions. It all depends on what you want to do with it.

The role of contracts: The contract was the first constructive thing the entities ever did. Contracts, treaties and pacts are seen as a religious thing among the main five races of world and among the elemental people. Other races don’t see them as so important but only break a treaty if they know that they can get away with it or are well prepared to defend themselves before they break it. 

The three words pact, treaty and contract hold different meanings. A treaty is the word used for an agreement between two mortal races. A trade treaty is an agreement for trade or a treaty on rent is an agreement for paying rent. A contract is that between an entity or someone more powerful than a mortal in exchange for something. A treaty between a water entity and a human would be an example, or between a god and his subject even in more recent times powerful immortal demons and saints have been making pacts with people. A pact is an agreement between two or more races to fight a common enemy the Dwarves and Gnomes have a pact to fight together and lend aid to one another if needed. 

The contracts were invented for the common races by the entities after the gods created other races. One of the common races must find his or her desired entity then if they are both on friendly terms make a contract with them. A small piece of the entity will enter the one who has made the contract and have certain effects on them. For example an earth entity makes a contract with a gnome who lives in the mountain regions the gnome will better be able to sense when creatures are trying to sneak up on him as long as that creature is touching the ground, the gnome will be less easily picked up or tripped as he has a closer connection to the earth, he will be stronger when in contact with the ground and eventually his skin will change to become like that of the earth entity increasing his armor class. However, when flying or in the realm of air the gnome will be constantly unnerved, jumpy and frightened, the inhabitants of that realm will be disinclined to communicate with this individual. A contract of this kind is not to be taken lightly and is permanent. 

Opposite contracts are not possible, one cannot have a contract with an entity of light and then another with the entity of darkness the same applies for fire and water, earth and air. However air and water would be a fine mix to have a maximum of two contracts it possible for one individual. 

Because the contract was the first constructive thing done by the entities any contract is taken seriously. If a contract is renegaded on by one party the authorities deal harshly on the one who could not keep his end of the contract unless that contract violates the law of the land such as a contract to murder someone. In which case the party which has been betrayed will stalk the traitor to get revenge. 

Laws of the land are also necessary, although never given by the entities to the common races it was evident from the start that rules were needed to help their society prosper. Some gods chose to give their races laws and rules to live to. The giants were told to wipe out the Dwarves and take their land and the Trolls were told to kill all gnomes. The Orcs were taught to take what they could by force. Devils and Demons were given strict rules and laws on destruction and their actions leaving them in a state of perpetual fighting against angels and saints whose own rules and laws handed down were the opposite of the Devils and Demons.

The world of elements

This is the world I have invented for my stories. Many regions populate the world all with different structures for ruling and different outlooks of different peoples who reside in the different lands.

The world of elements: Long ago the all-mighty God created six entities he gave them unlimited power and created them to assist him and be his equal. When they were created they realised they had opposites but instead of building on differences and working together they were filled with the urge to destroy their opposite and began fighting. With their creator giving them no end to their power and making them his equals he hid from their battles, not only disgraced at what they had chosen to become but filled with guilt that perhaps he had made them incorrectly. 

Ages passed in mortal times and the entities started to forge contracts with others. The entities of Earth and Fire formed a pact against the entities of Air and Water the remaining two did no such thing and focussed solely on destroying the other. Darkness and Light remained enemies with no contract possibly to hold them. 

Eventually when no answer could be found and no single entity or group could gain the upper hand they realised that something must be done. They divided areas up, huge expanses of all planes were covered in one of the four entities with alternating light and darkness. These areas were kept separate until the fighting once again started. The world was populated with areas of water, light and darkness alternated more regularly air brushed over the surface and fire sprang up from the earth in areas. 

The battles continued and a second meeting was called. Rules were changed and instead of all planes containing areas of all six entities they divided the planes. Some fell in to permanent darkness, some were light all the time, some full of flames and lava, others just water or solid rock. 

They finally realised that their battles were futile, so they returned back to contract writing and constructing treaties each contributed something to create an entity  which was less powerful as a sign of peace. The being needed air to breathe and water to drink, it needed food from the earth to exist and was imbued with the knowledge of fire to purify the food and water. The darkness and light were needed for the food to grow. Without one of these six they would surely die. So the Dwarves were created. Later on they decided to populate more areas with different variations Elves, Gnomes and Halflings followed they were created for the different areas that had grown into existence. Dwarves lived underground, Elves in the forests, Halflings on plains and gnomes in the mountains. Animals were created with plants to populate this world. The entity of water became jealous as none of the races used the sea so argued for another race. Reluctantly they all returned to the table and created humans who lived on and next to the sea. 

The creations they had made as a sign of peace did not know which entity to follow, they knew that if one withdrew they would be destroyed so they followed none. The all mighty God returned, with fear from the last time he created entities. He made others, more powerful than the beings on the land but less powerful than himself or the entities. These became known as gods and each race took their own god and worshipped them, this did not happen without side-effects however, the all mighty God gave them a choice and did not stop at five gods he continued to create more an more of these gods. These gods in-turn created more and more races, Trolls, Giants, Dragons, Demons, Devils, Angels, Saints populated the world and so it went on. 

Enraged that all of these so called Gods had created their own people the entities in turn created their own people and races. They adjusted the contracts which bound the original races so they could choose to follow an entity and not die. This led to religions of the entities, to entice people they offered special powers to them, as they did this so did the other gods creating magic in its purest form. Many worshipped gods and received the magic as clerics others tapped it through direct knowledge and became magicians.   

This is the world we live in today, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings and Gnomes populate the world with Humans, Orcs, trolls, Dragons and Giants as well as others such as Devils and Demons, Angels and Saints. The elemental people are interspersed in the cities of the world they are originally from the borderlands which are yet to be explored. The gods made the same agreement as the entities so the demons and devils live in the dark realms while the angels and saints live in the lands of light. 

Unique to the entire system the five main races of the world proved they could live together in relative peace compared to the perpetual war of others so were kept together on one plane. This plane acts a balance between the realms of light and dark, were it to tilt its balance too far in one direction all would be lost, all the realms, all the gods and all the entities would fall back into warfare with suffering like no one has seen before. 

Blog Virgin; A bit about me.

This is my first blog post: As someone with an overactive imagination I have always been interested in fantasy novels. I was brought up on a farm in the UK our nearest neighbour lived about a mile away. I didn’t see many people from school in the holidays, which was just how I liked it. I then discovered Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, Neverwinter Nights, Diablo etc. I regularly thought of other ways of dealing with in game problems, but the games would not let me. So I returned to reading novels, Eddings, Feist, King, Tolkein, R.A. Salvatore, Gygax, Greenwood and even good old Harry Potter to name a few. The next logical step was to put pen to paper, eventually that turned into typing. 

I have been writing and coming up with ideas and stories since I was a kid. Originally I kept it a secret as no one else I know did it, but after discovering that D+D existed through Gary Gygax novels and my uncle more and more people got to know about my writing habits.

I now have four novels written and in various stages of editing, I have never shown them to anyone and I’m not about to publish thousands of unedited pages online. I did however think it was about time I shared some of my ideas online. 

So why the blog? 

I have never played paper version D+D, I have never played Mass Effect, World of Warcraft etc in fact the last game I did play was NWN2 then stopped due to lots of work. But then again many authors didn’t have D+D or computer games (Tolkien being the main example). 

I am hoping that the ideas I come up with are useful for DM’s and others who are looking for something extra in their game, or who need a quick answer to what it in the secret room.  I am hoping that as a non-D+D player some of my ideas might be new.

I am also aware from reading various authors online at D+D sites and from novels that certain things exist in the D+D world e.g. Planes, Paladins, and even some more detailed things from computer games like the Githzerai and Githyanki history and hatred of Mindflayers. 

Who knows what will happen, there are no D20 dice in the world we live in (unfortunately).