Plot Post: Of Elves and Dwarrows

[nonesensed]

Ah, fantasy. Elves and dwarves, to be exact. (Quick and small title change).

Characters

Main:

• Jale (male, Jadestone dwarf, young, just got a "real" beard going, in love with Prince Onren, unsure of his place, brother of Warsa)


• Kaaz (male, former Deep Mine dwarf, young-ish, former fugitive, still worried about fitting in, warrior, betrothed to Fanwa).


• Narathriel (male, elf, young-ish, on a quest, clever, magician)


• Warsa (female, Jadestone dwarf, young-ish, mighty red beard!, best friends with Prince Onren, established warrior, dutiful, sister of Jale)

Supporting:

• Beswa (female, Jadestone dwarf, warrior, hot-headed, in an on-again-off-again relationship with Gelame).


• Bjana (female, Jadestone dwarf, both blood-and-true mother of Tura, Deepdigger Clan)


• Droh (male, Jadestone dwarf, criminal, brother of Bjana, Deepdigger Clan)


• Fanwa (male, Jadestone dwarf, warrior, betrothed to Kaaz, brother of Marwa).


• Gelame (female, Jadestone dwarf, warrior and bard, calm, on-and-off-again with Beswa, magical potential).


• Guthra (female, Deep Mine dwarf, cousin to Kaaz, obsessed with status).


• Hreka (female, Deep Mine dwarf, warrior, married to Marwa).


• Marwa (male, Jadestone dwarf, kidnapped and thought dead, great jewel maker, brother of Fanwa, married to Hreka).


• Prince Onren (male, Jadestone dwarf, has an older brother and sister, warrior and leader of a seven man party with special training, terrified of marriage, in love with Jale).


• Tura (female, Jadestone dwarf, daughter of Bjana, friend of Jale, magical potential, Deepdigger Clan)


• Vergar (male, Storm Cliffs dwarf, guard and warrior, magical potential)


• Zurkea (female, Jadestone dwarf, middle-aged warrior, tough as nails).

Minor:

• The Older Prince (male, Jadestone dwarf, older brother of Onren and the princess, not the heir).


• The Princess (female, Jadestone dwarf, younger sister to The Older Prince, older sister to Onren, the heir).


• Queen Luheka (female dwarf, mother to Prince Onren, ruler of Jade Stone Mountain, MIGHTY BEARD!)

Plot:
An unholy mess of action/adventure, romance, fantasy, steampunk and erotica. Long story short, elves are due to backstory reasons not popular with other species and are basically believed to be evil sirens who want to eat your soul. Because of this, they were long ago driven from the land this story takes place in; only they've decided to return. The dwarves of Jadestone Mountain (who're at war with the Deep Mines, over the underground warm water resources in Jadestone) find this out quite by accident: the young guard Jale unknowingly saves the life of one - i.e. he doesn't know it's an elf he's saved until they've already become friends. The rest of the dwarves think Jale has been magically brainwashed by the evil elf, so Jale decides to help said elf (Narathriel) home, to prove his sanity to the other dwarves. Naturally, Jale's sister and friends (*cough*Prince Onren most of all*cough*) are none too happy with this decision of his...

Notes:

• When courting, the dwarves gift each other with previous gems/jewerly/shiny stuff every year on the day of their bethroal. When they finally get married, their closest relatives help them dress in the finest of the gifts, right before the wedding night.


• Only one person of a married couple wears a sign of the marriage (a large bracelet). This is because the person without a bracelet _can_ marry another (though only being the one that gets the bracelet that time). It rarely happens, but it's not completely unheard of; and when married, the third person technically demotes the first person with the bracelet to lover or possibly second-spose to themselves.


• The royal line used to be patriarchal, until a revolution some ten generations back. This is remembered every 20 years with a ritual that I'm heavily borrowing from "Last Night of the Kings" by Van Canto <_< >_>


• Elves don't have any rituals for marriage, they just agree to be married. Dwarves on the other hand have tons of rituals (see above).

Scenes:

• Jale explaining the meaning of braids and how courtship braids can only be undone (for cleaning) by the person's betrothed - or in an emergency a very close relative to the betrothed - (he's explaining to Narathriel)


• Onren mentioning to Warsa that he thinks Jale has a very pleasant voice, when she mentions that Jale plans to become a bard


• Jale deciding to become a bard since he's no warrior-material and few other stations are high enough for him to dare think the prince would marry him


• When Jale goes off with Narathriel (to prove his own worth and that elves aren't soul-eaters). Onren & co go after him. Sadly, so do some Deep Mine dwarves, who're aiming to catch themselves valuable prisoners.


• Onren and Kaaz end up taken prisoner by Kaaz' cousin Guthra. Kaaz is to be married off to some noble (Deep Mines still have those), while Onren is to be given to one of the royals. Lots of hair drama!


• All the six warrior directly under Onren's command (ex: Warsa, Kaaz, Fanwa, Gelame, Beswa and Zurkea) ship Onren/Jale and have been dwarf-subtly trying to hook the two up since Jale came of age.

Comments

Character development

[nonesane.livejournal.com]

Warsa is a natural leader and has made herself known as quite the skilled warrior, despite her quite young age (102). This has lead to the Queen of Jadestone Mountain wanting to keep an eye on her. Not that she actually thinks Warsa wants to rebell and become the new queen instead of the princess/heir, but people talk...

Since the heir is the heir she hasn't been able to go out and do all the brave and dangerous things that Warsa has done while fighting next to prince Onren. The heir is a fine strategist and a good warrior, but she hasn't had the same chance to shine on the frontline as Warsa has. And Warsa is really good at ordering people around without them feeling like they're being ordered around, as well as very popular with most people in Jadestone. She's also quite ambitious, though very loyal to her queen.

The entire thing is solved quite nicely with Warsa given permission to mine the mountain where the elves live (at the end of the first "book"), so that she'll be queen, though slightly under the Queen of Jadestone's command still (if temporary. She'll eventually have her own kingdom, allied with Jadestone).

Re: Character development

[nonesane.livejournal.com]

Later on we'll find out that Droh used to start fights at taverns to show off his skills in a desperate attempt to recruit new Clan members. Sadly people were scared off or annoyed with his attitude (smug and condescending), but there was one person: a young, one-armed orphane girl who wishes to join the Deepdiggers...