NaNo '11: No Rest for the Writer

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Literally. Janus won't let me sleep. And he's not sleeping either. Have never seen him in drill sargent mode before and it might be even a bit scarier than an overenthusiastic Akino. Anyway.

I'll be posting tidbits about the world and the story in question here. I decided to go fantasy, for the first time in ages (I don't think I've done anything even like fantasy since elementary school...), so I'm pretty freaked out and pretty excited. Let's get some basics first.

The world is called Euridia, and the story is going to take place in the year 999, just before the first millennium. Allow me to provide you with a map of the eastern continent of Eiria before I go into further detail so you don't get lost in translation here...

(click the image for a much much much uberly larger view...)

So. There we have Eiria. Just a rough sketch, I promise it'll look prettier once I draw it out properly and scan it into the computer and digitize it. Well, anyway. Agoria is the country we're looking for, taking up most of the mainland north of the River Maia, above the Agorian Wall. Now, in the year 999, that wall has yet to be built, but it's still an entirely human nation; also, it has not yet acquired the all land that covers the large forest stretching up into Windemere and Carmoc; or any of the Oighreaàrd Mountains. Basically, Windemere and Terminis are the two of the ten provinces that do not exist yet. The forest belongs to elves, and the mountains to dwarves with a few tribes of fauns living among the forested foothills. Agoria is looking to take over much of these lands; but anything south of Lake Mira in the Wynyd woods, they aren't interested in, for this land is populated mostly by fauns and they don't wish to have any dealings with said tricksters.

That covers the setting of the story. In my next post, we'll start delving into plot and characters and a little on races.

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Let's look at Agoria a little more first, actually, since Agoria is extremely important to the plot.

Agoria is expanding. Agoria has been expanding for some time. When it first came to be, it was called Teranan. This name originally came from the fauns in their native tongue, long before there were any humans north of the River Maia; "terra" for earth, and "nanus" for dwarf, though here dwarf would simply mean little person, for the fauns of Kreios who named the land had no dealings with any actual dwarves for some time. Teranan, then, was the Little People's Earth, and much of the land north of current-day Thenerus came to be called by this name, for gnomes called the place home. When the humans came, these gnomes went into hiding and became legend and myth among Agorians eventually, funny little earth-spirits that people told stories about and occasionally caught glimpses of. The name Teranan stuck, however, and that was the name of the human settlement here for some time; the first province of Agoria came to be known as Teranan, and is still named as such to this day.

The name Agoria came with King Aegor the Indomitable; as his conquest for more land began, the land once known as Teranan was split up into provinces, and named in its entirety as Agoria after its indestructible king. He was met with such little resistance for some time that to call him Indomitable was perhaps misleading; most of the land he took was from faun and gnome; the fauns didn't really care as long as their River Maia and a bit of land to its north was left to them (nor did King Aegor want much of the forests that had been tainted with faunal magic), and the gnomes were adept enough at hiding that they were able to stay in Agoria quite unnoticed. It was when they reached the elven province of Wynydmir and the dwarves of the Oighreaàrd Mountains that King Aegor came to his first true test of merit.

By now, however, his armies had grown, and it was doubtful that even the combined forces of the dwarves and elves in the area could withstand an attack from Agoria; and many dwarves and elves saw it as a lost cause and fled south into current-day Ambrosia and Dun Felrach. A few tribes of fauns that had long lived around the outskirts of the Wynyd Wood in the foothills of the Oighreaàrds willingly volunteered their help, but it was hardly enough. Their forces were small and, though strong of will, they certainly weren't as strong in numbers as the armies of King Aegor.

So, we have the plot! The story will cover this grave time in Eiria and its unfortunate results, as well as the role that a strange human called Ergualwf plays in all of it, a man who offers his allegiance to the dwarves, elves, and fauns after being banished from Agoria himself, and who claims that he knows of a power that could easily defeat the whole Agorian army that he would be more than willing to teach them, though he will name no price for this favor. No one really trusts him, but he is unfortunately their only hope for survival, so not much else can be done.

Very typical fantasy stuff probably, but I've had all manner of fun developing everything so far. The world is mostly going to be used for D&D campaigns, so it's really not too terribly big a deal if it's typical fantasy.

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“Ornos Caspan,” he hissed at the grinning youth, and then went on, his voice gradually rising in volume as well as in anger, “what in the name of Theren are you doing in my chair!”

“Sitting.”

Okay. Pause from writing since Ornos' smart mouth is making me giggle uncontrollably.