[OOC:]
We're transferring play of Borderlands to this Board. For the most part, I was going to summarise past events, but also upload the first chapter file (there are only two) so that anyone who wanted to would be able to read the first gameday of the story as it was written. But it occurred to us that some things in both chapters - ideas and events critical to the story - might be better off posted verbatim. I'd hate to leave the memory of these things behind on our other forum!
Sooo...I'll post critical Enya material, as Kiye will for Rowellan and Bjorn. There will be a proper intro soonish, but in the meantime I'm collecting Enya's VIPs (Very Important Posts) here.
[Update: Intro written; Chapter 1 attached.]
*~*~*~*
The Setting: A remote corner of the Realm of Midgard. (Map: The Midgard Borderlands (http://avatar-tails.societasviaromana.net/forum/gallery/1_22_02_18_5_23_41.jpeg)) There are three such Realms in the known world (well, as much of it as was known until Enya showed up): Midgard, land of the conquering, seafaring Norsefolk; Albion, where knights and castles hold sway; and Hibernia, land of the mystical Celts. Each Realm is suffused with its People's mythos and magic. And each Realm possesses one or more sacred Relics given to its People directly by their gods.
These Relics are the subject of seeming centuries of strife. Kept in the most formidable and well-guarded strongholds, located in the most forbidding landscapes, they are yet vulnerable to being carried off by fighters of the other Realms. No Realm seems to be content with its own blessings; each believes that its gods will smile upon it even more brightly if it usurps the divine power of another Realm as well. If the Norse Gods won't bless Albion, well, at least They won't be blessing the Norse while Albion holds Their artifacts captive either...
And so it goes, year after year, the raids of every Realm upon every other to either claim that culture's Relics or reclaim their own. The raiders, sparing themselves any long marches or sea-voyages, make use of magical portals planted secretly on the outskirts of the Realm being invaded, and these portals are almost as hard to get into as the Relic Keeps. And the only thing between the raid portals ("Outposts") and the Relic Keeps are the fortifications of the Borderlands, their inhospitable terrain, and the people who man them with might and magic.
Rowellan Stormsverd is one such defender. An accomplished archer and huntress, she patrols the Midgard Borderlands in search of anything unusual, anything--or anyone--that has no business being there. Border guards don't like "unusual". And on this particular sunny yet frigid morning, she has spotted someone quite unusual indeed approaching the Midgard side of the Wall...
The Characters (click names for images):
- Rowellan Stormsverd (http://avatar-tails.societasviaromana.net/forum/gallery/1_22_02_18_5_22_29.jpeg), Norse huntress
- Enya (http://avatar-tails.societasviaromana.net/forum/gallery/1_22_02_18_5_21_41.png), Seafolk wanderer and some sort of beastmaster...they think...
- Bjorn Silverhand (http://avatar-tails.societasviaromana.net/forum/gallery/2_26_03_18_11_04_13.jpeg), Norse Skald...
...and others (http://avatar-tails.societasviaromana.net/forum/gallery/1_22_02_18_5_24_23.png) we've yet to meet.
[IC:]
[Enya, having somehow avoided being skewered long enough to start up a conversation with Rowellan, introduces her companions:]
...she tossed the sphere overhand in a huge arc, at the end of which it seemed to explode or evaporate...and standing where it had last been seen was a huge owl, hooded like a falcon, only that the hood was open-faced and could be drawn closed by its tassels. The hood was green, the rest of the bird soft brown above and white below, and the way it held its wings shut made them look like a cape going all the way down to its ankles...
...Meanwhile, the sphere which had contained the owl had somehow ended up back in Enya's hand.
"Is Tayu," Enya said, smiling. "Think you gonna like him the best..."
[snip]
But she did need [the rest of her team], and she had them, so she showed them. It didn't actually take a rocket-launcher to get them out of their containers; a soft underhand toss, like a toddler's, was just as effective, as was simply holding the ball and pressing the latch. Thus did she release a huge dog, big enough to ride, Nordic in form but auburn with tiger-stripes, whose mane and tail flowed like wind-driven fire; a truly gargantuan mud-colored warhorse, who only needed four more legs to be worthy of Odin; a crested silver gryphon; a brass-colored fox of no unusual size, but whose pelt bristled with static until Enya smoothed it again...and from the last orb, the one with the Rock symbol on it, came a disarmingly cute little puppy, all wriggles and kisses and half-tipped ears and big, fluffy plume-tail...but who yet had pebbles of some dark stone embedded in its ruff.
"Is Pepper... Is Kilvanä... Is Auryn... Is 'Iheyu... Is Wuffels," said Enya proudly, announcing them in order.
-:- -:- -:-
[Enya explains her "Soul-friends" and her religious beliefs...not incidentally shedding light on how Pokémon could work in a fantasy setting:]
"And now," Enya said more seriously, "since have seen much questions in your eyes, I 'splain to you 'bout my Soul-friends.
"My People do believe that 'All are One'--that there be no difference between us, animals, plants, Land and Sea; that all be just forms of Mother-god, and She be all of them at once. 'f you believe that, you know that all have Spirit, and all share same Spirit--is Spirit of Mother-god. So...do it matter what form She takes? Do it matter what form we take? Is all same-same to Her and to me and to my People; we can be Wolf as easy as Forest. But She made us *us*, from same stuff as Wolf and Forest, so all have Wolf and Forest in them. And ones like me, we have Wolf and Forest outside too...
"Tayu be my sharpness, my Seeing, my flight.
"Pepper be my fierceness, my fangs, my Fire.
"Kilvanä be my strength, my caring, my holding-steady.
"'Iheyu be my spark, my force, what I put in the world when I feel thundery inside.
"Auryn...ah, Auryn! He be anything I need him to be, all of me that not be in Tayu or Pepper or Kilvanä or 'Iheyu or even in me, 'cause Spirit be much bigger than Body.
"And Wuffels, she here to remind me that is okay to still be little and sweet."
(http://avatar-tails.societasviaromana.net/forum/gallery/1_16_03_18_1_14_45.png)