Guild Wars 2 and writing

My writing hasn’t been doing very well lately, but I’ve managed to find a way to help it along.  Summer’s here, which has also helped a bit, though I also am getting out more considering there’s more sun.

However, one thing I’ve actually taken up is writing in the world of Guild Wars 2.  It’s a video game that’s set in the world of Tyria.  There are five races, and a rich history that goes along with the world.  Elements that mirror fantasy, steampunk, the old west, and science fiction.  All told, it’s an interesting world and one that really seemed to mesh well with my own characters I had created.  Sadly, elf is not one of the races available in the game, but that’s fine.

In a way, it’s a form of fan fiction writing, but writing fan fiction helps with other writing.  Plus it can get you into a groove to write again by sparking ideas for any original pieces that one might have.  For now, this is quite helpful.

What I’ve been writing has been short, and part of the game’s content, especially with how ArenaNet releases patches of content every two weeks.  Right now, they’re in the middle of Season Two of the Living World, which is most likely (spoiler alert) going to see another Elder Dragon rise.

If you want, check it out.  I’ve posted it all at it’s own blog space.

Shani Wennemein, Sheriff of Prosperity

 

Things that make you go hmmm

With apologies to C&C Music Factory, there are things that really make you go hmmm.

Or in some cases, huh?

We live in such a pop culture world, one where people who have never seen a Monty Python sketch, but can actually quote verbatim lines from many of the sketches (like the Parrot sketch).  One such thing is “no one expects the Spanish Inquisition”.

In reality, the Spanish Inquisition made appointments.  They would give a 30 day notice of when they were going to arrive to question a person.  The questioning in question was to find out if a person in a particular parish was Jewish or Muslim.

The Inquisition was originally intended in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of those who converted from Judaism and Islam. This regulation of the faith of the newly converted was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1501 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert or leave.

The Inquisition itself began in the 13th Century, after the reclaiming of Granada.

The Spanish Inquisition can be seen as an answer to the multi-religious nature of Spanish society following the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors. After invading in 711, large areas of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Muslims until 1250, when they were restricted to Granada, which fell in 1492. However, the Reconquista did not result in the total expulsion of Muslims from Spain, since they, along with Jews, were tolerated by the ruling Christian elite. Large cities, especially Seville, Valladolid and Barcelona, had significant Jewish populations centered in Juderia, but in the coming years the Muslims were increasingly subjugated by alienation and torture. The Jews, who had previously thrived under Muslim rule, now suffered similar maltreatment.

Post-reconquest medieval Spain has been characterized by Americo Castro and some other Iberianists as a society of “convivencia”, that is relatively peaceful co-existence, albeit punctuated by occasional conflict among the ruling Catholics and the Jews and Muslims. However, as Henry Kamen notes, “so-called convivencia was always a relationship between unequals.”^[1] Despite their legal inequality, there was a long tradition of Jewish service to the crown of Aragon and Jews occupied many important posts, both religious and political. Castile itself had an unofficial rabbi. Ferdinand’s father John II named the Jewish Abiathar Crescas to be Court Astronomer.

Nevertheless, in some parts of Spain towards the end of the 14th century, there was a wave of violent anti-Judaism, encouraged by the preaching of Ferrand Martinez, Archdeacon of Ecija. In the pogroms of June 1391 in Seville, hundreds of Jews were killed, and the synagogue was completely destroyed. The number of people killed was also high in other cities, such as Córdoba, Valencia and Barcelona.^[2]

The Inquisition focused on more than just Jews and Muslims, but also witchcraft, bigamy, sodomy, blasphemy and Freemasonry.  Why that last was a focus is because Francisco Javier de Mier y Campillo, the Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition and the Bishop of Almería, suppressed Freemasonry and denounced the lodges as “societies which lead to atheism, to sedition and to all errors and crimes.”  Interestingly, while the aspect of the Inquisition has changed, it still exists.  There has also been much historical revision of the Inquisition, as one author tried to point out that they were not nearly as cruel as originally portrayed.

Another Spanish custom among Catholics is a garb worn by penitents during the Catholic Holy Week.  This garb has the unfortunate distinction of looking exactly like a KKK garb.

The capirote is a hood traditionally worn by Spanish Catholic penitents, still worn in Holy Week processions. It looks exactly like a KKK hood. During the Inquisition it was used to humiliate the condemned and indicate their impending fate. No one is entirely sure how a Spanish Catholic hat came to be adopted by a Protestant White supremacist society in the southern USA, though some claim the white, ghost-like headwear is symbolic of the spirits of the confederate troops killed in the American Civil War.

Rather unfortunate, indeed.  On another sort of related note, KKK in Korean means LOL.  Also, Superman really was involved in a drop in KKK recruitment after the Second World War.  The radio series Adventures of Superman, needed a new villain and the KKK fit the bill.  Within four weeks of airing, recruitment in the KKK in Florida dropped to zero.

 

A 10 Book Layout

For the rewrite of Black Mask & Pale Rider, the series is going to end up being ten books long.  Each focusing on the location that the four elven riders will end up in.  This so far is just a layout, and it may change.

Shani and Pania are introduced, along with their companions, Verit and Scales.  They discover the fabled gate between worlds, discuss the situation for a time, and eventually walk through.

Shani and Pania find themselves in very different parts of a new world, as Shani learns she is in Carrolton, Arkansas, and Pania is in the young city of Chicago, Illinois.  The year is 1863.  This new nation, not yet 100 years old, is torn by war.  Shani and Pania have one goal in mind; find each other, and find a way home.

After the two elven gunslingers meet up outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, they travel along the road toward a small village not far from Reading.  It turns out the village is plagued by a vampire.  Shani and Pania determine they need help, and make a call across the planes to Shani’s sister, Wren.  It is here that the three learn someone on Earth opened the gates, someone who wished to capture and enslave an elf.

Having put down an ancient vampire, the three ride on south, stopping in the peculiar town of Franklin, West Virginia.  On the outside, it is a normal, everyday town.  But it is protected by outcast orcs, peace loving goblins, a mischievous leprechaun, and a werewolf who has become a United States Marshal.  And here in Franklin, the Devil’s Rider has come to haunt.

The three return to their homeworld, delivering the final story of an ancient evil that plagued the elven world, as Wren presents the very story of the last years and death of this elven mage to the librarians at the House of Wisdom bordering the Desert of Semerkhet.  But they know they must return to Earth, and put an end to an even greater evil.

The three come to Oxford, Mississippi, where a vicious band of outlaws controls the townsfolk with an iron fist.  Only the figure of J. C. Walker fights back as best he can.  This old Confederate soldier finds himself between a rock and a hard place when he accepts the assistance of Shani, Pania, and Wren, along with a Chinese migrant worker named Ming.  Can they put down the villainy that is Dorval and his boys?

The deep south.  The three riders make it to Shreveport, Louisiana.  They follow the clues that will hopefully lead them to a powerful sorcerer and necromancer, but find themselves partnered with a newly freed slave as they investigate the strange occurrences at the Kingston Plantation.  They also meet a new ally in the lost Yoruba Elven Princess, Abisayo Temililou.

Having transported the recently freed slaves from the Kingston Plantation across state borders and into the Free State of Indiana, the four riders hope to find some solace in Bloomington, Indiana.  What they discover is a lich.

The experience of the Iron Horse, as the four elven gunslingers meet up with the charitable and reserved Reverend Carter Stewart.  But this train becomes a death trap that only the five can put down, as an old foe proves she wasn’t as dead as one would expect.

The last stand.  Pania is stricken by malady.  Abisayo reaches out to those they have met through the world of dreams.  As the three elves find refuge for Pania, a group of First Nations people protects them, as Chief Whitecap agrees to find a cure for Pania.  Meanwhile, Slowhand Adams, Aurela Dorchester, Sherrif J. C. Walker, Marshal Martin Derringer, Ezekiel Morgan, Dieter van Bueren, Shontaya Jackson, Ming, and the Reverend Carter Stewart hit the trail to put an end to this evil once and for all.

The Adventures of Black Mask & Pale Rider by Tim Holtorf is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at https://taholtorf.wordpress.com/bmamppr/the-series/.
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