Title: Sparkin (A pormanteau of Spark and Kinesis)
The Sport: Sparkin was a sport invented during a crystal rush a century back. Teams of three use a basic telekinetic spell to throw a moderately sized crystal into a wall on their opponents' side of the field. Every time they land a goal, or 'spark', they gain a point. When the crystal shatters completely, the team that did so gains half a point in addition to a spark point if it lands, and the game ends. The basic strategy of the game is to spin the crystal about two arm lengths around you to give it momentum so you can shoot it forward or pass to a teammate.
Brief Description of Story: Lucian wanted to become a professional Sparkin player when he grew up, but lost the ability to play. When Gesuda, a lizardman who came to take his hometown's place in the NSL (National Sparkin League), Lucian discovers a way he can play and joins Gesuda in his attempt to win the National tournament.
Story's Genre: Action/Sport, I guess. Is sport a genre?
Setting: A generic fantasy world, specifically in the land of Acrazia, the main setting for most of my stories. Early on, it takes place in the village of Whitewood, but shifts to the capital of Acrazia for the matches.
Preferred Type of Questions, If Any: Preferably questions around Sparkin, although I believe I settled out most of its details.
Sparkin
22 posts in this topic.
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A sports story meets a fantasy story? I'm down. I've never been a big fan of sports but coming up with a new one for a fantasy world is awesome. So what's the way that Lucian discovers he can play?
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I'll try to keep it brief, but it'll probably still be quite lengthy. Most players keep the crystal at two arm lengths away so the crystal can build momentum. Lucian can barely control it at any distance longer than an arm length and a half. The kicker, though, is that between that and an arm length, his control normalizes, and if he makes physical contact, it's about three times stronger than a normal human's. That strength is rather useless, though, as spinning to create momentum has a much better effect.
This is where Gesuda comes in. He teaches Lucian how Lizardmen shoot with their lack of magical skills: they push the crystal with the telekinetic spell while physically throwing it to aim. This trick, while only slightly behind the basic style in terms of power, synergizes well with Lucian's extra strength telekinesis. He eventually settles on throwing the crystal like a javelin, a shot that's several times more powerful than an average shot, which is great for shattering the crystal faster. With his extra strength telekinesis, he also specializes in stealing the crystal from his opponent.
While there are several pros to this style, there are just as many cons. Because Lucian can only use his javelin shots, he can't actually pass (unless it's something like a full court pass). He also needs somewhat of a run up before he can shoot as well. The biggest con, however, is that this style requires a large amount of stamina, as Lucian needs to be constantly running in order to even steal or shoot. For a good majority of the story, he won't have enough stamina to even last half of a game at full strength.
A somewhat lengthy explanation, but there it is. -
Oooh, interesting! I love how you go as far as giving reasons why it's not the perfect style. There's just something refreshing about seeing a character not magically find the way to win every battle - or, in this story, every game.
So what inspired you to write this story? -
A novel about sports and fantasy sounds cool to me, so my question is that why exactly does Lucian want to become a professional Sparkin player?
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@Saen
Short version...anime
Long version: Whenever you read a sports story, it's never really about the sport. Rather, it's used as a catalyst for some other plot line. Boy likes girl, and hinges his confession on the final match. Friend group starts to drift away from each other, but rekindle their friendship through good ol' baseball. While there's nothing wrong with it, it also gets tiring after a bit.
Then you have japanese series like Haikyuu or Eyeshield 21, stories focused around the sport instead of an unrelated plot. The characters aren't motivated because of some secondary reason. They're motivated because they like to play and want to win. The main goal isn't a reward for winning the game; the main goal is to win the game. I just wanted to make a series like that, where a group of enthusiasts want to win a tournament simply for the sake of winning. -
@TheWeirdoFromBeyond
Lucian simply enjoys the game. His idol was a professional player, and he grew to love the sport before the accident. Standard motivation, really. -
That's a cool reason for wanting to make a sports novel.
So does Lucian have any close friends or family at the start of the story? -
Oh yeah. He has a human father and a dwarven mother that both run an inn and occasionally pop into the story from time to time. He's also friends with most of the other kids and teens in the village. It's not like his condition really ostracized him or anything. The only thing is that they try not to talk about Sparkin around him, for understandable reasons.
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That makes sense. I like how your character has a dwarven mother - most protagonists in fantasy novels don't tend to be descended dwarves.
So do you have any major plot twists planned for this? -
Major twists, not really. There will be a bunch of minor twists. Just stuff like a surprise or unorthodox strategy, a few special moves, and the one team made entirely out of monsters.
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Cool! What type of monsters is that other team made of?
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Still working on it, but the idea is that the team of monsters has like, two tigers and a demon. The tigers, who can't actually cast the spell, simply tackle and take down anyone in their way. The demon casts an intimidation spell that weakens the responses of their opponents, making it easier for his two monsters to do their work while he scores a point.
One rule of the game is that anyone tackled that isn't already impaired by a spell or just trying to stand back up is out of play until a point is scored. It's a weird rule, but it's mostly in response to how Healing magic is a thing. Fouls are to prevent or compensate injuries, so when you can essentially take out any negative, there's no real use for it. This team is designed to take advantage of that rule. -
How did he lose his ability?
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Before the regulation of magic walls surrounding the field was put in place, there wasn't anything protecting anyone standing behind the solid wall. You obviously wouldn't be there since you can't watch the game, but that isn't entirely true for stadiums where you can look over it.
In one national game, one of the players (and Lucian's idol no less) hit the crystal at the top edge of the wall, causing a bunch of shards to break off and rain down on the crowd behind it. Lucian unfortunately got one lodged right next to his heart, and while the standby healers were able to get heal him just fine, the tiny fragment remains in his chest. Crystals have weird properties (like creating sparks when rubbing against any surface) and one of them is how crystals repel each other unless they touch, in which they attract each other. Relating to the post I made above, the fragment in his chest repels the crystal Lucian controls, thus weakening his telekinesis, but if he's touching it, it strengthens his telekinesis.
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