Vento does NovMo - Castle Collaged
12 posts in this topic.
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Well um. Guess we'll see how this goes.
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The Elevator Pitch
Just as King Pierro begins hunting for a new bride and stepmother for his young children, someone curses his castle, causing its layout to change day after day and sending its inhabitants into chaos. To keep the situation from scaring off his queen candidates, the king calls each region to send its best and brightest mages. But Neve, the representative of the east, isn’t a real mage at all. Suddenly caught in the midst of court drama and old enchantments, she must use all her wits to survive with her secrets in tact–and maybe solve the castle’s curse along the way. -
Characters and Locations
Neve
Archmage Gregorio Meraviglia
Mage Gabriele Luminose
Mage Lorenze Agricola
Mage Clara Patetti
Baronessa/Mage Dulceri Argenne
King Pierro Aurellius VII
Marchessa Maria Belli
Contessa Sophonia Riveri
Dama Mitra
Prince Terrenze Aurellius IX
Princess Stella Aurellius
Sergio, Steward
Sibellia, Head Chef
Lavinni, Head Maid
Various other staff
(d) King Pierro Aurellius V
(d) Queen Alina
(d) Mage Emilio Sole
The entire novel takes place within Castle Aurono, a cursed castle that changes layout day after day. -
Main Character
Born to a lady of the night and an unknown, foreign father, Neve has been an outsider her entire life. Her mother left her with a pair of old women who raised her until they both passed a few years apart in Neve’s early teen years. Without their backing, the villagers ran her out of town, and Neve has spent the last few years living alone on the outskirts of a different village, hunting and foraging for her food and growing flax to provide her own material for textile projects. Neve is a skilled textile artisan–her nonnas taught her everything from carding and spinning to tailoring to lace-making and embroidery. On occasion, she wanders into town to sell her work and acquire things like metal goods and flour. She also helps shepherds with shearing in exchange for a portion of the wool.
Neve’s nonnas imparted a lot of life lessons on her, but the one she adheres to most is this: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Unfortunately, Neve rarely has anything nice to say. Neve considers herself a straightforward realist who sees things as they are–and she is truly insightful–but she has a hard time seeing possibilities and should really be considered a pessimist. Alone and uninterested in getting to know anyone who might later toss her aside, she has lost the ability to dream of a life other than the one she has. She is unfriendly and quiet and only puts up with Duca Montagna sending her off to the capitol because it’s hard to say no to a duke, she thinks someone else will break the curse before anyone realizes she’s not a mage, and the castle will keep her well-fed and well-looked-after while she’s there. -
Most Challenging Character
I think Gabriele will be a challenge! As Neve’s rival, primary threat, and (maybe?) love interest, he has to strike delicate balances between being kind and being competition; arrogance and competence; and bravado and genuine charm. I want him to grow emotionally with Neve while simultaneously helping her reach her magical potential, and I want him to be just a little bit annoying through the entire story. -
Side Characters (1/5)
This is a story with a sprawling ensemble cast - each of whom plays an important role, though some are, of course, more central than others. Thus, we’ll go through them in a few distinct groups:- The Mages
- The Royal Family
- The Queens-to-Be
- The Staff
- The Deceased
The Mages:
Where to start but with Archmage Gregorio Meraviglia? His position as the kingdom’s highest mage grants him leave to use the honorific ‘Don,’ but it’s far more common to hear the man referred to only as Gregorio. A casual and jolly old man, Mage Gregorio is the real reason the king called for mages to be brought in to help him break the curse on the castle–though he could break the spell himself, the archmage thinks a more delicate, creative approach would be better for the castle’s structure, and he is also using the challenge to find his successor.
Archmage Gregorio’s current pupil is none other than the brilliant, young, Mage Gabriele Luminose. The seventh son of a family of knights, he is well-versed in swordsmanship as well as in magical arts, and has been revolutionizing magical practice with his theories of bodily mechanics. He’s no stranger to hard work–getting recognition and resources when his family is so large is no easy feat–but likes to play it cool. He has little interest in breaking the castle’s curse because the ever-changing castle is so fun to explore, though he is curious about how it works.
Representing the north is Mage Clara Patetti, a bookish woman in her thirties who is more interested in studying everything she can than in any miraculous feats of magic. She accepted her nomination so that she could have access to Castle Aurono’s extensive library and to meet with her southern counterpart, who promised to bring the latest research journals from all over the world.
From the west, we have Mage Lorenze Agricola, a mountain of a man in his late twenties who is desperate to prove himself a master of “traditional magecraft”—despite being one of the greatest talents on record in agricultural magic. Bull-headed and made more of bravado than bravery, he is a hard worker who wants to be liked and respected.
Lastly, Baronessa Dulceri Argenne hails from the wealthy, port-filled south. Her husband bought his title after striking it rich as a merchant, and she has some interest in contributing to the effort to remove the castle’s curse so that she can help alleviate the stigma of his having bought his title. She is easily distracted, however, by her four children, her friends, her handsome husband, and the beautiful textiles available in the capital. -
Side Characters (2/5)
The Royal Family:
King Pierro Aurellius VII lost his first wife about two years prior to the beginning of the story. He was not especially in love with the late queen, but their marriage was amicable and productive, and they made a fine team. Now that his daughter is a little older and in need of more female role models, however, he has decided to finally try finding a second wife. Following his first wife’s advice–that stability and predictability are first and foremost–he is eager to have the castle’s curse removed before welcoming a new bride.
His son, Prince Terrenze, is definitely not on board. This capricious eight-year-old is desperate for adventure and eager to prove himself, and he gets himself into all kinds of trouble. Prince Terrenze is often underfoot around the castle, with his tutors never very far behind. A great fan of fairy stories, he is adamantly against the idea of his father remarrying, and is uninterested in having any more adults to look after him.
Little Princess Stella is still at the age where she is learning to have opinions. She goes back and forth on wanting a new mother or following her brother’s example, and in the same vein tends to swing wildly between being a trouble-maker and being well-behaved. Everyone can agree, however, that she is absolutely adorable. -
Side Characters (3/5)
The Queen Candidates:
Forerunner among the early arrivals vying for King Pierro’s hand is the Marchessa Maria Belli, daughter of Duca Belli from the north. This loyal family has helped defend the kingdom from northern invaders for generations, and Maria dutifully carries out her parents’ wishes that she strengthen ties between the north and the royal family and help demonstrate her family’s loyalty. Secretly though, Maria would rather stay single and command troops of her own.
In close second is Contessa Sophonia Riveri, who hails from a wealthy marchese family in the west. Her family helped to sponsor Mage Lorenze, and their territory is the most prosperous in the country, generating a significant portion of the kingdom’s agricultural products. Sophonia is politically savvy and always on top of trends, but not comfortable with children. She believes herself the best candidate in the running so far.
The last person to arrive before King Pierro puts his bridal search on pause is Dama Mitra, a woman sent along with her family’s merchant fleet as an envoy to the west. Though timid at first in the local language, she is open-minded and quick to learn, and finds the prince and princess charming. Her family can trace their lineage back to the ancient emperors of her home country, though they are not in favor with the current rulers there. -
Side Characters (4/5)
The Staff:
Neve’s unusual position–feeling like an imposter among the mages but not in the castle as a servant–means the heads of staff are some of the few people she feels comfortable with. Taking care of most things in the absence of a queen or grown princess is the head steward, Sergio, a man well into middle age with all the energy of a young boy. Organized to a fault, he is always planning and replanning the king’s schedule as the castle changes each day.
Sibellia, the head chef, is a robust woman who brooks no nonsense. She loves to experiment and often tries out dishes with tomatoes and potatoes on the castle’s inhabitants. Neve can always count on her for a straight solution to any problem.
Finally there’s head maid Lavinni, an older woman who grew up in the castle alongside King Pierro’s father. She knows a great deal about the castle’s history, owing to her mother and grandmother, who told her stories when she was a young girl. -
Side Characters (5/5)
The Deceased:
This story has strong ties to the past and often refers to the time of King Pierro VII’s ancestor, Pierro V. King Pierro V was not dissimilar from his progeny; he was generally well-regarded and considered fair. Because, at that time, the kingdom was in a territorial dispute with their northern neighbor, he married a princess from the kingdom even further north of that in a kind of enemy-of-my-enemy fashion. Those close to the castle noted that his relationship with Queen Alina tended to be distant. They had a single child, and King Pierro V. spent most of his time drumming up military support from his dukes.
Queen Alina, one of the younger princesses of a kingdom far to the north, never thought she would become a queen. She tended to be quite reserved, though how much of this was due to her personality and how much was due to her being in a new place, new climate, and surrounded by a new language, is up for debate. She was known for her wistful demeanor and for the attention she lavished on her only son, and apparently became good friends with the castle mage of the time, who sometimes conjured images of home for her, or helped her speak with her older siblings via magic.
The last major player from the past is the former archmage, Emilio Sole. Little is known about this enigmatic man, except that he was kind and gracious and spent much of his time holed up in his workshop. Gregorio would note that Archmage Emilio primarily researched enchanted items and interwoven spellwork, and Lavinni would note a few objects around the castle that her grandmother says were of particular interest to the mage. -
Inciting Incident
At a large scale, the inciting incident is that the king wishes to remarry, but must remove a curse on his castle before he feels ready to welcome a new bride. For Neve herself, the inciting incident is when Duca Montagna shows up at her hovel with a quack mage-dowser and orders her to go to the capital to answer the king’s request for mages.
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