Blessed Are The People
So, with this being my first LMS project, I may as well go the extra mile and create a series of posts on this story and its attributes. I don't think I'll have time to write much now, and I'll probably update this sparsely in the future, but I think it'd be a fun place to write down my thoughts and ideas and record each of my new chapters. But first, I'll need to explain the general stuff before I go down into the details.
I've done a lot of synopses for this story before, though none of them have been good. I'm going to say this is about the adventures of a 17-year-old girl and a gradually growing group of characters in a high fantasy setting. Eremia Renatus is the eldest daughter of the King/Duke of Exedor, Trevonn, and the heir to the throne. She has clearly never lived a normal life; being placed beside her aggressive, scheming, and malicious brother Jonah, and their calm and quiet servant, Yorew, have not helped (and I imagine she often has trouble with dealing with other people's emotions, having been raised around a twit and a seemingly-emotionless stoic). Still, she's a studious girl with faith in her kingdom and her world, and has lived her life quite happily. Trained in horseback riding, the world of magic, and devoutly religious, she is shaping to be a proper successor to her father.
This being me, that doesn't last long.
Her brother, in a fit of jealousy and/or murderous rage, resolves to flee the castle in a daring scheme, hoping to realize his dreams of idealized crime and tyranny. He is tired of living in a peaceful and quaint environment, and believes himself, as second-in-line to the throne, to be merely a puppet to his older sister. Of course, as he looks upon her as an accomplice in his schemes and capable of being useful to his plots, he orchestrates her kidnapping from the palace (with the aid of Yorew, who always assists him in his plots, though he never specifies why he does this) in a daring and almost disastrous scheme. They then ride to Exedor's border with Eimhin, Jonah assuming that he can then figure out a proper location to begin his reign of terror.
Unfortunately, he soon realizes that he is way over his head.
Now Eremia is trapped in a strange and unforgiving world, built upon complex military and political alliances. Gaining new allies and trying to keep her brother alive, she will come to find out the truth behind her family and her home, meet the benevolent and malevolent forces of the world, and grow past her naivety to comprehend the world and its people. Too, when her brother is wrenched from her, she will have to come to terms with an evil force lurking in the world, and strive to save him from its frail, yet determined grip.
As you can already tell, this is an ambitious story. In its most central premise, it does rely upon Tolkien-esque elements of high fantasy; here is your series of nations, variety of species, an evil force, and the band of heroes who must crush that evil and bring some sense of peace upon the world. However, I'm not here to rehash old plots. This story relies upon complex worldbuilding, intricate alliances, and a lot of gray morality. Those caught in the political sphere, no matter how benevolent they are, have done something bad in their time. Some protagonists have invoked war and caused hell for countless people; some antagonists are beloved, only ideologically opposing the main cast of protagonists. A vast number of characters could be summarized as anti-heroes or anti-villains, or at least heavily flawed in attributes and actions. In other words, I want to provide a story that plays with tropes, incorporating and distorting countless ones to deconstruct (and sometimes reconstruct) the elements of a fantasy story, whether it comes to gods, the sliding scale of progressively more difficult enemies, or the mentalities of antagonists and protagonists alike.
Too, this story has also been a way for me to experiment with diversity in my cast. I find the typical concept of elves and dwarves and such to be, in this case, a little boring. Hence, I've come to incorporate a lot of different species into the story, and tried to flesh out their unique cultures and lives (though they are still heavily influenced by humanity, and can be quite human-like in their spite and warfare). On a less fantastical note, I've been working on writing for a lot of characters of both genders, deal with racism issues, political ideologies, faith and its benefits/consequences, and at least a few LGBT+ characters. Such topics and the discussions revolving around them make up part of the thematic background of the story, while also adding to its complexity and giving me areas upon which I can focus to develop the concepts and ideas that make this work what it is. In particular, Eremia's struggles with her beliefs, contemplating prejudice in the world around her, and coming to terms with the many people at her side or against her is a core part of her growth and progression into a powerful, mature, and friendly woman. So, I'm probably going to piss off a lot of social conservatives - I'll be honest in saying that I don't give a damn.
And, now that the general stuff is out of the way, I can worm my way into the details.
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