Oct 13 2014

WIP Update – 12 Oct 14

After missing my quota Saturday, I picked BroPen back up and made a little progress. I made the questionable choice of watching the third through fifth entries in the Hellraiser series last night. In retrospect, it would’ve been better to have devoted the entire time to writing. I imagine I’m in for much worse when I watch 6-8. I wonder if I should do movie reviews as a side gig. Maybe it’d be a source of some amusement. Stay tuned.

Oct 11 2014

The Creation Story According to the Elves, Part 1

In the beginning, all was Void and at the center of the Void was Chaos. Permeating the Void was the aether and the great Cloud of Souls. While the greater souls were awake and active, the common and lesser souls were dormant. The greater souls could exist as purely aethereal beings, but the common and lesser souls needed physical bodies in order to awaken, but physical bodies can only be sustained in a physical environment and thus we have the creation story related by Cassandra in “The Two Curtains”. The First Curtain was cast over the vortex of Chaos and became known as “earth”. The Second Curtain divided the First Curtain from the Void and became known as “sky”. A greater soul was assigned to each of the Two Curtains and so we have the Earth Mother and the Sky Father.

It is said the the stars are the grand host of greater souls shining beyond the veil of the Second Curtain. Closer at hand were the two children of the Sky Father: Brother Sun and Sister Moon. One day the two of them quarreled and the Sky Father punished them by casting them out beyond the Second Curtain. Brother Sun then began to walk about the Second Curtain, looking for a way back in, with Sister Moon following behind, and so began the cycle of night and day.

Brother Sun would not listen to his sister’s pleas to reconcile, nor would he slow his pace or even look over his shoulder to see her face as she followed after him. His stubborn pride grieved the Sky Father greatly and his tears poured out upon the First Curtain, making the seas. The surface was soon awash with his tears, so the Earth Mother began to push and pinch the First Curtain, giving rise to dry land with its mountains, its hills and its valleys. As the Sky Father continued to move about the Second Curtain, the clouds massing were a sign of his gloomy temper and the rain his tears.

The waters of the Sky Father’s tears had an unexpected consequence. Before the Earth Mother reshaped the land and everything was covered by the seas, some of the lesser spirits descended from the Cloud of Souls and took shape as the first sea plants. More followed, given flesh as the teeming fish and other creatures of the sea. However, there were many lesser spirits that remained dormant. Once the Earth Mother created dry land, though, grasses and trees sprang up and soon every beast, bird and creeping thing followed. The space between the Two Curtains was soon filled with life and the time had come to wake the common spirits from their slumber.

Next time we’ll talk about the rise of the sapient races of the Planet. Stay tuned.

Oct 11 2014

WIP Update – 10 Oct 14

Mixing things up a bit, I did some work on The Brothers Pendragon. I may play around in this story a while to get myself caught up on that nagging quota shortfall. Stay tuned.

Oct 10 2014

WIP Update – 09 Oct 14

I made some more progress on Chapter 21 of Tico4. Life would be a lot easier for me if I discounted my shortfall during the downtime, but I really want to square the account. I really need to buckle down and just write. Maybe it’ll happen soon. Stay tuned.

Oct 09 2014

WIP Update – 08 Oct 14

I made some more progress on Chapter 21 of Tico4 and mostly finished Chapter 23. A little under quota but progress is progress. More to come. Stay tuned.

Oct 08 2014

WIP Update – 07 Oct 14

I pretty well finished Chapter 20 of Tico4 and did a little work on Chapters 21 and 23. Perhaps if I hadn’t picked up Suikoden II so I can move on to the two gaiden games and Suiko3, I’d be even farther along. We’ll see how things shake out. Stay tuned.

Oct 07 2014

WIP Update – 06 Oct 14

I made some more progress on Chapter 20 of Tico4. I just have a little further to go before finishing it, so I think I’ll at least do that much before switching over. Because I didn’t make much progress at all last week, I’m debating whether or not I want to switch over at all. Part of me likes the idea of generally focusing on the same Arc as the weekly update, but we’ll see. Stay tuned.

Oct 06 2014

WIP Update – 05 Oct 14

I’m slowly but surely starting to settle into a sort of equilibrium with my new circumstances and should be getting back on track. I managed to mostly finish chapters 17, 18 and 19 of Tico4 and do a little work on Chapters 20 and 21. I may spend another day working on it before I switch over. Stay tuned.

Oct 06 2014

An Overview of the Elven Religion

I’ve devoted some time to the tenets of Photianism and I think it’s fair to give the religion of the Elves a little time of the spotlight. Note that “religion” is singular. Though there are five communities and four sub-races, there is essentially one religion uniting them all. There are multiple “denominations” if you will, but few Elves dispute the overall belief system.

The Elven religion has a certain animistic and panentheistic character to it. We have to begin with their concept of the soul. There are three degrees of souls: greater, common and lesser. The greater souls are essentially gods, the common souls belonging to sapient races and the lesser souls belonging to non-sapient lifeforms. Souls are believed to be uncreated, having existed from the beginning of time, but it was the greater souls that were active first, responsible for the creation of the universe and the waking and incarnation of the common and lesser souls. Another important element is the aether, an unfocused form of spiritual energy similar if not the same in substance to the souls but lacking any will or individuality. The aether is omnipresent and acts as a medium for the souls to operate (which is all much in line with most systems of magic on the Planet). Some Elven philosophers have posited that there is a singular Greatest Spirit from which all other souls and the aether emanated and will one day all be drawn back into it.

There are numerous deities venerated by the Elves to varying degrees, but chief among them is El-Naia, the Divine Mother. El-Naia is not the greatest of the gods, but she is regarded as the creatrix of the Elven race and so is adored above all. I will discuss her, the other gods and various myths and legends relating to them in future posts. It will be easier to go into more of the details of worship then. For now, it is sufficient to describe the Elven religion as a sort of nature worship with a personal creatrix held in highest adoration.

Unsurprisingly for a religion centered on goddess worship, the highest ranking clergy tend to be female, but there are some branches where males tend to dominate, such as the cult of the sun common among Light Elves. The clerical hierarchy isn’t terribly complicated or particularly rigid in structure. The priestly caste is largely ranked according to seniority, though certain extraordinary spiritual gifts may result in a quicker rise to higher prestige.

There are a number of major and minor festivals following patterns you might expect for a religion of nature worship: new moons, full moons, solstices, equinoxes, etc. Other than that, there’s nothing so formal as weekly services, daily prayers at set times or anything like that, though some branches of the sun cult can be a little more regimented.

I could go into greater depth, but this post is only meant to serve as an overview. I’ll go into further details in subsequent posts. Stay tuned.

Oct 03 2014

WIP Update – 02 Oct 14

You should already be aware of all the stuff that’s been going on lately that have thrown me off schedule and under quota. Things are settling down, though, and though it’d be more merciful to just overlook the gap in progress, I intend to make up for it. This means I’ve got 5K to make up in addition to the daily quota. I intend to work it down, but it may take a few days. At very least, I managed to squeeze out the daily quota yesterday amid everything else, writing a bit on a Space Arc short. Honestly, if there was someone dictating the dialog I was testing out during the drive back to Tejas, I’d probably be more than halfway toward my goal of making up lost progress. Well, nothing to it but to do it. Stay tuned.