Hugo Negron's Blog, page 19
April 5, 2012
Character Profile - Glaive
This time around, we'll be focusing our profile on Qualtan's newfound friend ... or foe ... Glaive.
"You are named after a weapon?" Qualtan asked.
"That name was given to me, by me. Do you wish to hear my story or not?" Glaive replied.
Their introduction wasn't an easy one. Glaive is a half-orcne, which in their world spells trouble. Orcne are a bestial race of creatures. Originally stemming from a savage, demonic race know as the Orcneas, spawn of supposed evil gods, they eventually became known as the Orcne, considered "the lowest on the totem pole" of the Kind when compared to the Human-Kind and Elf-Kind. As Glaive himself puts it, "Orcnes really are a hateful, spiteful bunch." They are bullies - abusive, greedy, with angry black teeth and white tusks. Bow-legged, with splotchy coloration and yellow eyes, they are known for raiding and attacking peaceful settlements, robbing and maiming, making war upon any creature they come across, as much with themselves as others. Ask any orcne, and they will say they were forced into such conditions by the hate of humans and elves that felt themselves superior to them and decided to push the creatures out of their rightful lands. They would also say they are merely trying to stand up to these sort of bullies and be acknowledged as rightful Kind like anybody else. With such a colorful heritage, it wasn't a surprise that Glaive's lot in life was hardly an easy one. Born of an evil witch and an orcne clan leader, his dual blood made him an outsider to both races. Losing his parents at an early age, he was forced to become a thief in order to survive. Attempting to steal from professional thieves brought him into the Company of the Dartful Hand, and soon he found acceptance and respect, of a sort, under the scheming merchant lord the Hand was secretly financed by. But even here he was betrayed, and when he was setup as a scapegoat, Glaive found himself back on the run, living by his wits once again. That is, until he came across an unlikely hero named Qualtan, who rescued him from an angry gang of humans that did not appreciate one of orcne blood daring to enter their tavern, taking a seat and drinking an ale like any other Man. Qualtan's sincere, somewhat naive acceptance of Glaive, ignoring the prejudices of their time, leads to the half-orcne's curiosity, and soon an unlikely alliance forms.
"That's the second time you've called me a man," the half-orcne said, his features softening.
"Aren't you?"
"Hah. Not to many. Your words are taken with more value than you would know."
A friendship in the making? Perhaps. But when the chance to steal a veritable fortune makes itself known, temptation takes precedence, and a choice between friendship and betrayal is made. Will Glaive prove to himself he is not what he has been labeled to be, or will he indulge in the biased expectations he has resented from others?
"You are named after a weapon?" Qualtan asked.
"That name was given to me, by me. Do you wish to hear my story or not?" Glaive replied.
Their introduction wasn't an easy one. Glaive is a half-orcne, which in their world spells trouble. Orcne are a bestial race of creatures. Originally stemming from a savage, demonic race know as the Orcneas, spawn of supposed evil gods, they eventually became known as the Orcne, considered "the lowest on the totem pole" of the Kind when compared to the Human-Kind and Elf-Kind. As Glaive himself puts it, "Orcnes really are a hateful, spiteful bunch." They are bullies - abusive, greedy, with angry black teeth and white tusks. Bow-legged, with splotchy coloration and yellow eyes, they are known for raiding and attacking peaceful settlements, robbing and maiming, making war upon any creature they come across, as much with themselves as others. Ask any orcne, and they will say they were forced into such conditions by the hate of humans and elves that felt themselves superior to them and decided to push the creatures out of their rightful lands. They would also say they are merely trying to stand up to these sort of bullies and be acknowledged as rightful Kind like anybody else. With such a colorful heritage, it wasn't a surprise that Glaive's lot in life was hardly an easy one. Born of an evil witch and an orcne clan leader, his dual blood made him an outsider to both races. Losing his parents at an early age, he was forced to become a thief in order to survive. Attempting to steal from professional thieves brought him into the Company of the Dartful Hand, and soon he found acceptance and respect, of a sort, under the scheming merchant lord the Hand was secretly financed by. But even here he was betrayed, and when he was setup as a scapegoat, Glaive found himself back on the run, living by his wits once again. That is, until he came across an unlikely hero named Qualtan, who rescued him from an angry gang of humans that did not appreciate one of orcne blood daring to enter their tavern, taking a seat and drinking an ale like any other Man. Qualtan's sincere, somewhat naive acceptance of Glaive, ignoring the prejudices of their time, leads to the half-orcne's curiosity, and soon an unlikely alliance forms.
"That's the second time you've called me a man," the half-orcne said, his features softening.
"Aren't you?"
"Hah. Not to many. Your words are taken with more value than you would know."
A friendship in the making? Perhaps. But when the chance to steal a veritable fortune makes itself known, temptation takes precedence, and a choice between friendship and betrayal is made. Will Glaive prove to himself he is not what he has been labeled to be, or will he indulge in the biased expectations he has resented from others?
Character Profile - Qualtan
Hi everyone – With Forging of a Knight moving along at a nice pace, I felt this would be a great forum to spotlight some of the characters and places that you will soon find within the pages of the book itself. I’ll touch briefly on the heroes, the villains, the supporting cast, the cultures, and the histories you will find within this magical realm as a preview of what’s to come. So let’s light some tallowed candles, and sit comfortably before a sparking fire. As a swollen moon rises, and darksome shadows lengthen outside creaking windows, let’s take out some aged parchments, pull free their waxen seals, and begin our quest…
Character Profile: Qualtan
This is our main protagonist throughout the first Forging of a Knight book. Son to a great hero, and nephew to a powerful wizard, he has been selected to take up the mantle his father had left behind, and wield a magical sword known as the Goldenflame. Gifted with great abilities, he sets off to petition the King of the great nation of Turinthia to become a knight in the Order of the Bearded Lion. He has been trained since an early age in the use of the sword and lance. He has been given enhanced strength above his peers, and resistance to some injury and spellcraft. All in all, the perfect tools to become a noble knight…
However, growing up with stodgy old wizards makes for a more sober outlook in life than most of his friends can relate to, and he starts to notice how different he truly is. As what happens to most of us when we start something new, there tends to be a perception of where we are going, and a reality of the same, with the true path we end up taking somewhere in-between. A little naïve when it comes to what is right and what is wrong, our hero learns defining good and evil isn’t as easy as he first thought. He wants to prove himself as good a knight as his father had been, and puts quite a bit of pressure on himself to meet those expectations. On top of that, our hero’s esteemed lineage isn’t the guarantee to fame he assumed it would be, especially when he meets quite a few people who don’t know anything about his family’s supposed famous name, or could really care less!
Add to this an encounter with a rather unusual “friend” that will test the biases and prejudices of his time, and Qualtan will find himself questioning more things than he thought he ever would about himself, the viewpoints of his uncle (who he had kept in the highest of regard), and the worldview he thought he had understood.
Those problems kind of sound familiar, don’t they? Whether Qualtan’s answers to those questions can help him reach his goal, or prevent him from doing so, we’ll soon see…
The next profile will be on the unusual “friend” Qualtan meets…and wishes he hadn’t!
Character Profile: Qualtan
This is our main protagonist throughout the first Forging of a Knight book. Son to a great hero, and nephew to a powerful wizard, he has been selected to take up the mantle his father had left behind, and wield a magical sword known as the Goldenflame. Gifted with great abilities, he sets off to petition the King of the great nation of Turinthia to become a knight in the Order of the Bearded Lion. He has been trained since an early age in the use of the sword and lance. He has been given enhanced strength above his peers, and resistance to some injury and spellcraft. All in all, the perfect tools to become a noble knight…
However, growing up with stodgy old wizards makes for a more sober outlook in life than most of his friends can relate to, and he starts to notice how different he truly is. As what happens to most of us when we start something new, there tends to be a perception of where we are going, and a reality of the same, with the true path we end up taking somewhere in-between. A little naïve when it comes to what is right and what is wrong, our hero learns defining good and evil isn’t as easy as he first thought. He wants to prove himself as good a knight as his father had been, and puts quite a bit of pressure on himself to meet those expectations. On top of that, our hero’s esteemed lineage isn’t the guarantee to fame he assumed it would be, especially when he meets quite a few people who don’t know anything about his family’s supposed famous name, or could really care less!
Add to this an encounter with a rather unusual “friend” that will test the biases and prejudices of his time, and Qualtan will find himself questioning more things than he thought he ever would about himself, the viewpoints of his uncle (who he had kept in the highest of regard), and the worldview he thought he had understood.
Those problems kind of sound familiar, don’t they? Whether Qualtan’s answers to those questions can help him reach his goal, or prevent him from doing so, we’ll soon see…
The next profile will be on the unusual “friend” Qualtan meets…and wishes he hadn’t!
March 16, 2012
Forging of a Knight and other new quests
IN THE BEGINNING…
The idea for this series started a LONG way back – grade school, as a matter of fact. A fascination with historical books on fantasy and mythology, and being influenced by works written by J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, the Hildebrandt Brothers (does anyone remember their foray into writing fantasy, Urshurak?), Robert E. Howard, and a host of others, gave way to an interest in writing about it. All of these writers created their own worlds, and populated them with unique cultures, creatures, heroes, and villains. My first tinkering was definitely not up to par. If anyone can recall the old Thundarr cartoon, my initial stories strongly paralleled it!
Over time the adventures of Qualtan grew into the occasional hobby – writing a new chapter here, removing an old chapter there. As reality kicked in (school, jobs, bills, worrying about money to PAY those bills, etc.) the stories become lost in piles of old memories and were only rediscovered when I moved out on my own. At one point, they ended up as trash, being thrown out as a childhood exercise in boredom. But for some reason, I went back to that trash can a few hours later and retrieved them, thinking they deserved a better review. The creative spark was rekindled, and the process of writing a new chapter here, removing an old chapter there, began again.
Fast forward years later, and my wife took an interest in my stories as I poured through what was now an enormous pile of paper, notebooks and random notes. Despite the years of on and off again writing, the stories had now grown with me and their basic premises were memorized. As I talked about them, and how neat it would have been to have seen them in novel form, she asked me why hadn’t I ever tried to do anything with them. I thought, camaan, to go through them all, make sense out of all the details, maturate the storylines, why bother?
Why not?! was the answer.
Why not, indeed? So I took the first story, and over a year, polished, updated, and clarified. I hired an editor to do clean-up, an illustrator to draw the cover, and found lulu.com in order to bind, prepare and set up for online epub and hard copy accessibility.
So now we are nearly at the “go live” stage – sure, there’s magic, monsters, and strange, wonderful places to visit within this first tale, but there are also lessons in friendship, trust, expectations, and that little naiveté all of us can have when starting off into something brand new, that almost always gets tempered with a slight dash of disappointment, a pinch of cynicism, and a spoonful of real vs. assumed expectations. This is something we can all relate to, whether you’re carrying around a mystic sword or not.
And this is only the start…both here and on my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Forging.of.a.... I'll be adding snippets on the characters, updates on what is coming next and some great giveaway contests as well as we lead up to the release of the first book in the Forging of a Knight series...
The idea for this series started a LONG way back – grade school, as a matter of fact. A fascination with historical books on fantasy and mythology, and being influenced by works written by J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, the Hildebrandt Brothers (does anyone remember their foray into writing fantasy, Urshurak?), Robert E. Howard, and a host of others, gave way to an interest in writing about it. All of these writers created their own worlds, and populated them with unique cultures, creatures, heroes, and villains. My first tinkering was definitely not up to par. If anyone can recall the old Thundarr cartoon, my initial stories strongly paralleled it!
Over time the adventures of Qualtan grew into the occasional hobby – writing a new chapter here, removing an old chapter there. As reality kicked in (school, jobs, bills, worrying about money to PAY those bills, etc.) the stories become lost in piles of old memories and were only rediscovered when I moved out on my own. At one point, they ended up as trash, being thrown out as a childhood exercise in boredom. But for some reason, I went back to that trash can a few hours later and retrieved them, thinking they deserved a better review. The creative spark was rekindled, and the process of writing a new chapter here, removing an old chapter there, began again.
Fast forward years later, and my wife took an interest in my stories as I poured through what was now an enormous pile of paper, notebooks and random notes. Despite the years of on and off again writing, the stories had now grown with me and their basic premises were memorized. As I talked about them, and how neat it would have been to have seen them in novel form, she asked me why hadn’t I ever tried to do anything with them. I thought, camaan, to go through them all, make sense out of all the details, maturate the storylines, why bother?
Why not?! was the answer.
Why not, indeed? So I took the first story, and over a year, polished, updated, and clarified. I hired an editor to do clean-up, an illustrator to draw the cover, and found lulu.com in order to bind, prepare and set up for online epub and hard copy accessibility.
So now we are nearly at the “go live” stage – sure, there’s magic, monsters, and strange, wonderful places to visit within this first tale, but there are also lessons in friendship, trust, expectations, and that little naiveté all of us can have when starting off into something brand new, that almost always gets tempered with a slight dash of disappointment, a pinch of cynicism, and a spoonful of real vs. assumed expectations. This is something we can all relate to, whether you’re carrying around a mystic sword or not.
And this is only the start…both here and on my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Forging.of.a.... I'll be adding snippets on the characters, updates on what is coming next and some great giveaway contests as well as we lead up to the release of the first book in the Forging of a Knight series...
