Thinky Thoughts

[weirdlet]

More on Princess Aksinya and her adventures with 'Prince' Shaan.

So, I need to figure out what these two actually get up to.  What are the stakes in their adventures?  And more importantly, why the hell is Aksinya's family willing/all fired up to get her out of the palace?

It's got something to do with the spirits, I think.  The fact that she's actually really pretty good at what she does with the family magics, to the point where she could perhaps make bargains of her own with some of the older, deeper, creepier ancestral monsters- how do you prevent your sub-chiefs from clamoring for war you don't want, if your daughter could actually raise up a kraken?  How do you excuse not using a member of the royal family to the fullest extent of their potential abilities?

Marry her off to a foreign barbarian and ritually/magically cut ties with her from the family magic, of course.  She'll still be able to scry a bit, sure- make water-drops dance along her fingers like a pickpocket with a coin.  But she won't be able to summon the sea-wolf, or the thunder-cliff horses, nor guide great fleets through ice or traverse the deep-sea waters and ask questions of the ancient things there.

There will be no blood-dark water-priestess at the head of a relentless army, bringing the sea and its creatures to salt the earth wherever she goes.

Huh- so that makes Aksinya our resident Prophesized Evil McGuffin, it would seem.  And her fiance may think this is a nasty trick that got played on her people, to fob off an assassin-baiting, god-troubling mage-hobbled witch on them- but she also likes Aksinya, a lot.  Certainly Shaan doesn't want to take the expedient route and kill her or hand her over- not only would that be an idiot's move for someone who doesn't want a conquering army devouring her folk, but it would be absolutely dishonorable not to protect her friend and partner.  There were words spoken.  She made a promise. 

So it's the open road for them.

Comments

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Motives of the Fractious Subchiefs-

The water-kingdom is ruled by their high king, but up in the mountains and fjords of the frozen north where they come from, the chieftains are like little kings of their own, and after centuries, they're more than a bit pissed that their high king moved down to Florida and forgot them.

Furthermore, they've been marrying other folk so long they might as well be halfway to another people by now. Furthermore, the representatives of the northern clans they sent there to take part in the rich trade have become so entrenched that they consider themselves separate- they are not simply the Floridian branch of the great and honored northern clan, they are their own, wealthy merchant association with lands and titles- and not required to send much wealth home to their due leaders.

So when a prophecized White Witch or very similar is born to the High King, whether they know this from their own witches' scrying or because Aksinya is known for her water-magic or the responses she gets from the Old Ones in public religious ceremonies- well, things get interesting. Clearly this is a sign of some sort- and an opportunity to reestablish the old power with a new king, by stealing his powerful daughter and thus the claim to the Old Ways.

[gamiel.livejournal.com]

Why are the northern lords actually following the southern king? He's people has left the north and not just for Normandy but for Malta. Most people in that society would probably consider that a bit to far away to care about any orders or rules from his ætt.

I guess it is possible that there is a very quick and reliable way to send messages between the 'lowkings' in the north and the 'highking' in the south that makes it possible for the 'highkings' ætt to keep their control

P.S. What kind of ‘spirits’ and other magical beings do you plan to have Aksinya command/communicate with?

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

The southern king has the biggest ships and strongest navy, and messages pass between both ships and water-scrying seers with relative ease. There's at least one fellow who can whistle up an otter- or dolphin-sized water elemental (I'm imagining a bit like a fury from the Furies of Caldera series by Jim Butcher) and pass messages swiftly.

Also- it's not so much that the high king has *control* of the low kings- at least, it's long been a matter of courtesy between the two levels of office- as he's the one who is acknowledged the strongest and wealthiest, and the one to whom greater disputes are brought when it cannot be solved by a lower king, or if the matter is between two low kings and the others gang up to vote against them. It wasn't their business that he managed to gain huge amounts of territory beyond their traditional lands, and previous generations made the trip home more often. Then suddenly, in the last century, it was as if they were just one more client state in a vast empire- the tax-ship came, the king's judges/bards came and went, and they were no longer the proud carriers of the local high culture but the rusticated boonies to a much stronger power, who had become a stranger to them.

I still need to figure out a map to see how the length of the coast between the north and the south encompasses all this turf and accounts for the difference in temperature.

Aksinya's part of the royal family, which means that, while she has that connection, she has access to spirits, major and minor, that her family has bound in the past. A wendigo, a kraken- but also a great bear that was more than a bear, but a small god of the forest in its sovereign territory that was soothed from the ancient spears in its hide and bound for the debt; ice-spirits and pine-spirits of the old forests, bad-weather equivalents of fauns that look like white mountain goats. This in addition to more usual flying eel and river-dolphin type spirits, that aren't as intelligent or nearly as powerful, but are a lot more accessible and friendly.

[gamiel.livejournal.com]

"I still need to figure out a map to see how the length of the coast between the north and the south encompasses all this turf and accounts for the difference in temperature."

If you have the northmen using Viking-stile longboats you should also remember to map out the rivers since the longboats are well made for river travelling for example the Vikings traded with Constantinople did go by the rivers

If you are interested in some of the creatures of Nordic folk-lore check out 'humon' on Deviantart - http://humon.deviantart.com/gallery/ - and search for troll, or something like that

[gamiel.livejournal.com]

Has Aksinya any power over undead that are associated with water, like ghost ships or sea-draugs?

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

I haven't really thought of this world as having much in the way of undead.

[gamiel.livejournal.com]

I blame the question on that I have recently read Peter Bergting's 'the Portent' were undead (both good and bad) are important parts of the story