Musings from my Mind

Today's entry is being written from the air-conditioned comfort of my dad's office. This is because the router at home broke, we have no wireless network (temporarily), only one computer can be online at a time now, and my laptop refuses to play along with it all. That being said, the end result is that I am here, where there is internet and air'conditioning, and a lovely view out the window of the office's dumpster. Whee.

It's been a while since I've felt like writing - mostly because of my Java class and all the homework that I have to do for it. I'm surprised though, that I've nearly caught up on all my assignments, and I'm only behind by one. Such a warm and fuzzy feeling. :P So if you've read the last post, then you'll know that MIT people came up two weekends ago. It was a lot of fun. We got to go to the Picnic Beach, where I haven't been in years, and we went swimming and had a cookout and chucked a football around, which was great because no one could actually throw it. :D We had a lovely little party back home afterward, and my friends enjoyed my dad's cooking (which, when it comes to barbeque, or just about anything else for that matter, can't be beat) and we all stayed up way too late and stuff. Such as it is. ^_^; Anyway, it was a great weekend, and I hope we can do something like that again next year.

I've been in such a slump dragon-wise. I haven't made anything since a few days before my birthday. <_<; Not so good since Old Home Days is coming up in a couple of weeks. Meep! We found out our booth location - it's not as good last year. It's way on the end, and not under a tree this time. Kinda in the back corner where all the ice cream trucks hang out. Hm, that could be a good thing now that I think about it... ^_~ Yeah, so besides not making dragons, I've been reading excellent shounen manga by Kubotite (Kubo Taito). That guy is so cool - he can draw the greatest smirk ever. Keep an eye out on my website - I drew a picture of Thraxxin Duluth based on Ichigo's awesome smirk from the second chapter of Bleach (check out Toriyama's World if you're interested in reading the manga), and I should be scanning it in soon. I can't wait for the school year to start because then I'll be more inclined to update my website (and my weblog as well).

Okay, now for the random part from the dark depths of my brain that you might not want to read if you are sane... Or something. Anyway, I want to write it down here so I'll be able to check back on it later if I want to... I've been thinking about dark elves recently. A lot, actually. Somewhere near the end of the school year, I started putting together a drow family, based on the Forgotten Realms setting. The main characters are four siblings, all sisters, with various talents. I've been thinking of setting them in Menzoberranzan, but I'm not sure if they would fit in with the existing culture there. Their family, House Del'bren'shazoren, would be of minor nobility, not very well-known, and not sitting high in Lloth's (the Spider Queen - the drow's main deity)favor. As such, they are not too likely to be attacked - one cannot really gain in standing by wiping out their house. They are rather looked-down on because they only use their full name and do not adopt a shorter, easier-to-reference surname (I remember something about using a different last name and keeping the real one somewhat secret from R. A. Salvatore's tales of the Underdark), and also because of their lack of priestesses. The houses of Menzoberranzan of course place their value on how many priestesses of Lloth they have. House Del'bren'shazoren is quite the failure because the Matron Mother of the house (no name for her yet) has four daughters, and none of them are quite what would be deemed acceptable in drow culture.

The eldest, Xanshaa, was not watched over carefully enough by the mother, and her father somehow intervened in her upbringing and trained her as a fighter. As such, by the time she was old enough to enter Arach Tinilith (the clerical school), she had no respect for Lloth and was deemed a hopeless case where magic was concerned. The mother was forced to allow the wayward Xanshaa to continue her weapons training, but she killed the father out of spite and picked a new consort.

The next child was Na'veen, and the mother was much more careful this time around to be sure that she was brought up in a manner befitting a young noble female. Na'veen seemed full of religious zeal and the mother, pleased with how things were working out, had another child by the same male, who was named Koroko. Unfortunately, a god of Death (name to be determined) became interested in spreading his influence through the drow society and somehow picked Na'veen to one of his first followers in Menzoberranzan. This is probably because he noticed Na'veen's blind zeal to anyone that could offer her power. As long as he could convince her that he was more worthy of worship than Lloth, the Lady of Chaos, then he would have her undying support. You might recognize Na'veen as being a former EverQuest character - a drow necromancer - that's where this idea stemmed from. So Na'veen has been empowered by this death-god and has the ability to raise her slain enemies from the dead to fight for her. She can also drain out her enemies' life force to support her own. This makes her just about as powerful as Lloth's strongest priestesses, and will invite much trouble once the other drow start learning about Na'veen's secret. Na'veen does have to keep her devotion to her god a secret because if anyone outside of the family found out about it, they would likely crush her as quickly as possible to make sure that the rival god never has a chance to expand his control. Of course, this makes it very difficult for Na'veen to find and create further followers among her people... She is known for being quite fanatical, especially among her sisters, trying to convince them to follow this death-god...

So then we come to Koroko. Since the mother was keeping such a close eye on Na'veen (single-minded woman, isn't she?), Koroko somehow stumbled into the hands of the family wizard (probably a brother or something), who recognized her inherent magical talent. He convinced the young drow that if she studied wizardly magic instead of trying to follow the capricious Lloth, then she'd never be short of power, or have to strive to constantly be in the favor of the Spider Queen. Koroko, being a naturally curious child, accepted his offer to instruct her and began her own nonclerical studies, right under her mother's nose. This of course, made her mother furious when she found out, which wasn't for a long time because this mother is not the smartest dark elf that ever lived (and you wonder why House Del'bren'shazoren has never gotten very far in the drow hierarchy... ), but she couldn't very well kill the house wizard since they needed him as protection. Koroko also managed to blackmail Na'veen into helping her keep the wizard safe from harm. Hooray for treacherous drow. In the end, the blame was laid upon the father, and that was the end of him.

So, in a final attempt, the mother conceived and bore another daughter - Ko'dakka. This child was much more promising than all the rest, mostly because the mother refused to let her consort with her other sisters at all during her childhood. Ko'dakka came to see her sisters as miserable failures and decided to uphold the family name all by herself by becoming the best cleric that had ever been. She's easily the most serious of the four, and generally looks down on them too. She's even more single-minded than Na'veen, and spends most of her time in the family chapel. However, even she is not exactly what the mother had hoped for - she dresses in a human priest's brown robes instead of the traditional dark-elven purple and black, goodness knows where she got them from. Also, because she comes from such a dysfunctional family, she does not stand very high in Lloth's favor, and as such, most of her spells that she casts do not work or worse, backfire. She of course, mistrusts Na'veen the most - Lloth is fully aware of the lurking presence of the death-god, but, being her usual chaotic self, she has decided to let the matter rest for the moment. Someday, Na'veen's secret is bound to get out, and then there will be plenty of fun to be had, oh yes...

Well, that was a lot of unnecessary ranting right there, but it was fun. I had to get it all written out anyway. It'll probably go nowhere in the end, but I always entertain the thought of actually sitting down and writing (yeah, right), or at least drawing something. The latter is certainly doable, especially since I've been drawing them for quite a while anyway!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current mood: None, since I'm in my dad's office...
Current mood: ^_^