In the land of Alusia, within the depths of the earth, turmoil reigned for eons. For many generations, Daman the Red, the last dragon, assaulted the lands. Hope was at its breaking point. But hope is a resilient idea, far more infectious than any virus. And even more deadly when wielded correctly.It was the drow, the dark elves, who first spoke of overthrowing Daman; for the drow, unlike dwarves and men, lived for near a millennium. They could still recall the battle between Daman and his sister, Saraid the Blue. And they knew where she lay buried.
Therefore, the drow embarked to Saraid’s resting place to retrieve her left claw. In it, she had held a great amulet as she attacked her brother. In a fiery battle, Saraid was slain, but her hand was not scathed by her brother’s fury. For nearly two thousand years she remained silent, unable to avenge her death.
Upon retrieving the fabled claw, the leaders of the ten tribes of men, the twelve of the drow, and the three of the dwarves came before their high councilor, Ailbe. There, they revealed their plan to use the Talons of Saraid to defeat Daman. But after unveiling their prized weapon, Ailbe began to laugh with delight. For he was himself Daman. He had been searching for his sister’s ashes for two millennia in order to take the amulet for himself and use it against the Alusians.
It was in that instant that one of the drow was overcome with that infectious idea and charged Daman with Saraid’s mighty talons in hand. What happened next is argued by all that witnessed it, but after it happened, all that remained was Sariad’s claw, charred to the bone.
It has worn by each high councilor to this day.
So, originally I wanted to do this story about a kid named Alexander that finds this amulet-thing, but the story just kept getting bigger and bigger until it probably could have become a decent length kids movie...so i scrapped it. One of the ideas I had, though, was for Alex to get transport to another world, Alusia. I really liked what I saw there and so decided to tell the origin of this amulet in a similar fashion to the origin of the One Ring at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings movie. It wasn't very difficult keeping within the word limit, what was actually the most difficult was finding good sounding fantasy-ish names for my dragons, go figure.
ReplyDeleteI say you get bonus points for using LOTR as your backdrop in the pictures.
ReplyDeleteCool story, too! I was a little confused by all the names, but I still followed it pretty well.
I keep expecting Drizzt Do'Urden to just pop out of nowhere. I'm glad he didn't, because I hate him. And his two scimitars. And now that everyone knows what a huge nerd I am, I like the "legend" like approach to telling the story. It was very cool.
ReplyDeleteI do like the pictures here. Ultimately, though, the piece does feel a bit derivative. I actually like the idea you mention above, with the kid's transport, somehow, to this other land. The arrival and description of some other place would be a fine place to end, and would provide the specific detail of setting, say that we lack here. Alternatively, the history might be more unique here, taking Tolkein as a model, sure, but really developing an original world.
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