ManWithTheMetalArm

I never really liked the terms "light and dark" when describing magic, as it feels limiting, mainly because one culture's definition of what is "light" and what is "dark" will probably differ from another culture's. I prefer the terms "order" and "chaos", which are much more general. And despite what you may think, while you definitely don't want total chaos, you don't want total order either. Total order means stability at all costs, which is impossible. Everything is in a constant state of change, from they way people age, to the way societies change with each new generation, to even nature herself. In the eyes of total order, that is simply unacceptable. It's like Dark Seid, he wants to destroy all life in the universe not because he's evil and a dick like that, but because he sees nothing but chaos in the universe, and wants to remake it to instill ultimate order.

Worst idea: a story in where six preteens are secretly dragon riders from a magical world were all the myths, legends, and fairy tails of our world got transported to by a dragon star god. These preteens were also all "chosen ones" destined to save the land of Lore from the evil Dark Dragon and his minion, Fang Shaw. I made this back in junior high, before I knew what copyright was and included a lot of stuff from Artix Games, specifically Dragonfable and AdventureQuest Worlds. It had some neat ideas, but had terrible execution. How bad, you ask? Our six heroes get a spaceship at one point, then go to Atlantis and become merpeople; I am not kidding.

While I'm currently working on a sci-fi novel, I'm also working on ideas for another novel that I have in mind, set in my fantasy/steampunk world of Icarus. Surprisingly, one of things about this world I've spent the most time on are the orcs. Yeah, I know, "Orcs have been done to death." But, I'm aiming to put some life back into them by making some different ethnicities and cultures among them, because I am a smart writer who knows not to make monolithic races/delegate creatures like orcs to just being "the bad guys". Speaking of which, I have to talk about fantasy/alien races for a moment. Just bear with me. This has always kind of bothered me, when we look at fantasy and science fiction, we often see a wide variety of different sentient creatures; however, while humans still retain our variety of skin tones and physical features, a single alien species will look the complete same all throughout. So, why? Why wouldn't they develop different ethnicities depending on the different environments either of their home planet or the different environments this certain species settles upon your fantasy world? They'd develop different physical characteristics depending on the environment they live in. "But doesn't that mean they're a different species now?" No, not necessarily, it's the equivalent of the diversity humans have developed in our time upon this pale blue dot we call home. Think on that. Okay, where was I? Right, orc ethnicities upon the world of Icarus. There are four orc ethnicities: Duullesh, Krek, Muuban, and Lashri. I'll talk about the Duullesh for now, since they're the ones I have the most fluff thought up for. Duullesh tribes mostly occupy the fairly northern part of Latreous, the first of Icarus' two main continents. These are the orcs the rest of Icarus' inhabitants think of when they hear the word "orc". Another quick note, "orc" is actually not the proper term for their species, and depending on who you're talking to, it can actually get taken as quite the insult. The Duullesh word for their species is "drol", which essentially means "green", as in green skinned, not to be confused with "druul" which means the color green. The word "orc" is the shortened form of "orccum" which is the old Droggresh (the dead language once used by the telkhines, more on them later) that roughly translates to "barbarian" or "savage". Since most of the other species have not had very pleasant experiences when it comes to interacting with our green skinned friends, the name "orc" stuck. Okay, I promise that's the last time I go on a tangent, I swear. So, the Duullesh orcs are what you would physically identify as your "typical" orc: really tall, lots of muscle mass, large tusks that protrude prominently from their bottom jaws, olive-green skin, the works. They live in lightly fortified tribal villages of about 70-100 individuals, in which it is uncommon to marry outside of. A common household contains an extended family, in which the eldest orc (male or female, called the "Fulti") is typically the head. Lineage is passed down to the child who succeeds the trial of "Maatherun" (the proving), completing a specific task given to them by their Fulti, and the child that completes the task the best gets to pass down the lineage of the family, indicated by a red ribbon they braid into their hair. The other children become the lineage of another family that they marry into. They have a polytheistic religious belief system consisting of a trinity of gods: Ocenia, the harvest mother, protector of families, and fertility goddess; Malguntor, the teacher, the hunter, and the blacksmith god; and, last but certainly not least, Jakarro, the law-bringer, the hammer of judgement, and justice incarnate. Jakarro is their chief deity and they live by his code: the strong survive and the weak die, all transgressions are to be paid in equality, and always seek to right wrongs done to you or your family. The Duullesh heavily structure their society on this code, ensuring that it is always followed. They believe that is the code is not followed, then Jakarro will punish not only the transgressor, but the victim and/or the victim's family as well for failing to carry out justice. He's more to be appeased and placated rather than worshiped, but he's less of an actually deity and more the embodiment of the concept of "justice". However there has been some schism amongst the Duullesh in their homeland of Nogduul, as a significant number of them have given up their tribal lifestyle to live as the other species south of them do, turning their village-forts into cities, installing paved roads and railways, converting to southern religions such as Titanism and Allism, outfitting their military with firearms (which more traditional Duullesh consider ranged weapons as a whole as particularly dishonorable), and many more southern practices. As you can imagine, this did not sit well with more traditional Duullesh, who see the southern species and their ways as weak, calling their kin who follow after these weak ways "balkrup", or weaklings, following the false ways of the "suthran balkrup", southern weaklings. It doesn't help the fact that these "balkrup" look down upon their traditional kin as primitive and backwards, mocking their lifestyles and spitting on their beliefs. This resentment boiled inside the "traditionalists" for decades, until the day when a Duullesh chieftain named Skallethraan, leader of the Jakor, had gotten fed up with a nearby military outpost abusing his tribe by taxing them too heavily to ever pay up properly and taking a significant amount of their harvest, so much so that the village was almost on the brink of starvation at one point. So, what he do? He attacks the fort, manages to take it over, executes all the remaining orc soldiers inside, and calls upon all "true" Duullesh to join with him to rid Nogduul of the "balkrup" once and for all. Unsuprisingly, many traditionalists flocked to his banner to swear their loyalty, and have been a thorn in the Nogduulan government's side for years now. This has lead to more and more harsh treatment of traditionalists all over Nogduul, even if they don't support Skallethraan. This often just ends up fanning the flames, and makes Skallethraan harder and harder to bring down. The bounty on his head is said to increase by a hundred griftars (their currency) monthly, and people often joke that the one who finally turns in that bounty will empty the Nogduulan treasury of every last ounce of gold and silver it has. Okay, I think I'm done for tonight. Emperor on Terra, I ended up writing more than I thought I would. See you later, fellow hue-mans!

Hello everybody, newcomer here! I'd heard a little about Brandon Sanderson a while back, and I got to see him when he rolled around Ogden, Utah about a month ago, and am starting to get my hands on his books. What I've seen so far, I've liked. But, that's not the only reason I'm here, as the writer's corner caught my eye when I was sniffing about here. Anyway, I'm a college student living in Utah whose Major is English w/ A Creative Writing Emphasis and who wants to be an editor so I can pay me bills while I try to sell whatever dreck I happen to type on a page, if the octopus what lives in my head will even allow that. See you all soon! Come, Cthulhu Jr., to Scrivener!