In the wake of character development i.e. Day 31

All the while posting about Dorian Blackwood, I have gotten many likes and follows from people that had not otherwise been following my blog, so now, I wish to bring attention to those people. I’d like to hear from you all.

The story that I will be writing during this years NaNoWriMo, about Dorian, will be following him during a certain set of events that I plan to be the link between his story and my other work in progress, Repeating History. This story will not only feature him, but Li Shaoshen, the other character I wrote a spotlight on somewhat recently, and will feature some interaction with some of the protagonists of the Repeating History series.

Titled What Lies Between Power and Bliss, this story will be narrated by Dorian following imprisonment. He has been a criminal, as means to support his life in the absence of having any skill to use in a profession, for most of his life, and being arrested is not a surprise to him, nor is it something new to experience. This time it is different however, and he must find out what is going on in his life now, to bring on this change. Along the way he meets his polar opposite, in a man that comes from a land apart from Arvandor, yet all his life, Dorian has believed the continent of Arvandor to be the only one on his 75% water filled home. What does this mysterious man and this odd change to his life have in common? The answer lies in between Power and Bliss.

What have you all thought of these character development questions? What do you think of Dorian from what you have learned? And do you plan to read the story as it is posted here? Let me know what you think, please, for I thrive on feedback.

Character Spotlight – A Walk on the Dark Side

So, I wrote some about the villains in my writing, mainly in a previous spotlight at Denizens of the Dark. However, I didn’t have much to tell about the characters mentioned in the second half of that post, so I am going to fill in what I’ve worked out since then.

So, the characters I left out in that portion of the post was the vampires that followed Kyo. I am going to explain a little more concerning Kyo as well that I believe I did not include, even in the post specifically about him and Yami at A Look at the Dark Side.

Aramaki Kyo was a samurai who served Oda Nobunaga during the Sengoku Era (roughly, 1450-1600) of Japan, where Daimyo all over the country warred for governmental control of the country as the Kamakura Shogunate –or Bakufu– was floundering. Oda Nobunaga was the first of three people that eventually brought an end to the Sengoku era. Kyo was loyal to Nobunaga, and served him without question, but questioned the actions of Hideyoshi and Tokugawa who came after him. He continued to do as was needed, but quietly he believed that Hideyoshi and Tokugawa would eventually lead Japan to ruin instead. On the night before the events at Hanno-ji, the temple where a coup captured Nobunaga and forced him to commit seppuku, Kyo was in the company of a woman whose only offered ‘name’ was Shinihime. In the night, she turned Kyo into a vampire, and made a deal with him. Kyo returned to his life, and worked only as an assassin. In the night, he did his part to aide Hideyoshi in retort against the coup. When Nobunaga was avenged, he followed Hideyoshi as he finished the task, and even began to try and turn the country of Japan into a true empire with invasions into China and Korea. He helped even though they failed. When Hideyoshi died, he even sided with Tokugawa against those that sided with keeping Hideyoshi’s five year old heir as Shogun. When Tokugawa was victorious and finally created a new Shogunate, and all seemed back in order, Kyo still disbelieved that Tokugawa would not screw it up. So he waited ten years, till Tokugawa stepped down, and took the role of Regent while his son became the next Shogun. Kyo struck then, and arranged Tokugawa’s death, in a less than honorable way, and pitched the blame onto Tokugawa’s own son. With his son forced to commit seppuku, Kyo as Tokugawa’s highest ranking general quashed any thoughts of open war again, and took up the role of Shogun. It was shortly before these last events that Kyo had his first conversation with someone capable of transporting him through worlds, to extend his empire to other worlds in the cosmos. Due to this, he was able to expand beyond the bounds of Japan, China, and Korea, and began the building not just of a larger empire, but of a group of vampires that would fulfill Shinihime’s request.

Ai Motoko was an assassin; a Shinobi hired during the last stretch of the Sengoku era, during the major contentions between Tokugawa and Ishida Mitsunari. It was at this time that Kyo met with Yami over and over again, but Ai Motoko was also hired to finish what Yami had been incapable of. Ishida wanted Kyo dead, because he was a great leader and a great swordsman responsible for many casualties on the field. However, Motoko could not complete the task either. While Yami and Kyo’s fights were always interrupted and never allowed to finish, Motoko was outright beaten. She used tactics that used her looks as a weapon, attempting to lure her targets into bed, where she could kill them in the heat of the moment. However, on the night of her attempt to kill Kyo, he instead took her and made her into a vampire as well. She would be the first of his “Kiss.”

Santino Marcone was a soldier of the Kingdom of Naples. The fall of the Roman empire, and the rise and fall of many powers in Europe, split the Italian peninsula into various city-states rather than a unified country. The divided city-states had never really pushed for unity for many years, but eventually, they wished for it. During Napolean’s reign in France, the city-states of Italy became a highly contested region that the French, Austrians, and Spanish fought over. Finding themselves being treated as a toy that children bickered over playing with, the people of the Italian peninsula tried to fight back, and instead of being merely a territory of one of their empires, vied to declare themselves a unified and independent nation. It was not an easy task, and though they made that effort then, it still would take nearly a century for that goal to be fully realized. Santino however, in his duties as a soldier of the Kingdom of Naples and a patron of the unification of Italy, was set upon by men claiming to be of the French military, but turned out to be vampires who had Napolean on puppet’s strings.

Adelrich Bachmeir was a nobleman and soldier under the fealty of Henry the Lion of Saxony. Henry the Lion, himself, ruled the Duchy of Saxony under the servitude to Frederick I Barbarossa, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor. Henry the Lion, however, was not very fond of Frederick’s family, and thus, not truly loyal to the Emperor. When it came time to bring military power to the Italian states, to give a lesson to the Pope who defied Frederick, Henry the Lion refused to send the support of his own troops. After Barbarossa was forced to flee the Italian peninsula and return to Germany, Henry the Lion’s supporters in retort abandoned him, and did not give him support. Frederick banished Henry, and gave the Duchy of Saxony to another. Adelrich was one of Henry the Lion’s supporters who remained chiefly loyal to Barbarossa. He accompanied Barbarossa on the trip to Isreal in the third Crusade, was ultimately captured by a vampire there whom had been claiming to be dolling out Henry’s vengeance. Thus, Adelrich was turned.

Aláin Brùn was a Gaellic warrior in ancient Scotland, before it was Scotland. During the contention between the Picts and the Gaels, he was personally affronted by the Pictish people. When claims of a peace arose between the Picts and the Gaels, Aláin refused to go along with it, even if it meant conquering the other tribes, and raising a force to contend with the Angles (English). People listened to Aláin, which would hamper the chances for the peace. A group of men, both Gael and Pict, supporting the alliance, ambushed him at night, and beat him within an inch of his life. They left, to let him bleed out in the fields, only for him to be discovered by a vampire who ‘rescued’ him from the doom of death.

Neville Ashdown was a homeless thief in the dirty alleys of Victorian Era England. He was born into a poor family who had no money to afford a home. He stole and pinched pockets in order to get by from day to day. There was no other way to get by. He stared at the palaces, and the people living rich and ritzy lives, doing nothing to help those that had nothing and no means to get what they needed to survive. He figured they had so much, they could stand to lose a few trinkets they would no doubt hardly notice. But picking pockets near Buckingham Palace did not net him the money he sought, instead, it welcomed him into a part of British Royalty he believed Queen Victoria did not even know about.

Eran is the eldest of the vampires in this tale. He is so old, he did not have a last name, for indeed, last names were not yet in use. He is so old, he predates the current era. Before the birth of Christ, Eran was a member of the Judean people, under rule of the Seleucid Empire. The Seleucid ruler desecrated the Jewish temple, which incited a rebellion among the Jews. They fought –yes even on the Sabbath– in order to reclaim their temple and restore it. Free of the Seleucid, they were able to return to their normal practices of their religion. Of course, it would not last long, for the Roman Empire would be knocking on Judean and Caananite doors, but for that time, they were freed of Seleucid and Greek control. A scout of the Roman legions ran into Eran one night, and that would spell the end of his Jewish practices forever.

Now, how did these people, from various different points in history, come to be together? Well, how Motoko and Kyo are together was already answered. But how did he meet with those that existed before him, in other regions of the world? And how did he meet those that came after him, if he ventured into other worlds to build his empire? Shinihime had a part in that, for as she told Kyo, she had many names across the world, signaling that she had been in other parts of the world and in that time, with the state of transportation as it was, it would take a long time, especially since she’d need to find a place to rest during the day, and not be stumbled upon. Since that is the case, I am toying the the idea that the same vampire turned all of them (excluding Motoko of course) and directed them to each other over time. These seven will be like a council of elders to all Vampire kind, while Shinihime is technically older then all of them, and more powerful to have created them all and survived long enough to do so, across all corners of the world. There will also be introduced some vampires of the fictional races in the writing, and as they come about I’ll introduce them. For now, there’s Shinihime, and the council of seven. A.K.A. The Sinful Kiss, as their personalities will mirror the seven deadly sins. From Kyo who craved the drive of Tokugawa, the ambition of Hideyoshi, and the strength of Nobunaga all in one; Motoko who lured men to their demise with her beauty; Adelrich who craved power over exile, and was never satisfied with the power he held and always wanted more; Santino with his love for his people and homeland, enamored in its beauty, culture, and allure; Aláin who could not let his grudges and anger go; Eran who was unsure, like many others, on whether or not they should forsake their religious beliefs under the oppression of a larger power, remaining under someone else’s control and servitude; and Neville who could not help but look up at the wealth and prosperity around him, and desire it.

Character Spotlight – Denizens of the Dark

With Yami and Kyo introduced, now begins the look at the multitude of followers these people have. Yami’s followers consists of a ‘platoon’ of demons while Kyo’s (as his clothing) is a little more varied. Is this some unplanned pattern? Hmm…

Anyway, the primary subordinates that follow Yami are a pair of groups. Yes, that’s it, a pair of groups! hahahah! Ok, I forget why that was supposed to be funny. Anyway. The Prime Fae, after the contention against Erebh and his first attempt to overthrow and destroy the creations of the other Fae, created a few other races for specific purposes. The Dragons were placed within the various worlds of the cosmos, in order to police the world in a more closely tied perspective, to ensure no dangers arose. There was also a select five creatures of spiritual origins, that were intended to watch the cosmos as a whole. These five creatures are based upon the constellations of Chinese and Japanese culture. Those that have watched anime, or study the same sorts of things that I enjoy, will recognize this to some degree.

The Chinese and Japanese both have similar views on these constellations. They were creatures they saw in the stars that represented the different hemispheres of the world, and the different other constellations that resided within each hemisphere. They were assigned cardinal directions, elements, and seasons that it was said they presided over. The names, of course, differed between the Chinese and the Japanese, but there was also another slight difference. The Chinese viewed five creatures, while the Japanese viewed four. What is the difference in those five positions then?

In Japanese view, the four beasts were Genbu, Suzaku, Seiryu, and Byakko. In Chinese view, the same four beasts were Zhi Ming, Ling Guang, Meng Zhang, and Jian Bing. The beasts were separated, as I stated before, by the four seasons, elements, and cardinal directions. Genbu, or Zhi Ming, is the Black Tortoise, depicted at times as having a long tail that is in actuality a snake. He presides over the cardinal direction of North, the season of Winter, and the element of Water. Suzaku, or Ling Guang, is a red bird, with large wings. Often he is depicted as a Phoenix, but there is no such specification in any actual Chinese or Japanese sources other than fictional tales. However, he presides over the cardinal direction of South, the season of Summer, and the element of Fire. Seiryu, or Meng Zhang, presides of the East, the element of Wood, and the season of Spring. He is a serpent-like(Asian depiction) Dragon of an Azure color. Finally, Byakko, or Jian Bing, is represented as a white tiger, presides over the West, the season of Fall, and the element of Metal. Finally, the Chinese had one more beast, who for some reason did not seem to have a name, but was simply called Huanglong. Huanglong means Yellow Dragon, but this creature is sometimes also referred to as a Kirin, which is an entirely different creature. A Kirin is sometimes regarded as an Asian depiction of a Unicorn. Huanglong represented the center and the element of Earth. In the Japanese view, the ‘center’ was called the ‘void’ and had no creature or element tied to it.

Now, my opinion. The five elements listed in the Chinese view of these creatures and constellations are incomplete. Wood and Metal, for instance, are products of the Element of Earth, are they not? So this view basically lists Earth as an element three times, and for some reason leaves out the element of wind. And now, the element of lightning. Yes, I consider it a separate element. Heat existing within the sky, above the clouds, or even in the clouds, causes the gasses in the air to ignite, and streak across the sky. One could say it is a product of fire and wind combining, but then, many of the elements combine already. Water itself is a combination of air. Both Hydrogen and Oxygen are different molecules –different gases– that make up the wind. So thus, Water is a creation of the Wind element, so why isn’t Lightning a separate element? Yes, this same logic could be used to disprove my earlier statement that metal and wood are parts of the earth element, but either way, I still think that lightning is its own element.

Either way, I take this system, from a more Japanese view, and create the five creatures the Prime Fae put into the heavens to watch the world. The Demons were created by Erebh, in his supposed locked away state within the Void, and sent five demons of his creation to possess and take over these spiritual beasts. The Spiritual Beasts; Genbu, Suzaku, Seiryu, Byakko, and my addition, Karatobi, were possessed by the Demonic Beasts; Ganseki, Nenshou, Mizuhou, Hakurou, and Oroubo. For the spiritual beasts, the fifth creature represents the element of wind, instead of a third earth element, while the demons follow the five major elements of my view; fire, earth, wind, water, and lightning, while also having the concept of time added in. For in the Chinese view, that fifth creature, Huanglong, did not have a season tied to them. Well, of course there is only four seasons, but if that last creature represents the center, what do we know of center? The center of a clock is where the hand’s axis sits. The point where the spin of those arms is centered. Thus, that ‘fifth element’ is in actuality, the repetition of those elements. The recurrence of time. And what better way to represent the repetition of time than with the Orouboros.

Here, is a wiki page on what I’m talking about.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Symbols_(Chinese_constellation) )

Long story short (too late! yes, I know, I ramble…) the first group of subordinates to Yami, is the fire demonic beasts petitioned by Erebh, to spy on the cosmos, and turn anything they could towards destruction. Ganseki, The Brown (Earth) Bear. Nenshou, The Red (Fire) Fox. Mizuhou, The Blue (Water) Panther. Hakurou, The White (Wind) Wolf. Oroubo, The Yellow (Time) Snake.

Yami’s other main assortment of subordinates he met personally throughout his exploits under Shoshu’s guidance in learning the power and benefits of being a demon. Their names are not as elaborate, and I’ve been debating changing them, but, for now, they are Slag, the Earth and Crystal demon, Blaze, the Fire demon, Torrent, the Water demon, Volt, the Lightning demon, Gale, the Wind demon, and Mire, the Necromantic demon. There are other demons and subordinates that follow, but these two groups are the primary followers of Yami.

Kyo’s organization is better filled out. As was stated in the previous spotlight post, Kyo overtook the Tokugawa shogunate, and in making it his own, expanded it beyond the previous bounds of what was known as Japan. After interacting with Erebh, the country became an empire that not only consisted of China, Korea, and Japan on Earth, but to various other worlds within the cosmos. Why did this go unseen?

Erebh kept himself within the void, not leaving it, but the creation of the demons kept the Dragons occupied. With the Dragons and the Demons fighting, the Spiritual Beasts were created, to watch the cosmos. Erebh remained within the void, but before long, he sent the Demonic beasts to corrupt the Spiritual Beasts. Thus, the Prime Fae continued to believe Erebh was locked away in the Void, and unable to continue his earlier rebellion. A portion of the void had been carved away, and was turned into the Demonic Realm. There, within that realm, Erebh hid away, and provided the demons with an ever growing library of what existed within the cosmos, and how they could be torn apart.

Demons were not his only means to rebel against the other Fae, however. And so, he was the one who had created Shinihime, and sent her after Kyo. With Kyo’s power, the destruction of all worlds could commence. By extending Kyo’s empire to other worlds, the vampires could expand as well, and fill the other worlds. And that was what he did. Venturing to other worlds, Kyo saw many other types of civilizations, and from the strongest ones, he would select an individual to turn to his ways. Within each of them, was a unique ability, and they would become the Council of Vampires that would lead all their kind. But, vampires were not the only creation to aide the demons in their task. From among the council, they concocted a means to turn the people into various kinds of servants to their will.

There were the enamored mortals, who served based upon a binding of their will. Among such servants were the Hogosha clan, a family of ninja who had served Kyo’s Shogunate since his days confined to the one world of Earth. Among the Hogosha clan was a Necromancer, one who practiced magics that revolved around blood and death. His name was Kosuke, and he was able to rise those that had fallen to serve Kyo’s will. And of course, there were the living servants who were not bound against their will, but served faithfully with the powers granted them by the curse placed upon them by the ritualist of the Hogosha clan, Keiko. With her rituals, she could magically infect anyone with any disease she wished, and upon those who served faithfully, willingly, she blessed them with the ability to join their bodies with the bodies of beasts. And so, the Lycanthropes were born.

The Hogosha clan were more than just ninja, clearly, and practiced many forms of magic as well, but then there were those that simply followed the ways of the shinobi. The clan leaders were Hogosha Kenji and his bride, Kayo. Their family was large, and those that joined the clan, through marriage or otherwise, were often awarded with a name to fit the Hogosha clan’s customs.

Among Kyo’s servants there is also his fellow vampires, such as Motoko, Santino, Aláin, Neville, Adelrich, and Eran. I do not have specific names for the Lycanthrope servants yet, but that shall come soon.