Malazan Empire: Text-Heavy Malazan Roleplay - Malazan Empire

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Text-Heavy Malazan Roleplay

#1 User is offline   Amondrask 

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Posted 12 June 2019 - 09:31 AM

Hello all!

Bit dusty in here. Hopefully we can sort that out.

Anyway. So, I'm a long time hobbyist writer, by way of roleplay, and ever since I've read the Malazan books I've been itching to play in the setting, to essentially no avail.

Now, I'm aware that there are (or were) some text-based Malazan games knocking around, but I want something a little different - a much heavier focus on writing, a lot more meat to the posts and such. Something that wouldn't look out of place in a book itself, even if it's a paragraph or two. So, I'm looking for like-minded folks to see if there's any interest in a joint writing adventure in the Malazan world, be it as soldiers in one of the Imperial armies, a band of would-be Ascendants, Soletaken, whatever. We can figure that out if we get to that stage.

To give you an idea of what sort of writing I'm talking about, check out some samples. Not expecting anything as long as these, but a paragraph or so at least would be very much desired, of quality.

So, if you're interested, get in touch! You can reply here, PM me, get me on Discord at Amondrask#8476, email me at amondaris@gmail.com, or just generally google the username Amondrask (it's always me) and nudge me. That stands indefinitely, in case anyone happens on this years down the line!
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#2 User is offline   Blend 

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Posted 12 June 2019 - 08:32 PM

Count me in, I'm always interested in doing things that allow me to write for fun! :thumbsup:
There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived. ~ Anomander Rake
My sig comes from a game in which I didn't heed Blend's advice. So maybe this time I should. ~ Khellendros
I'm just going to have to come to terms with the fact that self-vote suiciding will forever be referred to as "pulling a JPK" now, aren't I? ~ JPK
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#3 User is offline   Amondrask 

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Posted 12 June 2019 - 08:34 PM

Glad to hear it, Blend! Have you got any writing from before to share? I'm curious!
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#4 User is offline   Blend 

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Posted 12 June 2019 - 11:19 PM

Most of the writing I have done in the last couple of years has been point form stuff to prep for D&D sessions, but the last real thing I wrote would be this...



Quote

When I left the Pinewood Forests at the young age of 15, running from the severe discrimination I had to live with everyday for being a giant, deformed freak of a wood elf, I found myself alone, out in the world, not knowing what to do or where to go. I lived off the land while travelling, mostly directionless. I eventually found myself on Jolly Death Isle, near Themim, destitute and starving. I was found by a Tiefling Sage named Akmenos, whose wife and son had recently died at the hands of a band of rogue humans on the road between his hometown and his school, where he was learning to become a wizard. He took me in, and fed me, made me healthy again, and eventually helped me enroll in his school to begin learning the ways of the wizard. For two years I studied at the school by day, and assisted Master Akmenos in his wizardly studies by night. I owed him my life, but he never made me feel like I owed him anything, and I quickly grew to think of him as a father figure.

In the Tiefling school, I was quickly outcast. I was not a Tiefling, and this was enough for others to shun me. I did not care, I had lived my whole life as an outcast among my own people. At least here I had Master Akmenos. One day, in a statuary corridor between classes, I came upon a group of Tieflings surrounding a small half elf, half tiefling girl, calling her names, and shoving her around. I became enraged, jumped into the middle of the group of Tieflings and, racking my brain for anything I had learned from Master Akmenos while assisting him with his wizardly studies, I managed to pull from my memory the spell for Thunderwave. I cast it unthinkingly, sending the circle of Tieflings around me flying back into the walls and statuary. Ignoring the damage I had caused, both to the Tieflings and the statues, I reached my hand out to the halfblood girl and helped her up.

"I am Skrow."

She looked at me with tears in her eyes, greatful for what I had done for her.

"I am Phelaia," she said, "But you should not have done that. One of those children was the Great Sage's daughter."

"I care not," I said. "No one deserves to be treated as you were being treated, just because you are different. Believe me, I know all too much what that is like."

As you can imagine, things were rough for me after that. It took Master Akmenos much of his political capital within the school to keep me from being expelled. But I didn't care, I now had a friend, and that was more than I'd ever had. For two more years, Phelaia and I were inseparable. We studied together, ate together, took our classes together, even spent much of the time when we weren't studying and I wasn't assisting Master Akmenos with his studies together. Phelaia, I found out, had been born to a high elf from the Golden Mangroves, who had been raped by a Tiefling at a young age. Much like me, she had been outcast amongst her own people for being different. I couldn't imagine how that must have been for her. At least I had been fully elven, even if I was too big, and too green, and too blonde.

Not even her mother could look at her, only seeing the horrors that had been visited upon her. At the young age of 12, her mother had brought her to the school. Her mother gave the school enough gold to house her and school her until she came of age, or they saw fit to get rid of her. The last words she ever heard from her mother was that she was not welcome in the Golden Mangroves. My heart ached for her and, inside, I fumed at the people who would do this to such a smart young girl. Because she was that. Smart, I mean. Where it would take me hours to learn even the simplest things, she seemed to pick up complex concepts as if it was like writing her own name.
And so, our friendship developed, she helping me struggle through my studies, and I helping to keep her safe amongst our peers. Really, though, it was the friendship that was most important to both of us. We were kindred spirits, and this made our bond solid.

One day, while Phelaia and I were poring over the depths of the library at the school, preparing for that year's exams which were only a month away, we came upon a dusty tome in its depths. The tome was written in infernal, a language I had been learning while living with the Tieflings. Master Akmenos always tutted at my horrible pronunciation and understanding, but I continued to work at learning their language. This dusty tome seemed to be in an older version of the language, so it caught Phelaia's and my interest right away. We spent hours, days, weeks poring over the book in a small room in the depths of the library where we spent much of our free time. We learned many things about Tiefling history that were not taught in our classes, and as anyone knows, much of that history involves the dark arts.
One spell in the book caught my attention. It purported to provide its user with knowledge unsurpassed. Given exams were just around the corner, my interest was piqued. I spent several days and nights reading and rereading the spell, and felt certain I understood it. There was one catch, it required a person's arcane energy as a focus to power the spell. As far as I understood, however, the person's pool of arcane energy would not be permanently damaged or drained. I discussed the spell with Phelaia, and she looked at me with something in her eyes I did not quite understand. She agreed to act as the spell's focus, and so we began making preparations. Two nights later, the night before exams were to start, we began.

I was in our small room in the depths of the library, having set up everything we would need to create the spell and sustain it. Phelaia came in, that odd twinkle in her eye. She dropped a letter on the table next to my books and said, "Are you ready?" I nodded, and she stood at one point of the spell circle while I stood at the other. I performed the incantation, and an infernal, ancestor to the Tieflings, raised out of the floor in the middle of the circle.

The infernal laughed at me, and said: "What do you wish of me, elfling?"

"Knowledge," I said. "Knowledge surpassing that of all my fellow students. Knowledge to become a powerful wizard."

"And do you agree to the bargain?"

"Yes, I agree to any bargain," I said.

I was naive. I was stupid. The infernal laughed, turned to my friend, and stabbed his hand into her chest. He pulled it out, her beating heart in his hand, blood dripping down his arm.

"The bargain has been struck, this soul now belongs to me!" The sounds of his laughter as he melted into the floor haunt me to this day.

I was horrified. I sat at the table, staring at Phelaia's corpse, grasping her letter in my hands as my mind was flooded with knowledge beyond what I could imagine. I knew, now, what I had done wrong. Yes, someone's arcane energy was to be used as the spell's focus, but my poor grasp on the infernal language, mixed with the ancient version of the language this book had been written in, had made me miss the most important part of the spell. A life had to be sacrificed for the knowledge. Some ancient Tiefling had noted in the margins that this could be an animal, as long as it was a life. But, in the absence of any other life within the circle as a sacrifice to the infernal, he went for the only other life available, that of my best friend's. I cried a lot that night as I packed my things, pocketing Phelaia's letter, and snuck out of the Tiefling city before anyone could discover what I had done. I could not even face Master Akmenos, who had been like a father to me. I was so ashamed.

I later opened the letter Phelaia had left with my things. In it she declared her love for me. You see, being the clever girl she was, she suspected the price she might have to pay for my knowledge. But I had defended her when no one else would, I had stood by her side when all others shunned her. I knew what it was like to be different, and so she wished to help me. She knew, she said, that this would allow me to become the wizard I had always striven to be, and she knew that it would give me the power to save her should something go wrong. She did not know how, but had faith that I could help her. And so, the question I have spent my years trying to answer, the one that I can't even find in the depths of the knowledge provided to me by the infernal, was what do I have to do to save Phelaia, my first friend, the first person to ever love me.

There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived. ~ Anomander Rake
My sig comes from a game in which I didn't heed Blend's advice. So maybe this time I should. ~ Khellendros
I'm just going to have to come to terms with the fact that self-vote suiciding will forever be referred to as "pulling a JPK" now, aren't I? ~ JPK
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#5 User is offline   Amondrask 

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Posted 13 June 2019 - 04:25 AM

Thank you for sharing! Do you do all of your writing in that perspective, or do you do third person as well?
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#6 User is offline   Blend 

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Posted 13 June 2019 - 04:52 PM

View PostAmondrask, on 13 June 2019 - 04:25 AM, said:

Thank you for sharing! Do you do all of your writing in that perspective, or do you do third person as well?


I do whatever fits the moment - this was just a story from my D&D character's perspective that I was going to be telling the other players.
There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived. ~ Anomander Rake
My sig comes from a game in which I didn't heed Blend's advice. So maybe this time I should. ~ Khellendros
I'm just going to have to come to terms with the fact that self-vote suiciding will forever be referred to as "pulling a JPK" now, aren't I? ~ JPK
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#7 User is offline   Illuyankas 

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Posted 13 June 2019 - 09:25 PM

Just posting to say I'm afraid I can't join but wanted to wish you luck as the peeps on the site are pretty great and I'm sure you'll find a load of cool cats

Also I misunderstood what you meant by heavy text and now I'm overcommited

Hello, soldiers, look at your mage, now back to me, now back at your mage, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped being an unascended mortal and switched to Sole Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re in a warren with the High Mage your cadre mage could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an acorn with two gates to that realm you love. Look again, the acorn is now otataral. Anything is possible when your mage smells like Sole Spice and not a Bole brother. I’m on a quorl.
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#8 User is offline   Amondrask 

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Posted 16 June 2019 - 09:44 PM

Hah, I see what you did there, Illuyankas. Very droll.

Good to know, Blend!

So, we may as well chat about what sort of scenario we'd be game for writing about, while we wait and see if we draw in more interested parties.

Do you have any particular preferences? Could go with a squad of Malazan soldiers, or a mercenary company, a more disparate group banded together for a common goal/destination, etc.
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#9 User is offline   Blend 

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Posted 17 June 2019 - 04:50 PM

I think a squad of Malazan soldiers (with a cadre mage or squad mage or whatever) would be a lot of fun!
There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived. ~ Anomander Rake
My sig comes from a game in which I didn't heed Blend's advice. So maybe this time I should. ~ Khellendros
I'm just going to have to come to terms with the fact that self-vote suiciding will forever be referred to as "pulling a JPK" now, aren't I? ~ JPK
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