First off, it appears I was counter-tagged by Steph. I hope this isn’t revenge for the shredding we did to each other’s writings :3…

This meme isn’t particularly riveting and probably thrown together by someone who barely has a grasp of the English language, so here’s the deal: I’m not going to tag anybody on this (partly to avoid a potential tag war/riot). But if you would like the torch to be passed on to you anyway, post a reply stating you’d like to do this meme and I’d be glad to link to your pertaining post at the tail of this one.

I guess the goal of this meme is to answer questions starting with letters of the alphabet. How clever! *shudder* I’ll do my best for Steph, though, cuz she’s just awesome. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d describe the second ring as an energy drawn from within the world. It is the energy surging through the mountains and flora that surround us. It is the Anima Mundi - ’soul of the world’. Some people get this mixed up with the Etheric plane, as the energies are very similar, but the Anima Mundi is more like what writers talk about when they speak of ‘Gaia/Gaea’, which is usually portrayed as an energy that flows within every living thing around us. If you can picture the world as a living womb with a heartbeat and a consciousness able to defend herself—as Mother Earth—or ‘Prithvi’—then you are on the right track. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems we bloggers sometimes have a civic duty to fulfill here in the blogosphere: to go horribly off-topic in the event that we are tagged with a meme. Not that being tagged is like jury duty or anything…
heheh…
At any rate, this viral meme has spread its way to me thanks to good ol’ wizardsmoke. He deserves kudos, though, as he went through the strenuous effort of tracing the meme’s serpentine path, and found that it—-rather amusingly—-originated from the evil that is LiveJournal. Perhaps the true source of evil could be LiveJournal in my story; the evil hidden Zero-ith Ring. lol.
Anyway, here are the rules (There’s always specific criteria for these memes…):

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

Easy enough. Here’s what’s sparked my interests lately: Read the rest of this entry »

It seems we bloggers sometimes have a civic duty to fulfill here in the blogosphere: to go horribly off-topic in the event that we are tagged with a meme. Not that being tagged is like jury duty or anything…
heheh…
At any rate, this viral meme has spread its way to me thanks to good ol’ wizardsmoke. He deserves kudos, though, as he went through the strenuous effort of tracing the meme’s serpentine path, and found that it—-rather amusingly—-originated from the evil that is LiveJournal. Perhaps the true source of evil could be LiveJournal in my story; the evil hidden Zero-ith Ring. lol.
Anyway, here are the rules (There’s always specific criteria for these memes…):

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

Easy enough. Here’s what’s sparked my interests lately: Read the rest of this entry »

It seems we bloggers sometimes have a civic duty to fulfill here in the blogosphere: to go horribly off-topic in the event that we are tagged with a meme. Not that being tagged is like jury duty or anything…
heheh…
At any rate, this viral meme has spread its way to me thanks to good ol’ wizardsmoke. He deserves kudos, though, as he went through the strenuous effort of tracing the meme’s serpentine path, and found that it—-rather amusingly—-originated from the evil that is LiveJournal. Perhaps the true source of evil could be LiveJournal in my story; the evil hidden Zero-ith Ring. lol.
Anyway, here are the rules (There’s always specific criteria for these memes…):

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

Easy enough. Here’s what’s sparked my interests lately: Read the rest of this entry »

It seems we bloggers sometimes have a civic duty to fulfill here in the blogosphere: to go horribly off-topic in the event that we are tagged with a meme. Not that being tagged is like jury duty or anything…
heheh…
At any rate, this viral meme has spread its way to me thanks to good ol’ wizardsmoke. He deserves kudos, though, as he went through the strenuous effort of tracing the meme’s serpentine path, and found that it—-rather amusingly—-originated from the evil that is LiveJournal. Perhaps the true source of evil could be LiveJournal in my story; the evil hidden Zero-ith Ring. lol.
Anyway, here are the rules (There’s always specific criteria for these memes…):

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

Easy enough. Here’s what’s sparked my interests lately: Read the rest of this entry »

It seems we bloggers sometimes have a civic duty to fulfill here in the blogosphere: to go horribly off-topic in the event that we are tagged with a meme. Not that being tagged is like jury duty or anything…
heheh…
At any rate, this viral meme has spread its way to me thanks to good ol’ wizardsmoke. He deserves kudos, though, as he went through the strenuous effort of tracing the meme’s serpentine path, and found that it—-rather amusingly—-originated from the evil that is LiveJournal. Perhaps the true source of evil could be LiveJournal in my story; the evil hidden Zero-ith Ring. lol.
Anyway, here are the rules (There’s always specific criteria for these memes…):

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

Easy enough. Here’s what’s sparked my interests lately: Read the rest of this entry »

The Fire Lizard and the Great Oak Tree

The great oak tree had far outgrown its brethren by coercing the forest animals, one by one, to trust it into climbing within the safe confines of its branches. Once it had earned their trust, it would violently shake them free so they would fall to their death and nourish its roots.

One night, a fire lizard had lost his way from the desert and wandered deep into the forest. The cunning oak saw the strange creature’s desperate need for help and convinced him to rest in the shelter of its foliage before attempting such a long journey back to the desert. Warily, he accepted the invitation.

After the lizard was fast asleep, the great oak shook its branches and greedily watched him plunge to his death. Satisfied, it went to sleep and had dreams of becoming the tallest tree in the forest.

But the deadly toxins within the fire lizard’s blood slowly seeped into the ground. Sudden stabbing pains startled the tree awake. The poison crept up the side of the helpless oak, mercilessly seizing and coiling around its body before finally dragging it to the ground. There, the great oak unwillingly perished. And there, it fed its brethren’s roots for ages to come.

This is a fable I wrote in the spirit of the energies of the 1st ring. And it also happens to be one of my ‘world fables’, which is a side-project I’m working on.

It is said that the lesson you learn from this story reveals your true nature. :)
So, what lesson did you learn? (please share!) Read the rest of this entry »

A little bit about mystics …

After the Day of Discord, many people, for the first time, began to ’see what otherwise could not be seen’. Supernatural sightings were far more common, and people who could manipulate energies gravitated to each other, forming groups and, eventually, schools.

Rarity: At the time of the book’s beginning, roughly 1 in 100 people can become a mystic and tap into the energies of the Five Rings. Well, anyone can, somewhat, but mystics excel at it far greater than a typical person. But far less than 1% of the population use magicks. This is because many people are skeptic of what is possible with the energies: There are many false mystics in the world, and most that can use the energies can only do subtle tricks.
Fire mystics, for instance, can only make something warm or hot with their touch. It would take a lot of energy and an unusual amount of patience to actually set something on fire.

How they identify each other: When a mystic is in the vicinity of another potential user, they often make eye contact, or otherwise take notice of each other and feel an odd kinship and familiarity that complete strangers should never feel. This is because the elements and rings themselves are co-dependant, and so the energies that pass between users are very comforting.

The cost of being a mystic: When a potential user progresses past ‘Neophyte’ and begins learning, they are considered ‘awakened’. But before that can happen, they must be warned that being awakened is a double-edged sword. While using energies is empowering, once awakened, the user will never be the same, and opens themselves to the potential of being attacked by demons and evil spirits. Being awakened draws much interest from the spirit world, and the user must immediately learn how to protect themselves from such attacks. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay. Time’s up. Hopefully, I don’t appear to be a total loon after this post. We shall see! :)

If there is enough matter, just like with a rain drop, it forms into the most energy-efficient arrangement possible.
Welcome to the Five Rings System.
The Five Rings is simply recognizing a pattern of energy efficiency.

THE ELEMENTAL ARRANGEMENT: We need five concentric rings to arrange the ‘classic elements’ as a visual aide: (Thanks again to Photoshop)

from the inside-out:
Red is Fire.
Brown is Earth.
Blue is Water.
Light Blue is Air.
And White is ‘Ideal‘.

We live and work with the elements and typically strive for the ‘Ideal’; the after-life. We suspect ‘Ideal’ is what makes the miracle of life possible. Read the rest of this entry »

I was hoping someone would take a stab at the meaning behind the elemental order…
First Fire, then Earth, then Water, then Wind, and finally, ‘Ideal‘.
Where do we see this pattern in nature?
Here’s a visual representation I cooked up on Photoshop:

Did these hints help?

Also—-lately, I’ve been fighting a battle with my own dialogue.
There are two parts to this battle. The easy part is that I’ve recognized I’ve been afraid of the word ’said’. I need to use that more.
The hard part is—-after much more practice, I’ve found writing dialogue is a lot like trying to play chess against yourself: You have to keep walking between Player 1 and Player 2’s sides of the board, trying to forget everything the other player knew, attempting to reassess the entire situation from a completely different frame of mind.
I’ve found that because of this, it’s very hard to judge your own dialogue from an unbiased point of view. And, after I’m done writing dialogue, I can’t shake the feeling that a trained eye could pick up that the same person played both sides of the board.
Hopefully, this will go away with practice. But please share if you have ever struggled with this. Any tips are definitely welcome. I do intend to win this battle. :)

Prev: The Five Rings system -part 3- | Next: The Five Rings system -part 4-

The elemental order:

What appealed most to me about elemental systems is how the idea is possibly as old as storytelling itself, and fortunately, the Five Rings helped my story come together to make a whole lot more sense.

Analyzing the pseudoscience, I started to wonder if there was any significance to the order of the elements; it seemed like there was virtually no consistency to what order the elements were presented in as I did research.

But, with a little more research in that direction, I found that various sub-cultures had at least attempted to make sense of the elemental order.

The astrologists seem to think it’s Fire first, then Earth, then Air, and finally, Water.
Fire = Aries, Leo, & Sagittarius.
Earth = Taurus, Virgo, & Capricorn.
Air = Gemini, Libra, & Aquarius.
Water = Cancer, Scorpio, & Pisces.
Interestingly, most astrologists still feel the classic elements are necessary to properly interpret an astrological chart.
There are mysterious problems I see with this setup, though. Like why is Aquarius, the water carrier, associated to Air?

According to Tarot readers, it’s Water, Air, Fire, and Earth, corresponding respectively to Cups, Swords, Wands, and Pentacles. Frankly, I’m not sure what ‘Air’ has to do with ‘Swords’, etc. And I can find no explanation as to why this elemental order was chosen over another. If anyone can enlighten me, please do. Read the rest of this entry »

The Five Rings system is an elemental system.

Elemental systems:

Long ago, people viewed everything as being made of some kind of blend of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, and most gods were embodiments of emotions or elements.

The four element system with traditional elementals:
Gnome = Earth
Undine = Water
Sylph = Air
Salamander = Fire

People were highly superstitious regarding these elements for centuries. Therefore, this idea is deeply entwined with our past. I found it interesting even Pope Alexander III had a tunic made of salamander (fire lizard) skin, which he highly prized. Times have certainly changed. Read the rest of this entry »

The Five Rings are at the very core of the magic system I developed for the book.

But before we get into that, I want to take a moment to discuss magic in fantasy.

Magic often serves double-duty in high fantasy novels: as utility for characters (ex: cast a ‘fire’ spell to light a campfire) and as an important plot device. (ie: Nature is out of balance so magic must be restored, someone craves the ultimate destructive magic, magic is the very lifeforce of nature and people are using too much of it, etc.)

A dyed-in-the-wool magic system must have a cohesive set of rules to follow—-just like the world the story is set in—-in order to be more believable. If a caster is limited only by their imagination and can cast without any drawbacks what-so-ever, it becomes too tempting for the author to use magic as an easy way out of difficult situations. And, worse, makes characters seem invincible. And, perhaps worst of all, they lose much of their humanity, right along with their ability to connect with the reader on any level. Read the rest of this entry »