Tag: snippets

Pronunciation Guide

Pronunciation Guide

Posted on by worldofshandor

Here is a handy pronunciation guide. It will grow.

Let me know if there are any other names that should be added to this.

Amryn /AHM-rin/

Aruke /AH-roo-kay/

Arien /AH-ree-en/

Bulo /BOO-loh/

Balauo /ba-LOW/

Djaren /Like Jaren, but with the Russian/Ukrainian/Shandorian “Djha” sound/

Eabrey /Æ-bree/

Eljiah /el-ZHEYE-ah/

Ellea /EL-ee-uh/

Germhacht /GHAIRM-hahkht/ pronounced like a polite cough, with soft ahs and far too many h’s

Hirnar /HEER-nahr/

Isakoa /is-ah-KOH-ah/

Kara /KAHR-ah/

K’Shay tanna /KAY-sheh-tahn-ah/

Kalani /kuh-LAH-nee/

Levour /le-VOOR/

Merigvon /MAIR-eh-vahn/

Pao’ulu /pow-OO-loo/

Rades /RAH-dez/

Vashiel /VAH-shee-el/

Verescinthe /VAIR-es-sinth/

Process

Process

Posted on by worldofshandor

Writing is so much easier than drawing.  There I said it.  Maybe it’s not that way for everyone, I don’t know.  But it’s much harder for me to translate what I see in my mind to the page in a visual rather than a verbal format.  Especially when I’m working with tools I haven’t mastered yet.

In related news, did you know that one can’t teach oneself to digitally paint in a day?  Funny thing.  On deviantart, one is always seeing these vivid and amazing digital paintings with captions like “Did this cus I wuz bored” of “Done in two hours. Dunno.”  These unhelpful captions prove deceptive, I tell you.  These artists, undermining themselves woefully with their words, have some amazing artistic or at the least technical skills that I am without.

And this explains what happened to the illustration that was supposed to appear last week.  I had a good composition, and drew it out in pencils, well and good, before noticing that I’d made Corin and Hellin the same height. D’oh.  Unable to let that go, and with a friend’s reassurance that I could rearrange it in Photoshop and print it on Bristol to paint on top of, I drew the illo up on three separate sheets, scanned and merged them properly and then learned that my printer hates Bristol and suffers from serious heavy paper indigestion.  Fine, I thought.  I shall paint this in Photoshop!

Ha! Ha ha ha HA!

No.

Maybe.

If I throw another 6 hours at it, maybe it will begin to be passable.  Or not.  I could have redrawn and painted it already in this time.

(Flips table.)

A picture may say more than a thousand words, but I can write well over a thousand words in the time it takes to paint a picture.

Frickin pictures.

Thank you, rant over.  Your scheduled chapter half will be on time.  As for an illustration, that remains to be seen.  Its fate now lies between me, my tablet and my God.

Castle and Country

Castle and Country

Posted on by Jessica

David led his horse up the mountain pass, the jagged peaks of the Shandorian border towering high above him, tinged with gold in the morning light.  The path had finally grown too steep for riding, and the air was thin enough here among the last twisted, wind-blown trees that David had to pause to catch his breath.  He didn’t mind; he used the rest to admire his surroundings.  Mountains.  He had forgotten, living so long in Logansburg, how expansive, how simultaneously empty and alive they were.

The breeze blew bright and cool, but the sun was warm on the top of David’s head, on his shoulders.  He drank from his waterskin, and turned to look back over the path he’d been riding, winding back down into foothills and pine forest.  No sign of any habitation; he’d left the last Arienish village behind yesterday, and camped last night under the summer constellations in all their glory.  The weather had held clear, thank the One.  He knew his delight would dampen along with the weather if he had to camp in the rain without a tent.  It had been years since he’d been on a hunting trip, and he was sure his ability to build a shelter or light a cook-fire had gone rusty. Continue reading “Castle and Country”

Shandor, Year 676, David Lindmer

Shandor, Year 676, David Lindmer

Posted on by Jessica

David LindmerDavid trudged back from University through the narrow streets and alleyways of the Dockside Quarter of Logansburg, capital city of Arien.  His scholar’s robe was carefully rolled and stowed in his pack, and he always changed from his good blue coat to the old brown one with the patched sleeves before he headed back to the flat.  No point standing out more than he already did.  He’d almost managed to shed his Shandorian accent; his friends at University told him he only sounded like a peasant from the provinces, now.  It was perfectly acceptable, in Dockside, to sound like a peasant.  A foreigner, however, or someone stupid enough to put on airs by attending University . . . Continue reading “Shandor, Year 676, David Lindmer”

Shandor, Year 676, Gavin Sheridan

Shandor, Year 676, Gavin Sheridan

Posted on by Ruth

At first sight, the man in the tree might have been mistaken for a scarecrow.  Gavin Sheridan was the tallest man in Greendale and possessed the sort of body the charitable might term “loosely built.”  His ears were a size too big, his nose beaky and amiable, and his smile was set on crooked.  Angles that ought to have been flinty were turned to gum-rubber by his grin.  Straw colored curls crowned the scarecrow image, and the outgrown clothing confirmed it.  Today, with the acquisition of a new title, the grin had become permanently entrenched.

Captain Sheridan.  It has a good ring to it, Gavin decided.  And folk thought I’d not amount to anything. In addition to being a half-savage, a clever rider, and downright learned, he had become a captain through blind luck.  Having studied some military history, Gavin did not find this sequence unusual.  He grinned and, with a good swing, climbed higher into the tree.  He needed a point from which to aim. Continue reading “Shandor, Year 676, Gavin Sheridan”

People of Madrahar

People of Madrahar

Posted on by Jessica

Tiiro

Tiiro shrugged. “I didn’t care for fishing. I liked the port at Shiahan. There was a tea shop, and then there was the mage school. I had some money in my pocket that day, so I enrolled. It’s easier to travel on the wake sometimes. You can lay back and watch the clouds, and see where you drift. I mostly just do that.”

Neharu

“Ho, long jaws! Women and children are small eating. Face me!” Neharu threw the river stone hard at one of the beasts who was chasing the boy. The stone smacked the side of its head and it stumbled. Both the Coatau nipping at the boy and the three from the base of the tree swung their snouts round to sniff at Neharu. They all began to growl. Neharu smiled at the very surprised people he had rescued, and almost waved. Then he saw that the angry looking Coatau had indeed decided to face him, all at once together.

Neharu considered, as the first one lunged at his throat and caught his upraised arm instead, that maybe he should have found a weapon of some kind before announcing his arrival. He punched it hard in the face with his free arm and kicked another of them in the ribs before it bit at his leg. If I am torn limb from limb by monsters, that would be stupid of me, Neharu thought, as he was buried under snarling Coatau.

Setobi Harakai

Kai gritted his teeth and ignored Lynx. Just give me your strength and shut the hell up.

The creature slammed into him and he was crushed against the wall, his skin burning away beneath its touch. At the same time, an entirely different sort of burning engulfed him, the rush of power that his beast spirit only gave him at times like this. He felt intensely alive. He felt intensely in pain and he didn’t care. His knife hand plunged into the creature’s chest, just beside its heart. The acid ate away at both knife and hand, but before he lost all feeling in his fingers he found something that was neither muscle nor heart nor bone, and forced his hand to close around it. Then he yanked it out.