How Primorlen Began Pt. 1

I was thinking the other day (read: a few moments ago) about how I began writing the tales which take place in Primorlen, my brain child world.

It began some years ago (computer and formatting switches have rendered the "Created Date" useless), probably sometime in 2009, when I and a good writer friend tried to write a story together. Temporarily called According to Power, it consisted of little more than an outline and two prologue-ish snippets. The one that I liked the most, however, was this one:

The north wind blew cold over a brush-covered knoll overlooking the Aquer Sea. A young girl and her little brother were playing on the wind-swept rocks, gathering ferns and moss from among the crevices. Their clothes were not new and showed much wear, but the children did not seem cold. Their hair was shaggy and unkempt and the children looked almost like animals, scampering on the rocks and sniffing the moss before placing it the sacks they carried.
Suddenly the little boy cried out in excitement, “Sister, look! What are those?” he asked pointing far out to sea. His sister followed his finger, shading her eyes with her hand. Several white marks dotted the horizon. Her eyes narrowed as she sniffed the air, then widened. “Ships, little brother, ships!” “Shall we go tell mother?” the little boy asked. “Yes, lets. Come on, I’ll race you!” answered his sister. The siblings began to howl as the raced down the slope, their bare feet slapping over the rough stone.

Time, however decreed that our cooperative work was not to be, and the document fell into the dusty confines of my "Old Stories" folder. A couple months later, me and my brother had a wonderful game of imagination in the backyard, where I borrowed names and occurrences from the unused plot. What came out fit so well into the old story that I updated the plot to match. Now I had a usable story, but nothing happened... yet.

Some time later I began to play with the idea of 'alterers,' a race of beings neither human nor animal, but both. Their birth had been in that snippet above. So I began writing what would become Feather and Fang, a story built entirely on this idea, with these words:

The rain fell in torrents as thick as canvas curtains as lightning flashed and cracked in the clouds above...

As detailed elsewhere, when I was introduced to NaNoWriMo, I began pulling the various threads together. There was the general plotline from According to Power, the "alterers" and alliteration of the title from Feather and Fang. My last world had been an entire planet, which I thought was fairly original, but gave me the distinct problem of large distances and nowhere to grow. So I created the island of Quartorlen, with distinct boundaries, avoiding the "Mountains of Mysteriousness" so many fantasy writers use to create edges to their world.

For names, I fashioned all place names out of two words, usually descriptive, but also having a sense of place, as opposed to "Dark Forest." Thus were born Flamehope and Thunderfell and the other three provinces in Quartorlen. Character names were simple, easy to say, and different without being exotic. Farjag had been with me since According to Power, but Flashel, Ogel, Nitiren and Thoer were new. I set up several underlying structural rules I would follow in creating and plotting: namely a significance on certain numbers. Quartorlen was built on four and five. Five heroes. Four freeborn. Four main provinces, with a fifth in the center. I'm not sure if it's the best way of going about something like this, but it gives a certain foundation that lends to the credibility of a world. Everything connects to something else, much like on earth. Everything is named in our world for a reason, and has a meaning. Nothing is named because it sounds cool. So that's where that's kind of going.

Names are given as such: A first name, your 'animal' form, and a title you earn when you come of age. Thus "Farjag, Tiger-claw," is my namesake's proper name. A title can be an occupation, a character-trait, or a weapon if you are a warrior. Thus you can find "Thoer, Otter-scribe" and "Eppel, Eagle-cry" in the pages of my tales.

But our world is influenced by different countries and traditions. Different people groups view the world differently. So when I created the shieldsfell invaders and their fellow countryfolk, I sought to make them different then the folk of Quartorlen, but still have similarities. Germany and France are quite distinct, but there are parallels. So I gave the people of Dyrmlen a different naming system. Many of their titles and names  end with 'fell' or 'len', and their 'animal' half is reptilian, as opposed to the mammal and avian forms of Quartorlen. Their language is rougher and more brusque than the Anglic of Quartorlen, and the names reflect that. Names in Dyrmlen might be thus: "Rhalax, Commanderlen." "Drobax, Patrollen" "Rogchaen, Macelen"

It was with this structure that I dove into Freeborn and Freegiven, but more on that next post!