I've been working on taking my wild and crazy notes on Haven, and working on pushing it down to a publishable product.  I'm still not entirely certain where I'm going with this, but I'm going.

If I can ever get a freelancer who doesn't run screaming for safety the moment I approach it'll go a bit faster, but the again, taking advice to heart I've done up an Outline. Its still a WiP, obviously, but I've also pushed it down hard enough that I practically feel like I'm writing it myself.


Anyway: the process of outlining has got me thinking more, and harder about the flow of information, so then this is the first part of where y'all come in.  Right now I have an entire history chapter that covers both the overview of the setting, with emphasis almost entirely on the current Age of Man (rather than the previous ages), but also deals with the history of the Nornsan regions and Tenebrian regions... then I got into geographic breakdowns where I... return to the Nornsa region and the Tenebrian regions.... dividing the information into two chapters which feels wrong or perhaps redundant.

So... insight, advice, ideas... I'll accept kudos and insults with equal equanamity, but really not helpful.

Also: while I'm all about just presenting the information, I've been advised to consider an authorial voice... perhaps as in intro fiction to various chapters. Obviously I can go back to the 'Notes from a speech' or 'Monograph on subjects...' that I used for the metallurgical documents.


I did try to make something of a writer's bible, but not having ever seen one in real life, it was just a collection of guides...

Things like downplaying to the point of ignoring the Titans (aside from mentioning them as historical fact/conjecture) and so forth.

It was a bit overly random, so I scrapped it.

Also, given that I'm STILL working on posting the Kra I'm probably going to stretch myself a bit and try to do it as if it were IN the proposed book...

Also, I'm in the slow process of getting some art. Proposed images so far:

Death taking his tea before the Warlords Sepultchure

A Kra warrior waiting for a duel while his wife watches

The Wei Shakti on his temple-throne

One of the Thousand (Tenebrian Honor Guard) on his horse



Cityscapes for Renbluve, Tenejok and Nis

EDIT::: Pulled the horrifically mangled outline in favor of the PDF posted below

Despite the fact that I now hate you all, I've decided to drop a really rough draft for the entry for the Kra.

Not at all happy with it, gotta go over it again, maybe even come up with a decent ballpark wordcount for entries, giving me some sort of length to judge entries on.

I'm very tempted to drop in the longer, original entry... something to give you guys a point of comparison on how I intend to draw things down for the finished project. My ability to wax locquatious may be fine for random web entries to fill the days, but in a book?


Anyway. If I don't drop the longer Kra entry or a second draft of the one I just slapped down (don't hold your breath!... no, go ahead. You aren't responding anyway. yeah, I take it personal!) then I might do up an actual rules type entry on demons I have been pondering. Random tables and the like, you know... olde schoole stylee.

Toodles, biatches.

Never mind the attachments, apparently.  .rtf files are invalid, guess I'll just post it plain then.

 

QuoteThe lands of the Kra lie south of Spada, occupying the same craggy foothills as their ancient enemies. Taloneash, or Broken Horse, in their tongue, most people simply refer to it as 'the Lands of the Kra', and leave it at that.

Ethnically, the Kra people are tall and strong, with long limbs, broad shoulders and heavy, slighly orcish features common among true blooded Tenebrians. Skin tones range from a light golden to polished mohagany, but their hair is universally dark and coarse. Upper class Kra rarely cut their hair, the better to arrange it in the often elaborate styles they favor. A tiny minority of Kra have

Culturally the Kra are distinct, barely resembling the other Tenebrian Kingdoms, of which they are considered the northernmost example. The Kra do not have a proper kingdom, but rather a collection of powerful, autonomous clans that are only loosely lead by the Koga, or Horselord.  The Kra are a warrior people, and their clans are largely organized like military units, and while the Koga is often the most powerless leader, his authority as a general against the enemies of the Kra is held to be absolute.  

The peasants are not considered Kra, per se. They do not claim allegiance to clans, but simply give up large portions of their labors to whichever Clan currently claims their villages.  For the most part, the clans do ignore the farms and villages, preferring to lay specific claim to the mines in the mountains and the lumber mills that work the forests of their slopes, but even there they care little about the people who labor in those industries. To the clans what are important are warriors, and in their tongue that is exactly what Kra means, warrior.  The sons of the clans are sent to schools, to study under masters at an early age, and more public schools and masters can be found in larger cities where even the lowliest peasant may seek to become a Kra.  Of course, few peasants can pay for such schools, nor spare the time to train, but if they have the will and an aptitude, it is relatively easy to find a sympathetic master or an eager patron.

Officially the Kra live only for the principles of their code. Glory in battle, Duty to their Lords and .  However, an ambitious Kra will seek to earn land, not merely serving a clan but becoming a part of it. These men are Kor, even the patriarch of a clan is Kor, and the more land he holds the more Kra he is expected to support.  Fighting within a clan is unheard of, aside from duels over points of honor, but ambitious border Kor will eagerly raid or even war with their neighbors from other clans or countries in the hopes of expanding their holdings and wealth.  Successful Kor not only gain wealth and prestige but can actually rise within their clan, even to lead it. Bloodlines and lineage are not terribly important to the Kra.  The Kra marry and have children out of duty, and the high mortality rate of the warrior caste means that there are many widows, and it is proper to marry a young widow and to adopt her children as one's own.

The Kra, and to a lesser extant the Kor, live for battle and aside from the Spada they are among the highest trained warriors in the entire world.  Unlike the Spade, the Kra eschew shields, preferring massive curved swords, mauls and axes, using these powerful and heavy weapons with a surprising amount of skill and finesse. The warrior class fights well as either light or heavy infantry, and every warrior is expected to be a competent, if not master, archer... though many neglect this area of their duty.   Like most of the Tenebrian Kingdoms, the Kra make their armor out of leather and cloth, using heavy lacquers and resins to provide addtional resiliance and color, but the Kra do not wear the peaked helmets common among their kin. As the Kra use heavy grease and even lacquer to shape their long coarse hair into fearsome designs they cannot actually put helmets on, but will frequently wear demonic masks or half masks to protect their faces.  They are often augemented with a peasant leevee, equipped with spears and wooden chest plates.  The greatest weakness of the Kra army is a lack of cavalry, which hinders them on open ground.  However, they are masters of seigecraft, and few things are more feared than conquest by the Kra for they take the concept of rape and pillage farther than any race short of the Reve.  It can be fairly said that the Kra do not want your city, or your castle or your people, only the land its on and the gold in its walls.  For such masters of siegecraft, however, the Kra themselves are poor defenders, the fortresses and walls in their lands are more to keep bandits at bay than for set peice battles, for the Kra will always prefer to meet their enemies in open battle rather than hide behind their walls.

Duty can weigh heavily on the warriors, oppressive in its totality. Almost as famous as their hairstyles, the 'brothels' of the Kra provide the only escape. Officially these are taverns, but in appearance they may take on a semblence to an entire city. An official tavern, in this sense, is dedicated to the god Okal. Within the bounds of a Kra brothel there is no duty, for while Okal is a warrior god he is too wild and untamed to tolerate such stifling concepts. The role of the 'Island Life' in Kra society is powerful enough that plays and poems are written about it, many tragic, and the full time denizens of the brothels have an elaborate social order of their own, and are greatly respected by the Kra.

The warrior caste tends to be strongly chauvanistic, but duty applies equally to men and women.  Men are expected to fight and die, and if they live to rule over other men. Women are expected to run the household, no matter how big or small, and bear strong children.  They are protected, which can take on an oppressive tone, but they are also expected to be strong and men and women both can escape the duties of their gender by taking on the role of the opposite gender. Warrior women are surpsingly common, and even a proper, dutiful wife is expected to fight if the home is invaded. Men who take on the role of women frequently retire to the Island Life, as their inability to bear children makes them unmarriable.  Marriage is a political and legal matter, not a romantic matter, and men and women both have affairs, though discretion is prized greatly.  High ranking Kor may have multiple wives, but this is rare. There is no stigma for divorce, though it too is rare. The most common method of divorce is for a wife to throw her husband out of her home, and to request from her Kor a new husband.

There are only a few gods worshipped by the Kra. Teneb and Okal are the twin pillars of the Warrior Caste, Duty and Glory respectively,  Javsk, who is called the Faceless One, who is recognized for his cunning, an early Koga known as the Waverider, who is said to have seduced the Sea and invaded the lands of the Reve, and a handful of minor gods. One God of note who is never worshipped is Death, who is held up as an adversarial figure and is only depicted in his old guise of a monsterous darkness. It is said that once Teneb favored the Kra above all others, and so they could not die.  Death wished to reap the Kra, as he did all things, but Teneb opposed him at every turn.  Javsk tricked Teneb into making a rash statement (and so Teneb never speaks), and he withdrew his protection of the Kra, allowing Death to claim them and the Kra despaired. It was then that Okal taught them to love life, no matter how short.

Teneb and Okal are both in the old Ten Thousand Gods of Tenebria, though their depictions in Kra mythology is wildly divergent, but Javsk is an unknown figure.
 

Testing my uploading, yet again!

Hrm... only one upload made it of the two. Well, that's ok, because that allows me to say that this upload is worth checking out, if only because the actual posted outline in the quote box was horribly mangled by the transfer.

EDIT::: Nevermind! The hell???

EDIT2::: Ok, that SHOULD be it...