Introducing my protagonist
When I was originally thinking of my book I wanted to write, I wanted to write a game of thrones like story with great houses and the turmoil they experience. A dark fantasy story that would show the inner workings of people and how they can truly be. In truth, this protagonist is actually old, really old in fact, she technically dates back to 2009.
Back in 2009 a game called Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) was released where you could choose your origin (that left you blindsided after the game title eh?) and my favourite choice was a City Elf who I affectionately named Shadi Tabris, an elf living a life under the oppression of humans who rises up from the gutters and joins a clandestine order only to end up saving the entire continent from the big bad evil and in doing so she sacrifices herself. This protagonist was judgemental towards humans, she did not like them or trust them and who can blame her after her harrowing experiences at their hands. Yet over time she softens to humans, realising that not all humans are bad and not all Elves are good people either and that is why she sacrifices herself in the end, because that was the right thing to do even if it was not the easy choice and that is who she was.
Around 2019 I discovered dungeons and dragons for the first time, and admittedly, I fell in love. To the point I spent multiple thousands of pounds accquiring the books, buying 3D printers and then printing 3D models, I tried my hand at being a dungeon master with pre-written material but ultimately I found it exhausing doing all the prepwork and with a small group of players that prefered absolute chaos and murder hoboing over the creative and complex narrative I wanted to tell with my story. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to strong arm the players into playing my story but they wanted something silly and dumb, I wanted something complex and rich in story telling. Neither of us are in the wrong just like everyone has their own preferences. Never the less, one of the first characters I made when I got to play was called...you guessed it, Shadi Tabris. Take a lucky guess at what race they were from and what their backstory was? You guessed it, an Elf who was from the city, who did not trust people, they do say write what you know after all.
However, don't worry, when I write my story I won't be copying the story of DA:O or in fact the entire series for that matter. My protagonist though inspired by this original character is somewhat different. You see, when I was doing world building for my character as I had them in mind to have a similiar personality to Shadi (though notably less aggressive) I wanted to find some interesting words to use and one of those words I came across was the word Rookery which the second definition captures exactly what I was aiming for.
Rookery
A crowded dilapidated tenement or group of dwellings.
It is according to dictionary.com a synonym of a slum, which unsurprisingly is where Elves are kept. Though there are parallels between DA:O here because the game has a term called Alienages where the Elves were kept. If you read my last post you will know that I am not against copying or using ideas from other sources because originality is a lie. Plus, I'm doing this whole thing stupidly, remember? Anyway, back to my point why is the term Rookery relevant to my protagonist?
If you read the definition of rookery from the link above you will know that it says a rookery is a nest or breeding place of a colony of Rooks. Rooks, for the unaware are a bird not just a chest piece. They're a fancy looking kinda bird too. They're a part of the corvid family of birds and they [Corvids] are known for their intelligence. But further more, I thought about my Elves. If my protagonist was going to be an Elf, what would make them noticably different to humans? Well for one, early on I decided that they would not be able to do any form of magic. Secondly, I decided that they would have hollow bones that made them nimble and light weight, able to scale and traverse trees with ease which will be relevant later down the line but also due to my protagonists main skill, she is a free runner who traverses the cities rooftops and soars across them...like a bird, and they would be naturally shorter than humans with the tallest Elves topping out at 5'8 and lastly, another key difference would be that they would lack cuspids. So now we have what makes my parkouring protagonist different set out, I think it's about time you learn her name and it is not Shadi Tabris.
Her name is Svala Torvik. Svala is an Icelandic name meaning Swallow (as in the bird) and according to research it is often asscotiated with the birds symbolism which means Freedom, grace, and most importantly, Hope. Now you might be wondering why I chose Icelandic, primarily because it seems so distant from common English. I have already decided given the fact I'm going to be trying to write a book for the first time not only in a short amount of time but equally I'm winging it enough as it is so constructing an entire language at this stage seems a bit steep, I'm stupid yes, but not that stupid. Maybe in the future I will come up with something but not for today. The main desire for icelandic is the symbolism while still maintaing the easy to read structure of the word (Sva-la) and yet it still feels foreign.
Now you know the characters name and what inspired them, I'm going to move onto the next post and start planning out my story and its over all journey. I haven't touched upon Svalas personality here or how she will approach tasks because I do want to save that for later as I craft other characters to fit around the world and how they influence Svalas general behaviour as well as to give myself some more flexibility. Nothing I write here is set in concrete and can be subject to change because this is my fun project.