Classic-Castle.com

Few updates...

I've changed Leshy to Leshiy. Looks better in Cyrillic. Not that it matters, since I don't think there will ever be a time that it needs to be written in Cyrillic, but whatever.

No, that's not all.

Some name changes;

Svetanya Perunova - Same.

Nenyeg Zelsemev - New name for Laszlo Popyelev. I like it better. A bit less... Random. His character hasn't changed at all, though.

Venzelslav Perunov - New name for Radomir. Much catchier.

Kazslav Velesov - Changed Sergei. Much less random. And more fitting to his character.

Ivan Tekimov - Apparently, Lado is not a real goddess. I guess someone misunderstood the lyrics to an old wedding song, and thought it alluded to some goddess that didn't actually exist, and then wrote about it. I had chosen the name because I'd heard she was the wife of Perun, and it was Svetanya's maiden name, so it'd be fitting since she is the wife of Perunov... Hm, oh well. Who'da thought?

Milana Tekimova - Ivan's wife, Kazslav's sister.

Porevit - Leshiy leader.

Zlat Kovalenko - Karzelek Tsar.

I've been going back and forth on Boris's last name. Radagestev, Sbignyev, or Dobognyev I'm probably not gonna do Sbignyev, as it is kinda hard to pronounce. Radagestev is my favorite, but it's not as fitting as the others (Radaghast, the god where the name comes from, is the god of hospitality and the harvest. Boris is a farmer, and he does take the others in, but he doesn't have crops, he is a cattle farmer. And his most notable trait is his grumpiness, which the other two names allude to).

For the title of this story, I'm thinking of calling it "Perunova" for the name of the main character. It's simple and catchy, but I don't know about it. I'd like to add a subtitle, but as the plot is so up in the air, I think I'll leave it out for now.

But now, I have some... Not bad news, but not really good news...

I'm going to take a bit of a break. Not really a break, I'll still work on it, but I want to do something else. I want to write several shorter stories that are set in the same universe, and perhaps involve the same characters, but are not part of and have no significant connection to this one. Some may actually be myths and religious stories that these fictional civilizations believe in. I want to develop the world a bit more before I do this big journey through it. I don't really have too many ideas right now, but those are probably not going to be too time/effort consuming, so I MIGHT be able to show some soon. Don't hold your breath, though.

That's really all for now. Until next update.

EDIT: Almost forgot. The name of this world. Currently, I'm calling it Rodivlast. Within Rodivlast is the Kingdom of Dazbograd, which is a large empire that the main characters live in. I don't have names for the rest of the kingdoms, though.

This is all really, really cool. It's interesting to read a bit more about a completely unknown genre to me, thanks for the info guys!

Also, those names sound great.

So, got a few new things...

I did what I hoped I wouldn't and looked into Romanian mythology, just to see if they had anything good. I couldn't find a lot, but I did find one thing I liked; the Solomanari. They're pretty much wizards. But since Romania isn't really Slavic, I decided to give them a little twist. The Solomonari's souls are not in their bodies, so one cannot kill them by traditional means. Their souls are in eggs that they must hide when they become thirteen. Only they know where their soul is hidden. This was inspired by the character of Koschei the Immortal, or the Deathless.

Also, I've completely removed the "Ved." I just could not find enough solid evidence to conclude they were real (really from mythology, anyways). But I shall fill their role with a different, more concrete species: The Domovoi. Traditionally spirits, mine are actual, physical animals that help around the house and farm. Little hairy folk. Lots of fun. I didn't change anything except that they aren't spirits. They should make things a bit more fun.

And I also want to add in the Macedonian (yes, I did make sure it was Slavic Macedonia and not Greek Macedonia) creature known as the Zmei, but I can't find a place for them (or even imagine how they'd look). Apparently, they are humans with snake tails and golden wings. Sounds cool, but I can't see them in my mind. I can't really work with them.

I'd like to add in the Samodiva, but again, I can't find a place for them.

Also trying to add in some monsters. This is one thing that Slavic myths are not too short on. A dragon is obvious, but I'm also thinking of adding Likho and Bukavac to start. Might add in a Bies (or even a few Biesy). And I'm thinking of doing something related to Simargl? I'd need some more information on him to proceed, though...

One thing that's changed is that the Alkonost and Sirin are no longer separate species, but the same species, just different ethnic groups. I will also be adding in the third Slavic bird-lady, but I forgot the name of it. Those won't be that important though.

I'm also conflicted on the name of the world. The kingdoms names are fine (Dazbograd, Skarbnik, and Matka Gabia are what I have so far for the humans, Karzelek, and more humans), but the world needs a new name. Rodivlast is just not catchy enough. I was thinking of getting something from the idea of the World Tree, but nothing is clicking...

As I mentioned before, I want to develop the world a bit more before I did much. Well, I find the best way to do that is to write creation myths for the various cultures. So, I did one for the Leshiy. Its still kind of rough, but I'm working on it. Here it is:

The good god is Las
It was he who made the world
It was he who made the forest
And it was he who made good
The bad god is Vila
It was he who made evil
And it was he who made life
One day the good god Las
Was feeling rather bored and alone
So he created Rodivlast
But it was barren and empty and there was nothing there
So he created a tree and a bush and a flower
And he loved them very much
He took great pleasure in them
But he knew that one day he would tire of them
So he created many different types of trees and bushes and flowers
So that when he tired of one he could go to the other
So many different types each perfect in every way
The great god was satisfied by what he had created
It was so perfect
Every day he came down from his grand heavens
And indulged in his grand creation
Everything was perfect
Unfortunately it had to come to an end
When one day the bad god Vila
Challenged the good god Las
And he created something horrible
Imperfect sinful creatures
Known as animals
Bears, Dogs, Alkonost, Sirin, Leshiy, Humans, Psotniks
And he put these monsters in the good god’s great forest
Suddenly, the forest was not so perfect
The imperfect creatures that lived there took its perfection out of it
And then the poor good god could no longer visit
For he was perfect and it no longer was
It was not possible
He was enraged
So he found the bad god Vila
And a cosmic battle ensued
Vila ran all around the cosmos
With Las on his tail, filled with rage
Vila fought as hard as he could
But he was not perfect while Las was
And so Las eventually won the battle
He captured Vila and divided the bad god
And turned him into many small spirits
That took the form of women
And forever roamed the once perfect world that we live in
And tortured the creatures that lived in it forever
The good god deemed that Vila’s punishment
Would be to forever torture his creations
And he deemed that since we ruined his forest and made him suffer by taking it from him
That we too should suffer
And so the Vila torture us forever
As our punishment for torturing Las forever
For we took his forest
So now we suffer forever for it
At the hands of our creator in the form of spirits
Those dark spirits

As I said, still a bit rough, but it gives me a lot of good ideas on where to go with Leshiy culture. All I did was sit down and make up a way that the world was created. I'll probably do a few more creation stories for other cultures.

Also got a bit of heraldry, but I haven't put it on Flickr yet. I'll get to that later today or as soon as I can. Don't have time right now...

Until next update.

BoradorIV wrote:And I also want to add in the Macedonian (yes, I did make sure it was Slavic Macedonia and not Greek Macedonia) creature known as the Zmei, but I can't find a place for them (or even imagine how they'd look). Apparently, they are humans with snake tails and golden wings. Sounds cool, but I can't see them in my mind. I can't really work with them.

I haven't heard of those but it's probably related to the old slavonic word zmiya in any case, which simply means snake, and zmoy, which means dragon. I'd hazard a guess they'd be quite reptilian..

As for the name of the world I kind of like the sound of Vselyenie (or Vselyeniye, or Vuselyeniye), which is what the world is called in the Old Church Slavonic Bible (from Luke, where he talks about Augustus ordering the whole world etc). Literally it would mean the inhabited world, and it is as I said from the Bible, but that also happens to be the oldest Slavonic text we possess, so from a purist perspective it could work quite well anyhow Just a suggestion.

Maedhros wrote:

BoradorIV wrote:And I also want to add in the Macedonian (yes, I did make sure it was Slavic Macedonia and not Greek Macedonia) creature known as the Zmei, but I can't find a place for them (or even imagine how they'd look). Apparently, they are humans with snake tails and golden wings. Sounds cool, but I can't see them in my mind. I can't really work with them.

I haven't heard of those but it's probably related to the old slavonic word zmiya in any case, which simply means snake, and zmoy, which means dragon. I'd hazard a guess they'd be quite reptilian..

As for the name of the world I kind of like the sound of Vselyenie (or Vselyeniye, or Vuselyeniye), which is what the world is called in the Old Church Slavonic Bible (from Luke, where he talks about Augustus ordering the whole world etc). Literally it would mean the inhabited world, and it is as I said from the Bible, but that also happens to be the oldest Slavonic text we possess, so from a purist perspective it could work quite well anyhow Just a suggestion.

On the Zmey, I did some thinking, and I figure that they'd probably look like Voldemort from the later Harry Potter movies, but with a tail and wings. I don't know, I'll try and do one in LEGO to see. I don't think they make any gold wings other than those chrome ones from Orient Expedition, so I'll have to improvise... Honestly, I've considered totally leaving them out and just using the word "Zmey" or "Zmoy" to mean Dragon, to make it more distinct from western fantasy (similar to how Tsar means king and Bogatyr means knight). But I don't know yet. I'd like to have a very diverse world that is very heavily populated with lots of mythical beings and cultures so it seems more vast and realistic.

For the name, I like it, but it's a bit hard to pronounce. I was thinking something really catchy, something short, and easy to remember. Something that just rolls off the tongue and sticks in the brain. So far, I haven't figured anything out... Part of me would actually prefer it be in English, since I'm using English as a stand in for the language of Dazbograd, which is called Dazbosskiy. So whenever a character in the story speaks English, they are actually speaking Dazbosskiy. But Dazbosskiy is not actually English. I figure it would be more similar to Polish, it's just English is a stand in so that readers could understand it. It would be cool to write a whole story in a fictional language, the problem being that no one would be able to read it. Hence, English... I'm going to do some reading into some Folklore to see if I can't find any good titles in there. Some of the folklore is pretty cool, and I'd actually like to incorporate some elements of it into the story (The story of the Trumpeter in Polish folklore would fit perfectly into a battle scene I've been working on. I'd just have to replace those involved in the battle).

Oh, and I had a weird dream last night that gave me an interesting idea... I think I'm going to start mixing the different races into similar cultures. So, Karzelek and Leshiy would live in human kingdoms, but also have their own. Sort of mix people up to make it a bit more like the real world. I think that could be interesting. I'll see where it goes.

Still haven't uploaded the heraldry, but I'll get to that soon. I think I left the hard drive that one of them was on at home, so I can't post that until I go back on Friday. To be honest, all I have so far are the coats of arms, I don't have any full blazens yet. But some of them are really cool looking. The one of them is a green background with a red sun and a white double eagle on the front of it (based on the story of Lech. I figure I'll be using that story as an inspiration for the creation story for the people of Dazbograd, since it really is neat. Obviously though, the eagle will have two heads. Fun!)

Until next time, stay classy!

Bump for some updates...

I don't have that much this time, but I have some vague idea of what the plot will be, so I'll get to that in a minute. But first, a few other things.

First, I noticed that I have been calling a government ruled by a Tsar a Kingdom. That technically is wrong; it should be Tsardom.

I think I'm mostly done naming the main characters. I've changed Perunov to Perunev, or Peruneva (pronounced: Pair-uh-nev or Pair-uh-nee-va). Debating whether to changed Velesov to Velesev or Volosov (the name of the god could be spelled either Veles or Volos, I just need to pick one that sounds better).

And I finally picked a good last name for Boris. His name will be Boris Svognyev.

I've also been working on patronyms, which are an odd quirk of east Slavic names that still exist today. They take their father's name and add either "vich" or "ovna" (or yvna, it depends on where you are and what the name is) which mean son of and daughter of respectively. So, Ivanovich would be Son of Ivan, or Ivanovna would be Daughter of Ivan. They put these in place of a middle name, and when addressing someone formally, they call them by their first name and patronym. So, instead of calling someone Mr. Tolstoy, the would call them Boris Ivanovich.

Now, every culture will have different naming conventions. Leshiy, for instance, only have one name. No last name, or middle name, just one first name. I have two named Leshiy so far, one called Porevit, and another called Lasota. Even though both are from different Leshiy groups (Porevit is an North/East Leshiy, Lasota is from the South), that is a tradition that all groups have. Karzelek do not use patronyms, their names come from their father's profession (So, Zlat Kovalenko's father was a blacksmith. He is the first in a new dynasty. Another important Karzelek, Broda Gornik, is the son of a miner. He himself is also a miner, so the name Gornik would go to his son, but if his son is, say, a blacksmith, his grandson would be called Kovalenko). Karzelek women have the same conventions as women in any other culture; born with their father's name, and then when married, take their husbands name. So, Gornik's daughter would also be Gornik, and his granddaughter also Kovalenko, but if his granddaughter married the son of another miner, she would then become Gornik again).
Psotniks have first names and last names, but no middle name or patronym, since they never know their fathers name. They get their last name from their mother, and their first name is taken from their mother's father. Polevik don't really have names, and I haven't gotten to conventions for Sirins and Alkonosts yet, except that they don't put an "a" at the end of their names since they are all female.

Humans, however, use the patronym system. I started giving the main characters patronyms, but I haven't gotten too far. The ones I have are;

Svetanya Leksyvna Peruneva. Her father was called Leks, which comes from Lech, from Polish mythology.

Venzelslav Alyoshavich Pernunev. His father was called Alyosha, which was a famous Bogatyr.

Currently, Boris's father is called Sergei, so he's Boris Sergeivich Svognyev. I don't think I'll change that, since he's a commoner, so I want him to have a common name.

Svetanya and Venzelslav also have three sons now. They all have the same patronym of Venzelslavich, (since their father is the same). Their names are Iliya, Piast, and Milek. I don't really love these names that much, so I'm probably going to change some or all of them, but they work for now.

So, now, here's the good part; the rough draft of the plot. It is NOT done yet, and there are still a few things I want to change (several that I know will be different), so if it isn't good, don't lose faith, this is still in the very early stages of development. Unfortunately, since I want to protect my work from thieves, I am going to be very brief. (some of this is not totally original, some parts are from folklore, but I've put a new spin on it). I do have some hope that I can publish it one day, even if that is hardly a goal, so I'm just going to give the basics:
I figure the plot will be a Firebird quest. Not really a treasure seeking quest, rather, Svetanya, who looks for it, believes it has some magical power that she can use to improve her unpleasant situation. She, along with Boris Svognyev and Nenyeg Zelsemev, look for the legendary bird.
I want there to be a war in the background- I figure that every group will be fighting each other, and that somehow Svetanya and co get sucked into the war, but aren't fully part of it. I want to somehow incorporate the story of the Sleeping Knights, which is a Polish myth that a group of knights entered a deep sleep until the day they are needed again. I really love that story, so I think it would be cool to put it in there somewhere as maybe a secondary quest that other characters go on. I also want to do something based on the story of Koschei the Deathless (which is why I included the Solomanari, which I based on him), and some sort of demon, but we'll see where this goes. It's mostly a Firebird story, with a war in the background. The story is not entirely about the war, but the war is still important.

Wish I could share more of the plot, but I want to be cautious on how much I share...

Still working on culture, so expect more of that soon...

Until next time.