Piash Nildar
Piash is a half-elf outcast deep within an imperial province. He has been rejected by everyone around him his entire life. He has no family, even his last name, Nildar means 'no-clan'. But his mixed blood holds a curse that is finally starting to surface.
Setting
The world of Piash is mainly domininated by the empire that rules the all humanity in the north. The Empire began a long war with the elvish nations around the time of his birth. After 20 years of varied and inconclusive conflict with the elves is when the story begins, in a distant imperial province.
Description
Piash is lanky, fair-haired and handsome, with one green and one red eye. He applies dirt to his face regularly to hide his elvan features. This works well seeing as he does not have the ears. It is noticable on closer inspection though. He wears mainly a blue leather tunic with greyish legings and a brown coat.
He is extremely nervous and emotionally sensitive. He is not physically strong, but is fast, agile and possesses great endurance. He is a good hunter as most people are in his village, but he is far from any great skill with the bow. He lives with the fletcher however and is a master at making arrows. His great strenght is with a quarterstaff and none his own age and few of his elders can match him.
History
He was abanoned when he was only a baby. Left by his mother in the room of an inn in the village of Bitter Springs. Alinon, a fletcher whose pregnant wife had just died offered to take him in. However he spared no love for the child. Everyone was decided about the half-elf before he could speak. Alinon did not even adopt him, just gave him a first name and the family name Nildar. No matter how hard he worked at arrow-making or how much profit he made Alinon, the man could never treat him as a son. Piash was not even in line for inheiriting the craft shop until Alinon got into an argument with his brother and stopped speaking to him, leaving only Piash left.
It was the same for most other people in the village. Although some people showed him some small kindness, not insulting him was the limit of that.
It was only Menor, a rival fletcher that decided to be nice to him. At first Menor became interested when he saw how Piash was nearly beaten to death in a quarterstaff contest, because the boy -only twelve at the time- did not give up. That and the fact that no one had bothered to train him. Menor had only daughers and he decided to help Piash so that to boy could beat his many arch-enemy's son, a 16 year old boy called Gazni.
The old man hoped that the boy might challenge Gazni's father in the senior contest, when he was old enough as Menor could not use the quarter-staff anymore with him permanent limp given by Gazni's father.
So Piash was trained and so after several months of practice he won the winter contest, sending Gazni away with a broken wrist and swollen face. Piash finally found something that he excelled at more than anyone else. In addition to confidence and self-worth he gained respect. Gazni was a popular youth and and half of the youths were his friends and the other half his enemy because of his cruelty, also Menor felt pride for his protege and that was the begins of a strong friendship.
However, some weeks afterwards he was walking Menor's daughter, Elisha - she had become friends with him- to the winter fair and the large market that it brought. This was when Gazni got revenge with his gang. While Gazni beat Piash to a pulp -who was held down of course-, his brother, Gorli grabbed hold and mauled Elisha. Despite Piash calling upon all his strenght he could not stop them from raping her, right in front of him. Gazni, as soon as he stepped out of his bloody trance, realised they would be in trouble and they all ran for it.
No one ever saw what happened because they were all at the fair. Elisha was distraught but ordered Piash not to do anything or tell anyone. She knew that Menor would try to get revenge and with his limp Gazni's father would kill him.
So he was quiet and never spoke to her or anyone else his own age if he could help it. He spent his time making more arrows than ever before and becoming better at the quarterstaff. But he no longer had Menor to teach him. Piash could not lie to his one friend and could not send him to his death by telling him the truth either. In addition to his humilation he felt despair at being completely out of control of his life and unable to stop the rape. He was tramatised and insecure from that day onward.
It was some years into his life, his 16th year in fact that the true curse of his blood became apparent. You see humans are naturally instinctive and emotional creatures. They may find logic later in life but they are born to use their hearts. This is the exact opposite with elves, they are a race of logical people that control their emotion expertly. They always make clear decisions without anger or lust getting in the way.
Now in a half-elf (or half-human if he were to live amounst elves) you can to obvious conflict this would bring. It means having to live by two central moral codes each one a foundation of right and wrong and each one directly contradicting the other. It is like being instinctivly, magnetically drawn in two opposite directions, this was what Piash felt after his 16th summer. The elves call it the Straining. This led to a great chaos inside Piash's mind. His anger, no rage and calm, both in-built feelings collided and sent him spiraling towards a twisted fury, but also ironically stone hearted cruelty. He first calmly told one of Gazni's weak and dumb cronies, calmly that the blacksmith wanted to Gazni about his requested apprenticeship. He knew that Gazni would bring his close friends and brother because he was nervous about this apprenticeship.
He also told the blacksmith that Alinon wanted to see him with well timed accuracy meaning that he had plenty of time before he came back. Piash then waited until Gazni went inside the smithy with six of his close friends in tow and walked to the door with a bow in hand. He then unleashed his rage killing Gazni, Gorli and 3 others with the bow. He cut the throat of a boy that rushed at him desperatly trying to escape and proceeded to beat the last boy to death with his staff.
After that he had the sense to run and not to look back.
Motivation
He now seeks something to focus on, to distract himself from the turmoil within. He want to do something so righteous logic and emotion would both be satisfied. He is however on the edge and in danger of falling to the Straining. He could forsake all morality whatsoever, be engulfed by the Straining to become completely and homicidally insane, killing anyone he sees. However he also seeks to escape a group of relatives of the people he murdered, who are searching for him and want revenge, led by Goren the brother of Gazni and Gorli.
note:the setting info is purposefully vague so that it can be adapted. Also I wanted to stay on the subject at hand.
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? Responses (21)
My first comment is that it needs spellchecked. There are enough problems to prevent me from objectively assessing the content itself.
Second would be with some of the sentence structures - you may wish, as MoonHunter often recommends, reading it aloud to yourself to see how the sentences flow.
You replied while I was writing the huge post below.
Okay a couple of things mar this post
Too many mispellings. You do know that there is a Built In SPELLCHECKER to the Citadel? It is a button right there at the bottom as you edit the file.
I want you to read your submissions out loud to yourself. Don't skip words... read what you wrote. Thus, you will fix most of these errors.
Add a line between paragraphs please. It makes your submission easier to read. A lot of people are looking at it and passing it by without comment or seemingly reading it.
I want you to think in terms of time order. Starting, what comes next, what comes next, and what comes next. STOP SKIPPING ABOUT OR LEAVING STEPS OUT!!!!!!
The Empire a few years his birth began a long war with the elvish nations. What?
The world of Piash is mainly domininated by the empire that rules the all humanity in the north. The Empire a few years his birth began a long war with the elvish nations. After 20 years of varied and inconcluesive conflict with the elves is when the story begins, in a distant imperial province. Why does this have any barring on the character? The Empire has nothing to do with this. All that mattered was a war with the Elves previously. Unneeded complications.
The description does not 'flow' very well. There are no transitions between section so we go from physical description to clothing to personality to his profession (which is part of his physical description how? As he seems not to wear fletcher's clothing or carry fletcher tools).
So why did these people adopt him, if they were going to ignore him and the village decided that he should be dead?
note: Fletching and arrows are stereotypical elf. Do you want that?
So how did he get to be a half elf? Especially considering the conflict between Elves and Humans?
That first paragraph of history that zooms from birth to his inheriting the shop... might that be broken up and spread about so we have a flow of time?
This town is big enough OR uses enough arrows to support two full time fletchers? What are they using them for? Do they make them for the military?
Can we explain a) why he entered a tournament that he had no skill in? b) how he got his staff if nobody trained him, c) and.. and .. okay you get the idea.
The old man hoped that the boy might challenge Gazni's father in the senior contest, when he was old enough as Monor could not use the quarter-staff anymore with him permanent limp given by Gazni's father.
Awkward? So how would this kid ever get into the senior's contest?
Gazni was a popular youth and and holf of the youths were his friends and the other half his enemy because of his cruelty, also Menor felt pride for his protege and that was the begins of a strong friendship
Awkward multisentence splice. Fix.
However, some weeks afterwards he was walking Menor's daughter, Elisha - he had become friends with him to the winter fair and the large market that it brought, when Gazni got revenge with his gang. While Gazni beat Piash to a pulp -who was held down of course-, his brother, Gorli grabbed hold and mauled Elisha. Despite Piash calling upon all his strenght he could not stop them from raping her, right in front of him. Gazni, as soon as he stepped out of his bloody trance, realised they would be in trouble and they all ran for it.
Where to begin? One idea one sentence. How about a more chronological approach. Beginning, set up, middle, end.
No one ever saw what happened because they were all at the fair. Wow, what a crappy fair? nobody was there? Were they walking to or from.. on a deserted road/ back alley/ things someone who was universally reviled would of been avoiding his entire life as he would be beaten to a pulp there on a regular basis?
He was tramatised and insecure from that day unward.
It was some years into his life, his 16th year in fact that the true curse of his blood became appaerent. You see humans are naturally instinctive and emotional creatures. They may find logic later in life but they are born to use their hearts. This is the exact opposite with elves, they are a race of logical people that control their emotion expertly. They always make clear decisions without anger or lust getting in the way.
Why isn't this in description. And thank you for telling us what Humans, supposedly the race that is reading this, is like. And this kid was RAISED BY HUMANS... how did he get to be 'Elf Like' in his emotional make up?
So in the end of the history section, we get all this personality description.. which might of been better served in the, oh I don't know, CHARACTER DESCRIPTION SECTION?!?!?!?!?!?!
Motivation: Might want to even out that section...
Ok I admit you might have one or two good points, but there are so many ones that are just nit-picking and without the bad ones to make you comment seem long and arduous, frankly you got nothing.
First off yes I do need to go over my work and I forgot because it was late, in future I will always use spell. This time I simply forgot. No need to use bold on words either, you get too worked up about these things.
I do not leave steps out, if there seems to be a gap it is because nothing interesting happens during that time.
The empire is important to the setting, and it is not only there to make the story too complicated for you. If I only put in the bare minimum you'd be very annoyed and the story would suffer and become thin.
The description was not called physical description for a reason. It just describes the character as he is now. Also you said something to the effect that the 'Straining' was part of the history and should of been part of the description (It seems you became aware of you mistake here and either forgot or couldn't be bothered to fix it). I did not want to reveal this until the end of the description and it was an integral part of the story of his history.
The adoption thing shows your confusion as well. The village did not take him in, the fletcher did, and how does having two fletchers make the village huge. Alinon took him in because his wife died with his unborn child. And they don't hate him enough to just dump a baby on the side of the road or whatever you were suggesting they would be inclined to do.
He entered the contest at first to earn respect. 'This kid' by the way was going to get into the senior contest when he was old enough.
Your point about the fair is unfounded, in a small village everyone was at the fair and the alleyways aren't full of street gangs. This sort of thing happened only because Gazni wanted revenge.
Oh and finally that fuss you made about the human and elf description is, for lack of a better word petty. I'm sorry it if it seemed I was patronizing you (oh wait no I'm not) but I described humans from the point of view of someone that lives in world fantasy world as I'm sure has been done countless times. But I also wanted to show the differences between the two races.
Maybe its time you thought before you write and lose some arrogance.
First, one does not attack another person's posts out of spite. Doing such again is grounds for account suspension. (Also your reading of the sub means you did not follow any of the links to any of the related subs).
valadaar gave you similar bits before you did the edit. Muro through your sub might need to be challanged (again before you did the edit). It is not just me. You have been here long enough to see what the community is looking for.
Okay: The reason why you seem to get the point by point review is that your pieces have a great deal of potential that they don't live up to. If you polished them out a bit more, they would be highly scored well recieved pieces instead of things that the admins think about putting up for rejection.
If your submissions were half as good as your rebuttle, you would not be getting the point by point reviews. (If this was as good as Oraburg or James Lorus.. yes I do know your posts.)
I have nearly 600 submissions with an average of 4, (average of .6 subs a day ove three years), 2560 comments , untold scroll submissions. And you have 23 with an average score of 2.6 and 42 comments. It is not arrogance, it is experience. I am trying to help.
So, thank you for spell checking. Thank you for adding the line returns between paragraphs.
If it is late and you don't want people dealing with your incomplete or unpolished submissions, then put them in your work space. Simply click the Submission Option - In Work Viewable or In Work Hidden. Release it to the public after an edit or two.
Like I said, if your submissions were half as good as your rebuttle, you would not be getting the point by point reviews.
As for your setting - In what part of this character's backstory AS PRESENTED HERE had anything to do with The Empire (Other than the war, which did not need an empire just someone to fight The Elves). Simply add the information about it if it is important. If you want to put in a setting, then put in a location submission with your empire and link the two.
If there are gaps when nothing interesting happens, then why do sections go back in time and enter events in that area. (or did he get the shop before all the beating, training, and attacking occur?)
Simple ecology makes me wonder about the size. How many arrows does this town/ village need per day (on average)? I mean it is a village, do they go out shooting eveything every day. A score of arrows should last someone a while, even with breakage. Divide this number by 2.
Figure how many arrows a day can a fletcher sell on given day, times the amount they make on each arrow, does this number equal approximately how much they need to live and support a family?
So 20 hunters a day each breaking one arrow each hunt makes for 20 arrows a day. (and if there are twenty people who don't have to tend their fields or shops that day, figure there must be 5-10 more hunting people who can't that day makes for 100 to 200 males). A historical fletcher makes up to two score arrows a day. So lets give you a half pence per arrow profit of 10 pence. Average historical city dweller needs approximately 40 pence to support themselves a week (I am hutning references in the black room right now). So they need to support themselves and spouse and child. which should take about 60 pence.
And there are two fletchers. So there must be a good number of people in this town by the rough numbers.
If the Fletcher love the child, then why did he treat it like dirt giving it a name and no care? It just needs a touch more explanation so people are not scratching their heads.
Oh ans I can see he needed to earn 'respect' so he joined the contest. If that had been included in the original post, there would not of been a problem.
If you explained the scene of the attack, and why nobody was around because they were all at the fair. So nobody else was walking to the fair on the public street? Is it is a village then someone should of heard the cries, even with the fair. In a town it was less likely. If it happened somewhere, say where it happened.
You know the answers, if they had been included in the post.. nobody would of been asking.
This is interesting, cause I know Moonhunter does attack other people's posts out of spite.
I dont think this one needs challenging, but what do I know, I am not around this week. Ok, bye.
Updated: Spelling and grammer has been updated.
Not a challenge for sure, as the attempt is definitely there. Still a lot of spelling and grammar problems along with a broken storyline that makes it difficult to follow. I suggest an In-Work status until it has been updated.
There is the one blunt review and I don't necessarily blame necromancer for the emotional response. We do need to continue being tactful to each other and try to criticize without being insulting. Try and take the emotion out of any critiques as well as responses.
I will hold my vote and wait for an update.
The character's basic idea is interesting: A half-elf raised in a land where elves are traditional enemies of humanity, who is forced to flee his home after committing a revenge-murder.
The edits helped untangle problematic details of Piash's history and made it easier to read.
The mental and emotional implications of being a half-elf could still stand to be clarified. From what you said, I gathered that Elves are naturally logical and aloof, and only develop emotional ties as they grow older. Based on this, I assume that Piash lacks understanding of his own emotions and doesn't think clearly when emotional subjects are brought up. I'm not sure what you meant: It sounds like he is prone to killing rages, and may even revel in the emotional catharsis.
Although detailed criticism like this has received can be aggravating, don't look on it as a personal attack. We've all gone through tough criticism at some point, for 'iron sharpens iron'. If people didn't see the sub's virtues, they wouldn't waste time critiquing it. Advice like 'read it aloud' may sound patronizing at first, but it is the best way for you to find the sub's errors. Even veterans of professional writing often use approaches like that to polish their work.
A well written comment! Kudos!
yes i do admit I was a hotheaded when I wrote that reply. I found the advice about spelling and grammer and reading it out loud is sound advice, but i still think Moon took things a bit to far hear.
Be that as it may I am really sorry as I took this way too far.
necromancer:
Things got a little out of hand, but I believe you are not alone in this. The feedback as given by various Strolenites is true, though some might want to improve their social skills some. As one who has had to brush up his own social skills from time to time, I know what I am talking about. ;)
I have noticed you running about and reading relevant articles. That is a nice idea, and one I urge you to keep pursuing. But do not forget to have faith in your own abilities. I certainly have, as I have seen both a budding talent and a willingness to learn in you.
Do go on! Some of our prominent Strolenites, like CaptainPenguin, started out with a few not so highly rated posts. Today he is one of the very best we have!
Yeah, I wasn't doing so well at the beginning there.
I do, however, contest the statement that I'm one of the best- I actually contribute very little and what I do seems rather mediocre to me.
Not bad at all necromancer. I missed all the uproar, but the piece is interesting, post update.
Interesting idea, I like the basic conflict between the human and elf aspects of the character's psyche. The flow is still pretty rough and it could use some work.
I can't help but be reminded of Vulcans - not that there is anything wrong with that. In this case we have a half-elf very much like Spock during Pon Faarsp.
Post is much better then it started, but it still needs a bit of work.
Only voted.
I wasn't here to read the sub the first time through but it seems to me that MoonHunter and Wulfhere's criticisms still haven't been followed up. The sub is still very hard to follow and has numerous spots where I got confused.
And I disagree with you, Strolen. I do blame Necromancer for the emotional response. Criticism is where it's at, after all. If you only wanted egoboo, only show it to your girlfriend or your mom. I doubt that very many of us are at the point where everything we write is perfect (except maybe for you, Captain Penguin :0 ), so we can all use criticism to make our writing better. I'm an author, and I still need criticism! I do agree that we all need to keep our emotions out of our criticisms, but everything except the 'You are a terrible writer and all your stuff stinks!' criticisms are ultimately useful to the writer of the sub.
I also taught computer science in high school, and occasionally got to teach a Creative Writing class, and the 'That's the way I want it to sound' response to criticisms is either egotistical, or lazy (if there is a difference). Writing is conveying thoughts and ideas, and if they are not getting through, you haven't been doing your job. End of rant.
I just didn't dig the story all that much, but I find that that the take on half-elf as interesting. Often I find that people don't play or write the demi-humans as alien enough. And this half-elf Pon-Farr the kid was going through could really help a character get into his character and add depth to a roleplaying scene.
But I cannot stand the over use of the rape of another in a character's backstory and means justifying his behavior. It would be nice to imagine a world in which the hero did not have to fight for sexual possession of his woman. If authors are going to deal with sexual violence then perhaps they should deal more with the victims response otherwise it just seems flippant. In this story the girl is left behind in the Hero's story and his response to her attack.