Wednesday 27 March 2019

FIGHTER - For Eldritch Foundry.


For anyone curious what the tonality would be for that Eldritch Foundry World Creation project I've been talking about, here is the text that should come up when you click the option 'Fighter'.

Basically had to take the entire concept of a Fighter, condense it into words, relate it somehow to the world (not sure if I did that), then re-write it after the first draft was too harsh.

The simplest things are the hardest to define in an interesting way.



"Coming from nothing, and facing everything, you need to be ready to try anything.

You think of yourself more as a problem-solver, except you solve problems with your body first. Tongues lie and minds deceive, but the body is the truth. If you underwrite your actions with your flesh, if your currency is your own blood, you are True, no matter what they say.

You might be a walking catastrophe in every sense but this; socially, mentally, financially and, let’s face it, probably morally, but your deeds are true, no matter how dumb, mistaken or crazy you might be.

The important thing is to act. There are few who do. These beside you are amongst them.

It might be said you picked them up in fights. Saw the mage getting hassled and got involved. That thief - you nearly broke their fingers in your pocket.

People don't realise - fighting is communication. If you want to know someone, to really know them, you have to fight them, or see them fight.

Not that you necessarily go around punching people to see what happens. Or that they need to win.
Or that fighters are always good, and the peaceful weak. But you need to feel the give in someone
- like the flex of a bow or the weight of a sword.

A rapier will shatter against plate, but it’s still a good rapier

Other people.. sometimes they are rusty, badly weighted - the core cooled to quickly or too slow. They will splinter and fly apart, even if use rightly. Beware of those.

Look, things always go horribly wrong, but if you don't try - you never find out. Nothing happens.

The Spindleman taxlings wreck another families finances - nothing happens.

Another girl goes missing on the margins of the mere - nothing happens.

The messed-up vet from the last failed war kicks over a table and starts screaming about conspiracy and subhumans, he has a sword, and training and he's crazy. People stay quiet, they hunch and look away - nothing happens.

Another family wakes up with their names stolen. The grey thing that took them was seen creeping away - nothing happens.

The Waste creeps a little closer - nothing happens.

Uud dies a little more - nothing happens.

If there is one thing you are tired of, it’s nothing

It’s time for something.

As to what, that gets difficult.


You know there is absolutely nothing special about you, except your willingness to get back up after they knock you down.

You never got a Sifu. No wise Templar placed their hands upon your shoulders, you never had a vision from the gods - the first time you met a monster the only idea in your head was to hit it in the face - real hard, so that's what you did, and, with some interruptions, you have kept doing it.

And you are damn sure you never had a destiny. Every choice you made, you made yourself, with your body and your hands.

People say "anything", like it’s easy to deal with;

"You could do anything"

As if the infinity of choice was simpler than a single path.

You have not found it so.

This one - the faithful Servant of the Sleepers (they act like a longsword, but you see a mace inside, simple overpowering strikes, no parrying or foigning from them), they have a hard path, but they know what it is, the destination is in sight, albeit far away.

You must choose, both the path and the destination, the means and the end. With every possibility in play, there is no end to what you need to know. You can never stop learning, never stop adapting, you must experience it all so you know what is right to do, and how to do it.

This other - the Mage (a pale spear, light and long-flying - thrower gone before the strike hits home), they have their problems, endless tests of thought and comprehension, but they too have an end in mind, and a method set,

The Rogue (acts like a Glass Dagger but more like a thick sword-breaker to you) wants money, or thinks they do. A simple cause, if that’s really all you want.

There are still good things in this world, though they are clothed in violence and hiding somewhere on the Path of Blades.

Honour, truth, charity, love, the past, the future, even hope and the breath in your lungs, either someone is willing to fight to keep them, or someone worse will fight harder to take them away.

You want these things, or you hope you do, and you are fundamentally willing to start some shit, now, and I mean right NOW, this instant, because someone, or something is coming to take them away, and most of whatever else you have along with it.

Violence never ends well, but things are bad for you right now. The world is bad. Everything is bad for everyone. And what are they going to do? Write a book about it?

The only book you know is written on your skin in bruises, cut and scars.

Someone has to be ready to take the hit and deal out hurt, and if nobody is, then you have already lost.

And, truth be told, you like it. And you’re good at it, that tenth of a second when the impact shock runs through your bones and your body realises it is still alive, with all its organs still within the skin, that you were a slim slice of a moment faster, or stronger, or smarter or just lucky, it doesn't matter which – it’s a hit. You got them. Steel bites and for that exact fragment, wound and weapon are the axle of reality, everything, every dream and plan, every past hope and possible future, all of it, wheels like stars around the singular, certain and absolute fact that metal entered flesh. The war at the heart of things flexes and the pulse of reality beats.

Time to start a fight."






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