So, I was IM'ing with buddy Ronn the other night and he tells me he has the writing bug. As is usual with our friendship, once one of us has a bug, he wants to spread it. He's trying to infect me.
I've been interested in writing for a bit, likely inspired to fiction by Ronn, way back when. So we've decided to have a weekly chat via Skype to talk about writing; what to write, how to write, when to write ... characters, scenes, settings ... the whole shebang.
Tonight is our first foray into the writing chat. I've been busting my head trying to think of something to write about. I mean, do I have any more stories in me? Do I have the emotional investment to actually kick out meaningful prose? We'll have to see, but today a possible book setting/idea came to me: Sand-Riders.
Sand-Riders is an RPG setting I created back in college based on a painting by Rodney Matthews called Terrestrial Voyager. My creation is a desert setting with elements of Barsoom, Dune, and a few other sources. I've toyed with it off and on for the last decade or more, and never quite pinned it down. I'm hoping that writing this novel will help me flesh out the world, or at least codify what I have.
In going back through what I'd written on it, I found this blurb that I wrote back in December, 2007 about the origin of the world.
The Unforgiving Lands
Before Jherod
The power of the Aggregate Interstellar Empire was far-reaching and its resources virtually unlimited. Thus it came to pass that in the third millennium, in the year of the Cat and the month of Thirty Sevens, a research project was begun to study a planet in a remote system.
On the fourth planet from the sun, a strange radiation had been detected and a group of scientists dispatched to investigate. The planet was covered virtually from pole to pole by a vast desert of dry, hard-packed mud, slowly being swallowed by the sand of a massive dune sea encroaching from the north.
The researchers set up camp in the mountains, hiding from the ever-present dust storms and strange fauna of the world. Despite the hostile environment, it was quickly determined that the strange properties of the planet should be investigated in depth. So the call was sent out and the Aggregate Interstellar Empire gave the approval for a colony to be set up.
And thus it was done.
A World of Sand
The planet was harsh, but the colonists lived well in their hollowed out halls of stone. Research was done, and forays further and further into the desert were attempted, as the seasonal storms came and went. But the planet took its toll on the advanced equipment the empire supplied. The dust was pervasive – it got into everything and slowly wore it down. The static electricity of the dust storms shorted out even the most insulated of devices. And the fierce lizard denizens of the world often caught scientists and colonists off guard. Though sand-proof weapons powered by the very static the researchers abhorred were created, life was hard and unforgiving.
But the work went on. The radiation appeared to stem from the sand storms, from the dune sea far to the north of the colony. Many teams were sent to investigate, but few returned; and of those who survived the ordeal, all went mad.
For the planet was taking its toll on the colonists as it had on their equipment. The radiation was obscure and had strange, building effects on the people – they began to hear the thoughts of others, to see into their dreams. In quick, sudden jumps, the colonies began to break down as the people drifted into seeming madness. Coteries formed, allegiances were made and broken, and battles were fought.
The strongest and fiercest of the colonists became the leaders, warlords who fought tooth and nail for the limited resources the planet had to offer. Some walked into the desert, to their deaths or so it was thought, only to reappear in the middle of the night, killing the men and stealing the women from their households.
A Broken People
In time, all memory of the past and record of their origins were lost in myth and legend, and the cliques became tribes and warbands, the ranks and positions became castes, and eventually nations arose as the descendants of the first colonists carved out an existence on a world that hated them as much as they hated it.
In order to survive, and to harvest the fruits of the oases cut off by storms for most of the year, huge ships were built on great wheels, and armed with men, steel and cannon. In time, the men and women rode the sands of this world, living in barbarism, fighting for wealth and power, yes, but most often for life itself.
On the sandships, the caste system is all that holds the crew together, that binds them into their places. Once called 'officers,' 'scientists,' and 'staff' are now 'alubim,' 'bardohn,' 'celadohn,' and 'duhnahd.' And those who have lost their rights to liberty, 'extarad.'
And the fierce jealousies have borne a new method of resolving difficulties: the Blood Ring. Taking shape in the form of personal combat, citizens and shipmates have the ability to gain status and perhaps even gain ground within their caste through ability in the Ring. Weapons are determined by the challenged, range over close, sharp over blunt, pistol over knife. The outcome, one of three ranks: blood, pain and death (scratch, wound, and death).
The mantra is drilled into the young at an early age to solve even playroom difficulties: 'Pistol over blade, blade over stick, stick over fist.' And so the harshness of the land permeates the very existence of the people, making them as hard as the rock of the mountain, as unforgiving as the very desert itself.
This is the land of Jherod. This is the land of dust and blood. This is the land of Sand-Riders.
Pretty cool, I think. This may just work.
