Chaotic Assorted
Feb. 17th, 2026 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseMy first D&D-related novel had a pretty simple overall plot; there were quite a lot of bits of subplot, and, as always, the characters were in the driving seat, but in D&D terms it boiled down to "here is a high-level adventuring party with a specific quest, this being to find and rescue Lord Smallpiece's vampire great-uncle". The great-uncle turned out to have been kidnapped by an archlich who was very interested in the fact that (unlike all other known vampires) he wasn't evil, and wanted to find out why so that she could create an army of non-evil undead (the idea being that they'd still obey orders, but they couldn't be turned by good clerics); and, of course, once you've got an archlich in the story, that archlich is going to be doing a good deal more than just kidnapping the odd vampire. So there was plenty of interest coming from that, and various NPCs had to get involved, and there was all the character stuff you'd expect; but basically, it was simple. Travel from A to B, complete quest, and... well, originally it was going to be "and then all go home to A", but that happened for only one of our party, for a series of complicated reasons.
In particular, two of our party left the Material Plane altogether; they went through a rather unusual planar portal which took them to Elysium. Elysium, in D&D, is one of what is known as the higher planes, and it corresponds to the Neutral Good alignment. (The Dantean image of heaven is Lawful Good, whereas Chaotic Good is associated with a plane called The Beastlands, which is, I suppose, a kind of idealised elven forest sort of place.) In D&D you usually go to the plane associated with your alignment when you die, and one of our pair was, in fact, Neutral Good, and so would have ended up there in any case; the other one was Chaotic Good, this being Kerian the bard. However, Kerian does have a celestial ancestor, and she comes from (and, being immortal, still lives in) Elysium. Both Kerian and his friend Lindith are healed in different ways when they enter Elysium; Lindith used a wheelchair but rapidly regains the ability to walk normally, whereas Kerian's healing is mostly psychological and spiritual.
So, of course, I had to explain exactly what it was that he was healed from. That meant I had to introduce something terrible that had happened to him in the past; and what had happened to him was this. Kerian was married to a woman called Lenamara, and he went to work for a certain Lord Solgliss. Lord Solgliss, however, was a thoroughly evil man (Lawful Evil, I think, though we never meet him in person), took a fancy to Lenamara, and decided to take her as his mistress, originally in secret. Solgliss, as we discover later, was also married, to the Lady Chioreth, by whom he had a son, Athanor. Kerian found out what was happening and was extremely disappointed about it, so he resigned his position, intending to take his wife and leave; however, Solgliss wasn't having that, and he conveniently had an advisor who had fallen out of favour. He hired an assassin to kill the advisor and frame Kerian for the crime. The unfortunate bard was thrown into the dungeons and sentenced to be hanged, but the night before he was to be executed, he somehow escaped. (We find out in the sequel that Chioreth, aghast at her husband's behaviour, hired a wizard to get him out, and that this wizard dragged him all round the planes for a while, where he had a few further hair-raising adventures but was at least safe from Solgliss, who had put a heavy price on his head.) A few months later, the truth came out - very likely with help from Chioreth, but this is never stated explicitly - and the embarrassed Solgliss had to issue a hasty public pardon to Kerian and then disown and execute the assassin. Kerian may never have found out about the pardon, because by this time he was a long way away.
Now, this Lenamara had four children; and it occurred to me that it was entirely possible that the eldest of the four might be Kerian's, but would be thought to be Solgliss'. It then occurred to me that there was a very easy way to tell, in a world without DNA testing. Kerian is an aasimar, which is to say he has a celestial ancestor; therefore any child he has is also an aasimar. Aasimars have darkvision. Other people don't.
So I decided that the sequel would be all about this young woman, Nivaunel, who thinks she's Solgliss' daughter (as does everyone else), but, shortly after the death of Solgliss, discovers that she's actually Kerian's daughter, and then she'd want to go and see her father (which can still be done, as it is possible to hold a conversation through this very unusual planar portal). That was the start, and it's still what's going on. But a huge amount of the surrounding stuff has changed.
Athanor changed first. The way I originally envisaged him, he wasn't evil like his father, but he was also very brisk, pragmatic, utilitarian, and somewhat uncaring - probably Lawful Neutral. He was going to attempt to marry Nivaunel off to this other young lord just because he wanted an alliance. But as I wrote him, I realised that he actually liked Nivaunel (there was never any question that Chioreth did; she always felt very sorry for her because both Solgliss and Lenamara neglected her), and, although the resulting alliance would be helpful, the main reason for making her marry this lord was that he felt it would be the best thing for her. She'd end up as, effectively, a duchess (very high nobility, huge house, all the rest of it), and he wasn't uncaring so much as totally unable to listen once he'd made up his mind what was best for someone. So he immediately became a more sympathetic character, even though he was still pretty infuriating at first.
Once Nivaunel realises she's not the daughter of Solgliss at all, she immediately sees that she has a cast-iron excuse to get out of this marriage; she's not nobility! (It's also a reason that Athanor, who very much thinks in terms of status because that's how he's been brought up, will instantly accept.) So she suggests her younger sister Edelna, who is definitely Solgliss' daughter, as a substitute; Edelna has been quite jealous that Nivaunel is going to marry this lord, despite the fact that he's not exactly a good catch in himself (again, not evil, but loud, coarse, and rather stupid). Like Athanor, all Edelna can see is the money and power.
Then Edelna started to change on me, too. Initially, she was just a very immature sixteen-year-old; but once Athanor agrees that substituting her would be a good idea, that goes to her head (combined with the discovery that her elder sister is not, after all, A Lady). She becomes extremely demanding and arrogant, tries to order Nivaunel about, and finally tries to take a piece of jewellery which has just been given to Nivaunel by Chioreth, on the grounds that it is "too good" for a "mere commoner" and therefore she should have it. At which point I realised she'd changed her alignment. She was probably True Neutral before. Now... she's Neutral Evil. I was as shocked as all the rest of the characters were.
And then there's Lord Mortovan the Quick. He is, of course, Morto from the first book, originally a thief (among other things) living by his wits; now he's been ennobled for his part in the defeat of the archlich, and employed by Their Majesties as a spy. He's a bit of a chameleon because he has to be; once you're a noble, you're expected to talk like one and know all the other odd social rules. Fortunately he's a very quick learner, though his lowly origins do occasionally somewhat betray themselves in his speech. I knew he was no longer a thief (he really doesn't need to be, and he was never one who did it for the thrill); but I didn't realise quite how much of a conscience he was developing until he had to explain why he hadn't told Athanor something he must have known due to a magical item he possesses. And when he did, I realised that a) he was telling the truth (he's actually never been keen on lying, even if only because he's bright enough to know anyone using magic can potentially pick up on it), and b) that meant he's definitely not Chaotic Neutral any more. Welcome to the Chaotic Good alignment, Lord Mortovan. That's going to make things interesting for you in your career as a spy.
As a result of all this stuff going on, the party (which in this case is very low-level; Nivaunel, who was originally going to follow in her father's footsteps and become a bard, instead turned into an embryonic cleric, for reasons that were still closely connected with her father, and even Mortovan is probably no more than about third level - two levels of rogue and one of wizard) didn't set off till the end of chapter 4. And I thought... this is awfully slow, isn't it?
Actually, no, it isn't. There's been a lot happening, and D&D stuff doesn't all have to happen on the road or at your destination. Nonetheless, I still suspect this is going to be longer than the first book.
In particular, two of our party left the Material Plane altogether; they went through a rather unusual planar portal which took them to Elysium. Elysium, in D&D, is one of what is known as the higher planes, and it corresponds to the Neutral Good alignment. (The Dantean image of heaven is Lawful Good, whereas Chaotic Good is associated with a plane called The Beastlands, which is, I suppose, a kind of idealised elven forest sort of place.) In D&D you usually go to the plane associated with your alignment when you die, and one of our pair was, in fact, Neutral Good, and so would have ended up there in any case; the other one was Chaotic Good, this being Kerian the bard. However, Kerian does have a celestial ancestor, and she comes from (and, being immortal, still lives in) Elysium. Both Kerian and his friend Lindith are healed in different ways when they enter Elysium; Lindith used a wheelchair but rapidly regains the ability to walk normally, whereas Kerian's healing is mostly psychological and spiritual.
So, of course, I had to explain exactly what it was that he was healed from. That meant I had to introduce something terrible that had happened to him in the past; and what had happened to him was this. Kerian was married to a woman called Lenamara, and he went to work for a certain Lord Solgliss. Lord Solgliss, however, was a thoroughly evil man (Lawful Evil, I think, though we never meet him in person), took a fancy to Lenamara, and decided to take her as his mistress, originally in secret. Solgliss, as we discover later, was also married, to the Lady Chioreth, by whom he had a son, Athanor. Kerian found out what was happening and was extremely disappointed about it, so he resigned his position, intending to take his wife and leave; however, Solgliss wasn't having that, and he conveniently had an advisor who had fallen out of favour. He hired an assassin to kill the advisor and frame Kerian for the crime. The unfortunate bard was thrown into the dungeons and sentenced to be hanged, but the night before he was to be executed, he somehow escaped. (We find out in the sequel that Chioreth, aghast at her husband's behaviour, hired a wizard to get him out, and that this wizard dragged him all round the planes for a while, where he had a few further hair-raising adventures but was at least safe from Solgliss, who had put a heavy price on his head.) A few months later, the truth came out - very likely with help from Chioreth, but this is never stated explicitly - and the embarrassed Solgliss had to issue a hasty public pardon to Kerian and then disown and execute the assassin. Kerian may never have found out about the pardon, because by this time he was a long way away.
Now, this Lenamara had four children; and it occurred to me that it was entirely possible that the eldest of the four might be Kerian's, but would be thought to be Solgliss'. It then occurred to me that there was a very easy way to tell, in a world without DNA testing. Kerian is an aasimar, which is to say he has a celestial ancestor; therefore any child he has is also an aasimar. Aasimars have darkvision. Other people don't.
So I decided that the sequel would be all about this young woman, Nivaunel, who thinks she's Solgliss' daughter (as does everyone else), but, shortly after the death of Solgliss, discovers that she's actually Kerian's daughter, and then she'd want to go and see her father (which can still be done, as it is possible to hold a conversation through this very unusual planar portal). That was the start, and it's still what's going on. But a huge amount of the surrounding stuff has changed.
Athanor changed first. The way I originally envisaged him, he wasn't evil like his father, but he was also very brisk, pragmatic, utilitarian, and somewhat uncaring - probably Lawful Neutral. He was going to attempt to marry Nivaunel off to this other young lord just because he wanted an alliance. But as I wrote him, I realised that he actually liked Nivaunel (there was never any question that Chioreth did; she always felt very sorry for her because both Solgliss and Lenamara neglected her), and, although the resulting alliance would be helpful, the main reason for making her marry this lord was that he felt it would be the best thing for her. She'd end up as, effectively, a duchess (very high nobility, huge house, all the rest of it), and he wasn't uncaring so much as totally unable to listen once he'd made up his mind what was best for someone. So he immediately became a more sympathetic character, even though he was still pretty infuriating at first.
Once Nivaunel realises she's not the daughter of Solgliss at all, she immediately sees that she has a cast-iron excuse to get out of this marriage; she's not nobility! (It's also a reason that Athanor, who very much thinks in terms of status because that's how he's been brought up, will instantly accept.) So she suggests her younger sister Edelna, who is definitely Solgliss' daughter, as a substitute; Edelna has been quite jealous that Nivaunel is going to marry this lord, despite the fact that he's not exactly a good catch in himself (again, not evil, but loud, coarse, and rather stupid). Like Athanor, all Edelna can see is the money and power.
Then Edelna started to change on me, too. Initially, she was just a very immature sixteen-year-old; but once Athanor agrees that substituting her would be a good idea, that goes to her head (combined with the discovery that her elder sister is not, after all, A Lady). She becomes extremely demanding and arrogant, tries to order Nivaunel about, and finally tries to take a piece of jewellery which has just been given to Nivaunel by Chioreth, on the grounds that it is "too good" for a "mere commoner" and therefore she should have it. At which point I realised she'd changed her alignment. She was probably True Neutral before. Now... she's Neutral Evil. I was as shocked as all the rest of the characters were.
And then there's Lord Mortovan the Quick. He is, of course, Morto from the first book, originally a thief (among other things) living by his wits; now he's been ennobled for his part in the defeat of the archlich, and employed by Their Majesties as a spy. He's a bit of a chameleon because he has to be; once you're a noble, you're expected to talk like one and know all the other odd social rules. Fortunately he's a very quick learner, though his lowly origins do occasionally somewhat betray themselves in his speech. I knew he was no longer a thief (he really doesn't need to be, and he was never one who did it for the thrill); but I didn't realise quite how much of a conscience he was developing until he had to explain why he hadn't told Athanor something he must have known due to a magical item he possesses. And when he did, I realised that a) he was telling the truth (he's actually never been keen on lying, even if only because he's bright enough to know anyone using magic can potentially pick up on it), and b) that meant he's definitely not Chaotic Neutral any more. Welcome to the Chaotic Good alignment, Lord Mortovan. That's going to make things interesting for you in your career as a spy.
As a result of all this stuff going on, the party (which in this case is very low-level; Nivaunel, who was originally going to follow in her father's footsteps and become a bard, instead turned into an embryonic cleric, for reasons that were still closely connected with her father, and even Mortovan is probably no more than about third level - two levels of rogue and one of wizard) didn't set off till the end of chapter 4. And I thought... this is awfully slow, isn't it?
Actually, no, it isn't. There's been a lot happening, and D&D stuff doesn't all have to happen on the road or at your destination. Nonetheless, I still suspect this is going to be longer than the first book.
