Zylaa's NaNoWriMo Place Thingy

[Zylaa]

Hey, I just wouldn't be me if I didn't jump on bandwagons. Anyway, the basics:
Title: None yet. It will quite likely end up being "Title," because I have no skill in the naming department.
Genre: Fantasy. What a shock.
Setting: Araman, a pretty well-thought-out world if I do say so myself, since the trilogy I normally work on is set in it. This story will be in the oldest city of the world, Owl's Point.

And more to come later.

[Zylaa]

Backstory of the world. Nothing about the plot, but I like the backstory, therefore you should too. >_> Tell me if this all actually makes sense.

Creation story (and a lot past that):
In the beginning, there was God, and all that good stuff. Then everyone knows what happened- Lucifer rebelling against heaven and being cast out. God created a new world and encased Satan deep beneath the surface, bound by the seven elements. He created a new race to populate this world, the Owlfolk, who were charged to guard Satan for all eternity.
Of course, time passed, and that was forgotten. The Owlfolk, with their thirst for knowledge, soon broke through into other worlds, whose people soon immigrated to claim a share of the relatively uncivilized land. Everything was nice and happy until Nicanor Judason decided to do a little mining on the sacred Isle of Creation. Long story short, he got posessed by Satan, imbued with evil magic, and set up his fortress up North. A thousand years later he was defeated (another long story), and there was much rejoicing, and also huge political upheaval as the nations sought to explore past the boundaries that his dominion had set.

Sentient Species:
Owlfolk: slightly shorter than humans, humanoid stance with bird legs, a beak, feathers instead of hair on head, feathered arms that can shapeshift into wings, a feathered tail. Live for about three centuries. Hungry for knowledge as much as food. No set sleeping schedule, equally comfortable with day and night.
Dragons: Once they reach maturity, they live off the innate Earth and Fire magic of their hoards. This can sustain them for millenia theoretically if the hoard is big enough, and also gives dragons a very magpie-like tendency. One is known to collect, among other things, Beanie Babies, Final Fantasy paraphenalia, and Disney trading pins. Tend to be highly intelligent, because when you live for a thousand years and don't have to do any work to sustain yourself, you tend to get bored, and what better way to fill that time than to, say, learn calculus? Can grow to the size of a house.
Humans: Do I really need to describe these? Owlfolk shut off the immigration of humans relatively early, noting their prolific tendancies, although 410 years ago a freak magical accident resulted in a fairly large group spontaneously arriving from their colony. These people then founded the notoriously obnoxious country where magic is banned, immensely impractical in a world founded on magic.
Other species: Griffins, shapeshifters, half-breeds, vampires.
Please note that there are no dwarves, no elves, and no unicorns.

Magic 101:
Magic is divided into seven elements and necromancy. The elements, along with their virtues and disadvantages, are listed here.
Earth: Strength, stubborn
Air: speed, violence
Water: adaptability, suffocating
Fire: courage, greed
Light: honesty, pride
Darkness: renewal, cruelty (Please note: Dark does not equal evil!)
Dream/Thought: Intelligance
Necromancy: Sort of anti-magic; since all magic is needed for life, such a close association with Death gives necromancers immunity to magic.

[aerisangel01]

Please note that there are no dwarves, no elves, and no unicorns.

NO UNICORNS!? Bu.. but... no story can have a forever happy ending if there's no shiny Unicorns! ;_;

I like your back story =3

[Zylaa]

>_> The unicorns are just... um... on vacation in the Caribbean, so that's why they aren't in the story. Yeah. Thanks. And that wasn't even the relevant part! Today's update: More backstory. I promise this is the last backstory update, and it's long and semi-incoherent, so cookies if you read it all and understand it.

THE RELEVANT BACKSTORY:
Owl's Point. Every world has a city like it: ancient, legendary, huge, pwnsome. A very tolerant city; if you can afford to live there and contribute to the general magical sprawl, you're welcome to it, regardless of species. It's an experimental republic. The democracy wasn't always in place there, of course; about 850 years ago, the throne of Owl's Point was in dispute. A human held the throne, but as he grew old the shapeshifters and Owlfolk rallied to try and crown their respective candidates. The heiress to the line of Old Owl kings, Princess Needsaname, formed an alliance with a young shapeshifter, Surkine. The shapeshifter founded a spy organization to help catch a band of renegade shapeshifters, and after the throne was secured it was just so much fun running a city-wide spy group that Surkine decided to keep it running. And so, independant of whatever government happened to be in power, the Surkinestef (Translation: Children of Surkine (I want a better name. Please help.)) grew and flourished. Fast forward to today, where the Surkinestef have fingers in pretty much every corner of the world. Standard fantasy world thieves guilds have nothing on the Surkinestef. Surkinestef spies run several thieves' guilds. Only a select few know who is really in charge; of course there is the guy that everyone "knows" runs the spy group, but conspiracy theorists agree that it would be pretty stupid to announce who runs a worldwide undercover spy group. The visible branch of the Surkinestef (the more I type that name the more I hate it) is the Library and their school, which provides a high quality if slightly immoral education.

[Zylaa]

This post reserved for all my characters as they acquire things like names- again, help is always appreciated in helping me name things.

Name:
Gender: female
Role in story: protagonist
Species: Owlfolk
Age: mid-30s
Position in Surkinestef: poses as a research assistant (filing, taking reports from spies). In reality runs the whole thing, though only three other people know that.

Name:
Gender: Male
Species: Some half-human, undecided.
Age: 40-some
Role in story: one of those seemingly important characters that ends up dying in the first few chapters
Position in Surkinestef: The one that everyone thinks is the ruler. Until he's stabbed, of course.

Name:
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Age: early 30s
Role in story: friend of protagonist. May end up serving some plot end later.
Position in Surkinestef: Assistant to the General. What's the technical name for that?

Name:
Gender: Male
Species: Winged human
Age: unknown
Role in story: antagonist. stabs character #2 and attempts to take over Surkinestef.