#greenest

Genre: Fantasy | Book 1 of a series | Progress: Writing | World: Uuve | POV: close third person present alt. Sigma, Valor, Experiment #24

Summary

Sigma's life has been spent in devout, sheltered worship of the goddess of lifeblood. His task to enter into adulthood: to find a relic of hers to prove his devotion to her. He and his escort, Valor, travel from Sigma's family in Yvonetia to the cold east of Sterlirga.

In one sentence

A man is sent on a journey to find a religious relic and returns with far more than he anticipated.

Setting

The large continent of Urwey through the countries of Yvonetia, Zuryev, Hursteyn, and Sterlirga. Takes place over five seasons (one year).

Characters

(available via Crowsen's wonderful tiefling maker.)

Sigma

(Image ID: a thin green half-demon man. He has small, pointed ears, short pointed horns like parenthesis, a smile of sharp teeth, and crinkling brown eyes. He has many freckles. curling behind one shoulder is a pointed tail. He has long wavy brown hair. He is wearing a black buttoning shirt that is open on top to show a small amount of chest hair. Over the shirt is a silver necklace. Behind him are wavy silver lines.)

Sigma is a young half-daimon raised by devout followers of Bezglaz. He's never been far away from his family before. Sigma is excitable, naive, curious, kind, bookish, and outgoing. Often smiling, Sigma believes that every day has the potential to be the best day of his life.

Valor, son of Glory

(Image ID: a gray man with bright white hair. He has a broad, sharp face, large humped nose, and small, dark eyes. Two scars cut through his face: one like a crescent moon by his left eye, and one slicing through the left side of his full lips. He has golden hoops in his ears. His hair is wavy and short. He wears a frilly red overshirt open over a black undershirt, both revealing his hairy, broad chest. He has a sparse beard.)

Valor is a child of the gods hired by Sigma's family to be his escort to and from Sterlirga. As a former soldier turned mercenary/muscle for hire, Valor is disciplined, practical, and cautious, but he has a deep sadness to him. He has a fondness for ale and ring fighting.

Experiment #24

(Image ID: a white, bloodless man with large, messy white hair. His broad face has a diagonal, stitched-up scar that begins at the top of his head and ends at the bottom of his jaw. His nose is long and straight. He has two differently-colored eyes: the left one is a chocolate brown, and the right is a startling teal. He is smiling. His cheeks look slightly gaunt, and stubble lines his face. He wears a black shirt buttoned up to the top.)

Experiment #24 is undead. He has been studying beneath his surgeon father for all of his two years of life, and has a deep interest in medicine. X is strange, curious, a little dangerous, and slightly psychic. He enters the group in Zuryev, much to Valor's dismay.

Excerpt

“I do not often pray anymore.”

What a strange man, to once pray to his gods but no more.

“Not to a single one? What about, ah—well, I can’t think of any. Nothing in Verje or Byr Ve?” 

Valor half-shrugs. “Uphyr, at times. Qrotul. But not often. Certainly not every day.”

The sound of his god’s names are strange and lovely in Valor’s mouth. They sound as foreign to Sigma as Bezglaz’s name must be to Valor.

“Why’s that?”

“My gods prefer action over prayer.” Valor unhitches the mules. “And I fought for crown, not a god.”

Taglist

Ask to be on the taglist!

(I was left unsatisfied by my previous introduction for Greenest. Some major changes have been done. So here's the update!)

I’m DMing a campaign of Hoard of the Dragon Queen and decided to try some new tools while depicting their adventures up until now!

Valor clears his throat. He removes a blade from his own person. The blade and handle are both curved in a way Sigma has never seen before. “You may drink this from me.”

There is an intimacy to drinking blood. A vulnerability. Pressing your lips to someone’s skin, consuming what keeps them alive. Honoring their life, honoring Bezglaz. Living beings rely on their blood to keep them strong and alive. Sigma relies on it for magic, as well.

Before Sigma can ask Valor any questions, Valor drops his many overcoats and slices into his gray skin. His blood is still red. Despite being children of the gods, they both bleed the same color. 

“Drink,” Valor commands. He holds up his forearm. 

Sigma’s heart beats faster, rushing more blood through him. “Thank you.”

It takes a few seconds for him to bring his mouth to Valor’s arm. He wraps a hand around Valor’s wrist to hold it in place, though he doesn’t need to. The blood tastes like any other. Like licking a blade, like heat, like life. Valor’s blood coats his tongue and slips down his throat to bring the heat into his being.

Valor watches him with his dark eyes. His thick white hair is ruffled from a day’s travel. He doesn’t seem to be reacting to anything, stone-faced as always.

“What does it feel like?” Experiment #24’s voice rumbles from beside Sigma.

Sigma pulls his mouth from Valor’s arm. “Like life,” he says. He licks the blood from his mouth, then wipes it with his hand. It looks so strange against the green of his skin. The sunlight has made him darken up into a bright green like fresh leaves. “Blood rests heavy on the tongue.”

Synopsis: After living all his short life devoutly praising Bezglaz, the goddess of lifeblood, Sigma is sent to collect an important relic of hers. He and his recently-hired escort, an ex-soldier named Valor, embark on the journey together. Along the way, Sigma experiences the world outside of his "family" of mothers, and further tracks down the location of the relic.

Logline: A man is sent on a journey to find an important religious relic for his family and returns with far more than asked for.

Literal logline: Green boy goes on collection quest to find a relic, gets his life #rekt.

Setting: Zuryev, a wet country on the middle-eastern part of Uuve.

Characters

Images courtesy of Crowsen’s tiefling picrew.

(Image Description: A thin, green-skinned man with a long, sharp face and small horns that curl in. He has brown eyes and long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. He is smiling a sharp smile. His shirt is black.)

Sigma is a young half-daimon raised by his many mothers to be a devout worshipper of Bezglaz. He doesn't have much experience with the world outside of his family, but he does have a strong belief in his own abilities and in the strength of his cause. Despite his sheltered upbringing, Sigma is charismatic and upbeat, if a bit strange.

(Image Description: A gray-skinned man with a stubble-covered square jawline. He has a large nose, half-open eyes, and a scar that curls around the bottom of his left eye. His white hair is shaggy. He wears a black coat with a fur collar.)

Valor is an ex-soldier and child of the gods who has left his home country. Quiet, worldly, and strong, he provides a contrast and escort for Sigma as he travels into the world. He is quick to anger and doesn't particularly get along with Experiment #24.

(Image ID: A man with colorless skin and stringy blond hair. His long, geometric face is covered in long scars. His eyes are brown, scalera yellowed. He seems unamused. His high-collared shirt is black.)

Experiment #24 is a strange man who is currently studying under his doctor father to follow in his footsteps. He is a naive person who is deeply fascinated by the body and enjoys dissecting it. Sigma likes him quite a lot.

Tag List

Thanks Larkspur! I'll be using my WIP Greenest to answer these.

Pyrite: Could the antagonist and protagonist ever be friends?

Oh absolutely! Bezglaz is incredibly manipulative, and Sigma already looks up to her as a mother figure.

Labradorite: What made you fall in love with your wip? What motivates you to write it?

This one is a fun one, because Greenest has changed so much from its inception. Originally, it was going to be a story about three evil characters making each other deeply worse. The idea was to challenge myself to write a story where the reader thought Sigma was the hero but he ended up being the villain.

And then I started writing Sigma, and I found out that it's nearly impossible for me to make a character completely evil. Sigma's just... a young man who has grown up in a cult and doesn't really get that he's worshipping a goddess of necromancy and death.

I couldn't really make Valor or Experiment #24 evil, either. They're also people who have just experienced a lot of hardships that made them tough. (X has never really been evil, just naive and easily-influenced by others. He just likes cutting people open.)

“There’s no need for violence,” Dr. Von Stromm says, his voice calm and steady. He rests his hand on his stand of tools, straightening his head. His hair doesn’t obscure his bandages well enough; blood soaks through them in an odd circular shape, as though there’s a gaping hole beneath them.

“Valor, how do you know—”

“Because I’m a child of the gods,” Valor says, louder than necessary.