Just in one of those random moods because I just finished the absolute first draft of Shadowhawk (at least that's the tentative title...) It's still in the post-writing cleanup 1 stage but Part 3 (tentative title either Abendstern or Two Souls) is also coming together. Let's just say right now, I'm standing in combat with a brave hero whose hatred of the spindly grey alien-like shape-shifting creatures known as the S'vartalf is so strong that it might eventually rival her undying love for her fiancee...
Angharradh Shadowhawk was originally a rebel hero my D&D party was supposed to help, but they ultimately decided to work against her and I thought the idea was so amusing that I just kept running it. One of the things the party wanted to do was to "un-mask" her because there were several likely candidates running around, all being described as being a holy crusader with an unusually strong bond with nature. I enjoyed this semi-invisible nemesis so much that I thought a story involving her in some form another was well worth it. She draws upon many sources of inspiration, including the Knights of Solamnia (especially Sturm Brightblade) in Dragonlance, Nausicaa from Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, random tidbits of Native American and Celtic folklore, Robin Hood, Moses from the Ten Commandments, and Prince Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke. Despite her outlaw status, she always maintains a sense of honor and follows her ideals and urges her followers to do the same. In the Morgenstern epic, she comes back to life after thousands of years of being trapped in a cave as a sentient statue and she's ready to leave a pretty good claymore-sized mark in history again...
Firianna Celethorn, the Champion of the Clawed Fury, was once an MIT alum who majored in physics and has no real D&D analogue, although a few of my fellow D&D players were convinced that the "postal half-elf archer with the hawk mask and feather cloak that turned into wings and the twin scimitars" who kept plaguing them semi-randomly in the chaparral could've been her. Although she rarely shows up for long, her influence does show up from other characters talking about her and seeing the aftermath of her decisive leadership and fierce fighting abilities. Originally she was a warrior-priest for Cylithera, but she was the first to follow Iliiryana when disagreements grew between the former high priestess and the Eternal Huntress herself. At this point, she's the main leader of the Clawed Fury's forces in the "mortal" world and is usually the brains behind most operations, although her two lieutenants, also former students who fell under her sway, are also very intelligent and capable fighters. The earliest incarnation of her was more of that of a quiet soldier of above-average combat ability who only gets attention when she achieves things even her superiors would never be expected to pull off. It is rumored that one day, she will fall at the hands of someone she had defeated in combat previously. Inspirations for creating her include various evil drow characters (eg. Malice Do'Urden and Triel Baenre) in R.A. Salvatore's Dark Elf novels, Darth Vader, the Baroness from the G.I. Joe series, and Kushana from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
And now... time to make sure dinner hasn't over-cooked. Whoever coined the phrase that a watched pot never boils is right. My corollary: an un-watched pot will always boil over or worse.
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