Scarburg Meadhall Discussion Thread

[Nogrod]

Thanks Firefoot for the update on the characters! It is going to be really helpful!

And your concern with the momentum is a quite an important thing to pay heed to.

Originally Posted by Snowdog

Right. Lots of details here. You all get the scene and setting placed and I'll bring in my one Rohirrim character I have into the Mead Hall and will work with whatever you put out there.

That's the spirit!

And like Legate said, nothing prevents people from starting to build posts already - or posting them - if they have pressing stuff for their characters they'd love to move forwards like now and not a bit later.


I'm sorry Firefoot for using the 's' after the word 'month' - I wasn't really thinking it would take monthS to get this rolling (I was kind of joking on it), but it will most probably take a few weeks - and maybe a month - to really get everyone into the same map - and to decide what kind of map it actually is where we start / continue from...


~*~

There are a few things to do to help things get rolling.

We sould find out which of the old writers would be willing to come back. Of those who have not yet shown their presence I think the most important one would be Folwren as she has the ownership of some really major characters.

Should I sent her a PM / an Fb note - or would fex. lmp be willing to contact her? (She's taking a trip to Europe on June and we Finns are going to meet her around the Midsummers' eve-time, but that would be pretty late to start discussing this; it also means she's probably not able to post a lot in June anyway but that should not be a problem if she wishes to continue writing her characters, they could just be a little more inactive for some time)


All other "old writers" should also declare which of their characters they'd like to continue writing (some of us seem to have quite a bunch of characters) or if they'd like to write all of them, or even introduce more - or if they'd like to keep the character around but would be willing to turn it into a NPC or are just ready to kill the character? You should use Firefoot's list for that.

Also we'd need to have a rough outline of things going on during our jump so that people could start really thinking about their characters. (I'll speculate about it shortly just a few rows downwards.)


And naturally the new writers should think about their characters and maybe express their intents about them... I mean having seven "damsels in distress" coming into the Mead Hall and no other kind of new characters would be a bad idea. Or well, who knows?

And we'd need to make a short synopsis / general updated outline of the Mead Hall for the new writers to read as it is probably too much requiring them to read some 100 pages from the early first Mead Hall onwards...


~*~

A general timeline should also be decided - at least the most central things that would affect everyone one way or another.

How about a following scenario?

NB. The years given can be concentrated if the majority thinks 5 years would be too much...


1# year

The Mead Hall was more or less built within a year after we left writing the story (I think it was not yet ready when we ceased writing and there were some major things to do & to change according to Athanar's plans). Saeryn will give birth.

The things settled down a bit even if there were some occasional rifts and a few people were given minor penalties by lord Athanar's court because of misbehaviour.

The local lords were licking their wounds and having their own internal power-struggles so they were not able or willing to cause any trouble.


2# year

There could then have been a period of a lot of travelers the next year because of king Aragorn's trip, and the local lords would have been nice and relaxed as there were a lot of folk around & revenue to be made etc. A year of prosperity and relationships getting better within the Mead Hall.


3# year

The year of problems in the east. With king Eomer's muster also the Mead Hall would have been forced to give away a host of soldiers - both lord Eodwine's and lord Athanar's men (more of the latter as Athanar rode in with a larger host of active-duty soldiers).

It might even be lord Athanar would have been summoned by king Eomer to lead a force of rohirrim from those parts of Rohan (as king Eomer knew that Eodwine was getting better but not well enough to lead cavalry into a battle - but he trusted Eodwine would nevertheless be in good condition enough to run the hall). At least Athanar's sons would be summoned...

Local lords are called for as well (under the command of Athanar?) and so they are not doing any plotting or things like that this year.


4# year

The killer-winter -year (I'd prefer a harsh winter to a plague, but if most people think plague is better I'm fine with it).

Understaffed the Mead Hall suffers greatly because of the winter. Other local lords / their farmsteads suffer as well. Everyone suffers as death walks around randomly here and there.

Here we get rid of characters no one will be writing any more.



5# year

The end of the fell winter... This might also be the place we start our writing!

A nice place for the new characters to join the Mead Hall - refugees, wanderers, travelers... caught up by the harsh winter and trying to find shelter / been kicked out of former shelters, coming back from the war in the east etc.

Lord Athanar could be dead - or maybe promoted to a Field Marshal, or given a new eorlship... whatever. But we'd be rid of him from the story. Those left behind of Athanar's men could be ordered by king Eomer to stay under the command of Eodwine... and maybe one or two of his sons would join the Mead Hall after the battles...


How about something along these lines?

[Firefoot]

I'm sorry Firefoot for using the 's' after the word 'month' - I wasn't really thinking it would take monthS to get this rolling (I was kind of joking on it), but it will most probably take a few weeks - and maybe a month - to really get everyone into the same map - and to decide what kind of map it actually is where we start / continue from...

I probably overreacted... but it was certainly galvanizing. I'll be on vacation not this week but next week anyway, and doing a lot of backpacking/camping so I guess I'm not in a huge rush - maybe set a goal of definitely be writing by June?

I'm a lot less concerned with the exact sequence of events in the interim than the amount of time - Leof will keep doing his thing with the horses (he'd be pretty useless in a battle) - and actually, Scyld's not really a fighter either even if he didn't have his own thing going on so that all looks great to me

I would facebook Folwren - she hasn't logged into the Downs since we got it back and probably doesn't know we're starting again, if she's at all interested. lmp has also gone conspicuously absent, though I'm wondering if he's on vacation based on his facebook page as well...

[Galadriel55]

I apologize for the brevity, but I'm posting from a phone and it's a pain in the patience. I think the killer winter is great, and the timeline is quite fine as well. Just a question - are we going to briefly summarize these years in one post, or maybe pick a moment for each year and pause to make a few posts so that characters can "update" themselves? I would be for the latter case - it wouldn't slow us down too much, if we avoid too much interaction and make the posts more self-reflective than seeking subplots, but it would give the chance to show occasional character development in addition to overall changes. Maybe just a glimpse of a couple main characters per year.

I suppose on the other hand, if you want your character to start being 5 years older already, that's not exactly a perfect plan. But even so, it would probably be nice to fex hear Athanar's goodbye speech, or Stigend's/Garstan's thoughts at having completed the Mead Hall.

So what do you think?

[Nogrod]

I kind of like the idea of some intermediary posts being built up before we go forwards.

I think it would fall on me and/or lmp to come up with the kind of "official jump post" shortly outlining what has happened in a general level - but we could of course break that up into four to five very short descriptions to which others could add something for their own characters if they felt a need for it before we post the "next year" etc.

Let's think about that as well.

I see no reason why we wouldn't be writing this in June, but having this going full steam already in May I'm more sceptical about.

[Thinlómien]

I sent Eönwë a message since he just posted on the new ww admin thread.

Nogrod's outline looks good to me, but I wouldn't mind compromising for a shorter time jump if that's what the majority wants. Personally, I quite like 5 years.

Now that I'm thinking of it, I think I want to keep writing Wilheard, and poor Wulfric can be dead. It should make things interesting.

Modtryth then... to be frank, I don't think there's that much in her that I'd find interesting to explore, and I feel like she's very archetypal female character written by Ms Lommy back in 2000-whatever, and creating some huge drama for her just to make it more interesting would feel a little fabricated. So I'm thinking I could keep her as secondary character, writing for her when it's relevant for other characters' plots and offering her to be used as an NPC whenever people need one of the household servant women to do this or that. A lot depends on how many active kitchen wench/ maid/ random household servant woman characters are we going to have, because if all the others are going to be NPCs/ carry-along characters again there's little reason for me to write Modtryth super actively either. And I'm not entirely opposed to killing her off for the sake of drama...

As for Cnebba, I look forward to seeing him grown up a little. I think me and Nogrod's arrangement of sharing the character worked really well in the past, and I think we can continue that. OR if Nogrod - who has been writing Cnebba more recently - has a vision what to do with the character, I'm also content in taking the back seat and grabbing the pop corn and seeing what happens to the poor little boy.

So, in short, will my characters be around?

Wilheard - yes (now with added trauma; and probably also completed soldier training - he was only 17 and now he's going to be 20 or 22)
Wulfric - nope, RIP
Modtryth - yes, as a secondary character (?????)
Cnebba - yes, whatever the actual writing arrangement between me and Nog

I also think people should revise/update/rewrite the character bios for the old characters to make it easier - especially for the new players - to orientate (plus in some cases *coughthinlómiencough* correct some lousy grammar - I didn't think my English used to be any worse than it is now but apparently I was wrong... )

[Nogrod]

I think we old writers should all make the kind of short "what I have in mind" -post Lommy just made.


So for my part I'd say Athanar will be off to fresh adventures.


With Stigend I have quite similar thoughts Lommy has with Modryth. It might be quite a tragedy if Cnebba was orphaned by the terrible winter, but I'm not sure it would be good drama as the closest person to him would be Garstan and his children - and they have no active writer.

So I'd say we (myself and Lommy) should continue co-writing Cnebba and we could bring both Stigend and Modryth into the story via his character, and of course if there is some need to add their voices independently of Cnebba's POV then we'd do it. I mean you never know when you need a staple hand around.

If we seem to be in need of characters to die in the terrible winter, then I'd say we could come up with a mix from Stigend and Modryth & Cnebba + Garstan & Garmund and Leothern. They were close friends both adults and kids and the remaining ones would naturally fall on each other's support if something terrible happened. But without Celuien I'm not sure we'd like to write at least any high drama just on our own...


That said I see myself quite free of any strong obligations (Athanar is off, Stigend will lay back and Cnebba is a co-written character).

So I might want to do something of the following...

My first idea is - has been basically from when I realised the Mead Hall would be back - to start taking care of the local lords (they're more or less my creations after all), especially if we decide they're going to play a role in the plots defining the Mead Hall's future. That would probably include less writing in the thread but more thinking and planning outside it. I might find that task very interesting indeed.

And it might actually end up including more writing in the thread as I have an idea that one of them at least might be a regular visitor soon enough. But I need to go back to those characters some time soon and see in more detail what I could do with them (I have ideas as to what kind of characters they were and how their relations were but I do not remember the details well enough to spell anything out quite yet).

Secondly. If we're going to have several new characters in the Hall I'd rather not add a new one to the mix, but I could think of picking up someone already in the Mead Hall no one writes - like who was this bad tongued old guy I think I wrote about whose task it was to teach Javan as a punishment (a punishment to Javan, not to him )? Or maybe one of Athanar's soldiers left in the Mead Hall (like leaving someone alongside Hilderinc that was actually written by someone)? Talking of which: unless Durelin comes back and says she wants to write Coenred, then Coenred should go with Athanar.

[Galadriel55]

Well, I'm not an old writer by any stretch, but I was planning on killing off one of my characters during the winter. I am still debating whose reaction I would rather write about, but I was leaning towards one of them, and if Cnebba is to be orphaned then my choice is clear. The tyke is gonna go. And when that's gonna happen, Ledwyn will reveal something to someone - no idea who, I'm still thinking about that, it should be a person who wouldn't exactly spread a rumour but whose conscience would tell him to seek advice from other people and let half the Hall know. Or maybe not. Or maybe a random NPC. I wanted to do a different twist about Ledwyn's past, but I forgot how many details she already told Saeryn in the kitchen, so this one would have to do. And it would fit in with her character as well, since she's not exactly Scyld or Rowenna when it comes to those things.

I agree about Coen. It would make sense for Athanar to take his core men with him. And if Durelin comes back again, it would be possible to send Coen back to Scarburg on an errand, if she so chose.

I will update my character bios in the next couple days as Lommy suggested, if/when I get the moment.