Re: CS1 Castle by the Sea
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:19 am
I don't have an issue with the Dexterity requirement; rather, I'm having a hard time envisioning Dwarves participating in typical "barbarian" culture, as typified in the Conan stories.
But beyond that, my main thing is: how did all those dwarf women end up following a human woman? And how did a human woman from the nobility become a barbarian?
... okay, here's my breakdown of the situation:
1) You have to be raised as part of a barbarian culture in order to be a barbarian; you don't learn those skills casually.
2) Given that, a woman of the nobility becoming a barbarian would mean she became one as a girl. There are two obvious interpretations: (a) she was kidnapped, or (b) she ran away from home.
3) We already know she really doesn't like men. There must be a reason for that. If we accept 2(b) above, i.e. she ran away, we could say that she ran away because she was being abused by a man. But she really hates men, so perhaps she was abused by a man, and when she reported her abuse to another man, he refused to believe her.
Scenario: Abused by her uncle, she told her mother; her mother told her father, who called young Dawnivia on the carpet (so to speak) and chastised her for lying. Perhaps he even laughed at her accusation, that his brother did anything inappropriate to her.
So she ran away, and joined a band of barbarians. This would indicate that her father's territory is on the borderlands of the kingdom; the barbarians might be hillmen, or something of the sort. (This becomes relevant later.)
She encounters barbarian women doing chores, drawing water from a stream perhaps, and she tells them her story. They comfort her and tell her that she may remain with them for as long as she wants.
It is very unlikely that these barbarian women do not have husbands at all. For barbarians, family units are the main political entity; whether the culture is matriarchal or patriarchal, you need both sexes or you don't get another generation.
But Dawnivia really hates men. So let us say that she was rather shy of the barbarian men. Not surprising, considering what she went through. Before she had a chance to overcome the emotional damage of her experiences, the clan which sheltered her was attacked by a rival clan. This group, being mortal enemies of Dawnivia's adopted clan, wiped out the men and took what women they could handle as slaves, with young, pretty Dawnivia among them.
That about covers it... after that series of experiences, I can imagine how Dawnivia might hate men as much as she seems to. Any rational adult in a medieval world would understand that, like it or not, both sexes are needed. You can't just wipe one out. But a teenaged girl abused repeatedly would not be all that likely to grow up into a rational woman.
So she did grow up, surviving the abuse, and learned the ways of the barbarians. When she finally escaped into the forest, she was competent to survive on her own.
It would be at this point that she fell in with the dwarves. But I am at a loss to explain them... anyone care to try?
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Having written all that, I have to say that we would need to cut down the descriptive text. This material is a bit adult for our target audience. I would write out her history in such a way that the abuse angle would not be explicit; easy enough for a savvy reader to understand, of course.
I'd still like to see Noah's response, of course.
But beyond that, my main thing is: how did all those dwarf women end up following a human woman? And how did a human woman from the nobility become a barbarian?
... okay, here's my breakdown of the situation:
1) You have to be raised as part of a barbarian culture in order to be a barbarian; you don't learn those skills casually.
2) Given that, a woman of the nobility becoming a barbarian would mean she became one as a girl. There are two obvious interpretations: (a) she was kidnapped, or (b) she ran away from home.
3) We already know she really doesn't like men. There must be a reason for that. If we accept 2(b) above, i.e. she ran away, we could say that she ran away because she was being abused by a man. But she really hates men, so perhaps she was abused by a man, and when she reported her abuse to another man, he refused to believe her.
Scenario: Abused by her uncle, she told her mother; her mother told her father, who called young Dawnivia on the carpet (so to speak) and chastised her for lying. Perhaps he even laughed at her accusation, that his brother did anything inappropriate to her.
So she ran away, and joined a band of barbarians. This would indicate that her father's territory is on the borderlands of the kingdom; the barbarians might be hillmen, or something of the sort. (This becomes relevant later.)
She encounters barbarian women doing chores, drawing water from a stream perhaps, and she tells them her story. They comfort her and tell her that she may remain with them for as long as she wants.
It is very unlikely that these barbarian women do not have husbands at all. For barbarians, family units are the main political entity; whether the culture is matriarchal or patriarchal, you need both sexes or you don't get another generation.
But Dawnivia really hates men. So let us say that she was rather shy of the barbarian men. Not surprising, considering what she went through. Before she had a chance to overcome the emotional damage of her experiences, the clan which sheltered her was attacked by a rival clan. This group, being mortal enemies of Dawnivia's adopted clan, wiped out the men and took what women they could handle as slaves, with young, pretty Dawnivia among them.
That about covers it... after that series of experiences, I can imagine how Dawnivia might hate men as much as she seems to. Any rational adult in a medieval world would understand that, like it or not, both sexes are needed. You can't just wipe one out. But a teenaged girl abused repeatedly would not be all that likely to grow up into a rational woman.
So she did grow up, surviving the abuse, and learned the ways of the barbarians. When she finally escaped into the forest, she was competent to survive on her own.
It would be at this point that she fell in with the dwarves. But I am at a loss to explain them... anyone care to try?
--------------------------
Having written all that, I have to say that we would need to cut down the descriptive text. This material is a bit adult for our target audience. I would write out her history in such a way that the abuse angle would not be explicit; easy enough for a savvy reader to understand, of course.
I'd still like to see Noah's response, of course.