Villains’ Character Castle
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Villains are a whole different breed from other characters. I thought it’d be interesting, and possibly even profitable to get a buncha villains into a normal town, similar to the Character Castle except there are already inhabitants and we’ll see how our villains conquer the place or abuse the people or set up warring factions.
This is essentially an add-on to the original Character Castle rules which are:
1. Any character is welcome, hero or villain, incomplete or fully developed.
2. Characters may enter or leave the castle at the writer’s choice.
3. The castle is meant to test your characters so all actions within Forum Guideline are allowed. However, certain crimes may incur the wrath of the castle’s guardians. Villains beware.
4. The number of active characters shall be no more than 10 to allow writers to easily keep up with who is in.
5. Invent rooms at will. The castle’s floor plan changes at random so if you can’t remember the map, who cares.
6. Going beyond the castle’s outer ramparts is impossible. This is to limit the size to a degree and encourage character interaction.
7. Have fun.
New rules are as follows:
1. You can have lackeys but only one main villain at a time.
2. Heroes are welcome, villains are even more welcome (: Antiheroes, dark heroes or aggressive/non-social equip characters are great too!
3. Villains are villain I do expect them to be violent and/or somewhat inappropriate. Don’t worry about it too much, just remember they will be brought to justice (Not! :D).
4. Internal politics in the castle are VERY welcome. Please invent a culture, hierarchy and/or intrigue for castle if desired. (pleeeeease). In fact if your story has political intrigue you can infuse it here. No pressure tho…
5. I know characters transported to odd places tend to want to get home, buuuut I really wanna see multiple villains conquest for power. Transport as many element of your story as you need to keep them here or moving forward.
6. Characters within the town belong to the castle, meaning they are common property for any writer to work with in any scene. You may invent as many townspeople as you want. Their responses are dependent on whoever gets to them first, meaning you can jump another villain’s deal/arrangement by manipulating castle characters’ responses. You can hijack other peoples’ scenes while they talk to townspeople.
7. I’m the castle. The castle can drop anything in at any moment 😛
8. All rules are invalid if you can break them spectacularly.To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
Do you want us to put a description of our character before we start writing?
"Remember, you go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you." - Rev. Peter R. Hale
@skylarynn
Absolutely, or if you want you can leave us to learn about your characters as you show them. Either way is good and welcome here! 🙂To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
Rowan glared at the paling sky. The sun always rose at inopportune times, it seemed. Still, the sunlight was useful, and she would need it to navigate this godforsaken place. She still did not know how she had arrived in the miserable little village, only that she had gone to sleep in the barracks and woken here. A sneer curled her lip upwards. The village was better than the stocks she supposed.
But what she was most interested in was the great castle and high cobbled wall surrounding the village.
Rowan strode purposefully past the villagers as they went about their mornings and ignored the stares and murmurs. They were probably commenting on her lofty pointed ears, or perhaps her heavy black armor and the cold iron sword at her side. It didn’t matter. Their thoughts were not worthy of her concern.
She came to the keep tower and the heavy oaken door leading inwards. The knocker was brass, ornately designed to resemble a roaring lion. Rowan smirked. No doubt a paltry attempt by the castle’s lord to show their supremacy. Humans. Such petty beings.
Rowan did not bother to knock, instead throwing the door wide with a well-placed kick. The antechamber was spacious, lined with doorways and lit with braziers every few yards. Yet it was completely barren of furniture or staff. No couriers bustled back in forth, no knights reporting to their lord, no serfs bringing grievances.
The tall elf smiled. There was something vicious about it. Time to speak with the lord of this castle.
(Rowan isn’t actually a villain in the urban fantasy story she comes from, but I thought it would be interesting to explore her if she had given into resentment instead of discipline)
"Remember, you go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you." - Rev. Peter R. Hale
Dak, the youngest boy in a family of five stares at a stranger striding across the street too busy for him to bother her. She had odd pointed ears and dressed like a warrior. The boy ran off the tell his parents and everyone he passed. It wasn’t every day they were met with newcomers to the village.
Vikky, the washerwoman murmured with her friends about this wild woman on into town. Pretty soon wild scandals were veered upon. What was a lady doing in armor? What had she done to her ears? Who was she to come into a peaceful town dressed like that?
Smoking a good pipe on the edge of his field, Tayl is interrupted by nearly a whole crowd shouting and complaining to him, he couldn’t quite make the words. He was the wise unofficial counselor of the village and the villagers came to him to settle their petty disputes more often than not.
“Ho whoa! What’s all this ruckus for folks, what are you bustin’ up my corn husks and knockin’ my potato field down for?” The reply was overlapping shouts he could barely catch wind of. ‘There’s a wild woman we seen ‘er!’ ‘Is she evil?’ ‘Haven’t had a stranger since the last Choosing’
“Ho whoa, one at a time! Everyone calm down, this is alright. We’ll just have to see what the Castle Oaken Door decides.”When the elf put her hands on the brass knocker the wood gave an internal quiver. This was a foreigner to be tested. Its lion design tingles rippling through the hallow magic halls, glaring curiously at the stranger. Flicker, whoosh! The lights puffed out, most of them except to along a trail to the highchamber with the weird ornate chair in the center. No one was entirely sure what it did but it was in no way normal.
( @skylarynn
Any interpretation goes btw. Have fun (: )To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
Rowan eyed the chamber warily as the braziers extinguished. Clearly there was some form of magic at work in the castle. Though a magical being herself, Rowan had no particular desire to tangle with a powerful mage. Her skill lied in her sword, not in her spellcraft.
The elf’s thoughts were interrupted by the creaking of the heavy oaken door swinging closed on its hinges. Rowan quickly turned around and tried to reopen it, but there was no knob or handle, only smooth wood. Wood she was now sure was enchanted against whatever magical means she may have of reopening it. Cautiously, the elf turned around once more and followed the braziers that remained lit. They led up a stair to a grand chamber with a vaulted ceiling and towering windows that let in great blinding shafts of light. At the far end of the chamber, centered on a dais, was a high-backed chair intricately carved out of wood. Yew wood.
Yew meant death, Rowan knew that. All fae knew that. She did not like that throne, she did not like the chamber it resided in. Suddenly Rowan felt as though entering this castle unbidden and unwelcomed was a dangerous mistake. The castle – or whatever unseen mage guided it – wanted Rowan to sit in that throne. Yet she had a feeling to do so would mean death of some nature.
“What is this place?” she whispered, still staring at the carven throne. She did not hear the door open behind her.
_______________
Sounds like Rowan’s in for a ride…
Also feel free to run with any possibility for what opened the door. A gust of wind, a castle occupant (visible or not), a small murderous gnome…
"Remember, you go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you." - Rev. Peter R. Hale
@skylarynn
Gotta say I love with the wood symbolism 🙂 !With a quiet creak the door skidded open as soft as crinkling paper.
Tip tap…
Tip tap…
Through her eyes the elf was tall and wraithlike webbed with letters and words across pages sliced with twisted imprints of psyche. Well, I say her eyes but they were blindfolded and she was seeing through the paranormal vibrations in the wall listening to the internal organs, heart rate, breathing pattern, muscular tension. The elf’s back was turned, her pulse quivering into the floor through to her toes. Tip tap, her footsteps barely thumped the corner of the dias.
Suddenly the elf whirled around at her; a circular whoosh over a waxed floor, tightening her muscles to dash her weapon to hand. But there was only a little girl barely as tall as her knee who smiled up shyly through the blindfold.
“Can I have a drink of water?” she asked, blinking the white cloth tickling her nose. Her bare toes felt along the floor to feel her response.To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
Hello dearest little sister of mine. Do you trust me?
~#~#~#~
The Warning and Message moaned. Joints creaked as they raised ponderously into the air.
The land around them was abandoned. Useless. No cure here.
They rolled thousands of electric-blue eyes, peering, hoping…
Dare they say praying?
Yes, they do.
They prayed with mind not heart. They had no heart. Not anymore.
The wind keened. The clouds opened. The sunlight slipped through. It was almost magical.
They did not like magical. Magical took their identity: name, memories, life, body, EVERYTHING.
But that instant – it was beautiful.
They took a ponderous step forward. The mountain – crushing their back, sneaking roots through their chest, replacing whatever heart they once had – swayed slightly. A hican fell – crashing down their’s side, splintering when it finally hit ground. It had been loosening for years – It was finally gone.
They wished the mountain was too.
Every night, the mountain was heavier. Every shift between this form and the Little One made the truth – more crushing than the mountain – more obvious.
They were dying.
The Warning and Message took another slow step forward.
For hundreds of years they searched for a place to rest.
For hundreds of years they searched for a cage for the curse.
For hundreds of years they searched – and failed.
Thousands of eyes peered through thick wrinkles. The Warning and Message stepped and stepped slowly: hundreds of sharp legs lift, a ripple of forward movement, hundreds of legs fell, another ripple of forward movement.
Then, suddenly, a flash.
A noise in the earth.
A deep – bone deep, no.
No soul deep tone, smell, taste, blast of magic.
A beacon.
A hope.
“Another like me.” was the thought.
“Another cursed.”
“Another attracting”
“Another WARNING.”
They turned slowly to the right. Thousands of eyes converged. 16 minds yearned. HOPE. Brighter than the sun that the Little One with two eyes and one mind couldn’t see.
It was distant. A spot of red to eyes that only saw shades of green. Magic.
The Warning and Message had a clear direction for the first time in 600 years.
And they welcomed it.
~#~#~#~
Okay, the mood I was going for is opening credit scene: you have RelevantMusicTM playing and a slow taking in of the scene. I want to invoke the feel of a slow, deep, looming music with bits of Gregorian chant sprinkled in.
Can someone tell me if I was even close?
Also @this-is-not-an-alien, your quest for trouble is physically tangible. Are you challenging me?
When life knocks you down, wait 'til it passes over you and then attack it from behind.
Rowan stared at the little blindfolded girl for a moment, the fear of the yew throne slowly draining from her. She was in control of this moment. The tall elf crouched down on level with the girl and unfastened her gauntlets at the wrist, slipping them off her hands and setting it down on the floor. She chose to ignore the girl’s question for the moment – Rowan did have a canteen on her but she was not inclined to grant favors to unknown entities – and instead gently took the girl’s tiny hand in hers. “Just who might you be?” she asked, trying to slip a friendly inflection into her tone.
“Faeryn,” she answered.
Rowan reflexively smiled for the child’s benefit, near-immediately dropping it since the girl was either blind or merely blindfolded. “You know what that means, don’t you?” she asked with manufactured sweetness. Rowan knew what it meant. Rowan would rather the girl’s name be something else, something less…fey.
Faeryn shook her head. “What does it mean?”
The elf tried to force a smile into her voice. “It means ‘gift from the fairies’.”
“Oh,” the girl said. She sounded happy about it. “What’s your name?”
“Rowan,” Rowan answered sincerely. Giving her real name may not have been wise, but she was proud of it. It was the name given to her by her parents, and she wasn’t going to give that blackguard the satisfaction of dropping her name.
“Rowan is a pretty name,” said Faeryn. “What does it mean?”
The elf smiled, genuinely this time. “It means courage, and protection.” Her free hand subconsciously went to her neck where the small cross of rowan twigs bound in red thread hung on a braided cord. The cord had been found with her when she was left at the gate as an infant. It had never left her neck. Rowan; the perfect name for a soldier, his words echoed in her head. Rowan quashed the thought. I am not and never will be your soldier. Not even if you struck me until I couldn’t stand and my blood ran true green.
“Are you a knight?” Faeryn asked, disrupting Rowan’s thoughts.
Rowan opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. “Weren’t you thirsty?” she asked, pulling the canteen from her pack. “Here.” The elf handed her the unstoppered canteen.
__________
Feel free to either let Faeryn be distracted by the water or to push the question. Also I hope Rowan’s backstory has you all intrigued now 😀 .
"Remember, you go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you." - Rev. Peter R. Hale
Do you trust me?
Absolutely not 🙂 WELCOME TO MY DOMAIN MWHAHAHAHA!!!
“Here.” Faeryn felt a canteen slipped into her fingers. Dead. The wood had no life like the castle. Carefully she sipped the cool water that tasted not quite the same. Rowan. An interesting name for an interesting person, or elf; her footsteps were lighter than humans’.
“Are you going to stay for long?” She asked touching the floor with her toes to the throne whose wood tingled more than the walls. Either she forgot or chose not to return the canteen as the climbed up the chair and flopped down. “Are you a knight?”
Although she couldn’t see it, Faeryn sensed the seat glow faintly at her touch, a darkish red almost immersing her molecules in a burning fluttery sensation. But otherwise it did nothing to her. Except make her look very small in comparison.Also @this-is-not-an-alien, your quest for trouble is physically tangible. Are you challenging me?
Me?? Would I do a thing like that??? 😛
love your scene imagery btw 😉To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
Is it alright I of I join?? 🙂
(If I can can someone please give me a quick run down of how it works? I think I’ve got i but idk for sure. Sorry, I’m sure it’s odd for me to want to join without knowing whatbto do exactly.)
Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you ever know who would love the person you hide.
Of course you can join! 🙂 We would love to have you.
The rules are at the top, but in brief you can only plop one character into this castle. All characters are welcome, but we intend to lean more towards villains – or at least antagonists – in this castle. Ultimately, only ten people with a single character each are allowed, so there is plenty of room for you!
Hope you have fun writing!
When life knocks you down, wait 'til it passes over you and then attack it from behind.
Ok, cool. Thanks!
So I just start with my villain’s description then him entering the castle, right?
Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you ever know who would love the person you hide.
Yep! Can’t wait to see him! (Well, read about him. 😉 )
When life knocks you down, wait 'til it passes over you and then attack it from behind.
One of my villains from my fantasy is an evil scientist named Dr. Dominic. He tries to take over his home kingdom by poisoning his cousin and his family AKA as the royal family.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Dominic stood at the wooden door to his room. A disgusted look covered his face, for the sight he had just seen disturbed him greatly. An elf? He thought. Surely that is not what I saw. Coming back to reality, he he opened his door and walked into his room. Laying a large pile of books including The Secret Butterfly Garden and The Little Monarche. He sat down on his bed and fell back into his thoughts. Why was the elf wearing armor? Is it planning on attacking? Surely not…. Not if I have anything to say about it.</p>Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you ever know who would love the person you hide.
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