Saw Dune 2 and X-Men '97 and felt inspired to resurrect this. Like all of my other prompts feel free to view everything you read down below as negotiable. If you like the vibes, that's enough for me.
I am an advanced/novella writer seeking GMs of similar background. When you message me include a writing sample or you're unlikely to receive anything in reply. My own will be provided shortly below; if others are interested, I've provided an opener that can be used or disregarded per my partner's wishes.
I must thank Raoul Peck, for, without him and his struggle for the recognition of exploitation and slaughter, this character, nor his story, would exist.
Extermination is an ideology with a quota.
When he came home with splintered fingers and sun-kissed skin from labor in the docks, Sylvan's brother would, with creaks in his bones, without fail, pick up the hand puppets he'd made and tell his baby brother his favorite story. A story about an island that knew only peace and abundance where a wolf and a lion loved one another very much. They did. They did.
Sylvan does not remember his brother, but he does remember the island, and the well he grew up in, and the love.
He had not always been a slave, nor did he know he was one when he was purchased, but when he and his brother were sold at a bargain auction, their terms were clear enough to his brother. Their master had them meet a monthly payment, else they would be shipped to one of his plantations to labor instead. Too young for work, his brother found a cramped, reeking well that he would be safe and surprisingly cozy in. Straw was easy to find, and though the antechamber leaked into the sewers, that only meant adventure for this boy. Toys, medicine, food, all were provided by his doting older brother who would spend as much time with him as he could before sleeping and working as a cook, in construction, painting, acting- whatever was necessary to pay their rent. When it wasn't enough, he'd find his gang of pickpockets and burglars, many of them other slaves given the same offer. When he painted, he'd spy inside windows and see silverware and luxury that would feed his brother for years. When he heard of a heist, of the money and bribes flowing inside the city and heard the commotion on the streets about mercenaries and professional pushers and thieves, they knew they would take part.
They had not expected it to the crown of the emperor.
Intoxicated and enraged as eight-thousand soldiers overturned the city, having ambushed and slaughtered those that had originally stolen it, Sylvan's brother realized he'd damned them: they had nowhere to turn with the property. Nobody would take it from them. Throwing it into the sewers in a fury, an ignorant Sylvan awaits his return, amazed when something shiny makes its way down into his home, putting it on his head to show the other children to play with.
Confused, stunned, and annoyed, when soldiers spot the small, dark-skinned boy playing king and ordering around his fellow street urchins all the whilst wearing the emperor's crown, they're quick to demand an explanation for him, striking him and quickly regretting their poor choice of target when Sylvan bites off the tip of his attacker's finger.
A nearby and amused baron intervenes on the boy's behalf, taking him and the crown into his protection to be presented to an enraged emperor who demands the boy's head. Unimpressed and encouraged by his wife that very same baron would throw his legendary reputation away to save Sylvan, purchasing him in a scandalous display that would cost him dearly, but in exchange buy the loyalty and adoration of one wily, strange little former slave. They would not stay long in the city, the baron's ownership of the boy dissolving the moment they reach his faraway home, freeing him in the shadow of a swaying corpse that hangs from the tallest tree.
Beautiful and cold, Sylvan will come to know over the years a troubled land whose people's only reward for their struggle is depopulation, a sluggish economy, and a pension program that will bankrupt them.
In an age of global commerce, imperialism, and gunpowder, a rapidly evolving vortex of politics and technology surrounds his plaguing new home. When his former master adopts Sylvan and names the boy his heir shortly before his death, it's not enough that Sylvan must overcome those that would deny his father's wishes and oust him from power. Ambition and God call out to him.
There are at least twenty million slaves in the world. Nothing less but a two-bit scoundrel will be enough to save them and slaughter their masters.
All of them.
EVERYONE HAS A FATE.
Brother - His name was Noah.
In the waste-clogged alleys and hellish inhumanities of the great city where Sylvan was a slave, he were not totally alone. He had a brother, a slave just like him, and he did all he could to keep Sylvan safe, fed, and happy. Sometimes he even succeeded.
Then Noah disappeared. Gone, lost in the urban hell. Without Lord Orys, Sylvan would have starved or worse. Ten years and two thousand miles separate him from the terrible place that stole away his brother, turning the dim memories into vapor, but still he remembers him.
And Noah remembers Sylvan. Love will be the death of him.
-=-
Host - Deep, deep below, he feels it.
Past the warmth in his gut, all sensation tapers away into nothing. Only rarely does it come out. It doesn’t seem like the demons from the stories, if it even is a demon. There is no cruelty that he's found, no vile treachery nor hunger for his soul. If he's lucky, it might even crack a joke with him.
Yet still, it remains. It saved him when he was buried into a cave by a snowstorm, giving him a warmth his body no longer had. It had him stuff goat cheese into the chef’s shoes, and the two of them both laughed at that one. It gets hungry when he see corpses, but neither of them talk about that.
It really is sorry they chose his body.
There are more details to this story than presented, and though all of them, including the story provided above, are open to be tossed away and disregarded per my partner's requests, I do believe they are the best presentation for the character I'm proposing the story surround. This is a story about a technologically 17th century, fictional setting. Politics, governance, economics, trade, warfare- if these things aren't your cup of tea, then this isn't the story for you. Risk of failure, death, injury, or any other natural results to Sylvan are entirely acceptable. I expect a challenging roleplay where Sylvan must be the clever man he thinks he is to survive this grand rags-to-riches tale he's put himself in. Down below will be a series of descriptions that add further insight and detail to Sylvan's origins. Thanks.
-=-
The boar is not dead, though to all the other hunters’ senses it is. It lays motionless on its side within the sled, tied down by rope with two arrows sticking discordantly out of its hide like seams of broken bone. Frozen blood pools in the cracked stomach of the sled, collecting rather than leaking now that red ice has sealed the wood. Poison leaching out of the arrowheads keeps the boar docile, and its breathing so light that only Sylvan can see. An ovate in too-thin robes shivers as she ties a garland of rosemary around the beast’s neck, murmuring prayers to the ancestors that they might find the kill worthy.
Winter has seized the land in its vise, its unending waves of cold and snow having transformed the Barony of Marlas into a crueler scape, one Sylvan doesn’t quite recognize. Tranquility abounds along the driven snow, all through the clearing, hiding the buried world and the woes of man but unable to snuff them out. Sylvan knows well what a mirage it is, the oppressive winters of his homeland no less savage than the bloodletting summers. The numbing cold does not soothe his aches, for he knows they’ll be worse come morning, come the thaw. Too soon this clearing will melt, its river gone from white to red, the whole Septima Line thrust back to war.
Baron Orys refuses to yield to midnight season, to accept its peace, and so from his great warhorse’s saddle he brazenly belts out a mixture of drunken lyrics and commands, determined to master this hunt even if he does not partake. An entourage on horseback spreads out in his orbit, ranging from eager young footmen to grizzled junkers, all in varying states of inebriation at his command. Their braying is nearly louder than the hounds’, who hungrily stalk between the sled and the hole they pulled the boar out from. Teased by the hunt but yet unrewarded, they’re too unruly to be kept in check by the kennel master.
On foot slog the unfortunates who actually have to take part in the hunt, Sylvan among them. They huddle into their hemp canvas cloaks, glancing up at the moody afternoon sky threatening to crack open with another snowstorm. Dark clouds sweep in low from the south like a riptide, a single vast current swept in from the mountains already menacing the Oldwoods. Its furthest gales reach them as tongues of vengeful cold, flecks of whipped-up snow biting into Sylvan’s exposed skin.
By the boar’s nest leans a typical Mallean, one of Sylvan’s two erstwhile comrades. Sigorn is tall, pale, broad, with the close-set, wide-boned features of a commoner, and a shock of red hair grown out to protect against the elements. Beneath his cloak he proudly bears his blood-flecked armor, each dent a Darkman put into it a point of dear pride. He’s not the only one, either, the clearing filled with dozens of youths whose first blooding ended in victory amid a blizzard. Baron Orys, deep into his cups after six days of nonstop celebration, saw a break in the storms and gladly called a hunt. When informed he could not go on account of his shattered knee - he simply grinned, and ordered himself tied to his saddle.
Sylvan remembers the moment his lord fell from the saddle, burned into his nerves. The screaming of horses, skidding hooves catching on the frozen ground. On the edges of his vision a rider smashes into a branch in the din, others don’t move at all for fear of the blizzard. His spurs dig, his borrowed steed whines, and he races for his lord - only for another to reach him first.
“What a woman.” Sigorn sighs beside Sylvan, craning his neck to look at one of their lord’s companions of honor. Susannah Oye junker unlike the others, a pretty, willowy noblewoman well into motherhood, with the lean, ruthless look of a ranger. Her two poisoned arrows are what struck the boar down, and her pride curls off her body like steam. Sigorn’s face cracks into exaggerated appreciation, and then he turns to their lord’s other honored companion. Another woman, this one as young as they are, haughtily-built and leering with none of Susannah’s refinement. Many of those looks are reserved for Sylvan, forced to slog on foot as just another hunter. “Anya too. I think she fancies you, eh?”
I am an advanced/novella writer seeking GMs of similar background. When you message me include a writing sample or you're unlikely to receive anything in reply. My own will be provided shortly below; if others are interested, I've provided an opener that can be used or disregarded per my partner's wishes.
I must thank Raoul Peck, for, without him and his struggle for the recognition of exploitation and slaughter, this character, nor his story, would exist.
Extermination is an ideology with a quota.
When he came home with splintered fingers and sun-kissed skin from labor in the docks, Sylvan's brother would, with creaks in his bones, without fail, pick up the hand puppets he'd made and tell his baby brother his favorite story. A story about an island that knew only peace and abundance where a wolf and a lion loved one another very much. They did. They did.
Sylvan does not remember his brother, but he does remember the island, and the well he grew up in, and the love.
He had not always been a slave, nor did he know he was one when he was purchased, but when he and his brother were sold at a bargain auction, their terms were clear enough to his brother. Their master had them meet a monthly payment, else they would be shipped to one of his plantations to labor instead. Too young for work, his brother found a cramped, reeking well that he would be safe and surprisingly cozy in. Straw was easy to find, and though the antechamber leaked into the sewers, that only meant adventure for this boy. Toys, medicine, food, all were provided by his doting older brother who would spend as much time with him as he could before sleeping and working as a cook, in construction, painting, acting- whatever was necessary to pay their rent. When it wasn't enough, he'd find his gang of pickpockets and burglars, many of them other slaves given the same offer. When he painted, he'd spy inside windows and see silverware and luxury that would feed his brother for years. When he heard of a heist, of the money and bribes flowing inside the city and heard the commotion on the streets about mercenaries and professional pushers and thieves, they knew they would take part.
They had not expected it to the crown of the emperor.
Intoxicated and enraged as eight-thousand soldiers overturned the city, having ambushed and slaughtered those that had originally stolen it, Sylvan's brother realized he'd damned them: they had nowhere to turn with the property. Nobody would take it from them. Throwing it into the sewers in a fury, an ignorant Sylvan awaits his return, amazed when something shiny makes its way down into his home, putting it on his head to show the other children to play with.
Confused, stunned, and annoyed, when soldiers spot the small, dark-skinned boy playing king and ordering around his fellow street urchins all the whilst wearing the emperor's crown, they're quick to demand an explanation for him, striking him and quickly regretting their poor choice of target when Sylvan bites off the tip of his attacker's finger.
A nearby and amused baron intervenes on the boy's behalf, taking him and the crown into his protection to be presented to an enraged emperor who demands the boy's head. Unimpressed and encouraged by his wife that very same baron would throw his legendary reputation away to save Sylvan, purchasing him in a scandalous display that would cost him dearly, but in exchange buy the loyalty and adoration of one wily, strange little former slave. They would not stay long in the city, the baron's ownership of the boy dissolving the moment they reach his faraway home, freeing him in the shadow of a swaying corpse that hangs from the tallest tree.
Beautiful and cold, Sylvan will come to know over the years a troubled land whose people's only reward for their struggle is depopulation, a sluggish economy, and a pension program that will bankrupt them.
In an age of global commerce, imperialism, and gunpowder, a rapidly evolving vortex of politics and technology surrounds his plaguing new home. When his former master adopts Sylvan and names the boy his heir shortly before his death, it's not enough that Sylvan must overcome those that would deny his father's wishes and oust him from power. Ambition and God call out to him.
There are at least twenty million slaves in the world. Nothing less but a two-bit scoundrel will be enough to save them and slaughter their masters.
All of them.
EVERYONE HAS A FATE.
Brother - His name was Noah.
In the waste-clogged alleys and hellish inhumanities of the great city where Sylvan was a slave, he were not totally alone. He had a brother, a slave just like him, and he did all he could to keep Sylvan safe, fed, and happy. Sometimes he even succeeded.
Then Noah disappeared. Gone, lost in the urban hell. Without Lord Orys, Sylvan would have starved or worse. Ten years and two thousand miles separate him from the terrible place that stole away his brother, turning the dim memories into vapor, but still he remembers him.
And Noah remembers Sylvan. Love will be the death of him.
-=-
Host - Deep, deep below, he feels it.
Past the warmth in his gut, all sensation tapers away into nothing. Only rarely does it come out. It doesn’t seem like the demons from the stories, if it even is a demon. There is no cruelty that he's found, no vile treachery nor hunger for his soul. If he's lucky, it might even crack a joke with him.
Yet still, it remains. It saved him when he was buried into a cave by a snowstorm, giving him a warmth his body no longer had. It had him stuff goat cheese into the chef’s shoes, and the two of them both laughed at that one. It gets hungry when he see corpses, but neither of them talk about that.
It really is sorry they chose his body.
There are more details to this story than presented, and though all of them, including the story provided above, are open to be tossed away and disregarded per my partner's requests, I do believe they are the best presentation for the character I'm proposing the story surround. This is a story about a technologically 17th century, fictional setting. Politics, governance, economics, trade, warfare- if these things aren't your cup of tea, then this isn't the story for you. Risk of failure, death, injury, or any other natural results to Sylvan are entirely acceptable. I expect a challenging roleplay where Sylvan must be the clever man he thinks he is to survive this grand rags-to-riches tale he's put himself in. Down below will be a series of descriptions that add further insight and detail to Sylvan's origins. Thanks.
-=-
The boar is not dead, though to all the other hunters’ senses it is. It lays motionless on its side within the sled, tied down by rope with two arrows sticking discordantly out of its hide like seams of broken bone. Frozen blood pools in the cracked stomach of the sled, collecting rather than leaking now that red ice has sealed the wood. Poison leaching out of the arrowheads keeps the boar docile, and its breathing so light that only Sylvan can see. An ovate in too-thin robes shivers as she ties a garland of rosemary around the beast’s neck, murmuring prayers to the ancestors that they might find the kill worthy.
Winter has seized the land in its vise, its unending waves of cold and snow having transformed the Barony of Marlas into a crueler scape, one Sylvan doesn’t quite recognize. Tranquility abounds along the driven snow, all through the clearing, hiding the buried world and the woes of man but unable to snuff them out. Sylvan knows well what a mirage it is, the oppressive winters of his homeland no less savage than the bloodletting summers. The numbing cold does not soothe his aches, for he knows they’ll be worse come morning, come the thaw. Too soon this clearing will melt, its river gone from white to red, the whole Septima Line thrust back to war.
Baron Orys refuses to yield to midnight season, to accept its peace, and so from his great warhorse’s saddle he brazenly belts out a mixture of drunken lyrics and commands, determined to master this hunt even if he does not partake. An entourage on horseback spreads out in his orbit, ranging from eager young footmen to grizzled junkers, all in varying states of inebriation at his command. Their braying is nearly louder than the hounds’, who hungrily stalk between the sled and the hole they pulled the boar out from. Teased by the hunt but yet unrewarded, they’re too unruly to be kept in check by the kennel master.
On foot slog the unfortunates who actually have to take part in the hunt, Sylvan among them. They huddle into their hemp canvas cloaks, glancing up at the moody afternoon sky threatening to crack open with another snowstorm. Dark clouds sweep in low from the south like a riptide, a single vast current swept in from the mountains already menacing the Oldwoods. Its furthest gales reach them as tongues of vengeful cold, flecks of whipped-up snow biting into Sylvan’s exposed skin.
By the boar’s nest leans a typical Mallean, one of Sylvan’s two erstwhile comrades. Sigorn is tall, pale, broad, with the close-set, wide-boned features of a commoner, and a shock of red hair grown out to protect against the elements. Beneath his cloak he proudly bears his blood-flecked armor, each dent a Darkman put into it a point of dear pride. He’s not the only one, either, the clearing filled with dozens of youths whose first blooding ended in victory amid a blizzard. Baron Orys, deep into his cups after six days of nonstop celebration, saw a break in the storms and gladly called a hunt. When informed he could not go on account of his shattered knee - he simply grinned, and ordered himself tied to his saddle.
Sylvan remembers the moment his lord fell from the saddle, burned into his nerves. The screaming of horses, skidding hooves catching on the frozen ground. On the edges of his vision a rider smashes into a branch in the din, others don’t move at all for fear of the blizzard. His spurs dig, his borrowed steed whines, and he races for his lord - only for another to reach him first.
“What a woman.” Sigorn sighs beside Sylvan, craning his neck to look at one of their lord’s companions of honor. Susannah Oye junker unlike the others, a pretty, willowy noblewoman well into motherhood, with the lean, ruthless look of a ranger. Her two poisoned arrows are what struck the boar down, and her pride curls off her body like steam. Sigorn’s face cracks into exaggerated appreciation, and then he turns to their lord’s other honored companion. Another woman, this one as young as they are, haughtily-built and leering with none of Susannah’s refinement. Many of those looks are reserved for Sylvan, forced to slog on foot as just another hunter. “Anya too. I think she fancies you, eh?”