Noctis
wintersoldier
Izurich
sandstorm
AlfhedilI could probably put up a post tomorrow morning or so (it is 18:15 for me now). In part I also wanted Maldron to have a chance to react to everything that was going on and being said before I go again.
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@DJAtomika: Things might not be as simple as they seem. I'd hope so, at least.
(On another note, I filtered her true memories out and put them in a separate hider. Will order and label them later, as well as summarize her life. Note that most of this would be information not known to even her.)
(On another note, I filtered her true memories out and put them in a separate hider. Will order and label them later, as well as summarize her life. Note that most of this would be information not known to even her.)
@cthulu: Okay. Would she be riding with Aemoten, or would she insist upon walking, and is there something else that might be useful to know about how she'd behave since we might be timeskipping now (provided Jaelnec/Olan don't have stuff to say that might evict a response)?
Then would be all Jack with our collab ... though I figure we might still have to discuss the details of the time-skip a bit. (Well, and I also asked some map-related questions for other players.)
Also Ashgan with Jillian,
Jack with something for Kaedan still (?),
ASTA Me with before-timeskip summary in the other collab,
and the other Zerul people go Mercinus->Yoshua->Rhae->Jack as I read out.
Then would be all Jack with our collab ... though I figure we might still have to discuss the details of the time-skip a bit. (Well, and I also asked some map-related questions for other players.)
Also Ashgan with Jillian,
Jack with something for Kaedan still (?),
ASTA Me with before-timeskip summary in the other collab,
and the other Zerul people go Mercinus->Yoshua->Rhae->Jack as I read out.
"Sarcasm, lady, ever heard of it? Besides, it's a gods damned nightmare in this place anyway. I sure as hell ain't gonna play no stinkin' music here."
Her eyes flitted back onto the seeming madman, then almost immediately onto the dark knight and the second man once more. She did not reply to his retort verbally, and her hands retained a firm grasp on her axe, but after a couple of seconds of hesitation had passed, her shoulders were momentarily raised in a slight and tense dismissive shrug.
What else could she have replied to that? 'Pardon, but you do look mentally unstable enough to be completely oblivious to this place and the creatures that lurk it, and it is the first time I see you, so I wouldn't know to think otherwise?' That would have been awfully rude, to say the least. But he jingled, for the sake of it - any sane and sound man would have long removed such decorations, would one not? Here he was only protected by whatever fallacy of nature kept drunkards alive, for all she knew...
The second man spoke in turn, and made the earlier bits about him and being a weapon click together in a rather ... or at least a bit disconcerting manner. So he was - or had been - a man who kills in secrecy? Looked like a quite ordinary man, in any case ... which, on second thought, was probably a part of the job description, all that not looking memorable and not catching unnecessary attention. He sounded quite reasonable, in any case... And surely, he would not announce his profession loud and clear to them all if he were to put his skills in use against them, would he?
The jingling madman quipped something about being a mercenary himself, yet she could not for the life of her tell whether he was being serious this time around or just taking a jab at the self-proclaimed assassin's declaration of his former profession.
She was quite certain that her 'Sir' had been - and in some ways still was - a knight of some description, even when she was not certain whether she had ever seen an actual knight in her old life, but the madman quite did not fit her mental image of a mercenary - she would have expected a serious and trained-looking man with weapons and armor that were not quite fit for a knight. The jingling man looked more like ... what's-it, a trickster of some sort? They probably came with traveling circuses... She thought so, at least. How would she know? Guess this was just another of those things she knew, but despite her best efforts could not recall how and where from.
The dark knight seemed content with their explanations and reassurances, and his battle-stance was dropped in a rather abrupt manner. It was much as she had thought - he was still almost as weak and exhausted as he had been when she had first sighted him. Desperation was truly a powerful force, it seemed ... to make one capable of putting up a front or even fight after nearly dropping to ground from exhaustion.
At last, she opted to lower her axe, opting for simply holding it in her arms rather than keeping it poised for a strike. Seemed appropriate, as no one else was still displaying readiness for a fight.
She could see the dark knight's head turning towards her - with the helmet it was probably necessary to turn one's head just to look around due to the diminished field of vision -, and then he actually slightly bowed his head to her. Round eyes questioning, she looked up to him. She was by no means a small woman, but the dark knight positively towered over her and both other men on the scene ... who, to think of it, were both actually shorter and smaller than she, the former assassin especially being only about shoulder-height to her.
We should all keep together and help one another in this place, no? she thought, but for some reason did not put into words. The dark knight continued, laconically admitting that he was but a lost soul himself and referring to a mountain in the far distance. That thing had to be immense, to serve as a landmark for long travels...
"But what do you think is there, Sir?" she uttered, eying the humongous land formation. Was there anything noteworthy at all, or was it just a stable thing in an unpredictable world? A proof that you were moving onwards rather than walking in endless circles through potentially ever-changing land? But then again, who was to say that even this seemingly stable beacon did not up and relocate itself when no one was looking - or even slowly crawl father away under plain sight? Who knew what laws this place obeyed?
“We can discuss our predicament in due time, but such a concentration of sane souls is surely like a beacon to whatever lurks above the valley walls.” This statement, however, brought her back down to Earth - or whatever world this was - and her initial wariness of the place and its openness, temporarily forgotten in the face of finally meeting people she could actually talk to in this place, came back crashing down on her. The dark knight was right. This ... out here, in the open, this was not a good place for discussing things freely.
Evidently, the dark knight decided that he had spared enough breath over the matter and opted to just march forward without any further dilly-dallying, motioning them to follow. She hesitated for a moment, but also took the chance to remove the winter-coat (wholly unnecessary and even harmful in those conditions!) and wrap it around the axe's handle once more. Done with that, she hurried after the dark knight.
Perhaps she should suggest the canyon as a brief resting-spot before they moved on? It had seemed empty...
The former assassin opted to spoke up once more, almost sending a jolt through her body. Without ... a purpose, he said he is? Surely, a person would first and foremost want to find a place where there was food and water and nothing was trying to actively eat you? That would be a start... The man rambled on, however, and the look in her eyes as she glanced sideways at him became disbelieving and almost bewildered.
Those were the words of a obsessive-compulsive maniac more than anything else... Her first assessment of the former assassin being quite reasonable was probably wrong. This guy was absolutely batshit insane, possibly even more so than the jingling madman. Of course he was forgetting something if he had ever been a functional member of society... She bit her lip, and for some reason gripped the axe-bundle more tightly.
"Being an assassin is a job ... it is not what a person is," she claimed hesitantly, but then fell silent. He was now sounding almost angry, lamenting over being 'an ultimate weapon', losing is edge in this place and 'hell' not needing assassins. Just in case this frustration would be followed by aggression, she would not be trying to argue him.
She was bigger and stronger than him, but he was probably also armed to teeth (were assassins' arsenals not largely composed of hidden weapons and perhaps poisons and such?) and she did not want to risk a toxin-covered knife in her throat should the man decide that contesting him was not permissible. And so she hurried onwards, sticking to their plate-armored circumstantial leader's side for the time being.
The dark knight did not appear to be all that talkative, and perhaps due to some kind of almost awed respect for the man, she did not want to bother him much, either. Now that his momentary weakness had passed, he seemed almost unstoppable. Trudging onwards with barely any rest and just small amounts of food or drink. It just seemed ... inhuman, what the giant of a man was doing. Maybe it was the armor. Maybe it hid the exhaustion on one's face and the empty gaze of a man who was just dragging himself along by sheer willpower alone. He had faltered once - who was to say how far he was from faltering again. One needs to be one's strongest here. If it means slowing down, then so be it.
She did try to converse her third companion a few times, but in the end she remained wholly uncertain on what to make of him. She could hardly ever tell whether it was a serious comment he made or just more swearword-riddled sarcasm. Half of the time, she got the impression that the jingling madman was just mocking her, twisting her words. What a jolly trickster indeed. In the end, she typically just shrugged and withdrew back to her own company.
The valley surrounding them was changing once more, yet again gradually becoming colder until she first donned the winter-coat, then closed its front, then pulled another pair of pants atop of the pair of pants she was already wearing. A bit strange, perhaps, but it was warmer this way. Ah yes, and as long as she was not doing anything that required a greater amounts of dexterity from her hands, the mittens stayed on.
There were no more thornball-plants in sight. She guessed those spiteful barbed bushes only grew in hot, rocky places ... possibly also only in vicinity of whatever that reeking yellow fluid was. Corrosive and tricky to obtain as the fruits were, they at least counted as both food and water. She had eaten one more since she had met her new acquaintances, as well as nearly depleted her first flask of water.
Instead of the viciously dark green bushes that were too riddled with dozen-centimeter-long mildly curving serrated thorns to leave enough space for a fingertip on the actual branch and too flexible to break upon hitting, she was now looking for small tufts of yellowing lanceolate leaves. The leaves were not edible, but the bitter roots under them were ... as long as they were dried first, else the milky white fluid left behind painful blisters that appeared but minutes after contacting skin or flesh. A bit like nettles in a sense, she supposed... Not that she knew how people figured out that nettles could be made into a soup, or why she was aware that the roots were safe when dried. Experimentation? Had she met someone who knew it, and forgotten all about the encounter?
She had dug the plants up using her hands and the blades in her disposal, ineffective as they were for the given task, crudely removed the leaves with her knife, tied the roots to her bag, and left them be for the time being.
Eventually, they came to some kind of curved formation reaching out from the valleyside. It looked a bit like bone, though it was also literally tens of meters long, which would have made the creature it had once belonged to ... more massive than she could adequately picture. Taller than a dozen houses stacked one atop another, that was for sure. Was most likely some kind of odd stone... had to be.
At long last, it seemed that the dark knight opted for resting under the cover of the great arc and one wall of the valley. It was not the most protected location, that was for certain, but at least they had fewer sides to watch, she guessed...
She huddled up in a crouching position, resting her chin on her knees, removing her mittens to inspect the gashes left by the serrated thorns. The ones on her middle finger appeared to be healing nicely, one on the index finger was not - possibly the same one that had been torn open when she was prepared to retaliate with her axe. It was red and painful, and oozed yellowish white liquid when squeezed a bit. There was little she could do about it but wince and use a rag and the last few drops from her first flask of water to try to clean it up the best she could.
She heard a cough from her armored companion as she was putting the flask away, but did not look up at him until he actually started speaking. It was time, it seemed...
He has been for a long time, but how long have I been here? She did not know ... on one hand, she should have remembered more of her time here, on the other, there was just too much she simply knew about this world and it just felt like a long time...
Why was she here? Now keeping her eyes fixed on the dark knight, she shook her head slightly. No, she did not know that, either. But he had been to the mountain? And there was life and luxury? She did not think she had ever seen true luxury, but as long as there was enough food and drink, surely she could learn to live there. It could be a home. But even that place had beasts?
"A key?" she uttered - she was not even certain whether to herself of the knight - when he mentioned missing something that did not let him to get in. And ... he only ended up farther and farther? See, the damn mountain is crawling further away? For some reason she almost felt sorry for him. To walk and walk, but not really get anywhere... And how he talked of his own death, almost as if it were not a remarkable thing anymore? (Had she died herself? Probably. Best not to ponder.)
"You seem quite sane to me, Sir. More than most people here, anyway." Including her two other companions. (She tried to tell her that she was not like the others, but it did not seem like she was being believed.) Though, why had he asked them the one question he did in the beginning? That had not made too much sense, given the context. "Why did you ask us which king we serve, Sir?"
"And surely, if you got to the mountain, once, then you know it is at least possible? You just have to recall how, and with what? It may still come to you, eventually. We will just have to try to not die again and help one another? Yes?"
The former assassin was now speaking again, and again she was shaking her head, though this time she did so because she figured the speaker was mistaken rather than confirmed a negative.
"I don't think this place has an explanation. It just is. It is not hell, it is not heaven - 'sides, you heard what he said, the mountain has beasts, too -, it is just a place where all lost things end up, perhaps, and either disappear or become something else when they forget who they were before, or manage to find themselves again against all odds. In any case, it is our home now - there is no further down, and there is no way back to our old lives." Made sense to her, at least. "I don't think we've all been to the mountain. I was not really heading towards it when I met you lot, just trying to find drinkable water. And even if we would all eventually wander towards it, then there should always be a first time for ending up here, in this world. One before deaths. I admit, there is little I know of this place, aside of things I simply know. It feels like I have been here for a long time, but I don't know how long, or even whether I have died here before."
She held up a ghastly pale hand, turning it for people to see. A pale hand with well-defined tendons, attached to a sturdy wrist and a muscled arm. A hand with unusually long fingers and strong and long fingernails. It was almost as if she were growing talons. (He was yet to see the dark knight's face - was he still human, if this place had indeed changed her?)
"I remember a different hand from memories of my old life... I don't think I was someone evil. No, I am certain I was not ... don't think I ever killed anyone. Not people, at least. Maybe here, but that was because I had no choice. In my old life, I lived in a wooden house near evergreens ... forest, even. I remember chopping wood, making food... A pretzel, if it makes a difference. Looking through things in the house, searching ... lost something important, but can't recall what. I also had at least one child ... remember holding them, but nothing else about them. Village was ways off from the house, I think. There was a large field I ran over... There was not much food during winter, one time ... I resorted to eating the evergreens. All just feelings and moving images, but a few moments long each." She shook her head. "Then there are other memories ... memories of this place, some memories which feel more like a strange nightmare, and a memory where I am quite certain I was a man. That doesn't make sense."
Her eyes flitted back onto the seeming madman, then almost immediately onto the dark knight and the second man once more. She did not reply to his retort verbally, and her hands retained a firm grasp on her axe, but after a couple of seconds of hesitation had passed, her shoulders were momentarily raised in a slight and tense dismissive shrug.
What else could she have replied to that? 'Pardon, but you do look mentally unstable enough to be completely oblivious to this place and the creatures that lurk it, and it is the first time I see you, so I wouldn't know to think otherwise?' That would have been awfully rude, to say the least. But he jingled, for the sake of it - any sane and sound man would have long removed such decorations, would one not? Here he was only protected by whatever fallacy of nature kept drunkards alive, for all she knew...
The second man spoke in turn, and made the earlier bits about him and being a weapon click together in a rather ... or at least a bit disconcerting manner. So he was - or had been - a man who kills in secrecy? Looked like a quite ordinary man, in any case ... which, on second thought, was probably a part of the job description, all that not looking memorable and not catching unnecessary attention. He sounded quite reasonable, in any case... And surely, he would not announce his profession loud and clear to them all if he were to put his skills in use against them, would he?
The jingling madman quipped something about being a mercenary himself, yet she could not for the life of her tell whether he was being serious this time around or just taking a jab at the self-proclaimed assassin's declaration of his former profession.
She was quite certain that her 'Sir' had been - and in some ways still was - a knight of some description, even when she was not certain whether she had ever seen an actual knight in her old life, but the madman quite did not fit her mental image of a mercenary - she would have expected a serious and trained-looking man with weapons and armor that were not quite fit for a knight. The jingling man looked more like ... what's-it, a trickster of some sort? They probably came with traveling circuses... She thought so, at least. How would she know? Guess this was just another of those things she knew, but despite her best efforts could not recall how and where from.
The dark knight seemed content with their explanations and reassurances, and his battle-stance was dropped in a rather abrupt manner. It was much as she had thought - he was still almost as weak and exhausted as he had been when she had first sighted him. Desperation was truly a powerful force, it seemed ... to make one capable of putting up a front or even fight after nearly dropping to ground from exhaustion.
At last, she opted to lower her axe, opting for simply holding it in her arms rather than keeping it poised for a strike. Seemed appropriate, as no one else was still displaying readiness for a fight.
She could see the dark knight's head turning towards her - with the helmet it was probably necessary to turn one's head just to look around due to the diminished field of vision -, and then he actually slightly bowed his head to her. Round eyes questioning, she looked up to him. She was by no means a small woman, but the dark knight positively towered over her and both other men on the scene ... who, to think of it, were both actually shorter and smaller than she, the former assassin especially being only about shoulder-height to her.
We should all keep together and help one another in this place, no? she thought, but for some reason did not put into words. The dark knight continued, laconically admitting that he was but a lost soul himself and referring to a mountain in the far distance. That thing had to be immense, to serve as a landmark for long travels...
"But what do you think is there, Sir?" she uttered, eying the humongous land formation. Was there anything noteworthy at all, or was it just a stable thing in an unpredictable world? A proof that you were moving onwards rather than walking in endless circles through potentially ever-changing land? But then again, who was to say that even this seemingly stable beacon did not up and relocate itself when no one was looking - or even slowly crawl father away under plain sight? Who knew what laws this place obeyed?
“We can discuss our predicament in due time, but such a concentration of sane souls is surely like a beacon to whatever lurks above the valley walls.” This statement, however, brought her back down to Earth - or whatever world this was - and her initial wariness of the place and its openness, temporarily forgotten in the face of finally meeting people she could actually talk to in this place, came back crashing down on her. The dark knight was right. This ... out here, in the open, this was not a good place for discussing things freely.
Evidently, the dark knight decided that he had spared enough breath over the matter and opted to just march forward without any further dilly-dallying, motioning them to follow. She hesitated for a moment, but also took the chance to remove the winter-coat (wholly unnecessary and even harmful in those conditions!) and wrap it around the axe's handle once more. Done with that, she hurried after the dark knight.
Perhaps she should suggest the canyon as a brief resting-spot before they moved on? It had seemed empty...
The former assassin opted to spoke up once more, almost sending a jolt through her body. Without ... a purpose, he said he is? Surely, a person would first and foremost want to find a place where there was food and water and nothing was trying to actively eat you? That would be a start... The man rambled on, however, and the look in her eyes as she glanced sideways at him became disbelieving and almost bewildered.
Those were the words of a obsessive-compulsive maniac more than anything else... Her first assessment of the former assassin being quite reasonable was probably wrong. This guy was absolutely batshit insane, possibly even more so than the jingling madman. Of course he was forgetting something if he had ever been a functional member of society... She bit her lip, and for some reason gripped the axe-bundle more tightly.
"Being an assassin is a job ... it is not what a person is," she claimed hesitantly, but then fell silent. He was now sounding almost angry, lamenting over being 'an ultimate weapon', losing is edge in this place and 'hell' not needing assassins. Just in case this frustration would be followed by aggression, she would not be trying to argue him.
She was bigger and stronger than him, but he was probably also armed to teeth (were assassins' arsenals not largely composed of hidden weapons and perhaps poisons and such?) and she did not want to risk a toxin-covered knife in her throat should the man decide that contesting him was not permissible. And so she hurried onwards, sticking to their plate-armored circumstantial leader's side for the time being.
The dark knight did not appear to be all that talkative, and perhaps due to some kind of almost awed respect for the man, she did not want to bother him much, either. Now that his momentary weakness had passed, he seemed almost unstoppable. Trudging onwards with barely any rest and just small amounts of food or drink. It just seemed ... inhuman, what the giant of a man was doing. Maybe it was the armor. Maybe it hid the exhaustion on one's face and the empty gaze of a man who was just dragging himself along by sheer willpower alone. He had faltered once - who was to say how far he was from faltering again. One needs to be one's strongest here. If it means slowing down, then so be it.
She did try to converse her third companion a few times, but in the end she remained wholly uncertain on what to make of him. She could hardly ever tell whether it was a serious comment he made or just more swearword-riddled sarcasm. Half of the time, she got the impression that the jingling madman was just mocking her, twisting her words. What a jolly trickster indeed. In the end, she typically just shrugged and withdrew back to her own company.
The valley surrounding them was changing once more, yet again gradually becoming colder until she first donned the winter-coat, then closed its front, then pulled another pair of pants atop of the pair of pants she was already wearing. A bit strange, perhaps, but it was warmer this way. Ah yes, and as long as she was not doing anything that required a greater amounts of dexterity from her hands, the mittens stayed on.
There were no more thornball-plants in sight. She guessed those spiteful barbed bushes only grew in hot, rocky places ... possibly also only in vicinity of whatever that reeking yellow fluid was. Corrosive and tricky to obtain as the fruits were, they at least counted as both food and water. She had eaten one more since she had met her new acquaintances, as well as nearly depleted her first flask of water.
Instead of the viciously dark green bushes that were too riddled with dozen-centimeter-long mildly curving serrated thorns to leave enough space for a fingertip on the actual branch and too flexible to break upon hitting, she was now looking for small tufts of yellowing lanceolate leaves. The leaves were not edible, but the bitter roots under them were ... as long as they were dried first, else the milky white fluid left behind painful blisters that appeared but minutes after contacting skin or flesh. A bit like nettles in a sense, she supposed... Not that she knew how people figured out that nettles could be made into a soup, or why she was aware that the roots were safe when dried. Experimentation? Had she met someone who knew it, and forgotten all about the encounter?
She had dug the plants up using her hands and the blades in her disposal, ineffective as they were for the given task, crudely removed the leaves with her knife, tied the roots to her bag, and left them be for the time being.
Eventually, they came to some kind of curved formation reaching out from the valleyside. It looked a bit like bone, though it was also literally tens of meters long, which would have made the creature it had once belonged to ... more massive than she could adequately picture. Taller than a dozen houses stacked one atop another, that was for sure. Was most likely some kind of odd stone... had to be.
At long last, it seemed that the dark knight opted for resting under the cover of the great arc and one wall of the valley. It was not the most protected location, that was for certain, but at least they had fewer sides to watch, she guessed...
She huddled up in a crouching position, resting her chin on her knees, removing her mittens to inspect the gashes left by the serrated thorns. The ones on her middle finger appeared to be healing nicely, one on the index finger was not - possibly the same one that had been torn open when she was prepared to retaliate with her axe. It was red and painful, and oozed yellowish white liquid when squeezed a bit. There was little she could do about it but wince and use a rag and the last few drops from her first flask of water to try to clean it up the best she could.
She heard a cough from her armored companion as she was putting the flask away, but did not look up at him until he actually started speaking. It was time, it seemed...
He has been for a long time, but how long have I been here? She did not know ... on one hand, she should have remembered more of her time here, on the other, there was just too much she simply knew about this world and it just felt like a long time...
Why was she here? Now keeping her eyes fixed on the dark knight, she shook her head slightly. No, she did not know that, either. But he had been to the mountain? And there was life and luxury? She did not think she had ever seen true luxury, but as long as there was enough food and drink, surely she could learn to live there. It could be a home. But even that place had beasts?
"A key?" she uttered - she was not even certain whether to herself of the knight - when he mentioned missing something that did not let him to get in. And ... he only ended up farther and farther? See, the damn mountain is crawling further away? For some reason she almost felt sorry for him. To walk and walk, but not really get anywhere... And how he talked of his own death, almost as if it were not a remarkable thing anymore? (Had she died herself? Probably. Best not to ponder.)
"You seem quite sane to me, Sir. More than most people here, anyway." Including her two other companions. (She tried to tell her that she was not like the others, but it did not seem like she was being believed.) Though, why had he asked them the one question he did in the beginning? That had not made too much sense, given the context. "Why did you ask us which king we serve, Sir?"
"And surely, if you got to the mountain, once, then you know it is at least possible? You just have to recall how, and with what? It may still come to you, eventually. We will just have to try to not die again and help one another? Yes?"
The former assassin was now speaking again, and again she was shaking her head, though this time she did so because she figured the speaker was mistaken rather than confirmed a negative.
"I don't think this place has an explanation. It just is. It is not hell, it is not heaven - 'sides, you heard what he said, the mountain has beasts, too -, it is just a place where all lost things end up, perhaps, and either disappear or become something else when they forget who they were before, or manage to find themselves again against all odds. In any case, it is our home now - there is no further down, and there is no way back to our old lives." Made sense to her, at least. "I don't think we've all been to the mountain. I was not really heading towards it when I met you lot, just trying to find drinkable water. And even if we would all eventually wander towards it, then there should always be a first time for ending up here, in this world. One before deaths. I admit, there is little I know of this place, aside of things I simply know. It feels like I have been here for a long time, but I don't know how long, or even whether I have died here before."
She held up a ghastly pale hand, turning it for people to see. A pale hand with well-defined tendons, attached to a sturdy wrist and a muscled arm. A hand with unusually long fingers and strong and long fingernails. It was almost as if she were growing talons. (He was yet to see the dark knight's face - was he still human, if this place had indeed changed her?)
"I remember a different hand from memories of my old life... I don't think I was someone evil. No, I am certain I was not ... don't think I ever killed anyone. Not people, at least. Maybe here, but that was because I had no choice. In my old life, I lived in a wooden house near evergreens ... forest, even. I remember chopping wood, making food... A pretzel, if it makes a difference. Looking through things in the house, searching ... lost something important, but can't recall what. I also had at least one child ... remember holding them, but nothing else about them. Village was ways off from the house, I think. There was a large field I ran over... There was not much food during winter, one time ... I resorted to eating the evergreens. All just feelings and moving images, but a few moments long each." She shook her head. "Then there are other memories ... memories of this place, some memories which feel more like a strange nightmare, and a memory where I am quite certain I was a man. That doesn't make sense."
Another figment of thought on the previous topic: There is also always the matter of the environment of a fictive world being not necessarily identical to that of Earth (and even Earth varied by region quite a lot). Say, if your medieval world has priests who can actually summon and dismiss rain at will, then I'd say it is quite safe to claim that crop dearth due to either too little or too much water is a significantly less common occurrence (as is the starvation that'd otherwise come with it).
Fair points about the average height (it is just bizarre for me to see 1.6 meters referred to as "average", without too much context provided).
Though, it also should be noted that the average heights of that time - from what I've been told by people of the field and read myself - mainly came from (occasionally rather severe) malnutrition. That, in turn, meant that there was a glaring rift between the average height of the common peasant and that of the higher class people - in that the higher class people actually had heights somewhat similar to people of our time, and only the peasants were distinctly short compared to modern humans. (Makes sense in other ways, too - genetic influences would hardly change that much in mere half a dozen generations.)
- And indeed, if you look at the original armors of that time - and especially plate armors of that time were almost exclusively worn higher-class people, as you well know and have pointed out yourself in the past -, then many of those would actually fit a person of around my height just fine. (Not my over-two-meter-tall male cousins, though; no antique plate armor for them.)
(By the way, as you might have already gathered from my sheet - my personal character actually used to be noticeably shorter in life, even if she was considered tall and sturdy in there, too.)
Though, it also should be noted that the average heights of that time - from what I've been told by people of the field and read myself - mainly came from (occasionally rather severe) malnutrition. That, in turn, meant that there was a glaring rift between the average height of the common peasant and that of the higher class people - in that the higher class people actually had heights somewhat similar to people of our time, and only the peasants were distinctly short compared to modern humans. (Makes sense in other ways, too - genetic influences would hardly change that much in mere half a dozen generations.)
- And indeed, if you look at the original armors of that time - and especially plate armors of that time were almost exclusively worn higher-class people, as you well know and have pointed out yourself in the past -, then many of those would actually fit a person of around my height just fine. (Not my over-two-meter-tall male cousins, though; no antique plate armor for them.)
(By the way, as you might have already gathered from my sheet - my personal character actually used to be noticeably shorter in life, even if she was considered tall and sturdy in there, too.)
1.6 meters and average? I am 1.77 myself and I don't really find many men I can look down at over here - quite the opposite; I am typically out-towered. My personal "average height for a man" is 1.86 or thereabouts.
@Laue: Hrn... I realized I don't know how tall Maldron is?
Hmm... I think monster kills potentially giving memories is certainly supportive of where I might be going.
(Ey, I have half a post, but I literally fell asleep midway through it yesterday. Will finish it a bit later.)
(Ey, I have half a post, but I literally fell asleep midway through it yesterday. Will finish it a bit later.)
Well, the Companions are going to show up ... sooner or later.
I think the next one to go is either Jack or Rhaevnn, depending on whether Rhae's going to let Morgan wake up now or a bit later still (logically, he should be waking up any moment now, or things would start to get mildly concerning for a human).
I think the next one to go is either Jack or Rhaevnn, depending on whether Rhae's going to let Morgan wake up now or a bit later still (logically, he should be waking up any moment now, or things would start to get mildly concerning for a human).
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