Khyleth Daros
09-22-2009, 09:09 PM
Hi. I'm Khyleth. Where have you been all my life?
This is exactly the sort of group for which my geeky, chainmailed heart has been pining: people who care about making fantasy gaming come alive, with coherent social structures and true-to-life characters, dedicated to creating not just a guild but a society -- a collection of fellow medieval history nerds with a passion for the minutiae of creating a compelling portrait of a fantasy world with ALL the colors of life: not just crown-gold and blood-red, but mud-brown and inkstain-black.
What a monstrous sentence! I'll confess, toward the end I was just trying to see how far I could stretch it.
I suppose a greeting is usually followed by an introduction. Here goes:
Hi. I'm Khyleth. I like swords (wasn't allowed toy guns growing up), words, writing, and soccer, European adventures, chocolate chip cookie dough, and garlic bread. Especially garlic bread.
I also enjoy computer games. I've played RPGs for ages, but have only been into MMOs for the past five years (WoW, AoC, WAR). I'm big into forum roleplay. Like everyone else on the internet, I hope to be a writer. My dream is to do obituaries and marriage announcements in the local paper, but I'd settle for fantasy novels. Speaking of fantasy novels, here's a quote from my favorite author:
"The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.
Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?
We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.
They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth."
- George R.R. Martin
This is exactly the sort of group for which my geeky, chainmailed heart has been pining: people who care about making fantasy gaming come alive, with coherent social structures and true-to-life characters, dedicated to creating not just a guild but a society -- a collection of fellow medieval history nerds with a passion for the minutiae of creating a compelling portrait of a fantasy world with ALL the colors of life: not just crown-gold and blood-red, but mud-brown and inkstain-black.
What a monstrous sentence! I'll confess, toward the end I was just trying to see how far I could stretch it.
I suppose a greeting is usually followed by an introduction. Here goes:
Hi. I'm Khyleth. I like swords (wasn't allowed toy guns growing up), words, writing, and soccer, European adventures, chocolate chip cookie dough, and garlic bread. Especially garlic bread.
I also enjoy computer games. I've played RPGs for ages, but have only been into MMOs for the past five years (WoW, AoC, WAR). I'm big into forum roleplay. Like everyone else on the internet, I hope to be a writer. My dream is to do obituaries and marriage announcements in the local paper, but I'd settle for fantasy novels. Speaking of fantasy novels, here's a quote from my favorite author:
"The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.
Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?
We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.
They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth."
- George R.R. Martin