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Author Topic: The Nature of Fear: Marin Le'mondt  (Read 257 times)

The Unchosen one

The Nature of Fear: Marin Le'mondt
« on: June 09, 2010, 03:34:07 am »
/: note: this character development thread will mention incidents that happen in game as Marin progresses. Where possible, permission to refer to in-game characters will be obtained.//


Marin Le’Mondt –
The Nature of Fear

CHAPTER 1: The Idea

Marin gazed through the smoke at his reflection, his long boots resting on the table in front of him.  Mirrors were rare enough to find in these lands, and the mirror behind the bar was large and ornate. Marin loved how it made him look in the smoky haze, how his eyes glittered mysteriously in the dark.  It was like a shadow of him, a secret confidente that he could share his innermost thoughts with.
He smiled to himself. Well, it was easier than keeping a diary.

Quite a week you’ve had my man.

It had been quite a week indeed. He had quite unexpectedly run into an old family friend and physician, Dr Alandric Vensk. To be honest he hardly knew the man, but he remembered him as a learned and scholarly figure that seemed know a little bit about everything. It had not surprised Marin to find that the good doctor had spent the intervening years becoming an accomplished mage. How accomplished Marin had no idea, but even his slowly developing senses could feel the power radiating off the man.

Power, and something else.

The two of them had trekked the long journey from New Hampstead to Leringrad, a journey that Marin had been longing for. Leringrad was an austere, quiet town, but the people were good, and in years past Marin had made a bit of gold there performing the odd magic trick in the streets. He had a vague notion to write a book, but did not really know what he would write about. At the very least, he thought, I could pass myself off as a researcher. He Smiled. Leringrad Ladies seemed to have a soft spot for learned men…..

….From performer to trickster….Trickster to conman…….What mask will you wear next, I wonder.

However, it was the journey itself that was to the most interesting. The meandering path north was always fraught with danger, and this time was no exception. They were attacked by creatures ranging as common as vagabond bandits and mercenaries, to a family of myconids that took exception to a couple of warm-bloods passing by. In all of these encounters, the Mysterious doctor obliterated his enemies without thought or regret. Such unforgiving violence shocked Marin, but he could not help but be excited at the thought of wielding such tremendous power.

    But Marin had to be honest and admit that it was not just his magic that had left its impression on him. No, it was the incident with the fighter…….

At one point a ragtag group of bandits and ne’er-do-wells had attempted a clumsy ambush around a tree lined bend. Alandric had responded quickly, and most of the bandits had died before they knew what hit them. Marin’s reflexes were almost as good, and had dazed several bandits with a magical fog that clouds the mind and dulls the senses, a power he had only recently taught himself. One survivor, a swordsman, had been blasted to the ground by Vensk’s power and was lying prone. At that point, the Doctor had gloated:

“See boy, under all the ego and bluster, they are as helpless as a newborn babe!”

A crash from behind the bar broke Marin out of his reverie. He looked around sharply – The barmaid had dropped a tankard. He wet his lips with his wine and sank back in his chair, losing himself to reverie again:

A trained and armoured warrior, a killer, cowering at the foot of a scholar. Not unmanned at the thought of what was coming, but at the fear itself. His own fear, ultimately robbing him of his last chance to escape: to reason, to plea, or strike back. The mage had already won the fight, because the fear of him was his greatest weapon. What happened next was ultimately irrelevant.
Fear. Terror. Despair. Consequences of an action, or the most powerful action of all? After all, what is really the nature of fear?

The nature of fear……


Marin sat bolt upright in his chair, his eyes shining, a toothy grin of delight was on his lips. This was the sign he was looking for, this is why he had been carrying a blank scrollcase for a parchment for what seemed like months. This was why he introduced himself as an author, and when people would enquire as to the nature of his work he would simply shrug.

He had found his subject matter.

Fear. The nature of fear, it’s consequences, and its application. It seemed such an obvious topic, something that had been understood since the first human climbed out of his cave and cowered at the dragon flying overhead. Or was it? He certainly had not heard of any formal scholarly work on the subject. His mind flew with the possiblities……. He looked at himself in the mirror and grinned.

 One thing is for sure, I think I will need to speak to the good doctor again.

He drained his glass and stood, flicking a coin onto the bar. Smiling to himself, he walked out into the cold night.
 
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The Unchosen one

Re: The Nature of Fear: Marin Le'mondt
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2010, 03:25:36 am »
Chapter 2: The Start

   Marin gazed at his reflection in the candlelight of the study. He loved the way the smoke wreathed around his head and made him look sagely and mysterious. Pen in hand, parchment laid out on the table. His muscles ached from days of trekking through dirty swamps , and his head pounded from the effort of pummeling creatures with spells of death and fire. He had accomplished more in the last few days than he had in years, and he had felt his powers grow in response. He had always been an indifferent sorcerer, hungering for the power it craved yet never having the discipline to hone his skills. But the last few days had shown him a potential he had only dreamed existed. Belief and action was the key. The more he fought, the more he believed in himself, and his power had answered. It was like an awakening. The way lizardmen had run in terror from his spells, the way that his familiar had carved a bloody swathe through kobolds as he stood by and withered them with fire. It was like a drug.
     But sorcery, like all skills, could wither and die. The only true immortality was his  legacy, what would be left behind when all else was dust. And like all men, Marin craved immortality.

The answer was so simple. A book. Something written down for the ages, something that would show that Marin was more than a con-man with a penchant for the al'noth.

This is it Marin, this is what you will be known for.

Feverishly, he began to write.

Forward

Fear. Terror. Fright. Anxiety. The names of fear are many, and its effects are known to nearly all. The cold sweat on the skin, the pounding of blood in one's ears as the heart beats frantic, the gold wave of shock that floods the brain and undoes all reason. But why do all creatures fear? Is it a result of something terrible, an after-effect of secondary importance, or is fear something tangible – something with its own existence and it's own, terrible power? Can this power be controlled? Can it be beaten, or it's energy shaped into something useful? These are the great questions that we will attempt to solve, for in understanding is wisdom, and in wisdom is power.
                              - Marin La'mondt


Chapter 1: the Two faces of fear

Fear can most simply be explained as a “reaction to a traumatic or impeding event, either biological or psychological”. This manifests most commonly in two major types:
1.as a  biological sense of impending death or  harm, such as faced in battle or assault, a fear shared by sentient creatures and animals alike. Even beings such as the undead fear the end of their existence, such as it is.
2.A generalized sense of danger or foreboding, the dread a person may feel entering a pitch black cave, or the reaction to touching a plague-filled corpse. Such fear seems to stem from the mind of the person itself, even when there is no danger present. This also includes the various phobias and nameless taboos that accurse members of the populace, the fear of spiders, heights, or the dark being common examples.

This establishes an important fact: that fear can result from a action of danger, both real or perceived, but it can also spring from nothing more than the mind of the victim.

Conclusion 1: Fear can be both a result of an effect, or an effect in itself.


Marin paused, deep in thought, his quill hovering over the paper. He had seen wizards cast mighty spells of illusion, phantasms of beast and monsters that had driven warriors away in terror. He had felt himself the terrifying auras of fear and cold that seemed to surround the undead, how it sapped away one's lifeforce as much as it paralyzed the mind. He had heard stories of spectres that had aged people, simply by being watched. A terrible power, more effective than any tooth or claw. Marin wondered: what if the fear was so strong, it could kill. It was not unknown for creatures to have died from fright, their hearts simply to shocked to continue beating. Could that not be turned into a spell.

Careful, said a small voice inside of him, careful how far you go with this.

Smiling thinly, he dipped his quill with fresh ink and resumed writing. He continued writing well into the night.
 

The Unchosen one

Re: The Nature of Fear: Marin Le'mondt
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2010, 08:39:03 pm »
Lighting lashed the sky as the creatures fought below, the thunderous roar of mighty spells like a kaleidoscope of colour. In The distance, he could see the door leading to Storam's hold open like a black maw in the mountain. Skeletons clashed with demons, wizards casting spells of destruction seemingly at random. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying.
   One of the undead shuffled towards the slope, its stench like an open grave. Suddenly, it raised its head and looked straight at Him. It could see through his spell of invisibility! It knew where he was. He dared not move, do go down into the maelstrom of destruction below him would mean certain death. The dreadful dead thing shambled closer and closer, its hands like withered claws, outstretched to grab his throat and snuff out his life. He tried to scream but no sound would come. He cowered, frozen; as the monster reached down to grab him......"


Marin screamed as he awoke, his heart pounding in his ears. His bedsheets were drenched in sweat. Outside, the storm still raged. The thunder sounded like the roars of mighty beasts, and with their sound the memory of the evening came flooding back.
   He was home, safe. Safe from the nightmare spectacle that he had witnessed, an unseen witness to powers unlike any he had seen before. Unlike his nightmare, he had not been spotted, at least not by the army of undead that had amassed before the doors of Storam's Hold. Others had found their way to the top of the hillrise before him, a mysterious cloaked figure and a robed dwarf. Like him, they seemed to be mere spectators to the spectacle that unfolded, though he suspected that unlike him they had a good idea what was going on. In the confusion, he had slipped away, and as he trudged back toward Hlint the weather had gone mad, as if the earth itself had been offended by the presence of such unholy creatures. Earthquakes shook the land, and he had been very nearly blasted by lighting from the storm that erupted seemingly from nowhere.

   It had been a awesome and frightening sight. He had been trudging home from Fort Vehl when he had spotted dark robed figures heading towards Storam. Thinking that the good Doctor Vensk may have been returning, he followed them.
   Marin mentally cursed himself. He had been careless, foolish, and was lucky to have escaped with his life.

Something had changed within him, that was for sure. The power he had seen had made him giddy with excitement, drunk at the smell of raw magical power in the air. He vaguely rememberd cackling hysterically at the storm raged around him. He wondered if he had some sort of breakdown. Above all, he felt tainted, wounded, as if some dark power had left its mark on his soul.

    You have been dabbling too much in dark matters, Marin. This book is getting inside your head. Or maybe it's the company you have kept of late. Too many rotten dungeons in the ground, not enough cold ale and warm female comfort.

Or is it something else that shook you, Marin? Was it the fear of death that shook you, or was it the realisation that you wanted to wield that same power, to make the very demons themselves run from you?


Marin sank back into his bed. He lay there awake for the rest of the night. When he finally drifted off into sleep, a smile was on his lips.

A smile of self understanding.