pft, discrete, blah.
I've put down a map, so that's a start.
The setting will be akin to the early dark ages of Europe (much further back than the mid-1700s in which the Sennadar universe stands), and the races are all separated by mutual distrust and fear. Magic exists, but in the kingdom in which the story will begin, it's almost unheard of.
The main character will be a young man who leaves his village to find work, and stumbles across a mysterious warrior and a young woman, and the basic plot involves the young man's entanglement in the mission of this warrior.
The warrior is from an ancient sect known as the
Chuken, who have exceeded human limitations not with magic, but with powers of the mind. He is a warrior who uses his psionic abilities to enhance his fighting arts. The woman is his apprentice, and to the young man's shock, she's not human. She's a steppes elf from the southern savannahs, a rather savage and violent breed with a very dark reputation among the humans, complete with her wudan ceremonial facial tattoos.
The warrior is hunting for a wizard who stole a revered set of scrolls from the Chu Dojo, the headquarters of the order, scrolls penned by Grand Master Chu himself about the secrets of the powers of the mind. Grand Master Chu came to Myradon five hundred years ago after discovering the secrets of the order, fleeing from the Utter East, and it was in the northern mounts of Skyrn that he built his dojo and sought out those with the special gift to learn the secrets of his art.
The Chuken are martial artists who have, by rigorous training, unlocked the powers of the mind, and use them to reinforce their fighting arts. All Chuken learn certain basic powers that are integrated into their fighting style, powers that make them faster, make them stronger, give them the ability to do things that others would consider impossible or inhuman. All Chuken also undergo alterations in their bodies, called
ki. There are ten ki, each one representing a level of mastery of the arts of Chuken. Each mastery of ki is denoted by a gold-filled scar somewhere on the body of the Chuken. The warrior's scars are on his chest...five on his right pectoral, and four on his left. The ki scars of his apprentice are on her face. She has but one ki, a gold scar under her right eye. These alterations are fundamental changes to their bodies that aren't entirely noticable. Muscles are augmented, bones are hardened, reflexes are sharpened, speed is increased...these changes are beyond mere training, however. Each change is an alteration brought about by the Chuken's mastery of his power, and he enacts these changes upon himself. By successfully mastering a ki, he changes his body by the power of his mind alone, and earns a gold-filled scar that demonstrates his success to his order.
But each Chuken also learns other abilities based solely on that Chuken's unique nature. The warrior, for example, knows the powers of the fighting Chuken, but he has also other ways to express his mental arts, such as his ability to read the past of an object just by touch, knowing who has been sitting in a chair just by touching it for example. It is this power to look into the history of an object, called Psychometry, that caused him to be selected for this mission.
There, there's some spoilage for ya
Just another guy from the shallow end of the gene pool.
the naivete