One down, two to go

So, as of Monday (when we posted the epilogue, which you can read here if you haven't already) we're done posting Book 1. Can you believe it? Isn't that crazy? It took us almost 2 years to the day to get it all up here. End of an era, if you ask me.

But the fun doesn't stop there. Oh, no no. Stay tuned, because we're already working on Book 2 and should have some awesome new chapters to stick up here in a couple of months or so. But we're not going to leave you high and dry. We'd never do that, ever, ever. We have a couple of things planned in the interim: a weird comic/manga think spawned by a dream I had ages ago is in the works along with the memoirs of one Atelon Scrudton to tide you over.

Also, we have an announcement.

Are you ready? Better sit down.

THE REWRITES OF BOOK 1 ARE ALSO DONE!! (and if you'd like to read the second version and/or provide feedback, please leave a comment and it will be emailed to you pronto).

Yeah. It was a long, hard process, but it's over. That puppy has been rewritten frontwards and backwards. We razed it to the ground and pulled it back up again single-handed! Like a PHOENIX!

Seriously, though, virtually nothing of what has been posted actually made the final cut. The original version (which you have been reading) clocks in at about 270 pages, single-spaced. The rewrite is a much more svelte 166 pages. Oh, you read that right -- we managed to chop out a full 100 pages. Sadly, this means that the prologue (SO IT BEGINS!!) no longer exists in a recognizable form in this draft. But it will always exist in our hearts.

In case you're not going to get the new, improved version of the book (and I do believe it's improved), I'll lay out the major changes here for you since the first draft of Book 2 will be based on this version and not what you've seen thus far. The action and plot by and large is the same, but character names are different and we do want you to know who we're talking about and that it is in fact that one dude from that chapter back in the day. Peruse the following comprehensive list at your leisure:

Really Major Changes
1) Hands down, the biggest change we made (and this is somewhat blasphemous, considering the title of the blog and all. Which I don't think we're changing) is demoting Jarthen Furblog, boy wonder, to a supporting character. The main protagonist on the rebel side of things is now (and I think always was) Rethnaki. Because unlike Jarthen, he actually...you know...did stuff. So Jarthen's still around and there's still a prophecy about him, but Book 1 is now much more Rethnaki-centric.

2) Ok, this one's really more of a cosmetic change, but it's still a pretty major thing. I actually mulled this one over on my blog and Jon hemmed and hawed for a good week or so before we committed to it. So here it is: Glothnafar is no longer a centaur. He is now a reformed pirate named Na-Fra. Essentially, he's still the same guy. Jon originally envisioned him as a big, angry black dude with the lower body of a horse who was kind of mystical. Now, he's a big, angry black dude with the lower body that matches his upper body and some cool tattoos on his neck who is kind of mystical. He's still a seer, he still hates Jarthen (but now, just on principal. There's no star-crossed lovers and her-father-shot-her-down-in-front-of-me explanation. Dude just has a beef with Elothninians for political reasons), and he still dies to save him because of the prophecy (although now it's due to, like, half a quiver of regular arrows and not just a single poisoned one). We did this because I can't write a centaur to save my life -- seriously, trying to figure out what the bottom half of his body was doing was just driving me up a damn wall -- and because we have actually had plans involving pirates all along. For real.

3) Our boys are all grown up. Bertronius and Jarthen are now lithe young men of sixteen-seventeenish, not twelve. We did this because it was easier to get them involved in the actual doing of things if they were past puberty. And this way, Bert could just volunteer for the army instead of running away in the dead of night and then somehow tricking his way in.

Things We Took Out
1) The Rebel Army is really just a hell of a lot of red elves, a few blue ones, and a handful of reformed pirates led by the man-formerly-known-as-Glothnafar. Centaurs, gnomes, and ogres are no longer a part of the Border Wars. Centaurs may be involved a little later, and do exist, but tend to hang around in the way back reaches of the forest, mercifully tucked out of sight.

2) That said, Zartheim, that lovable giant with his odd clean-shaven face, has been cut. He's probably off farming huge goats somewhere and living a peaceful life.

3) The rebels' jaunt through the Brovnajian Steppes and their face off with a dull-witted giant who mistakes them for sprites is also gone. They still go through the steppes, but nothing worth writing about happens there.

4) Dwarves, as a race, have been entirely cut out of the fabric of the Jarthenverse. They just aren't there. They just ran underfoot and got in the way, so it's no great loss. (I actually rallied to get rid of centaurs and felintarks, too, and make satyrs a little less goat-like, but I got overruled, so they're all still around and kicking it with hooves just like before).

5) Bertronius and co. move straight from the front to Susselfen. They no longer have adventures such as the bartender-what-has-his-eye-on-you setting sprites on them in the middle of the woods. As a result, Ol' Bess Crabblenathy and Clara the Donkey have been cut. BUT, they may be ressurected in the form of Lem and Nel stories at a later date.

6) McNab no longer hires a maybe-assassin to send Bertronius on a wild goose chase with the old ladies of the Sisters of Benevolence. But this, too, may come back to haunt you in the form of Lem and Nel stories.

7) When the rebels are in the City of Mages, Jellihondor no longer confesses to them what the deal really is and tells them that the ones who want to go back to the front can/should. Honestly, the only reason we did this to start with was because we had way too many characters and needed to get rid of half of them, so we just sort of wrote them out in the clumsiest way possible. We were young, we didn't know then what we know now. Anyway, now we know who's important at the end of the book and just used those characters and wrote them in good and early. So, no one bails.

8) The dialects are pared down to the bare essentials and are therefore readable.

9) The Old Man is no more. It hurt to get rid of him, it really did. I loved him like a brother. But in this brave new Jarthen incarnation, he went the way of the dodo. Mages still exist and still don't have friends, though.

10) That whole section from Queen Lilhelndine's perspective where she gets all emo and hangs with Ekval, her Norsan advisor, was dropped. Stay tuned, though, because Ekval's a major player in Book 2. Seriously, I love him. He's kind of my hero.

11) Many of the gratuitous pipeherb smoking scenes have been replaced by substantially more relevant pipeherb smoking scenes.

12) We've eradicated the cheesy cliched chapter titles and informative footnotes because neither fits with the tone any more. I'll really miss the footnotes. I'll not miss the chapter titles all that much.

Brand-Spankin' New Things
1) Overall, the pacing and consistency of storylines is much, much better. Things are set up in the first few chapters (ex: Vathorem's a multi-talented, sort of odd dude) that play out over the course of the entire book AND go one to set up the things we're planning in Book 2. I'm very, very proud of this. Characters that will be important in the next book (Ekval, Valiyon, I'm looking at you) are name-dropped.

2) There is more sex. Not like graphic porny sex, but it happens and it's consensual and folks are all of age now. Rethnaki does it with the elf-formerly-known-as-Citrene and the-elf-formerly-known-as-Elcrona and the Madame of the Blushing Loaf. Bertronius and Arna frolic a little (she's been aged down so it's less Mrs. Robinson). Jarthen and Leila probably do it. We don't actually see it, but there's a lot of flirting and sometimes he's not in his tent at night. Moshel and Sellior also probably do it, but again, discreetly off to the side of the camera (as it were). Vathorem has an alluded to preference for blue fellows. And there's a couple of others I'm sure are doing it but I'm not allowed to talk about.

3) The rebels suffer a lot more. There's a general sense of unease and mistrust of Jellihondor (especially after he drags them to Norsa and almost gets them killed during the duel with Svava -- which still happens, albeit differently and more awesomely. Wolves are involved now.), morale gets really low after they fight with the evil Dark Lands beasties, and the Dark Lands really suck for elves and make them all extra cranky. And in the Dark Lands, a red shirt gets horribly maimed and Rethnaki has to put her down, which is rather traumatizing for him.

4) The blue elf who leads them to the gate actually becomes a character. And he no longer inexplicably speaks Common. He and Vathorem have a storyline (that does not involve any sex, just lots of persuasion and defection and learning).

5) Jellihondor is no longer in the City of Mages for diplomatic reasons. He still makes a speech, but it's a recruitment speech (with lots of nifty facts about how the war started).

6) The get-to-know-you smoke-a-thon Jellihondor suggests after meeting the caravaners is actually played out.

7) The story of the gate Moshel hacks into is told, but is essentially the same as part of this Jarthenpedia post (which was awfully convenient for me when I was rewriting it).

8) Bertronius steals a quiver from the rebels now, not a gnome sword. Or any kind of sword. Because the elves are archers, by and large, so that would be the most plentiful type of weapon around to steal. Jon really, really wanted to keep it a sword for reasons that are not clear to me even now, but I won that fight. So, now it's a quiver.

9) The awesome Eye of the Tiger-style spy training montage has been replaced with a rather nasty interogation sequence. Because, really, they wouldn't be holding class out on the front lines anymore than they would be accepting a twelve year old into the spy corps to begin with.

10) Bertronius is a go-getter! He gambles (a lot, actually) and tracks Ractor through the seedy underbelly of Susselfen and he manages to break into a rebel bar undercover. Go, you sneaky red-haired little guy, go!

11) Our major plothole -- that McNab gives Rethnaki attack plans that were never actually drawn up -- is now addressed. Pearson becomes his sort of rival, pushing for more investigations of the rebels lurking around Susselfen, and much spy bitchiness ensues. We imagine Pearson, by the way, to be a sort of diabolical lovechild of Ambrose Bearce and Arthur Jones (oh, if only such a union were possible).

12) Lem and Nel actually go around incompetently investigating things rather than just talking about it. This includes them following Rethnaki around the streets and just believing him when he tells them he's not a rebel. Gullible little fellas.

The Great Renaming of 2009
Over the course of things, we developed some consistent naming schemes, got a better handle on the phonemes of various languages, and took the opportunity to make some of our previously shitty names better. If it's not on this list, the name's the same as it always was. These are the names we'll be using until further notice:

• As previously mentioned, Glothnafar = Na-Fra

• Elcrona = Adahna (because Elcrona made me think of withered old ladies, which was not what we were going for with her. Or really anyone but Ol' Bess Crabblenathy.)

• Helkint = Parlandor (because Parlandor actual fits the other Athenorkos names and Helkint sucks as a name anyway)

• Citrene = Fennella (again, fits the naming scheme. And now I don't think of oranges when I write about her. Shit, now I'm thinking of fennel. I'll settle for fennel.)

• Oertimis = Liadani (this character, also known as the red shirt that dies in the battle with the evil desert beasties, is also now a girl. Because we needed more ladies in this sausage fest.)

• Sveren = Pekka (naming scheme change)

• the nybbas = the rahksa (slightly less lame sounding, same evil desert beasties)

• Jellihondor's code name is now the Cardinal (because it's a red bird! get it??) and Atelon Scrudton's code name is now the Stork (because he's...storklike, I guess)

Alright. That brings you up to speed, I think. Woo! Book 1 is in the can, on to Book 2!