Novella upcoming

[Can-ned Food]

I have begun outlining a ā€˜novellaā€™ which will take place in Yliakum, the ā€œDeath Realmā€, and other places.

Anyone who is interested in contributing any of their characters to the story, and collaborating with me in writing it, please post your intentions either here or in PM to me.
By the end of Novari ā€” I mean, November, ā€” I and any who expressed interest shall then go through a brief, group discussion over dividing the authorship duties and the premise of this story.

Word of warning:  It will be drastic and semiā€“epic.  Gods will be getting involved.

Meanwhile, I shall continue outlining and doing my research.

[Zweitholou]

Sounds exciting! Looking forward to reading it.

[Geoni]

This sounds pretty interesting, I've always imagined in my head that the death realm is super massive and that the people who get lost and don't find their way out lose clarity for one reason or another. Looking forward to reading it. 

[Can-ned Food]

I've been busy with other things of higher priority, so I work on this has been slow or stalled

I thought that it would be good for me to post a small excerpt from the opening as a tease.  Most of what it does is to introduce two canonical persons, for those who have no prior knowledge of PlaneShift, and to set the stage for the story.

ā€œI feel a strange current in the air today.  It troubled me during my final hour of sleep.ā€

On a rooftop, two people stood and watched the street below them.  Sparse throngs of people, in ones, twos, or more, passed others in their own groups.
Actually, only one of them was watching it.  She was the shorter of the two by a full unit of the measure which had been decreed as their standard.  ā€œThose people seem to feel it, too.  Look at how they move around everyone else.  All of them more uncertain than they usually appear.ā€  She looked up to her friend, who did not take her gaze away from the azure sky beyond the town.  ā€œThey should be coming up here for some of my Cohosh tea.  Help them untangle their thoughts.ā€

That town, about and beneath them, is known by most people as the name Hydlaa.  It had been given that name during the old era, when the two gods who had formed the lands yet meddled and visited their peoples.  It was now a cosmopolitan haven and rather small for such a prominent city:  in a day spent touring it, a visitor could meet at least one from every species recognized as citizens.  Two of those people were represented on this rooftop.

The shorter one is from the people naming themselves Dermorian.  This day, she bound her long, orangeā€“blond hair in a thick tassel down her back.  Her sharply pointy ears each bear one pentagonal ring pierced through its bottom.  She has a simple, earnest face; occasionally scrunching her small nose and pursing her lips toward one side of her face in a different manner for one of any various situations.  She wears attire themed with a dunnish brassy color:  fingerless gloves; a narrow breastband exposing her midriff; a short skirt and two longer loindrapes over her waist; kneeā€“high boots which cover her small, slender feet.

The taller one is a Ynnwn.  The folklore tells that her ancestry was half Dermorian, but such could not be guessed by seeing one of them stand beside her Dermorian friend.  Her body is densely built and her stance is proud.  Her young face is proud too, and she takes care to maintain an impassionate composure with it.  Thick, red hair reaches down her back over full ropes of a soft and luxuriant blue cloth.  Her left leg, standing out through the front of her robe, shows ochre fabric, woven silk of arangma, clinging tightly to her skin.  Fine lace rims the bottom of the silk on her leg, above her ankle.  A blue slipper, its top wrapping from under her bare ankle on to the middle of her foot's upper arch, lifts and drops while she tap it upon the brownly laquered planks of the roof ā€” despite her otherwise calm demeanor.

The Dermorian tilted her neck and used her empty hands to massage her hips casually.  Turning first her shoulders, she walked away from the bannister and toward an assortment of herbs and roots strewn across a few small tables.  She busied herself with sorting and superficially cleaning them ā€” until she became aware that the light of day was less than it had been, earlier in the morning.

Her head whipped up.  Looking around and above, she could see no clouds or other cause for a shadow to be cast, but the light of day was now perceptibly darkening, and it did so more and more rapidly.  The Ynnwn was yet standing and facing away, but now with her face turned upward and her body did not fidget.  The Dermorian gazed up also, and could now look straight upon the single source of light in their sky:  she could see it clearly, for it was glowing no brighter than would a small crystal lamp posted beside a street.

The two of them heard murmurs from below, but it was the Ynnwn who broke the silence there on the rooftop with her exclamation:  ā€œAn eclipse!  The Azure Sun ā€¦ is being eclipsed?ā€

[Zweitholou]

I like that it assumes no prior knowledge of ps as an intro; I didn't realize how seldom stories here offer that up, but it gives it a nice gradual feel of increasing familiarity as you read through. Excited to hear what happens during this unusual astronomical(?) event.