Scarburg Meadhall Discussion Thread

[Nogrod]

I think I'm being a somewhat realist in thinking that whatever we'll do with the new installment / continuation of the Mead Hall it will take several weeks or month(s) before we are up and writing it again. Therefore I think it very plausible all different considerations we'd need to think can be thought of & solved both individually and via a lot of PM'ing between the owners' of the characters in need of dealing with. I don't think there is any hurry. At least there shouldn't be.

It is very true different writers & characters are in different situations. Some might easily make a ten year jump and it would be only more interesting that way. For some others it would be much harder - or more of a jump into relative darkness where one would need to just decide or negotiate a bunch of things before we continue.

But considering what I said above about us having all the time we need, we could arrange for some "inrterludes", as someone called them, and give everyone a chance to write their character's POV posts about the years we jumped over (possibly collaborated posts with some other writers if there would be some important relationship-issues to solve) before we actually jump forward and start / continue writing the actual story.


~*~

Why I favoured a longer jump was that it would make it easier for the new writers to fit in as the shadows of the past would be lighter.

And for some reasons, well actually for quite many, I still favour a longer jump. For example I think it would do good to us former writers as well to take some distance.

It should naturally be a shared decision - and so I'm going to be happy with whatever that decision is, especially as I'm looking forwards to giving the reins back to lmp once again.


~*~

Just as a general point of agreement... I too think the Mead Hall is not a war game (I still find it odd collaborative storytelling is called 'game' in Barrow Downs) and should stay like that. But it should be drama for sure.

So a hard winter, a plague... we should have something along those lines to get rid of the enmities and to just throw away the characters whom no one is going to write (or adopt) for.

In general terms, it should not be too hard to come up with a plot concerning the local lords causing problems to the Mead Hall. They wouldn't be a unified gang any more (which I think was one of the major outcomes of the Mead Hall's confrontation with them as we wrote it), but it should provide us with a lots of nice plotting.

With some of the other ideas I'd tend to agree with Legate that we should have a point for them first. Just writing anomalies and seeing if they catch up or not isn't, imo, the most fruitful approach to writing in general.

Also I think we should get rid of Athanar even if I kind of really started to like writing him. And probably his household as well. But we could leave some soldiers, especially those who have writers, just with the pretext of not letting the Mead Hall fall too weak (by King Eomer's orders I presume). And what Lommy said about the brothers here could be just real messy (in a positive way)...

Originally Posted by Lommy

Or maybe they stayed and matured a little, possibly going away on a campaign to Harad or the East with an éored for a year or two, and maybe once they came back Athanar and Eodwine named one of them in an important position in the household upon Athanar's departure? And then that one could have little cockfights with Thornden in the new timeline?
...
(Ackk now I'm thinking, maybe they indeed went on a campaign and Wulfric - the older and bolder one - actually died, and Wilheard returned to Scarburg with his head down, grieved and alone, and his unpredictability hidden but even more dangerous... that could make an interesting plotline for certain.)

I mean we could come up with a nice combination of these ideas...


~*~

What else?

Mith's finding could be fruitful. And it is a nice spotting.

But it is at the same time a bit "earlyish" for our plans of jumping a little more than just a year. And on the other hand, there just being more people wandering around in Tolkien's universe by the time X might not be that important because we can always come up with reasons to introduce wanderers to our Hall if we wish to (we've come up with reasons to bring dwarves, hobbits, elfs, rogues etc. to the Mead Hall thus far with no problems) - or if we wish more of them wandering around, we can come up with a reason for that as well.

Or could it be the kind of a nice background story we'd tell happened during our jump - that besides the terrible killer-winter / plague, there were a year or two of lots of people coming to and fro - and maybe some of our newcomers to the story would be ones who had visited the Mead Hall by that time and had come back for some personal purpose? Wouldn't that actually be a nice place to start writing a new character?


Okay. Stopping my thinking aloud for the time being...

[Firefoot]

I certainly hope it doesn't take months to start writing again! I think we have momentum now and the longer it takes to actually start writing, the more momentum we lose. And personally, I'm really eager to start actually writing again. I don't think we necessarily need to have all the details worked out - we can leave some room for making it up as we get there.

In the interest of expediting things, I've attempted to make a character list of all the characters currently at the hall, no longer how long ago they were last written about. I've grouped them by characters whose writers have expressed interest in continuing the story, characters whose writers we haven't heard from, and NPCs, along with a brief description to let those who are new or who have forgotten sort of who they are (character bios linked on the first page of the discussion thread). From this we can create a shorter list of characters who will still be around at the time when we pick up.

Characters with Active Writers
Athanar son of Herewald - new Eorl of Meadhall (Nogrod)
Stigend – Carpenter (Nogrod)
Modtryth – Stigend’s wife (Lommy)
Cnebba – Stigend/Modtryth’s son (Nogrod/Lommy)
Wulfric & Wilheard - sons of the new Eorl (Lommy)
Rowenna – Serving woman (lmp)
Eodwine – Former Eorl (lmp)
Master Falco Boffin – Hobbit (lmp)
Harreld Smith – Smith (lmp)
Garreth Smith; - Smith (lmp)
Laerdil – Elf (lmp)
Léofric (Leof) – Ostler (Firefoot)
Scyld – Formerly of the household where the new Meadhall was built; makes himself useful where possible (Firefoot)
Ledwyn and her son, Theolain – Recent arrivals to hall (G55)
Hilderinc – Athanar’s soldier (Legate)

Characters with Inactive Writers
Coenred (Coen) - Athanar's right hand man/in charge of his men (Durelin)
Tyrdda – Serving woman, originally from Scarburg area (Durelin)
Raedwald – Soldier, did not come with Athanar (Eonwe)
Thornden – Eodwine’s 2nd in command (Folwren)
Javan – Thornden’s younger brother, assists in stables (Folwren)
Saeryn – Eodwine’s wife, lady of the hall (Folwren)
Quin of Edoras – One of Athanar’s younger soldiers (Folwren)
Náin son of Narin son of Nori – Dwarf (Formendacil)
Crabannan – “Trouble-maker”/Jack of all trades (Gwathagor)
Wilcred – Seems to have come to Scarburg with Eodwine (Gwathagor/NPC?)
Kara – Serving woman (Kath)
Frodides – cook (Kath)
Ginna – serving woman (Lhuna)
Randvér – Ginna’s father, not necessarily at hall (Lhuna)
Lilige Wynflæd's maid (loslote)
Wynflæd - wife of Athanar, the new Eorl (Mnemosyne)
Balvir – soldier (Nerindel)
Iomhair – young woman (Nerindel)
Aedel – young woman (Nerindel)
Matrim Astalder - soldier, caretaker of Aethel (Nerindel)
Ædre - daughter of the new Eorl

NPC's
Baldwic – soldier (NPC)
Fearghall – soldier (NPC)
Áforglaed – soldier (NPC)
Scyrr – soldier, troublemaker (NPC)
Aldric – soldier, womanizer (NPC)
Garstan – Stone worker (NPC, originally Celuien)
Garmund – Garstan’s son (NPC)
Leodern – Garstan’s daughter (NPC)

For a start, I'd recommend writing all of Nerindel's characters out - she only wrote about 5 posts for all her characters in the thread. Eonwe's character Raedwald can probably go as well; he hasn't been active in a long time. I'd be hesitant to kill off (distinctive from write out) any of Folwren or Durelin's characters since they were active "recently" in the hall thread. Wilcred has not been written about since the very beginning of the Meadhall thread - he can probably go. Not sure about Crabannan - Gwathagor sometimes pops up. Kara, Frodides, and Ginna are long-time fixtures of the hall - not sure how that affects what we do with them (also sort of depends on Ginna's romantic sub-plot...). Aedre, Wynflaed, and Lilige can all go with Athanar. And Nain can just be out and about - as a Dwarf, he's obviously not from Rohan and need not be present at the hall. Thoughts?

Obviously anyone present can make their own decisions about their characters.

Thoughts on the NPC's from the writers who have had more to do with them?

As far as the intervening timeline, I think a hard winter followed at some point by Athanar and co leaving is a good outline; should be enough of a basis for people to start thinking/writing about their characters in the interim. And as far as the conspiracy/rebellion goes, what sort of details do we need to hash out before starting to write? I personally don't feel over-concerned about this as I feel like I can create enough personal drama for my characters regardless of the overarching plot-line, but understand why others who are more involved might feel differently.

I just don't want this to stagnate with ideas and lose new writers while we sit around hashing out the details. Hope this helps a bit.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Good job, Firefoot. Just a short comment from me now - I think basically what's been said here all makes sense to me. As for the starting, we sure are not in any rush, although I can also understand the eagerness to start. In any case, I think it's good to do something. I think nothing prevents us to plan more details (and Firefoot has already supplied us with first thing to sort out. Maybe we could try to e.g. contact Lhuna and Kath and Gwath regarding their characters?)

And at the same time, whoever wants can start on working or even write some details about what happened to their characters during some of the transition, like Nog suggested. So exactly if Scyld would seem to have ongoing stuff which can happen before the transition, that can be written, or at least some of it, which isn't dependant on the final shape of the transition. But if we roughly agree e.g. that there was normal routine for a year, also maybe some bigger random happenings around the King-spedition that Mith mentioned, then some evil winter, and eventually Athanar leaving on Éomer's call, people already have enough basic background info for writing something. Or at least trying to make it clear which direction their character's development would take during the time, which is something all of us would have to think of at any rate.

Or I don't know, if somebody would be really hyperactive to write, of course nothing would prevent in the meantime to continue in the "present" just where we left off on the thread if they'd have stuff to do; the main point however being anyway that we want to sort of bring people together on this and start a bit further "properly", as so far I think the main issue for most is to get to a spot where something is happening which can involve everyone and we have something to start from.

[Snowdog]

Right. Lots of details here. You all get the scene and setting placed and I'll bring in my one Rohirrim character I have into the Mead Hall and will work with whatever you put out there.

[Nogrod]

Thanks Firefoot for the update on the characters! It is going to be really helpful!

And your concern with the momentum is a quite an important thing to pay heed to.

Originally Posted by Snowdog

Right. Lots of details here. You all get the scene and setting placed and I'll bring in my one Rohirrim character I have into the Mead Hall and will work with whatever you put out there.

That's the spirit!

And like Legate said, nothing prevents people from starting to build posts already - or posting them - if they have pressing stuff for their characters they'd love to move forwards like now and not a bit later.


I'm sorry Firefoot for using the 's' after the word 'month' - I wasn't really thinking it would take monthS to get this rolling (I was kind of joking on it), but it will most probably take a few weeks - and maybe a month - to really get everyone into the same map - and to decide what kind of map it actually is where we start / continue from...


~*~

There are a few things to do to help things get rolling.

We sould find out which of the old writers would be willing to come back. Of those who have not yet shown their presence I think the most important one would be Folwren as she has the ownership of some really major characters.

Should I sent her a PM / an Fb note - or would fex. lmp be willing to contact her? (She's taking a trip to Europe on June and we Finns are going to meet her around the Midsummers' eve-time, but that would be pretty late to start discussing this; it also means she's probably not able to post a lot in June anyway but that should not be a problem if she wishes to continue writing her characters, they could just be a little more inactive for some time)


All other "old writers" should also declare which of their characters they'd like to continue writing (some of us seem to have quite a bunch of characters) or if they'd like to write all of them, or even introduce more - or if they'd like to keep the character around but would be willing to turn it into a NPC or are just ready to kill the character? You should use Firefoot's list for that.

Also we'd need to have a rough outline of things going on during our jump so that people could start really thinking about their characters. (I'll speculate about it shortly just a few rows downwards.)


And naturally the new writers should think about their characters and maybe express their intents about them... I mean having seven "damsels in distress" coming into the Mead Hall and no other kind of new characters would be a bad idea. Or well, who knows?

And we'd need to make a short synopsis / general updated outline of the Mead Hall for the new writers to read as it is probably too much requiring them to read some 100 pages from the early first Mead Hall onwards...


~*~

A general timeline should also be decided - at least the most central things that would affect everyone one way or another.

How about a following scenario?

NB. The years given can be concentrated if the majority thinks 5 years would be too much...


1# year

The Mead Hall was more or less built within a year after we left writing the story (I think it was not yet ready when we ceased writing and there were some major things to do & to change according to Athanar's plans). Saeryn will give birth.

The things settled down a bit even if there were some occasional rifts and a few people were given minor penalties by lord Athanar's court because of misbehaviour.

The local lords were licking their wounds and having their own internal power-struggles so they were not able or willing to cause any trouble.


2# year

There could then have been a period of a lot of travelers the next year because of king Aragorn's trip, and the local lords would have been nice and relaxed as there were a lot of folk around & revenue to be made etc. A year of prosperity and relationships getting better within the Mead Hall.


3# year

The year of problems in the east. With king Eomer's muster also the Mead Hall would have been forced to give away a host of soldiers - both lord Eodwine's and lord Athanar's men (more of the latter as Athanar rode in with a larger host of active-duty soldiers).

It might even be lord Athanar would have been summoned by king Eomer to lead a force of rohirrim from those parts of Rohan (as king Eomer knew that Eodwine was getting better but not well enough to lead cavalry into a battle - but he trusted Eodwine would nevertheless be in good condition enough to run the hall). At least Athanar's sons would be summoned...

Local lords are called for as well (under the command of Athanar?) and so they are not doing any plotting or things like that this year.


4# year

The killer-winter -year (I'd prefer a harsh winter to a plague, but if most people think plague is better I'm fine with it).

Understaffed the Mead Hall suffers greatly because of the winter. Other local lords / their farmsteads suffer as well. Everyone suffers as death walks around randomly here and there.

Here we get rid of characters no one will be writing any more.



5# year

The end of the fell winter... This might also be the place we start our writing!

A nice place for the new characters to join the Mead Hall - refugees, wanderers, travelers... caught up by the harsh winter and trying to find shelter / been kicked out of former shelters, coming back from the war in the east etc.

Lord Athanar could be dead - or maybe promoted to a Field Marshal, or given a new eorlship... whatever. But we'd be rid of him from the story. Those left behind of Athanar's men could be ordered by king Eomer to stay under the command of Eodwine... and maybe one or two of his sons would join the Mead Hall after the battles...


How about something along these lines?

[Firefoot]

I'm sorry Firefoot for using the 's' after the word 'month' - I wasn't really thinking it would take monthS to get this rolling (I was kind of joking on it), but it will most probably take a few weeks - and maybe a month - to really get everyone into the same map - and to decide what kind of map it actually is where we start / continue from...

I probably overreacted... but it was certainly galvanizing. I'll be on vacation not this week but next week anyway, and doing a lot of backpacking/camping so I guess I'm not in a huge rush - maybe set a goal of definitely be writing by June?

I'm a lot less concerned with the exact sequence of events in the interim than the amount of time - Leof will keep doing his thing with the horses (he'd be pretty useless in a battle) - and actually, Scyld's not really a fighter either even if he didn't have his own thing going on so that all looks great to me

I would facebook Folwren - she hasn't logged into the Downs since we got it back and probably doesn't know we're starting again, if she's at all interested. lmp has also gone conspicuously absent, though I'm wondering if he's on vacation based on his facebook page as well...

[Galadriel55]

I apologize for the brevity, but I'm posting from a phone and it's a pain in the patience. I think the killer winter is great, and the timeline is quite fine as well. Just a question - are we going to briefly summarize these years in one post, or maybe pick a moment for each year and pause to make a few posts so that characters can "update" themselves? I would be for the latter case - it wouldn't slow us down too much, if we avoid too much interaction and make the posts more self-reflective than seeking subplots, but it would give the chance to show occasional character development in addition to overall changes. Maybe just a glimpse of a couple main characters per year.

I suppose on the other hand, if you want your character to start being 5 years older already, that's not exactly a perfect plan. But even so, it would probably be nice to fex hear Athanar's goodbye speech, or Stigend's/Garstan's thoughts at having completed the Mead Hall.

So what do you think?