Mark’s
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(group member since Feb 11, 2016)
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Gotcha. Okay, going back to disabled mode. :)Good luck on the story!
I've set registration to admin approval only. Let me know what your user name is on the forum, and I'll approve your account. And then I'll turn it off again. :)
Brit Rogers, who used to be the Author Rep for 47North, is now working with Kindle Worlds. I like to think we were always favorites of hers, so I'm not surprised to see KindleWorlds doing mentions. Or maybe she's just making the rounds and getting everyone mentioned. :)As to the rest of the original writing crew on the Saga, we're scattered now, and everyone is doing their own thing. It's much harder to herd cats when they're not all in the same room, so I suspect doing interesting things is the best way to entice them to stop by.
Amazon does its own thing whenever it feels like it. I typically don't hear about any of these sorts of price breaks, and I'm sure they're all predicated on some piece of code somewhere in a stack of machines somewhere.
Poking my head in here to mention that I queried about KU for Foreworld KW, and was told that it is something under consideration, but there's nothing concrete they can provide us at this time.
I'll ask about KU.ML: It looks like you've got things sorted out as far as characters use goes, and yes, we're fairly flexible here in The Foreworld Saga as far as character use goes. Our interest lies in the stories that people can dream up, and we figure that the readers will let authors know whether they like a particular interpretation of one character or another. KW has introduced a wrinkle or two as far as determining canon goes, and we were going to sit and wait awhile and let content build up before having any determined conversations about what is new canon (or if that distinction even matters any more).
Delighted to hear that you're writing something. We're looking forward to seeing what you create. Welcome aboard!
-m
On one hand, I'm sorry you have that image in your brain now. On the other, that's probably not far from the truth.
Noting merely for historical record-keeping. 500 BCE
– 400 BCE – Symposium #1 - #3
1 AD
– 79 AD – Blood and Ashes
– 412 AD – Tyr’s Hammer
500 AD
– 536 AD – The Dead God #1 - #3
– 912 AD – The Shield-Maiden
1000 AD
– 1035 AD – Hearts of Iron
– 1183 AD – Marshal vs the Assassins
– 1193 AD – The Lion in Chains
1200 AD
– 1212 AD – The Beast of Calatrava
– 1224 AD – Dreamer
– 1233 AD – Sinner
– 1238 AD – Seer
– 1241 AD – THE MONGOLIAD
– 1242 AD – KATABASIS
– 1244 AD – SIEGE PERILIOUS
1500 AD
– 1525 AD – The Book of Seven Hands
– 1586 AD – The Assassination of Orange
1600 AD
– 1632 AD – Cimarronin #1 - #6
1900 AD
– 1914 AD – Suffrajitsu #1 - #3
CLASSICAL AGE [400 BC – 100 AD]Spartan and Athenian combat veterans, exiled from their home city-states but inspired by the ideas of their drinking buddy—a wrestler by the name of Plato—strike out into the north to explore the hinterlands of the classical world. In the mountains north and west of the Black Sea they found a new city-state called Petraathen (Athena’s Rock), topped by a towering acropolis dedicated to Athena Promachos (“Athena who fights in the front line,”) an avatar of the Goddess of Wisdom dressed in a helmet and carrying a shield and spear. Conceiving of their duty as primarily defensive in nature, they dub themselves the Shield-Brethren and dedicate themselves to using their martial prowess to defend the ideals of democracy and wisdom personified by Athena and put into practice (albeit very imperfectly) in Athens.
AGE OF MYTH & MIST [300-1100 AD]
The classical Greek world has long since been absorbed by the Roman empire, now in decline and turning Christian. Cut off from its cultural wellsprings and trading partners in the Mediterranean world, Petraathen has dwindled from a self-sufficient city-state to a chilly fortress on top of a rock, making a living by supplying crack mercenaries to local warlords and training their sons in the martial arts. Rome gets farther and farther away, and its new religion brands the Shield-Brethren as heretics. The Shield-Brethren look to the north and forge a deep and fateful alliance with a coalition of pagan priests, druids, and sorcerers banding together in preparation for a long and bitter struggle against the people of the Holy Book. Embroiled amongst warring Goths, Geats, and Huns, the leaders of Petraathen send a team of their best warriors into the far north. Athena Promachos, viewed through a Gothic cultural lens, looks very similar to Nordic myths and archetypes of Shield-maidens, Valkyries, etc. and so the Shield-Brethren find an unexpectedly warm welcome. With local help, they found a new citadel on an island in the Baltic, named Týrshammar. The result: Vikings, who fight with weapons (large round shield, lance, and short sword) remarkably similar to those used by ancient Greeks.
Centuries later, the slow and inexorable spread of Christianity into the north causes a group of Shield-maidens to leave Týrshammar and follow Viking trade routes into the deep east, where they found a third citadel on the site of what will eventually become the city of Kiev.
MEDIEVAL AGE [1100-1350 AD]
Bowing to the inevitable, the Shield-Brethren and the Shield-Maidens have become Christian monks and nuns. Petraathen and Týrshammar are now outposts of a Catholic military order called the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, the Knights of the Virgin Defender, where the Virgin Defender is simply Athena with the overtly pagan insignia scraped off and relabeled Mary. Along with other military orders such as the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Teutonic Knights, they have sent contingents to Crusades in the Holy Land and in the north. They are the smallest but the most accomplished of the military orders; as a consequence they have become enmeshed in intrigues and rivalries emanating from the Vatican.
While in the Levant, they befriend Richard the Lion-Hearted; in him, they see an opportunity to create a place that lives up to some of the philosophical precepts of their founding brothers. They conspire to assist in the creation of the Magna Carta, a document meant for the nobility of England, but one they hope can be applied to all men.
The Pope and his cardinals fear the OMVI's martial power while mistrusting their piety, seeing them, with some justification, as barely concealed pagan throwbacks. Their efforts in England, followed by the stories and rumors that rise out of the unsuccessful Mongol invasion, lead the Church to begin actively plotted the destruction of the Order. Pope Innocent IV—a man once known as Cardinal Sinibaldo Fieschi—makes it his life’s work to destroy the OMVI. Following the death of the Order’s last great advocate—Frederick II—Innocent IV is finally able to bring about his long-standing desire.
During the last decades of the medieval era, the surviving members of the OMVI slowly pass into obscurity. The Order is no more.
RENAISSANCE [1400-1550 AD]
The OMVI has been disbanded by Papal decree, and its martial lore has been scattered to the ends of Christendom and beyond. The remnants of the order become a diaspora--a secret society of awesomely capable warrior monks, living in the shadows and passing their secrets on to a select few recruits. It is an era of intrigue and vendetta in the city-states and courts of Renaissance Italy, France, and Spain. The medieval tackle of longsword and armor is replaced by new weapons and styles better suited to the dueling field and street combat. Crips vs. Bloods with four-foot-long rapiers.
AGE OF DISCOVERY [1550-1800 AD]
Already splintered and driven underground, the remnants of the order now divide into Protestant and Catholic factions, sometimes warring and sometimes maintaining an uneasy truce through the belle epoque of musketeer-style swashbuckling. Many find themselves in the front rank of European cultures' expansion into other parts of the world, where they compare and contrast their martial arts traditions with those of Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
EDWARDIAN AGE [1800-1914 AD]
The Protestant and Catholic factions have become secret societies within the clubby bourgeois cultures of the Victorian age. Only vaguely aware of the deep secrets of their past, they hunt through musty libraries and dilapidated castles seeking clues as to their heritage. Driven by a need to survive in wars at the edge of Empire, the heirs of the OMVI rediscover and revive ancient martial practices. Faced with the ever-present threat of street crime in teeming cities, they bend the same traditions into practical self-defense arts while combining them with "exotic" imports such as jiu-jitsu. This has the unexpected side effect of drawing in women seeking a way to defend themselves against bigger and stronger opponents, rebalancing the gender equation in the twilight of pre-Great War European civilization.
I'm Mark. I was Canon Master and head writer during the first phase of the Foreworld stories. You can find my name on many of the early books. I've now graduated to the status of "Wizened Old Dude Who Hangs Out On the Mountaintop."
I agree with all these points. Being blessed by the canon stick was relatively easy in the early days, but that has become very murky as of late. I am fine with not getting lost in discussions of what constitutes canon or not because it's clear that other writers are churning through ideas more readily than what is still lying around the archives. And, as we always noted during the early days of the project, "canon" became whatever ended up on the page. What's left on the shelf cried itself to sleep until we found an excuse to use it.
>> Canon becomes Canon because it is repeated without disputation. Word.
