The hero
In the last article I talked about a character that evolved into two different characters, this time I’m looking at some characters that fell by the wayside, possibly for the better or the worst. In the silly fantasy story of learning to fly, our heroine was accompanied by a pirate crew. Led by the heroic captain Garey Smif, it’s testament to my bad spelling that Gary Smith could ever be spelt that way. Gary who prefer to be called Giy at 29 was supposed to be a sometimes good role model for Kass.
The ship was called the lucky metal Dragon and had a blend of traditional English ideas and some Chinese flare thrown in. You can see the fall name of the ship across the pirate flag, although where I’ve tried to make the name more clear across the top of the page, I for some reason have rubbed out the lucky part of, the lucky metal Dragon.
Whilst pirates do make an appearance in my stories, sadly Capt. Smith and his pirate crew are sailing some other parts of the sea.
The crew
No pirate ship would be complete without a crew of colourful characters, these five cheeky renegades certainly fit the bill. Whilst I included two deckhands, a helmsman, a mechanic and a cook, I forgot about the first mate. It’s always possible that these characters and their ship, may sail into the background in of the world of Gear, they do belong to the era of my childhood, a time spent playing videogames, like skies of Arcadia.
Librarians and ghosts
Among other characters that joined Kasume and the pirate crew, were Sofia and Rimus, Sofia was the librarian with her vast knowledge and grasp of history she was intended to be the character with all the answers. Probably I had intended for Kasume to have a lot of fire and enthusiasm, but be a little clueless. Sofia as a close friend was the opposite, she was quiet and preferred the company of books. In this sketch you can see that Rimus seems to be projected from the book, I imagined him as a ghost inhabiting the remains of his journal. Rimus was supposed to be an Arten from an earlier age, who gave great insights into the past. Although this idea hasn’t transferred literally into my later stories you can see some elements of it. Recycling the idea that souls can inhabit an animate objects, I created the Kiy stone. In book 3 Voyages, Kiyanna discovers a piece of Arten technology which projects the Kiy stone soul record, like an interactive hologram.
The Prince, the antihero
Starting off as something of an anti-hero, Prince Miyrunt was tasked by his father to retrieve the red mystical gemstone that Kasume stole. After pursuing her and the pirate crew for some time he ends up being taken captive by them. The Prince expects to be locked in the Holden treated badly but soon finds that this happy band very different from his preconceptions. The character of Prince Miyrut definitely inspired some aspects Miguel Lance, both young men are fiercely loyal to their countries and both change their loyalties to help their friends.
It has been interesting looking back at the learning to fly characters and seeing how they inspired the characters in the broken promise series. There were many other characters that I had visualised, who simply faded away from my mind, such as the elf Princess Alice and her bodyguard Bob, the Luca twins from the lands of ice, Thaler from the industrial purple region, Vhicud an Arten soldier and the trio of ninjas Viv, Nin and Kin. It’s always possible these characters may be recycled in some ways in the stories I have yet to write, you’ll just have to keep reading to see for yourselves.