New Characters and a New Storyline

Zhan - Crown Prince of the Eastern Empire, talent - Warrior.

 

Kai, daughter of the Regent of Heret, Eastern Empire, talent - Healer (empathic).

 

 

Zhan's father is murdered in a coup instigated by the head of the Imperial Army, General Yuan; who seeks to place his own nephew on the throne.  On the run for his life, Zhan intends to defect to the West and ask Vivienne to back his claim to the Eastern throne.

 

Kai is the only daughter of the emperor's best friend, the regent of Heret. Gifted with the talent of enhancement, she can grow a mighty oak within weeks, but her talent can be deadly to humans. Destined to wed the next emperor will she stay with Zhan, her childhood crush, or hide from Yuan and his strange nephew Narum?

 

Two strangers whose lives will intersect with Vivienne and Devon before the final showdown between the Guardian and Alastyre.

The First Rebellion, pt.1

For thousands of years, the Druids maintained the peace among all the Kingdoms. Most people were still struggling to build new lives on the reconstructed surface of the earth. They only brought out from the Sanctuaries the basic information needed to create gardens, build homes, and form new towns. Instructions for sanitary facilities, drainage facilities, even governmental structure were all released piece by piece by the Druids. But eventually a movement began to sweep across the lands, wondering why the keepers of the knowledge were reluctant to give the people wider access to their history.

Inside the Druid centers, the same debate was being carried out. As select students and Masters began to open more and more of the past, it became apparent some of what they were discovering was being hidden from the wider population. Soon the whispers and secrets began dividing the centers. Stealth became the order of the day. Acolytes were selected not for their talents but for their ability to ferret out information.

Soon whispers among the druids began to speak of a library, of books that contained more information than anyone could imagine. But the location was supposedly a deep secret. The druids who maintained this library were members of a closed society. Outsiders were unwelcome, no acolytes from the Five Kingdoms were admitted to their center. The more these stories were told, the more people began looking for this library.

Four thousand years past and the whispers grew stronger. Soon people began to claim this story was no myth, that they had seen the building for themselves. Soon the governments of the Kingdoms began pressing the Druids, asking and then demanding these books be released to the growing human populations. Each demand was met with the same answer. "No, we will not give potential harmful information to the land which could bring about another destruction."

Five hundred years before Vivienne's birth, during the reign of her ancestor King Padrik, an acolyte entered the Druid Fortress. Bright, ambitious, driven to learn all he could from the Druids, this young man was given special permission to study more than one talent. Obviously gifted in Mysticism, for his second talent he chose War Craft. The young man's name was Minnlin.

Given permission to enter the history section of the Druid Fortress, Minnlin used his intelligence to learn the location of the hidden Pinnacle Library. When he was certain of his information, when he had learned all he could, Minnlin started gathering other disgruntled druids to his cause. As their numbers swelled, they approached the Master Druid. Their demand was the same as before: open the library. Denied once again, the dissenters took the ultimate step.

They rebelled against the established Druid Order.

So, What Is The Deeper Story Here?

Grand, complex stories have always fascinated me. I love J.R.R. Tolkien. I love how his vision of Middle Earth was complete. Different people groups, different languages, histories, mythologies - no detail was overlooked in his books. Stephen R. Donaldson does the same with his Thomas Covenant stories. Deep layers of entire cultures maintained inside the minds and imaginations of excellent storytellers.

Once of the premises I created in CATALYST and the Guardian Stories is that mankind has been re-populated with limited genetic difference. When only 40,000+ people survived on the planet, in widely spread Sanctuaries, certain genetic traits would be eliminated. (Evolutionists don't cheer too quickly!)

The most predominate trait on the planet is dark hair and dark eyes, mainly black/brown hair and brown eyes. Therefore a large percentage of the new human populations would have dark hair and eyes. As the blood began to change from the radioactive exposure, the new traits were not physical changes, such as hair or eye color. These radioactive treatments gave rise to powers of consciousness. So, let's explore these newly created powers.

Can being a warrior be a power? Of course, there are aspects to warfare that lend themselves to enhanced psychic powers. Night vision without mechanical enhancement, the ability to track the enemy by visualizing their tracks on the ground, these are only a few examples of where natural ability amplified would benefit. What if you could anticipate your opponent's moves? Is that an unfair advantage?

Healers represent the other end of the spectrum, the most wonderful reward mankind could be given. To read a person's energy, to reach into their hidden places and determine what illness or malady afflicts them without the assistance of a machine or labs to decipher a magnitude of test - oh what doctor wouldn't want that ability? To use natural rhythms of the earth and to help the body heal itself is the highest goal of a Healer.

In the next update we will discuss Mystics and their scheming to control mankind and the world they live in.

Talent Is In Our Blood

There are three major talent categories: Mystic, Warrior and Healer. Each has their own physical characteristics and each has their own set of codes and regulations under which the Druids have dictated they may function. Not all become full Druids, most function within the wider context of the Kingdoms.

Healers range from full empathic to those who can diagnose and treat illness by merely running their hands over the patient. Some deal with children while others prefer the company of the elderly. Healers are born with grey eyes, which vary in shade by the intensity of the illness.

Warriors come in two types: Blood Warriors and War Masters. Blood Warrior is the term given to the Northern Tribal Warriors, recognition of the purity of their human blood and the evolution of their natural skill into an inborn trait. While not all Northerns are Blood Warriors all Blood Warriors are Northerns. (Say that fast five times!) The most identifying characteristic of Blood Warriors is their eyes. At night, the white of their eyes, along with their iris, become black to help absorb the maximum ambient light. The night vision of a Warrior is regarded as the keenest eyesight among humans.

War Masters are those from the other Kingdoms who demonstrate a natural ability with a variety of war related ares: tracking, battle strategy, swordsmanship, assassination, etc. Although these are skills which can be taught, to be a War Master the acolyte must show talent above and beyond that of regular humans.

Humanity has changed, grown beyond their restrictive natures, to embrace these new traits as simply a continuation of man's existence. This was only partially true. Genetic differences between them and us would be non-existent. The thousands of years of nuclear exposure, though filtered through the air systems in the Sanctuaries. still infused humans with new abilities. Each person is cataloged as soon as they being displaying their particular talent. this is another duty of the Druids, maintaining a roster of each talent and bloodline.