The Lament of Sir Finathorn

Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:22 pm

Sir Finathorn, of the House of Dragon's Peak, was a the son of a minor Lord who had sworn his allegiance to Ormellius Goldwine. As a young lad, he enjoyed watching his older brother, Harowdor, training to become a knight. However, Finathorn lacked the social graces to become a knight. Despite this, he continued to train and served as a man at arms in his father's household guard. Eventually, he left his home to strike out for the Imperial city and a new life.

However, he found the difficulties of the road more taxing than he had expected, and found himself without coin and little food. At the time he had made camp outside of Skingrad when he heard a group of soldiers were returning to Kvatch and were looking for some extra protection. Needing the money desperately, he decided to sell his service. He spoke with their leader, Savlian Matius, and was hired to provide some extra protection. Goblin attacks had become frequent along the Western roads at that time. Sure enough, after a few days on the road, the group ran into goblins. With only his claymore (he had sold his armour for food), he, a few other mercenaries, and the soldiers from Kvatch were able to drive back the verminous creatures. Savlian saw the potential in this man, and asked that he join the Kvatch Guard. Finathorn accepted, and returned with his new found friends to Kvatch where he was knighted by Ormellius Goldwine for his service to the people of Kvatch and given a uniform.

For a time he remained in Kvatch until it was attacked by the Daedra, around the same time that Uriel Septim was assassinated. Sir Finathorn was one of the few who was able to escape. In a bid to help save Kvatch, Savlian, now his closest friend, sent him to gather aid from the other cities. Ultimately he was unsuccessful, only able to recruit a handful of men and women from various taverns and mercenary guilds. By the time he returned, Kvatch had already been saved by the one who would be called the Champion of Cyrodiil. Sir Finathorn felt that he had failed his duty to the people of Kvatch. As redemption, he volunteered to go with the reinforcements to Bruma, and fought at the battle of the Great Gate. He saw Martin Septim, and, although he did not know the man, he knew that he was one to be respected and would gladly die in his defence. He had seen the Champion and after the battle had gazed at his statue, though he couldn't see the resemblance. He was not sent to the Imperial city in the final conflict, as he suffered numerous wounds fighting alongside Jauffre, sparing the Blade commander from many blows. He was offered a position among the Blades but Sir Finathorn refused, saying that his place was in Kvatch.

After the victory, he returned to a fairly quiet life back in Kvatch, aiding the people in rebuilding the town. But now, something stirs beyond Cyrodiil's borders, and now may be a good time for this knight to find his redemption.

Sir Finathorn is an Imperial, taller than average, with long dark hair and darker eyes. He is pale skinned and well toned (body wise). He is typically depicted as wearing Steel boots, gauntlets and greaves, and a Kvatch Cuirass. He wields Aeundyl, a steel claymore that has been in his family for generations. He rides a white steed.

Rp Sheet

Name: Finathorn of the House of Dragon's Peak.

six: Male

Appearance: above

Armour and equipmet: above

Personality: Mistrustful of most people and is not very sociable. To those he considers friends however, a more loyal friend is hard to find. He is at least polite, though he prefers to listen rather than speak (aside giving out orders and strategy). He is horrible with talking and dealing women sociably & romatically (a woman who is a soldier or knight he treats according to their rank). He is more knowledgable and tactile than he looks. At times he comes across as harsh, even sometimes cruel, but he has everyone's interests at heart and actually does care about people. He almost never smiles, though he does have sense of humour, at least to his friends. He can be very persuasive when he has to be, though sometimes a bit of intimidation is just as effective. He is naturally drawn to large, long weapons.

Feedback apreciated.
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Naazhe Perezz
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:35 am

So, all you want is feedback on your character so far, correct? It's not much to work with, criticism wise, but I'll do my best to give what advice I can ;) First off I would advise you to spend plenty of time building up your story. You have your character, and I'm sure you have a plot in mind, now you just need to work out the framework to give you a guide to write by. Keep in mind all the cardinal rules of writing: plausable conflict (no overdramatic vendettas), realistic characters (characters are people too :P), and a straight plot (it should always be moving closer to the climix, being influenced by your main conflict). Too many writers (myself included) wander about their stories, getting sidetracked, and eventually lose sight of the ending. But I'm getting ahead of myself, you've only given us your protagonist's background.

First of all, the primary rule of a good protagonist is someone the audience can relate to. Having an uber super-assassin can be fun, but it doesn't make for a good story (trust me on this one, I've made more bad assassin stories than you can shake a stick at). Him being a noble knight is fine, but don't make him too perfect. If he doesn't have flaws, how can he grow throughout the story? Don't make him too chivalrous, or brave, or strong, because most people aren't knights in shining armor. First and foremost is make him real, and the best way to do this is to play around with his character a bit and develop him more. I don't know if you've ever RPed or made a character sheet for an RP, but I always make sheets for my story characters. It fleshes them out so nicely; with the right kind of CS you can turn a flat super knight into a round and exciting person. Most importantly, work out their personality, more than anything else he must have a convincing psyche.

Secondly, every event must have a logical cause, preferrably one influenced by the character's choices earlier in the story. The same is true for backstory. The worst thing you can do is have random events jump out of nowhere and suddenly bring the character from a nobody to a somebody. Now, I'm not saying your goblin attack scenario isn't realistic, but if you aren't careful you end up with a story made of coincidences. I always find it much better to give the character a reason to be there. For instance, instead of chancing upon the attack, he could have been hired by Savlian to protect him on the road, as Finathorn had fallen on hard times while on the road and turned to mercenary work in order to pay for food, using the only skills he had to buy his bread. Then, although Savlian had been warned the road was dangerous that time of year, he pressed on anyway, hiring a little extra muscle for protection, including our young protagonist. Now you have set up a reason for him being there and, even better, a decent reason for the attack in the first place. Or at least foreshadowed it, which is just as good ;)

Ah, I am letting time slip away from me. Needless to say I do like your idea, as I love any story that uses the Oblivion Crisis without making the CoC their main character. I'm confident that with a bit of fleshing out you could have a great story on your hands; now you just need to put in a little time making it. Thanks for writing, and keep up the good work :goodjob:

PS Nice title, by the way :) I'm not sure if you can call a story a lament (unless you are really writing a lament), but it definitely looks sophisticated enough.

PSS Oh, I almost forgot. I would highly advise changing his claymore to something a bit less dramatic. Ebony is a classic mistake of newer writers, and is commonly thought of as "ubering", making your character needlessly powerful just for the purpose of having a cool character. As I said earlier, that is usually not a good thing; some of the most interesting characters are small and weak, but throughout the story they prove that wits and bravery beat muscle and steel. That's why we all love Lord of the Rings so much ;)
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Cesar Gomez
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:34 pm

Thanks for the advice, I have made a few changes now. I kept the claymore because I just have a vision of men with big swords that appeals to me (Aragorn, William Wallace etc), but I have down graded it. And trust me, he has flaws. I'll post them above. I don't know why I called it a lament either. It just sounds sad, and this may turn out to be a very depressing story on occasion.
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Nick Swan
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:15 pm

hay tom great info don't know about you but i can't wait for the golden isle thread to start
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Calum Campbell
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:50 am

For Kvacth
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Agnieszka Bak
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:34 pm

One thing that you should think about when writing is that the Enter-button is your BEST friend. Use it, a lot. In that way people will not see (at first glance) an irritating long bunch of words and leave for the next RP but the good backstory that actually is.

That is atleast how I myself am seeing it, I will read through it now...

Very good story, it is interesting and it is realistic! It is a simple man, yet he has a very interesting story.
Perhaps put some more details about the Great Gate battle in? Like that he is very proud to have fought with Martin Septim and that he in the heat of battle never was able to see the Champion of Cyrodill? Or perhaps he did. But that would mean that he knew what race or armour the Champ was wearing, something which could change from time to time between the different RPed CoCs (yeah, those exists... many stories need a CoC to spice them up, or because it would be something missing without him)...
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Jessica Stokes
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:39 am

ah tom I'm just thinking that our characters should meet in Anvil but we should discuss it
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Gisela Amaya
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:21 pm

One thing that you should think about when writing is that the Enter-button is your BEST friend. Use it, a lot. In that way people will not see (at first glance) an irritating long bunch of words and leave for the next RP but the good backstory that actually is.

That is atleast how I myself am seeing it, I will read through it now...

Very good story, it is interesting and it is realistic! It is a simple man, yet he has a very interesting story.
Perhaps put some more details about the Great Gate battle in? Like that he is very proud to have fought with Martin Septim and that he in the heat of battle never was able to see the Champion of Cyrodill? Or perhaps he did. But that would mean that he knew what race or armour the Champ was wearing, something which could change from time to time between the different RPed CoCs (yeah, those exists... many stories need a CoC to spice them up, or because it would be something missing without him)...


Thanks, I'll edit it once more.
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Marcin Tomkow
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:12 am

All though the Golden Isle isn't happening we should really use sir Finathorn as well as my character Dorlas in our own story. :evil:
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Bambi
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:06 am

I agree. We really should.
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meg knight
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:18 am

yay
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StunnaLiike FiiFii
 
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