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Thanks to Perry's help, I have an updated synopses to show. This is the revised version, on which he did most the work:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Taint
is sweeping through Drugara and
nobody can stop it . . . except DESTINY.
Defined
by a childhood of abuse and manipulation, Destiny, a dispassionate
daemon who binds three souls within her--the goddess, the predator,
and the mortal--serves
as a remorseless assassin for the Four
Nations. Mortals
and celestialites, a humanoid race who share distinctive physical and
behavioral traits with animals, are at war over land and racial
differences. Destiny is tasked with traveling Drugara with her band
of White-Blood Knights
destroying the creatures wherever they're sighted. Her only solace in
all the carnage is ARABELLA, who sees her as a sister rather than a
monster to be feared, and her inner predator, who grants her a feral
outlook.
The
Knights mistake Destiny for a witch practicing necromancy and attempt
to slay her. They kill her horse and threaten Arabella in the
process. Destiny calls in the forest celestialites and flees on horse
with Arabella, and those left behind are slain. She and Arabella seek
shelter at Destiny's mother's old cabin in the woods, where they stay
for three weeks, avoiding discovery from the Four Nations.
On
their last day at the cabin, Destiny has a premonition--that a small
army of White-Blood Knights is riding up the mountainside and toward
the cabin, guided by the Binder who'd convinced the others she was
evil.
Destiny
is determined to remain free, and she and Arabella flee once more,
only to be attacked by forest celestialites. She dispatches them, but
suffers many injuries in battle. A Knight, hidden in the bushes,
releases an arrow and kills Arabella. For the first time, Destiny
feels true emotion--rage and distress. Arabella's dying wish was for
Destiny to live, but Destiny determines to let herself bleed out so
she can join Arabella in the Void, the place for departed souls. She
almost succeeds, until outside sources manipulate time and space to
save her.
After
three-hundred years she awakens at night in a pouring rain, lying
flat on her stomach, and learns she's in a village lane. Dazed and
disoriented, she sits and tries to remember how and when she'd come
here.
Before
she can, an alarm sounds and men pour out of cottages, carrying
witchflame torches.
Destiny attempts to flee but is cornered in an alleyway, with the men
crowding in behind.
ARASHI,
a stigmaton--half mortal, half celestialite--breaks through the
crowd. Then KARISSA, a Dark Elf stigmaton who resembles Arabella
almost perfectly, arrives on the scene. Destiny sees the resemblance
and wails. She is disgusted with her own show of emotion, and through
willpower she brings herself back under control.
Shouts
ring out. Darklings, a vile manifestation of evil, are attacking the
village. Prodded by her predator, Destiny meets the Darkling in
combat and is badly injured. She passes out after purifying the
Darkling.
After
more than eighteen hours unconscious, Destiny awakes in horrible
pain. It takes more than a week while under the
care of Karissa, who's a
physician/alchemist, for her to heal.
In that time, she learns that she's three-hundred years in the
future, the war between the celestialites and the mortals have been
settled peacefully, and both races live together without prejudice.
Weeks
later, Karissa and Arashi approach her about purifying their village.
She agrees and is disturbed by the patches of taint she passes while
on the way to the center of the settlement. After purifying the land,
she discovers that the town is in dire need of a Light Nythpath to
protect them against the Darkling scourge that's
been besieging their village for the past three years. As Destiny is
a Light Nythpath, it's evident the villagers hope and expect her to
remain.
For
a time, she seriously considers it, but when a band of necromancers
attack and she gives in to her predator's bloodlust, slaughtering
them all with a vengeance, the villagers fear her. Knowing she would
no longer be welcome, she determines to leave.
Arashi
and Karissa beg her to stay, not intimidated by the predatory display
of vengeance. But Destiny is adamant--the
villagers feared her, so they could never accept her. Recognizing
she's right, the two compromise and ask her to at least accompany
them to Brightwood, Yuthania's capitol, to
petition them for the protection of a Light Nythpath.
She
agrees.
On
the journey, they find more villages have been plagued by Darklings.
Destiny, drawn by the land's cries, purifies the villages hurt most.
As they travel through a forest, they're set upon by umbra--animals
that have been twisted into dark creatures who attack mortals without
fear. Outraged to learn of the animals' suffering, she turns on
Arashi, who knew about the umbra from the beginning and didn't tell
her.
They
settle without bloodshed, but before they leave the forest, Destiny
is hit by a crippling pain, one that weakens
her and entices the umbra to attack once more. They barely escape the
assault. Once out of the forest, the pain becomes too much and
Destiny collapses.
Arashi
and Karissa see her through the pain. After many hours, she wakes and
finds she's given birth to a heart-shaped crystal, which she later
learns is a vessel meant to aid her in purifying Drugara of the taint
besetting it.
At
Brightwood, they approach the Green Court about supplying Ravenswood
with a Light Nythpath. They refuse, saying they need the Light
Nythpaths at the larger, more prominent holds throughout Yuthania.
Unable to convince the Court to reconsider, they leave, discouraged.
Later one of the Light Nythpaths, CIVILA, approaches
them, telling them she wishes to return with them to their
village--the Court couldn't stop her, because they knew that crossing
a Light Nythpath with her mind set on
something could lead to a lot of
misfortune.
With
her part done, Destiny, listening to the urgings of the Crystal
Heart, takes leave of Karissa, Arashi, and Civila to
travel the four corners of Drugara hunting out impurity. She enters a
world of chaos.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I know it still needs a lot of work--Like Perry told me, I've put too much description in about the different races, and I'll be shaving that off.
So what do you think? Crap? Good? Perfect? Horrible? Opinions, please! And your thoughts
Amber
--edited by Amber J. Wolfe on 7/17/2015, 10:21 PM--
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Joined: 11/17/2011 Posts: 1016
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I need to think about it, and to get into my head what a synopsis should consist of.
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Once again I am beguiled by how lyrically you write. Once again I am flummoxed by the intricate mysteriosity of your story.
.
I'm asking myself, what would a synopsis of LOTR look like?
--edited by Mimi Speike on 7/19/2015, 1:03 PM--
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