This story will take place in the Graceling Realm, a world that Kristin Cashore created in her books Graceling, Fire and Bitterblue. It will take place a few years before the books, so hopefully there will be no spoilers if you’re still reading them. Don’t worry if you haven’t read the books as I will provide you any information you need to know.
In this world there are people who are born with eyes each a different color; these people are known as gracelings. Gracelings are born with a special gift, called a grace, which is a greatly enhanced attribute of one type of another. The gifts range in talent and ability. A strong cooking grace could grant the ability for someone to make a masterpiece out of every meal, whereas a weak cooking grace would grant them the ability to make good food out of whatever ingredients they had, or maybe just prepare it in less time. A strong archery grace could mean that every arrow will find its target, whereas a weak grace would be that most of the arrows hit exactly where they are aimed, and a few are just off the mark or they can shoot faster than normal.
In five of the realms gracelings are property of the king. Once a child’s eyes have settled, usually before they are of one year of age, they are sent to the king’s nurseries. There they will try to determine what the grace is; graces usually show themselves by age seven. Gracelings are kept at court unless their grace is found to be useless. While it is not uncommon for graces to be judged useless, it is a great shame to be returned home. Gracelings not in the care of kings are generally avoided. Commoners don’t trust those with different colored eyes, so shops with gracelings get visited less. They become a burden to their family if they are not disowned outright. While most gracelings are known within their own kingdom, only the strongest are known throughout all of them.
The 5 realms that make up most of the Known World are Nander, Wester, Estill, Sunder, and the Middluns. Nander is to the north, ruled by King Drowden. Wester in the west, ruled by King Brin. Estill in the east, ruled by King Thigpen. Sunder in the south, ruled by King Murgon. Sandwiched in between those four kingdoms is the Middluns, ruled by King Randa. These five kingdoms are ruled by power crazy bullies and miscreants. They are constantly warring with one another; creating treaties only to recant on them when the tides turn. Gracelings in these lands are tools that the kings use against one another or for their own protection.
The last two kingdoms, Lienid and Monesa, are said to have reasonable rulers. Monsea lies past the mountains in the south, even more southern than Sunder. Lienid is on an Island to the east, a few weeks out by sea. As these kingdoms are somewhat removed from the others, little is really known about them. There are, however, rumors that all the citizens are treated better in these kingdoms, including gracelings.
Your characters will be from Estill, in service to King Thigpen. You can be between the ages of seven years old and 60. You’re eyes have already settled, you will be a graceling. I’ll leave it up to you whether it is a strong or weak grace and what that would entail.
There are seven graces to choose from:
Beastmaster: You can read the emotions of animals and get them to understand your basic directions. Be wary though as many wild animals do not heed the wants of others.
Dancing: Your body is lithe and limber, you can move as fluid as any liquid. You never lose your balance and can perform various flips and aerobatics with ease.
Desire: When you are touching someone you know exactly what they want at that moment.
Sight: You are stricken with fits where you can see scenes play out in your head. Sometimes they are things that have already passed, and others its things yet to come.
Strength: You can lift a cow as most people would lift a glass of milk
Swimming: You move like a fish in the water and can hold your breath for a few hours.
Tracking: Most people would see a forest floor, you can see that a rabbit passed by an hour ago heading east. You never get lost, not in a maze nor even in complete darkness.
Gameplay:
When generating your backstory feel free to be extremely descriptive, but at the minimum let us know what you look like, and how your grace presented itself. You do not need to tell us how your grace works, as you will show us through the gameplay.
Please be descriptive when writing your actions, the point of the game is for it to read like a story. Instead of “Joe hit Jan”, try: “Joe struck Jan; his hand met her face with a sickening crunch.” Currently the actions are set at the default 400 word maximum but if you need more space I can increase this.
Please do not write for others unless you received permission to include them in your part, or if it’s something minimal like another character hands you an item, or simple responses to questions asked.
Use the comments section. You can use this space to ask permission to include others in your story, or to try to coordinate responses. You may also ask questions of me, like if you would like more description of your location or if you would like some guidance in where the story is headed/how to word your response. OR you could just let us all know how much you’re enjoying the game :)
Try to be timely. I will “nudge” people who have not responded in a week. Likewise I will try to have Narrator responses done by 10pm PST the following day.
Please abide by the Storium Rules; i.e. if you have played a weak card do not write a favorable outcome.
Hosted and narrated by:
Shira Long-Strand (sl0ng)
Started 08/22/14.
Scenes played: 3
License: Community License
