The first arrivals to the Losterlies were Wanderers, 2 males, 3 females, 1 pre-teen female, and 1 young boy with their cargo of small, alpaca like, beasts (who’s descendants become known as king’s sheep) and a number of seeded food plants and herbs.  Having lost their boat to a storm, they develop a life-style on the main island of the Losterlies.

The coming of the Whale-Talker,  the fellow marked by the bear clan, reduces their population, narrowing it slightly in the third generation.  Several generations after that, conflict with the Fomorians reduces their population and drives the wanderers into the mountains.

The Wanderers develop a herder/hunter-gatherer life-style on the bones of their earlier agricultural society.  The folk still seed favored plants and use fire to control undesirable ones.  They maintain mobility and, to a lesser extent, develop stealth almost incidentally, but these traits serve them well when the Seabrook colony is established.

The wanderers have some association with the agrarian and fishers of the original Seabrooke colony, but avoid the domination of the Celts.  Hiding away — drifting into the misty hills, they stay free and maintain their distinctiveness.

They and their alpaca “king’s sheep” live among the hot-springs and steam vents of the volcanic mountains.  They know the landscape, where the water is good and bad, where the lava is safe, where it has formed tubes and caves large and small, and they know where they have planted gathering gardens and where among the basalt wastes grass and wild flowers have taken root.  They have cultivated trees too, and they hide in crevices among the rocks.  They have a small grove they call the Ribbon Wood where they go to have council and “be of one mind”, but it is only a memory of that origin from which they spring, in part.

By the time of “The Man Who Forgot Himself” (TMWFH) the wanderers trade personally with outlying farms, coming out of the mist to exchange pleasantries, crafts, and food only to disappear, magically it seems to the farmers, back into the same mists.  

There are a handful of fairs in which wanderers participate.  For the country folk it is a chance to meet and mingle.  Dancing and song are part of the social event and the wanderers distinguish themselves in both.  The fairs are as long as a week and leading up to them are surrounding market days where there are dances and trading at crossroads and in villages.

There are other “meets” before and after fairs where mostly youth of the Seabrookians, Celts, and Wanderers meet and mingle.  Mostly the young islanders meet each other in ways that lead to marriage alliances and the magical, sensual wanderers lend a magic to the festivities.  Rarely the connections are between islander and wanderer, but these loves bridge alien worlds and do not often survive those differences.

Though wanderer clans are independent there is a recognized King and the wanderers use fairs and meets to conduct their business.  More rarely a King might gather the folk or their leaders to the Ribbon Wood.  Since the Wanderers are a world of their own, they might favor a particular market day or even meet over the fairs.  Such a meet is a glimpse of magic to the islanders who find their small meet is a major gypsy gathering.

This is my story page, but I thought I’d post it too.

Fiction can be truer than real life. The lives of mere characters, literary constructs, can clarify and instruct a reader, helping them to gain perspective, inspiration, and fortitude for their real life situations. Their own problems and opportunities are much more complex to be sure, but sometimes the perspective of fiction is a perfect catalyst for positive change. . .

. . . or just a very entertaining read!

I have several stories, novels, that I am working on. I will gather research material, scene drafts, character development studies, back stories and perhaps short stories that contribute to each of them.

Currently I am focusing on a novel set in an island archipelago, the Losterlies, that is effectively on the opposite side of the world from where humanity was first established on what I am calling the Planet of the All Mind and from where it diffused around that globe. The working title for this novel is “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”

People groups converge on the Losterlies and one of the cultures that has great impact are the Inuit peoples who leave with the Russians and are later enslaved by them. I want to develop a tale about one of these people, a whale talker, who’s people are annihilated by the iron Rus and who in turn gets revenge and then must rebuild a life afterward. Working title is “The Poet and the Ice Princess”. I plan to reference characters and events from the this story in “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”

A tale potentially coming to this web-site is the story of the original human settlers of the Losterlies, Captain Seabrook and his crew of Umircen adventurers and the Rus and Inuit people who settle the Losterlies before the Biblios Abbey and the Celtic overlords add their distinctives to the archipelago before the events of “The Man Who Forgot Himself” occur.

I have a few stories developing in an area of the world, Northern Umircea, that involves or evolved the Ribbon Wood Elves or UiUilsen as they are known. “the Lost Prince”, “the Elopement of Sasha and Faolan”, and a trilogy of stories, “the UiUilsen Cycle” will develop and expand both the peoples of this part of Umircea, and the land beyond the Western Mountains of the Gaelish Central Plain.

I love the movie “a Knights Tale” and would like to write my take on the idea of nobility. I also like the idea of warfare as sport presented in that story and think it has application, especially in the gaming community of today, but also to the Celtic lifestyle that is so much a part of my perception of what the Gaelic people were about. I want to set my knights tale in Umircea, but I may move the setting to the cities of the disputed lands and Northern trans-wall Scotia, though nobility is much less a factor in that wild land.

An important part of the development of my fantasy world are figures who make a huge impact by virtue of their many talents and even more because of their longevity. The children of Dana Bailey are intended by Dana herself to be a Celtic Pantheon. These genetically altered super Celts make contributions both by virtue of their leadership, and also in just being a tie and a memory to a technological past that is being lost and replaced by new progress informed by the past but not dependant on it.

Among the character’s stories will touch on: Balor, originally Lir, who was first born and most willing to serve Dana Baily’s purposes, but came to work hardest against those goals as the leader of the Fomorians; Lugh of the long reach, a wanderer and a philanderer at first, godlike in his self-absorption, his many talents are at last turned to good when he learns responsibility; Bridget, maternal in truth and in temperament, she must learn how to be good at her role; Epona, but more her most impressive daughter, Scythia, who’s leadership gives the freedom loving horse folk of the Gaellic plain a name, an identity, and a mother; Loki the miner and technical genius who’s folk live under the mountains, and there will be many more, names that reference Celtic lore and legend, and lives that mirror or echo those legends, slightly altered sense.

At some point I plan to take the background material I have developed and tell the story of Dana Bailey herself, how she came to leave her home on Earth, and seek a new place to live, as a Celt, among the stars.

In the Disputed Lands life is cheap. Warlords carve out kingdoms among the fortified city states of the broken and war torn landscape of a section of the northern continent east of the Safron River that drains much of the Great Gaellic plain, north of Scotia and the fortified wall that splits off the Scots Highlands from the rest, west of the Great Sea that has become dominated by the Fomor, and South of the lands of the Sinoese and most notably the Darklings. Several stories will be set or will touch this volitile region. Among them are “Icarus Flight”, “Kitsuniko”, “Led from the Dark or the Blind Deaf Mute and the Idiot” (a story about overcoming disability, frustrated revenge, and simple peace), “Fitch in His Majesties Service,” and perhaps “the Many Sons of Balor.”

The story I have worked on the longest is a series of stories about Niall, patterned after Niall Noigillach. I think my Niall is going to be very different than either the mythical king or even his historical basis, but certainly a hero. From its genesis it has evolved in my mind so that I’m afraid my first draft can largely find its fit resting place in the dumper but I have the most pages at least begun of this tale in ink and electrons.

I will try to expand on this list, but first I should start transfering some of what I’ve already written onto this format. I’ll try to work at it from both ends and hopefully have success somewhere in the middle.

LSO