As I’m sure I’ve posted before, mythology was an early love of mine.  I more or less devoured books on the “classical” Western mythologies; Greek, Roman, Celtic, British.  As I learned more I branched out and discovered Japanese, Indian and Native American mythologies and their associated legends and tales.  Saavd is meant to be a place where gods and goddesses are vivid and part of the overall tapestry, without overshadowing the “human” element of the tales and legends that permeate the world.  So, please enjoy another excerpt from the Histories and Traditions of Saavd.

The native pantheon of Saavd is known as the Tal Horesh, sometimes referred to as the Xatian pantheon. The gods and goddesses of the Tal Horesh consider themselves brothers and sisters. Each of them manifested from the needs of the world and its creatures after the universe with its myriad planes was formed by the struggles between Adockl, the Eldest God of Darkness, and Heratocl, the Eldest God of Light. Tallinoria, the Eldest Goddess of the Balance, caught between the two as both trophy and possession, melded darkness into order and chaos into light, to fill the cosmos. She placed Saavd on the knife-edge of the eternal conflict and used the energy of all three Eldest to spin the world into being. She sacrificed herself to lock away the pure forces of the warring gods, separating them for all eternity. Gathering together the threads of creation, she wove the tapestry that surrounds and saturates Saavd before she melded into the world, breathing life into all the world.

The first of the Tal Horesh rose from the dust and the air, the sunlight and the water, the shadows and the fire, to walk upon Saavd. Aramia the Thoughtful, Goddess of Knowledge, was first to stride fearlessly to and fro across all of Saavd, her hunger for knowledge a restless ache that could never be satiated. The tendrils of power stretching down from the heavens and up from the world caressed her and she bent them to her will, blending them into the magic that suffuses Saavd to this day. Caltok the Hunter, God of Creatures, slipped from shadow to shadow, sunlight to moonlight, and in his wake a thousand beasts and a hundred more began the eternal dance of hunter and prey. Dhallinora the Adored, Goddess of Beauty, seeded love into the hearts of all living things and thus into all that was to come. Dialla the Irresistible, Goddess of Desire, spread her capricious ways even into every hidden place the wind could reach. Ixtachl the Shining, God of Light, leaped and cavorted from mountaintop to desert and sea to clouds in a chaotic whirlwind unbound. His light burst across the sky and the land, illuminating Saavd. Lastly, Oduarpl the Hidden, God of Darkness, spread his iron fist throughout the shadows behind his brother, ordering the spaces between his siblings’ dominions. These were the Elder Six and their will shaped Saavd for uncounted years.

Life insinuated itself everywhere across the world. From existence’s own desires, dreams and needs rose siblings to the Elder Six. First came the aspects of Saavd itself: Ishtelt, stolid God of Earth; Adonl, unpredictable God of Fire; Cygnia, unrestrained Goddess of Air; Stellara, life-giving Goddess of Water and her twin brother Stelt, God of the Wild Places. Hyralt, jovial God of Trade, traveled far and wide, spreading his gold-fingered hand wherever Men were found. Susta, implacable Goddess of Justice, watched with critical eye both her fellows and their creations, counseled by her brother Boriar the Wise, God of Patience. Then Tylara, the slender Goddess of the Moon and her forbidden love of inscrutable Diamashte, God of Night. Their union birthed twins to be spirited away by Oduarpl and become Olt, the God of Secrets and Oltana, the Goddess of Deceit. Thus did the Twelve Old Gods divide their roles.

Then the skies burned red and the clouds transformed into feral demons of forms never known before in all the universe. Men wept and died as their lives crumbled around them. Faith and hope sustained the followers of the Tal Horesh, but cataclysm erupted from the stars and Saavd first heard the death-cry of a god. Diamashte the Shunned was struck to the ground, pinned to its boiling surface by the lances of the foreign invader, the goddess Ishtar. Weeping for her lover, Tylara pulled mountains from their stony roots and flung them upon Ishtar, sorely wounding her. Bent upon the destruction of the interloper, Tylara in her distraction saw not the shadows gathering behind her. Anshar the Unseen thrust his razored talons through her heart. The moon shook in its course as Anshar twisted the black and bloody blades through the ruins of Tylara’s life. The land split asunder and not all of Ishtelt’s power could heal it. The invaders’ wild-eyed followers flooded through the torn veil between one existence and another. Hyralt was slain in front of his sister Susta’s eyes by relentless attackers. On that terrible day Susta the Inevitable’s fires of justice became the unforgiving ice of retribution. She avenged her brother and more.

The Elders, five now, even Oduarpl in his impenetrable cloak, took to the skies together. Their power shattered the vault of the stars. They forced the interlopers back and rebuilt the walls between. Despite their might, the Elder Five could not force Ishtar to retreat. War, once unbound, could never be completely chained again. Unbeknownst to the others, Oduarpl, with treacherous heart, sheltered the killer Anshar in shadow and darkness, bending him to Oduarpl’s own dark desires. The Elders, spent and sorrowful, cried aloud for the loss of their brothers and sisters. The spirit of Tallinoria in her inconsolable pain wept tears until the waters washed away all but the most stubborn heights of land. The survivors clung to the islands and thought of the future once more. Weary and worn, the Tal Horesh withdrew to their homes beyond the clouds, little realizing that Tallinoria’s grief had forever barred them from returning in their full glory.

The Saavd Tarot turned out to be significantly more complicated than I had originally visualized, which is often the case with me.  To attempt to stay true to the concept of the “real world” Tarot I had to explore the symbology and mythology of Saavd and how that would be reflected in the Saavd Tarot cards and layouts.  To make things a little more interesting I wanted to have multiple layouts using differing numbers of cards to address different concerns, again attempting to reflect the usage of modern-day Tarot.  I won’t bore you with the many pages of research notes and charts I built trying to create at least an internally consistent logic.  However, I am also building the books that might be found in the Saavd reference library, written from the Saavd point of view.  This is your last chance to turn back…

Still with me?  Ok, here comes an excerpt from Saavd Tarot: History and Traditions.

The Saavd Tarot was conceived of in antiquity by the Goddess of Knowledge and Magic, Aramia the Thoughtful, in the earliest days of the Elder Six when they walked upon the surface of Saavd. The bonds of magic and primal energy between the world and its gods became the threads of prophecy and fate in Aramia’s capable hands. The first deck was built with the cooperation of the Elder Six and touched upon the strongest connections of universal forces to the flow of time and the divine energies permeating Saavd. Aramia decided upon the form of cards in order to isolate and channel the vast powers brought to play through the archetypal symbols on each card. As the ranks of the Tal Horesh swelled, Aramia incorporated unique symbols into existing cards and created new cards to better represent the full glory and grandeur of all the deities. The existence of the Saavd Tarot was at first shared only with the most faithful and powerful of mortal agents of the Tal Horesh.

Using the Tarot as a guide and divination tool was at first the province solely of Aramia, but over the centuries the concepts and designs were passed down into mortal hands, primarily through the high clerics of Aramia and Dhallinora. So well had Aramia woven her magic that mortal copies of the deck, although they were pale shadows of the original, could be used to power and focus arcane and divine magical effects and spells. Aramia was never one to rest in her accomplishments and her deck continued to evolve through the years. In the mortal realm however, the essence of original was shadowed and diluted by the encroachment of other cosmologies, losing much of its ability to tap into primordial energies. By the time of the Golden Sun was well known in the courts of Brion and his followers, but almost solely as a divination tool, albeit a disconcertingly accurate one. In the current age, only the most accomplished and knowledgeable manipulators of magic are able to draw upon the eternal power of the cards for direct magical effects, and then only through intensive study and specially prepared decks. An extremely limited number of decks from the ages prior to the conjunctions are in existence, closely guarded and protected by deadly safeguards. They are purported to be capable of nearly unimaginable feats of magic. Individual cards from lost decks of power are occasionally unearthed, sending energetic ripples through the Astral, Ethereal and Umbral spheres, ripples that naturally draw the attention of those with the strongest connections to the immaterial energies of time, space and magic.

A secretive and well concealed guild holds the secrets of creating true Tarot cards, jealously guarding the details of their manufacture. Each deck is commissioned and executed according to specific requirements. Each card follows historical guides and precedents, but each is minutely different and inextricably tied to one specific individual. Such an intrinsic link may be exploitable, keeping requests minimal. Tarot masters keep three full decks of custom cards, each aspected to one of the three primal vibrations; dark, light and the space between. Different practitioners name their decks differently, but typical terms are; the Sun Deck, the Deck of Shadows, the Cards Umbral, the Cards of Order, the Chaos Deck, etc. Two of the decks represent the extremes while the last embodies the middle, or balanced, way. Attempts outside of this guild to create true Tarot cards are met with unnervingly accurate and immediate reprisals. Despite this, rumors persist of individuals with an innate ability to create and manipulate the Tarot.

More common decks of Tarot cards do exist although they lack the mystic connection to the underlying energy of the Saavd cosmology. Still, such decks contain at least an echo of the original and have been used, even by those without magical expertise, for divination. Throughout history, different layouts of Tarot cards, called spreads, have been used to interpret the Tarot. The current preferred method is known as the Spirit Triad Spiral with one main variation known as the Soul Winding. It is certain that many more spreads are used, often created for a specific group or common community. One such layout originally began as a tool for meditation amongst the faithful of Aramia. While it is not as well-known or popular as the three Spirit spreads, the layout known as “Aramia’s Inward Turning Eye” is considered by many mages and sages to produce superior, if more cryptic, results.

Once again it has been far too long since I have posted here. Other worlds than Saavd have claims on my time as well. Nor is the “real world” the only competitor! I find myself with multiple stories vying for full attention. Character notes and story outlines span across superhero, speculative, cyberpunk, action and fantasy fiction settings. Saavd is the richest of these worlds and also the oldest. Saavd has more background material, more coherence, than my other endeavors. Saavd has seen many starts and stops throughout the years since it first sprang to life, but it has never faded far from my thoughts nor my pen. Yes, pen. I still use pens and paper to flesh out most of my ideas before transferring them to electronic format. Three-ring binders of notes take up more than one bookshelf in my library!

While this long evolution has delivered a fruitful field for exploration and speculation, it also contains minefields of discontinuity. The characters have grown and changed in my mind as both of us have grown and obtained wider experiences. As I attempt to pull Saavd and its occupants into an interwoven tapestry, I find myself constantly having to change the characters’ personal histories and adjusting Saavd history to match.

To me, the basic building blocks are the characters. More so than plot or conflict or situation, the characters focus the story rambling through my head. A single character being the centerpiece of the story was typical for what I wrote for many years. Other characters in the story were ancillary, not really fully defined. The larger stage that their stories were played on was vague and even contradictory in some cases. This didn’t bother me until I decided to attempt writing more than one major character at a time into a story. I cannot simply collect all the characters and stories and paste them together. Even the small collection of “teasing tales” from Saavd now has to fit into a consistent whole that is larger than just the immediate lives of the characters.

Which brings me directly to the point of this ramble. This blog was intended to be a container for thoughts and experiences on the writing of stories. Saavd was not intended to be the background for a single story, a background that would fade away. Saavd is meant to be a setting for many stories, not all of them mine even. I didn’t have, and still don’t have, full-fleshed and complete tales of the denizens of Saavd. I was given an opportunity and a vehicle to put forward the stories of Saavd even though not everything was fully realized and I took that welcome chance. However, I now find myself in the position of needing to make adjustments to what I have already put forward in order to build and maintain the continuity of the world and its characters. As my tales expand and intertwine I’m faced with the question of rewriting material that has already been “published” or leaving the inconsistencies in place and possibly creating situations that can’t be resolved.

This certainly isn’t a new or unique problem. Serial characters and storylines from comic books to popular literature have many “adjustments” made from the first incarnation to the latest. Hard-copy publishing doesn’t really allow an author to go back and change the earlier stories however. The author must either account for the inconsistencies in later tales, or simply ignore them. The Internet, on the other hand, is a completely different matter. It certainly will, if it hasn’t already, rival or replace the current hard-copy publishing environment. On websites, a writer easily can go back and tweak previous story details, characters and timelines to match with current or planned stories. What effect does that have on readers however, when what they remember can be retroactively modified?

Good stories allow characters to grow and change while remaining true to themselves, but does the writer have a responsibility to account for inconsistencies and resolve them? Is it fair to readers to have minor and major changes made to the story continuity? Someone in the comic-book world (I have no idea who) coined the phrase “retconned” for retroactive continuity changes, normally to explain a fairly complete shift in the direction of a character. I don’t believe it was meant as a compliment. A beloved character can literally change overnight. In the hard-copy world at least the reader can go back to earlier stories and enjoy the character they liked. Where does this leave the Internet reader however? Earlier stories can be changed just as easily as later ones and a once-beloved character may never be the same again.

I believe readers are touched by and relate to characters more than story details. Many people who have never read A. Conan Doyle or Robert E. Howard have a mental picture of characters like Sherlock Holmes or Conan and have ideas on how those characters would react to situations, even though they could not tell you details on any story involving those characters. So, what’s the answer? I have no idea, yet. Hopefully there is one, but the Internet evolved under an entirely different set of rules and stimuli than print and the rules there are rewritten by the participants on a regular basis. Perhaps, like software, stories should be versioned and change documents provided to the readers, but keeping up with all the details would seem to promise nightmares and mountains of hair pulled out.

So here I offer heart-felt thanks to the people that have visited and enjoyed the Saavd website so far. You may find changes in what you read months ago, but if you do, believe that it was done to make Saavd a more consistent, believable (as much as fantasy can be) and enjoyable place to spend your time.

Second: it’s amazing how long it’s been since I posted to the blog. Daily life seems to take up a lot of effort and energy; and naturally I have books to read and games to play for both relaxation and inspiration.

Third: what in the world have I been working on? I’ve been working on several projects in addition to my Saavd work. I have been trying to flesh out ideas and symbolism for a Tarot deck specifically aspected toward Saavd needs.

I’ve always been drawn to the Tarot deck and own several different variations including the Waite-Rider, Thoth and Celtic decks. I’m by no means a Tarot scholar or expert, I use the Tarot as suits my purposes and have found it to help me in many ways. I’ve enjoyed working with my decks and I even have one Tarot deck created for the White Wolf World of Darkness RPGs, mostly based around Mage: the Ascension (all copyrights are theirs, I just bought the deck…). I decided that I wanted my own specialized Tarot deck that not only reflected various facets of Saavd, but that would also be used within the stories themselves. For multiple reasons I did not want to use existing Tarot decks within the Saavd milieu. Similarly, I did not want to use a traditional spread. So I set about creating my own spread. I’m not quite ambitious enough to design multiple spreads, so I built one that was moderately complex and then created a variation or two, including an abbreviated layout of the base spread. That left the cards themselves, the symbolism of the cards and the ties to the magic system of Saavd.

I elected to leave the Minor Arcana unchanged in terms of numbering but with different “suits”. Extremes are an important part of the fabric of Saavd and my designs for the Tarot reflected this by choosing multiple names for the Minor Arcana suits, depending upon the background, ethical and moral viewpoint of a Saavd Tarot practitioner. In order to stay reasonably close to a “real” Tarot deck, I elected to keep the same number of Major Arcana cards with much the same meanings, and simply renamed them to align more with Saavd mythology. This gave me enough of a start that I felt I could include Tarot readings in my Saavd stories, but it left an important piece undetermined: the actual look and symbols on the cards, particularly the Major Arcana.

Determining the actual look of the cards is going to take quite a bit more work and will probably begin with the cards I need to describe within the first story where I use them. Since the “normal” Tarot symbolism is rooted within historic religious and mystic traditions, the symbolism for the Saavd deck should reflect the history and religious beliefs of Saavd. Since I’m still working out a full timeline for Saavd, it may be quite a while before I can get to my ultimate goal: an actual, as in physical cards in my (and others) hands, Saavd Tarot deck, complete with unique artwork.

There are some intermediate steps that we’ll be exploring of course and some possibilities afforded by available technology. Once we’ve finalized the titles and meaning for the full Saavd Tarot deck then we can look into creating a utility on the website to generate random and not so random spreads. Tarot cards also provide a unique outlet for artistic collaboration since symbolism and meaning combine within the cards to create something greater than the sum of the parts.

Saavd is a dark place where the whispers that seers and sages pluck from midnight winds, those whispers began as screams far, far away.  To paraphrase a friend of mine, you won’t find many “baskets of warm puppies” stories in the tales that wend through Saavd’s history and characters. From its earliest inception, Saavd has always been a turbulent world, a world where passions run deep and as wild, where a fall from grace is never more than a single misstep away.

Events on a grand scale change the very face of the world, but I feel that most readers prefer to identify with individual characters, a character whose actions have far-reaching consequences. In our “real world”, so many things lie beyond our control and it sometimes seems that there is little one person can do to affect the world at large. In Saavd, individuals can and do have a tremendous impact in the lives of those around them and across the globe, but that blade cuts both ways. Shining light into dark corners is dangerous, oft-times lonely, work and there always seem to be another dark corner lurking nearby. For every soul dedicated to freedom and compassion, there seems to be a myriad who prefer the path of least resistance, the easy temptation, the subtle whispers of self-interest. Villains are what make heroes, tyranny is what makes freedom so precious. There would be few stories that I could tell if there was no conflict, no oppression, no hidden grandmaster of evil plotting to grind the world and all upon it beneath a metal-studded heel.

In Saavd, the greatest good is the freedom to choose, but there have always been those who choose to force their beliefs, their way of life, their views, upon those who want nothing more than peace. The greatest evil is tyranny, iron-fisted control, and selfish power built upon the broken bodies of others. The gods of Saavd may embody the purest essence of these concepts, but the people of the land spread between the extremes in infinite shadings and permutations. The most interesting and edifying stories are built in the constant shifting of the border between darkness and light.

The complete database is going to take longer than expected, mostly because I keep finding things I forgot to design in! Data entry is seriously time-consuming as well. So we’ve headed back to the slightly less high-tech but reliable method of plain old writing while my CIO tries to beat sense into my thick head and move me into the 20th Century. Yes, I know I’m still behind, but these things take time!

We’ll be adding some new links, extra material and, if I can get my drafting board upgraded (yes, I still use a really beautiful wood-topped drafting table, a gift I’ll be eternally grateful for), we’ll have some new maps for our faithful and infinitely patient visitors. Throw in some artwork, a few trinkets lurking about, something borrowed and something new, and we think everyone will find something to enjoy.

Thanks for hanging in there. We’ll put some teasers and a few snippets here on the blog as we’re working toward the upgrade so let us know what looks interesting to you. We’re looking forward to it!

Visit often, share our dream, leave a thought.

Every writer draws from their own experiences to a greater or lesser degree to create their characters and stories. Regardless of the style or “category” of writing, the assumption is that readers are going to be human-type people that will relate best to human motivations. One of the challenges to speculative fiction is to present believable situations with reasonable reactions on the part of the characters inside an environment that is outside the readers’ experience without becoming so alien that the reader cannot identify with the characters. The more rich the personal experience of the writer, the more engaging and interesting the stories that can be told. The daily environment that people must learn to live within exerts tremendous influence on their approach to other people, the world around them, and their interaction with anything, and anyone, from outside that environment. People that live in large urban areas such as London or New York have similar characteristics, regardless of their other cultural backgrounds, just as the people that live in more remote, less populated areas live similar lives regardless of the particular continent they live on. Living in the high mountains places its own demands on those who choose to live there, just as survival in the middle of several million people packed into a small space does. The broader and deeper the knowledge of differing lifestyles, current and historical, that a writer has to draw from, the more varied and vibrant stories they can tell. Every experience, every interaction, every exposure to something new or different are potential components for story-telling.

My own interests and the stories I wish to tell lie along the lines of suspense, speculative fiction and fantasy but, even though I have little interest in historical fiction, any world that encloses one of my stories must have its own fictional history that readers must be able to relate to. I think that the characters populating my stories must connect in some way to the reader, otherwise they will have little reason to keep reading. The more different characters I meet, the more different characters I can write.