Reasons within words...

Guess what time it is kids?

Time for my much vaunted and belated second post to this blog! **this spot reserved for applause**

Ok, this isn't that exciting but hey I got nothing more right now. Also considering how I've finally merged this older account with my gmail account I figured that I may as well post something while I'm here.

So after re-reading my introductory post, I realized that while I was on the subject of blog titles and explanations of them. I never really bothered to explain the subtitle "Search for Paradise" and it's significance.

The phrase is simply the statement that it appears to be. I pulled it from the anime series Neo Ranga after having completed watching it for the first time (they end every episode with the phrase). While the show itself is the story of three sisters who by a twist of fate inherit a god, it is also a not so subtle social commentary on the state of Japan and the basic beliefs of freedom, justice, and of course paradise/happiness.

In life, everyone searches for that one perfect happiness, his or her paradise or Eden if you will. The problem is that everything everyone searches for is unique, it makes them who they are and to remove that would be a denial of the self. For some it is helping people, for others it would simply be honor in their work or raising a family. Thing is, everyone has different goals and wishes. Because of this, we need to be careful when going about our own business as we search for our own goals.

Because as Yeats said: "But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

For me the phrase is simply a daily reminder to keep my perspective so I will not forget my dreams. For we all, Search for Paradise.
-J-

Lets start this off shall we?

Everything needs a beginning I guess and this will have to suffice.

Some comments regarding the nomenclature of my blogs (yes I consider my Livejournal a blog) for the curious. The names all come from different orginizations from the fantasy world I created for my namesake to eventually move around in. Many involving things have continued to shape and evolve the realm from the more naive Merry Olde England style setting of my childhood to the much darker and grittier world of my adult hood. Yet, for as many things have changed there are a few places that have relatively remained the same. The nation of Alteria is one of them.

Alteria was always supposed to be located in the north, in a location and size comprable to the mainland as Alaska is to North America. One large difference though is that the state is on it's own continental shelf much like India. This of course resulted in a massive collision between the two continents that raised a great redrock mountain range that boasts some of the world's largest Iron Oxide deposits. Due to heavy glaciation the northern half of the nation is nearly uninhabitable and form a large and wide river that seperates the nation and it's mountains from the continent.

One of the amusing things is that it was originally going to be a mirror to Terry Brooks' Skull Kingdom, complete with "Dark Lord" and corrupted Knightly Order of whom the last pious member (the crown prince thought dead) would go forth and do battle with said Lord and bring peace and prosperity to the nation. For awhile there I was actually considering writing this drivel in place of telling the story of Jarod Cain and his cadre of miscreants. I have obviously since abandoned it, and instead worked on trying to figure out what this nation was before all this would have happened. Then sometime in Middle School I used the area as a setting that would eventually lead to the downfall and creation of said Dark Lord under the guise of a parrallel fiction excercise that we had to do in English for Romeo and Juliet. I never finished the story as it would have amounted to the work of a novel but I turned in the thirty or so pages of completed work and all the notes about a month late to a surprised teacher who said that she would have given me an 'A' on the assignment if I would have simply shown her what I had the day everything was due. My excuse was simply this, I hate leaving things unfinished. Unfortunately where my writing is concerned that is usually how things end up.

But anyway, back to the description of what the fuck the name of this blog means. Well it is simple, the Alten Templar were originally said corrupted Knightly Order. They were formed by the nation's founder a religous zealot who had personal issues and disagreements with Jarod's ancestor, Silus Cain nearly a millenia before. Originally they were simply the church guardians and occasionally served as Alten's personal guard when he was out on state business. My idea for them was originally going to be the classic High Fantasy paladin in shining armor. This has since changed drastically with the advent of the wanderer Kael who is their last leader and the contemporary of Jarod in respect to the timeline. The idea was simply this. The man in tattered robes and cloth wrapping much like a mummy comes wandering into town, scarred by continual battle and constantly seeking a greater foe. I took that basic idea and then expanded on it by taking elements from classic Wushu films and mixing in their mythology with his own. His outlook on life is a bizzare mixture between the Tao and the Monotheism that stems from his worship of what he simply calls The Dragon God and is the settings equivalent of the Judean God. Worse I took things even farther by having his breastplate and chain on underdeath his robes, yet he usually would fight in a more eastern fasion. Chinese broadsword fencing and martial arts.

The idea of that character eventually infected that section of the world and retconned everything I had written out (most of which has since been discarded anyway) and turned his style into the nearly lost style of the Alten Templar, hunted and persecuted as demons in nearly every nation for their abilities and exiled from Alteria by the current Lord who succeeded in a coup that overthrew the ancient monarchy and came from their ranks.

So is this what you'll be seeing more of here? A literal biographical book chronicling the exploits of prior warmasters of the Alten Templar? Probably not, but I liked the sound of the name so there you go.
-J-