The Ballad of the Dreadwalker

 Today I will post some collages from the Twisted Western series of short stories I am working on. Twisted Westerns is an anthology series my local writing group, The Writing Journey, has been developing. If any of them read this article they might recognize the names of these characters.

My original concept for Ballad of the Dreadwalker was a bit convoluted taking place in a far flung post apocalyptic future. But when they explained the alternate history North America of the Twisted Westerns fantasy setting, I decided to transplant the Dreadwalker and his cast there because it sounded like a perfect fit. I had to edit out and change some of the details tied to the timeline of the post apocalyptic setting but it still works.

Twisted Westerns takes place in a version of the Old West of North America where history went in a very different direction. The United States of a America as we know it does not exist, instead a very different version of the nation and states exist. The Aztec Empire still exists. Texas is divided into North and South kingdoms. The plains are divided into a series of free city states. And many other things are different.

Lets take a look at The Ballad of the Dreadwalker

 Fifteen years ago, the noble House of Draeden was destroyed. Their manor was burned and the family and servants killed. The only survivor was a boy named Seamus. Now Seamus of the House of Draeden is a bounty hunter known as the Dreadwalker. He travels across the Twisted West making a living and searching for any clue that will lead him to Damien Rex, the man who lead the attack on his home that night. Seamus will make allies and enemies on his journey and learn the perils of revenge.

SEAMUS OF THE HOUSE OF DRAEDEN

THE DREADWALKER

 Seamus was just a kid when his home and family were destroyed. He generally tries to keep his identity as the last surviving member of the House of Draeden a secret. He has grown up to work as a bounty hunter known as the Dreadwalker for his uncanny ability to sneak up his targets. He still seeks any clue that might lead him to Damien Rex but so far the outlaw has eluded him. He tried to live a solitary existence but he managed to make some friends anyway.

 

 MORDECAI HATTS

Mordecai Hatts is a young gunsmith, engineer, and inventor. Seamus came across his remote workshop by accident and that chance meeting turned into a friendship. Mordecai always has some new gadget for Seamus to test out in the field and half they time they even work the way they are supposed to. He supports Seamus however he can but also encourages him to stop to enjoy the little things in life when he can.

As I have starting writing these stories I find there are still some details of Mordecai's background that I need to work out. I need to do some research to determine what tribe he would be from. And I need to decide how he ended up making his workshop in the middle of nowhere.

 

DESDEMONA JEWEL

   When Seamus met Desdemona, she was chained to a bed in a pleasure house and dressed up in a belly dancer harem girl costume. She had attempted to rob the pleasure house and it had not worked out. Seamus rescued her from her predicament and she had been a part of his life ever since whether he wants her or not. Desdemona switched careers to bounty hunting and takes every chance to team up with Seamus. She and Mordecai became fast friends and together they work to get Seamus to be a little more upbeat.

Desdemon is a woman with many secrets. I have an idea of what those secrets are but I will fill in the details as I writer the story.

 

SHADOW CORTES

 The night the House of Draeden was destroyed, Shadow Cortes was there and rescued Seamus. She took care of him after that, teaching him to survive and the way of the gun. When he was old enough she sent Seamus on his quest with her blessing.

Shadow was a blind gunslinger who carried the title of The Augustus, an ancient charge to watch the border between the regular and supernatural worlds. Each Augustus can pass down some of their knowledge to their successor which gave Shadow the skills she needed to make her blindness of little consequence to her gun fighting skills.

TEMPERANCE JAMESON

The last time Seamus saw Shadow, shortly before she died, she told him the name of the woman she had chosen to be the next Augustus.

 Temperance Jameson is a Texas Kingdom Marshal. This gives her a decent amount of authority across the West, if only because no one wants the hassle of getting in a Marshal's way. Temperance knows who Seamus is but does not have any sentimentality towards him like Shadow did. She distrusts bounty hunters but chooses not to interfere with Seamus in his pursuit of Damien Rex.

 

DAMIEN REX

 Long before the night he destroyed the House of Draeden, Damien Rex was a notorious outlaw. But his previous crimes consisted of roguish theft and vandalism. Never before or since had he committed such murderous violence. To this day no one knows why he attacked a noble house. There has been a massive bounty on his head ever since but no one has been able to capture him. He can be recognized by his signature tall black hat, long black coat, all black clothes, and black staff. But he is never recognized for his face. Many people have seen Damien Rex in person, but not one of them can remember what his face looks like. This has caused many theories to pop up about how he may be something more or perhaps less than human.

And those are the major characters from The Ballad of the Dreadwalker. As with the previous collages the images came from a mix of dress up games, heroforge.com, and some AI generated images.

The Four Elemental Warriors

 Like many people, I have been having a rough time this month. I have been taking comfort in my art, both in my writing, and in the recent series of character collages I have been making for various stories.

There have been many stories about four heroes who wield the powers of the elements. I came up with my own back when I was a kid in school, somewhere around junior high. It was originally going to be a spin off of The God Factor where there is a story arc where main character Dominick goes on a sort of recruiting spree across the multiverse looking for new heroes. He encounters a parallel world where the United States never expanded much beyond the original 13 states and most of North America is still controlled by native tribes who formed a federation. Also magic still persists in the world. When a great need arises the tribes will come together to appoint champions of the four elements to defend the world. In this case Earth is invaded by giant alien worms that adapt to the environment and then begin terraforming a planet to their needs. The worms don't care how many humans die in the process so the four elemental warriors are called to fight them.

In my original concept the warrior were going to be four brothers. Then looking at the concept again many years later as an adult I decided to change that and have equal number of men and women, and for them to not be related at all. Now lets take a look at these champions.

AMOS ROUGHSTONE

 Amos Roughstone is the elemental warrior of earth. He is able to move rock and soil with his will alone. He is also very muscular and draws on the power of earth to give himself superhuman strength and durability. At some point I decided that he is a very upbeat and energetic guy.

 

TABITHA COLDRIVER

Tabitha Coldriver is the elemental warrior of water. She can manipulate water to her will. She can also walk on the surface of water if she wants or she can swim at super speed. I decided that Tabitha is the most mission focused member of the group, determined to defeat the worms. Perhaps she suffered some personal tragedy from them or maybe she just takes issue with the idea that giant worms showed up one day and declared themselves the new residents of earth at the expense of everyone who already lives there.

 

MONICA SWIFTCLOUD

Monica Swiftcloud is the elemental warrior of wind. She can control all the air around her. She can even use it to make herself fly and levitate objects. Monica is a very optimistic young woman but gives of a much more laid back energy than someone like Amos. She hopes the four elemental warriors can all be friends and not just co-workers.

 

JUDE FALLINGSTAR

 Jude Fallingstar is the elemental warrior of fire. He can summon fire with a thought and control where and when it burns and how high or low. From the first day I came up with this concept, Jude Fallingstar was the one I had the most clear image of, and the only one whose name has remained unchanged from my original notes. Jude tries to set himself apart from the others, not out of pride, but because he knows he is capable of destruction on a scale far beyond the rest. The other elements are also suited for sowing life. Jude feels like his power is only good for fighting and destroying. Amos and Monica are always trying be friendly and get him to open up. Tabitha respects professionalism but even she finds Jude's brooding a bit much at times.

And there you have The Four Elemental Warriors, champions of an alternate history North America that is being invaded by giant alien worms. I don't have any concept images for the worms. I know what they should look like but there are not giant worm dress up games or character makers with giant worm options. Any attempt to put a description of the worms into an AI image generator all came out looking like crap.

If I ever did go forward with developing this story idea further I would have to do a lot more research on Native American tribes to figure out where exactly each warrior is from and how the whole federation of tribes works.

The Planet of Oz

 It is time for this blog to rise again from the ashes. Yes Blogger still exists and I still have some blogs on there that I have not update for several years. I recently posted some character collages on a facebook album but their algorithms don't get much traffic so I am going to post them here too.

I will be posting character collages from many different story ideas I have had that I hope to finish one day. We will begin with my science fiction retelling of The Wizard of Oz.

THE PLANET OF OZ

Somewhere in the future, when humanity has spread to the stars and set up farming colony on distant moon. On this moon lives a young woman named Dorothy and her dog Toto. One day a 'wizard' technician comes to upgrade the colony environmental system. Soon after a climate control malfunction threatened to cause the colony ecosystem to collapse. The entire colony had to be evacuated through wormholes to a place on Earth called Kansas. Dorothy entered her escape pod like everyone else but the wormhole she entered suddenly became unstable and she was sent to unknown coordinates.

Dorothy and Toto found themselves on a strange alien planet called Oz. Dorothy finds herself caught in the middle of a 'War of Witches' that threatens to engulf the planet. Dorothy must make her way to the Emerald City, the one place that might be able to help her get home. On the way she befriends 3 unusual beings each looking for something to make them whole.

 Lets look at the characters.

 

DOROTHY

 

Dorothy is just another worker on the farm colony. Toto is a genetically enhanced herding dog and her closest companion. When the emergency escape wormhole became unstable they ended up in space above the Planet of Oz. The pod was able to make a landing but it accidentally collided with a transport ship along the way and Dorothy ends up with a strange alien symbiote attached to her legs. She must make her way to the Emerald City to get it removed and meets some friends along the way.

The first few images used in this collage came from dress up games you can find on the internet at places like dolldivine.com or azaleasdolls.com. The image I used for Toto is just a stock image of a herding dog. And yes there are a few AI generated images in there. No, AI generated images are not real art, but if there is anything redeemable about them it is as fodder in a collage like this.

I don't want Dorothy to wear the same outfit the whole story. She starts off in her hot farm girl outfit. Then once she is on the Planet of Oz she gets a new traveling outfit for her journey. And once she arrives in the Emerald City she would try out some of their fashion.

 

 

SCARECROW

 On the Planet of Oz, the Scarecrow is a biological robot made from living plant matter. He was assigned to watch over a farm field and keep it pest free. During the war, the field was abandoned and Scarecrow was left behind. He has been left without maintenance long enough that his nervous system has begun to degrade. He joins Dorothy on her journey hoping to be rejuvenated in the Emerald City.

 

 

TINMAN

 On the planet of Oz, the Tinman is a cyborg lumberman. He has had more than a few work accidents that have left a great deal of his body replaced with cybernetics and he opted to get the full body armor treatment. He still has most of his own bones, nervous system, and internal organs, but his synthetic heart needs to be replaced before it breaks down.He joins Dorothy on her journey hoping he can get a new heart in the Emerald City.

 

THE LION

 On the Planet of Oz, the Lion is a disgraced military commander. In an early battle during the War of Witches, he chose to retreat from battle to save the lives of his soldiers rather than risk them by pushing forward. He was branded a coward for this and stripped of his rank. Since then he spent most days drinking and brooding. He agrees to join Dorothy on the slim chance he might reclaim some of his former glory.

 

THE GOOD WITCH

 The Good Witch leads the forces of Oz defending the planet from the Wicked Witch's invasion. She homed in one Dorothy's escape pod distress signal and sent her on the journey to Emerald City.

 

THE WICKED WITCH

 The Wicked Witch was exiled from Oz many years ago for carrying out inhumane and abominable experiments on intelligent life. She built a stronghold on a distant moon and returned to invade and conquer, so began the War of Witches. The transport ship that Dorothy's escape pod knocked off course was carrying a valuable symbiotic weapon that could win the war for whoever possesses it. Now that the symbiote is stuck on Dorothy, the Wicked Witch hunts her to get it back.

 

 THE WIZARD

 The Wizard was an inventor trying to sell his latest invention to the farming colony. However it malfunctioned and he was quick to make his escape. He also ended up in an unstable wormhole and landed on the Planet of Oz long before Dorothy and managed to set himself up nicely in the Emerald City. Dorothy's appearance will force him to confront his past mistakes and help save The Planet of Oz.

 

There they are, all the major character from The Planet of Oz. I made each collage with a combination of dress up games from Doll Divine and Azaleas Dolls, as well as Heroforge.com, and a few AI generated images. I don't know if this is the only redeemable way to make use of AI images, but I liked putting these together and I will be posting more soon for other story ideas.