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Chasind’s Mage
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unwinding.
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stayforeverwild-deactivated2018
Shelter structure
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Anonymous asked:
So I have a character who learned how to use a longbow when she was a child to hunt. My question is two-tiered: one, in what ways would that impact her physical development; and two, would this help her if she needed to use a bow against people?
Strong shoulders, strong arms.
In all honesty, the bow is a weapon you build to as a hunter. The first weapon she’d have learned was the sling. More useful for small game, and you can be deadly accurate with it. The David versus Goliath story in the Bible isn’t actually a joke or overblown. A child taking down a grown adult with a rock and a sling is entirely plausible if said adult isn’t wearing a helmet. The sling is the weapon of children everywhere, shepherds and hunters. In many parts of the world, they still use it. It’s also better for small game. Katniss would’ve done better braining the squirrels with a sling rather than a bow, like children do.
As a child, she’d be trained on a child’s training bow and work her way up the different types of bows practicing on a single target. The longbow is a weapon that requires a fairly hefty amount of upper body strength to wield, and she’d have to work and train up into her early teens before she was allowed to use it for hunting. The amount of strength you can draw dictates how far the arrow flies and how deep it penetrates. Depth of penetration is important, as is how far the arrow flies. Both define how close you need to be to your target in order to be successful. Herbivores don’t stand around waiting for a predator to kill them, and carnivores might just decide turnabout is fair play.
So, most of her childhood was spent on dummy duty with her bow as she learned to clean and care for it. Learning to stand, and that’s a whole series of lessons. Learning how to string the bow, learning how to hold it, learning to draw before she was ever allowed to shoot.
What whoever was training her would set her on before that is the other skills, and she’d act as a gopher for them the way all apprentices do. Following behind the older hunter, carrying their equipment, watching them and acting under their direction. You can’t hunt if you can’t find game, and you can’t eat it if you can’t clean it.
Hunting comes with a necessary subset of skills which allow the hunter to work. They don’t just go out into the woods and kill shit then come back. It requires patience. It involves waiting in one place for an animal to come by, sometimes for days. Traps, tracking, reading sign, learning to move through the underbrush without disturbing it, hiding your scent, etc.
Your hunter will catch more food that they eat on the regular with snare traps set for rabbits and other small game than they will with the bigger game like deer. Bigger game takes more investment, more energy, and a lot more luck. There’s also a higher chance of injury.
There are plenty of herbivores that won’t go down quiet, deer included. If your hunter hits wrong and they sense/smell them, there’s always the chance they won’t run and will come right in after the hunter. Animals have “fight or flight” too, and a doe can gore you just as well with her hooves as a buck can with his antlers. Any poor soul chased up a tree by a moose or just gut checked by a horse can tell you, herbivores are assholes. On an unlucky day, they’ll kill you just as well as a carnivore and that’s if you can find them at all.
The chances of managing a “one hit kill” with an animal like a deer are low and, even if you land a killing blow, they’re not just going to fall over dead. You’ve got to be able to follow it, recover the body, and kill it as it lies there bleeding out on the ground if necessary. You’ve also got to have some way to carry it back. Then, there’s the risk you run with whether the herd animals will return to the same place or move somewhere else if too many of their number die. If they do, and they’re your primary source of food, then you’ve got to move with them. Nevermind that there are quite a few animals a bow is simply no good for, like bears and boars. Where you need other tools like dogs and spears.
Hunting is a complicated business, and it doesn’t come with any guarantees.
Now, those skills do translate over well on a certain level to dealing with humans. Though, it’s not the weapon skills so much as the other less flashy ones. Many scouts in medieval armies, for example, were hunters of one sort or another. As were the foragers tasked with feeding them. The ability to tell how many people passed, where they passed, and what they brought with them from the tracks left on the roads or in the hills was a valuable ability. The ability to move through the woods without being seen, to hide your passing, to tell who is breaking trail, and to find their camps was also helpful.
The Ranger class in DnD is built on the hunter. You want a character who has more in common with Aragorn than Katniss. Aragorn uses a bow, but it’s not his only weapon.
The reason for this is that the bow isn’t a great weapon for close quarters. More importantly, it takes time to prepare. You don’t travel with it strung, as that wears out the string. If the string is no longer taut when strung then you can’t fire the bow. You don’t travel with the wood left to the elements. It needs to be wrapped, and packed away. Constantly be oiled to maintain its elasticity/limberness so it can be drawn. A dried bow is a bow you can’t pull, no matter how strong you are. You also can’t get it wet. It’s a weapon which takes a lot of prep in order to be used, a lot of care, a lot of maintenance, more than average, and a lot of hard work.
When you’re in, say, a military or part of a raiding force that knows its attacking then that’s great. Or someone who is on watch for certain periods during the day and will be relieved by another, that also works. Or when you’re sitting alone in the woods waiting for an animal to come by. However, the necessary prep time a bow requires is a lot less helpful when you’re taken by surprise.
By the time you’ve taken it out, unwrapped it, strung it, you’re dead. The enemy was also probably too close for the bow to really be of help anyway. Its a weapon which requires distance. Awesome when you’re pegging people from the ramparts, halfway up a tree, or fifty to a hundred feet off. Less so when they’re standing over you, axe in hand. The traditional role of archers in a military structure is artillery, and not that different from how we use the modern one. Their purpose is bombardment, they soften up the enemy so the vanguard can break their lines and kill them.
There is one kind of single combat the bow is useful for: stalking.
The bow is a silent weapon, and when used in a hunter-stalker mode, can be terrifyingly effective. It’s a stealth weapon, meant for ghosting in and ghosting out as you pick your enemies off. However, this kind of combat requires a proactive mindset and a willingness to get your hands dirty.
It’s also vindictive and, from the perspective of most modern morals, it’s cruel.
Humans are no more lucky than animals when it comes to hunting. The bow is the slow death. No character, no matter their skill level, is going to be guaranteed clean kills. However, what they do get is debilitating blows. An arrow through an arm, a leg, or better a lung, is going to take enemies out of the fight and if they’re not dead yet then potentially another one with them. Harassment is the order of the day. The slow path of carving off opponents, damaging them so they can’t fight back, following as they try to run, before moving in for the kill.
It’s a predatory style of combat, it is (really) just hunting. Hunting humans instead of animals. The terrifying form of combat that haunts so many horror movies. It’s psychological warfare.
However, it’s the kind of combat that takes time, patience, and a strong stomach. It’s up to you to decide if that’s the kind of combat you envisioned for this character to participate in. Or the kind of story you want to tell.
People embrace the Predator and Lara Croft from Tomb Raider (2013), and countless others that have this particular combat style.
It might, however, behoove you to consider coming up with other weapons this character has familiarity with. From knives, to traps, to fishing lines, to other more improvised weapons built on the fly. This character has a range of options within their skillset, and there’s no need to stick to just one.
-Michi
“There is one kind of single combat the bow is useful for: stalking.
The bow is a silent weapon, and when used in a hunter-stalker mode, can be terrifyingly effective. It’s a stealth weapon, meant for ghosting in and ghosting out as you pick your enemies off. However, this kind of combat requires a proactive mindset and a willingness to get your hands dirty.
It’s also vindictive and, from the perspective of most modern morals, it’s cruel.
Humans are no more lucky than animals when it comes to hunting. The bow is the slow death. No character, no matter their skill level, is going to be guaranteed clean kills.
However, what they do get is debilitating blows.
An arrow through an arm, a leg, or better a lung, is going to take enemies out of the fight and if they’re not dead yet then potentially another one with them. Harassment is the order of the day. The slow path of carving off opponents, damaging them so they can’t fight back, following as they try to run, before moving in for the kill
.It’s a predatory style of combat, it is (really) just hunting. Hunting humans instead of animals. The terrifying form of combat that haunts so many horror movies. It’s psychological warfare.”
Friendly reminder that this is exactly the style of fight Birdie prefers.
thehopefulones
Both of them look at Birdie inquisitively, bewildered at his questioning. Jackson was only confused, but Sophie felt a pang in her heart, wondering what sort of life a boy hardly bigger than her own was living if he didn’t even have toys to play with, that they were a foreign thing to him. But she said nothing, as she began to stoke wood in the oven and struck the flint into the kindling to get it smoldering. She had no trouble getting it lit. As she waited for it to get hot, she ducked outside for a moment to fill a pot with clean snow and came back in, setting it on the stove to melt and boil for potatoes.
Jackson pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at Birdie curiously. “I Don’t think we have the things to do that. I just draw things I like to. Like flowers and stuff, and toys are just things I use to play with. I have some little wooden animal figurines, do you want to play with those?”
As Sophie goes out with the pot, Birdie moves in and starts to peel the potatoes with a small, sharp knife. His movements are dexterous and strong, practiced. He smiles at Jackson curiously.
~How strange. How exactly do you play?~ He asks, going on peeling potatoes. ~I remember when I was much smaller I played with the other children of the tribe, too. There were animals, but they were made of cloth and leather, not wood~ He adds, frowning a little and paring the potatoes so they are all the same size.
~But it has been years. I usually hunt now, for fun. Or make things! I am good at making things, I make almost everything I use, even my clothes and blades.~
He shows the knife to Jackson with a grin. It is not metal. It is a sort of black, shiny stone. His clothes are of fine leather, soft and well made, as are his boots and backpack.
~Can you show me these toys?~ He adds then, after a moment, as Sophie goes back with the pot with the snow.
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Pictish, Celtic and Norse Influenced prehistoric artefacts from the Scottish Isles, The National Museum of Scotland, 24.2.17.
Chasind’s Arm Band and Jewelry
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Here’s the thing about selkies: they’re creatures of water. Our air is their water, in a way. Have you ever noticed how streams of water over your face make you blink and shut your eyes? The wind does the same thing to them.
If you ever see humans with eyes too big, too limpid, that cannot stay open against a gust, make sure you don’t fall in love.
It can be painful. Especially if they can never look at you.
I control the winds, you see. All the air that runs through this city (never mind its name) is mine while it is here. In a way, the life that lives here is mine, too. I am the gardener, you see.
I do not boast when I say I am the best gardener for miles. I sow more seeds, plant more things than the average green thumb could aspire to. I am the one who carries the pollen around, making more of the beautiful flora that this quaint little city is known for. I don’t bother the soils too much, instead blow fallen greenery into it. Fertile soils, you see. And I do more than that. I pick just the right plants so that there’s always flowers around, always light and joy. Just the right flowers that are always close at hand to spark the blossomings of romance.
It is one of my hobbies (indeed there are many) to blow hair just the right way, to cause eyelashes to flutter, precious things snatched out of hands, blown just the right way, into the right hands. I am the reason the eyes meet, the reason for shy smiles and spontaneous offers of “Coffee, sometime?”
There is nothing I love more than watching love blossom among my loves, my loves that populate thus city with their busy, determined faces that would too easily forget to “Stop awhile, and smell the roses”, if I weren’t around to remind them.
So I sow my seeds and watch patiently as flowers and romance bloom hand in hand. Daffodils, Camellia and Bloodroot in spring, more Sunflowers that the eye can follow in summer, deep, red roses in the fall, and Snapdragons and Daisies to tide through the winter. I watch the flushed cheeks and wonder, with a bittersweet ache in my chest.
And then all of a sudden, cutting into my world like a winter wind, came Nerida. I watched with wonder the thick brown waves that flowed down her back, a flower I had never seen before in her hair. Waterborn. I wondered at how she could not hold her ground against even the tiniest of my breezes, blinking as if someone had thrown cold water across her face. But that was the thing. Cold water across her face wouldn’t even make her flicker. It was me. The deep rooted ancestral dislike of the air and those who breathed it. The fact that it felt like a slap across the face, even after the water had been diluted many, many times over with blood.
The bittersweet ache was replaced by a rush of a different kind of pain. The pain that tore and rented, fed you a mixture of hope and despair until there was only chaos, and only one thing to dispel it.
The flowers began to grow wild, and they were mixtures of flowers of celebration and mourning. The chaos was still beautiful, and I could see her watching it in delight. The flower in her hair never wilted.
I noticed something odd. She seemed to have taken it into her head that she would face the winds with a will. She would often sit in the midst of the clusters of flowers, forcing her eyes open, joy lighting up her face when she managed to keep it up a little longer than the last time.
How could I stay away? I began to help her with her struggle, starting with just whiffs of wind that got stronger and stronger, until nothing short of a gust could make her press the long lashes together.
As I watched the joy move across her face (I would never tire of that), she looked straight up at me and smiled. The rush that went through me blew her eyes shut, but they were open again in an instant. She spoke to me as only selkies and cats can, with a drawn out blink that means more than words ever could, and confers worlds. I could feel the flowers rejoicing around me as I blinked slowly, rapturously back.
Ooh, I really wanted to get in on the selkies fun like everyone else, and this time I finally could, thanks to @caffeinewitchcraft. Of course, it’s nowhere near as moving as her story with Isolde (I still fangirl over that), but perhaps a little story to make your day a little brighter. *stares longingly into the sunset, wishing for a love life* Hope you guys have fun!!!
*Joins Fontess staring into the sunset* I think my lovelife might be this story! I love the take on Selkies on land! This was such a joy to read, thank you for sharing!
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“Be a good pupil, and learn as much as you can”
~No I meant right now. What do you want me to do? When do we start?~
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Surana nods and swishes the last of the drink in her glass. “Rotten Tribes… did they give themselves that name, or was it given to them?” Either way, it’s kind of intimidating but mostly gross. Do they wear raw, festering meat as armor or something?
She isn’t inclined to believe a ten-year-old is actually a Grey Warden, but she’s drunk and tired and trying to figure out what’s really going on is far too much work. “Yes, they are…” She squints, trying to find the words to describe how she feels about the nobles. “Impressively uninteresting.”
Then she glances back out over the courtyard, quiet for a moment before taking the last of her drink. “Now then, where do we begin? Do I need to finish up here, or can we just be on our way? Also…” She looks him over, frowning. “Can you ride a horse? Or fight? I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just… when I was your age I kept electrocuting myself and setting my hair on fire.”
The child chuckles and shrugs. ~It be the name we, the New Free People, give them. Northerners call them “Chasinds” but, of course, they be no Chasinds. They don’t follow the Triad, nor the Law, nor they have Dagda to guide them. So. not Chasinds. But so long they don’t go Andrastian or Qunari we leave them be.~
The little boy pursues his lips, frowning, and looks at the south, the horizon cover by buildings and lights.
~That would be the hardest thing. To make them accept Andrastian wardens. Possibly impossible and only not-Andrastian will have to be stationed there...~
Then he laughs.
It is a bubbling sounds, like silver bells. He looks at the Warden-now-Commander and grins again.
~Oh I can fight. Don’t worry. I be a mage, and trained the way of the Old.~ He pats her hand. His own is small but rough and scarred and strong.
~We can leave, unless you really want to continue mingling with them nobles for some reason~ He adds, with eyes blue and sparkling.
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Unusual questions for your muse
🛌- Does your muse prefer to sleep under many layers of blankets or only under a few? 🎀- Does your muse like to accessorize? What are their favorite pieces of accessories? 🎐- Does your muse like to collect/hoard anything? 🛋- Does your muse like to have company over? 📱- Is your muse the “oversharing” type? 🐰- Does your muse prefer soft, plush textures or smooth and glossy textures? 💎- Is your muse drawn to things that sparkle? 🔖- Is your muse a daydreamer? What do they tend to think about? Have they ever caught themselves while lost in thought? 📰- Does your muse like to read the news? 📇- Is your muse a gossiper? 🕹- What does your muse do to occupy themselves when bored? 🏚- Does your muse like to explore dangerous places? 🌋- Has your muse done something stupid and not regret it? ⛪️- Does your muse enjoy attending churches they don’t belong to? 🛣- Is your muse considered a wanderer? 🐺- Would your muse consider themselves a lone wolf or a social butterfly? 🤝- Does your muse forgive others easily? 🖖- What “Fandoms” would your muse belong to? 🎖- Does your muse enjoy praise? 🎟- Do they like “so bad it’s good” movies? 🎠- Does your muse like amusement parks/carnivals/festivals? 🏝- Could your muse survive on an uninhabited island all by themselves?
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Descent
Aden’s eyes had been drawn to the movement of the small hand, and the smaller pebble under the mercy of the magic extended from the hand. It looked so effortless, yet Aden knew from long exposure to apprentices struggling to master their gift that it was anything but easy. It was a fickle energy, prone to escaping inexpert guidance to making it’s own mischief, like a child right around Gwal’s age. These people, having grown with the gift in their very blood, having spent years with it already being at their beck and call, and it was unwieldy for even them. What chance did Aden have in even being able to call it forth? He had managed once though already, much as he had managed the other… blessings that had once flowed in his veins.
Inevitably, even without the need stealing his breath, his mind returned to that abominable stuff. Long practiced habits and well trodden thoughts, tracks formed in his mind. He didn’t need it anymore. Wouldn’t ever allow himself to need it again. He refused! Wasn’t this the same? He could grasp this with the same conviction, the same purpose and make it happen!
No, no, once again he was reaching for the will instead of the belief. Belief came more from knowing, knowing without proof, accepting what may merely be metaphorical. It was like knowing the Maker. Knowing Andraste, believing that they were there to guide everyone. He had once been so convinced, so strong in his conviction. His belief had been such a strong part of him, a part of the core that made up his will. Where had that gone? Corroded, like every piece of his world, burnt away by the acids of reality, contrary proof, logical understanding and research. The more he knew, the less he felt he knew.
Now this.
Lyrium blue eyes flicked towards the sun, it’s fading glare slipping behind the trees of the coastline, and the templar allowed his own gaze to follow. Aden could hear the echo of the waves upon the shore nearby, smell the crisp salt in the air, two things that had been absent in their stay in the Deep Roads. Those were real. So much as anything was really real, real to him. He was aware of it. It could sooth him, draw him into a more amiable mind. He had to call up that sensation again, the flow of energy, and instead, it could be as if he were part of the ebb and flow. This time it simply just had to flow….
The pebble shot up as if were a spark from a fire, but halted right on eye level with the child. As if daring him to deny it’s existence.
The little boy looks keenly on at Aden, noting his movements, the shifts of his blue and yellow gaze.
When the {ex?} Templar manages the simple trick, he smiles and nods.
~Good~ He says, nodding again. ~You are learning. It is harder at the beginning. The hardest, for them who have not known before. Accepting what you can do is hard. Almost as hard as learning you can’t use it ~ A quirk in the child’s lips, something between a child mischief and an adult cynicism.
Then he extends his small hand, to touch Aden’s bigger one. ~Come. We need to find the right place to camp. Tonight, we don’t sleep with the others.~ a glance around. A frown. ~And not here. A calm place, where the Other Half is peaceful too.~
Birdie doesn’t tell why they can’t sleep with the others.
{He doesn’t need to}
The little boy looks around and frowns once more, lifting his hands in front of him, blue flickering on them, mixed with green/ Then walks away then, as if expecting Aden to follow, toward a greener place, where tall trees are whispering in the evening breeze.
“I don’t care” I say, uncaringly, as I effectively don’t give a damn.