How random coincidences can lead to new ideas.
The title is a bit weird, but so am I. The purpose of this thread is to explain an idea I recently acquired for a new AAR, and how this idea came to be.
I'll start at the beginning, as is proper.
Several months ago, I began thinking about a return to AAR writing. As some of you may know, a long time ago (at least a year and more likely a year and a half) Xavier Dragnesi and I wrote an AAR called The Rise of the Eastern Kingdom. The first thing that popped into my mind was to write a proper end to this AAR, since I had neglected to do so, and it was still lying there.
Then again, that AAR was abandoned a long time ago and I was very out of touch with it and with the characters in it. So I decided to not do that.
Instead I began thinking of new ideas, and although many crossed my mind, not one of them was compelling enough to convince me of making a draft. This continued until I went on a holiday for two weeks. By a sort of coincidence my two friends and I ended up in Berlin. We went to the Deutsches Historisches Museum, the German Historical Museum, because we all love history and especially warfare, a thing that has been quite prevalent in German history.
I hadn't been to a museum in quite a while, and seeing all the WW2 items, posters, books, flags, weapons and all the other stuff was very, very interesting. However, when we came to the Roman and Medieval sections, the fun really began.
Seeing the decayed weapons, glass, statues and items in the Roman section, and the paintings of battles, lords and ladies, sieges, ships, the weapons, the castles and everything else in the Medieval section was utterly captivating. My imagination went haywire there. So many ideas flashed by and so much inspiration could be gotten from this that is was quite overwhelming. Alas, time was short and we had to leave early. But I knew that I had gotten the vibe again and promised myself that as soon as I got back home, I would begin an active search for a good story.
Two days ago, I went to the library and returned several books that were long overdue. As I was there, I thought I might borrow some new books as well. Searching through the books proved fruitful, as I managed to find four new fantasy books, all of which seemed quite interesting.
As I came home I began in a book called Kushiel's dart, written by Jacqueline Carey. Even though the book turned out to be not as good as I hoped it would, the initial plot made my brain do a 360 on the spot.
The plot began with a girl who was trained as a prostitute in the service of the gods, as one of their goddesses had had sex with people in order to soothe them. She was bought by a man who used her and her skills to gather information about enemies of the king who resided in the court.
This plot that started with intrigue, plans and plots and many, many possibilities eventually degraded into standard fantasy. But it did manage to make me remember several things and lay connections.
A long time ago I read a trilogy of books written by Robin Hobb, one of my favourite writers. The trilogy in question was the Farseer trilogy, starting the bastard son of a prince who was trained to be a royal assassin and spy. The plot moved away from his original role, but that role seemed very cool to me. When I read Kushiel's dart I remembered these books, because they were so very similar. They also made me lay a link with true history.
Before the vacation I had bought several books, one of which was The decline and fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon. Written in 1780-ish, this book is still seen as a hallmark of writing. It described the political mayhem and intrigue that seeped into the Roman society during the time of the emperors.
Finally it made me remember a particular instalment of the Community Game You Are The Senate. We had had one instalment using one of the Invasion Barbaroreum mods, which takes place in the time of the Roman Empire and the Barbarians who are knocking at her gates and massing at the borders.
In that version I took the role of Imperial Spymaster on me. Though we played only a few turns, the idea of controlling a network of spies appealed to me, and I did it with pleasure.
All these things made me come up with the following idea. What if, a tad cliché as I am well aware, a noble fell out of favour due to his own actions or those of others, and because of this was forced to give up a son to the emperor. This child would soon be noticed for his intelligence and capabilities, and instead of killing or maiming him, the emperor decides to train him as an agent or spy.
This child would grow into a man who was well capable of infiltrating all levels of society and people. He could kill, listen, notice, see and relay. Using him as a protagonist would give me a character I can give a personality of my own making, because he does not posses traits. Also, I can show events happening in the game, this is an AAR of course, through his eyes and perhaps those of his own underlings or other characters.
How I will do this is something that I have yet to work out. But what I hope to have shown is that, if you are open for everything, you can find ideas in the most unexpected of things. I know that writers sometimes have trouble finding new ideas, and hope that this thread has shown you that there is world of ideas out there. So read, go to museums, to theater, watch movies. And perhaps you can find new and surprising ideas as well.
Thank you for reading this.
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