The Trials of Crimson Sand (WIP)

This branch will be about a female drylander from the outback, the one in the intro's artwork. I don't know when I'm going to write it because I don't want to wing it without doing some deeper worldbuilding first. For now I'm just going to throw some ideas in here. They may or may not be added to Relator's "about" chapter.

The character: Crimson Sand is part of a nomadic tribe a few days into the outback. She has recently reached maturity. He name was given to her according to tradition for children orphaned as eggs: the last is based on the surroundings at the time of hatching, and the first on the color of the hatchling's tail. If she had hatched near one of the rare fertile spots of the outback she might be called Scarlet Oasis, while a blue-tailed orphan hatched in a rocky part of the outback may be named Indigo Cliff.

The setting: pre-industrial fantasy. Mostly populated by snake people, but there's at least one other sentient species on land. Swords, slings or bows, no gunpowder. Magic, if it exists, is weak and relies on people to channel energy into focus items (such as jewelry) until there's enough stored to power a spell. A weak magic user like Crimson might have to do two minutes of channeling to create a source of light that stays on for one, while stronger magic users can do it "live" to power the light even when the focus item is empty. Healing is much more expensive. If Crimson channels energy into her healing buckle for one hour, her body's natural rate of healing that night will increase by 10%. Enough that she can go to sleep after a day of hard work and wake up feeling fresh instead of sore, but nowhere near enough to restore her eye. That would require all the magic-users of the tribe to channel energy for a week, and they have enough troubles that they can't spare the channeling time. It might be possible in a city where there's more people, but good luck affording it.

Which brings us to cities. Scattered settlements in the regions near the coast where it gets cold enough that reptilians struggle in winter. No formal governments, but various inter-city alliances and a surprisingly well-organized trade network.

The plot: As a teen Crimson Sand stumbled onto a human boy who had been left for dead after being attacked by a wild animal. With his pack nowhere to be found, she took him back to her tribe. She made sure he got the herbs needed to treat his infected bites, and used all her free time to channel energy into her healing buckle until his fever broke. The boy, who she named Scallywag, has stayed with her since then. At first simply out of gratitude and because he was too intimidated by the other snakes to leave her side, but it was inevitable that he would develop stronger feelings for his beautiful savior. Unfortunately he has no easy way to express these feelings, as the drywalkers have no written language and their speech consists of harsh consonants his throat isn't suited for (despite the similar appearance of their upper bodies, their anatomy is quite different), over the years he's only picked up a few dozen words. The drywalkers consider the humans' inability to speak a sign of low intelligence; they're smart for animals since they can use tools and are quite trainable, but consider how parrots are treated in our world. So even the kindest drywalker has no moral objection to keeping humans as pets. Their frail bodies make them unsuitable for use as beasts of burden, but in cold regions they may serve as lookouts while their masters are in torpor. Another weakness of humans is that they can't run very fast on those silly legs of theirs, but they make up for it in endurance so Scallywag is able to keep up when the tribe is on the move.

But having reached maturity, Crimson isn't satisfied with the nomadic lifestyle. She dreams of going to one of the big cities on the coast, to see what life is like when aided by the machinery of civilization and a population large enough to do real magic. She's heard they even have doctors that can reset her eye socket, crushed by a glancing blow from a scorpion's tail, though she's just grateful the stinger never touched her. Of course it gets colder as she travels, but she has a tent, a bedroll, and an endothermic pet to keep her warm at night so she doesn't waste her money on room to sleep in at any of the settlements she passes through. Instead she earns money on the way with various jobs. People away from the outback have been so softened by the luxuries of sedentary life that they can't take care of their own vermin problems, preferring to pay her to exterminate the creatures that eat their crops and prey on their livestock.

When she's earned enough money, she pays for passage with a crab caravan that will take her through a pass in the Frontier Mountains. But with increased elevation comes greater cold, and the crabs take her up so quickly that she's caught off guard by the frost on her first night in a mountain town, which she spends in her tent despite the caravaners' warnings, which she dismissed as an attempt to squeeze her for more money. Miserable and unable to move a muscle, even her once faithful pet abandons her where she lies... but not before relieving her of her coin pouch, the little bastard.

In reality, Scallywag has noticed how badly the cold is affecting his serpentine savior, and is desperately trying to get her a room in the local inn with his limited language skills.

More to come. Suggestions welcome, as always.