Lacefort

Hello again!

It's presently spring break, and I've been busy!  Sadly for Nwain, I've been busy 98% of the time on school work, with the remaining 2% on opera and board games.  I suppose, technically, there's also been a significant amount of time spent staring off into space, but that's just a natural hazard.  One stumbles into staring like one stumbles into traffic.  Purely unintentionally.

I did, however, manage to come up with a preliminary look for Lacefort, the Margravine's cloud castle.  I'm shooting for a sort of Mogul/Baroque blend of architecture.  This is a functioning fortification, but under the rule of the Margravine's predecessors, it has grown more and more ornate.  The Margravine herself made requisite expensive additions to the palace early in her career.  But now, the ornamentation has come to a halt.  A crash in the cloud market caused drought in her border kingdom, and the Margravine's rain brokers have been left scrambling for any drop they can find.  The farmers on the ground below grow restless from hunger, and it's only a matter of time before they rise to claim the water they require for their crops.

Nwain and her monastery cousin will arrive at Lacefort expecting a run-of-the-mill courtly tournament.  What they will find is the Margravine's last-ditch effort to attract investors: a lavish festival with outlandish prizes.. held while her subjects starve below.  It's an impossible mess for those involved, but perhaps an outside perspective can prove to help.

Beyond the current crisis, there remains the edge of the Dream, the border which the Margravine defends.  Past her kingdom lays a great chasm that cuts low into the underworld, where demons prey on old ancestral souls and nibble their names from living memory.

...

Yeesh, I want to write this thing already!