Karra

So, I have decided that the main subject of this blog is going to be my character Karra. However, before I start, I must note a few major things that happened today. First off, I went to see The Dark Night Rises, which I will not be talking about because I refuse to write spoilers. Second, on the way there, me, my brother, our neighbor/friend, Sherlock, and her mom all had to ride in the same car. Therefore, there were four of us crammed in the back seat. I cannot stand being really close to people for an extended period of time, no matter how well I know them, so I was pretty lightheaded by the time we got the the theater. The ride there and back was pretty miserable for me, and probably for everyone else who had to put up with me. My other best friend, Fungus, couldn't come... which made me kind of depressed throughout the entirety of the trip, and during most of the movie. I guess just can't really enjoy myself if I know one of my friends is sitting at home, especially if they have been anticipating it for the past few months and their parents randomly decide at the last minute that they can't come.  Anyway, when we got there, all of the seats were taken except the very front row, so I think we all had neck cramps by the end of the movie. Then, after we got back and into out own cars; me, my mom, our neighbor, and my brother went grocery shopping. That was somewhat entertaining, but by that time, all I wanted to do was go home and chill out. Lastly, and withing the last hour actually, I had a weird typo whenever I was announcing this  post's subject; Katta. I have decided that this is the name of Karra's evil twin brother... who I may or may not actually write a story about, depending on how adventurous I'm feeling at any given moment. 
Which leads us back to our topic. Karra. She is my main character for every story I've ever written, and half of the one's I've role played. I often think of her as a parallel version of myself, though, I have to say, sometimes I think that she's a more detailed person than I am. As a writer, that's a good thing... I think. She's much more volatile than I am, but she's also an extremely caring person. She has a habit of jumping in front of swords or humongous blasts of destructive magic magic in order to protect her companions. I guess I would be the type to do that sort of thing, but I can't really say because I've never had to jump in front of a sword or a blast of magic, or anything else for that matter, in order to protect someone. She is also really strong, emotionally and physically. 
I don't know if anyone except me and my dad and a few other serious fantasy addicts have ever read The Dragonlance Chronicles, but that was the where Karra's first adventure took place. I had a fascination with the character Raistlin, who was a cursed mage that everyone else in the book hated. I felt sorry for him, so I decided that I was going to make a character who didn't mind that his skin was gold, or that he was bitter from all of the horrible things that had been done to him. Then, I decided that this character was going to be just as tortured, but that pain had done nothing but make her more sensitive to other people's pain. This concept gave birth to Karra, and she's been the best character I've ever thought of. 
However, Karra has also been one of the most maddening things I've ever had to deal with. She is in every way her own person. I don't know how many people who aren't writers will get this, but she has completely taken over my life from time to time. (Now, Fungus, if you're reading this, I know you've never had this happen to you, but not all of us have an iron will strong enough to control our characters, we've already had that discussion. ;P) Karra and all of my other characters have a sort of life that's really hard to describe. Sometimes they're perfectly happy in the confines of my brain, running around battling monsters and wizards, and leaving me in peace. Other times, however, they are demanding that I pay attention to them and write them. Sometimes, I can ignore them and they go back and do whatever they do when they aren't bothering me, but there are other times when they just get louder as the time goes on, and then I HAVE to write them. 

Story one: Dragonlance Fan Fiction

So, back on Karra again. The basic gist of this plot is that Karra is the decedent of the god of neutrality, and she has the ability to see the future through dreams. However, the dreams aren't clear, as it, all she feels is the emotions relating to the future events and maybe the occasional blurred vision or muffled sound.  She was orphaned as a eight year old, and sent to a horrible orphanage where they keep the children locked up in windowless rooms and feed them next to nothing. She escapes from there and lives on the street for several years with an outcast knight. The knight is a drunk, but he protects her and gives her the name Karra, (her real name is Rose Thelana Leoarda, but eventually her name gets changes to Karra Swiftdeath The Farseer). When the knight dies, she takes his sword and makes it on her own for a year or so. Then, one day, Lord Frostmane (a local wealthy lord) is impressed with her potential and decides to take the girl in and train her as his own personal mercenary. This goes on for several years until Karra is about 16, then Lord Frostmane dies of a plague that sweeps through the town. He leaves her a suit of enchanted chain mail, a enchanted dagger, and a bottomless bag. 
Using the knowledge she gained while under the instruction of Lord Frostmane, and her new equipment, Karra then goes into mercenary work. This is a very dark period in her life. She can't trust anyone she works with, and she can't become friends with anyone because she may be ordered to kill them by her next employer. Everyone that she allows herself to get close to, ends up dyeing under her leadership. She is also endlessly tortured by the vague dreams of tragedies to come. During this time, she also earns the title Swiftdeath; for, if she was going to kill you, she always did it very quickly. This goes on until about 22, when she is in a siege force that gets captured as a POW with about 200 other people. They are put into a holding pit and left to rot. Eventually, people start to snap and try to kill everyone else in the pit. During this chaos, Karra finds a elf who seems to be trying to keep the peace as much a possible. She decides to stick with him until one or the other of them dies or goes crazy themselves. The feeling is mutual, and they end up being the very last survivors, and they find their way out of the prison through one of the drainage tunnels. 
This is a beginning of a wonderful friendship between Karra and the elf, who's name is Leoden. Leoden is actually my second main character, and he's always Karra's main companion, and sometimes husband depending on how far along they are in their lives. They work together for three more years, until they are separated when a siege to a castle goes horribly wrong, and Karra is cursed to look like a hag. The mercenary camp which she had been a part of did not recognize her and wouldn't let her in, so she had no way of letting Leoden know what had happened. The guards threatened to kill her if she didn't leave, so she left rather than get into a fight. Ashamed of her appearance, and unable to continue her normal line of work, she hid out in a cave for about a year.
It was in this time, when she met Raistlin. His cursed eyes could see what she really was, and so Karra latched on to this gimps of hope. I'm not going to get into the details of the plot, because that would take way too long, but I'll try to give you a general overview. Karra relates to Raistlin, and she doesn't stop being kind to him, no matter how unpleasantly he acted toward her. Eventually, he warmed up to her, and they became close friends. At one point, Raistlin gives Karra a pendent that allows her to actually understand her dreams. However, as the time goes on, Karra begins to notice a dark turning in Raistlin's future that ends in his destruction. No matter how much she tries to warn him away from lust for power, he continues of his path of destruction, and ends up almost destroying the world in the process. 
Naturally, knowing all of this before hand almost drove Karra mad. She saw the Raislin could potentially end the world in the not too distant future, so she stormed into his tower, (which is amazing, because anyone who entered the tower against Raistlin's will was normally torn to bits by the terrors that lived within,) and demanded that he teleport her her and two others into the nearby world of Faerun, (the main D&D  world). Even though he had abandoned her in order to practice the dark arts, Raistlin still cared enough about her to try and stop her from leaving, but she demanded that he do this in recompense for all that he put her through. The two others that she wanted him to take with her were Leoden, who she had found again, and a boy named Jerrem that she had rescued as a child and had recently met again to find out that the family that she had entrusted him to had been abusing him. 
The three went to Faerun, and set up the mercenary outpost called The Bluesteel Grove... but that's another story.

To be continued...

FYI, I started this at 10:05 PM and I'm just now finishing at 12:26 AM, so I'm counting it as the post for the 21st. 

Shadowhuntress out ;)