Let's pretend an all-powerful being appears before you and forces you to go some where in some time to some place, but gives you several choices.
- Like a classic Chinese menu, select one from List A and one from List B.
- In the responses below, state what choices you made.
- Give a brief (or lengthy) explanation as to why. You may be as terse or as verbose as you wish.
- If I like your choice, I might end up writing a 500 to 2000 word story on your idea seed. However, my life is in flux right now with high tension. I cannot humanly and with integrity make any promises.
Retaining all that you know now as well as all your memories, you are going to choose a transformation into:
- A powerful mage who uses elemental (earth, air, fire, and water) magic as a mechanical force of nature.
- A powerful warrior who has achieved Master level in several martial arts from various cultures and handle low-tech weapons with complete and deadly ease.
- A powerful hypnotist who can easily move among people without being seen and can make people do anything in line with their personal moral code (in other words, they will not murder somebody at your command unless they already have the morals of a murderer).
- A powerful beast master able to tame, communicate with, and control any animal, but only up to four at a time.
- A master gardener and herbalist able to create tinctures and medicines almost magical in their potency.
- A master doctor/healer with non-magical skills and wisdom that would make you capable of serving kings and emperors.
- A member of a religious order of your choice at a position or rank of your choice (non-magical).
- A highly respected and admired teacher of philosophy with the knowledge level of an advanced PhD.
- A professional, multi-talented adventurer on the level of Indiana Jones.
- A master thief with the skills of a professional gymnast and a lockpick without precedent.
- A musician with skills that invoke the memory of the magical era of bardic lore.
- Exactly yourself, totally unchanged in any way as you are right now, with only the skills you have right now.
- If unhappy with these choices, make up your own.
You are transported to:
- London, England: A.D. 1890
- A small, rural Chinese village: A.D. 150
- Rome: 25 B.C.
- Atlantis: During the recession of the Earth's last ice age and a century before its destruction
- Ancient Egypt: 2,500 B.C.
- A small, rural Irish village: A.D. 350
- Atlanta, Georgia: A.D. 1850
- Quebec, Canada: A.D. 1875
- Paris, France: A.D. 1895
- Timbuktu, Mali: A.D.1350
- A moderately-sized German city: A.D. 1200
- Londinium, Britannia: A.D. 55
- Central Pennsylvania, 100 years after the apocalypse with the world depleted of oil, technology, and a world population reduced to 1 billion people, mostly savage, with civilization found huddled within tiny fortified villages.
- A small, rural village in Japan: A.D. 750
- Arkham, Massachusetts: A.D. 1925 in an alternate universe where all of H.P. Lovecraft's stories are based on fact.
- A subterranean, magical realm under Mount Shasta, California where as escape to the surface is impossible, time is without meaning.
- If unhappy with these choices, make up your own.
I would pick #5 from list A and #6 from list B - except I would make it the fifth century so I could meet St. Patrick. I'm a big fan of St. Patrick, and I love the story of how he brought the Gospel to the people who once enslaved him. I love Ireland, and I love the idea of gardening and herbal medicine. I like to learn about alternative medicine. Of course the things I like about Ireland ( the music, the dancing and the accent) would probably be much different in that time frame.
ReplyDeleteI would choose to be a Master gardener and herbalist. I love to discover the healing properties of herbs. I would choose a rural village in Scotland circa 350 AD. I chose Scotland instead of Ireland because I would also like to be able to communicate with my dog who is a Cairn terrier, an ancient breed of Scottish terriers. She is very wise and beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThe mage in Arkham. Could be a good story, a time traveler, maybe a Zoroastrian scholar-mage from the Sassanid empire, projects himself into the future to thwart a mythos threat that will collapse the timestream to a poincture. The mundane situation is somewhat like Connecticut Yankee in reverse.
ReplyDeleteI'll go with the warrior, but unfortunately few of the places listed would make a good home base for me. To stick to thew choices provided I suppose I'd go with Atlantis before the fall. If we go by the stories ("real" and fictional) things were getting a little too lively in the Atlantean Empire at the time, with them attacking their neighbors and embarking on wars of conquest. A warrior in such a world wouldn't lack for employment, though he might wish for some quiet after a while.
ReplyDelete#4 and #1, currently steaming toward New Zealand at Her Majesty's request. The colonial government and the Maori are attempting to negotiate fishing and harbourage agreements with a pair of exceptionally large and fierce taniwha, and things are at an impasse.
ReplyDeleteFinian Crane, Listener-To-Beasts, son of Scots missionaries, born in Africa
DeleteI like the sound of this one. Be interesting these days to see 'colonials' presented as something other than utter monsters.
Delete#4 from List A, #13 from List B. She's a little girl, wandering the wide open lands with at least one or two set animal companions, probably a giant domestic cat, because I love the giant puma sized domestic calico cat idea. Something the size of a small horse. :D People see her, maybe some try to bring her in thinking they're helping and things tend to fall apart through either their well meaning actions or hers. She may not even speak whatever language is there and be mute.
ReplyDeleteI choose number 9 from list A (Indiana Jones type) and 16 from list B (under ground mage city). It would be interesting to see how I got there, what I could do in that city and more importantly, how I could escape.
ReplyDeleteIf the author of this post sees my response, would you please leave some identifying nickname, handle, or real name? Thanks.
DeleteI would choose #11 from A and #7 from B, except I would make it 1980's when bands like AC/DC, Jackyl and Judas Priest were huge on the Billboard charts so I could be the biker band rock star that my fursona is, a fursona who jokes that he takes a feral form "Because humans don't expect ferals to wear pants."
ReplyDeleteFor extra credit, mister author, you must combine at least two of the ideas we have presented. Only then shall you gain the full measure of kudos and accolades you deserve--to say nothing of the gratitude of an awestruck nation and the repurposed weightlifting trophies.
ReplyDeleteI choose to be a master gardener/herbalist (because in my present incarnation, I lack even the ability to care for a plastic plant without it turning black), but I am opting to create my own setting--I would like to be somewhere near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, around the time the first settlers were arriving. I'm a bit fixated on this because I'm actually doing my own side-story as part of a novel I'm writing. I'd love to be there myself, as a fly on the cabin wall so to speak, to see what might happen.
ReplyDeleteFrom Tommy Chastain who could not post here:
ReplyDeleteTommy Chastain: I tried everything Craig, sadly I have to post here, but I decided I like the Beastmaster idea in Japan, 750 AD. I have a leaning towards foxes and would like to explore the origins of the legend of the kitsune and see where it leads. Hope your day gets better from here though!
From Brittany Gnizak:
ReplyDeleteI can't remember my google password, so your life has one more problem.
List A: # 9: professional, multi-talented adventurer.
List B: # 17: none of the above.
Reasons: love of adventure, traveling and problem solving.
Setting: time period/place where loner meets cause needing their specific skill set and the loner/introvert balls at killing those asking them to donate time, energy and skills to cause. It's a close decision.
Posted for Kay Shapero:
ReplyDeleteHere's what I tried to post for either the first or the fourth time (see above). smile emoticon
Being essentially an animal behaviorist, gotta be #4, though since we can make changes I'd like to tack on a touch of #11 - a spectacular wandering minstrel I, who can talk to the animals! List B - almost entirely out if I don't want to have to join another religion (ancient egypt), or be continually justifying my combination of occupation and sex. Or ducking Cthulhu or worse. I'd pick Gaelan but since I invented the place that would be cheating... Atlantis I guess - some versions are fun, and if it's too annoying I can always vanish into the countryside and see if I can't find some really cool critters to befriend.