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Edward had always been terrified of fire. Ever since his left eye had almost been scorched into nothingness during a particularly daring stunt in the streets of Praven, he had fastidiously avoided anything more than a cooking fire. His legs quaked at anything more.
But that bloody morning, when his daughter Kliara was deep within the licking flames, all that pent up fear had been cast out for love. He had smashed open the side of a timber while Matthias screamed his sorrow, clambering through the burning hellhole he had built with his own hands. He turned into the main hallway and saw the door to the room he had left Kliara in ajar, smoke pouring out of it and getting caught on the ceiling. He leapt into the doorway and was violently rebuffed by a burst of heat so strong the tip of his beard was singed. Smoke was swirling in chaotic spirals everywhere--he couldn't see anything--but he roared and pushed forward into the room, grasping at anything, everything that could be his daughter's crib. Flames came sudden and bright ahead of him and he reached for what must be Kliara's crib and peered over the edge as a hole appeared in the smoke...
Now he sat cross legged in the dust. All will to live had deserted him. He cradled his left arm; a burning timber had collapsed on him while he had stumbled, sobbing, out of the house. His arm was badly burned, and only the pain kept him conscious. It had been three days. He had moved only to drink. Matthias had been in a frenzy of motion to keep himself sane. Edward had ignored him. He lay down in the grass as Hawkeye barked an order at him, not caring, and fell into a fitful sleep.
After a week he was eating again, even helping Hawkeye saddle up the animals for their coming journey. A combination of weeping, sleepless nights, and overgrown hair had made his face more bestial and hooded than ever before. Tazigan, Todsveld, and the rest of the mercenaries were avoiding him in his new, brooding, silent state. He always seemed to be on the edge of comprehending the gravity of his daughter’s pure soul gone from the world, but he always fell just short, and thus stayed alive. He didn’t try and ignore the reality of Aelfrid’s death either.
The mercenary life was his only option. In those years of fighting for the highest bidder, constant motion and the thrill of death always near had kept him from getting close to anyone but his comrades. He couldn’t bear to lose anyone again. The prospect of war made him feel that grim excitement once more, something he had prayed he would never feel again, but something that was now the only thing sustaining his mind.

Yuskay spun, catlike, throwing Edward off of him. Edward hit the dust hard but rolled to his feet, teeth bared in animal hatred. Yuskay stared icily back at the black-haired beast of a man, dropping his bow and drawing a wickedly curved dagger from the folds of his cloak. He loved the extra vigor the prospect of a fair fight gave his victims. This one was no different than the other grief stricken men he had slowly killed over his long career. His companion, Timur, stepped back to a respectful distance, his face expressionless. Yuskay stood low and balanced, ready to explode in any direction. He would wait for this man to attack him.
Edward’s heart flung itself against his ribs as he watched the second Khergit step back to leave them room. He spat involuntarily in scorn. The Kherghit in front of him whose arrow had pierced his wife’s neck didn’t react, just kept those expressionless slits of eyes fixated on his. Edward’s breath hissed as he hurled himself wildly at the kherghit, knife slashing down at his adversary’s neck.
Yuskay was surprised by the sudden, uncontrolled ferocity of the attack; he thought this man would know how to fight. He tensed lower, and just as the Vaegir’s pounding strides brought him close enough, he lunged like a striking snake with his dagger arcing up into Edward’s belly—but suddenly the huge man simply wasn’t there.
Edward spun lightning quick around the powerful thrust and behind the kherghit, and his skinning knife slashed into the back of Yuskay’s neck. Blood spewed from the wound as Yuskay Tamalgut turned around, knife hissing, showing no surprise. But Edward once more dodged the glimmering blade and came back in once the momentum of the swing had left Yuskay defenseless, bringing his knee into the Kherghit’s face hard and tackling him to the ground. So fast the Kherghit couldn’t react, Edward lanced his knife into Yuskay’s knife holding wrist then began sawing at his throat. Yuskay’s eyes widened in shock as blood spattered Edward’s face and the knife went deeper and deeper—breath hissed from his severed windpipe and gurgled with blood—then at last it was over and his body jerked powerfully one last time as Edward’s knife severed his spine.
Timur was terrified, his commander and friend lay almost headless in a pool of his own blood as the black-maned man hacked at his corpse. He began to run away, screaming to his companions and drawing an arrow from the quiver at his belt. But Edward’s breath hissed again and hurled his knife at Timur. It flashed once in the morning light, trailing blood—then its hilt smashed into Timur’s throat, momentarily choking him and suddenly the Vaegir was on top of him, quick jabs of his fists and fingers taking him to the ground.
Edward could see nothing but the red-rimmed tunnel vision of an enraged killer as he picked up an overturned grindstone from the ash-sprinkled dust and hammered it down onto the gibbering Kherghit’s face over and over again until there was only a caved in bowl of gore. He stared at it, wanting to inflict more pain, more death, somehow…he knew Aelfrid lay motionless a mere twenty feet away, never to draw another sweet breath of air.
Matthias appeared around the corner of the house, his right arm red to the elbow, tears streaking his grimy face.

Panic tore at Edward's throat at he ran flat-out toward their rapidly burning home.
"Isonya!" bellowed Hawkeye desperately as he lengthened his stride. Edward looked sidelong at him and jerked his head quickly. The signal was understood, and Hawkeye peeled off and weaved gracefully through tall rows of dead corn stalks from the previous harvest season to go around the house.
They were two hundred yards from the house when Edward heard the screams. Aelfrid, he thought. His wife and four month old daughter were still in that house that belched black smoke and roared flames up into the morning sky. He saw the to black-cloaked figures on either side of their doorway and ducked into the corn stalks. He crept to their end, twenty yards from the house. Hard packed open ground lay in front. As much as it killed him, he had to wait for Matthias's signal before he could take the archers out and save his family. He gripped the skinning knife so hard his nails cut into his own flesh. The two archers stood motionless, each turned towards the doorway. Suddenly Aelfrid appeared, her long blonde hair unbound and flying as she choked and screamed her way out of the fire. But Yuskay's arrow caught her in the side of the neck and slammed her roughly into the doorframe. Her body stiffened once and she convulsed as she crumpled, blood pumping out onto the jutting shaft and black feathers.


Edward's mind went blank. He stood up in the corn stalks, not believing, not comprehending, even as Isonya's shillouette appeared in the doorway. She turned back as she saw Aelfrid's corpse, but one of the Kerghits leaned into the doorway and his bow snapped an arrow into her stomach. She gave a piercing scream that was answered by a gutteral bellow from Hawkeye. She staggered back into the house out of sight, but a burst of light revealed where she had burst into flame. There was a spatter and the sound of a man screaming as Edward stepped out of the dead plants, knife held low dripping with deer's blood in his hand.

Just fyi, because of the perpetual state of warfare Calradia was in, they didn't advance too far ahead technologically by the events of this RP. The Sarranids would be essentially as Mustang described them, and the rest of the factions would be the same except for the revered and heavily protected cannons and their crews that, as I established, had been sold to the other factions for exhorbitant prices. The Sarranids will have the bulk of the firearms, including weapons they didn't sell to the rest of Calradia so they would have the upper hand. Pistols are dicey...try and keep it limited to an innacurate musket at best

Sounds good. Just for clarification, this takes place in the 16th century of Calradia's age. If you've read the RP intro...Al-Yulai's father died in 1560 C.E. (common era of Calradia), and the time in which these first events are taking place is 1565 C.E.

  Edward grasped the dead deer's antlers firmly, their smooth ridges and bumps running between his fingers and giving him firm purchase to drag the corpse more easily without it slipping and falling into the dust. His hooded brow dripped with sweat despite the chill that clung to the trees and made mist curl skyward in the rays of morning sunlight. It had been a lucky, but clean kill. The arrow had glanced off of a birch twig and lurched just to the side as the deer tensed at the deep thrum of the bowstring, but the broadhead turned straight into and through the deer's tawny neck.
 
He would have skinned it where it lay twitching and gurgling blood in the leaves, but he wanted to let his friend Tazigan's son have the opportunity. Tazigan was a small, vivacious man with deep ebony skin and a quick, white toothed smile who claimed to come from the hot, wet forests hundreds of miles to the south of the Sarranid deserts. No one knew his age, only that he had shown up twelve years ago by a Vaegir lord high in the mountains above the Kherghit Khanate, greivously wounded and surrounded by half a dozen slain bandits. Impressed by his bravery, the lord had taken him in and treated his wounds. He took him back to Uxhal where he met Edward. He was the first of Edward's recruits, and proved to be deceptively strong and talented with the longbow. He had come to pass Edward himself in skill, but they still had a running accuracy competition. Edward planned on telling Tazigan that he was aiming for the neck.

  Edward dragged the deer perpendicular to the long rows of grape vines, nodding to Todsveld. The giant vaegir diffidently complimented Edward on the kill and moved away, leading an old, blind ox. Lighthearted and optimistic, Edward turned towards the small cluster of low straw-thatched houses, repositioning his calloused hands on the antlers.

Of course. Feel free to jump right in.

The rennaissance mod will be geared toward both individual and large scale action. It's been started under the name "Fire in the Sand: The Siege of Rhodokia". I'll create a discussion thread for furthur questions, comments, etc.

Name: Edward MachLauchlain

Age: 31

Faction(if any): Swadian

Occupation/Rank: Retired Mercenary Captain

Weapons: Yew longbow, bastard sword, short fighting axe, skinning knife

Armor: Old mail shirt over a boiled leather cuirass, unpadded woolen breeches, hunter’s animal skin boots, leather vambraces (to protect from bowstring)

Description: Edward is a large, broad-chested man, a head taller than most. His hair is jet black and cropped short, with a thick tangled beard hiding a prominent chin. He has slate-blue eyes and a large scar from a crossbow bolt across the bridge of his nose and down his left cheek. He’s missing the middle finger from his left hand when he was captured by the Kherghits and convinced them he was a left handed archer. He fashioned his own vambraces, and the one on his left forearm hides the brand of an overlapping H and M from his days as a mercenary captain. His left eye is somewhat rheumy and milky from a boyhood accident where he was shoved face-first over a fire pit. He has had a deep set fear of fire ever since.

Bio: Edward’s father was an unsuccessful Merchant. He was rumored to be an ex-assassin  for the Vaegir King Napier II, but his clumsy, unsubtle, boorish ways suggested otherwise. He settled down after tiring of travel at age fifty nine, and used his savings to buy a brothel in the outskirts of Praven. He bore many bastard sons there as he lived out his days in a drunken stupor, one of which was Edward. Edward was nursed to health by his mother until she died of the plague when he was four. He stayed in the brothel for another year before taking to the streets when his father had his head caved in with a stool in a barfight. That first year was the hardest, when he had not the strength or will to steal and relied on the charity of strangers to stay alive.

    He met a fiery young Matthias one wintry night when he was trying to dig for warmth in a dung pile to go to sleep. Matthias fought him for the dungpile and they withdrew after a while, their malnourished bodies giving up on them. Too tired to fight, they shared it, and after that shared a strong boyish mutual respect. The next morning they did not part, but began a system of distraction and theft that kept them alive for the whole winter. That pattern carried well into their adolescence, when Edward stole a toy recurved bow from the Lord’s son. He fashioned arrows from reeds, pigeon feathers, and scraps of bone, and proved to be a natural at hunting rats and birds if they could not steal their dinner. It also earned him and Matthias a name as a danger to the other adolescent gangs of urchins, who harried and beat them until they were sixteen and Matthias proved himself in the arena.

        They longed to free themselves of the shackles of their life in squalor, and left the city with stolen money and became mercenary captains. Edward bought himself a great yew war bow, which took incredible strength to draw. His massive frame helped to haul back the string, and his good eye led his arrows straight to their target by instinct. After earning money as a mercenary, he began hiring other longbowmen, until he had a corps of fifty at his command.  He and Matthias hired themselves out to Vaegir lords campaigning into Swadia for ten years. They retired to anonymity to a vineyard with their most trusted men after they eloped with their Vaegir commander’s two daughters.

...Mirathei

I think a good idea for a multiplayer mode in the future would be similar to battle, only with every actual player commanding twenty or so bots which they outfit with weapons, armor, etc. This way it would be more like co op and with more than 64 fighters. They could theoretically get into the hundreds without the bandwidth/server problems.

For some reason the upgrade from .560 to .570 doesn't work when I download it. As soon as I get to the actual downloading part it has a bunch of errors. I think it would work if I downloaded the entire thing but it will apparently take nineteen hours. Is anyone else having this problem?

Lately I haven't been able to load the list of servers. It  doesn't even say it can't, it just doesn't. It was working great before. Any ideas?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I can't refresh the servers on the beta. Any ideas?

I'm getting a similar thing here. Only multiplayer is malfunctioning. Crash with no error on clicking the link, and I've got mine installed in the default location. What exactly is compatibility mode?

Making my first post in forever and a day just to say m+b multiplayer should be the best thing ever produced in the digital world if all works according to plan.

Leprechaun 说:

No idea with midi drums, all my drumming's done on a good old-fashioned real drumkit

Ehh, maybe there are 'plugins' or addon packs you could download or something :S I'd have thought there would be much more variation of cymbal sounds though, even in midi. Can you just vary their pitch at all?

What options for toms do you have?

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Two crash cymbals, both of which sound pretty much a the same, as evidenced by the fact that you only noticed one. Five toms, each on a different pitch, so those aren't really the problem, its just the way I'm using them, and a couple ride cymbals (sound the same) and a china cymbal.

I think my best option would be to get a band together, so that I could have real drums, but I try to do what I can in the mean time.