K – Kanto

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

Turns out, this was one of the hardest letters to actually find a topic for. Seriously, you wouldn’t have thought it, but K gave me lots of trouble, hence I had to get a little bit creative with the title. K is for Kanto, which is one of the regions of the Pokemon worlds, and that’s the topic for today – The Regions.

The Region is the part of the world that a game (or anime series) takes part in, and currently in the main series there are six regions:

• Kanto
• Johto
• Hoenn
• Sinnoh
• Unova
• Kalos

The picture from yesterday’s post is of the Unovo region, which is the setting for Black/White & Black 2/White 2. And because today is named after it, here’s Kanto, which is the original region for Blue/Red/Yellow & FireRed/LeafGreen:

 

Regions, being the setting in Pokemon takes place, tend to have fairly similar structures in place regarding society. So there’s eight gym leaders that make up the Pokemon League, and once you defeat those you can challenge the Elite Four and the Champion of the region (although Johto and Kanto share their Elite Four). There’s also a Pokemon Professor that has residence in the area, who is the person who gives out starter Pokemon and Pokedex to new trainers. And you’re pretty much always going to find a villainous team trying to accomplish something there.

Of course, as well as having similarities, the regions also have their difference. At the most fundamental level, this means that the map is different, with different towns, routes and places to explore. The larger experiences of the world will change as well, such as climate and culture – Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh are based on Japanese islands (some more loosely than others), Unova takes inspirations from New York’s metropolitan area, and Kalos is based on northern France. So as well as geographical similarities, you’ll find cultural indicators as well. Kalos for instance has a lot of cafes, and is the only game where you can buy clothes for your trainer avatar, which is something that I highly approved of.

Actually, in the Diamond/Pearl games, Professor Oak explains that Sinnoh, Kanton, Hoenn (and probably Johto as well) are all part of a larger country, whose name has yet to be revealed, much like Japan which is what they are modelled after – a number of large and many more small islands making up the larger country. Unova and Kalos are known to be much further away, so they are probably part of a different country.

You will also have different Pokemon, each region did introduce some more Pokemon as we progressed through the generations, so there’s more places to explore and find/catch/train Pokemon. The legendaries will also be different for each area, and that often means that the stories and legends that people pass around from one to another will be different, to better reflect the legendaries that live there, and their influence on the world. Taking Groudon and Kyogre, the legends of the Hoenn region change depending on which game you’re in, and thus which legendary you have, because Groudon will take all the water away, whilst Kyogre will flood the world. Either one is bad, but there is a difference in their methods.

I might have mentioned this before, but the world building that go on in the Pokemon world is spectacular, even if it is in the background most of the time. But that’s kind of what good world building is like, at least that’s what I always feel when I’m writing my novels. Lots and lots of work, for a subtle underlying enjoyment of the world, and a few shining examples where you can really see it come to life. That, and I am super excited to see what the new region for Sun/Moon is!

 

Pokemon of the Day

K is for Klefki

Kelfki is a sixth generation fairy/steel type Pokemon which has a pale grey face, pink body, and a oddly shaped appendage from its head. A thin white loop that might be it’s arms extends around it’s entire body, and upon this loop it will collect various keys. If it finds a key it likes, it will never let it go, and it uses it’s collection to threaten attackers.

It uses it’s body to collect keys! How cool is that? Sure, he’s only been in since the generation 6, so I’ve only had him in X/Y game, but I really, really like him. Not only is he adorable, and has some really cool moves that only he can use because he’s basically a key ring, his type combination is excellent, and when he got up to high level, he was super powerful. Really, he was probably my favourite out of the new Pokemon for generation 6, and I used him all the time.

 

K – Kingdoms

And here we are in week three of the challenge, close to halfway through. Hope it’s going well for you as well! I do plan on doing a post about Empire at some point, and other gaming bits, but I’ve been running around like a mad thing doing stuff yesterday. It’ll happen, I’m sure.

Today for the letter K we shall be talking about Kingdoms!

Take some classical fantasy. What’s one of the things you think of? Probably a big castle, with a king and queen and some other bits and pieces. It’s at least in the top five things to find in a classic/epic/high fantasy book.

Kingdoms in fantasy settings can vary quite a lot. One thing they will have is a King. Or Queen. But it is characterised by the monarchy framework of ruling. When you have a different system of government, things tend to change (over time anyway) into countries, states or nations. It’s a little ambiguous, but if it is called a Kingdom, then you can be fairly sure that it has a monarchy, or did in the past.

 

 

Apart from that, Kingdom need three things: A large territory; A permanent population; And a government. We’re already said that the government is probably a monarchy, at least in classical fantasy and Britain. but what about the others two.

Territory. This is an area of land that the country claims as it’s own. fairly stable, unless there is a war going on over territory. What this land is however, or how big it is, varies depending on the kingdom. It can be huge, or tiny, mountainous, swampy, farmland, molten volcanoes, hot, cold, rainy, or more probably a mix of some different terrains and climates that make up the land the kingdom claims.

Within this territory will be a number of landmarks, mainly cities, towns and other settlements, but possible something natural, like rivers or caves, or something magically significant (ritual site perhaps) or mysterious (ancient ruin exploration anyone?). Again, these can vary, and mainly depend on who the creator of this kingdom is as to what they are and anything interesting or special about them.

And then with any cities you have the people of the kingdom, living in and around said landmarks. People in kingdoms are often just as much of a setting and backdrop feature as the towns themselves. Are they human populations? Elven? A Mix of two or more? What kind of clothing might they wear? How would their culture affect the way they build or interact in their town?

It’s a tricky thing, but you have to think about the small bits that will interact with your character and plots.

For my novel Archmage, I have a badly drawn map of my kingdoms. There are seven in all, ranging mainly in climate and terrain.

You can sort of see the main features, how big they are, borders. The purple X’s are for magical ritual seals peppered across the lands. they have plot significance.

Of course this map doesn’t tell me about the people and their cultures, I have a whole other files for that. Which after writing this post, I realise could use more detail. Are one of the pitfalls of being a pantser – I don’t always write down everything I should know about things, although I do try.

Out of the seven kingdom above, one is a dead land, four are classical kingdoms with monarch, one has a monarch but no one really listens to him because they live so spread out communication is an issue, and one has a tribe structure.

I like creating maps, it’s kind of akin to colouring in being a little bit therapeutic like that.

K – Khaleesi

Another bit of a stretch, but here is today’s letter: Khaleesi, a term used to refer to the wife of the Khal, the warlord of a tribe of Dothraki. In other words, Daenerys Targaryen.

Well I had to get a Game of Thrones post in here somewhere, didn’t I? I have not yet sat down to watch the TV series end to end, but I am reading my way through the books and the parts of the TV series that I have seen are amazing. The actress they have for Daenerys is gorgeous.

If you haven’t read or watched any of this, then I will warn you that there are going to be some spoilers in here. Mainly they will cover book one, and perhaps a little of book two, but there will be spoilers, and they will all relate to Daenerys and her dragons.

Daenerys was born during a raging storm, earning her not only her house name, but the name Stormborn. Her and her brother, Viserys, are the last of their line, having had the rest of the house of Targaryen killed in a blood bath just after she was born, in a successful attempt to take the Iron Throne from them. The two of them fled overseas to the free cities to keep them alive, otherwise the new king would have had them killed like the rest of their family.

This becomes the focus of Viserys life, to go back across the sea and take the Iron Throne which would have been his birthright. In order to make alliances to this, he marries off his sister to the strongest Dothraki warlord, in the hopes of getting his army to march with him. And that’s how Daenerys ends up being married to Khal Drogo, even though she does not want to. At her wedding she receives a number of gifts, including three dragon eggs, but of course they are not real dragon eggs, they are petrified, never to hatch, but they make a nice gift, especially from one of the house of dragons.

Stuff happens, time passes (lots of human things, but I don’t want to spoil everything so I’m just concentrating on the dragons) and eventually Khal Drogo dies of an infected wound. On his funeral pyre, Daenerys lays her three stone eggs, and then after a speech to the remains of the dothraki army, she steps into the fire herself.

However, since she is a true dragon of the blood, she is not kills, and the next morning, out of the embers, she steps with three newly hatched dragons clinging to her, the first live dragons in over a century and a half. She names these dragons Daenerys names the three dragons Viserion, Rhaegal and Drogon, after her two deceased brothers and her late husband, respectively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I could be her, I so would be. Even with all the bad stuff, she is so awesome and cool and I haven’t even read to the end of the series yet (I’m on Feast of Crows, it’s hard going!). But she is called the Mother of Dragons, amoung her many other titles, and is totally badass.