The Intellectuals Guide to Elanthia

Formerly known in a much more arrogant way as, "Intellectualizing Elanthia,"

Preface

Greetings fellow adventurers and blessings upon you for deciding to venture far enough to read what I have painstakingly written and rewritten for your amusement and thought. It is never easy to write a guide, in fact, for the most part I find it a constant challenge to write something I know could come off seemingly arrogant in it's attempt to "help" you with things. All I shall say and write after this is purely for your acceptance or rejection, for either leads you to your own form of intellectual stimuli, and I would certainly hope you would want to evaluate things on your own terms, not mine. At any rate, I would hope you would come with an open mind, and a warm glass of your favorite drink. As we explore together what it means to be an intellectual in Elanthian society, and how you and I might best go about doing that.

Regards,

~Avantus VannArk~

§ection 1- The World of Word

Elanthia is essentially what? A world built upon the uses of word. The ideas, and images we see in our minds eye is directly influenced by what words we are reading from those places and people around us. You yourself and indeed all of the reality we know of past, and present time in Elanthia is nothing more, but still nothing less than a string of compiled words used so eloquently that it adds life, color, and shape to the world around us.

So who are we then?

We are exactly what we make of ourselves in words. We are what people read when they see us speak, when they look at our great many pieces of clothing, and armor, and weaponry. Are you the son of an evil Count? Am I the last descendant of some ancient legendary tribe or people? These things are all up to you, and beyond all other things- important.

"Imagination us more important than knowledge." the old soothsayer said. We should believe him, and take this into account in our day to day lives. Imagination and an ever extending vocabulary with which we can use to reach out to the lands around us are a means to saying exactly what we want, and representing ourselves to the fantastic world of the word.

How do I do this?

#1 Never let anyone tell you who you are, but never tell them yourself.

#2 Refrain from all unrelated manner of speaking, and action. (OOC)

#3 Keep unto yourself a connection to your being, but a distant one.

Explanation….

#1-- One of the most horrifying experiences of my life was listening to someone tell me that Avantus had not been born and raised in any manner, and that any tale I could offer to the contrary was complete "fiction" and simply not very realistic. After taking a moment to ponder the reason for this persons very existence in Elanthia (And a light thumbing upon my blade hilt), I simply left him to his sick, disgusting world of fake numbers and "stats" and more horrible types of things than I care to name. What this means is simply do not back down from immersing yourself in who you are, and where you came from, we are all writers here whether you know it or not, think like one.

#2-- Simple, don't speak about unrelated manner even if it seems a pain to search for words to replace some. It really does gets easier and the world will enjoy listening to you speak with a tongue of mastery over your domain in Elanthia, and not a semi-crazy blabbering fit about things any "real" citizen of Elanthia might take you to a healer for.

#3--This means to every person out there, this. The characters represented in Elanthia are simply parts of our imagination, and partly an expression of our ego in a form we would likely dream of. However, just as we are all writing ourselves into the huge novel of Elanthia, we must remain as writers towards our characters, connected emotionally in a creative sense, and not a true one. This often gets people into all sorts of trouble, and makes things very messy and simply, unrealistic. If you find yourself taking things personally at a negative level, perhaps you should evaluate the reasons you exist. The steps above may help you to create that literary side of yourself which is connected and yet separate from the lasting affects of any real life emotions you don't want, or that take away from your enjoyment of the lands. It is good to be passionate about your work (your character) but never about the things that affect YOU the spirit within the character of an Elanthian.

World of Word-Conclusion

If you can visualize Elanthia as a large leather bound novel sitting on a bookshelf of the world, and within the first many pages are the background of the areas and deities we know of. There are then a few maps of the land stretching even farther than we have yet explored, but you get the idea right? Now visualize yourself as an individual novel within that larger one, and next to yours a thousand others,

"The Book of Plur,"

"The Book of Stump," and so on.

What is it that you want your novel to say about you? That you had the best stats? That you could raise your AS and DS by twitching your nose or that you have no background and no connection to the imaginary world we should spend time relating ourselves to.

Or will it speak what you tell it, what you want it to. When you are in Elanthia remember that anything goes as long as it is imaginative, and thoughtful, and completely subjective, ever changing to what tale you want yourself to be. Write yourself a good novel, from your birth and up and slowly you will find yourself with a renewed sense of what life means in Elanthia, this world of word.

§ection 2- Reckless Novel Adventure