[OPEN] Isley & You!
Who: swordofthenorth and anyone else who feels like joining!
When: September 28, beginning at noon and going onward
Where: Isley's Home-Training Hall
Format: Individual threads please, in your choice of action or prose
What: Chatter, the clash of swords, and whatever else may follow
Warnings: None at present
The training hall was as long as it was wide, and opened to the public from noon until nightfall. Its tall ceiling arched upward, and from the center hung a great brass and crystal chandelier. Ivory crown molding ran a complete circuit about the room. Pastel sea foam green painted its many walls; however, the belly of each archway splitting the room in two was eggshell white. The bright color was so pure it glared in the morning light that filtered through the large windows. It was light enough to illuminate the entire room without igniting the sconces or powering on the lamps set aside.
Distressed wooden planks ran from the north end of the hall to the south, from east to west, adding to the room a look of aged character. An ivory colored stone and brick fireplace hugged the far left wall to keep warm the space in cooler weather; above it hung a gilded mirror that helped to circulate the natural lighting. Long benches lined the wall left and right of the fireplace, and woven baskets full of wooden training swords and spears and staves sat next to those. Directly opposite and through the archways was another branch of the room, the hand to its arm. More benches filled this space, but here real steel was made ready for the practitioners. Real steel weapons, and real steal armor. There were targets available, too-bundled straw dummies, wooden blocks, moving marks and more.
Portraits still hung upon the walls, but instead of the faces of familial Natives related to the man that had once owned this large manor, the pictures were of various landscapes and warriors Isley had read about in the folklore collected and sitting in his personal library. They were meant to be images that inspired those that chose to train themselves here. Summery fields, blue skies, twilit nights, wintry peaks, knights of old, armies of Scorched from the past that had banded together when tragedy had struck...
He stared at them now. What had become of those old faces, he often wondered? Would he and the others in Anatole now one day share the same fate? To find themselves reduced to words upon a page, a faded portrait in a frame upon some old wall-he would have none of it, and those that came here to practice skills and learn new ones, they would also have none of it. The failures of the past would be a constant reminder of what was at stake. This world would chew them up and spit them out if they let it. The key, then, was not to let it.
Today, he decided, he would spend his time here with those that would come. He would train with them, talk with them, hear their stories and learn of their worlds and their motivations. And, when all was said and done, he would see for himself if any of them were worth trying to win over to his own side, for his own purposes.
When: September 28, beginning at noon and going onward
Where: Isley's Home-Training Hall
Format: Individual threads please, in your choice of action or prose
What: Chatter, the clash of swords, and whatever else may follow
Warnings: None at present
The training hall was as long as it was wide, and opened to the public from noon until nightfall. Its tall ceiling arched upward, and from the center hung a great brass and crystal chandelier. Ivory crown molding ran a complete circuit about the room. Pastel sea foam green painted its many walls; however, the belly of each archway splitting the room in two was eggshell white. The bright color was so pure it glared in the morning light that filtered through the large windows. It was light enough to illuminate the entire room without igniting the sconces or powering on the lamps set aside.
Distressed wooden planks ran from the north end of the hall to the south, from east to west, adding to the room a look of aged character. An ivory colored stone and brick fireplace hugged the far left wall to keep warm the space in cooler weather; above it hung a gilded mirror that helped to circulate the natural lighting. Long benches lined the wall left and right of the fireplace, and woven baskets full of wooden training swords and spears and staves sat next to those. Directly opposite and through the archways was another branch of the room, the hand to its arm. More benches filled this space, but here real steel was made ready for the practitioners. Real steel weapons, and real steal armor. There were targets available, too-bundled straw dummies, wooden blocks, moving marks and more.
Portraits still hung upon the walls, but instead of the faces of familial Natives related to the man that had once owned this large manor, the pictures were of various landscapes and warriors Isley had read about in the folklore collected and sitting in his personal library. They were meant to be images that inspired those that chose to train themselves here. Summery fields, blue skies, twilit nights, wintry peaks, knights of old, armies of Scorched from the past that had banded together when tragedy had struck...
He stared at them now. What had become of those old faces, he often wondered? Would he and the others in Anatole now one day share the same fate? To find themselves reduced to words upon a page, a faded portrait in a frame upon some old wall-he would have none of it, and those that came here to practice skills and learn new ones, they would also have none of it. The failures of the past would be a constant reminder of what was at stake. This world would chew them up and spit them out if they let it. The key, then, was not to let it.
Today, he decided, he would spend his time here with those that would come. He would train with them, talk with them, hear their stories and learn of their worlds and their motivations. And, when all was said and done, he would see for himself if any of them were worth trying to win over to his own side, for his own purposes.