I’m still thinking about The Return of Daud.
So, let’s recap a lil bit: Daud is in Dunwall when Delilah and Luca Abele stage their coup d’état. What’s more, he’s wandering the streets when people start milling about and as the news spread. And during the mission A Long Day In Dunwall, the Grand Guard soldiers are calling out orders on the streets.
All hail Delilah Kaldwin, our new empress!
You can’t tell me Daud doesn’t hear that. And yes, at this point he’s not doing great. He’s obsessed with finding the Twin-Bladed Knife, on his way to Wyrmwood Way to find the Sixways Gang and Eat ‘Em Up Jack.
But: What if he hears the name Delilah? What if Daud immediately connects the dots, because he’s many things but stupid isn’t one of them; he sees the empress fleeing Dunwall Tower, heading towards the boat with a name he can’t read from that far away. Dreadful something.
He doesn’t know where Corvo Attano is, but he knows something bad must have happened. The Royal Protector would never, ever abandon his daughter. If Emily Kaldwin is running away and doing it alone, Corvo must have been killed or incapacitated. And somehow Delilah is back, even though Daud imprisoned her in the Void fifteen years ago. He wanted to make amends and save Emily’s life, and apparently it wasn’t enough.
So what if Daud abandons the search for the Twin-Bladed Knife? What if he goes after Delilah instead? He can’t pursue Emily, he’d only scare her, and she has no reason whatsoever to want his help. But Daud could go to the Tower. He’d see what happened to Corvo. And Daud may be callous and egoistical and a bastard par excellence, but fuck if he doesn’t feel like he owes Corvo Attano an enormous debt.
Basically what I want is a story where Daud spies on Delilah and makes her life difficult again, until he (for reasons yet to be revealed by my muse) has to go to Karnaca and team up with Emily and Billie. Maybe he learns Delilah’s secret, or what she is truly after.
I have so many thoughts about that meeting. A reunion for Daud and Billie; for Emily, confronting the man who killed her mother and who knows her enemy better than anyone, save Billie, who up until now has not breathed a word about her true identity. The two Whalers would have to come clean at this point, and oh, would that be painful, especially if Emily had started to trust Meagan Foster.
Emily might want to abandon her allies, but she’s smart; she can’t afford to lose Billie, and Daud brings information. Daud also swears he wants to help, so Emily takes him along to the Dust District; she does need someone to look into the Jindosh Lock, after all.
And that’s how the two of them end up at Aramis Stilton’s home.
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Some slightly different wordlbuilding activities
Ones I haven’t seen as often but apply myself.
1.- Bedtimes stories you tell to children, or lullabies. They can be based in location or species. They can tell us about the world, history, beliefs or something specific about a creature. It can be fun to think of their origin, how they’ve changed over the years and both the meaning that was lost and the meaning that was added.
2.- Fashion choices. I often let fashion be different for different creatures. I usually create a practical outfit that makes sense historically within the context of my world and then evolve it until I get to the present day of my story. Preferably splitting of into branches and allowing more options. It can tell us about a specific species, about their history and about how the climate has changed, or how they moved locations at some point and had to adapt their clothing to a new climate.
A very simple example of this from my own book would be the mage’s cloak! Link to a longer post about it. Basically, mages would wear a simple one piece fabric that was easy to then set an illusion over, no wasting time mixing trousers and tops. Over time some mages stopped using illusions, seeing the outfit as acceptable. It became a staple, you saw the cloak, that wasn’t a human but a mage. And then younger generations began personalising the material, instead of boring black, white or brown they started using floral patterns, adding in cool sleeves or hoods!
Initially, it was practicality, but it evolved.
3.- Think about what each species does for fun! I often read YA fantasy where the stakes are so high there is no leisure, no downtown, no fun, no hobbies. But this is a great opportunity! What’s popular in your world? Books, plays, board games, long walks, playing sport? Seeing characters just chill can be a great change of pace and allow for some insight into their lives and the world they live in.
4.- What is imported? And why? Sometimes imports are just practical, we don’t have wool here (unlikely, sheep are literally everywhere, but you get the point), wool is good for clothes, we import it. But other times it’s more complicated.
Perhaps a species moved across the country at some point, but they were accustomed to a certain type of tea, fruit for certain festivities, so on, so on, and habit dies hard, so, importation becomes a thing.
So those are my four world-building tips for today. I’ve said it before and will say it again, there is no master list, not check list, world-building is something you can figure out as you go in most genres (some epics may requiere more prep time). What’s important is to keep track of what you’ve said and stay consistent, but you don’t need to know everything before going in.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
How’s your world coming along?
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ColdFlash Star Trek (DS9) AU
Lieutenant Barry Allen is a newly graduated officer, fresh out of Starfleet Academy, and he’s just arrived to start his first ever assignment: a posting as the science officer on the far-off outpost of Deep Space 9. The station itself is newly acquired by the Federation, and Barry is among the first Starfleet officers to be posted here. It wasn’t exactly the most popular option among the young officers – far at the edge of the Alpha Quadrant, in a region that’s barely stabilized in the aftermath of a bloody revolution – but there’s just so much potential. They’d all joined Starfleet to explore the galaxy, right? So what better place than at the edge of Federation space?
As he sets foot on the Promenade for the first time, he’s entranced – so many people from so many different places, all circling around the station, most of them strangers but a few of them familiar. Iris – his best friend for as long as he can remember, the daughter of the station captain, and an impressive command officer in her own right – rushes up to hug him, and she shows him to his quarters, where they both chat in anticipation of Barry’s first day. And it goes well! As does the first year, save the wacky, weird adventure or two (or twenty, but who’s counting?) He’s made friends with the other officers on the station and suspects that Cisco and Caitlin are the kind of friends you keep, and in a lot of ways, life couldn’t be better.
But there’s something always brewing, just underneath the surface. Leftover friction after the recent revolution. Tensions, especially with a wormhole discovered near the station, one that leads to the other side of the galaxy. News of a barely understood, potential threat that lies on the other side, and it comes with just a name: the Dominion.
But then, one day, there’s a new kind of tension.
Everyone in the Federation has heard of the Rogues, an infamous group of thieves who operate all across the Alpha Quadrant. They’re too good at hiding to be caught, and their jobs are oftentimes too clean for the authorities to have a shred of solid evidence. A lot of that is attributed to their leader: Leonard Snart, a man known for his chilly composure.
A man Barry just happens to see step onto the Promenade, without warning. He freezes for just a second. If Snart is here, then the Rogues must be, too. They’re planning something; Barry can feel it. He keeps an eye on Snart as often as he can, but he ends up being the one caught off guard anyway, eating lunch at the Replimat when Snart appears out of nowhere and takes the seat across from him. Barry feels his cheeks go red from the pure shock of it all, and Snart just smirks. “Something wrong, scarlet?”
Snart knows that Barry’s been watching him, but it’s not like he’s about to give up any real information about what he’s doing here. Even when Barry threatens to stop him, all he gets is another smirk and a quick once-over before Snart stands and leaves Barry to the rest of his lunch.
Of course, Barry tells the Station’s security chief about this whole thing, and Eddie assigns a group of deputies to search the Habitat Ring and the Promenade for the Rogues, but to no avail. And yet. Somehow, Barry is the one to see Snart again a couple of days later, spotting him headed toward the docking bays, moving swiftly through the crowds. Barry lets Eddie know what’s happening through the comms, and he himself tries his best to push through the inconveniently thick crowd that separates him and Snart. He does manage to catch up, right as Snart is passing a case to another, much broader man with the kind of glint in his eye that’s immediately intimidating – Mick Rory, Barry is pretty sure.
Snart notices Barry is there, of course, gives him the same smirk because Starfleet officers don’t habitually carry weapons, and Eddie’s security team isn’t here yet; there’s not much Barry can do, and they both know it. And so Snart just quips at him – “Too slow this time, Scarlet,” – before casually stepping into his ship, leaving Barry to just watch as the Rogues got away.
The next day, a whole collection of ancient Vulcan artifacts is reported missing, replaced instead by a bunch of self-sealing stem bolts.
*****
It’s another couple years before Barry sees Snart again, but this time, everything is completely different. For one, the Dominion is officially a problem, and everyone is on edge. Entire ships and their crews have begun going missing, and Starfleet – most of the Alpha Quadrant, really – suspects the Dominion to be behind it. And while no one has officially had any contact with this enigmatic group, everyone is expecting the worst. Everyone suspects that war is just on the horizon, and that the Dominion has only one thing on its mind: conquest. The intelligence agency of every planet is doing all they can to ensure that the Dominion can’t find any hold in the Alpha Quadrant, no matter how small. Nothing is quite as rose-tinted as those blissful first few days on the station, anymore.
And now Barry, of all people, has been tapped by Starfleet Intelligence for an undercover operation, spying on the Rogues. (Cisco insists that it must somehow be the work of the shady Section 39, that they know about the incident a year earlier and are puppetmastering everything. Caitlin isn’t as sold on that idea, but even she agrees it’s a weird coincidence, if that’s what it is.) Their base of operations on Earth has been found – a rundown old bar called Saints and Sinners – and Starfleet suspects that they might be providing intel and supplies to Dominion agents in the Alpha Quadrant. As far as Barry is told, it’s the result of some recent and uncharacteristically messy jobs, which seems strange, but Starfleet isn’t losing this chance to gather more information.
So he’s sent in with a schedule for when to report to his handler, told that his cover is “Sam”, and gets dumped on the Rogues’ doorstep. Frankly, the whole situation is still just insane, but it’s not like he could exactly say no to Starfleet Intelligence. Even when he takes a seat at the bar, even when he knows that Snart sees and recognizes him, even when Snart takes the stool next to him.
“Didn’t take this as your kind of spot, Scarlet.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes things change.” Over the next few minutes, he’s explaining his cover story (the story he had to make up himself, because he’d been sure Snart would know his face). That Starfleet saw the war as only on their doorstep, despite the Dominion already proving themselves all too happy to be the aggressors. That he’s already had friends go MIA without word (true) and seen the diplomats and fighting forces of the Dominion firsthand (also true), and he can’t believe Starfleet is just sitting back and doing nothing (less true, but believable). So he gave up his commission and headed back to Earth for whatever time they all had left.
Snart’s just watching him the whole time, eyes narrowed, and Barry can’t help the churning in his gut; there’s no way he’s buying this. Except. Then he’s telling Barry to meet him there the next night, and Barry has a feeling he’s either incredibly lucky, or incredibly unlucky. It’s hard to read much beyond the ice of Snart’s eyes.
But he decides to go through with it. After all, if he’s successful, he’ll be, at the very least, getting Starfleet some intel on the Rogues. Or he might help avert a war, at best. At worst, he’ll be dead, but if he has the chance to do what’s right, then he has to do it, right?
As it turns out, the next night isn’t an ambush. Instead, he’s told to prove his worth, told to showcase his technical abilities – those that he learned from his own time at the Academy (though Snart, for some reason, leaves that particular detail out), throwing in some skills he’s picked up from Cisco over the years. Apparently, the Rogues have been in need of someone to give them a professional opinion on various high-tech (experimental and stolen) pieces they’d picked up in the past, and he’s brought on in that role.
Well, that’s one hurdle passed. Nevermind the fact Barry has a very bad feeling Snart, at the very least, has something else in mind. Maybe just the “keep your enemies close” thing.
But either way, the next few months go smoothly. Or at least, as smoothly as Barry thinks they could go, all things considered. The Rogues are… surprisingly welcoming, actually. More like a family than he’d really thought a band of criminals would be. Lisa has made it clear she finds him adorable. Even Mick’s grunts have taken on a more amused sound, rather than just dismissive. And Snart – he’s not the man Barry expected, either: sarcastic but also weirdly melodramatic, resulting in a terrible kind of humor that Barry is certain he shouldn’t enjoy (but does). (Even the stupid nickname is growing on him, and he does enjoy the banter – he’s sure that’s a mutual thing.) A criminal, yes, but the kind with a code, the kind who kept the rest of the Rogues in line. And surprisingly protective, especially when it came to his younger sister.
That last point is the one that ends up being especially relevant, though.
One day, as he’s walking past the back rooms of the bar, he happens to hear voices. Lisa and Mick. Not yelling, but definitely agitated. And talking about Snart. So he opens the door, deciding to dive in headfirst. “Hey, I uh, was just passing by and could hear you guys. Is everything okay?”
Mick looks ready to murder him, but Lisa stops him and looks ready to dismiss Barry in the same movement. Which… maybe Barry really would’ve been better off just eavesdropping, he’s definitely lost his chance to learn anything now and he’s definitely made these two more suspicious of him and –
But then Lisa’s expression shifts. Barry learns that night that Lisa actually trusts him, learns that Snart has been disappearing on his own jobs recently, learns why Snart is so protective of his sister. Learns the name Lewis Snart. And he recognizes the whole conversation as her asking for his help. He still has his cover, still has the job he was sent here for, but the look in her eyes as she talks about her past says so much more than any debriefing from Starfleet Intelligence does.
So he promises to do what he can. With some help from Starfleet, he finds out just where Snart is going to be meeting and manages to catch him there, at an abandoned warehouse in an equally abandoned part of town. Snart’s not happy with that, of course, but Barry isn’t about to budge. He’s there because he’s going to help in whatever way he can and he is not about to take no for an answer because Lisa and Mick are both concerned. (And, just maybe, because he’s concerned, too. Between that conversation specifically and the past months in general, Barry’s had his entire view changed, and while he still remembers his naive, righteous fury on the station all those years ago, there’s so much more he knows, now.)
Any decision is made for them, though, when Lewis Snart himself walks through the door. Barry plays the part of a replacement member of the crew (the actual guy having been the one caught by Starfleet who gave up this location in the first place), and he puts together what’s happening here. Lewis Snart had managed to worm his way back into crime with the first whisperings of war, planning on using it for his own gains. He’s the one working with the Dominion and dragged his son into this whole mess, ensuring his compliance by threatening to hurt Lisa – a hidden incendiary bomb designed by the Tal Shiar, already on her person and primed to explode at the click of a button. It explains a lot – the messy jobs, the sudden connection between a group of thieves and an intergalactic threat, the look in Snart’s eyes that Barry couldn’t describe but could feel – and it strengthens his resolve.
The job gets going – stealing highly regulated biological substances from a Starfleet Medical facility – and ends messily enough for Barry to understand how Starfleet began gathering more information all of a sudden. And in the aftermath, Snart is colder than he normally is, though there’s a weight there, too, that Barry hadn’t seen before.
He knows what he has to do.
He doesn’t tell his handler anything, and he can tell the guy isn’t amused by his stubbornness. But he won’t back down from his proposal: get him information on how to deactivate this bomb, and he’ll talk about what he’s learned. If Starfleet Intelligence really wants to know who might be leaking information to the Dominion, then they can do that much.
More time passes, and it starts with definite unease. It’s no surprise, and Barry doesn’t blame Snart for regarding him far more coolly. But even then, things start to thaw. He mostly has Lisa to thank for that; once the initial phase of discomfort passed, she was the one to start repairing that bridge, and then pushed her brother to do the same.
It takes work, but it’s almost easy at the same time. He spends more time with the Snarts than he ever could’ve expected, especially with Snart – no, Len. It turns out the two of them have the same taste in terrible movies from decades earlier, and Barry is just comfortable in the man’s company. Nor does he miss the once-overs from across the room. Or the knowing glances thrown their way by Mick, in particular. Some days, Barry almost forgets that there’s a war looming, almost forgets that he’s undercover, almost thinks that there’s something. He tries to bask in the bliss that forgetfulness brings on occasion, no matter how short, because he isn’t looking forward to the day he has to tell the truth.
It comes too quickly, really. His handler tells him how to diffuse the bomb – making it abundantly clear the lengths it took to get that information, because of course he would – and Barry can’t keep the lie going anymore. He’d decided to free the Snarts from their father’s influence, and he’d do that. Even if it meant he’d have to tell the truth, because how else could he explain knowing how to diffuse a Tal Shiar bomb?
The Rogues are furious and confused all at the same time. Even Len, whom Barry could’ve sworn knew this secret all along. He tells Barry to do his job, diffuse the bomb, and get out, in no uncertain terms. Barry thinks he sees hurt in his expression for just a moment, but maybe he’d just been imagining things. Knowing him, he probably was.
Meeting up with his handler to end his assignment, he didn’t think he’d end up missing that run down bar. But he does, and he tries not to think too hard as he relates what had been happening: that Lewis Snart was the man they were looking for. He’d been forcing his son to help in his jobs. The Rogues weren’t involved.
All the private details, he leaves to himself, though. Starfleet wouldn’t ever hear any of that from him.
But, apparently, things aren’t done yet. Because as Barry is about to leave, he learns that Starfleet is planning to raid Saints and Sinners. He doesn’t understand; he’d explicitly told them that the Rogues hadn’t been selling out the Federation. Except that it doesn’t matter. They knew now that Len had, if nothing else, been involved in that job at the medical facility, and they’d been looking for a reason to take down the Rogues, anyway. It just worked out, and Barry had done them a great service.
He feels his stomach drop, lies about forgetting something somewhere – he doesn’t even know what words came out of his mouth – and runs to the bar. Weapons and scowls are raised to meet him but there isn’t time for this. Starfleet is on their way and they need to get out please. He knows he doesn’t have any real way to convince them that he’s telling the truth, but he catches Len’s eye and just hopes that’s enough. The time that passes right then is both long and short all at once, and Barry finds himself wishing that he could go back to the times when Len’s expression was so much easier to read, back in those private moments that he knows will hurt to remember, now.
By some stroke of luck, Len lowers his weapon and orders the Rogues to leave; they’d be best off laying low, even if the raid doesn’t happen. The rest of the Rogues seem hesitant, but eventually they make for a secret exit. Len is the last to leave, not even a snarky remark as he does so. Barry just gets one last glimpse of blue eyes before he makes his way back to the waiting transport to take him back to Deep Space 9.
Part of the way back, he learns that the Rogues were nowhere to be found once Starfleet barged into Saints and Sinners. Barry just hopes that no one saw his sigh of relief.
*****
He’s welcomed back to the station with joy, but it doesn’t last long. Iris is the first to pick up on something being wrong, but he brushes her (and later Caitlin and Cisco) off. He just has to readjust, definitely not any confusing feelings or dreams that linger.
Then the Dominion War breaks out in earnest, and the Federation is kicked off the station. It’s while they’re serving on the Defiant, on a rare quiet night amidst the fighting, that Iris confronts him again. She’s not wrong to do that – his dreams oscillate wildly between Len and the War and sometimes are a terrifying combination of both – but he tries to deflect. This is the middle of a War, is this really important? She shuts down his arguments: it would be dangerous for the whole crew if he’s distracted by whatever’s been bothering him all this time. But also, they’ve all been worried about him; they want to help him.
He knows Iris, and he knows that she’s stronger willed than just about anyone he’s ever met. So he tells her. About what he was sent to do, about the Rogues, about Len, about his confusing feelings. About lying to them and betraying them and the guilt. About the voice that’s been in his head ever since, saying he’s lost the chance to ever find out whether or not there might have been something more there, because maybe it was all doomed from the start.
But it feels good to tell his best friend all of this, and she doesn’t seem too bothered over him maybe having feelings for a criminal. She’s supportive and reminds him that the rest of them will always be on his side no matter what, but also that he can’t be sure that he’s ruined things permanently. There could still be a chance.
And she’s right about that. First, they’d all have to survive this war, but if they did, then after that? The thought of going back to Earth and trying to fix this mess was a lot, but in the end? He could only hope that it would be worth it.
*****
Wow, it's been a super hot second since I've written anything for this fandom, so I hope you enjoyed this random garbage that flooded my brain because I saw the words "space AU". I have no idea if anything is in character anymore, but I basically wanted to combo "Family of Rogues" with the DS9 episode "Honor Among Thieves" (with a hint of the Garak and Bashir meeting vibes from the pilot). So here we are.
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