A-to-Z Challenge Day 5 — Erana

There is perhaps no figure within all of Itralos more enigmatic than Erana. Her name echoes from the hallowed Halls of Learning as clearly as it rings out in bawdy songs sung in the brothels and alehouses of the Passwater. Who is to say who… or even what… she truly is?

— Travelogue entry of Magnar the Historian,
Advisor to Baeorg Jarlking

Erana is a lot of different things within the Chronicles of Itralos (possible title for my book), but I’m going to take a moment to explain a bit about her outside of the story and give a bit of history and background as to where she came from as a character concept. I don’t want to talk too much about her in character because learning about her is one of the things I hope will be a fun piece-by-piece mystery that is revealed over the course of the novel, or series if it ends up being more than one book.

About fifteen years ago (or thereabouts) when I started creating my desert tribesfolk in general, and Alari specifically (see the Amavinan post for a peek at her) I also worked on creating history, legends, mythology, and religious practices for them.

A few years later, my boyfriend introduced me to one of his favorite video games “Quest For Glory” (Q4G).  In that series, Erana is a legendary sorceress whose main power is granting the questing character a spell to calm and soothe dangerous opponents. There are various locations within the games attributed to Erana, and all of these locales have magical powers, the main one being that no fighting can be done and it is a safe zone to rest and renew.

If you enjoy point-and-click adventure games, I highly recommend these.

That’s my nod to Erana’s creators in the Q4G games and it’s as far as it goes and where the similarities end. The Erana I have created is not a sorceress, though she is equated with peace in various forms. I make no claims to my Erana being the same person or creation as the Erana character in the Q4G games. I just really liked the name for my tribes’  goddess of peace and love.

(This is my impression of how some might view Erana) — Art by Luis Royo

I also really enjoyed the music from one of the game soundtracks and want to share it here. This is called “Erana’s Peace” and is covered by guitar (the original is still good, but it’s a midi and sometimes those are not as much fun to listen to for long periods of time.)

I regularly listen to music while I’m writing and this song in several forms is a favorite in my playlist. It’s fun for me to reminisce about where a particular story bit originated and choosing this topic gave me a chance to go back and remember all the fun I had with those games too.