The Wizard and the Wyrdpack

[Jack7]

I've been tinkering around with this idea for awhile and would like to get other opinions on it. To see if the people here think it might be a viable or good idea for a book of fiction. So I'm doing a bit of market research.



This is the basic outline I have sketched out so far:

The story would involve a person who others think of as a Wizard. (He is not a typical fantasy type Wizard.) It takes place in the early Medieval Period (I'm thinking about setting it either on the Isle of Wight with the Wizard traveling to different areas by boat) or in North-Eastern Europe (with him traveling by foot or pony).

The Wizard is actually what we might call a proto-scientist, and he has read and studied extensively a wide range of Roman, Greek, North African, and even Oriental Arts and Sciences. He is also an inventor.

Because of his reputation many people fear him but various leaders and authorities also value his skills (he is an engineer, architect, designer, alchemist, and mathematician, and well known also as a healer - in short he is a Polymath) and so he is often much in demand among certain elite. However in his travels he must often travel in disguise because his reputation as a Wizard and Sorcerer makes him suspect and a target for attack. Because of this he has over the years become very, very good at stealth, vadding, disguise, and infiltration. (Useful for his other pursuits.)

I'm gonna leave it open as to his true identify because although he has a name by which he is well known, he also has a number of aliases. I'm also gonna leave it open as to whether he can actually create or use real magic. In addition a number of very bizarre and odd things occur around him on a not infrequent basis which seem unnatural, sometimes even miraculous. So no one is really sure of exactly who he is or what he is.

He often travels with a fox, a wolf, and a dog, all of whom seem to get along with very well with each other, and who seem to assist him from time to time. (The Wizard calls them his Wyrdpack.) Some people suspect they are familiars who can talk to him, others think they might be something else. Or maybe even that he has enchanted them or created them.

He travels widely in the service of those who employ him (they employ him to engineer, to help cure plagues, to prepare defenses, to create things, etc) but most everywhere he goes he encounters a mystery and sometimes even a crime or series of crimes. So as a side-line (and as a related but separate sub-plot) he investigates these mysteries and crimes because he enjoys that kind of work immensely (it is a personal interest) and because he seems to be in search of something on his own. As a private matter, not disclosed to the reader but hinted at - and clues appear about this matter from time to time in the story. So in addition to being considered a Wizard he is also a Detective and Investigator, and apparently on a secret quest of his own.

So, would a story or even a series of stories about such a Wizard Detective interest you as a reader? Would you consider buying a book or books about such a character if the stories were good and interesting?

Your opinion is welcome.

 

[hopeless]

Merlin Nostradamus- Medieval Scholar extraordinaire

Sorry for the pun, was wondering how you'd deal with his past since your character would have to have some form of education that by current reckonin would either be extraordinary or remarkable in the effect that he's well known by the story's start, has several enemes some of whom are religious in inclination or rivals who seek to thwart or stop him when his actions interfere with their own schemes...

When i read this I pictured someone who is eventually revealed to be able to travel to and from the future, essentially our present so he's a polymath by our standards but extraordinary in the past where he's forced to live.

The question is how far do you want to take the magic side of things?

Why does he do what he does and as noted above has he any rivals say for example like doctor who he isn't the very best his society has ever trained but he has the social skills and innate experience to make up the difference such that he is the most benevolent of the renegades of his people.

Hmm I wonder, in regards to my initial example, say he was part of an experiment that involved travelling into the past. Dismissed and thought not a problem what they don't know is that when he sleeps in the present he wakes up in the past and actually remembers what happens to him back then.

He isn't however the only one able to do this but not only do we have enemies in the past reverse engineering future inventions for their own benefit, but also others who are actually trying to make best use of their time to answer mysteries of the past even if it means dealing with vile organisations to fulfil their own purpose.

Now he is beginning to earn a reputation but so far noone from his time is aware he can still travel to and from the present but its only a matter of time and then there's the fact the process they're using involves them assuming control of their previous life and they have to take care to avoid altering events of the past as known to the present because this could result in some dramatic changes.

And the reason he's doing what he's doing is because it has already happened, his life in the present has gone downhill thanks to the program he had volunteered for who are unaware he's the only one who stands between the world and inevitable cataclysm!

Sorry went to far but wondered what else you'd reveal at this stage

 

[RainOfSteel]

People who displayed skills of "magic" in medieval Europe were burned at the stake, if they weren't killed during capture first.

The fox, wolf, and dog getting along would send all sorts of alarm bells ringing in the minds of superstitious commoners, and local priests and lords.

The whole CSI: Medieval Europe aspect, I just don't understand that. Justice, evidence, and procedures as we understand them in modern world simply don't exist back then. Justice is often whatever the lord or priest, or a shouting mob, says it is.

There aren't many punishments, and imprisonment is almost never used except for special prisoners who can be ransomed. Maiming or execution are used for serious crimes, and backbreaking labor for less serious crimes.

If you can get yourself tried in front of a priest, for serious crimes, you may be assigned to give up all your worldly possessions and travel in poverty on foot all the way to the Holy Land and back on pilgrimage. If your crimes are especially bad, you might be assigned to walk it several times.

Modern evidentiary standards simply do not exist. Testimony is the king of evidence and if some well-respected local has it in for you, his lies will probably be believed over your truth.

Outsiders who stumble along and try to interfere with local criminal affairs are, I think, most likely to be caught up in them. As outsiders, they become convenient scapegoats for local officials who might not want to pin crimes they've found out were committed by their friends or family. Or worse, to have local officials with feathers ruffled by "johnny come lately".

Despite me not getting it, there is an entire series of books regarding medieval murder mysteries you may want to take a look at:

The Cadfael Chronicles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Jack7]

Sorry it took me so long to get back on this. Between my business, and writing (fiction) and my inventing, and some other things, my free time is limited. So I don't always get back to everything immediately.

I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

Sorry for the pun, was wondering how you'd deal with his past since your character would have to have some form of education that by current reckoning would either be extraordinary or remarkable in the effect that he's well known by the story's start, has several enemies some of whom are religious in inclination or rivals who seek to thwart or stop him when his actions interfere with their own schemes...

People who displayed skills of "magic" in medieval Europe were burned at the stake, if they weren't killed during capture first.
The fox, wolf, and dog getting along would send all sorts of alarm bells ringing in the minds of superstitious commoners, and local priests and lords.

The books will be set in the early Middle ages, sometime between 500 and 600 AD. Maybe as early as 450 AD. I haven't really decided yet.

At this time (far before the Western European interest in and persecution against witchcraft) there was still much pagan influence and mixed Christian and pagan influence. The main character is a Christian, but a rather unorthodox one from the Western European and later Medieval viewpoint.

He was born and raised as a young boy in Constantinople and later moves to Alexandria (until he is a young man of about 20). He has an excellent Greek and Roman-Latin education (for the time) and in addition to receiving some of his education from Bishops and Christian teachers, he is also instructed in philosophy, and rhetoric and oratory (which saves his life on more than one occasion) and geometry and mathematics. In outlook he has more of a (Pope) Gregory the Great attitude towards the pagans than a later one, and he is very friendly towards many of the Ancient philosophical ideas of the Ancient World. (A world which still exists very much around him in the Eastern Empire.) He also has friends among Christians, pagans, and philosophers.

So because of the age in which the stories are set he doesn't face the Western anti-Witchcraft persecutions that he might have had he lived much later in Western Europe. Though he does arouse suspicion as he travels into the West.

He arouses session because he is so well educated and has preserved within himself much of the learning of the ancient World and also because he is scientifically and technologically minded. He also arouses suspicion because of his apparent influence with animals (although many Saints like Saint Francis also were said to have great influence with animals, such as the Wolf of Saint Francis). He arouses suspicion in the West because he has capabilities that have either declined or disappeared in the West, and because he is part Greek and Eastern. And he arouses suspicion in some quarters simply because of what he can do as a result of his education, upbringing, travels, scientific capabilities (or in this case Proto-scientific capabilities), and Mystical, unorthodox faith.

In this sense the character is largely based upon me. He is (what today would be called Greek Orthodox) a Christian and a Mystic, and hits is a large part of his personality, the other part is his education, background, observational training, and philosophical and scientific background. (Although in his case his scientific background is not what we would call a modern scientific background, but one more akin to Archimedes and Ancient World philosophers and proto-scientists.) He is also an inventor and more than one of his inventions is considered by some to be likely sorcery of some kind.

Many odd, sometimes even weird and uncanny things happen around him, some that seem outright miraculous and out of his control (they often are), and many other things that he seems to cause to happen or that he creates. These things are all part of the various conflicts of the story, and whereas they make some suspicious of him, especially in Eastern Europe and the far West, it also makes him in high demand among many local rulers and authorities as the Western Empire begins to unravel. Many local rulers, especially barbarian ones and the remnants of Roman authority relocating to smaller, easier to defend strongholds, like Ravenna, desire to employ him and his inventions against encroaching enemies.

One way to think of him is as a much later Rena Man, like Leonardo Da Vinci, but at the start of the Medieval World, not it's end. He is also good with languages and although can only read Latin and Greek he can speak quite a few. He is also a musician but unlike me is he is a very good musician.

His three companions, the Wyrdpack - dog, fox, and wolf, are all based on friends of mine. (One an ex-cop, one a former undercover agent, and one a soldier.)

The character will not however be a D&D type Wizard, he simply gains that nickname among some people, and later it becomes a sort of title. But that term is translated into English (my main audience), he is really more of a Wizard in the old sense of the term, meaning "Old Wise Man" or "a highly proficient man." By the time of the stories he is an old man, and his youth and prior life will only be seen in flashbacks, or memories, or stories other recount.

He is also not a Harry Potter type magic-using Wizard of spells and potions and wands. Although he does carry a staff. I'm gonna leave it open to the reader exactly what is going on some times, and if he is actually causing certain things to happen, if it is some kind of miracle, or if indeed he can do magical things like some of his enemies suspect.

But for most every powerful enemy he gains he will have at leader one defender, often a powerful Churchman or leader he has worked for (although he will have angered some former employers by refusing their work or because they didn't think he did what they asked).

The whole CSI: Medieval Europe aspect, I just don't understand that. Justice, evidence, and procedures as we understand them in modern world simply don't exist back then. Justice is often whatever the lord or priest, or a shouting mob, says it is.

He's not really an investigator or detective by our standards. He is more of an Enquirer (he is very good at discovering things by covert questioning). He is also well trained in ancient techniques of inquiry and has developed many of his own. He investigates things because he likes it so much, and in this respect he is also based upon me and my experience as a detective and investigator. But you're right he is limited by his age in this regard and often relies upon techniques and methods that no-one would reply upon today. He also seems to have a sort of mystical ability at detection and observation (though he is less good as an investigator) and sometimes relies upon mystical experiences to draw conclusions (sometimes the wrong ones).

He is also not a "solve every mystery kind of guy," because evidence is limited or he is hampered by others. Investigation is part of his nature, but not his whole nature and not his whole interest. He's not Sherlock Holmes.


Each story about him though will usually involve the following events and/or conflicts: his "employment," his travels to wherever he takes up his new work, something discovered by the reader about his past (usually his past experiences, or involving a woman), a conflict with a new enemy and sometimes between a new enemy and an old friend/defender, a crime or mystery surrounding his employment or employer, and the thing he is really in search of... But you're very right. Justice is not a commonly accepted thing, especially as the Western empire unravels, and he will also often be brought into conflict with "colloquial Justice."

Despite me not getting it, there is an entire series of books regarding medieval murder mysteries you may want to take a look at:

The Cadfael Chronicles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I often read Cadfael and have watched the series that Derek Jacobi does such a fine job in. I don't though want to give the impression that this character is a Cadfael, a monk or a wizard who spends much if his time investigating crimes. He investigates crimes usually out of personal interest, because they involve the work he has been contracted for, and especially if he feels it connects with what he is really hunting. But he is not a "detective investigator" and that is not really the main purpose of the stories, it is an effect of the stories. A method he uses to further his own search.

When I read this I pictured someone who is eventually revealed to be able to travel to and from the future, essentially our present so he's a polymath by our standards but extraordinary in the past where he's forced to live.

It's interesting you should bring this up. He will not be time traveling but he is the ancestor of another "Wizard character" who appears in one of my novels about the Basilegate and Prester John. They never meet for his descendent lives around 800 AD and is from Ravenna (where the earlier "Wizard" fathers a child) but later moves to Constantinople to work for the Emperor and the Orthodox Church.

The "wizard" in this series of stories (not the later descendent) has vivid dreams about his own ancestors and occasionally falls into trances, and even has visions during mystical religious experiences. One of the set of visions he has is of his descendant.

He doesn't time travel but he does dream of the past, and has visions of the future. He is definitely a polymath though, but not by later Medieval or Renaissance standards. He is more like an Archimedes or ancient Greek polymath.


I really appreciate the feedback and comments. They are helping to me to narrow down some of the character background.

Thanks again.