StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This is a fanfic about the mythical Norse hero Beowulf. It takes place sometime before he fights Grendel and his mother. Here's the fanfic's brief introduction...

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The Nubian city of Napata dazzled Beowulf beyond belief. Its rows of towering mud-brick houses were unlike the small, simple timber huts of his homeland’s villages. Beowulf was even more impressed with the colossal limestone temples, colonnades, and idols scattered throughout the city. Not only were they huge, but they were intricately decorated with hieroglyphs and colorful murals. The population, too, amazed him. Formed of slender people with dark brown skin and woolly black hair, it must have numbered in the thousands, enough to fill whole nations of villages.

As awestruck as Beowulf was, he too was a source of curiosity for the Nubian citizenry, who could not help but stare at him as he navigated the city. Beowulf was a large man with broad shoulders and thick musculature. He had sun-reddened skin, icy blue eyes, and a great red beard. He wore a conical, horned helmet and a suit of iron chainmail over a blue tunic. A broadsword lay in a scabbard attached to his belt.

Beowulf passed a wooden sign that read “Bazaar” in hieroglyphs and entered a long street where merchants had set up their stalls. The odors of exotic foods and spices filled the street. Roadside musicians pounded on drums and blew flutes to attract passerby’s money. The merchants, too, made a lot of noise, calling out to Beowulf to advertise their products. Beowulf ignored them. He was not interested in food, jewelry, pots, or anything else most of the merchants had to offer. He was looking for one thing: a woman to keep him warm at night.

At last, Beowulf reached a stall labeled “Djadao’s Brothel”, where a big fat merchant stood calling out to him. Beowulf approached this merchant.

“Well, who comes to Djadao today?” the merchant greeted him, “You sure look like you’ve come a long way.”

“I am Beowulf,” Beowulf answered, “I hail from Geatland, to the far north of here.”

“All the way from Geatland, huh? Well, what brings you to Nubia?”

“I come seeking adventure---and I hear your women are among the finest, too.”

Djadao laughed, the rolls of his massive belly rippling. “You have good taste for a Norseman. Well, if you’re looking for fine Nubian women, you’ve come to the right place. You can have one woman for one night for ten gold coins.”

Beowulf reached into a sack attached to his belt, pulled out a handful of gold coins, and counted them one by one.

“Wodan be damned, I’ve only six coins,” he said sheepishly, “You wouldn’t happen to know how I could get four more, would you?”

Djadao hesitated for a moment, then said, “Hmm…you look like a warrior type, judging from the sword you carry. I know of a way a man like you can make some money around here, but I warn you, it’s quite dangerous.”

“I don’t mind danger. I’ve fought myself out of the jaws of death many times before.”

“Well then, here it goes: out in the desert east of here, there lurks a gang of bandits who call themselves the Golden Hyenas. They’ve been harassing caravans and gold-mining operations. If you can bring their leader back alive to the Palace, the Pharaoh will pay you enough gold to buy all my women.”

Beowulf grinned as he imagined how much gold that must have been.

“I’ll do it,” he declared.

“That’s the spirit! Just remember to return to my brothel when you come back---if you come back.”

Somehow I think a guy who beat a manbearlizard in hand to hand combat by ripping its arm off isn't going to be fazed by a mob of bandits.

Also, I presume this takes place in mythic fantasy mashup Earth.

Kingmaker wrote:Also, I presume this takes place in mythic fantasy mashup Earth.

If you have a world populated by ogres, sea monsters, and dragons, historical accuracy is not exactly important.

Beowulf is dated to the early 6th century by references to real events within the poem. Among other things Napata had been razed to the ground by the Romans in the reign of Augustus, though it had already been abandoned as the Nubian capital for three hundred years before that. Nubia itself had collapsed circa 350 AD, with Axum generally believed to have taken over the area or exercised a mild hegemony over the succeeding pocket kingdoms. The area had been Christian for well over a century, and if Beowulf is "dazzled beyond belief" by large cities, marble temples, and colonnades I can only assume he somehow reached the Sudan without ever crossing the Mediterranean.

If that's all to be ignored perhaps Beowulf should be renamed Conan? In any case the plot hardly requires the unique character of Beowulf. He's already reduced to the grunting Nordic barbarian here, and the "plot" seems to consist of the hackneyed DnD hook of the PC going to a bar and being hired to kill bandits.

Maybe it would be better if I changed Beowulf to an original character with a different name, and the setting from Nubia to some fictional kingdom based on it? That would get around the historical inaccuracies and your complaint that I've taken Beowulf and turned him into a "grunting Nordic barbarian".

BTW, I don't play D&D, so if the intro sounds like any D&D hook, it's not because I'm ripping off anything.

Here's a redone intro for the story. I've decided to turn it into original fiction, changing Beowulf to an original character named Ogdar and the setting to a fictional kingdom called Nubadia.

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The Nubadian city of Khentu dazzled Ogdar beyond belief. Its rows of towering mud-brick houses were unlike the small, simple timber huts of his homeland’s villages. Ogdar was even more impressed with the colossal limestone temples, colonnades, and idols scattered throughout the city. Not only were they huge, but they were intricately decorated with hieroglyphs and colorful murals. The population, too, amazed him. Formed of slender people with dark brown skin and woolly black hair, it must have numbered in the thousands, enough to fill whole nations of villages.

As awestruck as Ogdar was, he too was a source of curiosity for the Nubadian citizenry, who could not help but stare at him as he navigated the city. Ogdar was a thin but muscular man of medium height with sun-reddened skin, icy blue eyes, and a great red beard. He wore a conical, horned helmet and a suit of iron chainmail over a buckskin tunic. A longsword lay in a scabbard attached to his belt.

Ogdar passed a wooden sign that read “Bazaar” in hieroglyphs and entered a long street where merchants had set up their stalls. The odors of exotic foods and spices filled the street. Roadside musicians pounded on drums and blew flutes to attract passerby’s money. The merchants, too, made a lot of noise, calling out to Ogdar to advertise their products. Ogdar ignored them. He was not interested in food, jewelry, pots, or anything else most of the merchants had to offer. He was looking for one thing: a woman to keep him warm at night.

At last, Ogdar reached a stall labeled “Djadao’s Brothel”, where a big fat merchant stood calling out to him. Ogdar approached this merchant.

“Well, who comes to Djadao today?” the merchant greeted him, “You sure look like you’ve come a long way.”

“I am Ogdar,” Odgar answered, “I hail from Whitlund, to the far north of here.”

“All the way from Whitlund, huh? Well, what brings you to Nubadia?”

“I come seeking adventure---and I hear your women are among the finest, too.”

Djadao laughed, the rolls of his massive belly rippling. “You have good taste for a northern man. Well, if you’re looking for fine Nubadian women, you’ve come to the right place. You can have one woman for one night for ten gold coins.”

Ogdar reached into a sack attached to his belt, pulled out a handful of gold coins, and counted them one by one.

“Thardan be damned, I’ve only six coins,” he said sheepishly, “You wouldn’t happen to know how I could get four more, would you?”

Djadao hesitated for a moment, then said, “Hmm…you look like a warrior type, judging from the sword you carry. I know of a way a man like you can make some money around here, but I warn you, it’s quite dangerous.”

“I don’t mind danger. I’ve fought myself out of the jaws of death many times before.”

“Well then, here it goes: out in the desert east of here, there lurks a gang of bandits who call themselves the Golden Hyenas. They’ve been harassing caravans and gold-mining operations. If you can bring their leader back alive to the Palace, the Pharaoh will pay you enough gold to buy all my women.”

Ogdar grinned as he imagined how much gold that must have been.

“I’ll do it,” he declared.

“That’s the spirit! Just remember to return to my brothel when you come back---if you come back.”

Next part...

###

The desert that stretched east of Khentu was a very uneven environment of yellow sand dunes and craggy cliffs. Huge boulders were strewn everywhere, as were scattered clusters of acacia trees and scrub. Ogdar stole cautiously through this terrain, carefully surveying his surroundings. Although he wore a stoic expression on his face, his spine felt cold, for he knew that bandits could easily hide here.

Something cracked under Ogdar’s leather shoe.

Ogdar jerked his head down and saw that he had stepped on the skull of a human skeleton bleached white by the sun. He examined the skull and noticed that an arrow stuck out of it. The person to whom this skeleton belonged had been shot dead by some kind of archer---perhaps a bandit! Ogdar reasoned that the bandit camp was therefore nearby.

Ogdar looked up and saw the entrance to a natural corridor between two cliffs ahead of him. He guessed that the bandits were settled on the other side of this corridor, so he entered it. He was even more alert now, scrutinizing not only the rocks lying around the corridor, but also the lips of the cliffs above. If the bandits had bows and arrows, he figured, they could attack him from atop the cliffs.

Ogdar heard the sound of footsteps on the sandy corridor floor.

He halted and jerked his head side to side, searching for whoever had made that sound. He saw nothing. Ogdar grabbed the hilt of his sword and unsheathed it in preparation for battle.

“Who goes there?” Ogdar called out, “Show yourself!”

A horrible screech answered Ogdar, echoing off the cliffs. It sounded inhuman, almost like the screech of an angry chimpanzee.

More screeches followed as a horde of dark shapes erupted from behind rocks around Ogdar. From a distance, the shapes looked like those of humans, albeit shambling and dwarfish ones, but as they charged towards Ogdar, it became apparent that they weren’t human at all. Most of their bodies were covered with thick black hair, and their dark grey faces were those of apes rather than humans. Their screeching mouths, stinking of rotting flesh, bore fangs like yellow daggers. Their red eyes burned with hunger.

One of the apes swung a large bone like a war club at Ogdar. Ogdar blocked the bone with his sword. The bone was cut into two upon touching the blade’s edge. Ogdar then raised his sword and thrust it into the ape’s mouth. The sword’s bloody point went through flesh and bone and came out at the back of the ape’s head. Ogdar withdrew the sword and swung it again at more apes, cleaving their heads off.

Ogdar drew his sword back for another swing, but then he felt a great weight land onto his back. One of the apes had leapt onto him from behind and was now ascending him. The ape grabbed his helmet by the horns, threw it off, and struck his head with a blunt bone. The force of the hit was such that Ogdar lost some consciousness and fell to the ground.

The clamoring troop of apes gathered around Ogdar and pounded his chainmail with bones and sticks. At first the chainmail withstood the apes’ attacks, but as the pounding went on it got worn. One ape raised a bone high in the air, ready to send it crashing onto Ogdar’s skull.

There was a whistle, and then an arrow went into the ape’s skull. The other apes stopped pounding Ogdar and turned to see a squad of Nubadian men armed with bows, firing arrows at them. The apes charged towards the Nubadians, screeching with bloodlust and brandishing their bones and sticks. When the apes came too close to be shot at, the Nubadians put their bows away, unsheathed scimitars, and collided with the apes.

The Nubadian scimitars sliced through the hairy horde, staining the sandy corridor floor red with the apes’ blood. Ape after ape fell until there were only less than a dozen left. By that point, the apes finally relented. They dropped their crude weapons, spun around, and fled the corridor, shrieking in panic.

The Nubadians walked over the litter of ape bodies to where Ogdar lay and curiously studied him. One of them found his sword and helmet and presented it to Ogdar.

“Are these yours?” the Nubadian asked Ogdar.

“Yes,” Ogdar groaned, “Thank you for saving me.”

With the Nubadians assisting him, Ogdar got back onto his feet, groaning because of the pain the apes had inflicted onto him. Looking around at his rescuers, he noticed that they had gold-colored tattoos in the shape of hyenas’ faces on their shoulders.

“Golden Hyenas,” Ogdar gasped, “You’re the infamous Golden Hyenas! I’ve been looking for you!”

He angrily thrust his sword just an inch shy of one of the Nubadians’ necks.

“Please withdraw that sword,” the Nubadian said, “We are not who you think we are, northerner.”

“Then what are you, praytell?”

“All will be explained when we show you to our leader. Please follow us.”

The Golden Hyenas began to walk down the corridor. Ogdar sheathed his sword and followed them.

Having thought about it some more, I'm considering returning the story back to its fanfic roots---that is, turn Ogdar back to Beowulf again. It would be more appropriate for a fanfiction forum.

We're perfectly good with dropping original fiction in here too and there's quite a lot of that.
[line 2]

OK.

Here's another update...

##

The Nubadian city of Khentu dazzled Ogdar beyond belief. Its rows of towering mud-brick houses were unlike the small, simple timber huts of his homeland’s villages. Ogdar was even more impressed with the colossal limestone temples, colonnades, and idols scattered throughout the city. Not only were they huge, but they were intricately decorated with hieroglyphs and colorful murals. The population, too, amazed him. Formed of people with dark brown skin and woolly black hair, it must have numbered in the thousands, enough to fill whole nations of villages.

As awestruck as Ogdar was, he too was a source of curiosity for the Nubadian citizenry, who could not help but stare at him as he navigated the city. Ogdar was a muscular, broad-shouldered man with sun-reddened skin, icy blue eyes, and a long mane of red hair. He wore a wolfskin loincloth. A broadsword lay in a scabbard attached to his belt.

Ogdar passed a wooden sign that read “Bazaar” in hieroglyphs and entered a long street where merchants had set up their stalls. The odors of exotic foods and spices filled the street. Roadside musicians pounded on drums and blew flutes to attract passerby’s money. The merchants, too, made a lot of noise, calling out to Ogdar to advertise their products. Ogdar ignored them. He was not interested in food, jewelry, pots, or anything else most of the merchants had to offer. He was looking for one thing: a woman to keep him warm at night.

At last, Ogdar reached a stall labeled “Djadao’s Brothel”, where a big fat merchant stood calling out to him. Ogdar approached this merchant.

“Well, who comes to Djadao today?” the merchant greeted him, “You sure look like you’ve come a long way.”

“I am Ogdar,” Odgar answered, “I hail from Caenor, to the far north of here.”

“All the way from Caenor, huh? Well, what brings you to Nubadia?”

“I come seeking adventure---and I hear your women are among the finest, too.”

Djadao laughed, the rolls of his massive belly rippling. “You have good taste for a northern man. Well, if you’re looking for fine Nubadian women, you’ve come to the right place. You can have one woman for one night for six silver coins.”

Ogdar reached into a sack attached to his belt, pulled out a handful of coins, and counted them one by one.

“Gywna be damned, I’ve only two silvers,” he said sheepishly, “You wouldn’t happen to know how I could get four more, would you?”

Djadao hesitated for a moment, then said, “Hmm…you look like a warrior type, judging from the sword you carry. I know of a way a man like you can make some money around here, but I warn you, it’s quite dangerous.”

“I don’t mind danger. I’ve fought myself out of the jaws of death many times before.”

“Well then, here it goes: out in the desert east of here, there lurks a gang of bandits who call themselves the Golden Hyenas. They’ve been harassing caravans and gold-mining operations. If you can bring their leader back alive to the Palace, the Pharaoh will pay you enough silver to buy all my women.”

Ogdar grinned as he imagined how much gold that must have been.

“I’ll do it,” he declared.

“That’s the spirit! Just remember to return to my brothel when you come back---if you come back.”

##

The desert that stretched east of Khentu was a very uneven environment of yellow sand dunes and craggy cliffs. Huge boulders were strewn everywhere, as were scattered clusters of acacia trees and scrub. Ogdar stole cautiously through this terrain, carefully surveying his surroundings. Although he wore a stoic expression on his face, his spine felt cold, for he knew that bandits could easily hide here.

Ogdar noticed that ahead of him lay a skeleton bleached white by the desert sun. He examined the skeleton’s skull and noticed that an arrow stuck out of it. The person to whom this skeleton belonged had been shot dead by some kind of archer---perhaps a bandit! Ogdar reasoned that the bandit camp was therefore nearby.

Ogdar looked up and saw the entrance to a natural corridor between two cliffs ahead of him. He guessed that the bandits were settled on the other side of this corridor, so he entered it. He was even more alert now, scrutinizing not only the rocks lying around the corridor, but also the lips of the cliffs above. If the bandits had bows and arrows, he figured, they could attack him from atop the cliffs.

Ogdar heard the sound of footsteps on the sandy corridor floor.

He halted and jerked his head side to side, searching for whoever had made that sound. He saw nothing. Ogdar grabbed the hilt of his sword and unsheathed it in preparation for battle.

“Who goes there?” Ogdar called out, “Show yourself!”

A horrible screech answered Ogdar, echoing off the cliffs. It sounded inhuman, almost like the screech of an angry chimpanzee.

More screeches followed as a horde of dark shapes erupted from behind rocks around Ogdar. From a distance, the shapes looked like those of humans, albeit shambling and dwarfish ones, but as they charged towards Ogdar, it became apparent that they weren’t human at all. Most of their bodies were covered with thick black hair, and their dark grey faces were those of apes rather than humans. Their screeching mouths, stinking of rotting flesh, bore fangs like yellow daggers. Their red eyes burned with hunger.

One of the apes swung a large bone like a war club at Ogdar. Ogdar blocked the bone with his sword. The bone was cut into two upon touching the blade’s edge. Ogdar then raised his sword and thrust it into the ape’s mouth. The sword’s bloody point went through flesh and bone and came out at the back of the ape’s head. Ogdar withdrew the sword and swung it again at more apes, cleaving their heads off.

Ogdar drew his sword back for another swing, but then he felt a great weight land onto his back. One of the apes had leapt onto him from behind and was now ascending him. When the ape reached his head it struck it with a blunt bone. The force of the hit was such that Ogdar lost some consciousness and fell to the ground.

The clamoring troop of apes gathered around Ogdar. One ape raised a bone high in the air, ready to send it crashing onto Ogdar’s skull.

There was a whistle, and then an arrow went into the ape’s skull. The other apes stopped pounding Ogdar and turned to see a squad of Nubadian men armed with bows, firing arrows at them. The apes charged towards the Nubadians, screeching with bloodlust and brandishing their bones and sticks. When the apes came too close to be shot at, the Nubadians put their bows away, unsheathed scimitars, and collided with the apes.

The Nubadian scimitars sliced through the hairy horde, staining the sandy corridor floor red with the apes’ blood. Ape after ape fell until there were only less than a dozen left. By that point, the apes finally relented. They dropped their crude weapons, spun around, and fled the corridor, shrieking in panic.

The Nubadians walked over the litter of ape bodies to where Ogdar lay and curiously studied him. One of them found his sword and presented it to Ogdar.

“Is this yours?” the Nubadian asked Ogdar.

“Yes,” Ogdar groaned, “Thank you for saving me.”

With the Nubadians assisting him, Ogdar got back onto his feet, groaning because his head still hurt. Looking around at his rescuers, he noticed that they had gold-colored tattoos in the shape of hyenas’ faces on their shoulders.

Golden Hyenas. These were the infamous Golden Hyenas he had been looking for! And yet these bandits had rescued him. For a moment, Ogdar debated in his head whether or not he should attack them. In the end, he decided that doing so would show a lack of gratitude on his part. He sheathed his sword.

“Come, let us show you to our leader,” one of the Hyenas said, and Ogdar followed them down the corridor.

##

The corridor between the cliffs widened into a valley in which an oasis encircled by palm trees lay. A circular camp of tents with a fire burning in the center sat next to the oasis. The troop of Golden Hyenas who had rescued Ogdar led him into this camp and towards a tent which had two guards armed with spears and cowhide shields standing by its entrance. The guards stared at Ogdar with what seemed to be mixed suspicion and curiosity, but they let him in after his rescuers said a password in the Nubadian tongue.

“Our dear leader,” one of the Hyenas said, “We saved this man from apes in the wilds. What shall we do with him?”

Ogdar could not believe who the Hyena had addressed. Standing before him was not a fearsome-looking man, as he had expected, but rather a young woman. Not only that, but she was incredibly beautiful. Her slender body was colored and shining like polished ebony. Her raven hair was worn in dreadlocks. Her breasts were large and perky, her bosom ample. The woman didn’t wear much clothing, just a white loincloth, but she decorated herself with golden jewelry around her limbs, neck, and head, giving her an almost regal appearance. Ogdar could not help but think lustful thoughts upon seeing her.

The woman examined Ogdar with shining dark eyes, stroking his musculature with delicate hands. Her mere touch aroused Ogdar even more. Looking into her eyes, Ogdar sensed that she, too, felt desirous for him.

“Let him stay with me, for I want to get to know him better,” the woman said to her subordinates, and then she said to Ogdar, “So, handsome young stranger, can you tell me who you are?”

“I am Ogdar,” Ogdar answered, “I come from Caenor, to the far north of here.”

“You come from Caenor? You must be quite the adventurer. I am Qalhata, matriarch of the Golden Hyenas.”

“You are their leader…you’re the one I’ve been looking for! I came out here to capture you and bring an end to the trouble you’ve caused!” Ogdar reached for his sword’s hilt.

“What trouble do you mean?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, bandit. Your Hyenas have been robbing merchants and plundering mines.”

“Those are lies, barbarian, lies of the Pharaoh!”

“What do you mean, lies?”

“We are not bandits as the Pharaoh has led many to believe. We are liberators. You see, the Pharaoh of this country is a greedy, egoistical tyrant who overtaxes his people and forces them to build monuments to his own glory. Anyone who challenges him is put to death. Why, just a week ago he had his own daughter thrown to the crocodiles merely because she refused to marry the man he wanted her to marry. We Golden Hyenas will not stand to have our nation governed by such a madman. That is why we have taken up arms and chosen to fight him.”

“Why should I believe you? How do I know it is not you who is lying?”

“Think about it. If we were really the unscrupulous bandits the Pharaoh wants you to think we are, we would not have saved you from those apes. Real bandits are much more selfish than we are.”

Ogdar hesitated. Qalhata had a point. In general, bandits really were a cowardly and self-centered lot, certainly too much to save a stranger from a horde of savage beasts the way these Golden Hyenas did.

“You make a good point,” Ogdar said, “I apologize for doubting you. In fact, I would like to join your Hyenas. I want to do whatever I can to help your cause.”

“That is excellent,” Qalhata said, “I will send you to our tattooist so you can wear our emblem on your shoulder. Also…I wish to reward you for your generosity later tonight.”

A lustful grin spread across Ogdar’s face as he wondered what that reward was going to be.