The Child's Journey
Grabbing the link for my Columbus post, I re-read my post regarding "The Child's Journey." I've read a few more books lately that fall into that category and once again seem to follow the structure.

The newest one I'm reading is Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen, the first book of her Heralds of Valdemar trilogy. I actually started this one back in March because a player in "Morpheus Interrupted" was playing Talia.

((SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD.))

To review, the structure is basically this:

• The Child starts is in a miserable situation, usually living with step-parents, uncles or aunts. Harry Potter and James (of Giant Peach fame) started living with aunts and uncles, but sometimes it's other things that make life miserable for the child. For Ender (of Ender's Game) it was a bully brother. For Talia it was living amongst the Holderkin, a people very oppressive to women. Even Alice had to escape her lessons.



• The child finds out there is something special about them.



• This special nature allows the child to escpae the situation.



• Child meets new friends



• This special nature allows the child to escape the bad situation.



• Away from home the child meets new friends who are accepting of the difference of the child.



• The child, with the help of his or her new friends saves the day.

I've thought of a few more stories (like the all-time classic child's journey, Cinderella) that fit the mold over the last year, but Talia's story really sticks out.

So.... realizing that we human beings identify stongly with these child heroes because we were all once children like them (although hopefully not to the extreme), I've been thinking for a while now how I could use this information to form a roleplaying scenario.

One of the ideas I've had was a Ender's Game scenario based around Amber. I think I've posted the description of that one here before.

Another thought I have is having a group of Amberite children raised "cruelly" by their Amberite parents. Escaping their parents, they flee into shadow. This could be somewhat Lord of the Flies-ish, but has the bonus of starting the characters in a cruel place. That "special gift" that unites. They are Amberites, obviously, but maybe they also have some new, special ability that the elders never had. Perhaps their gift allows them to walk shadow without having walked the Pattern. Perhaps there could be a big secret about the birth of the children that has been kept from them by the elders.

Oh well, I'm rambling. Point of the post- Talia is another example of this scenario. That's all.