Indian Epics by Reid

A long long time ago, a great king ruled with an odd sort of ornament in his throne room. Just in front of the throne stood a great sword said to be imbued with magical power embedded deep in stone. It had become great entertainment for the king to watch person after person fail to lift the sword from the stone. The strongest knights would come from far and wide in hopes of pleasing the king. If one were to draw the sword, the rewards were rumored to be the greatest known to any man. One day, the king's personal guardian knight decided he ought to give it a try. For years he had watched people fail, and he did not want to fail his king in any way shape or form. Crowds gathered to watch him try to draw the sword. If anyone were to finally overcome the challenge, it would be him. He took his place, grabbed the hilt and began to pull. The ground trembled under the force of his pull. Gradually he began to tire, but he would not give up. Stepping away for a brief moment, the crowd gas...

For Rama's exile, and Dasharatha's death, Rama's brother Bharata was gone. This will be quite the surprise. After hearing what his mother did, he shamed her and said he would bring Rama back. Dasaratha is given a proper funeral by Bharata. Rama refuses the offer of the throne from Bharata, saying they must both fulfill what has been told to them. Rama is given sandals to wear, then gives them back so they may be waiting at the throne for his return. We learn a brief history of Sita during one of their visits with a sage. She was a special child, not of birth by King Janaka. Sita is abducted by a special demon that can't be killed by your typical sharp weapon. It turns out he was cursed to be killed by Rama in order to reach heaven. Rama attains more weapons from another sage, Agastya who offers him a place to stay. Rama refuses and goes deeper into the woods. Ravana's sister falls in love with Rama and he suggests she seduce his brother. I have no idea...

For starting off in a story of characters I have not heard about, I'll be focusing on characters, writing styles, and major plot points. King Dasharatha is strong and powerful, but is saddened that none of his three queens have been able to produce a son. His palace is surrounded by thousands of guards, and tehre are eight counselors and two family priests. A horse sacrifice leads to promising Dasharatha four sons. Of all the four sons, Rama was the only one with special marks of Vishnu, so he was especially loved. Early in his life, Rama is asked by a sage, Vishvamitra to go to battle against rakshasas that were disrupting sacrifices. Rama and his brother are reluctantly released by their father to go help. Rama and his brother, reluctant to kill the rakshasi start by dismembering it (I figured this would be worse than just killing it). Eventually, it becomes invisible, but Rama is able to use sound to find and kill it with his bow and arrow. Upon completion, he is given...

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Topic 1: Ravana Ravana as portrayed in the game Smite Ravana has been an interest of mine since the beginning of this class. One of the games I play, Smite, features gods and characters of folk-lore from many different areas of the world. One of the playable characters is Ravana, so I've seen the name many times, but have never done any research about him. I'd like to know more about the traditional stories behind him, and why in the game he is portrayed as a boxer. One interesting source I've found talks about how one group doesn't see Ravana as evil. Topic 2: Weapons of the Gods Ancient weaponry has always been an interest of mine. Whether it was seeing them in history museums or watching medieval shows, the weaponry of older times is simply fascinating. Taking this to another level and seeing weaponry wielded by gods could be even more interesting. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure what this could include other than the bows I saw on some of...

Once upon an update, a programmer released just a few new lines of code before going home for the day. This simple change was something very minor meant to speed up every process around the company. The next day, one application after another began to fail. As the failures spread, so did panic throughout the office. "Our system is down!" shouted an accountant. "So is ours!" shouted someone trying to transfer data. Unbeknownst to the programmer, his small change had accidentally cut all processes short, and since he had left, gone home, and slept since then, it didn't cross his mind. "Everything was working just fine yesterday!" was being echoed throughout the office. IT was scrambling trying to fix the issue, looking at everything that went through the system that morning. Maybe someone put in a bad file. What if there was a virus? Even the IT guys couldn't figure out who could've messed up this bad. It couldn't have been them...

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