This is my first post here, though I've been lurking for a while now. I will assume that you are all intelligent, and hop right into things.



I've got a few stories going on right now (on FF.net) but am planning out a big one. It's going to focus of Herpo the Foul, as I'm sure you've guessed; this gives me a great amount of leeway even if I want to make it canon-compliant (and I do). So, this post will be for feedback on my musings, as well as info on ol' Herpo.

• He was in ancient Greece, a couple hundred years before Christ. I have picked 400 BC as his birthdate and about 150 BC as his death. That gives him a lifespan of about 250 years, certainly reasonable for someone with a Horcrux.
• He was a Parselmouth: considering that the snake language is hereditary, and it was over a thousand years before the time of Slytherin, he could well be Slytherin's ancestor. In fact, in my story he will be.
• He was the creator of basilisks. This is pretty straightforward.
• He had one horcrux, and was the first to successfully make one.

We know nothing else about him. He was clearly pretty badass; breeding an XXXXX-class creature, being the first to create a powerful Dark object, etc. But we know nothing else. Now, here's my speculations so far.

• He conquered Greece, successfully, basing himself around Athens. This would be Magical Greece, incidentally, with the wizards and witches being members of families known to muggles as the Greek Gods and Titans. So other characters will be families like the Hephaestus family, or the Zeus family.
• He fell due mainly to the pushing of Roman wizards, which lead to the push of Roman muggles, conquering Athens and leading to the fall of Greece.

I have other plans for Herpo, though; accepted fanon says, as far as I know (and please correct me if I'm wrong), that he felt remorse for all he had done and destroyed his own horcrux, leading to his death as his unnatural age struck him. This implies that horcruxes also grant agelessness, dependent on their existence. This could well be, but Voldemort continued to mature and age after he made the Diary horcrux. I think that they don't grant agelessness, and a wizard would have to do something else for that. But if he did indeed age unnaturally after the horcrux's destruction, then that agelessness came from whatever he used as his horcrux.
I've decided that his horcrux was a modified time-turner, which halted the passage of time for his body. With its destruction, all of the time that should have passed for him would've caught up, and aged him to dust. This all seems fine, and is more background I have already than the main substance of my post, though I would like some input here to point out stupid things I may have missed or for new ideas.

Now, magic, in this fic, will be similar to music; no magical cores, nothing like that. Skill is what would determine the strength of a spell, the Elder Wand just making all your spells perfect. So no magical exhaustion (just physical and mental), none of that stuff. You could have natural talents towards certain kinds of magic, in the same way that someone might be naturally better at guitar than piano, and you could naturally be talented or untalented; but with work anyone could become perfect. This got me thinking, though; over time, musical styles have changed, so why wouldn't magical styles change? And, furthermore, different parts of the world have different styles of music, so why wouldn't different countries have different types of magic? We know that British wizards were using wands even before the Ollivander family, but that doesn't mean that Greek wizards were. So here's my idea for what kind of magic Herpo would've used;
Blood, breath, and will. Basically (continuing the musical metaphor), instead of using the wand as a drumstick to beat out your magical rhythm on the air to make music with your mind, you'd use your body as the drum and drumstick and music. Your blood represents your body (the drum the magic is played on), your breath is your life (the drumstick used to play), and your will is the music itself. This may be somewhat confusing, so let me put it another way. When a modern wizard casts a spell, they wave their wand (beating the drum) while saying an incantation (guiding the music). The greek wizard would instead expose their blood (the drum), breathe on it (beating it), and focus their will (guiding the music). This would result in a more primitive seeming, ritualistic sort of magic. Of course, powerful wizards can do without parts of this triad; wandless magic is only your willpower (wordless is just saying the incantation silently, with your mind instead of your mouth). So a powerful wizard might focus their magic with no more than their will power. I think that this kind of magic would be quite cool.
And worry not; this won't just be an original fic using an HP character. It will lead up to the modern day. No hints, though.


TL;DR: Screw you, if you're too lazy to read all that I don't need or want your help.

 

You seem to have forgotten about the bevy of dark spells he supposedly created, which potentially undermines the entirety of your magic system.

Also, not the right subforum for this thread.

 

Do you know what would make this interesting? Harry Potter.

 

Aye. Break out the time travel. In fact... why not make Herpo the Foul Harry's alias when he goes back?

 

Seriously? Why do you need to complicate it like that? His idea is fine as it is.

 

Because as interesting as his idea is, people usually read HP fanfiction for characters that have some significance to the Harry Potter series.

If he just wants to write it for himself, that's fine. No worries at all. There's a decent amount of people who will read any quality fanfiction, regardless of if the story focuses on main characters from the series.

However, if he wants to attract a broader audience, bringing Harry Potter into it would probably help him significantly. I, for instance, think his idea is great, but Herpo doesn't really make me want to read it.

If there was a good enough hook in the first chapter, he might not need to bring Harry into it at all. If he writes it well enough, people will read it regardless. But if he's not entirely certain on how he'll draw his readers in, and he wants to have more people read the story... Harry Potter being involved in some way would probably help him out.

Herpo wouldn't necessarily have to be HP, but there's a variety of ways that he could include him if he wanted to. If he wants to have Herpo be his own character, and he's already written out his personality... Time Travel to have Harry be an apprentice/friend/ect of Herpo would be an option. Assuming, of course, that he does want to include Harry.

 

There's also the fact that it's more or less original fiction with a canon name and - kind of - magic system slapped on.

 

NO... He was a Parselmouth who spoke Parseltongue.

 

I once had an idea for Herpo the Foul, but I'd probably never get around writing to it. The premise is, that the story is set in the modern era with Harry in Hogwarts. Now, he's doing some research on Horcruxes (or trying to) and notices some discrepencies. Yadda yadda, plot build up. He eventually comes to the conclusion that Herpo faked his own death, and didn't die at the age of whatever in the year whatever, and that he lived for longer than we know, under a new name.

Of course, this would be the point where someone would go, so Herpo was actually Salazar Slytherin? No, that's just not as interesting. I'd would be cooler if he was actually Godric Gryffindor, or better yet, Helga or Rowena. He could influence Salazar all he wanted, seduce him to the dark side, whatever, or he could have prevented his descendant from turning into a version of him, but that's boring.

So, this goes on, and Harry's following the trail and deciphering the clues, but obviously all the clues can't be found in Hogwarts. He snoops around various places, and that's how he gets the attention of Herpo's version of the Knights Templar or Priory of Sion, or whatever you want to name them. They try to stop Harry from discovering Herpo's identity, but the existence of such a group (They are just fanatics, and don't even know themselves if Herpo is still alive, but they worship him) fuels Harry to find him more, rather than deter him.

He eventually traces Herpo to the Flamels. No, he's not Nick Flamel. He was Perenelle, who we never see in story. The real Perenelle died eons ago, and more plot stuff, magic, etc.

Eventually, Harry is real close to the answer, real close, then he gets sabotaged by Ron Weasley, who then kills him. At first, he thought Ron was one of the Templaresque guys, since you never know who around you could be one, but as the light fades from his eyes, he realizes that Ron is actually Herpo the Foul. And then he take's Harry's identity and becomes the new Harry.


Anyways...

 

You're right, I did forget about that. I will have to consider this. Well, a modern musician can still play classical music, so its possible that he just came up with some for his own system, and others can still use it. Or... ah, no, better idea that has spoilers in it.

Too late now, but which subforum should I have posted in?

Several problems with that; first of all is how the hell would Harry go back 2300 years? Time turners travel by hourly intervals, and there's no other kind of time travel supported by canon. Yes, Harry will be in the fic, but Harry is not Herpo. Another problem here is that Herpo had a Horcrux, which requires deliberate murder, and thus if Herpo was Harry it would be an evil!Harry. Same thing for Herpo having been a Dark wizard. Furthermore, JKR says that Harry wasn't a parselmouth after the piece of Voldy's soul in him died, so it would have to be before that if he did travel back in time, and I want a canon-compliant fic.

Thankee, fixed.

Also, this won't just be an original fic using an HP character. It will lead up to the modern day. It will eventually include canon characters including Harry. Most of Herpo's life will be background to the main story, which will cover a very long time.

 

By nxtm4n

Post here for plot bunnies.

 

Herpo the Foul sounds like an STD. Is this Ginny's new nickname?

 

So, is Herpo going to be in the main story? Like, for example, is his time-turner 'hour-crux' (lol) going to create some sort of effect that catapults him into the future?

Or is Harry going to pull a Dan Brown and discover ancient secrets about Herpo (a la Lord Anarchy's idea), leading eventually to some sort of plot device?

Anyway, sounds interesting, and it's always good to read a long fic, so buckle down and get something going!

((Also, what the fuck is up with your name?))

 

Lad, you're not exactly in a position to be commenting on other people's names.

 

Haters gonna hate. Just ask Binky - Susan's parents never did let her keep the toy.

 

That... That made no sense. At all.

Dafuq are you on?


I want some

 

OK. So here is the deal, NX. (And it will likely come as a surprise to anyone on IRC, considering how easy Ive been getting pissed off in the last month...) I'm going to give you a second chance and not outright ban you for that line alone. But some helpful advice:

One: General Discussion is for canon discussion only. Rowling putting out a new HP book? GenDis. New movies? GenDis. Fan Fiction goes into Fanfic Discussion. I've moved it for you.

Two: Remember that no one has to help you. And the more you act like an entitled douche bag like that tl;dr up there, the less help you're going to get. I'm gonna suggest you apologize to the people you want help from. Or just fuck off and don't ask for help again.

 

Damn, he knew it'd been too good to be true!

The Yule Ball itself had been a complete and utter disaster, but the after-event in the gardens outside had been...wonderful. But now, Harry knew something was up - the flesh on his penis was turning green, and a foul, rotting smell was drifting up from his scrotum.

One sneaky visit to the Restricted Section later, he found what was afflicting him in an old, musty tome - an ancient, thought-to-be extinct magical STD, nicknamed 'Herpo' or, more simply, 'the Foul'.

Unfortunately for him, the disease was historically prevalent amongst those of veela descent.

"Bitch," he muttered to himself. No wonder she had looked oddly pleased with herself before they did the horizontal tango against the bushes.

 

Random thoughts:

Herpo the Foul destroying his own horcrux is problematic, I think. While it's very rare knowledge in modern times, the knowledge of horcruxes does exist. Hell, before Dumbledore came along and removed the books the knowledge existed in Hogwarts' library. If Herpo destroyed his own horcrux, you'd think the knowledge would die with him. Better, I think, would be if the Roman war machine managed, at length, to overcome him and destroy his horcrux.

I'm curious about this "accepted fanon" you speak of... I wasn't aware there was sufficient material written about Herpo the Foul for there to be fanon at all, never mind accepted fanon.

On ageing: I'm not sure if Voldemort did continue to age after he made his first horcrux. He continued to change, for sure, but age? It seems to me that what was really going on was the transformation into the unageing inhuman creature he became, each horcrux pushing the process along a bit further.

Time turners: it doesn't feel right for me to have them existing in such ancient times. They seem like more modern magic to me. The fact that the Department of Mysteries seems to make them goes along with this - the Department wouldn't have existed a few hundred years ago.

 

I'd rather not give out spoilers, but considering that most of Herpo's life will be in the first chapter... it will be throughout time, in a linear fashion, and Herpo will end up interacting with canon characters. He will not appear in any fashion that directly contradicts the events in the books, although some lore might be changed
My name is the same thing that I use in most online things, and is very rarely already taken, so I find it convenient.

Sorry about that line; at the time of posting, I'd just had a very long day and probably should've waited to calm down. I also posted this originally in reddit, and wanted to shut down the people who'd go "TL;DR lol".
Thank you for moving the thread.
Again, sorry about seeming angry and pissed off there.

Firstly, I love your work and must request more of everything.
Secondly, Herpo would've been 250 years old at the time of his death, and I don't plan to have him be a completely unrepentant villain like Voldemort was. He would be willing to share his knowledge with those loyal to him; he wouldn't be the only person on his side with a horcrux. After all, dying with a horcrux requires being revived, or so it seems; having someone else with a horcrux to revive you just makes sense, if you know they will. But there are magical oaths for that.
Next, Voldemort made his first horcrux at the age of 16. All changes after that could just be the result of various magical rituals, but we don't know. I think that, given all the tales of genies granting exactly what you wish for and not want you wanted, a magical ritual (especially a Dark one) would probably give you only what it claims to, not the affiliated stuff. So if you do the ritual to make a horcrux, which grants immortality, that doesn't claim to give eternal youth, now does it?
Your last point is good. It would have to be a precursor to time turners, based on the same principles, rather than an actual modified time turner.
As for accepted fanon, most of the fanfictions I've read which mention Herpo claim that he destroyed his own horcrux.