Arad’s Plane of the Thirst for Knowledge
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I am not sure I get your distinction between medieval world and fantasy world.
Middle Earth is a fantasy world and it’s based on medieval earth…most fantasy worlds are.
What I’m saying is that I’m basing it on fantasy worlds based on already inaccurate medieval worlds or something to that affect.
1) There is another bard showing up in book ii, technically he was in Book 0–the story that happened before this book, before Tom showed up. He was in prison in Oorstemoth until recently, along with some companions.
2) How do you know you haven’t met a bard will magical powers already, who just didn’t happen to use them? :-k
3) Tales of the Demon Bard will focus on all sorts of bards and related people. Bard schools etc.I agree, bards certainly don’t have to have witnessed the events; some do, but I would guess that a lot are taken either from rehashing other stories/songs and or from reading what actual sages have written. But I am pretty sure a big part is plagiarism from other bards….
Wow! Your concept is quite exciting.
Its new though isn’t it? Not a shred of it is present in the first book. It would have been great though if it was given even just a passing nod in the first book.
“The thing you need to keep in mind, this book and Astlan is not based on the medieval world, it’s based on the stereotypical/idealized fantasy world.”
Well, that is kinda weird. With castles, keeps, knights, plate armor, Nobles (Barons), that psuedo latin, bards… I was quite sure that Astlan is heavily based on medieval world. Also stereotypical/idealized fantasy world is medieval fantasy. It is the one you see in most fantasy games and literature.
To give contrast, compare yours to Ancient Greek/Roman Mythology worlds. Or Arabian fantasy world. Or the Asian inspired world of Avatar: The Legend of Aang, the Last Air Bender.
Actually, Tizzy and I had already discussed this.
So, with all the excitement, we are going to have a Spell Singer as a character?
I kinda like the Spell Singer serries (well, the first few) and having a similar character in Astlan sounds so exciting! Lets see some Tom vs Spell Singer battle!Exactly!
That’s why I said Spell Singer. Now, it’s not exactly the same, but on a genre level it is comparable.
There are a couple different schools of bardic magic some involve “singing runes” and/or certain intonations/frequencies of voice and instrument.
Not going to go into the full detail here, it might be in the Library…but I am not sure I’ve posted it.
The thing you need to keep in mind, this book and Astlan is not based on the medieval world, it’s based on the stereotypical/idealized fantasy world.
I.e. bards/troubadours/minstrels whatever they might have been on earth are not the basis for these bards.
Bards in Astlan are based on a combination of
1) Tabletop RPG bards: D&D, Arduin, Tunnels & Tolls, Swords & Sorcery, ICE, and most importantly: ANIMUS ‘THE GAME YOU’VE BEEN TRAINING YOUR ENTIRE LIFE FOR
2) Book bards: Spell Singer and maybe half a dozen other ones.
3) Movies/Pop Culture
4) Some actual historical figuresI’m not really aware of any video game bards…so I’m not going to include that. Oooh Guitar Hero meets World of Warcraft! Or Guitar Hero meets Diablo IV
Well, they aren’t sages, but they repeat history.
You need to go back a bit more in time I think. Bards, as a particular example celtic bards are the carriers and holders of oral history.
It is they who sing the songs that tell people their history.
There is a reason they call Shakespeare “The Bard” because, yes, he entertains people with commedies and tragedies, but equally important were the history plays such as Richard III. For a public that is either largely illiterate, or if literate, than seriously lacking in reading material, plays and before that bards were how people learned history. Shakespeare is not sung, but it is poetry. So when they call this playwright, “the bard” they are hearkening back to an older tradition of Welsh, Irish, Scottish etc bards that were keepers of history.
Poetry and song are important in illiterate cultures because poetry is much easier to memorize than prose. If you look at early literature it’s almost all poetry and this is because it had to be memorized and recited and passed on from generation to generation. It wasn’t until after the printing press that we started getting a lot of prose (other than the bible of course)
So whether you call the person a bard, troubador, balladeer or minstral is I think somewhat historically and culturally dependent. I.e. which culture and when are we talking about.
Yes, Antefalken does actually make money penning theme songs and paens to demon lords, but he also composes ballads and sings them to entertain and inform people.
So anyway, beyond that in Astlan, bard is something of a generic term that wraps up a rather wide “set of professions” just as there are different types of animages, wizards, druids etc, there are different types of bards. I will be going into this starting in book ii but spinning out more in later books. We will see a lot more of bards in future works (include Tales of the Demon Bard)
There are, you should note, btw, “Spell Singers” or “Bardic Wizards” which are sonic oriented mana wielders.
Huh? Bards isn’t really much in history. They just often sing praises about their patrons.
What you are looking for might be a minstrel, especially a travelling minstrel.
A bard composing such ballad(?) as Battle of Vizenheim, I think, stretches the imagination too much. That is not the type of songs bards make.
But then, many people don’t know what bards really are. I have seen many wrong representation of them in TV, movies and literature.
Bards also seem to become a generic term for ancient composers even to those who are clearly aren’t bards.
Not immediately, but I’ve been thinking a lot about “Tales of the Demon Bard” and his history and also what Antefalken knows and doesn’t know about history.
he’s a bard, so he knows a lot of history, but how much has he experienced? Or happened during his lifetime?
We know, for example, that he composed the the Battle of Vizenheim, so presumably he was there.
But would he have been around, or known about, the last time the Rod surrounded Freehold to stop a demonic invasion in 1226, 768 years ago, apparently not. 🙂
Yes. That is what I meant. I actually think that they just use sex for terror, like what Tizzy did with his accursed master, or gain favors.
Glad I could help… though I’m kinda worried as to why you have to track the number. Is something wrong?
@The Author Guy
I understand what you are saying. And as far as I could tell, yours is based more in game versions of medieval fantasy. Games tend to distort the medieval world too much. Medieval world in literature tends to be accurate enough in many aspects, and many authors work for it to be so, not so in games.
1) We will meet this person in Book 2? Does this also means that Tom might go to Oorstemoth? If Tom is to actually meet this person you know.
2) You don’t actually meet that person. Just because you bump into someone or this someone passed your field of vision doesn’t mean you meet that person. Meeting requires some social interaction usually get acquainted with.
3) Hmmm. Lots of people singing eulogies for their patrons.Ballads and such is doubtful in its historical accuracy. It would be passed from person to person and each person would embellish it somehow. There are a large number of versions of a single ballad and historians has to sift through them.
Though I doubt that bards can read. It is very rare to find people who can read in medieval times. Even the nobles can’t read (or write), so why would bards be? People unable to write and read is the reason why they have poetry and ballads and other stuff is popular in the first place.
3) I was just joking. It is quite clear that your Bards isn’t the typical medieval bard (which often are background characters) but quite a tour de force apparently.
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Hmmm. Xanth… can’t say it is medieval though. It has medieval elements yes, but a large part of it is non medieval. The stories also doesn’t focus much on the medieval elements. Most of the medieval elements reside with the human side/community of Xanth, however, the stories often just follows characters wandering off somewhere and those somewheres isn’t medieval. Xanth is more of a hodge podge with little of anything cohesive.
Disney isn’t really very focused on its story world, most of it staying in the background (like Snow White), though they still get it fine enough even with the artistic license. The most detailed medieval world they made (for me) is in Robin Hood, and I think they got it mostly right even if it was populated by anthropomorphic animals.
I can’t tell with the others because I haven’t seen them. That would be one thing I should ought to look at.
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Wait. You tried to make an RPG? You are more awesome than I thought =d> . Yes, you didn’t finish it but it is still awesome.
What game engine did you use or plan to use? Or did you code from scratch? Or did you even started to write the program? Is it 2D or 3D (probably 2D but just want to ask)? Is the story finished even if the game is not?
It would be neat if we could see some of the game art that you had made.
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Really, don’t be too restrained by this. I don’t really want you to be accurate to every detail especially if being inaccurate means more awesome story. Just keep the awesome part right.
It was a table RPG–like Dungeons and Dragons etc—this was pre MMPORG and pre-Doom. We are talking Shadowrun, Ultima I,II,II.., Final Fantasy 1, 2, maybe 3….for computer RPG’s
What’s funny though is that even in that day, when most RPG’s had limited black and white crappy art (pre WarHammer) we knew that we needed art, more than most, so the guy I was writing with started soliciting all sorts of art from students at the local art school. It was mostly b&w art because we assumed b&w printing of the books with a glossy color cover/back. Then WarHammer came along a took game art to the next level beyond what we could afford to do.
I have written some simple video games, but I’m actually a boring programmer in that I mainly write business applications for companies and do data driven websites.
Tizzy and I are about the same age…
You will find out in book ii, he is more than 5,000 years old (or at least so he will claim)
Well, when I ate the hearts of their defeated enemies, the did quite well.
But when they stopped feeding me hearts, I stopped helping them and so things went down hill.
Same thing with the Aztec until they slowed down on the hearts, I stayed away to punish them for a bit and then this chap from Spain came along and claimed to be me and beat the crap out of them.
BTW you know Aztecati or Aztecah means the “people of Aztlan” hmmm….interesting…well so much for that Trans Siberian-Alaskan bridge theory…you now know the truth.
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