Beta 0 Released
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2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6940The Author GuyMember
Exador recreated the DA’s work using Lenamare’s work.
It’s a very terrifying information, that the powers that be are not going to like. And yes Stainsberry is going to be reporting this.
It’s very dangerous because it makes it [i][b]relatively[/b][/i] straightforward to kill gods.
If you could run a variant of Lenamare’s wards, with this much power for plane stopping, it would cause problems. Fortunately that would take a lot of power and be very unstable, hard to keep going.
This is why in Lenamare’s case, he can’t stop everything at once. The power and complexity of keeping something like that going is nearly impossible. Even with the bigger wards in Freehold which can do much more complex things than his school’s could
Now the beacons are even more precarious because they are beacons and have no runic pentacle under them.
As it is, Exador and Ramses are concerned about the ships getting out of alignment and breaking the circle.
If I were the tribunal, I’d like to have those with the knowledge of how to do this either destroyed or tossed down a very deep pit, never to be seen or heard from again.
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6941The Author GuyMember[quote=Mikey;5223]About the missing D’Orcs… could they still be inside the Doomalogues, but in suspended animation to generate mana for the force fields that keep Net’s people out? Maybe Dis as well, and he was recently killed by a power surge?[/quote]
Anything is possible, but the battle was not actually that close to the Doomalogue, Orcus was in the process of plowing the elves and their allies into the ground on their home territory. Or something like that.
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6942GameGraphixMemberSome early morning thoughts / questions….
[list][*]Why is Tom in hand-to-hand combat in the battle??? He does have access to mana, so he could be doing some animagic(sp) – or at the very least take on the form of the Living Flame like he did in the first book – this would be an effective form to use to battle undead and ice dragons. We haven’t seen Tom perform any animagic during the book, like bk1 or bk2.
[*]Some one mentioned the need for the transition scene for Tom before the battle….could be interesting to have a “suck it up buttercup, it’s time to put on the big boy pants…you have a lot of people depending on you,…you’re the only one that can do it” scene….and it would be interesting for Talarius to give the slap around the face for the following reasons:[list]
[*]Now that Talarius knows how demons are created and that Tom is only 17, he has been treating he more like a human….I’m sure that Talarius has had to mentor/train young men as Spires or Knights-in-Training, especially before a battle….this would be something that he would have done before
[*]It could also act as an epiphany for himself to get through some of his own self doubt that he has been struggling with[/list][/list]2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6943IumeMemberIf the interdiction went up w/ the a doomalogue inside wouldn’t the doomalogue’s connection to the Abyss be cut? If the interdiction becomes common you would just need to put Tommus and the local doomalogue inside the interdiction. Then they’d be trapped until Orcus gets outside the interdiction’s perimeter. If he tried to send an D’Orc it would fail, right? Since the chain of links goes Tom -> wand -> Abyss or Doomalogue -> Abyss. Based on what has been described he is unable to route Mt. Doom through a D’Orc since it seems they can’t draw on it directly like an avatar can with a godpool.
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6944The Author GuyMember[quote=GameGraphix;5226]Some early morning thoughts / questions….
[list][*]Why is Tom in hand-to-hand combat in the battle??? He does have access to mana, so he could be doing some animagic(sp) – or at the very least take on the form of the Living Flame like he did in the first book – this would be an effective form to use to battle undead and ice dragons. We haven’t seen Tom perform any animagic during the book, like bk1 or bk2.
[/quote]The living flame would be very good against zombies, ghouls and vampires. True.
It’s not that useful against liches. They are so cold that it takes a lot of fire, and lightning doesn’t work on them. However, he should be trying these things to learn them. Will do that.Here is my thinking on the others:
He felt, and thinks in the book, that the zombies are low enough level that others can deal with them, while he takes on bigger threats, like the Zombie dragons. My intention is to add more of this in the continuing battle scene.
He doesn’t really want to go against the ghouls, yet, because they are people, sick people and if you walk through them in the form of flame, you are going to have a very very unpleasant situation with burning flesh, screams of agony as they run around burning to death. So, I’m thinking Tom, the 17 year old doesn’t want that.
Yes, they are all horrible, vampires too, but I think he hasn’t yet, accepted how truly evil these creatures are.
[quote=GameGraphix;5226]
[*]Some one mentioned the need for the transition scene for Tom before the battle….could be interesting to have a “suck it up buttercup, it’s time to put on the big boy pants…you have a lot of people depending on you,…you’re the only one that can do it” scene….and it would be interesting for Talarius to give the slap around the face for the following reasons:[list]
[/quote]
Yep.
[quote=GameGraphix;5226]
[*]Now that Talarius knows how demons are created and that Tom is only 17, he has been treating he more like a human….I’m sure that Talarius has had to mentor/train young men as Spires or Knights-in-Training, especially before a battle….this would be something that he would have done before
[*]It could also act as an epiphany for himself to get through some of his own self doubt that he has been struggling with[/list][/list]
[/quote]
Yes, not sure if I can get that squeeze in here, but going forward that is part of the plan.2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6945The Author GuyMember[quote=Iume;5227]If the interdiction went up w/ the a doomalogue inside wouldn’t the doomalogue’s connection to the Abyss be cut? If the interdiction becomes common you would just need to put Tommus and the local doomalogue inside the interdiction. Then they’d be trapped until Orcus gets outside the interdiction’s perimeter. If he tried to send an D’Orc it would fail, right? Since the chain of links goes Tom -> wand -> Abyss or Doomalogue -> Abyss. Based on what has been described he is unable to route Mt. Doom through a D’Orc since it seems they can’t draw on it directly like an avatar can with a godpool.[/quote]
Yes, if the interdiction surrounds the doomalogue it would be cut off.
What Tom/Orcus would have to do is get the D’Orc outside and then do what he did with Tal Gor and work with the D’Orc to create a link to Doom. Possessing the D’Orc he could create a link, bind it to the D’Orc and strengthen his link.
Now, you’d probably want a pretty strong D’Orc to funnel mana through, but you could do it.
We are going to want to go into more detail on who can access the power of doom. The warlocks and shamans can do so through Tom, presumably any mana using D’Orc could do the same.
And it’s not clear, yet, that some of the senior D’Orcs can’t do it as well. We just haven’t seen that yet. But we will get a glimpse with Morok Deathstealer in battle. He is an animage specializing in the martial disciplines. Kinetomastery, Body Mastery, Spatiomastery, and Temporamastery.
[think jedi or sith given appearances]2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6946BurienMemberWe made you have to delay beta1 again didnt we? ](*,)
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6947The Author GuyMemberYes, because I’ve been obsessing all the other very good/important issues that you guys have raised.
I am not completely surprised, I’ve had very mixed feelings on that Citadel siege and the battle in particular.
Just can’t seem to get it “right” I’ve actually been pondering it for some time, that was a lot of my hesitation in writing the other stuff since Alpha-0, my obsession on knowing exactly what to do for the battle.
One question for people:
How much overall time should be spent on the battle for the entire book?, how detailed should it get/can it get before it becomes a chore.
I’ve read a lot of battle scenes that can start to wear one down, trying to avoid that, but yet make it sufficiently serious/difficult/potent. Not a cakewalk.
The thing is, the Storm Lords pulverized the cities on the Isle of Doom. So they have some heavy artillery to bring to bear–if they were prepared for such a battle, and I am not sure they are. I don’t think they brought their D’Orc smashing equipment. They were relying very heavily on the beacons to cut off the priests and then use traditional air and ground troops.
Now they are in trouble. Do I let them pull out the heavy stuff, the stuff they probably wouldn’t have lugged half-way around the world?
This is the sort of thing that can make this battle much bigger and difficult. But it will take up more space.
And I’m OK, with going over the space limits I’ve imposed, if the paperback has to cost more, it does. But I don’t know how much people will enjoy spending so many pages on the same battle.
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6948IumeMemberThere is an easy way to save space. Unless you have something else to write with the various Orc clans heading to their local doomalogues you can just cut most of it out and rewrite it into more of a tell than show. Similar with Vaselles POV. At this point those journeying aren’t adding much emotion to the tale and they dilute any suspense for what is building on Nysegard.
Edit: to clarify, there are a lot of comedic or light-hearted moments in these scenes. These counter whatever Nysegard manages to build in the reader. But if you remove those moments then the scenes are boring. I’m starting to get a WoT vibe that makes them drag and are less interesting to read.
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6949GameGraphixMember[quote=The Author Guy;5233]
The thing is, the Storm Lords pulverized the cities on the Isle of Doom. So they have some heavy artillery to bring to bear–if they were prepared for such a battle, and I am not sure they are. I don’t think they brought their D’Orc smashing equipment. They were relying very heavily on the beacons to cut off the priests and then use traditional air and ground troops.
Now they are in trouble. Do I let them pull out the heavy stuff, the stuff they probably wouldn’t have lugged half-way around the world?[/quote]
The Storm Lords know that Tom / Orcus is in the fight…and they know that Tom’s staging area was the Isle of Doom – instead of bringing their big guns own to the Citadel to fight….they could try to get Tom to withdraw by threaten the Isle of Doom with the big guns…..we then have a fight at two locations and Tom and Co. having to co-ordinate between the two…
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6950The Author GuyMember[quote=Iume;5234]There is an easy way to save space. Unless you have something else to write with the various Orc clans heading to their local doomalogues you can just cut most of it out and rewrite it into more of a tell than show. Similar with Vaselles POV. At this point those journeying aren’t adding much emotion to the tale and they dilute any suspense for what is building on Nysegard. [/quote]
Yeah, I’m thinking if I need the space, it would be a very short scene of
Trevin: “Ariel agrees”
Zargvarst: “OK, Grove interlocuter, you verify, you give us your word they gone, we sit here while you verify.”And scene…
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6951The Author GuyMember[quote=GameGraphix;5235]The Storm Lords know that Tom / Orcus is in the fight…and they know that Tom’s staging area was the Isle of Doom – instead of bringing their big guns own to the Citadel to fight….they could try to get Tom to withdraw by threaten the Isle of Doom with the big guns…..we then have a fight at two locations and Tom and Co. having to co-ordinate between the two…[/quote]
Only problem with that is that they can’t get their forces to the Isle of Doom in any short period of time. Most of their available fighting forces are at the Citadel, they are also spread out covering their occupied territory.
They are spread rather thin.
They’ve got about 300,000 troops deployed, now yes a lot are zombies, but the limit is how many necromancers do you have to control them.
Now, that’s basically the same number of troops that the US deployed at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I believe including mercenaries. Typically it was on the order of about 200,000 actual troops, the numbers are complicated.
They also have to hold down a big chunk of the planet.
Not sure they have easily deployable resources, plus there is staging and travel time. They don’t even have any intelligence on the ground on the Isle of Doom because they did not know Orcus was back. (or if they do, communication is very slow) So they don’t know what forces he has there (turns out Sekmekt, Phaestus and their avatars are there–which they don’t know, but Sphinxes can easlily crush their armies)
I doubt they could even do anything against the Isle in less than a week, just from staging and transportation.
Now, they could, of course, do a smaller force of massive power (Yog Sothoth anyone? –no they can’t really do that—but they could do an eldritch abomination of some sort, I do have one in mind)
But then it might be more effective and safer, to go big here at the Citadel.
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6952BenMemberYeah I dont really get how we can go from giant battle atcthe citadel to battle on isle of doom?
I would have thought the Saits/Avatars getting the mana flow from re-routing plus Lord Tommus and co would mean the storm lords get their asses kicked major style lol
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6953GameGraphixMemberThe Storm Lords don’t know from where or how the priests & avatars are getting mana – so they don’t know of that there are others outside the interdiction…
but one way to get allies to withdraw forces / support from a your enemy is to threaten their base of operations or supply line – forces the ally to reassess their priorities on what is more important – their own resources or their commitment to their ally
2020-06-02 at 15:23 #6954IumeMemberYeah, but the island is a solid week of flying away.
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