Doom Busters & Other Issues
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[quote=Iume;5332]- I just feel sad that Vaselle is so down-beaten that he needs Tom’s approval to feel he has self-worth. He’s like a kicked puppy seeking affection.[/quote]
Tom feels the same, but as a member of Jerry’s audience, I’m more accepting of different personalities and personal needs.
And in the right environment, Vaselle might well start rebuilding his personality on a sturdier foundation.
To repeat myself from the Amazon forums, one of the really great defining characteristics of this series is that the drama emerges from the way personalities naturally interact, or personalities naturally interacting is faked well enough that I can’t tell, instead of the approach many other authors on Amazon tend to prefer, contorting their characters into parodies so they fit into a pre-planned dramatic arc.
Cool, but I do have a plan and am writing on it. It takes the story a bit off course from where I planned, but should actually fit it pretty good.
[quote=The Author Guy;5327]
In particular, since this is going to editor unfinished, things that change (not insert or delete) in the first half of the book should be addressed sooner. Adding/inserting or cutting is no problem, it’s just when you have overlapping edits merging back gets tricky.
[/quote]
Do you want us to wait for Beta 1 first before providing this feedback – from the discussions it looks like there will be some significant changes between Beta 0 and Beta 1.
When will Beta 1 be ready?
Undead normal giants would be interesting, but not that Nysegard-shattering. Same with many other large undead, they are already there.
In fact, I’m retconning in normal undead giants.
And I should distinguish what I mean by giants.
Giants as they are known on the material plane are jotunkind, descended from the jotunn, the true giants.
What people think of as giants in Nysegard, Astlan, etc are very much a mortal race, not unlike dwarves, just very large, larger than ogres
Urak Hai are about 11-12 feet tall.
Ogres and Trolls are between 9 to 15 feet tall depending on a variety of factors.
Giants, depending on sub-race are 15 to 22 feet tall, with the exception of mountain giants which can be much taller.These are sometimes confused in literature with the immortal giants, those are the Ragnarok and Titan related giants.
Excellent, just took two weeks off. Can’t spend it all on the business impact of new frontend technologies.
Hi,
OK, so the SL’s are going to assemble their Tomb Gateway back to Necropolis and the Nercology to bring back some Doom Busters.
I have now figure out what they are and how they should Zing things up.
I have gone with the AARCs and updated appropriate references and sprinkled then in earlier so they don’t come as a surprise.
I still have the Dis Pater issue to deal with
I need to write the Tom transition/decision for battle scene, but I know what to do.
Now, dredging up other found issues that do not revolve around scene removal for space or plot speed
There were comments about too little tension early on, I think Has any of this improved, what areas/sections need to get more tension and how much, thoughts?
How are humor levels?
In particular, since this is going to editor unfinished, things that change (not insert or delete) in the first half of the book should be addressed sooner. Adding/inserting or cutting is no problem, it’s just when you have overlapping edits merging back gets tricky.
Had an idea for a cool Doom-Buster and a possible counter for it. I realize that you have already made the call about who/what the DB is going to be. I will just throw this idea out there. Maybe a piece of it can be of use.
[b]Vampyre Dragon:[/b]
These monstrosities are gigantic dragons that have been turned using a variation of the Vampyre infection. Once they have fully turned, they are placed in a state of suspended animation and enchanted adamantite plate-armor is then fused onto every inch of the beasts. Their teeth and claws are removed and replaced with razor sharp serrated metal copies that have been spelled with various soul-sucking/rending magics. They were invented and created by one Stoivenychas a.k.a The Dark Apostle.When these creatures are unleashed into battle, a team of liches will link together and channel mana into the armor to help protect the monsters from magical attacks.
The draconian nature combined with the vampyre feeding-frenzy causes these creatures to be in a constant state of insane rage. Killing and devouring anything that moves. Due to their completely insane and bestial nature, these monsters are effectively immune to all coercion/compulsion magics (such as those used to control demons). The secrets of the original control spells were lost with TDA when he was consumed by a COD.
The SL can barely steer them at a given target under the best of conditions. The only reason they ever go in the desired direction is because they prefer to eat the living rather than the unlife. Since they are nearly impossible to control, the SL have not deployed these creatures since the death of TDA.
The Vampyre Dragons are kept in a state of suspended animation while not being used.
The only reliable way to kill one of these creatures is for a team of D’Orcs to physically drag it to the ground, pry the plate-armor off the back of it’s neck and sever the spine with an axe.
There are tales of a saint who managed to somehow reach, and hang onto, the back of a VD’s neck. He then cooked it with holy-fire for several minutes, finally managing to burn through the spinal column and kill it. Unfortunately, he was eaten, shortly afterward, while attempting to duplicate this feat and no one has ever managed to pull it off again.[b]Now to kill it:[/b]
In his big battles, Tom has (so far) managed to pull off some kind of cool trick which we, as readers, understand (having been in his head during the process), but which makes him look like a stupendously powerful/knowledgeable super-being to everyone else.
Against Talarius and the church and rod, he used the illumination stream tap.
Against the knights of chaos, he used the area-freeze.
So, I am wondering: when the SL pull out all the stops, do you have another cool move prepared for Tom to tip the tides of battle and completely vanquish the Unlife?If you don’t yet have a finishing move prepared for him, I had a cool idea for one:
Channeling a volcanic eruption through one of his worm-holes. Basically just rev the magma chamber of the Doom of Nysegard and then open a portal into it with the other end point at whatever he want’s to blast.Ever since I thought of it, I have really wanted to see Tom channel a volcanic eruption out of thin air in the middle of battle. It would be freaking awesome! And very doable (I think).
Now, how to get Tom to ‘figure this trick out’. Maybe something along these lines:
Tom is battling some super powered monster and getting his ass kicked.
Tom’s internal dialog:
Grrr, this thing is tough.
GAH that hurt! Got to stop fooling around and come up with a real plan for beating this thing.
Wish I could blast it with a volcanic eruption like I did to that chaos maelstrom.
But my volcano is all the way over on the isle of doom.
Wait a minute! I got my army from there to here via a portal, why can’t I get a volcanic eruption here the same way?
Huh. Ok, lets give it a shot.[quote]There were comments about too little tension early on, I think Has any of this improved, what areas/sections need to get more tension and how much, thoughts?
How are humor levels?
[/quote]I think that there are two distinct types of tension in a book, there is the tension that a given character is feeling/experiencing and there is the ‘on the edge of your seat’ tension/anticipation that the reader is feeling as the story unfolds.
I have always considered the DoA series to be one of the best books I’ve ever read for ‘on the edge of your seat’ tension/anticipation. I think that this book lives up to that very well. That said, this type of tension does tend to wear off after several re-reads so I am not ‘feeling it’ as much as the first time through (I have now read each version of the book the whole way through (or very close) at least once and select sections have been re-read a dozen, or more, times).
As far as individual character tension, I am not super picky about whether this or that character is feeling enough tension as long as what they are feeling has come about in a natural/organic type of way. As far as this goes, I am not currently getting an ‘off’ feeling from any of the main character’s tension levels.
Not the greatest judge of humor here but I like how things are currently going in that department.
This sounds like a job for spreadsheets! Behold the miraculous ability to graph humor and tension levels, marvel at how quickly the plot moves (or not).
Lacking the spreadsheets:
– Good humor exists for the Wizards (Jenn, Gastrope, Nimbus crew, Freehold). They are the big ones.
– No humor really for Inferno crew or the Heavenly crew (that’s 5S + avatars + their mortals). There is a sort of “oh shit, just wait till you find out” glee, but not humor.
– Tension is decent for Talarius as he struggles to reconcile faith w/ reality.
– Tension kind of builds for those fighting Unlife, but not really BOOM at any point. Not sure how well it ramps. Again, better suited to be able to survey the relevant scenes and graph it.
– Tension never really builds for Tom personally.
– Humor, but no tension for orcs on journey.
– I just feel sad that Vaselle is so down-beaten that he needs Tom’s approval to feel he has self-worth. He’s like a kicked puppy seeking affection.
– Exadork and company is… unchanged from book 1 and book 2.[quote=Giwdul;5341]That said, this type of tension does tend to wear off after several re-reads so I am not ‘feeling it’ as much as the first time through[/quote]
Yeah, that’s a hard one, because with that sort of tension, you (or at least I) are always imagining the scenario in advance.
I remember as a kid down in my basement layer (that no one else used so I took over for my DND & library) I’d be reading a new book and the anticipation would get so great that I’d drop the book, leap off the couch and sort of act out, or just march around, envisioning what I thought was going to happen. I had to march around/move to siphon of the building tension.
Re-reading lessened that, mainly because after a few reads. you’ve played out all of your own scenarios in your head and have gotten accustomed to the author’s version.
Not sure how to avoid that.
[quote=Giwdul;5342]Had an idea for a cool Doom-Buster and a possible counter for it. I realize that you have already made the call about who/what the DB is going to be. I will just throw this idea out there. Maybe a piece of it can be of use.[/quote]
Cool ideas, I really like both the solution and the vampyr dragon.
I think I want to hold off on lava flows because I just used that one in the last book, I think the vampyr dragon I will bring out in a later book, mainly because the people most likely to get eaten are the ghouls and ghasts of the SL because they aren’t inside a giant stone fortress.
But I really like that idea, just think the SL’s would use it somewhere that it will do more damage to the enemy than themselves. An unprotected city, for example, or the Isle of Doom itself…….
[quote=Mikey;5340]And in the right environment, Vaselle might well start rebuilding his personality on a sturdier foundation.[/quote]
I really hope so, but his problems go back pretty far. He had his hopes and dreams as a child and they were all smashed, they destroyed his sense of identity, his purpose in life, so to speak.
I find it a bit interesting that they were able to screen out Vaselle with his codependent personality issues, but they let Verigas in?
Of course, I am pretty sure the real answer was that they had premonitions about his future…
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