The Grove side plot/story – Jenn & Gastropé

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  • #4170
    Threefinger
    Member

    I would say that you could cut the roller coaster part and leave the grove part, after the grove part maybe cut some of the cloudship sections, really you only need to introduce it and then have it make the trip, we don’t need to know how bored they are throughout the trip. Probably one of those moments that you can just jump forward in time for that story line.

    #4178
    Netter
    Member

    I loved the grove part, and the two Aetos were two of my favorite new side characters.

    I see what people mean about the rollercoaster part, maybe make it a primitive train or minecart syste, detail the beginning then cut to their arrival and how J&G hated the speed/experience?

    For the cloud ship ride, maybe Tom (or Tizzy checking for Tom) could check up on them during the ride?

    #4175
    Iume
    Member

    Have them fall into a dangerous situation. Have Jenn step up and be a [s]man[/s] woman by saving Gastopé. Jenn is becoming quite good at handling her fears.

    #4173
    Rosver
    Member

    Well, for me the reasons are:

    -G and J are just travelling from point A to point B. Which means it has nothing to be excited about in terms of plot.

    -G and J are not enjoying themselves. Which means we won’t be enjoying their trip either.

    -The characters they met are not interesting. Most remains in the background. The ones G and J met isn’t really the characters I want to know more about.

    -G and J themselves aren’t very interesting. Their thoughts, their reactions and their decisions doesn’t have anything noteworthy.

    -The interactions between the characters, new and old, are not interesting. Actually they barely interact with each other. The only noteworthy interaction for me is when G and J accidentally hold hands.

    #4172

    Hmm,

    That last one is a very good point that I completely missed.

    To be honest, Tom (in my mind) magically knew that things were clearing up at Freehold because I did. That’s not correct. He has no idea about them.

    However, to be fair to him, they were pretty safe with Damien and the Council. Particularly once the demons were tossed out.

    Still, I think it’s a critical point that he is at least seen to worry about this.

    Also, Jenn should probably be more worried/obsessed with Rupert and his weird cousin out hunting down demons….

    Really, really should have thought of that

    ](*,)

    #4171
    Iume
    Member

    Jenn’s & Gastropé’s thoughts were boring. Nothing came to life when reading their parts. They need to be more lively or interact with demons.

    Also, why didn’t Tom spare a thought for Jenn & Gastropé? They may not know he is Tom, but he knows that they are in trouble even if he & Rupert have fled.

    #4180
    Rosver
    Member

    Oh. That was the purpose of the Grove. It might have been an overdose though. A whole lot that Gastrope and Jenn go through is meeting these new species but nothing else. It also turn out that these characters aren’t really interesting. It was a bit of disappointment to me as I was looking forward to meeting them. It seems I expect too much.

    Their treck is also full of nothing happening. Most of what they do is just travel to one place to another, then to another and to another.

    Also, most of the scenes Gastrope and Jenn are in are full of exposition and info dump. Reading paragraph after paragraphs of nothing but descriptions (the descriptions about the ship Nimbus is particularly mind numbing) is a bit of a chore.

    If I reread this book, I’m sure to skip most of these parts.

    #4181
    Pathologic
    Member

    I agree with Rosver that introducing the other races doesn’t make sense at that point. But you seem to be really adamant to introduce them now.

    For the Jenn-Gastropé journey: They get to the warship Nimbus on DoF+1. Nimbus travels with 120 miles per hour that means 2400 miles per day. That’s quite a distance and you could let them arrive at their Bastet related destination on DoF+5 to DoF+8 (Though five is unlikely since the distance was given with thousands of leagues and they make a few stops). Postpone the “fight” with Lilith’s tugs and there should be time for a catchup with Tom. Another option would be that Tom shows Rupert how to make Abyss-gates in their time of great boredom. And then one of them handles the shaman business and the other one interacts with Jenn/Gastropé/Maelen/Trevin.

    #4182

    The info dump was due mostly to what I feared were content length constraints.

    Actually, the Nimbus only travels at 660 miles per day (on average—sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes the wrong direction as it has to move with the wind mostly or fight them).

    11 leagues per hour, 20 hours per day, 220 leagues per day, 660 mpd.

    Does this contradict number I mentioned earlier in the book?

    Carpets can go faster, typically. Particularly Fighter Carpets like onboard the Nimbus.

    The Nimbus is definitely a warship and there will be battles where Gastrope’ and Jenn will be working as combat gunners on carpets…or so is the plan.

    Some of this is setup, so it doesn’t come out of the blue later.

    If I am throwing out the length limit, which I sort of think I am. Then I could greatly expand/flesh out some of this. Would that help? Or is cutting still better?

    #4183

    And by cutting, I mean trimming, not eliminating.

    #4184
    Threefinger
    Member

    I would say a little of both, cut out a lot of the parts with them being bored and add some exciting stuff to break up the descriptions of things that people get tired of reading.

    #4186

    No biggie, you have no idea how much time I spent pouring over ship speeds and cloud speeds and distances on the maps. Then add in 20 hours per day and how are Astlan hours related to Earth hours/days? It is not by any means exact.

    Fortunately, the map is done in Campaign Cartographer (originally in a very old version, hence the OLD graphics vs their newer stuff) which calculates distances and lets you drop grids and hexagons of whatever scale.

    Yeah, that’s what I am thinking. And/or, I can work to unbore them. But breaking up long descriptions is good.

    I know some authors (not usually SF/Fantasy, but “literary”) spend pages on describing every damn detail, but I’ve never really enjoyed that sort of story.

    #4187
    Jago
    Member

    [u]on trimming[/u]
    i agree some of the less interesting bits need trimming (the harry potter style roller coaster / boring bits of the trip, and the sexed crazed older woman thing seems slightly over done) however there are bits that could be extrapolated – characters and races in the grove … the problem will be doing it in an interesting manner. There is an element of overload here – almost too many characters and races – none of whom you can really appreciate prior to moving on to the next. i think someone like Hilda (from the grove rather than heaven) who we can get behind and who can bring the grove alive might help, who can meet and study J&G (perhaps she could be a spy for the The Grove – CIA/MI6?) in an attempt to get to know/monitor them … however that might be a little to similar to the Hilda plot line.

    [u]On The Grove in general[/u]
    my main problem with the grove was the hippy commune style living environment existing hand in hand with the Israel like political environment – i may be reading it wrong but the grove struck me as a nation of refugees protected but still interested in the world below, hence their cloudships, and the later murgratory link etc. – the focus seemed to be on them having a good time – which is all very well but it strikes me that they would be more concerned with the events going on in the real world and that their first instinct wouldn’t be to party but to question and confirm details of the story.

    the party like bits with nymphs etc. could still happen in the sidelines with J&G experiencing hangovers uninvited pillows etc.

    Questions
    -Is The Grove another player?- like the Ooos/Tiernans/Liliths cabal/wizards council?- if so what’s their angle and philosophy? i get what/why everyone else is interested – but the grove’s interest seems messy – or are they a platform of conflicting political viewpoints – each race wanting different things… like the UN…

    – if so what and who make up the grove – who leads it and does any race dominate it – if its a coalition are there key leaders, are their political party politics at play…. i don’t know if i missed this or if i am looking for two much – but the danger of introducing the grove as an element is i want to know these things … or at least some of them …. and delivering them in an interesting manner is gonna be difficult.

    thoughts
    – if a large part of the grove scenes are just a vehicle for introducing races – then i think you can afford to take your time / cut some of them until later – personally i felt a little like i was at a large party where i knew no one and person after person was introduced to me in a blur and all i could think of was what was for supper (in this case what tom was up to) whilst i’m interested in the races i’m not in a desperate rush to meet them all at once – in general a slow introduction with a fewer more personable characters seems better (to me anyway).

    TBH – i thought the whole grove thing was a massive distraction, from the rest of the book- i loved the other story lines ( hilda’s and tom’s esp.) but the grove just seemed lost – i hope you don’t take this as a bash – its not meant to be – i’m a huge fan – i just think it needs work and anchoring.

    [b][u]idea[/u][/b]
    whilst it might not work, there is the possibility of introducing the Grove early on – a report received by the leadership of the grove (which could be used to refresh peoples/readers minds on what has been happening) – them ordering trevis to bring any witnesses she can to the grove for further questioning (which is why she so helpfully volunteers transport…) – the leadership could also set up a couple of agents (different races/sexes) to be tasked with investigating the issue … that way we could be introduced to the grove/ its races/ its politics early on and it would provide some spice from the agents perspective – as well as letting us learn more about J&G. some of J&G’s activity could be viewed from the third person. just an idea.

    #4188
    Pathologic
    Member

    You have so many players/pawns introduced and write from their perspective. Thus you have to write repeats. Introducing more players/pawns (and write from their view) will require even more recap of the same event, if the event is a bigger one. Isn’t that the mainproblem in the beginning of the second book that you have to describe a lot of different reactions without any really interesting points?

    #4189

    Excellent feedback, very helpful. No bash seen!

    I get your point. I over/under did the grove in one fell swoop. I gave you the giant pot of goo and said “see” without explaining the grove.

    And I really love the Hippie Israel analogy! That is so dead on!

    I talk about the Grove, I think, in another post explaining the various groups, but maybe not well enough.

    The Grove was founded, primarily as a haven for beings (what we would call mythological) fleeing from planes where certain religions and technology were forcing them out. In some way it’s a refugee camp/healing/repatriation camp for those fleeing worlds where magic is under attack, or various religions are driving out “pagans”

    As such, they probably should have helped the Nyjyr Ennead when they were under attack by the Etonians, but the Nyjyr Enneads people were mostly human and a few sphinxes and similar egyptian creatures.

    Now, it is VERY much a UN like collaboration as it’s managed by a multi-racial group of elders (the scene where the elders were discussing various things is the ruling council) Each of those elders is an ambassador of various races that are supporting/paying for the camp.

    Elder of the Grove (Druids) Druid Senior Elder Elraith Castegones
    Elder of the Grove (Centaurs) Chief Centaur Warrior Taergon Thunderhoof
    Elder of the Grove (Satyrs/Fauns) High Priest of the God Pan Priest Satyricus
    Elder of the Grove (Nymphs) Chosen of the Nymphs Nymph Daphne
    Elder of the Grove (Dryads) Chosen of the Dryads Dryad Chloe
    Elder of the Grove (???) Enchantress of the Grove Trevin D’Vils
    Elder of the Grove (Elves) Prince of the Los Alvar Prince Ariel ap Auberon
    Elder of the Grove (Dwarves) Geomancer of the Grove Duranor

    There are some other players as well, but these are the ones we are introduced to. In particular there are some gods heavily involved.

    There is a reason Trevin is sex starved by the way, it has to do with who she is/back story. She is supposed to sort of creep you out. She seriously creeps out Jenn and Gastrope’

    Anyway, the battle lines are going to come with the Elves. They are going to be going whole hog nuts over the return of Mount Doom.
    This will create problems for the Dwarves who are tied to Hephaestus, who is a strong supporter of Tom and Mount Doom, and of the Nyjyr Ennead (see the description of the various groups post)

    [Also, the Elvish God of War Nét’s right hand man, Aodh is one of those that aligned with Lilith and Sentir Fallon to kill Orcus] he will be pushing the elves to take out Mount Doom.

    So what we are setting up is, the Grove wanting to sort of back the Nyjyr Ennead this time around, and they are becoming wary of the Etonians, but the Nyjyr Ennead are getting closer to Tom (Hephaestus and Reggie’s accursed Mistress are all tied to the Nyjyr Ennead)

    The Dwarves are going to get closer to the orcs and giants and other jotunns. Remember in Nordic mythology, the dwarves were typically aligned with the jotunns against Asgard. Mount Doom is the anti-Asgard crowd. And Elves and Dwarves generally don’t like each other.

    Trevin is a member of the Council of Wizardy and so she has loyalties to that as well as Turelane to some extent as well as loyalties to another group we have now met in Book ii, that detail her origin.

    So I think I probably need to delve more into what the grove is, if I am going to keep a lot of it there. Plus the tension between dwarves and elves needs to ramp up.

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