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Heh heh, that would be a good one for him!
I’ll have to check the timeline to see, but I think they came up with that name before Exador got the job. It used to be the Militia of Tiernon…
Not familiar with those services, will check them out.
The map is in Campaign Cartographer which is a map oriented CAD program; so it’s vector based and I can generate any size image.
The current main map is quite big and then sliced in squares for faster loading, and the table scales to browser width.
I do have an unsliced version, it is 7515×6351
Exactly!
I should clarify, when I say mostly used with bagels, I meant as a noun. Used as a verb it’s far more common.
Most bagel shops have, in fact, a ‘smear’ list
Which, out of contexts sounds like a list of bad things someone has said about someone else.
Back to the growing/shrinking. It was already there.
Turns out Valg has to blink as Tom is coming up to them because he is both getting closer and shrinking which is rather disconcerting.
[quote=Iume;4700]Okay, then there are some instance where unlife needs to be changed to undead.
– Verigas uses it in Chapter 125
[/quote]Fixed, left it in for Hilda in same section.
[quote=Iume;4700]
– Talarius uses in Chapter 127. He uses like a title which feels wrong at this point. Maybe later after he’s adjusted to the local life. Actually, why is he able to converse with the locals on Nysegard w/ no problem after a couple thousand years of linguistic drift and no demons nearby?
[/quote]I am now far more concerned about “how the hell is he talking to them?” point than the unlife thing. Nargh. Fixing unlife for the moment.
Teragdor in the Citadel is also a problem.
[quote=Iume;4700]
– Teragdor in Chapter 135. He might use it in conversation, but he also uses it when thinking. The former makes sense, not the latter.
[/quote]
I think in this case, it is OK, he has been talking with everyone about Unlife, in this section and presumably off scene. I think he would compartmentalize it fast enough. Perhaps a comment/correction as he’s thinking “undead, or rather Unlife, as the said here”Big reason I say this is that he’d just had a big conversation with people about Unlife and the whole study of Unlife and then he thinks this:
Try reading it outloud even.
[quote]
He was pretty sure that his experience was about to change. From the sound of the horns, and the bustle and activity in this room, it appeared that an [color=red][b]Unlife [/b][/color]attack was imminent. Given how put out about the fact that so much ‘heavenly horse power’ had shown up to rescue one Knight Rampant, he was pretty sure it would be in very bad form for them not to pitch in and help. For one thing, it was pretty clear that being surrounded by [color=red]Unlife[/color] would make getting out to locate Talarius rather difficult. That would probably have to wait until after this siege was taken care of.
[/quote]Now contrast that with:
[quote]
He was pretty sure that his experience was about to change. From the sound of the horns, and the bustle and activity in this room, it appeared that an [color=red][b]undead [/b][/color]attack was imminent. Given how put out about the fact that so much ‘heavenly horse power’ had shown up to rescue one Knight Rampant, he was pretty sure it would be in very bad form for them not to pitch in and help. For one thing, it was pretty clear that being surrounded by [color=red][b]undead[/b][/color] would make getting out to locate Talarius rather difficult. That would probably have to wait until after this siege was taken care of.
[/quote]The use Unlife, very differently than we use undead, The second seems very awkward in this context.
[quote=Iume;4700]
– Melissance in Chapter 138. Kind of iffy on this one. Presumably she has become familiar with the term, but the people she is speaking to are all from Astlan and wouldn’t quite get the difference. Should she use undead or unlife when talking to them?Also, when it is Unlife vs. unlife a proper noun? Then you say Unlife I feel it should be a brand or product. UnlifeTM, now trademarked by Denubian ChococoffeeTM, your source for LifeTM.[/quote]
That is a question, Melissance I mean. Hmm…
As to the capitalization, (I am horrible on capitalization, and consistency).
In Nysegard, “the Unlife” is capitalized because to them it is so huge/so big, it is a proper name. This is basically in the same line that I mention about Teragdor and his thoughts in 135.
They use it like the Olympians, or the Five Siblings.
Everyone outside Nysegard and Doom should be lower caps, most likely. Not sure though about Tierhallon crowd though.
Yes, this has been brought up.
I am going to have to rework this, have not completely figured out how yet. But it has definitely bugged several people and is now bugging me.
Hmm, I do not think so, I sort of think they need to be bound outside of normal time and space.
However, I must think upon this to be sure.
Now, that is a very interesting idea. A D’Elf or rather a D’Alfar
It seems to me it would be an excellent PR move if I were Tommus.
I am sure they would, it might be a bit lonely though, the only one of your species…actually not really true in that there are elven demons according to Stainsberry at least. They accept elves on Nysegard as comrades in arms, she has proven herself in battle for a thousand years, fighting alongside D’Orcs. She would get a very good recommendation.
And I am sure if there are Denubian Demons(TM) there must be alvaran ones.
The Denubians are from a very high tech world that is far out there, much like Earth.
Most “far out there” tech heavy planes may be to mana poor for alvar though. Remembering that alvar are magical creatures, they need a lot of mana to keep themselves going, which is why the left Earth.
So, it’s a question of how far out there does the “myopia” take place. Are the realms like Gormaghast and Visteroth, which are high tech, but also have a decent amount of mana (because they have shamans and plane travel to Astlan, etc) and have elves and orcs in space “far enough out” to cause myopia in wizards?
My guess is not.
So one might have to purposefully/knowingly create D’Elfs.
[quote=MommaGx3;4080]
First, while Rupert and Rog did make their appearance, it almost felt like an after thought. Other than the one reference Tom made about being a bad father and his finally releasing the secret of his immaculate conception toward fatherhood… there really wasn’t much of a connection between them. Their relationship in book one and two was so much a focus that it was noticeably missing in book 3. [/quote]Yes, it could use some work, originally and with the title, there was supposed to be much more of their adventures, but the movement up of the Storm Lords in the HH Beta process sort of shifted things, so that now, they are only just getting started. There will be a lot more of them in Book IV, as with Tal Gor.
[quote=MommaGx3;4080]
For new readers, how much were we exposed to the ranger god? To me, he just seemed to come in out of nowhere and was suddenly taking a center stage. I actually have to look at the site to find out more about it. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt that it was a little rough with this introduction to him. [/quote]The other Five Siblings had only been briefly mentioned in previous books. Namora got the most mention in HH due to the beggars, then Hendel due to Vaselle. Torean (or rather his rangers/priests) will have a much bigger role in Chronicles of Astlan: Into The Wild, which should be out between books III and IV.
[quote=MommaGx3;4080]
I generally like the pace, but there is a lot of skipping around very quickly. I know you have concerns about the length and there is so much to share, but I don’t mind the length when it helps add more smoothness. [/quote]Going to work on smoothing that out, that is in fact one of my current concerns with what to do about the last 20% etc.
[quote=MommaGx3;4080]
Lilith… She just got her ass handed to her with those chaos folks… Whatever happened with that, there is foreshadowing that there may be kick back for her in her use of them for the battle. But the big battle and those baddies were prime at the end of book 2. Now in book 3, they are just kind of an after-thought. I would have expected to see just a bit more about them, even maybe a segment or two introducing their involvement or at least investigation. Lots of references about them not liking that absolute zero was found as a weakness… but where are they? WHere do they come from? How did she get them to work for her… where is the fallout?[/quote]The problem here is timing, it’s only been about 10 days, and Astlanian week. The Chaos folk live on the other side of the multiverse and it will take some time for it to propagate. However, they will be showing up before the end of the book, but full repercussions will be seen later
[quote=MommaGx3;4080]
Where are our little snippets of adventure as our two brilliant mages attempt to try more creative ways to open the book? We again got a little foreshadowing about the relationship between Tizzy and his book but we didn’t see hide nor hair of it. Considering how pivotal it is to the overall arc of the story. I expected to see at least one humorous attempt by Jeh & Len (hehehe, JehLen can be their little pet name) to open it where it then goes agro and tries to eat them!!![/quote]We will see more through the beta. A lot of the secondary stories I sort of hold back to see where the beta goes. It’s not they are excluded, but I focus more on the narratives I need to get to the end, first.
[quote=MommaGx3;4080]
Speaking of Tizzy… that conversation between Ramses and Exador… it felt a little off where he didn’t think TIsdale was Tizzy. I mean, he’s a brilliant strategist who has pulled the wool over the eyes of not only the casting classes but the gods themselves… that conversation just struck me as weak. [/Quote]I see your point. Will work to rework it. But here is the thing. They see Tizzy as a fiend, a nut, a wacko, a bum. They have trouble believe that he could be so powerful as to 1) pass as a wizard and 2) defeat those he has defeated (and as we will see it is more than just the Mind Reavers)
[quote=MommaGx3;4080]
Anyway, I intend to read over it again and this time look more deeply into the questions and thoughts I had, as well as any of the little nitpicky grammar and mechanics that woke my inner grammardemonnazi. [/quote]Danger here is that much of the grammar stuff will change with rewrites.
[quote=MommaGx3;4080]
So, since I shared all that “negative” criticalness. I have to say, AWESOME! OOooo, I’m so excited that he’s learned the ways of dorkitude. When’s he going to try to Dorkitude a human or dwarf? I want to see a dw’ark!!!! I LOVE Vaselle, he is SOOOO cute. I just want to wrap him up in lots of demonic yumminess and put him on the shelf.[/quote]I am sure that Vaselle would appreciate your appreciation of him. If you haven’t noticed, he’s got some codependent tendencies…
That’s pretty much dead on.
Only real difference from what I think you said is that the mana is more like an exoskeleton on the animus, holding the animus in. If the animus goes away, the mana has nothing holding it together and it dissipates…sort of like when a crab molts you get the left over exo-skeleton and a “soft shell crab” with a flimsy body. The old exoskeleton eventually decays only in this case faster.
This is why, if Antefalken leaves his “clothes” in some maiden’s bedroom, they simply dissolve. Without him to hold it together. We assume he pulls his animus with him from the clothes as he flies out the bedroom window while the maiden’s father or brother comes charging into the room to protect her honor.
The mana exoskeleton defaults to what the original summoning form. What the shapshifter is doing is learning how to reshape that form and mold it differently. Generally, they have to concentrate at some level, to keep it from returning to the default form. This is why most demons either can’t shapeshift or have only a few forms.
It varies greatly from demon to demon. Lilith changes form quite a bit. Sam has a few default forms. Asmodeus generally looks the same for a few decades or centuries and then changes. He does have a couple other “scary” “demon” forms that he uses (see wikipedia) but he mainly uses those ceremonially.
Hesselforthalus…well…as you will see, he’s rather quixotic. None of the Denubian Demon[i]TM[/i] default forms are particularly static…
Well, the other, shorter name is ARC Avatar Response Center, you know like the thing you keep stuff in that melts the faces off of nazi’s.
For the gods, money is definitely a question that is not clear to Tom.
Doom needs no gold or gems. It has more than enough.
So what are they gods paying with? We do know that materials and access to advanced technologies/magic plaid a lot to do with the “payment” as the downpayment and then initial payments (providing for the construction of Doom). So presumably a lot of that was upfront and then a maintenance fee after that.
I think you may have hit upon something I need to improve. Tom hasn’t really stopped to think too much or enough about what it is they are supposedly getting.
What I can tell you now, is that an important, but indirect part is supposed to have been leverage. By holding these prisoners, there is the threat that they can be released in a very ticked off state if the clients don’t play ball with Orcus.
This is, in fact, what Tiernon and Torean are really worried about. Quite frankly, they don’t so much care about the good or evil of Tom, it’s more that in playing politics, they tried to give Orcus a small slap on the wrist and he ended up “dead” or “missing” for 4,000 years. They are very much concerned that Tom might release their folks.
And then there would be hell to pay.
So back to another comment in another thread about plot advancement, the revelation of Tartarus as a huge leveraging chip should be a big plot point. But that may not be clear.
Lilith, Aodh, Sentir have no clue what they did in killing Orcus, or at what risk they put the multiverse. What if some had escaped? They also don’t appreciate how the other gods are going to react to having been caught with their pants down when their jailor got killed.
Heaven’s Doom is fantastic.
I like Heaven’s Wrath, but I don’t know that it fits for the book.
Thinking of plot points I suppose I could also do “Revenge of Big Sis” Although I’m not sure anyone knows if she’s a big sis or a little sis. “Revenge of Little Sis” [biggrin]
No, that’s the arc of the entire book…Demons of Astlan….sort of…that’s his progression through the book. There is obviously a lot more going on.
Remember Demons of Astlan is a single book spread across multiple volumes.
Because Arg-nargoloth did not think Tizzy would manage to do it. All the demons needed to be sworn and “reconnected to Mount Doom” through their oath and links to Tom and the Rod of Tommus. And there were a few other parts of the prophecy as well involving the djinn. This is basically a celebratory ‘joint’ session.
Plus, the two of them do not “officially” get along.
