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[quote=Iume;4646]Chapter 123
[color=red]En-lieu of such thoughts[/color] he had been more than happy to accept Stainsberry’s invitation to dinner and drinks at the Good Knight’s Rest. –> In lieu is being use incorrectly here. Your sentence is saying “In view of”, not “In lieu of”. In lieu of means “instead of” or “substituting for”. In view of means “because” of “for this reason”.
That’s why words like Lieutenant can roughly mean “substitute (land) holder”. They gave orders by with the authority of another like a noble or an officer (who are still nobles). Actually, how much of Astlan’s culture has the officers as being nobles. Has there been any discussion of whether Talarius is a noble son? Does Talarius have any siblings or parents.
Er, back on track… so any of these would work as a correction:
– [color=red]Rather than focus on such thoughts[/color]
– [color=red]Instead of having to deal with such thoughts[/color]
– [color=red]In lieu of having of to deal with such thoughts[/color][/quote]I did mean instead of, however, I like the Rather than focus on such thoughts much much better.
All good questions. This will probably get dealt with in CoA:ITW because that takes place within the context of the Holy Etonian Empire; Krispin, the protagonist was trained by Talarius. I just don’t quite have the answers yet!
But I can say that officer/noble is different from kingdom to nation etc. Oorstemoth is generally a meritocracy, whereas the Holy Etonian Empire is mostly nobility based except for their Cromwellian interlude under the Anilords. I would say that shook things up a fair amount and so it is more merit based now than Etonia Eternal.
Going over all of these in a first pass.
This is all exactly the stuff I’ve worried about.
As far as the invasion, yes, I am going to go back and move the invasion up, the problem is the timing of letting people know what’s going on etc. But I was thinking of that in bed. Storm Lords need to move quickly, perhaps test the water to make sure it’s working, but then start the invasion.
Yes, wondered about the step brother reveal being too much. Want to discuss this in more detail as to whether it should be removed or what. It’s easy enough to remove that scene or push it back to a later point, say Book 4.
One thing about having it now with Talarius is to see his world view destroyed/broken even more. Suddenly his god up in heaven is the step brother of this Edwyrd guy who’s just a normal “Joe”
It should be extremely demoralizing to him, I would expect.
Yes, need to add in some Rupert questioning by Tiernon. Great point.
As far as having the vision, part of that is to add paranoia to Tom & the D’Orcs so they don’t go charging in blindly. They’ve lost this battle once before, the stakes are much higher. How do D’Orcs who are killed return to the Abyss?
These are all answers they need to deal with, thus the vision.
PDF Rendering was what I was complaining about earlier last night. The first couple attempts were at “web quality” and I finally went to “Print Quality” which sent the size through the roof due to font embedding…I think that was what it was doing at least.
This is the MS Word creator because it’s had the best luck of creating the bookmarks,
What platform are you viewing it on?
[quote=Iume;4780]Just read the new stuff. Love that the Eris-Orcus bit was worked in. How much is left in this book?
I’ll do a second pass to review some bits before I post chapter-by-chapter bits, but I like where this is going plot-wise. Downside is that the pacing is not faster than before and the tension is more-or-less spiking in a few key moments rather than building up and sustaining. I’m not feeling the tension.
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Agreed on the pacing.[quote=Iume;4780]
BTW, is Astlan supposed to a backwater compared to the rest of the localverse? I’m getting that impression.
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Not really, as far as demons go, it’s probably the most advanced.Nysegard is more of a backwater thanks to it’s eternal warfare, at least from a “business/society” point of view.
[quote=Iume;4780]
Edit: Regarding the pacing, it is a really hard to judge but it looks like stuff needs to be removed / shortened to help build tension. Scenes converted to an expository dialogue. Some of this stuff may be better in Astlan Into the Wilds. Only, can’t tell without seeing the rest.
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Yeah, but Wilds won’t get to this until much later. First book there takes place in “the Wilds” south of New Etonia. Lots of orcs, Iiskatha, pterodons and some gardening, but crossover with first CoW is still small.[quote=Iume;4780]
For example, the whole Czernobog von Smerti and his dhampyr son can be cut given the current story. I’ve yet to see it’s relevance. At best it explains why this vampyr’s agent in the Citadel intitiates sabotage, but that could as easily be explained after it happens as “agent was corrupted” rendering the this whole backstory as nothing but unnecessary filler.[/quote]No, not really. I need him to be in prison during the battle, he (Rede) has a big scene coming up, and you have to know who he is, and who is father is for future books, and this is where he enters the story. I know he seems to pop up late, but…the arc gets bigger in later books.
Yes he is speechifying a lot.
Does this add clarity?
[quote]“And also, what about his land patrols, scouts and soldiers of all other natures?” Zargvarst asked.
Trevin shook her head gently. “I am sorry? I do not believe we have been introduced?”
Zargvarst gave the enchantress what Jenn suspected was supposed to be an amused nod of appreciation, but which, she herself found a bit ominous.
“I am Zargvarst El Crooked Stick, of the Astlanian Crooked Sticks. While you and I have not met, Ariel and I have met, several times. I spent my mortal life combating his many crimes against the orcs, and after my death, I continued to defend our lands from their barbarous incursions. I have led troops against him on over a dozen occasions, I have personally fought him to a standstill as a mortal, and once defeated him in combat as a D’Orc. He has never prevailed over me.” Zargvarst said with a fierce pride.
He continued sternly. “I know both he and his sister quite well. If they have agreed to remove their sky patrols around Jötunnhenj, that means there are troops elsewhere in our realm that he is not withdrawing. If he were to say, he was removing all sky patrols from our realm, that would mean he was leaving ground troops, or other forces that he can conveniently claim are not ‘sky patrols.’”
Jenn could see the tension in Trevin’s back as Zargvarst gave his speech.
“I understand his treacherous tricks all too well to be fooled.” Zargvarst stated before suddenly smiling and changing the subject, “As to the rest of my immediate party. Allow me to present one of my fiercest warriors, Didar An Sep.” He gestured towards the female D’Orc who nodded.
He gestured to Lob Smasher. “This is Lob Smasher an Elder of the Crooked Sticks of Astlan, the tribe that first contacted Mount Doom. Lob Smasher nodded to them.
“Finally may I present, Lord Tommus’ Shaman Commander in Astlan, Tal Gor El Crooked Stick. The first shaman to journey to Mount Doom in over four-thousand years. Tal Gor, you should know, is also the shaman that blew Arial’s cowardly wizard out of the sky, forcing the pusillanimous pig to abandon his soldiers. Craven, as all alvar are, he fled when confronted by his superior.” Zargvarst was practically spitting his contempt for the alvaran wizard.
Tal Gor, carrying an insanely large pole arm/slash magical staff bowed his head to Trevin in acknowledgement. Did that staff have a mana pool? There was a very large sapphire embedded in it, along with some other sort of metallic stone mounted in a complicated setting. She quickly made the motion to activate her wizard site.
“Holy…” Jenn whispered to herself in surprise. That staff was extremely magical! And the odd stone had a link going off plane, carefully brushing it with her mind, she was able to get a feeling that she recognized as being the demon Tom. This shaman could have Tom in the room within a heartbeat!
She glanced towards Maelen and Elrose who were clearly, also, staring at the staff. Gastropé seemed to pay it no attention, he had most likely seen it before.
Trevin nodded. “I am Trevin D’Vil, Enchantress of the Grove and Councilor of Wizardry in the Council States, with me are Maelen of the Society of Learned Fellows, Elrose of Lenamare’s School of Wizardry, and adjunct of the Council. As well as Jenn Rean and Gastropé Al-Ghayrani also from the Council.”
Tal Gor and the D’Orcs gave all of them brief acknowledgements. Amazingly, to Jenn’s great relief they pretended not to know her and Gastropé.
“As I conveyed to Elgrida Far Eyes yesterday, Prince Ariel conveys his regrets regarding this attack.” Trevin said.
Didar An Sep snorted, Jenn noticed Tal Gor giving Didar a quick glance and a short smile.
Zargvarst nodded. “Prince Ariel? So his father continues to refuse to die? Please convey to Prince Arial my deepest condolences on that subject.” Several orcs suppressed chuckles at this.
Zargvarst continued. “I am certain Prince Arial regrets—his losses. What remains unspoken is his regret for his unprovoked actions.”
Zargvarst looked around at the others within the room. “All should do well to remember, that at least one half of everything an alfar says is found in what they did not say. Their purposeful omissions speak as loudly, and often more loudly, than their actual words.
“Enchantress, go back to Prince Arial and tell him who he is dealing with; so that he may know the truth of what I shall tell you.” The D’Orc commander paused to allow Trevin to nod in agreement.
“Also, assure him that we will not kill his prisoners if he does not remove his forces.” Zargvarst stated calmly, much to the surprise of everyone in the room, particularly the orcs. There were numerous murmurs of surprise and consternation.
“No, they shall not die. Ever.” Zargvarst stated threateningly. “We shall, instead, drag them, and their mounts down into the deepest and darkest reaches of Mount Doom, in the Abyss; into an impossible prison, from which not even light escapes! And they shall be mercilessly tortured, their living flesh peeled from the bone; then they shall be forced through painful regeneration—only to have this repeated over and over for eternity.”
Jenn blanched at this, as did, of course, Gastropé, but Maelen and Elrose also seemed disturbed.
“Yet, fear not, there shall be some creative respites. When not peeling their live flesh, we shall eviscerate and disembowel them, and force feed their living organs and bowels to their compatriots.” Zargvarst grinned menacingly.
“Tell Prince Arial that these are but the least of the torments they shall endure for all eternity if he does not remove every single alfar, and every alvaran ally, stooge, henchmen and other being from our territory.” Zargvarst finished. The room went silent.
“Finally, should he agree, we will hold the prisoners here, unharmed until we can verify that all alvar are gone from our realm.” Zargvarst stated leaving another long silence.
Finally, Tal Gor spoke up. “Any questions?”
“I think not.” Trevin said quietly.
Zargvarst nodded. “Elgrida, get word of our proposal spread wide, outside of the orcs, to the alvar and others. Should Prince Ariel refuse our offer, I want everyone, in particular his own troops, to know what they can expect under his command. His loyalty to his soldiers is no better than his wizard’s loyalty to the patrol he led.”
Zargvarst turned back to Trevin and looked her directly in the eyes. “Enchantress, there is a bond between soldier and leader. It is a two-way streak. Any leader who is not loyal to his soldiers, deserves no loyalty in return.”
Trevin nodded tightly.
Zargvarst glanced around to the others in the room. “Those are the words of Lord Tommus as spoken to the demon soldiers whose leader, Lilith the Jilted Bride, abandoned them to their certain defeat at the hands of Lord Tommus. Soldiers who now serve Lord Tommus, who shall be loyal to them in return.”
[/quote]Hmm, good points.
Let’s wait until after Beta1 to fully address this pacing issue in regards to Rede.
I was actually hoping for the reverse, that Hilda “In action” would speed things up. Instead it seems to be tripping up.
I wonder if moving this stuff forward would help? I.e. get it out of the way sooner?
So Sunday it shall be.
It should be up around 8 pm CDT, 1 am UTC, which would technically be Monday morning for some.
BTW, the siege is officially beginning tonight.
It is dawn, everyone is inside the citadel, the Storm Lords are holding up for the day about a league from the Citadel in every direction, one last check of the region around the citadel (the city/villages) to make sure that nothing has been missed. during the day, but then the draw bridges are going up
D’Wargs of War!
=d>
That sounds even better than War D’Wargs.
D’Warg warfare or D’Wargfare
“You’re D’Wargfood Lich!”
Actually, not sure if D’Wargs really want to eat liches, aside from being freezing cold, they are like moldy and gross.
OK, suddenly realized why there were not any D’Wargs on Nysegard. If you are a D’Warg and you like to bite your enemy, do you really want to munch on zombies and similar types of seriously expired moldy meats?
Ick.
Skeletons on the other hand? Fetch!
That budget is nice to have. Things change so fast that keeping up with the newest takes a lot of time. Many companies don’t want to allot for the time, let alone the expense of keeping people up to date.
I was playing with TypeScript earlier this summer, rather liked it. Haven’t actually done anything billable with it though.
Yeah, I am looking at migrating more mysql stuff I have to postgresql. It seems like it has a clearer path. MySQL under Oracle could be a riskier bet in scaling up for new enterprise features, since it eats market share from Oracle. I like postgresql replication options much better than mysql. I really hadn’t looked at in years until earlier this year when I needed better replication options. I’ve been impressed at where it’s gone since I’d last used it.
I’ve generally focused more on the MS side and SQL Server, but their licensing is just getting too ridiculous for a lot of my clients. I have several that need Enterprise level features, but don’t have the budget for SQL 2016 Enterprise prices. So people are fleeing that ship and postgresql gets them a bit closer cheaper.
I’m actually fortunate that my largest current client, and most budget constrained on this front, uses nhibernate for their core processing and that uses spring.data which means the sql server is simply a flat objectstore without massive code to convert.
So since I like your slippage ideas for Vaselle, trying
“And what does this Edwyrd do?” Teragdor asked while taking another swig of beer.
“He’s an animage. Mostly pyromancy—sorry, pyromastery, I’m a wizard and not used to animage terms.” Vaselle answered, trying to remember what his master had told him of this Edwyrd identity.
Yes,
Most of these gods do the reincarnation thing. You get to spend time in “heaven” but eventually things get boring in paradise, so people should want to go back.
Only the demi-urge is really stuck on the eternal heaven concept. I personally find that hideously boring. I don’t know why anyone would want to spend the next–what? 15, 20, 30 Billion years on a cloud with a harp?
So basically most go for a vacation model, at least for the good followers who gave them lots of mana by praying and worshiping them. Think of it as perk for the ‘big donors’
Everyone else either gets fired, or sent “back to the mana fields” right away.
I think he has a typically naive view of Tierhallon (heaven)
However, we know from elsewhere, a discussion involving Hilda, I am sure, that Tiernon’s people get to go to Tierhallon and get to rest, party, enjoy themselves as long as they want, until they get bored and ask to return.
Now, what do the teaching say? Probably a bill of goods that says “spend eternity in Tierhallon” the reality of eternity is generally not something most people, in any society are prepared to understand. That’s why some people think the earth is only 5,776 years old. The concept of a billion years, let alone 13.2 billion and possibly infinite billions going forward is simply inconceivable.
So, you go to heaven for a few thousand years, maybe you find contentment and move “on” meeting the same end as the atheists and shamans and druid followers. Or maybe you choose to take another spin at the wheel and reincarnate.
I look at reincarnation as an actor being cast in a new role in the soap opera of life.
Yeah, everyone is all excited about the Restoration of Glory, but not sure they’ve considered all the bureaucracy and administrative work that’s going to be needed.
Fortunately, there are D’Orcs with literally 10’s of thousands of years experience doing this so…
The thing about orc illuminaries is that’s back in the “god game” thing again. The official shamans could work as illuminaries, but typically it was more situational than constant. I.e. no daily worship services to collect mana because the dooms generated their own mana.
