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That’s a question I am actually debating.
I’ve actually mainly been percolating on suggestions people have made, and that’s the problem with releasing the alpha before a first “end point”
I get a lot of great ideas for earlier things, but if I implement those, I know there will be repercussions for the later stages so I get torn about whether to back fill first to make the last 20% richer on the first pass or do I “get it done” and then enrich everything later.
In particular the following things are gnawing at me.
Ruiden’s role, his silence through much of the middle of the book.
Tiernon/Torean make them less clueless, heighten the stakes and overall tension.
I am seriously thinking about moving some things up in terms of the Lords of Chaos and also with Net and the alvar.In particularly that last bit was being introduced in the last 20% as setup; however if I introduce it sooner to bring tension up, then that has some repurcussions on the storyline for “the Apostles” Tal Gor, Rupert/Fer Rog, Ragala-nargoloth, etc.
The crux of my problem with them is as follows:
I need time for the Unlife armies to build and surround the citadel. Even with magical transport, an undead army only moves so fast. Zombies don’t jog, they shamble. Unless you want to jiggle all the flesh off their bones, in which case they are skeletons, you can’t move them that fast.
But, that means more time as Tal Gor and the Nimbus crew are in proximity near the Astlan Doomalogue, plus other stuff for the otherworld shamans.
If I nudge the Alvar sooner, then this escalates the action for the Apostles, bringing it into this book. But then I start running out of room at the end of the book for the Nysegard battle.
Well,
[SPOILER]
Your expectation is close but not exactly on the nose, things are a bit crazier than that, OK, quite a crazier than that…but your general conclusion as to who are Apostles of Doom are not wrong, it’s just a bit more complex. At least if I can work out the details I want plausibly.This will be a turning point that should be much bigger than just a battle. And it will have driving consequences for the other alliances, or potential alliances.
It’s a huge battle, but it’s not about the victory so much as how it changes the dynamics, relationships and points of views of those involved. Or at least some of them.
[/SPOILER]
And this is where a better mind-set for Talarius helps.
Although I am having more trouble than I might expect playing Ruiden into this. This was what I was working on today. Ruiden’s character is getting ill-defined or rather became less defined/more emotional after seeing his father. So call it personality development.
He was very robotic/golem like in Book II. Clearly very loyal to Talarius, and driven to find him, but rather single minded as a golem or robot might be. With his father in the picture and back with Talarius, he is suddenly more revealed as more emotionally open. Revealed as a bit more child like perhaps. I say this based on what you see in the book now and his discussion with Talarius.
He has always been intelligent, but never really spoke that much/at all to Talarius before. He had always worked as a partner to guide himself, and was empathic, but I don’t know that he really “spoke” to Talarius. He might have, and I think that needs to be adjusted one way or the other. Is Talarius surprised by Ruiden talking to him,or only surprised by how much more talkative he is?
In my mind, his stint as a sword golem has made him much more autonomous, and thus has more opinions of his own. I think this should be tied into the Talarius story as it’s clearly a new relationship between the two that needs to be worked out.
Maelen: I like this thought. It gives me more to work with, with him and the Nimbus crew. I am going to pursue this line.
Well….the big issue is how to manifest there due to lack of mana.
This is discussed some in the books and in the forums about how demons have to do this and the use of incubuses to collect mana to summon demons etc.
But, in the end, its a lot like Tizzy says when discussing how people pop up in the abyss. Do they come in spiritually or physically.
If Tom could get a portal to Earth and walk through it with a body, he could go there. But to incarnate there, form a new body (as with a summoning) he would need a lot of mana.
Summoning/incarnating is the fade in/fade out approach. Going through a gateway/hole is the bodily approach.
So again he would just need a gateway to get there, at least in the short term.
The big problem with a gateway to Earth is that they do take a lot of energy, so it requires very very efficient wizardry and is thus complicated.
On the other hand, one could use a Technological gateway, a multidimensional wormhole and do it.
Those things required very advanced technology that would be alien on Earth today, and a crap load of energy. Even more energy than a Star Gate. You’d need something bigger than a Star Gate, more complex, with multi-dimensional capabilities.
So where would Tom find one of those? Lying around in the attic? How believable would that be. :-”
Actually, the problem is more like, where is the one on the other side? On Earth. World Gates can open/end in a Star Gate, but Star Gates cannot dial back to a World Gate. They don’t have enough symbols/power/outbound technology. So even if you end up in the basement of a pyramid in Egypt, you are sort of stuck once the Star Gate closes.
Reggie could come have dream sex with Tom. Not sure either would like that but…
No but you hit on it. Shamanism will certainly work, particularly if you have a bit of demon weed. Trained animages/shamans etc can easily get to the astral plane, and lesser trained ones can do it with herbal assistance, demon weed is the most potent.
If you knew where you were going, you could find your way anywhere in the Planes of Men from there the trouble is where to go.
That is actually where the summoning stones come in. You can use summoning stones as end point links and follow them to other planes where another shaman/animage/druid/sorcerer/whatever is with a stone and talk to them/make contact. That is what Tal Gor did.
Interestingly enough, this is how many technical races communicate FTL in tech worlds. A huge part of Trig Bioblast’s responsibilities on board ship is as both a a communications officer and an assistant for navigation. Shamans use summoning stones to communicate between starships light years apart.
Think of the stones used in Stargate. Particularly Stargate Universe, people in different galaxies could communicate with them.
[quote]“Well, I have, and we,” he glanced to Phaestus, “suspect Völund, may have a stash of cookies we could use.” Reggie said rather hesitantly.
“As I recall he did not eat any cookies at the party.” Boggy said.
Phaestus nodded. “As I told Reggie, Völund does not ‘officially’ eat cookies, millennia ago he used to complain that cookies were slowing people down, making them lazy. However, at the party I did notice him pocketing a good number.” The god grinned.
Tom [/quote]How does this sound?
I think he does enjoy it, but was probably getting grumpy about too many people with shaky work ethics to begin with sitting around being stoned all day.
Also the edibles can zonk you far faster than smoking. He probably just uses it medicinally for chronic pain in his leg and to take the edge off his anxiety.
Yeah something along this line but maybe a bit simpler/long term/slowing
And I think this is sort what I was thinking at the time I wrote it (it just wasn’t formed/thought out enough to have people discuss):
1) With Orcus, there was never a need to summon D’Orcs. At least not after the first hundred years, and never after the Doomalogue was in place.
2) D’Orcs are not going to give out their true names any more than demons. Therefore very few shamans, D’Orc or otherwise are going to know true names to summon a D’Orc.
3) Now summoning stones—those would allow dream walking back to Doom for communication—except they hadn’t been working since Dooms collapse, so the summoning stones were toast with Orcus and the depowering of Doom.
4) The first D’Orcs that died, would have been trapped there since no one on Nysegard would have their true names, but eventually they’d figure out that in order to get back they needed to tell shamans their true names. So then they could start coming back, and could bring back the others. However resources were thin, as you suggest, so they did not pull others that had not been on Nysegard.One big thing that this brings up, and it hasn’t hit Tom, but it should is he needs to figure out a way to make Doom less “Tom dependent” someway that the Doompire could survive without him. He needs to have alternate powering mechanisms for summoning stones etc.
Of course, this is a longer term project he needs to set people to etc.
I see it as a point of worry/concern for him.
I do not really seeing it getting fully accomplished in the “Demons of Astlan” book. Maybe some small steps…no it’s more like a “first decision” command that he comes up with that is the start of him being more proactive. I see working it in slowly. It is a goal, not something that is going to be accomplished in the books.
Books are looking a bit closer to 8, 7 would probably be a good number from an Astlanian point of view.
I see the “real” book being between 1.5 and 2 million words. Without appendices/what went before/contents. Each volume is averaging around 250K with excess stuff. so figure 225K/book. At a minimum that is 1.5K/.225K =6.66 books. At max that is 2K/.225k =8.88 books.
Now part of this depends on what happens with the spin offs. The spin offs also generate more content/story overall, but they can also take content out of the main book (books).
For example, I had not really planned on doing the story of Into the Wilds, but it seemed like good additional detail/story that was not going to be otherwise told, and I still have no idea how much of it will fold back on the main story arc and how much will be self contained in say additional books in that series. But it definitely will explain some of what is going on in the main book and may ultimately provide better answers to questions that otherwise might have been left unasked.
Good points.
He had been gone for several days, so that did take him out of action. And he was oddly focused for the D’Orcing, but before his trip and after the pressure of the D’Orcing, he should be back to normal and tormenting Talarius.
Will spice that up. I am thinking between Ruiden and Tizzy, Talarius should be getting a bit frayed.
And actually see…such things as this suggestion do a lot to establish Talarius frame of mind for what is coming up in the last 20%
So to my point on the next alpha. Going back to enhance and better establish Talarius’ frazzled state of mind allows me to write a richer version of his character in the last 20%. And that informs and may change his actions.
All of which, should make his progression more logical, consistent, believable and thus enjoyable.
Hi,
As you have probably noticed there is a way to “report” a post. Typically this is for flagging an objectionable post or user.
That has only happened one time when a user flagged themself and another user they were arguing with. Tizzy ignored it.
So, I am thinking of using the “Reporting” button to flag items that still need attention.
Either I might do it or the user might do it, or another user might do it.
DO NOT CONSIDER IT A BAD THING! It is a good thing (for this beta) it is a way of bringing things to attention.
It reports it to the moderator (Tizzy or I) and I think that is much safer than “moving” or “copying” it to a “To Do List” Topic which is what I did last time around.
There was a bug with that that caused the site to blow up when doing the move. Big pain in the tail.
T-A-G
Yeah, I’ve decided that he needs to explain more.
I was trying to have him come off more as cryptic, but I am now seeing that’s not working.
