Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yeah, the Knights of Chaos are a rather mean thing to do. But I wanted to “wake things up” from the coma of the original last battle.
They are freaking nasty. I have had them around for a long time in alternate universes (meaning stories of mine) and toyed with bringing them in later. They are really from the same story line as the Mercenaries (but not dependent on)
They evolved in my imagination after reading too much Michael Moorcock and Roger Zelazny
In fact, the reason for adding in the new scene with Sam and Rosencrantz is because I fear Tom may need Sam’s help to defeat the Knights of Chaos. He will literally need all hands on deck, and it is a HUGE freaking nasty battle.
To put them in to book 2 would require a large number of pages and would require me to move the other cliffhangers ahead too (such as Gastrope’ & Damien/Orcs, Hilda & Jenn, etc and VERY huge move forward for Talarius and Ruiden. [SPOILER] As soon as Talarius hears that there are KofC out there, he is going to grab Ruiden, want to retrieve War Arrow (his flying horse) and charge into the Maelstrom–battling KofC would be like a dreamgasm for him.[/SPOILER]
It would probably mean another 70-100 pages.
BUT a huge complaint was the “hook” leading into book 3. I.e there wasn’t one.
So is this too big a hook for the fish to swallow?
Thoughts on what to do?
Hmm, good points. Let me think on how I could do this.
And btw, 2000+ Knights of Chaos would be enough to conquer several planes of existence.
Most of the reinforcements are demon warriors. A platoon (15-30) of KofC is more than enough to send an archdemon into hiding on a distant plane and would cause most demon princes to barricade themselves in a “Safe Room” and surround themselves with all of their henchmen as Knight Fodder.
There we go.
That’s one of those that I and Word never seem to agree on, or I am paranoid Word will slap me down for.
Those word contractions. One that you will also see listed in the forums is my use of businessorc vs business orc. as opposed to businessman vs business man
Fortunately, handmaiden is very common, so no confusion.
1)
He did a bit more than lie…rather went behind his back and teamed up with an avatar of another god and the “Queen of Demons” :^o
3)
Basically
Nyjyr Ennead
Lots open
4) Vasalle & Tom
This is an interesting question. Officially, in Astlan, “No” however that is what Tom is basically doing.
And this is the part that gets tricky to explain and I will just have to show.
a) Tom really should have done more “possessing and controlling” Vasalle but he basically chickened out.
b) Shaman’s don’t normally work for a single god, per se. However, Tom (like Orcus before him) will most likely use them more like Warlocks or priests. The key point that’s not clear is “who were those warlocks of Orcus in the balladae? Actually many were actually shamans not warlocks” or shaman’s sort of working as warlocks.3 a) You nailed it. Hubris.
Rogues & Asmeth are gone from beta 3
Fer-Rog and Rupert are really just a setup for book 3–or were–book 3 is getting very crowded at the moment.
6) Oorstemoth: Did not really enjoy writing the speeches. They are, however, supposed to be insufferable. Oh yeah, they are going to have some fun once they get there. I have no idea how they think they’re ever going to find anything. They tend to kill demons rather than ask questions, and I am sure even if they resist, their interrogation techniques will be pretty sad by Abyssal standards.
Good luck folks! (Hint hint, the will have some good luck otherwise the plotline would be pretty pointless–but they can suffer first)
6.1) Bingo. They go back and forth/they take turns. No one knows this. And they are very close.
7) Oh yeah, there is going to have to be a reckoning at some point. It’s just a question of how much havoc in the meantime.
As for Hilda and the name.
She knows the name ‘Tom’ which is what they call him, if they call him by name. Wizards will not reveal the true names of demons to others without explicit reasons. Certainly not to a non-conjuror. Historically, you don’t want competition with other wizards (demons are a prize possession). But also for safety. However, there are rumors that simply speaking some demon’s names will summon them. (Particularly if done 3 times in a mirror etc) For one thing, if you give out a powerful demon’s name, a lesser wizard might try to summon, fail and then you have a rampaging demon with wizard guts all over their claws. Who is going to clean up that mess?
Adventures?
Well, the real adventures were/are just starting with their shape changing when on the Planes of Orc; the true adventure starts later as above.
I identify plotlines by where they are going, not where they are now; unless now is big and obvious enough.
The ship was perceived as a waste of money and it may be.
But it’s basically a very powerful magical warship capable of inter dimensional travel. Think of it as a “magical” nuclear submarine that can impose Oorstemothian Law around the Multiverse, the same way US nuclear subs and carrier groups do around Earth. Same game plan.
They could, for example, cruise up next to the Courts or Mount Doom and open fire, much like US ships do with Tomahawk missiles and such.
Now, will it work as planned? That’s the question. But the plan is to kick some demon butts!
Wish from a djinn? We start to explore that in beta 2, see Randolf and Crispin. We are just getting to know them and their rules.
Yes, I like the beggars a lot. There will be more fallout in some form…
>Avatars and lies. Yes, this is a big issue that is coming to the fore; it’s all going to get tested as both Hilda and Talarius will have to reevaluate their allegiances over the course of the next couple books.
The book:
Tizzy has a book that he used to write in (a lot). He has misplaced it; but fortunately it’s very hard to open.
There is a book in Astlan that had been lost, but is now found, but very hard to open. It has something of interest to both Demons and Conjurors in it.
That is all I can say. Other than Tizzy had been very close to it at very points in time in Book 1 and never noticed or seemed to care; but of course, even if it was his, he might not have a link to it and so if it was hidden by Jenn…
Back to the Abyss:
Well, they think they have a plan. Actually, this is why the Oorstmothian’s need the Rod. They need the other Knights Rampant or someone from the Rod to help them locate Tom/Talarius. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even want to let the Rod know about the Inferno’s existence.
Sentir Fallon/Egyptian guys:
See [url=http://www.astlan.net/Home/History/Timeline.aspx]timeline[/url]
-630 Post Vargosian (currently we are in 440 PV) so Rangers of Torean first show up on the doorsteps of the Egyptian guys about 1070 years ago. You can follow that in the posted timeline.
Orcus was slain in Etterdam (different calendar) in -3587 PV or 4027 years ago. 500 Years or so before the website timeline starts. Ragnarok happened several centuries before that.
As an FYI, Mount Doom was founded in -54320 PV or 54,780 years ago. Assuming I am adding correctly now and in the book.
I am not so sure it was a fast one as much as a “need to know basis” Lillith knew what she was doing; as I am sure did Aodh/suspected. Not clear that Sentir fully appreciated what they were doing or how much he knew. He definitely did not count on the corruption spreading.
Cool.
The Gastrope’ one is particularly interesting, perhaps in my interest of tightening the carpet stuff up and spicing it up, i wasn’t clear enough on his trepidation. He’s feeling rather forced into this stuff and in some ways I was trying to get “into” him in the scene at the fortress to get deeper on who he is, and in book 3, my plan is to emotionally torture him with his secrets as he sits on the fence between Mount Doom and the Grove.
Gastrope is rather interesting in that he is not incompetent, just young and fearful someone not accustomed to playing in the big leagues; he is in way over his head. In many ways a mirror of Tom. I can see however where the carpet thing as is might be pushing him too far, too fast. At the moment I see him in sort of an almost PTSD state and just loosely hanging on/going with the flow.
Not sure I follow on L&J. They are definitely being busy basking in the glory of having praise them. Hilda is playing him and them like a fiddle, stroking his ego buttering him up.
I could see Jehenna being not as nasty, that may be true, but she hasn’t had a lot to do. Not until the Exador battle.
Looking forward to the detailed document.
Actually, Orcus is not copyrightable unlike Illithids (Mind Flayers–really annoying–I love them)
Orcus is an actual mythological lord of the underworld from multiple mythologies; principally Greco-Roman/Etruscan but also the word and form comes up in Anglo-Saxon mythology as well.
In the Etruscan/Greco-Roman histories he is sometimes conflated with Hades or Dis-pater. Sometimes equated with the “punishing side/aspect” of Hades/Pluto.
In ancient Greece he was also sometimes associated/described as the daemon Horkos, the personification of Oaths and a son of Eris (Goddess of Chaos, strife and discord)
In Anglo-Saxon mythology, the orcnae (from which Tolkien derived the word Orc) means demons, or demon. Many people feel there is a conflation between the orcnae (orcs, goblins, gremlins etc) and the latin Orcus, but Tolkien was not convinced.
In any event, Orcus is/was a “real” person (ahem) so I can use him! :d/
Have you or anyone seen it used much in recent stuff?
I don’t read as much hard core ‘outer space’ SF as I used to, (mainly because after going through umpteen years of physics to get a phd, maliciously bad science is harder for me to ‘suspend disbelief’ than “magic”) so I read more Fantasy, or close time period SF (e.g. cyberpunk/dystopia) rather than space opera SF
So I am not sure if it’s used as much today.
That will, of course change for me when I eventually get to the Oak Orcs of the Antilles (or whatever I call it) with Trig Bioblast and the OCSS Skull Crusher fighting the invading CyberElves and Space Dragons!
Yes, that would make things easy…and it could be a way of possibly tracing the corruption.
However, [SPOILER]that won’t work since Ruiden was not passed down to Talarius, Talarius found him. Ruiden is not technically a Etonian artifact, which admittedly is unusual. He is, however a demon slaying magic sword. More will be revealed in book 3 🙂 [/SPOILER]
He did not, and I am thinking he would be burnt at the stake as a heretic if he showed them that one!
:d/
I mean that is really the trauma he and Gastrope’ are facing; they are basically being driven into an alliance with the FOE (Forces Of Evil); after priding yourself as being a “good guy” and in theory, at least tacitly aligned with the FOG (Forces Of Good) what do you do when you realize that some of your best friends, who you want to help, are legendarily Evil?
I am pretty sure you don’t want to admit it to others. You will want to stay in the COE (Closet Of Evil)
Even if it would freak the living daylights out of Lenamare. I fear it would be one of those Pyrrhic victories….
But it does give one warm fuzzies to think about.
There are a lot of places that could be simplified.
Some of my odd constructions will get rebuilt/simplified by the editor some will not.
This is really why I need to go over the thing several times and have people point out the weird language. I mean, some weird language is on purpose, and some is just–it sounds better in my head than when reading it.
BTW on issues that I fix; I am marking the original flagging with a “thank” that way you know it’s fixed; sometimes I respond before I get it fixed, and doing the “thank” is my way of confirming I’ve fixed something.
