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Oh I saw that, no worries. My point is that it is going nowhere. If you cut out all of the Inferno and instead gave Talarius a quest in book 4 to search out Melissance then want exactly would be different in how Book 3 unfolds? So what if Talarius find her alongside the Inferno crew in Book 4? You could explain how that happened in Book 4.
Right now the Inferno crew AFTER they arrive in the Abyss does 2 things:
– Accounts for Sam. But since he isn’t doing anything to Tom it doesn’t really matter.
– They meet w/ Darg-Krallnom (or was it Arg-nargoloth?) and now Tom know they are in the Abyss. Again, nothing comes of Tom having the knowledge in book 3 so… what good is it?The rest is just exposition about how people view the Abyss and how they feel about being there. Whoop?
Change book 3’s Inferno scenes to stop shortly after Sam boards. Build up to and add in a cliffhanger that really emphasizes that they are basically now a doomed crew that will wander the Abyss forever. Maybe a natural phenomena will damage the ships engines in order to prevent them from easily leaving. Or maybe it is just the Chancellor’s zeal / bureaucratic oversight / an improper understanding of the Abyss that makes them unable to just leave.
Then return in Book 4 for the finding of Melissance by the Inferno crew and the later reunion w/ Talarius. That way you can contrast the two searches in the same book.
To clarify my last point: EM simply numbs a person conscience, but it does not make them evil. A conscienceless person can do some pretty evil things because they use an external source to guide them (church doctrine) and logic to interpret which is not how such things should work since it leads to an “ends justify the means” attitude.
The knights should be in the exact same boat as Talarius except they haven’t had Tom bludgeon them with the truth. They should NOT adapt so quickly.
If we did rework it… hm…, well I don’t know how you planned this in book 4 so I’m just making this up.
What if Talarius finds Melissance before the Inferno and is still there when the Inferno arrives? What if they DID home in on his signal, but he doesn’t want to leave?
Then comes the final realization by Talarius is that Melissance has become evil in her pursuit of revenge, but not because she was tainted nor because she came to Abyss. It is because she chose to become evil through her actions and attitude and that [b]Talarius[/b] and his betrayal is the root of her perfectly normal mortal-type evil, and not the Abyss and not the Unlife and not because she was cut off from Tierhallon?
So Talarius, hoping to redeem himself w/ Melissance finds that some things cannot be redeemed with just an apology and so he fights with the Inferno crew after the demons won’t let him go and they escape. He returns home subdued and somewhat broken while the Inferno crew is thrilled to have “rescued” him. They decided against pursuing Tom after Talarius convinces them to not bother. They return only to discover that Freehold is under siege.
However, we now have this contrast. Talarius is less zealous and knows the truth, but [b][u]per Antefalken he can’t explain it to anyone (he tentatively tried w/ the Inferno crew, but no-good) so the people aboard the Inferno are still just as zealous as before.[/b][/u]
and Sam left the Abyss with them… XD
If the interdiction went up w/ the a doomalogue inside wouldn’t the doomalogue’s connection to the Abyss be cut? If the interdiction becomes common you would just need to put Tommus and the local doomalogue inside the interdiction. Then they’d be trapped until Orcus gets outside the interdiction’s perimeter. If he tried to send an D’Orc it would fail, right? Since the chain of links goes Tom -> wand -> Abyss or Doomalogue -> Abyss. Based on what has been described he is unable to route Mt. Doom through a D’Orc since it seems they can’t draw on it directly like an avatar can with a godpool.
There is an easy way to save space. Unless you have something else to write with the various Orc clans heading to their local doomalogues you can just cut most of it out and rewrite it into more of a tell than show. Similar with Vaselles POV. At this point those journeying aren’t adding much emotion to the tale and they dilute any suspense for what is building on Nysegard.
Edit: to clarify, there are a lot of comedic or light-hearted moments in these scenes. These counter whatever Nysegard manages to build in the reader. But if you remove those moments then the scenes are boring. I’m starting to get a WoT vibe that makes them drag and are less interesting to read.
[quote=The Author Guy;5204]
As for your link suggestion. That is exactly what I did. The mana requirement for a link to go through interstellar, or inter-galactic distances is far far greater than going through other planes (such as the Astral plane–which is how Shamans on Starships communicate over such distances)Because links are interplanar by default, they will take the cheapest, lowest mana route to their destination. Going through real space is too costly. Specifically, I say that if he needed to force an interseller link he’d need to be able to concentrate and expend a lot of mana, hard to do in battle, however, an intergalactic link would require some magical artifacts to act as transmitters/boosters etc.
Thus Orcus, probably not even knowing where the other worlds were in real space didn’t have time to try and force localverse links.
[/quote]What would happen if another localverse link was the lowest cost alternative, but the lowest cost exceeded what would be automatically handled by the fail over protocols? Would Orcus just lose his link period until manually reestablished? Seems like a design flaw.
It’s just a lack of setup/foreshadowing in book 2. The easiest thing is to simply say he wasn’t involved with Mount Doom, but was Orcus’s son even though he as an active [u]god[/u]. Showed up to help w/ the fight at Etterdam out of filial affection/duty, but died there too.
Only, if he was a god then he had an outer plane and would have been able to escape from Etterdam since the outer plane block is new to the interdiction. So I guess him being an active god doesn’t work unless he faked his death or smuggled dear ol’ dad’s animus off of Etterdam and initiated a Phoenix Cycle for the both of them.
In book 2’s appendix on pantheons in Astlan it says:
Dis Pater: God of Fertile Riches, the Element of Earth, Minerals, Death and the Afterlife and Underworld Also known simply as Dis. A god of death and the underworld, but not a particularly dark god. Rather, a god who represents a return to the source of life, the richness of the soil and later rebirth and renewal.
Since Dis Pater is already is use does that mean Rupert / Dis has been present on Astlan while Orcus was gone? Or do we need to do a name change?
He doesn’t have to be an Earthly god does it? Especially if he just showed up on day after Doom was established. However, Dis Pater as a Grove god implies that he has worshippers and potentially a godpool. Also that he is a possibly a member of a pantheon.
You mean the Holy Knights; 20ft tall warriors armed to the teeth? Once the Saintly Gateways were up they should have been able to just pop over. I wonder if they only take to the battlefield alongside Tiernon?
I know said I’d wait, but if it is just spelling:
Torean said with more uncertainty [color=red]that[/color] one might have expected. –> [color=red]than[/color]
How can be of most assistance? –> How [color=red]I[/color] can be of [color=red]the [/color]most assistance?
Lord Tommus [color=red]Orcas[/color]? –> [color=red]Orcus[/color]
“What have you set up to get your people to the Outer Planes should they [color=red]bet killed[/color]?” –> [color=red]be killed[/color]
Is it [color=red]Ptah, pTah, pêTah, or pi-Tah[/color] (yes, this exists in book2). All of these exist (pi-Tah is book 2.)
They are [color=red]allayed[/color] with Orcus? –> [color=red]allied[/color]
“They need to save their energy for their undying [color=red]breathes[/color] when we finish them all off.” –> [color=red]breaths[/color]
Get thee behind me, Mikey, thou art an offense unto me for thou savourest not the things that be of The Author Guy, but those that be of insanity.
XD
