https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm96Cqu4Ils
Anyone got good dwarf stories?

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Thread theme: anything from the real world that inspires you.

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>>93737548
Born to a weaver and his wife, Bradley grew up with a younger brother named Fenton. She would sometimes tease her younger brother but always had his back. When she was 22 she met a man named Guy. He was a stranger in town and drew her in with his rough good looks and charm. He got a job working as a labourer in town and he eventually proposed to her. She accepted. Much to her parent’s disapproval, Bradley moved in with Guy before they were married. Bradley remained close to her young brother Fenton. Guy had a fondness for drinking and gambling and he soon lost his job as a labourer. In order to support themselves, Bradley got a job as a barmaid in the local tavern. Her charm and wit won her the admiration of many patrons. Bradley and Guy would often fight. Bradley would have to interfere when her patrons wanted to harm Guy out of concern for her. Guy continued drinking and gambling, spending all of Bradley’s hard earned money on his habits. Eventually Bradley had had enough. One day while Guy was out drinking, she grabbed all of his things and put them out on the front porch. When Guy returned home he banged and shouted at the door, but Bradley simply refused to let him in. After an hour of Guy banging on the door, finally she opened the door. Guy was furious. She took her engagement ring off her finger, handed it to him and smiled as she slammed the door in his face. Guy broke down in tears, but Bradley fought with all her impulses to not open the door and let him in. Eventually she went to bed. She went to work the next day and while at the tavern, Guy came in and confronted her. The patrons offered again to remove him from the tavern. This time Bradley nodded in approval. Three of the men from the bar grabbed Guy by his arms and dragged him out kicking and screaming.
1/2

>>93737585
“I think I’ll toast to that!”

Bradley said as she poured herself a drink. The whole bar roared in approval. Eventually Fenton found Bradley and told her that Guy had left town. After hearing this, Bradley walked into her house, looked around and smiled.

Bradley has now grown into a strong and confident woman who radiates an energy of determination. Whatever problems she has, she now knows can handle it. She is beloved at the tavern for her compassionate soul and strong spirit. She is considered a pillar of the community and there is no one her brother Fenton trusts more in the world. Bradley has everything she needs right where she is. And she’s not about to let anything else get in the way of that.
2/2

>>93737592
>>93737585

>>93737548
Basically the character "Guy" is inspired by real life pieces of shit who do stuff like that.

>>93737585
>>93737592
Feels like this should have something more... idk, more atypical? You've got to have some kind of hook, it's not enough to just give a character an abusive husband for backstory, there's got to be something more to it than that. Maybe find a clever way for her to get rid of him.

>>93730630
>How's by you?
Had two of my wisdom teeth extracted last Monday, and the other two at the beginning of August, so I've had better months. But fine other than that.

This is probably the better thread for this
Hey yall, someone from a Discord server I’m on just started writing a novel based on a Dark Heresy campaign. It’s about a group of acolytes dropping onto a rebel planet and working to end the rebellion. It's still early, but if you’re into 40k, check it out and tell me what you think
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iPyUWJRIHB96EETZJ9vJAlZ-Wa0IasnRfynP6CfN5Y4/edit
Feedback helps

>>93710279
I only had time to read the first ten pages or so, but I thought this was quite good. I didn't really see any problems with your writing, and I really liked how the main story was interspersed with various kinds of in-universe files; reminded me of the old 3rd edition rulebook and codex lore from around that time.

>>93711572
This is fine as a piece of writing in isolation, but it's not the most gripping start to a novel. 'Show, don't tell' is entry-level writing advice that tends to be over-applied (it's not a movie and if you showed everything the pacing would be terrible), however, in this instance I think it would be better to start off with more demonstration and less exposition.

>>93737833
Fucking OUCH. You have my sympathies. Swift recovery.

Lads, how to make a villain as grand as Palpatine?

The villain I am writing is a vampire wizard who is separated from his people on the moon and wants to reunite with them to get their empire back. He is the guiding hand of the united human kingdom and one of the grand magical authorities on the continent.

His role in the story is to be a mentor/adversary to the main character, a lesser wizard with dangerous power that the vampire wizard, now written as VW, wants to grow and fatten before the slaughter so that he can usher in his compatriots.
The Moon is in anarchy and his civilization is ruined
His current actions implicate MC in a murder plot and blackmail him for various crimes he has committed, which would increase.

If anyone has any advice for running such type of characters in tabletop or have written some for your own books, please help.

>>93737833
>abusive husband
I don't know if I would call Bradley's fiance Guy "abusive". More just a shitty deadbeat loser.

This might sound like a silly question, but how do I more easily let go of ideas I feel aren't working? In worldbuilding especially. Frequently I think up ideas for the world, the cosmology, a factions politics, whatever, and then realize soon after that the idea has problems, but my natural urge is to try to jam things together or clumsily paint over the problems with fitting the idea into the world. I really should just be letting them go completely so I can stop them from influencing my thoughts process. Any tips for just letting stuff go that you feel isn't working?

>>93742160
It's not silly. In fact many authors have the same issues as you do and even the Tolkien had those. Tolstoy's wife rewrote War and Peace 7 times before it was good enough for publishing.
I like to do the thing called cool ideas box/document/folder where I inanely dump shit in that seems cool to me, but not neccessary for the book. Sometimes I look at them and think where I can better put that thing, can I make it work in a different aspect, why did I think it was cool and so on and on.
If you could share more in detail, perhaps other anons and I would be glad to help

So I have a story that begins with the foundling son of a deity being raised by a circus troupe

The deity's son is the third son and the holy order is trying to search for him. Because the troupe moves from place to place they have immense difficulty locating him.

I wanted a chapter where a group of the holy men realize that the child is with a family that travels around when the holy men see a traveling merchant and his children. But I also wanted a performance of the troupe to be a chapter.

Which one do you think would be better as an opener?

>>93742559
Sure, it happens a lot but I'll give the most common example. I constantly have an urge whenever I'm writing a new setting or world to tie it into a larger "unified" setting that a lot of my worlds already take place in, usually indirectly. Without getting into too much detail, basically several of my stories operate under the same cosmology, which is that they all exist on top of a foundational layer of reality which is a chaotic mess. Think kinda the inverse of Plato's World of Forms; it's a dimension pure thought but all the "forms" that live in it blend together into an unstable indistinguishable mess rather than representing static eternal ideals.There's more to it but it doesn't matter. Anyway, since that premise is so versatile and since I've already thought about it so much for previous settings, I'm constantly tempted to tie any new worldbuild for a completely separate setting into it. Not even tempted, it's almost like my thinking is just subconsciously already primed to think about worldbuilding within the context of that premise. Sometimes it does work, but very frequently it either results in stifling whatever new worldbuilding I'm doing, or me having to retrofit cosmologies together between the old and the new, usually resulting in something that feels very clunky and unintuitive.

Reading what I just wrote I really made it seem as if I'm completely stuck in this kind of thinking, but it's not that big a deal. I can definitely switch gears with a little diligence, but it is annoying. And yeah this is just the most common example, but it happens for smaller scale stuff too. Usually just ideas I realize aren't gonna work anymore but I don't want to abandon. Luckily most can be repurposed, of course.

>>93743884
If I was reading this the former idea would definitely catch my interest more. Especially if it starts abruptly with the holy men in the middle of their search, and the reader has to figure out what the situation is through context clues in the dialogue/search rather than through exposition.

You could make the latter work too though, both are options. Is the son the main POV of the story for the majority of it?

>>93744304
I think that's a good idea. I think I'll have the first chapter the holy sages are exhausted and tired from their failed search before realizing the child is moving place to place. Then the next chapter they question several traveling merchants, before they realize it's the circus troupe in town. That's a good call on the situation being revealed through dialogue.

Then they watch a performance of the troupe and that's where the performance chapter is.

The son is one of the main POVs for the story yes.

>>93744558
Yeah, sounds good to me. I'd go that route for sure.

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Man who the fuck put me up to come up with 13 different unique demonlord designs all with their own non-overlapping niches while still keeping them cool and interesting.

Ive made it 10ish deep over the years but now Im struggling with the last 3.

>>93744948
What are your 10?

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>>93744979
Oh boy if I really went indepth on all of them I might take up the whole thread. So Ill try to keep it brief.

From left to right we got
>typical mafioso mysterious type that just wants to keep to himself and enjoy the luxuries of the physical world. Also happens to be the main villain. Powers are mainly general demon stuff but also [big spoilers]
>Warden of a demon prison. Formerly an angel prison but he (and the guy above technically) took over and corrupted it. Is actually an unending abomination of flesh and mass that just wants to keep to itself and collect curiousities but then the damn protagonists come around to break into his place. How rude. Powers include shapeshifting, mindreading, general eldritch shenanigans and other stuff.
>The exile of the group. This guy is less evil antagonist and more ruthless antihero. He is cursed with omniscience (he can literally see everything that is to happen and has perfect knowledge down to where a single atom may be and how it will move). Unfortunately because he knows fate, he is chained to it and cannot act upon it in any way. Still he does some stuff (like he went on a killing spree of other previous demonlords not shown here) Powers include the aforementioned omniscience but also a sort of mimmicry of the main powers of all the other demonlords.
>Another sort of outcast, this one self-imposed. She follows her own path and beliefs and they don't align with the others - mainly because she considers life to be sacred above all else. Which puts her in direct opposition to the one next to her, they don't get along. Her main power is mastery over a demonic lightning/electricity which in turn fuels her powers of necromancy and magnetism. Most other demonlords here have necromancy and such in their arsenal, but she's canonically the most powerful of them all in that section.
cont.

>>93745253
Cool, but I kinda assumed they'd all share some common theme, like maybe domains over certain sins, or fears, or even colors or something. Then I'd have suggested some additional options. When it's like this only you can come up with the last 3, lol. Still, feel free to continue posting.

>>93745253
>>93744979
>The rival to the previous one. She's the second oldest of the group, having been around since the dawn of life itself. She believes death to be sacred, shocker, and that the cycle must be preserved no matter what. She used to be nicer but millennia of taking a nap and waking up to seeing how fucked the world is (not talking about global warming or things like that, the protagonists kind of FUCK up the world royally) have kind of turned her into a royal asshole. Her powers include decay, mastery over plant and insectlife, and a brush that has a sort of reality-bending effect.
>Snake lady is a newer demonlord, and she's basically the Warden's lover/sub. Where he runs the prison, she's basically his right-hand woman doing all the errands and keeping the human prisoners in check. She has powers of illusion and poisons, and has a pretty special relationship with one of the protagonists.
>This guy's the lord of hell. Everyone else hates him and he hates them back. He also has main villain status alongside the first guy. Where plantlady is an asshole by consequence, he's just an absolutely insufferable prick from birth who thinks his idea of justice and balance is the only one that is right. His powers include general hellfire, demonic things with an emphasis on chains as a symbol. He's also ripped and can throw down like nobody's business.
cont.

>>93745325
>>93745253
>Lastly we have ghost lady. She's one of the several demonlords that exile (number 3) killed. Or helped kill in this particular case. Her deal is that she's currently stuck as backup soul inside a demon hunter. When she fought the demon hunter (and the exile) she died and the demon-hunter had his soul all but ripped out, so in order to not die he took hers to survive. She's mainly been docile for the longest time, basically acting as his weapon but for a while in the story she's "woken up" and started acting more antsy, threatening to break out of the demon hunter's body if he isnt careful. Her powers lie in the domain of cold.

Actually, I tried keeping it brief, but they all do have a sort of common theme running. Basically, all of them are just physical vessels for greater cosmic "negative concepts", generally more nebulous forces of nature that were birthed when the creator God of the setting made "light". The scales of this god cast shadows on the void, and these shadows ended up being these "Silences". I'm skipping through a lot of worldbuilding to show how godlike beings decided to embody clowns and such but that's the general jist of it.

From left to right we got
>Silence of [Spoilers]
>Silence of Despair
>Silence of Regret
>Silence of Chaos
>Silence of Decay
>Silence of Obsession
>Silence of Sin
>Silence of Cold

You may notice there's only 8 but I mentioned 10 initially, that's cause I have some notes/plans about the next 2 but I havent gotten around to getting pics or writing them into the story yet.

>>93745253
did you draw all those pics? Cause holy crap I'm learning a bit of drawing and drew some of my stuff for writing but it's nowhere near that good.

>>93745958
I have an artist friend that I commission to draw a bunch of my story stuff. I wish I was that good.

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>>93741071
I have plans for a very similar line of villains.
Five evil elves, the only survivors of their evil civilization. They've been wandering the world for ten thousand years.

I haven't fully worked out the details of how it will work, but they plan to open a time stasis vault that contains thousands of evil elves that were sealed away. Maybe they were in some krypton phantom zone prison, maybe they were caught in an accident, maybe it can only be accessed at some celestial alignment that happens every ten thousand years, whatever.

The point is, super bad guys with absurdly high power levels that have been keeping to themselves. In the plot they'll eventually manage to almost complete their goal. The leader of the five is the arcane wizard master.

My plan is that one of the five they thought of as the big dumb guy will just ask, "wait, why are we doing this? Do we really want them back? Wouldn't they just compete with us?" I'm not totally sure where it will all go.

Anyways.

I think you have a few thoughts about where to go. I think you need to be careful about your plan where the twist is that the villain could never have completed his plan at all. This would be a real anti-climax and could almost ruin your story. The audience would be following along, all set up and hyped for a big climax apocalypse, then BAM, nothing happens.

Next post has some ideas for what to do with the concept of, "BBEG is going to complete plan/ritual/spell/machine to usher in the apocalypse but it doesn't work and would never have worked in the first place"

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>>93747276
So, what to do with the big story climax where the Big Bad Evil Guy has a plan to doom the world, but plan doesn't work and would never have worked at all, even though the villain completed the plan, did the right things.. Nox from Wakfu is a great example of this.

Here are some ideas.

>#1: Villain secretly knew it would never work, but he's crazy and blanked it out of his mind.
He has a breakdown when the plan succeed-fails, goes into some crazy hyper unleashed beast mode and hero and friends beat him up and save the day. You could play up the difference between his regular calm controlled self and unfettered crazy mode. Like, the crazy mode is his true self.

>#2: Villain only finds out plan was impossible at climax of story when he does it.
If this is NOT the only big climax of the story, you can have him get depressed, give up, suicide, whatever. If it IS the only climax even of the story, you can't deny the audience the satisfaction of a big action scene, make him go crazy, big final fight.

>#3: The plan would have worked, but Villain does something that screws it up, now it fails and can never be tried again.
You can introduce early in the story the character traits and story plot points that will cause the villain to self-sabotage himself. BBEG can go crazy, big final fight. Not totally satisfying because the heroes didn't do anything, but can be neat.

>#4: The plan would have worked, but Hero sabotages it, now it fails and can never be tried again
Can lead to the ultimate grudge-match cage-fight between hero and villain, but doesn't seem to fit with your plan

>#5: Plan fails, would never have worked, Villain moves on
If the BBEG was completely competent and mentally sane this would make the most sense, but it's not satisfying as a true climax for a story. Just imagine, BBEG throws up their hands, runs away, will come up with new plan to try again. Maybe time travel or reality-warping magic. Probably don't do this.

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Top-tier evil lair.

>>93747388
Thanks for the in depth answer, anon, I did think of Nox when I wrote that post.
Its still too far ahead to really figure out a definitive ending to him as instead of bringing moon wizards to Earth or opening a gate to that place, MC just teleports those present at the final battle on the moon to spite both forces that have manipulated him
From your suggestions I really like 2 to 4 as it does give some wiggle room. In my opinion it would be pretty baller to have the MC sort of coax and taunt the defeated villain into one last glorious magicians duel to the death in single combat as he still has some professional respect towards the vampire.

>>93747276
>My plan is that one of the five they thought of as the big dumb guy will just ask, "wait, why are we doing this? Do we really want them back? Wouldn't they just compete with us?" I'm not totally sure where it will all go.
I think it is best if the question itself never occurs to the reader. The five often ponder about the good old days, or how they hate the current world. Maybe the most vocal of them actually has someone they care about, sealed up, and pushes for the plan for that reason alone. Only at the very precipice one of them goes; "Hey, you guys also remember the bad times?"

I don't know if thisThis is the best General to talk about this but how often do sci-fi settings have two sentencing species from one planet? Like I imagine most of them would be like closer to sub species in a holy different kind of animal but sanction without being closely distant genetic wise But there's probably a few cool things you can do with it. I think there might be one or two examples in Star Wars thinking of the fish planet with the first person King who had squid people subjects from the raceof it's a trap guy.

>Party are being taken as prisoners to see the king, a powerful wizard
>Among their group is one random thief, who none of them know
>While waiting to see the king, the thief becomes increasingly paranoid, he realizes he's the odd one out and convinces himself that he's to be violently killed as an example of the king's magical power
>Party is unable to talk him down, he eventually picks the lock on his handcuffs, and bolts for the door, right as the king opens it
>The thief is violently killed as an example of the king's magical power
I want to show off the king being cool but want to avoid the "suddenly assassins" trope, is this too on the nose?

>>93755408
Well, Earth had at least two different sentient species not so long ago: humans and Neanderthals.

One group migrates out of their species original range, climate shifts and the land bridge disappears, and the two populations evolve in isolation for a few million years. Voila: two separate sentient species. Would have happened in the Americas if Columbus hadn't ruined everything.

>>93751094
>Maybe the most vocal of them actually has someone they care about, sealed up, and pushes for the plan for that reason alone
Excellent idea. I'd say this is critical even.

>>93758083
I think it'd be funnier if it was possible for the party to convince him that he's going to be fine, but he just gets immediately blown up anyway.

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Rome was a decaying carcass. Once the heart of an empire, it was now little more than a gutter—filled with the collected shit and piss of a million pilgrims. The only testament to its forgotten history was sealed away in the Church, where muck and slime seemed to wick from its immaculate bastions, and covetously hoarded by priests afflicted with their own plagues of corruption, greed, and contemptible ambition. Even the air was thick with a foulness that clung to the skin, a reminder that in Rome, the holiest of cities and the cradle of civilization, the devil’s hand was never far from the throats of the pious.

Felix DeWinter rode slowly through the crumbling outskirts, the late sun casting long shadows across the ancient stone road. Just beside him, tethered by a frayed rope to his saddle, trotted a goat. Its coat was black with white stripes down its face that mirrored the spiraling horns atop its head, a common feature in all Toggenburger goats. Beneath its chin was a long tuft of hair that gave the appearance of a goatee. It trundled along, its hip bones rhythmically swaying side to side, unbothered by the week-long trek.

Felix had been sent by the College of Cardinal Bishops to retrieve the goat. A small village in Württemberg on the Swiss border, where the goat was discovered, had been on the brink of hysteria when Felix arrived. The villagers had petitioned the Vatican for aid. A talking goat, they claimed—a demon in animal form that whispered blasphemies in the dead of night, wilting crops with its foul breath, and souring milk with bewitching stares. Felix had scoffed at the idea. He’d heard of many things in his years serving the Church, but a talking goat seemed more like the ravings of simple minds than a genuine threat to the faithful.

>>93760551

Yet, orders were orders. The Cardinals had sent him to investigate. When the complex chess board of ecclesiastical politicking needed a blunt instrument, they had options in abundance, but when a simple pawn would not do, Felix DeWinter was their silent scalpel—he was the bishop they moved on the board. As a penitent, his path to redemption was paved with such duties—witch hunts, exorcisms, assassinations. All done in secrecy. He choked down thoughts of his unspeakable past deeds, the specific skills the Church was so eager to possess for themselves. Now he only lived to serve, and serve well, until his soul was worthy of forgiveness.

The scuffle to claim the goat had been brief but not without some brutality. The villagers, half-mad with fear, had refused to let it leave their village alive. They claimed the beast had cursed their lands, its malevolent whispers creeping through their shutters at night, poisoning their thoughts and corrupting their kin. Felix had dealt with worse, and a few sharp blows from the flat of his small sword had been enough to cow them into submission. He took the goat, bound its mouth shut to silence any devilish whispers, and made haste back to Rome.

He approached St. Peter's Basilica, built atop the foundations of Nero’s circus. Beside it stood the obelisk, stolen from Egypt and erected by Caligula a millennia earlier. Madmen both. Before it was the Vatican it was a swamp beside the Tiber—in many ways it still was. Felix tugged at the rope, dragging the reluctant billy goat through the grand gates and into the hallowed halls, each painted with beautiful frescoes of angels, golden instruments, and fat little cherubs, all finished in gold leaf. The goat, head held high with a defiance that was curious for a mere animal, clopped along beside him, its hooves echoing off the cold marble floor.

>>93760557

The Cardinals were waiting in a dimly lit chamber filled with flickering candles, their faces obscured by the hoods of their crimson vestments and short shoulder capes. Felix bowed deeply, trying to ignore the goat's bleating, which seemed to grow louder with every step.

"DeWinter," croaked the head Cardinal, Cardinal Pietro della Torre, his voice oozing with condescension. "You bring us the cursed creature?"

"Aye, Your Eminence," Felix replied, his tone respectful but weary carried through the well-lit hall. "Though cursed, I am not sure. It talks, they told me. Whispered to them in the dead of night. But all it’s done since it came into my custody is bleat incessantly like any other goat.”

The goat, as if understanding the exchange, let out a particularly loud and indignant bleat, stomping its hooves on the floor.

"Do you believe it bewitched?" another Cardinal asked, leaning forward to peer at the animal with suspicion. His own black goatee was a perfect match. “Hideous,” he spat.

Felix shrugged. "I believe the villagers were indeed afraid. But were their invective and ire mistakenly placed upon an innocent beast through ignorance? I cannot say for certain. But I think it likely.”

The head Cardinal raised his voice again, “But can it speak?”

“It’s a goat. I have no evidence to the contrary.”

The head Cardinal frowned, his gaze shifting between Felix and the goat. "Yet they beseeched us for aid. They feared this creature enough to send for our help. You, Canis Dei, who have hunted witches and demons across the breadth of Christendom. Do you think these simple folk would lie?”

Felix bristled. "I do not. They believe, aye. But men believe many things when harvests go bad and plague tears through their hearths. A desperate man will believe anything. Sometimes it’s easier to put a blame on something you can see—something you can control.”

>>93760563

"Then let us see for ourselves," the head Cardinal said, his voice hardening. He stepped forward, bending down over the goat in his long red robe, golden jewelry hanging from his neck. "Speak, creature, and reveal your master!” He squinted his eyes in cold seriousness. “Be it Satan?”

The goat blinked, its expression unreadable. For a long moment, the chamber was filled with nothing but the empty silence of wearing patience. Then, the goat tilted its head and let out a long, low bleat. The sound rang through the chamber, empty of all meaning, and utterly ordinary.

The Cardinal tried again, his crooked nose just inches away from the goat this time, “I command you, speak!” He sent a sideways eye at the animal, and then tried French. “Ou en français s'il vous plaît, diable de chèvre!” And then in Latin, “Lingaticum sanctorum combustit?”

The goat seemed not to know English, French, or Latin. Felix could not blame the creature for not knowing Latin—the declensions could be challenging to memorize.

The Cardinals exchanged glances, their suspicion giving way to doubt. The head Cardinal turned to Felix, his expression dripping with frustration. "Is this your idea of a jest, DeWinter?”

Felix held his ground. "No jest, Your Eminence.”

Another Cardinal spoke out, “Are we certain this is the right goat?”

The goat, as if in response, bleated again, louder this time, and stomped its hooves with a stubbornness that bordered on comical. One of the younger Cardinals snorted, barely able to contain his laughter.

The head Cardinal scowled, his patience worn thin. "Enough of this nonsense. If the creature refuses to speak, then it surely cannot, and then it is not bewitched, and this is no work of the devil. Come, DeWinter. I have more pressing matters to discuss."

Felix's heart sank. He had hoped for some reprieve, some rest after the grueling journey, but the head Cardinal's tone left no room for argument.

>>93760573

"Very well," Felix said, bowing once more. "What would you have me do?"

The head Cardinal stepped closer, lowering his voice so only Felix could hear. "You are to go to Normandy. There is something there, something of great importance to the Church. We have received word of a… holy relic. It is known as the Light."

Felix frowned. "What sort of relic is it, Your Eminence?”

"That is not for you to know," the Cardinal replied, his tone allowing for no further questions. "You are to retrieve it and bring it back to Rome. Safely. Do this, and your penance will be well on its way to absolution."

Felix nodded. "As you wish. But how will I know what to bring, if I do not know what this relic is?”

“There is an abbey, a mile off the coast of Northern France. There is an abbot there. He will guide you.”

Felix nodded. “And the goat?"

The head Cardinal waved a dismissive hand. "It is blasphemous for an animal to be within a house of God, and I will not have it fouling these holy halls with its presence. Take it with you.”

“What am I to do with it?”

“Your intentions are your own.” The head Cardinal turned and moved towards the others. “I suggest a red wine marinade to soften up the meat—goat can be tough.”

Felix shouted out a reply, “I don’t know if I’ve had goat.”

“It tastes like mutton.” And with a wave of his jeweled hand, Felix was dismissed.

He bit back a sigh and bowed once more. He took the goat's rope in hand and led the stubborn beast out of the chamber, the sound of its bleating following him as he exited the building through its grand church doors and headed into the night.

>>93760580

Pilgrims tended to be illiterate, so inns did not have names. Instead, they used imagery above their doors. This one was of a blue fox. Felix knew it, and unsurprisingly, it was called The Blue Fox. It was a welcome sight after the long journey. Felix tied his horse to a post, and before he could find a place to put the goat, it promptly jumped atop the horse and stood there, staring down at him on top of the saddle. Its eyes were like polished stones.

"You’ll be mutton stew if you keep this up," Felix muttered darkly, though he knew he wouldn’t follow through with it. The goat was maddening, but it was also strangely endearing. Anything that made the Cardinals flustered was worth keeping around—for now.

He tossed it one last look, waiting for it to speak. There was no response. Felix shook his head, then headed inside the inn for much-needed rest.

The innkeeper was jovial and welcoming, a pudgy man with sleeves pulled up to his armpits revealing thick black hair covering his arms all the way up to the shoulders. Felix bought a room for the night, a private one which cost extra, and some feed for the horse. He snapped his fingers, and requested two carrots as well. He decided the goat deserved a treat, too.

Felix gave one carrot to his horse, a large but lean destrier, and offered the other to the goat. The goat did not immediately take the offering, choosing instead to stare at Felix.

“I promise, it’s not poisoned.” Felix placed his hand on the head of the goat and patted it firmly. “What should I call you? I certainly can’t call you the goat.” A wry smile carved its way across Felix’s face, “How about Mutton?”

The goat seemed to take offense, which only confirmed that Mutton would be its name.

>>93760588

The inn’s upstairs room was small but clean. The bed was dirty linen stuffed with hay, but still a welcome relief. Felix removed his knee-high boots and took off his black leather long coat. He then unbuckled his belt, which held a matchlock pistol with a flint starter he always kept loaded with a single lead ball, and a small sword with a silver hilt that was an arm and a half’s length. He ran his hands through his long black hair, straightening it with his fingers, and then laid down for the night. But not long after he had drifted off, a voice, low and insistent, whispered in his ear.

"Wake up."

Felix’s eyes snapped open, every sense on high alert. He reached for the hand cannon, still hanging from the headboard as the door creaked open. Three shadows slipped into the room, knives glinting in the dim light. Assassins.

With a fluid motion born from a life of violence, Felix rolled from the bed and fired. Sparks and smoke from the flint firing mechanism shot out and blinded him momentarily. The first man dropped, the lead ball penetrating deep into his neck. Blood poured in an arc from the wound like an overfilled wine skin. The shot was fatal. The second lunged, but Felix was faster, drawing his sword and driving it through the man's chest.

The third hesitated, but only for a moment. Felix’s blade found him before he could take another step, the steel cutting through flesh and bone with grim precision. That's why Felix preferred the small sword over the rapier. Rapiers were overly long, flashy—bad in close quarters. The wider, shorter blade of the small sword made it more durable, and every cut was twice as wide, slicing through double the internal organs. Although that did tend to result in twice the blood—twice the viscera.

>>93760598

Silence fell over the room, save only Felix's heavy breathing. He wiped the blood from his sword and peered into the darkness around him, surveying the scene and listening for any others. He was safe, for now. Who had sent them? They looked to be peasantry—short, stocky people with skin tanned and shriveled by the sun. They were not professional killers. Not like him.

He turned toward the open window, his instincts telling him there was more to this than a simple attempt on his life. But before he could investigate further, a familiar sound reached his ears—a low, mocking bleat from the street below.

Felix froze. That voice… Mutton could talk.

>>93751409 Great thread for inspiration

>>93759398
That would have taken a few million years.

Plus the vikings had found the America's in the middle ages, and it's believed that right before the spanish showed up the Incans had started trading with the polynesians.

>>93717790
Anon. This is insane. I want to read it

>>93767836
It only took a few hundred thousand for Neanderthals and humans to diverge. Maybe as little as 100k years, and not more than 500k years.

There's no set time it takes for speciation to happen. It depends very much on population size and selective pressure.

>Party disables villain, leave him to be ripped apart by his slaves
>Way later on, another villain gets dragged to Literal Hell by the spirits of his victims after main character lures him close enough
Are these two deaths repetitive? I just really like the "villain is suddenly at the mercy of his victims" trope.

>>93783369
>small number of instances
>each happened a while apart from one another
>execution differs enough to not be identical
I'd say you're fine.

>>93762563
I've always thought this kind of table-top mountain is one of the best landscapes for storytelling. You can put anything on top of one of them - dinosaurs, Neanderthals, a lost city - and have a plausible explanation why no one has ever discovered them before.

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>Finish outlining, about to actually start chapter 1 (rough draft)
>Realize my main character doesn't have a dad
I actually have no idea how this happened. It's especially weird because the death of my main character's mother as a child is a huge defining moment for her. I just... forgot about a dad???

Now I'm torn between hastily adding a "find father" arc, have him get eaten by the same being that ate MC's mother, or lean into it as a gag, where every time she's about to say who he is she gets interrupted, and it's just never revealed.

>>93748364
South American Megacorporation Chac-olate LtD. this week unveiled plans for a massive office building in Downtown Neo-Santiago incredibly close to the shoreline! The properties set to be destroyed were tenement housing owned by the company, and according to our sources they're currently not vacant, leading most in our newsroom to naturally assume the current occupants are set to be evicted in the coming months. This isn't the first time we've seen this sort of thing in Panama, notorious for rampant corporate corruption, but the opinion of this holo-station is that this is beyond the pale. Well, that's it for world events this hour. Please tune in at exactly 7:00 UTC for your next drip-feeding of world political happenings.

>>93760551
>>93760599
I enjoyed this, anon. No notes, the story was good and in general the prose was well-written.

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>decide I’m going to write a fantasy story based of my recent trip to Nepal and the Himalayas
>how long could it possibly be?
>rough draft version that’s supposed to be my sparknotes has just passed 10k words, and the characters have only just (in the real life equivalent) gotten off the plane and into the hotel
at this rate the rough draft alone is going to possibly be 70k words

>>93792428
You can just make the father inconsequential for the mother and the character if you want to avoid the classic trope. Example:
"Where's my dad?Most village children have dads" the child's big eyes watered as she stood before her mother
"I don't know, nor do I care"Mother spoke quietly, sighing as she knelt to see her daughter eye to eye"He was a wanderer who sold me all the stars in a sky for a kiss and when I told him I was with you, he left in a hurry. I have no need for such a man as a husband, or a father for you, sweetling."

Or you can just have the protagonist be conceived with magical means as it's your story.

I had this cool idea regarding adventurers and their integration within the kingdom that they serve. Once high enough level they are considered nobles and would have their own coat of arms by merit alone. However, there I was thinking that existing nobility wouldn't want this as that implies any ruffian can be on their level, but they can't go against the will of the King there, so my idea was that the adventurer Lords would have a speciffic crest shape with only changing elements being the colours, shield elements etc

>>93796612
this is literally oldschool dnd with the exception of not being accepted, with the in universe reasoning that might makes right and all lords are either former adventurers or most usually from an accomplished line where one distinguished themselves either through war or adventuring

So, we're playing an evil monster campaign. Good races are oppressed, monster races rule. We're army members, handling resistance groups. As weird as it sounds, we're not murderhoboing evil. We just do our job, at times rebels attack citizens too, after all. And we're not fully trusting of the government either, more like mercenaries who try to gain status.

I want ideas on how to flesh out my character's personality. He's an illithid sorcerer (yes, sorcerer, not psion). I know how to have him act towards enemies, there's a smug superiority that fits an illithid vs lower(non monstrous) races and his mind reading stuff can make him a good interrogator when questioning them, slimey and manipulative, without being directly violent. Hans Landa style. To superiors he's mostly polite and accommodating for pragmatic reasons.

What I have trouble is finding out how he should act when things are normal. Aka, among equals, party members/friends, when he has nothing to gain or worry about. I'm trying to find a voice/style for him. So far he's mostly like you'd expect a curious, not that moral magical scholar to be. Wants to learn, encourages others to do so, doesn't stir the pot much. Meh. Workable, but simple. At first I had him be very closed/paranoid -due to being more independent from the elder brains since he traveled far from them, which led him to realize how much they control the colonies, thus making him generally mistrustful-. But I realized being very mistrusting isn't that helpful for interacting with the world and other characters.

So I want all your ideas/thoughts on how such a character would be fun to act among his peers. Maybe something to showcase the alienessness of the illithid? Or some overt hunger/curiosity for the world and the thoughts/feelings of those around him? Just, whatever, any thought you might have, be it for general attitude to minor ticks, even speaking patterns.

>>93798700
Illithids are long-term thinkers, and even outside the influence of the elder brains they're naturally controlling. Try considering what your character's long-term goal is, then consider how his instinct to dominate and manipulate everything around him to further that goal clashes with his desire to shake off the modes of thinking instilled in him by the elder brains.

>>93798700
considering it seems like a variety of different evil monster races it seems like this would be a grand time to highlight actual day-to-day life of an illithid. How does his feeding schedule work out with everyone else's day, does he go out and hunt, or is he supplied minds directly, what would be his preference?

This sort of examination can really hone you in on the fun bits of your character, I played an evil, undead, Yuan-ti monstrosity who was unbound by the idea of restrictions or morality in his research. Rather than figuring out what that meant on a specific moment to moment basis, I wanted to explore how that might manifest in his magic, an absent minded

What that turned into was flavoring my heat metal as a flying ant that affixed itself to a foe's armour and vibrated so quickly it burned, or the message spell as an undead sparrow with a wildly distended belly that inflated with your message, and upon spewing the message out of the vocal cord riddled crest in its throat, would simply drop-dead (again). This lead to a helpful and somewhat polite Artificer who would ask if you might be interested in having more or less arms after he healed you. The party was both happy to have him and also wildly disturbed by him.

Leave the "has a tic whenever he brings up his original body" for the DM's list of random npcs and focus on the slice of life your character would have excluding his party, then use that to bring context to how he would act around them

>>93805032

an absent minded me apparently. mad genius who will provides healthcare wherever he goes in exchange for money, organs, or use as a guinea pig

>>93737517
stilted speech schizoid here, I need a dialogue check for my genre fiction immediately. All you need to know is that this is dialogue between two apprentices of magical arts

Ronic nudged Teren and pulled him back so the others couldn’t hear. “I might have let some things slip about you to my master.”
Teren stopped walking. “Huh?”
Ronic shuffled his feet nervously. “Nothing bad, really. I just… told him about some of the stuff we used to get up to.”
The gravesealer apprentice closed his eyes, holding back a curse. “What stuff, exactly?”
“Well… do you remember that time we had to get back at that Forestsworn who was beating on Birene? And you didn’t want to fight him head on? And then you coaxed the soul of his dead mother in that rotting dog and-“
“Aw, no.” Teren rubbed his eyes. “You told Quickstrider about that? Why?”
Ronic shrugged. “I don’t know, he asked about you. It was a pretty impressive thing for a kid to do.”
“You-“ Teren bit his lip. “Gah! I thought life was sacred to your order! You can’t tell him that I do stuff like that.” He glared at his friend. “Bet you didn’t tell him about the time you gave that little kid from Drifton the shakes.”
“That, uh, didn’t come up. Besides, I have no idea how I did that. Wouldn’t be right to take credit for it.”
1/2

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>>93805585
Teren narrowly avoided stepping in a pile of cow dung. “Bet he gives you credit, though. I heard he foamed at the mouth for a month.”
“True. But…” Ronic raised a finger. “I’m sorry about that. You aren’t sorry for anything, ever.”
Teren was taken back. “I feel sorry for lots of things.”
Ronic shook his head. “I am positive that I’ve never seen you remorseful, Teren.”
“I apologize for things all the time!”
“There’s no meaning behind the words though. It’s just something you say to get people off your back.”
There was a truth in that statement Teren didn’t want to acknowledge. “The… fact that I don’t want Quickstrider to know about things I’ve done… implies guilt and remorse for those actions.”
Ronic cackled. “No, it’s more of you just trying to keep people off your back! I know you, you can’t deal with being disliked. Which I’m sure Quickstrider doesn’t, by the way.
Teren grunted. He could deal with people disliking him. The only issue was that his ideas on dealing with those people tended to be very permanent.

>>93737517
Now i'm working on a storyline about Mage the Awekening but in the Future World of Darkness Setting, so cybepunk+WOD: I was thinking to make plots inspired(stolen) from deus ex, Tekwar, batman beyond and x-files and making it even episodic like old RPGs or series, like "monster of the week" or "Conspiracy of the week".
Ideas for each episodes just need to put it in order:
>Cult of AI and NET worshipers want to merge their minds together and create a super AI and live in the net, the cult boss is an awakened guy but doesn't know it and will fuck up, the reality why they go to him and try to stop him because one of the player is related to a guy or girl that now is in the cult and need to be saved.
>Mobsters use the net tech to put girls and men in comatose state inside and block them in a VR Brothel and are now slaves to this reality, need to be saved(the quest begins that the players don't know the people are comatose and maybe can kill them if unpluged)
>The Technocracy is hunting one of their own because is making some problems, he made a VR machine that can change minds and it's making his little army of thugs to experiment on them because he dream of a "FORCED" consensus that can work, the pg need to find him
>Iteration X Swat breach into a "magical party" in rundown block where faes, vampires and other creatures are making the "LAST PARTY" before the Armageddon.
Everything will connect to an end story where the gahenna armageddon ascension war and what not is gonna happen soon and the technocracy is getting desperate because they are sure at 99% that in 2020 the end of the world will happen and many of them are trying to make the "Consensus" Real and try to kill every magical creature before it happens
The theme is
>Too little too late.