Writing General: 'unusual monsters' edition.Welcome to /wg/, the thread for all /tg/ related writing. Whether you're plotting your campaign, trying to come up with a character backstory, or just trying to write some setting fluff, this is the place to post it. You don't even have a campaign, just an idea you want to develop? You're welcome here. While the rest of /tg/ is arguing over monstergirl mating and which way rivers are supposed to flow, we're here to help you turn your thoughts into an actual finished product.As the successor to the Storythreads, we're also open to /tg/ related fanfiction (D&D, Warhammer, Battletech, whatever). In fact, if you've written any vaguely /tg/-related short stories, you can try them out here. We also have flash-fiction challenges from time to time.There's a discord for writers herehttps://discord.gg/6AwKHGFThe previous thread can still be found in the archive here>>93889469And finally an archive of /tg/ fiction can be found here:http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Storythread (dead link, but may be resurrected one day)https://2d4chan.org/wiki/Storythreadhttps://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Storythread
We've all seen plenty of dragons, griffins, werewolves, vampires, giant spiders, etc, etc. But what about the monsters that don't appear often? What's your favourite non-traditional monster? Have you created any for your games or stories?
>>93956526At first I used wendigos since they were more "uncommon" then over time I developped into just coming up with my own freaky eldritch abominations. Its become quite fun.
>>93956526This bad boy has been my excuse for sending parties into the bowls of dreams & exorcisms on the fly for years. Latch a tentacle onto your head and put the ‘main’ dreamer in the middle and bam. Dreamscape adventure, proceed to kill a memory of a clone of a phantom of a metaphor of something haunting the player.
>>93955820In my story’s world, once every hundred years there’s a great tournament for a user of every group of magic/type of spell, with the winner of each round gaining all the magical knowledge and skill of the loser (types with more combat utility from the get-go might have to enter in the second or third rounds for balance reasons though), the mages growing stronger as the tournament continues, until the final winner becomes the most powerful mage in the world, and the head of the mage's council for the next century, kind of like Highlander but less lethal and with magic and not swords. I just need some more types/specialties of magic in order to pad out the brackets a bit, no matter how if they don't seem useful in direct combat or not like healing spells or the various kinds of divination, since I want to have every branch of magic possible to be included in this besides the go-to ones like illusions, summoning, elemental spells, or necromancy. It doesn’t matter how specific or broad your suggestions are.
>>93956526Kelpie's are pretty rare. Scottish Mer-Horses that drown people.
>>93956526Wyverns > DragonsEspecially if they're some poison ratfucks who live in a swamp.
Haven't played a campaign yet but have an idea for a half-joke character to play.Knight of House NorwoodSomewhat renowned witch hunters, great ancestor was known as the Reaper of Norwood. Killed many witches.Returned with his head shaven one day, met in secret with the men of the family and told them he brought shame upon House Norwood and has been cursed. All men of the family now shave their head upon reaching majority and being told of the curse, swear an oath of secrecy (maybe also have a ceremony with a symbolic funeral before shaving their heads). Family started dabbling in Alchemy, knights of the family being trained in it and being sent out to earn money for the families experiments and hunt beasts for rare ingredients.Never telling outsiders about the reason for this, wizards that were hired to help on rare occasions not seen again.Coat of arms has a mans head with flowing hair. tldr: noble house cursed with male pattern baldnessCharacter would be a young knight of the house, learned some basic alchemy but was always more into adventuring. Generally polite and willing to help others but ready to kill to keep the family secret if necessary.
>>93955820How do you spice up dragons in your stories?
>>93957339>One Bracket of Magic for each different Element>Black Magic Bracket for Necos>One Bracket for every one of the Senses for Div>Amateur League Bracket>Youth League Bracket>Studied Lore Bracket>Inherit Ability Bracket>Nature Bracket for each Type of Creature>Master and Apprentice Combo BracketAny of these doing it for you?
>>93955820That oversized maggot thing looks like the alien queen from Laser Squad Nemesis.>>93963357Take a page from Warhammer Fantasy and have dragons mutate depending on outside factors like magical energies and such.In my case the matryoshka world of my setting is riddled with various magical, spiritual or overall supernatural energies that mutate and change creatures over the generations (especially humans due to them coming out incomplete from the blessed cryo-pods due to the Mecha Gods prematurely launching them in order to save them from being killed off prematurely by the sabotages of the Arch-Fiend).While dragons (along with the extinct draconians and their currently living lizardmen successors), are very sturdy and resistant to mutations, their eggs aren't that much. And even a young dragon or even an adult can be affected if the radiations are strong enough.So when affected by any elemental influences, they become elemental dragons (even have some of their body parts change to reflect their elemental powers on top of being capable of commanding said elements).If by spiritual wild energies from environments, then dragons become primal creatures that become part of the steppes, forests, wastelands and more (not to mention capable of commanding the wild spirits below them and answering to the primordial fey).Some even manage to somehow fall into the creaks between the layers and be exposed to the technomagical stuff that holds the world together, transforming into bio-mechanical cyborgs with bizarrely awesome tech-based powers (and engineering knowledge that allows them to interact and even fix the layers if something starts to not work properly...and yeah, their eggs even come with a timer that indicates when they hatch).
>>93963357I like the idea that Dragons were invented by the gods as weapons of war, giving them semi-divine and semi-demonic energies.
>>93956881Wendigos have become almost mainstream in recent years. Still not sure whether that's a good thing or not.>>93957173That's a good example of a non-traditional monster: doesn't look like something that's already used a lot, but also not just a bunch of random parts stuck together.>>93957486Under-utilised, certainly. I think they make a quite interesting counterpart to a unicorn.
>>93955820What are some good monster choices for a story setting that works on the basis of Order vs Chaos, with most aligned with either force to greater or lesser degrees with only a few neutral? I mean, there's crystal and robotic monsters for the former and masses of flesh and tentacles like picrel for the latter, but what else works for either force in your book?
>>93977054>Wendigos have become almost mainstream in recent years. Still not sure whether that's a good thing or not.In my defence, when I started the story 11 years ago, they werent that mainstream. My fault taking forever to write ig
>>93963357i have a huge variety of dragons/dragon factions/ intelligent and bestial and magical. probably too many but gotta say I never designed a dragon like that closest I got is a crystalline dragon
>>93963480Not really what I was looking for, but I’d love to hear more about your ideas for some of the later brackets, like the Studied one versus the Inherited one please.
>>93979785Sure. I'm thinking like Sorcerers, Warlocks, and to a lesser extent Bards would be the inherit ability wizards. They would face of in their own bracket until only the strongest natural talent remains.Then there would be a studied bracket. Maybe like a spell scroll only competition, I don't know I'm just spitballing. But once the best natural magic users and best studied magic users compete, that should be close to if not the final match.Master and Apprentice could be a tertiary group that pits a talented novice and their experienced masters vs each other until only the pair remains. Maybe the option could be open to them about who proceeds to the final solo rounds, allowing the other to bow out with the small amount of power they've gained as a form of prestige.The rest are self explanatory.
I am writing one page per day on my Space Marine chapter. Starting with a prologue where the main marine, along with guardsmen, gets requisitioned by an inquisitor to assault a dark eldar ship and retrieve something. So far I have a meeting with the inquisitor where the plan is given, an snapshot of the chapter fleet, and a ritual my dudes do before combat. They inscribe the names of their allies they will battle with onto their left pauldron. Right now the main dude has gathered the captains of the marine fleet to discuss what they will do if the inquisitor is an incompetent idiot. I plan on making the raid into the xenos ship to be very bloody.
I like writing epigraphs for my chapters from in-universe texts. One of the main characters annotates them with her thoughts too. Here's one just for funAt the beginning of time, there was the Land, and from the Land came the Folk.The Land and the Folk were as one, and there was peace.Woe! In the most ancient times, the Green Devils came from across the mountains.Blood watered the Land of Green and Red alike.We paid tribute, and their armies left, never to return.Though the Land and the Folk were forever changed,A time of peace came over the Land.Woe! In the time of our grandmothers' grandmothers, the Blue Devils came from across the sea,But they were content to sit in their palaces,And so we paid them tribute as we had to the Green Devils in ages past.Though the Land and the Folk were forever changed,A time of peace came over the Land.Woe! In the time of our grandmothers, the Gold Devils came from across the sea,And though their mothers had been slaves, they put our people in chains,And spread across the Land as a wildfire does across the grazelands.Young man, all you must do is climb the tallest hill and look to the east,To know that the Land and the Folk shall never again know a time of peace.-My Journey to the Uttermost West, Appendix 4, “Myths and Legends of the Red-Skinned Savages”, by Alachis kor Wanikar*“Myths and legends” instead of “histories”. The chauvinism of the Utageru hides in those three words.
>>93997358>>93997358>EpigraphsHuh, that's what they're called?I do these for my chapters, quotes or lines related to the chapters that are "in universe" but I usually put them at the end.
“Admiralis, have you reviewed the details given?” Syfal ignored their squabbling. It was common for the Chapter’s navy to quarrell. Due to the necessity to patrol a wide expanse of space, most ships were used to being independent and alone. If you put them together, they were a formidable, if bickering, foe.“Aye sire,” She bowed. “The engines can be taken out easily, ship too if permitted, but our fleet lacks the defenses for a protracted battle. This fine vessel can kill quickly, but a shield she ain’t. She shall remain at stand-off range after neutralizing the enemy engines. The Falchi’s will have to keep picket. Jois shall be kept in reserve, closer to the front, and shall respond to any xeno response. I estimate five hours before a forced withdrawal if the xenos’ weapons are not silenced.”“And the Black Ship?” Syfal nodded at the hololithic display following Vipsania’s report. It was a simple plan, the only real challenge was not destroying the xenos outright. Syfal was just glad the greenskins were not the enemies.“They can do as they wish. I expect them to ignore my commands, so I refuse to give them any. They can be sucked into the void for all I care,” She swung her hand over the holoship. “Damned them.”“Use them if you can, Admiralis.” Syfal knew she was right, but perhaps they could be persuaded if a situation arose.
Hello, I just finished with the sixth chapter of my story. It's the first one heavy with dialogue and an action scene so I'd appreciate some feedback regarding those things, as well as prose, etc.It's 5k words, so beware.https://medium.com/@panosfrag/chapter-iv-echoes-of-the-past-9f0020a5c658
>>94010024Do you have any advice for writing about horrors like this please?
>>94005025nice
>>93955820What do you have to consider when writing about gods and the monsters that they command?
>>94005025This isn't bad. I'm not a fan of the rather stilted, old-fashioned style of speaking you've chosen, but you've executed it better than a lot of people would have. Even so, I think you need to tidy up your dialogue a bit, because some of it doesn't quite work even allowing for your deliberate choices in style. Try reading it out aloud; even old-fashioned speech should flow naturally.I don't think I've read any of the earlier chapters of this, so I don't have too much to say about the story, but I did find it fairly engaging despite not knowing the background. The main criticism I have is that you make no concessions to Aurelio's age. Even in a more formal society, children don't think and talk identically to adults.
>>94030227Thanks for the critique. The last part is probably my biggest struggle in writing characters. I most likely don't make any concessions to Adelina's sex (in a much more conservative, socially rigid society than ours) either, and I also struggle to make two characters (who are not side/background ones) distinct from one another, other than making them polar opposites.I'll try to polish things further as I progress.
>>94005025do you have any more of this?
>>93956526I do have one I created and used in a short script, otherwise I tend to make alterations to existing creatures/monsters to highlight aspects that fit best with my story.The creature I made up is as of yet unnamed but is an elongated, long limbed creature whose body is mostly invisible, with a slight distortion a-la predator or halo, and at least in the script I wrote originally they came as a pair with golden masks in the tragedy and comedy. Something a bit like the elden ring beast actually, but more animalistic, sort of like the corrupted no-face form from Spirited Away. The essence of the body is not visible for the most part except through the blood splatters and marks that catch on the main body as it slaughtered its way through a military base in the desert.>>93988563Just remember to really focus on character objectives as a throughline to give the combat some context and meaning. Is the Marine looking for redemption, service for the Empra or something else entirely. Very often stories can get a battle focus that doesn't really have any stakes other than "it's combat" which can really disengage readers, so keeping arcs and or putting moment to moment action in context of the overall objective is a good way to keep from 12 pages of utterly meaningless battle montage
What is your opinion on character descriptions within a text? I either:>introduce a secondary (non-POV) character, give a small paragraph of description and never touch on his physical appearance apart from something obvious like his height or eye colour again>don't mention anything about their physical appearance for POV characters unless they're looking at a mirror
>>94058193I prefer the super salient details that the POV or focus character would notice, with concessions made to the environment in which they were introduced. A White guy from Tennessee in an airport would probably notice if his desk agent was a short, indian, woman, but the only thing he might notice about another white guy as a desk agent was if he was ginger or remarkably tall.You don't tend to think about your appearance or those of your workmates, except Jason being fat is noticable when the elevator is down because he huffs like a bellows by the time he reaches the IT offices on the 3rd floor.Otherwise it's a general mishmash of the person, I would try to keep the description to 1-2 sentences at most upon the initial moment of introduction and then sprinkle the rest of the stuff that would be relevant as the interaction continues, which can be over a few pages or even chapters. Appearance is best as a way to reveal a character's state, emotionally or narratively; a character's normally well kept hair being messy or even shorn is the easier show-don't-tell for storytelling even if the adjustment is something that needs to be diegetically ( and prefereably internally) noted by the POV/focus character.
>>94002694 Who is screaming? Why am I wet? Where am I? Where is Ginbee? Why can’t I move? Who is screaming? The commissar fell onto his chest as something slammed into his back hard. He braced himself up with his right hand. Why can’t I move? Where is Ginbee? As the commissar tried to take stock of the situation, a guardsmen grabbed his shoulders and visually scanned him. Private Alia, I will have your head for this. He called out for a corpsman. What are you yelling about? The guardsmen produced a knife from his belt and with a worried face, grabbed the commissar’s left arm. Mutiny! Traitors! Where is Ginbee? Why am I wet? “Apologize Commissar,” Alia placed the blade onto the deck of the xeno vessel blade up. This needed to be done quickly. With all his force he slammed the commissar’s arm down onto the blade, snapping the bones in half. A quick couple slices and the commissar was free from the deck. Ginbee! The commissar’s vision finally focussed on the surrounding events. Surrounding him were both dead and living. Many had been reformed inside out. Others formed partially blocked by floors, walls, even each other. Got to the part where they finally teleport onto a dark eldar ship. Stopping writing today.
>>93960443Please respond.
>>93960443>>94062858It's not bad, but it's not that funny either. Also, I think male pattern baldness is carried down the maternal line.
When did threads stop autosaging after seven days?
>>94067208Did it?
I think it's time to accept that the ability to write has completely abandoned me. That's the final of my dreams to lay to rest
>>94069820why's that?
bump
i enjoy the alexandrian's blog on how to structure tabletop campaigns. from classics like the three clue rule and node-based structures to some of the notes on how to key dungeons effectively.does anyone have other good resources on how to actually structure prep like that?
1/2Been running a 5e campaign for five players at lvl four right now. DMing is a new experience for me, and I honestly have zero fucking idea what I’m doing, I just want the players to have fun. For context, the game is set 23 years after the end of a century-long war, during which the PCs' native continent was invaded by a foreign power attempting to colonize it. Successful in defending their homeland, but only due to unprecedented co-operation among states, where a sort of supranational political/economic union was formed to combat the invasion. UN with centralized power, the players work as sort of Interpol detectives. I wanted to run a Murder Mystery, so the first arc had them investigate a murder. To make the game easier to plan, I’ve split the campaign into ‘arcs’ which consist of whatever # of sessions it takes the party to resolve the story with any sort of solution they desire.After the arc ends, they choose their next destination and assignment on the continent. To help myself out, I wrote the previous arc + murder mystery based on picrel. I found it easy to turn the songs into a large-scale plot which further gave me inspiration the more I wrote. I know it’s pretty cheap writing, but I wouldn’t really consider myself creative, and usually throw in content I think about for all of 3~ seconds as long as it’s a somewhat cool idea.
>>940824562/2The party has chosen to go to Gallia Locke, a city which exists as a perpetual, ubiquitous, and never-ending rager. Victorious in battle, the entire continent broke out in celebration. The populous eventually returned to their responsibilities, but not this city - it embraced a culture of festivals and partying that has never ceased, even after a quarter century. A cauldron of hedonistic ancient Greece and Rome, blending with New Orleans and Paris. The streets filled with gambling, games, performances of music and feast, drunkards and criminals flourished so greatly that non-violent crime (theft, fraud, racketeering) is largely tolerated or decriminalized, harsh punishment reserved for those committing heinous acts. They have been nominated to represent the Union in a continent-wide games (Olympics) as up and coming stars of the organization.I’m feeling pretty bankrupt right now and dont have much idea for what I will do for this arc’s plot in Gallia Locke. I know I want it to revolve around a music band, where the lead singer/conductor is the mayor of the city, and his fellow band mates act both as political district leaders and pillars of the community. The main attraction of the city will also be where the Olympic Games take place, 5-6 large structures/buildings which are headed by the band members individually. So the drummer could be the overseer at the fighting colosseum; the keytarist producing the mad-max like death race; pianist hosts a companion battle arena, etc. I was thinking that the band goes through a sort of turbulent “iconic breakup” phase. Other than that I dont really have much.Any suggestions going forward, any albums I could base something off, inspiration, anything really, would be greatly appreciated
>>94081164I would also like to know this too please.
Is having a character being both racist and fetishizing too absurd?I also wanted to know if there's a way to write a medieval fantasy race as being stereotyped as sexually aggressive rapists without delving too deeply into the details of actual rape.Cause I wanted the racist and fetishizing woman to fuck the MC and then subtly threaten to accuse him of rape if he doesn't marry her.
>>94090804Tell people the bum smells like shit. Don't actually bring shit to the table.
>Struggle with names>Eventually started coming up with goofy WIP names until I can come up with something cooler>The goofy names are starting to stickThe worst part is, the more shitty names I add, the more it starts to feel like an intentional theme.
>>94081164Ditto to this please.
>>93978017Could take a page out of SMT. That series has generally (especially with the most recent game) associated "Bull" deities with order and "Serpent" deities with chaos. They pull this from Marduk and Tiamat in Mesopotamian myth, then obviously with YHWH and Satan, and so on. Could use something like that if you wanted a more conventional basis for some of the monsters.
>>94018095Read Lovecraft because that's a depiction of Shub-Niggurath.
>>94081164>>94098256I don't read writing blogs, but as a general piece of advice just based on person experience: tailor your campaign an your session to the players you have rather than trying to follow advice that's worked for other groups. Players often approach campaigns in very different ways.Sometimes a freeform campaign where they just follow the story wherever it takes them is fine. However, with some groups (especially the less experienced ones) it pays to treat as a series of combat encounters with short bits of narrative to link them.
>>94060441 Two squads of soldiers held the hallway. Each individual soldier finding slight nooks and crannies along the walls for cover. Those at the forefront of it all were already dead, sliced into pieces by the xenos. Lieutenant Trius had been leading from the front with them, but had been splashed with a bubbling concoction that stripped him of flesh and eventually bone. If there was anything left of his body, it was most likely on the level below the one he was on. The gap in the floor had helped narrow the paths the enemy could quickly take, although one had tried to jump across. “Just hold the line! Reinforcements are coming! Hold just a little longer! The Angels are coming!” A hulking creature entered the hallway. Its face was covered by a black grill that had to have been bolted into its skull. The skin around its mask was a crimson red, while the rest of the body was a sickly pale paste. It was nude except for green glass vials sticking out from its muscles and armoured gauntlets bearing powerful weaponry. Sprouting from its back were arms, the hands stitched together to form claws. It had been the one that slew the Lieutenant earlier. Las fire did nothing to it as it scanned the humans up and down the hallway. Corporal Einhen stepped out from behind safety to bring his shotgun to bear. In a blink of an eye the monster had closed the distance to him. Einhen managed to pull the trigger, but had only hit the fleshy part of his killer’s neck. A needle had pierced his chest in return. His body began to contort and writhe. Within seconds his form grew, stretching and eventually ripping his uniform. His screams resounded from the walls as if the walls could amplify and direct sounds towards a person. The sound of his flesh ripping and growing, ripping and growing, grew louder with each passing second. An unrecognizable mass of flesh was all that was left. If someone paused andlooked close enough, they could see the rise and fall of breathing.
>>94082470So you have a couple threads here, the trick is to tie them together.>Olympics>Non Violent Crime basically accepted>Breakup of the ruling clique.Here's an idea that sprung to mind:Lack of law enforcement in the city has led to Gallia Locke being the epicentre of organized crime within the Union. Upon being selected to host the Olympics, a bitter, clandestine struggle broke out between the various gangs and criminal outfits over who would get all the lucrative contracts. Simultaneously, the band that runs the city ends up breaking up. A love triangle between two band mates and a woman is the straw that breaks the camel's back. This throws city politics into disarray and leads the estranged band members to support different factions within the city in a bid to take(or keep) the mayor's seat. Everything is simmering just below the surface, until one of the two would-be lovers is found dead, and his rival is the prime suspect, though all the other band mates and their criminal connections are potential perpetrators.
>>94101122Is Lovecraft really the best for descriptions, though? I know he basically invented the genre of slimy tentacled things in the dark, but his prose does tend towards the purple a lot of the time.
>>94104142“Frak you, Bastard!” Trooper Hinmen chucked a frag grenade at the beast, to little avail. A few of its glass canisters shattered and its flesh was pockmarked with little burning holes, but the grotesque thing still lived. Hinmen reached for a second grenade, but it was already too late. The creature stood before him, reaching inside of its stomach, opening an inside full of needles and scalpels. Before anyone could lay down covering fire, Hinmen was eaten, if that term could be used. His lower half dropped to the floor. The monster moved onto another. “Grenades! All of ‘em you got!” Glio shouted. “Grenades!” “Run!” Trooper Ius dropped his rifle and stepped back. The creature swiped its metallic hand and brain matter and skull showered the wall beside him. It was moving too quickly to shoot now. One trooper after another fell in quick succession, their blood dripped from the walls. A viewer might think it was painting the walls for how careful it was to ensure an even coat. By the time the grenades flew out, only a handful of Guardsmen remained. The creature staggered forward from the blasts as it ran towards its new victim. Corporal Janus still held her grenade when the thing towered over her. Without a thought she plunged her arm into the things’ belly mouth. It exploded from the inside. Janus was showered with needles, knives, spikes andanything else in that thing's body, impaling her to the wall in a dozen different places. Trooper Lione also took shrapnel in the forehead. He died instantly. “You are alive?” Glio turned to see the crimson painted Commissar. It was a mistake to turn away from where the enemy had come. A glowing whip wrapped itself around Glio’s neck. The eldar on the other end pulled tight and crushed his skull. Grey matter leaked from the wound whip until it slackened, releasing the gore onto the floor.
Bump
Working on an in-game organization. Open to any suggestions or examples of similar organizations within your games. Party is coming into a new land that one of the characters hails from and this is something I'm developing with their assist.Name - TBD, Order of...?Monastic Sect - often used by retirees or rehabilitation for any of the nature-based classes or religions (rangers and druids mainly, but clerics/paladins of nature deities are not unheard of, some legit npc workers and tradesmen too, etc.). Really a catch all for nature-based characters, npc or adventurers. Not quite a township, but a large trading station with attached dormitories for the residents. NPCs include gardeners (large terraced garden s), brewers, entomologist (bees) and assorted crafters including beeswax, tallow, mead, etc.Purposes - caretakers of 'fae bees', a hb species of bee-inspired fairies. larger and semi-humanoid (tiny size) with slightly more expanded lifelines (5-10 yrs for a queen). working theory atm is to have them care for local foundlings/orphanage and at their age of passing a traveler is given a royal princess of the fae to foster and raise as they travel the world (a la pokemon-esque). As they age, reproduce and propogate the adventurer collects pollens and seeds from their travels acropss the continent and also documents the life of their royal line (all to be added to the collective knowledge of the original 'hive' compound. Other than a few themed (wonderous) items this is mostly flavortext and won't impact combat much.The swarm that accompanies the rogue queen will be mostly background, but all insect-based attacks with utilize them. The Queen will be a non-combat pet/companion, but I also like the idea of her being the connection (like a patron) between character and their swarm, a living conduit or foci for their abilities.
>>94090804I mean there's a lot of overlap with black race politics not gonna lie. The idea that black men are sexually insatiable and want to fuck all the white women goes back to the slavery days and was one of the main justifications for slavery- racists argued freeing all the blacks would cause the 'death of the white race' as the black men would rape all the white women (while presumably everyone else just sits in a corner and masturbates to it). And you see this today with the BLACKED fetish, which is about being so racist that a black man having sex with a woman bothers you, but not so much that you won't still masturbate to it. And there's been more than a few racist politicians we've found out have some black-centric porn (Mark Robinson is a recent example). This is actually the climax of 'Birth of a Nation' a 1912 blockbuster about how the KKK are the good guys, where a caricature of Thaddeus Stephens, a radical republican that pushed for black citizenship, is the bad guy trying to punish the south by legalizing interracial marriage. And he's portrayed as having gotten his comeuppance when his 'mullatto' minion (half-black, and thus more dangerous because he has the cunning trickery of a white man in him) asks to marry his daughter. It's also the plot of 'To kill a mockingbird' which is about a slow black man in the south that was coerced into sex by a white woman (who wanted him because he was a big muscly guy) and then claimed rape after the fact because the affair was about to be exposed. And his court-assigned lawyer proves that he was actually the rape-ee but the white jury convicts him anyway. As a non-racist it's something I find incredibly bizarre.
how do you actually write a different species (ie. a fantasy race) in your setting with it not being too familiar nor too alien?
>>94126935Most species would have an identity of some sort. For practice, make all elves European. Make all gnomes Australian. Once you're comfortable understanding their quaint similarities, just substitute in cliches you come up with like "All elves wear funny hats. If they're seen without their hat, they get embarrassed."Basically, think of them like you would another race on Earth.
>>93955820What’s the most important thing to remember when writing about Nessie?
>>94120677If you wanted to go classical you could have the Order of Melisseus, who was the ancient Greek god of bees; his name means literally 'honey man'. You could also have the Order of Apiators.If you want something more down-to-earth, you could have the Order of Hivers of the Order of Skeppers (skep being an archaic term for a wicker beehive).Or just the Order of Keepers (as in beekeepers).
>>94136151Thanks, looking up some other homebrews I expanded a few ideas here.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l_88Pn-cmAmKl0r4F4_EDhnQxyh3c8Hg/view?usp=sharing
>>94143075Im surprised this thread has been up so long
>>94126935Societal niches is a good approach. For instance, in Lord of the Rings Hobbits represent the 'small men' of the world- those that society overlooks and in turn don't care much for the big colossal events of the world. Orcs are often portrayed as living in tribes and the wilderness as while not always evil, they often have an adversarial role with what is generally considered 'civilization'. Ironically Tolkien had them more representing the dehumanization of industrialization.
How many mind-battles can I include in my story before it becomes overdone? I'm at four so far.
