Writing General: 'dragons' editionWelcome 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>>97699640And 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/Storythread (page missing, wiki still up)https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Storythread
Dragons are one of the most deeply embedded elements of the fantasy genre - in fact perhaps of mythology in general - and yet dragons can be some of the most challenging fantasy themes to write about. Whether it's trying to get the psychology of a hundred foot lizard right or working out how to introduce it without totally wrecking the fights, dragons in a story often lead to a lot of problems.So how do you handle your dragons, anons? Are they dumb beasts, or rich in wisdom and cunning? Are they noble creatures or harbingers of destruction? Are they traditional gold-hoarding lizards, or do your dragons find other hobbies to occupy themselves with?
Incidentally - and I know this probably makes me seem a bit basic - my favourite take on dragons is the Song of Ice and Fire series. Not because I think G.R.R. Martin writes particularly interesting dragons per se, but because they feel *real*. In any modern dragon media my main gripe is always 'that thing must weigh more than a blue whale, no human being has a chance against that'. Back in Medieval times when legends like St. George were being written, dragons were depicted as being barely bigger than a horse. In fact a lot of them look suspiciously crocodile-sized. But power-creep being what it is, dragons have steadily become bigger and bigger, to the point where there has to be a bunch of absurd contrivances for any human to have a chance of defeating them.And G.R.R. Martin took that 'giant dragon' trope and said: nah, they're just going to destroy everyone, and it's not going to be a remotely fair fight.Because of course they would. Of course people riding a hundred ton flying lizard THAT CAN BREATHE FIRE would absolutely wreck anyone who didn't have dragons. That's just common sense. So although the man can't finish a book to save his life, I thank him for that at least.
>>98309525https://nickbostrom.com/papers/the-fable-of-the-dragon-tyrant/
>>98312252Yeah, in many stories the dragon is basically just a stand in for death itself. Death as an active evil, rather than a more impassive, neutral force like the Grim Reaper. I remember seeing the CPG Grey video on that essay - must be the better part of eight years ago now - and I always thought it was a bit neat; they were all thoughts I'd had myself long before that, but I saw the problem more as people actively obstructing the fight rather than just being too resigned and lazy. Sadly the intervening years have only strengthened my belief that in that scenario many people would actively fight to protect the dragon. It's funny, I watched 'The Boroughs' last week (that Netflix show from the creators of Stranger Things), and I wasn't very far in when I realised 'oh, it's another one of *these* stories'. That is, one of those stories that function like the king's advisor in the essay, using empty rhetoric to defend the status quo. It's amazing how many stories in popular media are, when you get right down to it, based on the premise that not wanting to grow old and die is a bad thing. Harry Potter, for example. What was Voldemort's main motivation? He didn't want to die. Rowling starts with the whole race war aspect, but Voldemort's personal motivation underlying all his evil acts is just 'I don't want to die', and instead of the lesson being 'he should have tried to find less evil methods', the lesson is 'he shouldn't have tried at all'. (although, apropos nothing, Rowling's still not as bad as C.S. Lewis, who sent Susan to hell because she wore lipstick). And don't even get me started on the whole vampire genre. Sometimes, I don't particularly like associating myself with artists. When a scientist encounters a problem, he tries to fix it. When an artist encounters a problem, all to often he only tries to make everyone feel better about it. For all my issues with that essay, it's nice to see art used to further progress rather than stymie it.
Doing taxes and I apparently made almost 50 Euros last year from my self-publishing.Which is barely anything, but more than I expected.We all gonna make it!
Finally finished the short story (about 15 pages) I have been working on the past few months. Or at least finished the first draft with some light editing. Probably needs another draft or two before it's worth putting out there with my name on it. So could really use any constructive feedback that I can use to improve my next draft or stuff I should learn for my next story.https://files.catbox.moe/8gr1zc.txtIt's related to a larger project I am working on and very action focused, so some of the stuff isn't explained in detail, but I think the story as a standalone is still decent.
>>98318206Finally got feedback in another thread. Turns out it's garbage and they couldn't make it past the first page. They got super hung up on the hooded men not being fully fleshed out, got bored, and couldn't continue it. As such it's not worth my time to attempt to fix up the story or improve it in any way. It would probably be best to just move on to another story and try to do better next time. Sorry for clogging this thread with my shit.
Curious of folks feedback and perspective on world building and race selection, and looking for input.TL;DR I feel like theres too many races in my setting, and having trouble gauging how to effectively rule on their usage. Curious of how folks determine their racial choices in their homebrews.---For wider context, I'm aiming to run a ToV game. And fortunately (or unfortunately) theres a LOT of races in ToV already; not just the bog standard fantasy but even some refreshing new ones.And while I have a brother and friends who have all already offered wonderful feedback on this...unfortunately, for some reason, my brains struggling to translate that into real impact on my setting.My brother in particular is a relatively accomplished amateur writer, and has been making settings for stories and tabletop for over 20 years, so hes given good advice...(Case in point, he himself does not care for 'racial kingdoms'. He prefers nations and kingdoms of mixed races in most of his settings, rather than "the city of elves" and "the country of dwarves". Make the nations culture, and blend/bend/pick the races to match rather than pick 1 race n 1 culture n bam, etc.)In my setting, theres a cataclysm that resulted in deific intervention.It culminated in an empire collapse as well as at least 3 (so far) races rendered extinct. To me, that felt a bit lacking for driving home the "gravitas" and depravity of the empire.My brother has offered counsel that 3 is honestly a lot, and perhaps rather than extinct races I should focus on restricting their usage or outright removing them from the setting if need be.
>>98321144(Me continuing 2nd half of my post/question)Unfortunately, part of the setting (And OG goal I had with it) was to allow all of us to feel unrestrained for our first ever ToV game (new toys, new tools etc.) so I had a genius idea with the lore that allowed, in theory, for nearly any race to still be playable even if not native to setting; extraplanar visitors as a regular setting observance.Its quite nicely worked into the lore...but ive come to a struggle;By my count, I have over 60 native races/subraces, over 30 planar based/non native races, 3 extinct, and among that mix....17 that are ask/conditional no and 5 hard no's.The first pass of the racial list feels decent but it feels...unfinished. With over 60 native, 30 planar, 3 extinct, 17 requiring DM approval, and 5 hard no's... The "planar factor" means I could easily choose 20-30 of those "native races"l choices n fling em into being planar guest choices, but im having trouble gauging what goes or stays.Faerun, Eberron, or ToV's Northlands or Labyrinth...these are all set settings with set races, to help guide newer players on what to use/not use. But for homebrew, its w/e ya want...but while Im not trying to etch out *every aspect of the world*, id very much like to try and make a reasonable number of races so things dont feel cramped OR overly pruned...and boy im struggling.... So yeah....any tips/tricks/advice for determining what races to keep or not keep? I love them all, its so hard to cull ;_;
>>98321144>>98321146I was about to say 'D&D gets by fine with a lot of races I'm sure you'll manage', but jesus, over a hundred is a lot. It *really* depends on what type of game you're running what races you cull. If it's got more of a traditional High Fantasy vibe then you want to make sure you keep elves and dwarves, if you're running more of a gritty low fantasy then maybe get rid of the elves and dwarves and focus more on races without a lot of history behind them. To be honest, I'm not familiar at all with ToV (in fact I had to look up what that even stood for), so there's limited help I can give you.The most obvious place to start, however, would be to get rid of any that are just slight re-skins of other races. I've said it before (about D&D) and I'll say it again: a roleplaying game can get by just fine without twenty different types of elf. After doing that, get rid of the ones that are just riffs on a similar theme; going back to D&D again, there are a lot more animal races than there need to be. A tabaxi and a lizardman aren't exactly re-skins of each other but they're still just animal-people. And don't even get me started on Giff (who I do have a certain affection for desu, but come on Wizards of the Coast, are you really that strapped for ideas that you had to resort to hippos)?It would help if you could give us a brief rundown - emphasis on the brief - of what different races you have.
>>98323954So basically, to try and minimize restrictions on a new wholly unused system (even if its effectively DnD 5.5 or 5E Lite or w/e), i thought up an idea for a setting where people could either willingly or unknowingly get sucked into/plopped into the setting along certain nexus points or what have you. So its fair to say 'all of them'.The biggest hurdle is, until recently, they didnt really have a TON of overlap....Trollkin are trolls, Werekin are basically shifters, Syderean are basically tiefling + celestial, Smallfolks is gnomes n halflings, shadow n light fey are basically shadow/light elves (recent n one of those few 'overlaps'), shade is kinda unique as is scarith n skelling.Sapopova is frog people, raven n rat folk are self explanatory, Rachisan n Piney are another semi-close (Rachis are basically humanoid onions or carrots n the like, whereas piney is more GW2 sylvari/humanoid treant dryad types)Orcs are orcs, minotaurs are minos, lizardfolk are same as before, ditto kobold n human, hexen is basically the hag race from 5E.Gravewrought is basically frankensteins monsters, goblins n gnolls are same as they were, giantkin is basically giants/goliaths, gearforged is warforged, fateborn is basically racial descendents of those affected by deck of many things effects (pretty unique)Erina are basically hedgehog (to which i once thought "whats difference between them n beastkin quillbacks?" Mechanically, Erina are burrowing small nocturnal skill monkeys. Quillbacks are more small or medium martials. Narrative, hedgehog vs porcupine)
>>98323954>>98324092Past that, Eonic is time travelers warped by lots of time travel trying to prevent a future calamity.Elves are elves, elemental scions are genasi, dwarves are dwarves, dryads are dryads, dragonborn is dragonborn.Dhampirs dhampir, Derro is dark gnomes (but more insane/eldritch horror), centaurs are centaurs, broodlings are fancier ettercaps (spider people), beastkins were meant to be a sort of "general purpose bestial race option" to try n minimize the "theres owlin and arakocra and kenku and aven and dohwar and" repetition. It mostly did the trick, most bestial races that are made, especially after beastkin, focus on a specific race or genuinely try to make them stand out. KP's stance was something to the effect of"Beastkin are meant to be used as the general beast-related lineage that can be built to represent any type of animal-person". Not sure if that means they're more/less likely to make 'bestial races' but it shows they're aware.Bearfolks what it says on tin, and Alseid are basically 'what if centaur but fae bullshit and deer half'So beyond the obvious (asleid/centaur, bear/raven/sapop/beastkin/etc., elf/bright fey/shadow fey, erina/beastkin, and a scant few others) they're all likely fairly different/unique, not just narratively but mechanically...As for setting....moderately high fantasy? It has some degrees of magitech/magitek, but it wont be a focus nor everywhere. Like firearms are a known thing, but the farther you get from certain locations, the more exotic (and harder to come by) the ammo for them is...
