Regarding my thread with Sabine and Russ in the mines under Slurry; I've edited the most recent thread to jump forward to some action. I wouldn't say that I had written myself into a corner the way it was before, but I feel like the previous decision point was really pushing an exploration aspect that, frankly, didn't need to be there. There has been lots of exposition leading up to this point - it's about time for some action leading up to an *ahem* climax . Still no sexy time, but my plan is for the resulting choices to lead directly to a sequence of scenes that should be very sexual until Sabine can escape the mines with (or without) Russ, or she stumbles into one of many possible bad ends. As for the beastie itself, I'm drawing inspiration from a few different sources. Spoiler here for anyone that would rather not know what's coming up: Spoiler: monster info Sort of an old-god type of monster that's been sleeping beneath the mountain for ages. It basically infests other creatures, turning them into drones, which can in turn infest other creatures. When the monster grows beyond its ability to vacate its own nest, it prefers to convert females into new queens, which gradually grow into enormous monsters too big to leave their own nests, thus repeating the process. That's the most likely fate awaiting Sabine if she loses. So what's the deal with the cave-in? The crew chief got the barest glimpse of what they'd uncovered and he decided to blow the cave. Things went badly and they couldn't finish the job. If this thing is so awful, why wasn't it wiped out or already taken over the world? Maybe everyone in the ancient world thought they WERE wiped out. Maybe they DID take over and then went to sleep Cthulhu-style, giving humanity a chance to bounce back. The point of it is to have some awful monstrous thing that isn't a daemon and can be self-contained in this arc (unless people want it to break free later). All of that said, it IS mostly a nebulous idea in my head, and I'm curious what people think about it.
I have a new thread going with Glenda and the imp from the abbey as a little dysfunctional group. I wanted to ask you fine folks if you think I should take my time (maybe a long time) and fill out options on this thread or move it along in a more or less straight line to reach Gerlangen and establish that as a setting for the rest of you to use. I find writing the "mistakes" and bad ends are fun, but branching all this stuff might take a very long time with how little free time I have. What do you say?
Personally, i would prefer it if you could provide the setting for Gerlangen. I've got an arc in which Sabine meets and befriends a Doppelganger and they have just gotten out of the blauwalt forest. But i don't know how much distance there is between the forest and the city, or how i should describe Gerlangen, so i've got that on hiatus until you've provided your vision on how Gerlangen should look like. I also wouldn't mind a little more info on the pantheon you've got in mind for your story. I've already been playing around with the idea of a vampire goddess in my mind who goes by the name "winter lotus". But should all the gods and godesses in your story be named after flowers?
Generally, I'd say take your time, have fun with it, write what you feel like writing when you want. I love reading your stuff, so I can't wait to see what happens But for totally selfish reasons, I'm going to agree with Reaper. I don't personally have any problems continuing my own story lines because I'm happy to drag out the adventures of Sabine and co. That said, I don't want my vision of certain locations to clash with your own, so I'd like to at least get a basic description for each important location. For example, along the way to the lighthouse, it was mentioned that Slurry doesn't seem to be that far away from the coast along the Splinter Road. I was imagining the location to be a fair bit more inland, and more rugged, hilly terrain. Consistency is important to me, so if the "official" version of that town is substantially different than what I've described, I'll want to go back to edit those chapters. As a compromise, INSTEAD of plowing through directly to Gerlangen, maybe you could provide a 'gazetteer' so to speak. Then you can expand the story lines you want to expand, and we'll all be on the same page.
That's probably a good idea. I will take a couple days and comb through the ideas other people have incorporated too and put together something that can be used as a guide. I'll post it here before I add it to the story for comments.
Cool! I don't think it would hurt to have some vital statistics for Sabine, either. People have been pretty good about sticking to her general character, but I think there's some disagreements about breast size in particular (story-related physical changes notwithstanding), and in my own threads I think my version of Sabine is a little more introspective and not quite as fiery compared to other story lines (something I might go back and edit at some point). Along those lines, your early threads provide great examples for the sorts of feats she's capable of, and I think we're all working under the consensus that she's quite skilled, gifted even, but obviously inexperienced... nevertheless, a few details about her strengths, weaknesses, limitations, etc. couldn't hurt to help keep everyone grounded.
Alright, well, I said I was going to do a writer's info thing first and I ended up going back and doing the straight shot to Gerlangen first. It's all one choice from here all the way to the city and a big plot twist: http://chyoa.com/story/the-virgin-heroine/thread/let-him-in I'll probably be leaving that cliff hanger for a while as to whether Ivona is evil/good/lying or whatever. I'm going to take my time with the info page and enjoy filling in some naughty bits in the story now that I wrote that straight shot. For Sabine, that picture posted earlier was pretty good. I imagine her with crimson hair down past her shoulders, pale skin, brown eyes, an athletic body like a runner or a gymnast with pert b-cup breasts and small, pink nipples. Basically perfect smallish breasts. Her powers are pretty flexible as they are all derived from her faith rather than any specific spell. Generally if she is wielding the sword she is going to be much more powerful. It's a good fit for her martial skills and warrior faith. She's probably the best swordswoman at the abbey, but not the toughest fighter and obviously not very experienced in the ways of the world. He weakness the way I have written it is that she will turn to her faith too quickly and rely on it to get her out of trouble when that might not be the best solution (or a solution at all). I see using her faith in the story as a roll of the dice by whoever is reading the story. It might save her and it might not, whereas more logic based solutions will probably work.
Thanks for doing so, now we can start exploring Gerlangen properly. Though i had expected a little more description of the city. Does it have walls, are they made with grey, red or white stone? Does the high abbey stand in the center, or next to a cathedral to a different god/goddess. Some things that would make it different from ... , minas tirith, troy, the forbidden palace? Though i guess other writers can come up with a few ideas. I definately like what you're doing with Ivona. I feel like the more i read about her, to more questions i get. Is she a human who sides with daemons, a human who has been transformed into a daemon, or a daemon hiding in human form filling Sabine's head with lies? Or perhaps a daemon pretending to be Ivona to steal the holy sword from her? But i really should be waiting until you finish your writer's info. I hope you adopt many elements i added to my posts, like how you added Glenda to your last series of threads. Great job with her devellopment.
I love this. It's what I naturally got interested in right at the start for developing my own arc: due to fucking the imp, she feels she has lost the power, and so believes she has no choice but to fight with her skill and wits. I've written her to be quite capable, yet unknowing of it, as you may see in my latest threads... !
I think you should keep in mind that it's not just about her having to rely on her own skills, but she also feels like she's lost her greatest resource. It would be like losing her right hand, never having realized that she was born a lefty. I don't think I need to tell you what to do - you've nailed every chapter you've contributed as far as I'm concerned
Cheers for the compliments archfiend. I love your threads too That's a good point also! I'll keep it in mind. Glad to be at the point of writing some action. I wanted to leave lots of possible branching points in the action scenes in case people wanted to jump in with other outcomes (eg. bad ones! Spoiler: I want Sabine to succeed for the time being to get into more of the story!) or to flesh out other options later.
I want to know what's up with these orcs and why they're so different than normal ones. If that means Sabine has to suffer a little bit... eh, small price to pay
Well that settles that Hematoma - I hope you don't mind me adopting a Sabine-like character for my avatar...
Thanks! A bit bizarre that I've chosen this moment to put up a picture of a red-headed paladin having just written two death scenes for Sabine... something must be wrong with me. I am taking a bit of a pause with the onward progression to flesh out some of the BAD END opportunities surrounding my story arc so far. I hope anybody who feels they want to add anything at any point will do so!
Is she wearing... armor??? Well, that CAN'T be Sabine then. She's lucky enough to get actual clothes half the time!
actually, in my arc with the doppelganger, she does find pieces of armor along her journey. at the current end of this arc, she has collected a full body armor.
Well she's quite modestly dressed at the moment in my arc. I doubt we'll graduate to armour though, but a shield would be nice. I'd originally planned for her to find some usable equipment in this first battle, but the orcs' gear will all be too big I think.
I did say "half" the time. Which is still an exaggeration, to be fair... if you want to pick. Not that it seems to make too much of a difference in the long run.
