Vestraten: Cultures & Magic

[lexkx]

Some very insightful and articulate minds at work, here. Very cool.

Regarding the dilemma of apocalyptic v. political, and the structure and pacing of the story, I wanted to suggest something. Gilbert Morris, with his kids Lynn and Alan, wrote a scifi trilogy at the end of the 90's. Now, I only read the first book, and research shows me that the third was never published (always the horror of a good series, isn't it?). But that first book, called "The Beginning of Sorrows" moved between multiple plot lines and characters. Not every writer moves between the strata of his story like this, and the shifts and introductions of characters/plot lines were mysterious, well-thought-out, and profound. The story itself had little in common with the plot you're hatching here (MUCH more scifi, with magic references only used to identify a "captivated" subset of characters), but the structure of big v. small and character v. ideology is, I think, a useful tool to look into. One character introduced in one sub-plot as a High Priestess figure turns out to be a Foolish Pawn in another sub-plot. Perspective is key, of course, but I think you might be able to use elements of this as research for how to shape the many threads of your story.

I look forward to more...

[Joel P.]

Yep, you've got the idea, Randy.

Bought:
[1] Not really - all we have to is mention 'oh, hey, water disappearing from the world will render the world uninhabitable', and run with that.
[2], [3], [4] Let me address this first:
[5] The fact is, the way we're working this out, oceans draining is the long-term evil side effect of a short-term evil plan to force people into submission (or something like that). It's just icing on the cake as far as the Devil's concerned - not only will he get indirect dominion over thousands or millions of lives, he'll get to destroy the world, too! Yay!

Though I'm not entirely happy with the way this element of the plot is being sidelined, I can see it's not as compelling a conflict as something which pits characters against each other. So yeah. You're right. (I still think I could make it work...but best not to gamble )

Thanks for the input, Lex. I don't think we're far enough along to implement it yet, but we will eventually.

[stormiel]

@ Randy, to answer your question a few posts back. I'm cool with whatever we come up with as long as it glorifies God and doesn't put anything above Him. Personally I would love for the whole story to point back to God but its ok if it doesn't. After all its not an allegory. I have to agree with Joel on the pantheon idea. Other than that I'm not too picky since this is a work of fiction and due to the extremely high what-if factor of the fantasy genre.

[stormiel]

Reading all of the plot ideas makes me wish I had been allowed to watch or read fantasy stories when I was a kid, then maybe I wouldn't feel so out of my element lol.

[rjj7]

With regard to the continuing mists-debate:

I actually like your mists-replacing-water idea. Very much, in fact. So much so, that I'm actually rather saddened at the thought of using it in the last context I put up. The threat of the oceans disappearing is a long-term threat that will take time to fully develop. It would be an ideal method of slowly ratcheting up tension as the story builds to a conclusion. It's a time-bomb. In the last set-up I described, it loses nearly all of its appealing properties. We don't need a time-bomb, because tension is already being established by treachery, assassination, and the blighted mists. Furthermore, if such a threat is introduced part-way through a story, it won't have time to properly develop symptoms. Your idea is more the sort of thing that needs to start happening before the story gets underway, so that the story can start right around the time symptoms start showing themselves.

In short, your idea is good, but doesn't seem like it will serve much purpose if we were to go with something like what I put up last. The idea needs to be central to be fully realized. Having a threat that destroys the world seems to require having a villain that likewise wants to destroy the world. And such a villain would be much more abstract or insane than current preferences seem to have been running. The abstract/insane destroy-the-world type villain clashes with the utterly practical/ambitious political-intrigue type villain. The former cannot help but overshadow the latter, which requires that there be sufficient foreshadowing that the reader not feel like we're pulling this 'new threat' out of our hats in a 'haha, I fooled you' sort of way. This, in turn, will overshadow the political machinations. In short, it is my opinion that trying to have both threats in the same story will inevitably detract from one or the other (which is not to say that we shouldn't have political machinations in a 'save-the-world' story; but any such machinations will eventually have to fall away to reveal the true threat underneath them, rendering them more a temporary disguise than anything meaningful in and of themselves).

After mulling over the problem for a bit, I'm actually going to return to my idea of two stories, with one important change. Namely, that the mists-to-water idea is written first.

I think that there are several strong arguments for this move. Firstly, it resolves the issue of competing threats and storylines. If each threat is its own story, then we don't have to worry about clashes between them.

Secondly, the mists-to-water idea is much more of a 'save the world from a specific villain' type story. Because it has such a clear-cut goal, the story structure is inherently simpler and will be easier to write by committee right out of the gate. While we will want some competing factions, they won't have to be developed to quite the same extent that they would if we were trying to have a story relying on political struggles alone.

Thirdly, with reference to it being simpler to write, I think that it would allow us to devote a bit more time to the development of the world. A 'save-the-world' can also get a bit more travel in than a political intrigue generally will. If we are trying to establish the world and the details of its politics at the same time, we'll have a much harder task cut out for us.

Fourthly, if we open with a story like that, then we can have the industrial revolution and political upheaval be all the more obvious to the reader. The effects of new technology will be all the more apparent if the reader has read a previous book in the world where the technology didn't exist. The struggle between the old monarchy and the new parliament would be more real if the reader had seen a world under the old monarchy. We can set up all sorts of contrasts that will help the reader to really grasp all of the factors that are contributing to societal upheaval. By separating the stories like this, we will not only be preserving all the strengths of the mists-to-water idea, but we will be strengthening the foundations of our political story as well.


My idea is to now have a mists-to-water story that is set in a very medieval type setting. As a follow on, we will eventually write a story that is more of a 1600s-1800s type story in terms of social and cultural growth (not necessarily specific technology). The clash of old and new will thus be illustrated much more forcefully than if we were to try and cram everything into one story.

Thoughts?


P.S. I keep referencing the parliament vs monarchy, not because I assume we're all in agreement on its inclusion, but just because it's a handy example of the sort of troubles we can throw in.

[Bought In Blood]

Obviously I must not be explaining my points clearly enough because I see that they are consistently misunderstood. For that I apologize.

I won’t bother going over all my points just to clarify them when we’ve pretty much moved on. Although, if you will let me clarify one of my points in particular, I hope it will help clear up any confusion. I don’t request or expect any kind of response since the discussion has moved on. When I said:

“The nature of the problem requires an advanced understanding of ecology in order to even recognize it as a threat.”

I was not referring to the readers. I was talking about the characters within the story. Unless the drainage is happening at an astounding rate, I don’t think anyone in a medieval setting would notice. And if they do, I don’t think they would recognize the problem as being world-threatening. I’m not trying to bash your idea, Joel. I just want you to know that, I feel, it will take a very skilled wordsmith and storyteller to make that element work (maybe you have those skills and I’m just a doubting Thomas ).

Of course, like everyone else on the planet, I’m just a person with an opinion; feel free to disregard it if you don’t see it as relevant.

I’ll just drop out of discussing in this thread until things smooth out a bit. I kind of feel silly beating a horse that refuses to die

Just to clarify, I am quite excited to see what all you coauthors decide in regards to the mist-water element and overall magic/cultural topics. I’ll be watching with interest.

[rjj7]

Don't apologize for continuing to bring things up. At the moment, we have a couple different discussions going, but that's going to be an inherent problem to committee writing like this. When you say 'the discussion has moved on', all that's really happened is that a problem that a few people see as more immediately important has risen to the forefront and is getting a bit more attention. Once this particular topic cools off a bit, and comes to a resolution, we'll probably start threshing out a few other things that came up along the way (for example, the religious nature of this world; there never was a real consensus on that, just a brief smattering of opinions).

So to sum up my point, I think that it's quite appropriate to bring up the matter again if you feel that something wasn't addressed properly. Particularly when there have only been 6 posts since your last one. It might not be the most opportune timing (considering I just let off with another huge spiel), but that only changes its relative importance, not its absolute importance.


For my part, I don't think that it would necessarily take an advanced understanding of ecology to understand the threat. All one needs to do is have a basic understanding of the water cycle and one can instantly see how the vanishing oceans will become a problem (All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. ~ Ecclesiastes 1:7). Secondly, for those people who don't understand the ecology involved, it isn't just a question of the water disappearing. That can be overlooked or treated as unimportant. But turning into mist is something that is very visible. Particularly since, as Joel mentioned, a cubic foot of water makes a lot more than a cubic foot of mist.

Continued discussion on this topic is still worthwhile, I think.

[rjj7]

To perhaps be a little more clear, the reason I'm not opposed to the mists-devouring-oceans idea is because I think that the emphasis isn't just on the 'missing oceans', it's also on the 'extra mists'. I agree with you in that dropping water levels are not, in and of themselves, very scary. Nor is there a huge time-crunch on all the water vanishing (unless there is vastly accelerated decay). But perhaps at some point in the future, Joel can share a few more specifics on what he envisions happening. For now, I'm just going to address my idea of splitting the story. People can address Blood's concerns some more, but I'm just going to focus on the issues that I keep bringing up (sorry everyone ). What are folk's thoughts on two stories?

[stormiel]

I think Bought in Blood raised a very good point in that the oceans drying up would take a very long time and for it to have enough of an effect to move the story along. I have an idea that might help. (Take it or leave it)

What if our story has three kingdoms (don't freak out yet), Vestraten, a kingdom that lives in the midst and a neighboring kingdom.

To solve the mist devouring the ocean problem what if we went with something like this:
Vestraten has a strong alliance with the mist kingdom. An attack happens at most of the mist factories (for lack of a better term, basically any place that uses the mist). The attack is blamed on the mist kingdom because the few survivors say they saw the mist people (whatever they would be). Only they didn't do it. They are being framed by a large group of evil beings that are thought to be long extinct (able to change forms to look like whatever they want) that are living in the ocean. The reason for this is that they can not leave the ocean for long periods of time or they will die. They need something (it could be a crystal or something else) that would be the key to permanently releasing them from the ocean.

Now kingdom #3 has never been an ally of Vestraten, in fact historically they have been enemies. Their kingdom has been attacked as well. The king of Vestraten has a nightmare situation on his hands, the mist as well as the mist people and their kingdom are being condemned as evil and its even exploding into superstition which is causing major problems in production of tradable products, factories being burned, financial turmoil from a lack of tradable goods. So the king of K-3 (Kingdom 3) tries to convince him that they need to form an alliance.

Vestraten's king doesn't want to do it. He meets with the mist king. The water people sabotage it. and K-3 looks like a good option so he makes a deal with the devil (the king of K-3 would be one of the water people, which might get a bit tricky but I think we could pull it off)

K-3 would start moving in its troops to Vestraten.

Heres where our main characters would come in (I'll use some of the ones I already posted but we would definitely need more and probably want to change some of the ones I made up anyway.)

One of the main characters would think it was fishy that K-3 is moving in troops (maybe this character is the kings son). He remembers Brinn (a disgraced soldier who is the only survivor of an ambushed troop a few years before) who claimed that the the things that attacked them were not what they appeared. Everyone thinks Brinn's crazy. But this other character finds him and tries to find out the truth. They and whatever other characters we decide on could band together and find the truth creating a war with K-3 as well as the water people and they would have to rebuild their alliance with the mist kingdom.

Just another idea

[Joel P.]

Okay, so let's revise the idea a bit, then:

First off, the mist-to-water (MTW) plot doesn't require a baddie who wants to destroy the world; the MTW effect could just be a side effect of his attempt to change the mists into a form which is dangerous to people and which he can (theoretically) control.

People would, of course, notice the patches of ''bad mist'' which eat ships and crews and all that fun stuff. Let's say this transformation which is being effected is a long-duration spell; I'd say 70 years minimum. In that amount of time, the mists are, of course, consuming the water, thickening, and causing the ice caps to become more dense (thus taking away more water), and creeping inland.

Bought, I'm not sure it'd be difficult for people to notice the threat. Sailors, especially, would notice water levels dropping. "Wasn't the water up to here on the pilings when we were in dock here last season? Well, now it looks like it's down to here...." Understanding it might be a bit of a stretch, true, but I think any sailor would agree: if the water level's dropping, that's a bad thing.
Anyway, if this works, that'd just be a bonus.


Randy, I have to say, I like the ideas. Especially if we work it into the plot that our characters discovered the possible mechanical/technological applications of the mists while on their quest.

Stormiel, I think your idea is actually a good baseline idea for the second story. Much more political (not to mention, factories wouldn't be around yet in the first one, if we decide to follow Randy's suggestions). Not sure about how we'd pull off the ancient evil being which has to live in mist as a king, though...I'll give it some thought.

[stormiel]

Cool. I guess I missed that part about the factories not being formed yet (sorry).

I want to go with the MTW idea but I don't know if it creates a big enough problem unless the water receded miles in or something over a fairly short period of time.

I used to go to this one lake almost every year. There has been a drought for the better part of 8 years and the water level has dropped significantly since I was there the first time, but its still business as usual. So I'm not sure yet.

[rjj7]

@joel:

To probe the matter a bit more, are the oceans eventually going to vanish and thereby bring about the end of the world? Or are you thinking that rather there is just going to be a massive drop, apocalyptic climate changes, and then a new equilibrium on a harsher and more barren world?

One of the primary obstacles (for me anyway) has been that destroying the oceans = destroying the world = villain who wants to destroy the world = capitol 'E' enemy who has goals it will be difficult to make the readers swallow.

But if you really are thinking just in terms of climate change as opposed to climate destruction, then I think that the whole thing becomes more workable.

[Joel P.]

Actually I hadn't been thinking of climate change; just not making the MTW be the crucial problem. But yeah, the climate change is a good idea (so long as we can avoid making it a 'green' story)

[Joel P.]

Right, I think we've all sat on our hands for long enough.

WAKE UP!

We have two stories here. The first (I think?) story setting is more or less like this...

The world in which Vestraten is set has always had these thin semi-magical mists sitting on the surface of the oceans. These mists are the subject of some superstition, but have never done any harm. The magic system of the world is based on specific powers (e.g. earth, fire, water, mind, etc) of which each magic-user is gifted with only one.

Our villian (who was an evil wizard of the old magic system) has taken it into his head to infuse the mists with dark mental power (i.e. power derived from the Enemy and coupled with his own gift) and turn them into carnivorous purple people eaters. (sorry, couldn't resist) As he does that, the mists begin to consume water to reproduce and grow in size and density; at the same time lowering the water level of the world and inducing a global cooling effect. Now, this takes a long time (a minimum of 70 years), but wizards have long lives, y'know.

As the mists grow in size and strength, so does the wizard's power. He's able to control the mist almost all the time; so we have some attacks on villages and stuff to set the scene for the conflict.

Okay. The second story setting is like this....

Our heroes stopped the transformation of the mists and 'fixed' them - but that has its own problems. The world is now generally colder, as the mists are thicker and denser than previously. The oceans are mostly inaccessible due to the fact the mists consumed water to reproduce (while staying on top of the water), so ships have been designed to float on the surface of the mists. Long exposure to the mists without protective gear is detrimental to one's health; but spies, assassins, and secret couriers still use water-ships anyway, as it's faster and less detectable.

(An interesting idea to balance out the ecology would be that the mists don't like the cold; so even though they may still have the ability to reproduce, that ability will be curtailed by the fact they can't or won't do it in the cold; which is their fault anyway.)

Anyway. The mists can now be used to power mechanical devices, which fact our heroes found out as they were questing in the last book. This is bringing about a steampunk industrial revolution, with mist-ships and water-ships both using the mist as a power source; mist-mills along the coasts, etc. The plot of this story will be political intrigue.

Now, let's have a QUICK round of objections, suggestions, and clarifications so we can move on with the plot and culture development.

[rjj7]

Sorry for falling off the edge of the map. Jeff really should have picked a better spot to host his forums. The footing is treacherous round here.


For the 1st story, how about we have the villain actually die near the beginning of the story. He was trying to get his plans up and rolling in time, but it just took too long. However, his son has been helping him for decades, and is now carrying on the torch. This helps alleviate some of the time difficulties (as others have pointed out, climate change will take a while), and possibly opens up some interesting options for the story, as our characters may have to be investigating events that happened decades ago pertaining to someone who is already dead.


For the second story, I see it as happening far enough in the future that if any of our characters are alive at all, they would be pretty old (we could have an unexpected cameo, or something like that). I don't know whether you were planning on having the same batch of heroes, but some of your comments were ambiguous enough that I thought I'd raise the issue.