Vestraten: Story One, turns and explanations

[Joel P.]

This is the thread where we'll be making explanations of the parts of the story we're writing. Read along, you should get the gist of what we're writing.

Feel free to contribute to this discussion, but bear in mind that unless you are part of the Vestraten team, you will have no say in the final implementation of any ideas, whether contributed by yourself or another (though opinions will certainly be respected). If you would like to become a member of the Vestraten Collaborative, contact Joel P. This is not intended to be a club or a social status, but rather a subset of Anomalians who happen to be working on a story together.

That said, don't ask to be a member unless you would like to contribute a meaningful amount of work; whether mental or physical. Anyone can contribute ideas, but that's not the same as asking to be listed as co-author on the binding.
Current writing team:
Joel P.
rjj7

[Joel P.]

Hokay then. First 2400 words done, so let's hit the high points:

We're introduced to our main character, named Atsui, modeled after Stormiel's 'Brinn'.

The idea of the Aspects (The Warrior, The Philosopher, The Traveler, and The Watcher) is derived from the 'pantheon' suggestion early on, as well as my idea of the Emperor of Vestraten being their godhead. Basically, the Aspects are all the traits the Emperor should embody.

We're introduced to a bit of the language of Vestraten, Vestrateni. It's basically a make-it-up-as-you-go fusion of Japanese and Latin; a very formal and somewhat stilted language.

We hear a bit of Atsui's backstory - based on Randy's idea that one of the characters be experienced with war, and that the breakup of the Tsortean Empire led to months of violent, pointless conflict.

There's a little bit of mystery concerning the family next to Atsui's farm. We'll see where Randy takes that.

Inushi and Okami are titles, basically meaning Master/landlord and Mistress/landlady. Kyō is also a title, meaning Lord.

We hear a bit about the misuto-morsu (literally, the mist that eats), which is more or less dismissed as sailorly superstition.

We see the Vestrateni prejudice against foreigners in action.

HUGE CRICKETS!

TWO MOONS!

We're introduced to our second MC, Ada, based on Stormiel's Zara; and the language she and Atsui both know, which is Crocean (Welsh). She and Atsui fought in the Tsortean war.

Ada has been contracted by the ruling parties of Aurpria and Amara to find out whatever she can about the eating mist, and Atsui is willing to join her.

[rjj7]

This is absolutely fantastic! Awesome work! Huge crickets!

The rest of it wasn't bad either.


I'll give it a whirl and try to have something presentable by the end of next Tuesday. I will be without internet access starting tomorrow morning and going through late Sunday evening. So no communication in the interim.

[rjj7]

Vestraten Part 2

Hello, and welcome to a few words of clarification based on my latest update as well as Joel's last email of questions (neither of which anyone else could read ).

First off, my general intentions for story flow:


My thoughts at this point are that the mist-cult is a red herring; it seems like it's going to be important, but in reality, it's going to be a temporary side-quest. The real plot is coming in at their rear, in the form of that "messenger" (who was actually nothing of the kind; he was just tracking Ada) and his cohorts. We can use the side-quest to introduce information about the world, about religions, and to throw in another character or two.

Torgaris is thrown in to eventually be a voice of moderate spiritual wisdom; I'm still not entirely sure what our final stance on religion is going to be, so I figured this was a good way to keep our options open (and if he ain't needed, well, I'm sure we can use the cannon fodder ;D).

Egisto is... Actually, I have no idea who or what Egisto is. I grabbed Joel's reference to the fact that there was more to him than met the eye and kind of ran with it. I figured that if he was someone who would give a black wizard assassin pause, he had to be something. How he ended up working with Astui is anyone's guess, but I liked the idea of Astui having a couple of uber-awesome henchmen in the form of Egisto and his wife.

Ushibos are some sort of livestock that I threw in because I felt that after Joel's splendid performance coming up with names for things, I had to make a token effort in that direction (it comes from the Japanese and Latin words for 'cow' glued together; though obviously, they're not quite cows; whether they're significant or not is anyone's guess).


Obviously, all of the above are just ideas. They merely represent my temporary thoughts on the story thus far.



I hope I didn't come across too strongly on the whole "internal drama" thing. But I figured that at this point, it's better to ladle things on a bit heavy to spur thought; we can always cut it back when we re-pace the thing in the second draft (I actually already cut a section or two that were largely redundant).

Thoughts? Did I mess up your plans horribly?

[Joel P.]

Yes, you messed up my plans horribly. YOU'RE FIRED! JK. ;D

The internal drama did seem a bit overdone, but it can be scaled back with little effort.

"I know what I have in store for Egisto," says the Joel, "and it is dark and deadly and madness-inducing." But let's not go there now.

Cannon fodder's cool. But it would be convenient to have the spiritual advice in such a ready form.

I think on the second draft we should make it more clear why, exactly, Atsui went with her. I kinda dropped the ball on that, seeing how even though he thought there might be some truth to the misty stories, he still wouldn't necessarily believe them. Then again, Ada has no reason to lie to him....anyway. rambling again.

Okay, that works. I prefer my herrings more pink, since I'm not a communist.

[rjj7]

Hm--another possibility is that the mist-cult is actually being "sponsered" covertly by the villain to distract from what he's really doing. It doesn't necessarily have to be a purely coincidental herring.

By the way, as fair warning: if you don't do it first, I'm totally going to find a way to bring Merissa back into the story. Two reasons: 1) so she can do something awesome on her husband's team, and 2) so that when they're in some temporary hideaway lodgings somewhere, someone can go in search of her and she can say "I don't know what you're doing in my kitchen, but you'd best get out." If I have my way, that's going to be her method of choice for greeting people. ;D

[Joel P.]

I have almost completely forgotten about this and haven't written anything in the past while. So sorry. I shall have to work on it this week. (along with restarting my blog, trying to get as much done as possible on my novel, writing random stories for Varon's Starsailer Collab, and...well...everything else)

I'll have my part done by next Sunday, I promise!

[rjj7]

Actually, the delay works out for me. I'd been considering whether to tell you that I'd have to take a break for a week or not. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up again when you're done, but the delay has actually worked out for me.

If you want to take 2 weeks to do your bit (so Sunday after next), then I won't have reasonable grounds for complaint, after I pulled a 2-week turn earlier this month.

[Joel P.]

Okay. Apparently, that's what I'll do, since I've only now gotten a good idea of what to do in this chapter.

Also, I forgot to tell you: in Vestrateni, contractions are almost unknown. Ada can use a few, since she was raised speaking Crocean, which is a less formal language, and Merissa uses a few for some reason; but the other Vestrateni characters shouldn't use contractions. (I caught and corrected a couple instances of that in both Manascht's and Egisto's dialogue)

Here's an idea I had as well: what if we have an Elder Scrolls style Dwarven community. (we can call them something different, if you wish)

Basically, they were once an uber-advanced steampunk culture, but for reasons unknown, the culture largely collapsed. Now they've diminished (also interbred with humans) and are a marginalized minority, maybe a few hundreds of them scattered throughout the world. They're still the best smiths around.

This won't come directly into the story, but I was thinking about Egisto's sword and its backstory, and this might be part of it...

[stormiel]

Just out of curiosity, how are you using the new languages in your story?

[Joel P.]

Jun 2, 2013 18:29:17 GMT -5 stormiel said:

Just out of curiosity, how are you using the new languages in your story?

Not directly, for the most part. The only language of which we hear any phrases is Crocean; and for now, most proper nouns and a lot of animal names are Vestrateni. The differences are obvious even when people are just talking in 'English', though - as I said, Vestrateni has almost no contractions and is more formal, while Crocean is more akin to modern English.
For instance, a sentence of Crocean:

Ada said:

“Yes, and see if they could help me – look, Atsui, this is important.” She leaned forward gravely. “I wouldn’t be bothering you if it weren’t. Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on, and that is more than enough to worry me.”

And a sentence of Vestrateni:

Egisto said:

“This is what comes sailors of following their superstitions instead of worshiping the Aspects as all sane men should. It is likely another karak swarm. A few of them heard of it, took it as some sort of omen, and spread it farther.”

[rjj7]

My apologies with regard to the contractions. I think you mentioned it previously, but it entirely slipped my mind. I think I'll do better in the future.

I haven't played any of the Elder Scrolls series, but the dwarven concept sounds cool. I think, that since we are staying away from "standard" fantasy races of elves, orcs, etc. that we should come up with something other than dwarves (they'd feel a bit out of place in the midst of all the other strange names). However, that's something that can be addressed later.

Here's an idea that occurred to me: Most cultures have some stereotypical myth about how the oceans became covered in mist (something to do with the gods, or whathaveyou). But these dwarves believe that it came about in ancient times when a massive machine built by one of their legendary heroes fell into the ocean; the heat from the engine and the captive steam escaped, mingled with the ocean water, and created a semi-magic mist that has covered the oceans since (implying that their steam-punk engines didn't run on normal, everyday boiled water).


Also, I wonder if you could outline what you envision for the religions present in Vestraten. I'm rather hazy on what we decided, and how much is still open for change.

[Joel P.]

Basically the religions of every nation except Aurpria, Amara, and Vestraten are open for change.
Aurpria and Amara worship the one true God, and in Vestraten we have the worship of the Emperor through the Aspects, which are the personified qualities each Emperor should have.
Specific matters of doctrine and such regarding these are still open for expansion.

The mist-origin myths sound like a good idea to develop. They should probably tie in with local religions. If you want to develop localized religions and such and create mist-origin myths to go along with them, knock yourself out (be sure to check the updated map I just uploaded.

Also, btw, I'm in favor of the Dwarves (by whatever name we choose to call them) being worshippers of logic and reason.

RE as regards reintroducing Merissa, me likey that idea. There'll be some interesting conflict between her and Manascht too.... but anyway, I would like to wait 'til we're about a third or half of the way through the book, so that she can track them down on her own and show up where they least expect it.

[rjj7]

Follow-on idea: What if there really was an ancient dwarvish machine that fell into the ocean, and the villain wants to recover it? Perhaps part of his scheme with turning the oceans into mist has to do with locating the device (he can scry through the mists), or perhaps he needs the ocean levels lowered because he doesn't have a submarine, and can't reach the device otherwise. Any number of ways to swing it.

EDIT: We're posting at the same time. Just read your post. Sounds great.

[Joel P.]

Let's see what we have in this VERY belated section from Joel.

We see Ada's primary weapon (a fancy semi-magical shortstaff).

We find out Toragaris enjoyed debate with the priests, indicating that he's not necessarily one who ascribes to the belief in the Aspects.

We find out where he might have gone, and a little bit about whoever incited the mob to ransack his shop and dwelling.