Mist and Shadow (Vestraten, starting over)

[rjj7]

Villain's name: Lugarioff Fungwillineth Thorgotulab III.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the plot a bit. CORRUPTION is trying to corrupt the world, using our Villain, who is something of a pawn. Question: will this story uproot any of this information about the extra planes? Or will it be mostly concerned with our villain and foiling him personally?

To put it another way: Will CORRUPTION be 1) a direct antagonist that our heroes are trying to stop (like Sauron) or 2) a background figure that they realize is motivating things, but is out of their league (like Satan)? At this point, I'm thinking that #2 is what you envision, but perhaps I'm wrong.

[Joel P.]

I can't say I didn't ask for it, I suppose. ROFL

Background figure. And they may not even realize it's motivating things, or necessarily realize anything about the other planar worlds. It's not necessary to the story, but it's good background information.

[rjj7]

Okay, so lets talk about our little villain a bit. What are our options for his motivation? Did we decide what he was on about? Here are a few ideas that I remember being tossed around:

- He wants to change the social order to put wizards on the top
- He wants to change the social order to put himself on top (a bit cliche; which is to say, we'd have to think about why he's doing this)
- He wants to do something ostensibly noble, and so is trying to achieve the power to do so (still a villain, but one that thinks of himself as unselfish)
- He wants revenge for something
- He is trying to destroy some disliked race/religion (if we have a race largely of mariners, the mists could be pretty beastly)

Those are more categories than specific motivations, but I don't think we ever got super-detailed on this front.

[rjj7]

I remember way back when, someone put out the idea that perhaps we have a pair of villains; one with noble motives, one without. Thinking about this, I had a thought (weird how that happens sometimes): Perhaps one of the villains is self-serving and desirous of personal power, where the other wants to fix the social order. We set up a bit of conflict between them. And then we have one of them switch over to the good side! That is to say, the self-serving one switches over to the good side.

Why? Because he is afraid of God. He lusts after power and wealth, but in his heart, he knows that there is something beyond him. He lives for decades in denial, but as our heroes interact with him, he is forced to certain conclusions about the world. Meanwhile, our 'noble' villain is complacent in his own nobility. He doesn't believe that he can be judged, because he is right. He is good. He is striving for the welfare of humanity. He does not fear God's judgment.

We could set things up so the reader is expecting the villains to break up, with Mr. Noble coming over to the good side eventually, and then over the course of the book completely reverse those expectations and have Mr. Scum be the one redeemed from CORRUPTION.

In fact, we could take the template one further. We could have Astui tempted by the good motives and nobility of Mr. Noble. At the end, we can have our 'evil' characters (Mr. Scum and Ada) who have been redeemed by the light be solidly for good and our 'good' characters (Astui and Mr. Noble) be the ones that have to make the final choice of which side they're on.

We wouldn't necessarily have to explain it in such blatant Christian terms (fearing God, redmeption, etc.), but for concept talk, it's easier this way.

[Joel P.]

Hey, I've totally been forgetting about this! WHEEEE!

*Cough*

Right. Anyway.

I think it could be a combination of motivations A, C, and (possibly) D.

I'm not so sure about the two villains... would they be roughly equal in power? Cuz if so, it might be difficult for one to get away from the other.

Though, to be honest, it might be interesting to play around with that... I'd leave an outright 'conversion' in doubt, but Senor Scummy could certainly die while attempting to help our heroes fix things, all while being talked down to by Signor Noble (any relation to Donna? ).

Atsui could certainly be tempted by Noble's motives, but he would by no means agree with his methods. That in mind, I doubt he'd actually be much conflicted over his choice of side. Now Manascht, on the other hand, seems more the type to espouse and 'ends justify the means' philosophy....

[rjj7]

The idea of Astui being tempted relies on his having a traumatic past in the war. Sort of like a WWI veteran with memories of his entire unit dying horrible deaths in the trenches to chemical weapons, mud, and squalor. He knows in his head that the ends don't justify the means, but his personal experience in the world is now casting doubts in his mind. It seems that nothing could be worse than what he's seen men go through, so if there is some way to keep that from ever happening again, it can't be altogether evil, can it? The choice might not even be one of 'joining evil or joining good', but rather 'doing something or doing nothing', rather like the anti-war folks going into WWII.

Your mentioning Manascht did bring to mind a possibility. Maybe Manascht already has some ties with Donner Noble and is initially abusing his position to keep tabs on Senor Scummy. He and Mr. Noble suspect that Senor Scummy is not playing entirely above the board, and Manascht is hoping to use Astui & Co. to get a look behind the scenes. This could initially be used to play up the idea that Mr. Noble is a 'good guy', and that it is Senor Scummy who holds the real power.

That's the idea at any rate, but I'm okay with axing the whole thing, if that's what you'd like. The best way to head me off is to propose something else for me to think about. I have a great deal of difficulty coming up with ideas out of thin air, so when I get one idea, I tend to keep following and following and following and following and so on until its form has morphed enough to work in the story. So if you still have doubts about the dual-villain thing, how about you throw an idea, a phrase, or a word at me and I'll promise to think about that until one of us comes up with something.

(A judicious choice of word might keep me thinking about it for months. Something like... bacon. Mmm.)

[Joel P.]

No, no, that makes sense. Because Manascht has a higher loyalty to the Dyaemrven Alliance, he would think it within his duty to stop Scummy. Noble approaches him with information and baits him into working with him (perhaps by offering a way to ensconce the Alliance in this world and push Corruption back). And that kind of reversal, with Noble actually holding the reins and Scummy being the one our heroes can actually trust when it appeared the other way, would be quite fun.

Alright, so I think I'm going to call this done. Now, onto bacon.

Actually, on to plot outline. Let's see... the events as we had them so far are:

We get introduced to Atsui, Ada, Egisto and Merissa.
Ada proposes the quest.
Ada and Atsui set out.
Manascht shows up at the farm, prompting Egisto to follow him.
Ada and Atsui follow a very tenuous lead based on Atsui's business contact Torgaris.
Manascht follows them, Egisto follows him.
They go down into these Dyaemrven ruins in search of Torgaris, who's been captured by cultists (is this sounding like a Skyrim quest yet? Because it should. ) who worship these disembodied insane Dyaemrven.
Manascht turns the tables on Egisto, then gets himself in trouble dealing with above disembodied insanities. Egisto saves him.
Everybody ends up at the camp together. And then end up traveling together too.

Where to go from here...

[rjj7]

I'm gonna be in an internetless wasteland till New Years. I'll try and put in a few thoughts on this during that time, but nothing will be forthcoming online.