This is the discussion thread for my embryonic new setting, Reth Jaleract. (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?26163.0) Please please please give me any comments, criticism, advice or guidance you can come up with -- and I DO mean any!
First of all, put a link in your first post over to here. The discussion thread and the setting thread have a tendency to separate.
I like the beginning. Very atmospheric. I hope you'll be doing more of that kind of narrative as you feed us more.
I will be keeping an eye on this one.
Nice first post as Stargate said. It is invocative and makes me want to read more.
Nice openings, they are vivid and exciting. Of course we will want the Duelism (do you mean Duelism or Dualism?) described more clearly please, it is intriguing. It is quite the sort of setting I enjoy from the sounds of it.
Link is sorted.
I've added two more little snippets of narrative. There will be some more solid material forthcoming, but for now I am just sort of roughly scetching the world's outlines with these little vignettes.
Oh, and just for when I do start writing the "proper" fluff, I would appreciate any feedback on what elements touched on in the vignettes seem interesting enough to warrant a full exposition first.
PS: Didn't see Tybalt's second post until now. As you can see there is now a note explaining the dualistic nature of Duelism :P
Nice work so for. I like what I've seen. Let's see:
Opening: very visceral. The tongue thing made me cringe. As for things here I'd like exanded, can you make it clear who the Malmur are, and who the speaker is. It sounds like the Malmur are the invading humans?
Quote from: KindlingWelcome to Reth Jaleract, a continent where the Human species has just arrived, and is carving a place for itself, wading as it does in blood; the blood of both its own and of the elder races of Reth Jalaract, the peoples whose territory they are encroaching on.
Themes:
Change, the contrasting savagery and nobility of human nature, religion as a tool for both good and evil, et cetera.[/quote]Genre:
Low-magic, mid-to-high-fantasy, sword and sorcery influenced.[/quote]Tone:
Dark, gritty, unpleasant, but with occasional rays of sunlight so radiant and beautiful as to almost wash away the sins of the rest of the world.[/quote]Thirty-two years since my birthplace was raised to the ground.[/quote]You mean razed?
Are these temples like the great pyramids? Here's another place I'd enjoy the expansion of these ideas later.
This is one of the Malmur speaking, right?
Post 2:
Ah, the Faelen resurface. Kudos.
So Duelism has to do with duels? Like with swords?
The IC passages are a great way to start, but I think more information later may make it easier to comment on the world.
Keep up the posting.
In the first passage the narrator is a human of Alruyev stock, and the Malmur are another, somewhat barbaric, ehtnicity of humans. I kind of intentionally left this passage vague, though, so as to draw people in - they would wonder who the Malmur are, for example, and would therefore want to read the rest of the setting, in order to find out.
I had intended all PCs to be humans, and the use of IH supports this. They will not be entirely new to the setting, as the human species has been present and active in Reth Jaleract for thirty-two years.
You are right in invoking the word mystery, though - there is still a lot about this new continent that the humans know very little about.
I had imagined the temple to have a roughly Egyptian architectural style, but not a pyramidal design. Perhaps more like the Greek-influenced temples of later Egyptian times?
The name Duelism is used for the dualistic religion because a conflict between two persons or entities can be interpreted as a duel...
Non-IC stuff will be coming soon, I just need to write enough of it to feel justified posting.
Thanks for the feedback!