Critique Godswalk

[Numinous]

I feel really warm and fuzzy inside now...  most of the time people tell me to stay in the real world, but...  I've never felt so appreciated in my life...

I only hope I can continue to live up to the expectations.

[Raelifin]

:jawdrop: Man, I knew my gut feeling* about you was accurate. You're going to be a kick-ass writer some day.  :jawdrop:

* Raelifin's gut feeling is a trademark of nothingbettertodothandrinkbeer productionsand should not be used without a shotgun.

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[Túrin]

I agree. This is the best by your hand I've read so far.

[Numinous]

"The Fog"

A thick and choking fog writhes through the dark trees, flowing betwen your feet, snaking across the water, and obscuring sight in any direction.  The noise of this place is muffled.  Footsteps are silenced, as though dire punishment should result from a noise too loud or conspicuous.  An intense feeling of chlostrophobia fills the air, as if the fog were solid and an impenetrable cage resigning you to a dismal fate.

As you lean back against a tree, your platemail grates horribly along it's trunk, setting your teeth on edge.  As you shift to become more comfortable, making every effort to silence your armor, realization sets in, and you swiftly jump away and turn to face the terror you felt.

You then find yourself staring at an ancient stone column, wreathed in a slightly less stone viper, it's venomous glare fixed upon your faintly glimmering holy symbol.  It then descends swiftly from it's perch, but once it reaches the ground, your comrade cleaves both the fog and it's body with a swift strike from his axe.  As the blade hits a previously unseen stone hidden below the fog, sparks spray and a blasphemously loud report pierces the fog and echoes endlessly, echoing throught the jungle like a bell tower calling midnight.  Now the fog is stilled, yor comrades freeze, and silence is heard.

Slowly, a soft crackling sound emerges from the fog to your left, as the undergrowth is parted by what sounds like a serpentine form.  It then rises into a hiss, but now it comes from the left.  Another voice joins it from above even, and behind you an unheard voice approaches.  now, a rhythm is audible, as the hiss rises to a pulse spread by a choir of evil.  The rhythm changes, forming an exotice rhythm, now it's an incomprehensibe chant booming forth, the voice of the Serpent's Fog.

From the gaps in the trees, gems shine forth.  Within these reservoirs of darkness, emeralds of astounding beauty and perfection gleam forth.  Wait!  A foul mistake, these are not gems but eyes.  A pair of these eyes now peer out of eachshadow, from behind every tree, and from every direction.  One pair catches your attention, and your breath.  A pair of rubies pierces straight into your soul, cruelly analyzing the components of your resolve.  then, the eyes widen in fear, or is it hatred?  They have found the divine purity of your paladin's oath, and their hatred surfaces unbidden. The sound of many forms writhing in disgust and unbridled loathing.

Once again, the silence comes.  A whistling soon replaces it, a terrible symphony of airborne death.  A dart blooms forth from your chest, piercing your plate-mail like canvas, and painting a crimson blossom upon it's surface.  As you cry out, fury in your voice, more pierce the fog around you, finding the forms of your comrades as flawlessly as they did yours.  you can see your friends fall to the earth, as you fall with them.  Your cold hands grip your holy symbol, your lips moving in prayer, but as you scream vengeance, only blood comes forth.  Bubbling over your futile efforts, a crimson stream trickling down your pale face.


Now as you lay, rasping your final breaths, the rhythm returns, a puls reachign out from the ground and gripping your pure soul in an asphyxiating grip.  Despair fills your soul, when your mental clarity tells you that your quest has failed.  A final glimps of the world shows you a terrible scene, the true nature of your surroundings revealed to you.

A cruel and uncaring face leers down at you, with scales covering what could almost be deemed a cruel smile.  It's almond eyes close as it's mouth widens to an impossible size, revealing two fangs the size of a man's hand, dripping a malicious venom more deadly than the arrow embedded in your chest.

Behind him, you can see the "trees" you had wandered among earlier, a vast court filled with crude but carefully carved pillars, depicting vile rituals completed in ages past.  A stone path can be seen, winding through the columns and rising ever upward, crested by a crumbling ziggurat, a relic from a terrible past age. Above everything is the sun, a holy disc which burns through the fog and turns the tattered remnants to gold.  The lair of unfathomable horrors, illuminated before you.  In the sun it gloats, just like your executioner as his great maw seeks a taste of your dying flesh, illuminated by a halo from the rising sun...

[Túrin]

But this one is at least as good. Bravo!

[Numinous]

Moe random ideas jumbled together.  I'll organize them into a semi-coherent form sometime...

The dark continent will house driders, dwarves, and halflings, along with another as of yet undetermined race.

The Yuan-Ti will have steamy jungles for a homeland, where they follow an ancient religion devoted to a green dragon god.  They silently plot, unseen by the world, to establish an empire and wipe out all of the "lesser" races.

There will be 3 main regions/continents.  The first is the "dark continent".  Made up of a long curving peninsula to the north, it is great for trade with it's many ports.  following the peninsula down, a mountain range is encountered.  within these mountains lies an industrialized dwarven nation.  I'm unsure about this, but either in the tallest peaks of this range, or on the southern edge of this continent live the ogre race.  anyway, beyond the mountains is a vast plains, where halflings live in nomadic tribes, with a culture to be based upon the plains Indians of North america.  On the southern edge of the continent is either more mountains, a dark and spider-infested forest, or both.  I'm unsure how or where the driders live on this contenent yet, but I know they hunt for sport and sadistic pleasure.  They follow the teachings of a savage red dragon god, who reaches the glory of the hunt and speaks of embracing the carnal instincts within.

An undersea doppelganger empire is in the works, perhaps some form of Atlantis, where islands remain above the surface of their sunken metropolis.

THERE WILL BE NO DROW!

I want a vast desert somewhere, not sure yet how to work it in, maybe use the half-giants or raptorans there.

Raptorans follow a copper dragon deity, and their divine race is the phoenix.

Still sketching out the rest, I hope to get this project back on track by next monday.  Hopefully the fiction will attract more attention, as people semed to enjoy it.

[Raelifin]

Wait, I'm confused. I thought raptorans were the divine children of the rocs.

Yay for no drow!

Do you need me to keep the Godswalk page at Raelifin.com up?

[Numinous]

You might want to keep the page up for the time being.  I've got a lot on my plate right now, with finals coming up and such, so just leave things as they are for right now.

I'll write up the divine races and their gods in a final draft soon, I hope.  Guess we'll all just have to wait and see how much work I get done.

[Numinous]

basic alignments for the 10 dragon Gods are as follows...

LG- Gold, looks to be god og peace and happiness, etc., though not sure yet.

NG-Copper, god of magic maybe?, divine race phoenix

CG-Brass, unsure as of yet...

LN-Silver, god of skies and order, ?

TN-Bronze, god of the sea, ?

CN-Blue, not sure yet...

LE-Green, god of lies and deceit, divine race are the Yuan-Ti

NE-White-not sure on the details yet...

CE-Red, god of primal destruction and violence, divine race are driders.

Exiled God - black, EVIL!, undead

[Numinous]

The new godswalk project, yes I am copying ElDo, is starting soon.  The main difference is that there will be no ascendants, and the ancients will be placed directly on the prime material.

The great wheel spins above sigil, but on the opposite end of Sigil is the prime, centered between the planes.  I thought that it would make more sense to have the gods rule the multiverse from the center rather than the outer planes, so Egridar is now home of the gods.

As usual, this is succeptible to change, so don't get too attached.  But I really like it, and it lets the setting tie in with a lot of published material, and prevents the planes themselves from overshadowing the CS.

I hope I can bring you more information soon.

[Raelifin]

Gah! Talk about big changes! O_O But if you like it, that's all that maters, sight?

[Numinous]

The world of Egridar has a relatively simple geography, laid out in a relatively simple manner.
There are three continents, the Dark Continent, The Wilds, and the Empire.

The Dark continent is a miserable land where evil does not lurk but treads the land openly, where technology has spoiled the pristine utopia it once was and could have been.  Great dwarven factories belch forth clouds of soot into the skys, blotting out the sun over this gloomy realm.  Their mountain fortresses loom over the vast plains below.  On these plains live tribal clans of halflings, who gather roots and hunt herd animals for food.  Clans of Driders call the plains home as well, striking out to terrorize trespassers and just create bloodshed in tribute to their terrible god.  I'm not sure yet of what other race to place out here...

The wilds is a vast and untainted continent where magic in it's raw form ahs combined with the might of nature to create vast and beautiful landscapes.  There are dark forests, great plains, perhaps even tundras or a grand bay, I'm not sure yet.  The basic idea is a place of magic and nature combined to form incredible things.

The empire is a very undefined concept I'm working on...  I want to make a realm where good most definitively has the upper hand, a realm of knights and churches, and a place where life is calm and beautiful.  I'm really unsure of how to work with this...  very rough idea...

The wastes surround all of this, a vast plain of lifelessness where even the gods dare not tread.  Undead walk this great and desolate region, serving the bidding of their malicious masters.  The land was once rumored to have been beautiful int he far past, but when the great god of death and madness was destroyed, his blood tainted the world, and it's effects are evident here.

The world of Egridar is surrounded by the wastes, a terrible region of lifelessness and horror.  The wastes are ruled over by 4 great lords, a Dracolich(White) in the North, a Mummy Lord in the south, a Dread Wraith in the East, and A Vampire in the West.  I purposely have chosen the greatest and most diverse gathering of powerful undead I could make, and each one will be named after a greek wind, like Zephyr.  These lords plot for power, and are exiled by the gods themselves.  I'm thinking that they could have been servants of the terrible god of death whose destruction created the wastes themselves.

EDIT: I now have names for the lords of the Wastes!

Boreas is a dracolich, the remains of a white dragon, and Lord of the Northern wastes
Zephyr is a vampire of incredible power, and Lord of the Western wastes
Notus is a mummy lord, crafted from the remains of a titan, Lord of the southern wastes
Eurus is a Dread Wraith, known as the Nightmare, and is lord of the Eastern Wastes.



Thoughts?  None of this is permanent, I'm just toying with ideas right now...

[Soup Nazi]

The empire is a very undefined concept I'm working on... I want to make a realm where good most definitively has the upper hand, a realm of knights and churches, and a place where life is calm and beautiful. I'm really unsure of how to work with this... very rough idea...

Peaceful isn't all that fun to be honest. The Shire was peaceful, but none of tha action happened there...

My suggestion is to make the "empire" a collection of sovereign kingdoms with different cultures, people, and races, who have forged treaties between them. They may not even have an emperor...there could be a council of kings or something.

The reason for this is simple really. It's too hard to write worthwhile adventures in a peaceful happy kingdom. I myself have run into this issue before, and it stinks. You write this beautifully detailed paradise, and then in order for anything to happen, you have to tear it apart. With the collection of smaller kingdoms, they plot and scheme against one another, and yet the people and the lands of their kingdoms can be peaceful and happy. Shift the conflict (which D&D needs to thrive) to something political, if you want peace.

The world of Egridar is surrounded by the wastes, a terrible region of lifelessness and horror. The wastes are ruled over by 4 great lords, a Dracolich(White) in the North, a Mummy Lord in the south, a Dread Wraith in the East, and A Vampire in the West. I purposely have chosen the greatest and most diverse gathering of powerful undead I could make, and each one will be named after a greek wind, like Zephyr. These lords plot for power, and are exiled by the gods themselves. I'm thinking that they could have been servants of the terrible god of death whose destruction created the wastes themselves.

This is PHAT!

The Dark continent is a miserable land where evil does not lurk but treads the land openly, where technology has spoiled the pristine utopia it once was and could have been. Great dwarven factories belch forth clouds of soot into the skys, blotting out the sun over this gloomy realm. Their mountain fortresses loom over the vast plains below. On these plains live tribal clans of halflings, who gather roots and hunt herd animals for food. Clans of Driders call the plains home as well, striking out to terrorize trespassers and just create bloodshed in tribute to their terrible god. I'm not sure yet of what other race to place out here...

The Dark Continent is great so far, but I would like to see more. I want a finished idea, nation, people, something...you have tons of big ideas but don't see them through; you need to change that. It's heart breaking to follow Godswalk and offer suggestions and help only to have the whole thing scrapped and started over. Don't abandon a good concept when you come to a bump in the road; you're better than that.

The wilds is a vast and untainted continent where magic in it's raw form ahs combined with the might of nature to create vast and beautiful landscapes. There are dark forests, great plains, perhaps even tundras or a grand bay, I'm not sure yet. The basic idea is a place of magic and nature combined to form incredible things.

This is all for now...I'm not sure about the rest yet, because nothing specific has really been mentioned. The Wilds has the potential to be cool, but also the potential to be a cliche version of every elven kingdom ever written (lol).


-Peace Out-

[Numinous]

I should mention that for the "Happy continent" I was planning to have politics upped a bit in scope.  Also, I had a nifty idea for how the evil in this place is kept "under control".  Perhaps the Council of Kings you mentioned secretly has a treaty with these beings, and pays tribute or something.  Maybe the people even know of this but do not interefere because the majority of the population lives happily because of this.  People will almost always trade freedom for security, as it is said.  I'm thinking the Yan-TI might be good for this role...  They present themselves as respectable traders, but their real home of jungles and temples is hidden carefully, and this is where they sacrifice the virgin maidens and all of that.  These same Yun-Ti could still be plotting to rule this continent, biding their time and spreading their influence.

How's that for conflict?

[Numinous]

Of Driders and Dromites

Since there have been requests for developing a specific region, I have decided to disclose my ideas for the Drider culture from the Dark continent.  Due to their intimate connection, the story of the dromites will be touched upon here as well.

The Driders are a tribal people, spread out in various tribal groups across the plains of darkness.  their patron god and creator is a Savage deity who speaks of the glory battle brings, the value of victory, and the purity of vioence.  The savage drow often make sacrifices in his name, celebrating the end of a hunt or raid with ceremonies heavily involving the use of blood.  Many small stone shrnes dot the plains, places of worship for the wandering Drider and a sign of the presence of their sanguinous god.

Driders often use wooden lances and longbows int heir hunts, as they are naturally mounted and use their speed to their advantage.  They are especially fond of setting up ambushes in small stands of trees and near water, using their webs as nets to ensnare foes.  honor does not exist in their culture, there is only a lust for battle, and strength is the only language understood by these "people".

The dromites were created as slaves and spys for the Driders, jet black, small, and deadly.  After a few years of slavery, the dromites used their own power, refined through years of stress, to escape.  Once they escaped, they began to create great beats, monstrous spiders apable of traversing the and at great speeds.  These beasts were mindless, and their thoughts were formed by a melding of all the dromites who inhabited this "city".  

Right now I'm usure of several things, namely the following.

How and why the dromites were created.  How they escaped.
How or why they created the great spiders...
Why dromites would adventure, I'm thinking something about revenge on the Driders.
I have an idea of exiled white dromites as adventurers, not sure about it...
I'd like to divide the drider clans by various qualities, speed, stealth, strength, stuff like that...

So, there's what I've got for now...