I really like what you have here, what would be an interesting if that she imagined most of these insults or exaggerates them. Maybe this is already there and I just missed it, anyway a fun start and I like the voice and perspective of the piece. Go to Comment
Often times, certainly in my case, all it takes to get a fanboy excited about an idea is a phrase: like the "Martin Luther of Autobot philosophy". I find that this sub certainly, as all your posts do and this is why I am such a big fan of your writing, has the spark of fanboydom that could spring board 1000 ideas. But I find it lacks any ideas or imagination of its own.
This sub, feels like a kid sorting his toys into piles. Do you feel like you have added level of depth to transformers or expanded on the transformers mythos setting in a meaningful way with this post? I do not feel like this gives any depth to nor does it add anew dimension to the transformer mythos. or the audiences ability to conceptualize the transformers.
An example of something that added to the audience's understanding of transformer was the quintesson story line from the G1 series. You had a interesting enough concept of giant intelligent robots that adapted to their surroundings by transforming into local vehicles. The quintesson story line by providing an origin story for the transformers add depth and created a story line from which fans could imagine explanations for transformer behavior.
In this post you have listed out the type of transformers, and with out explanation assigned general personalities to these types. In your vision of transformers how is the alternate form selected? How does the alternate form influence the transformers personality? The main goal of this articles strikes me as the introduction of a new vocabulary. This article offers not written explanation of what a transformer is and thus is only accessible to people with a preexisting knowledge of transformers. That makes the content of this post either redundant, for example
The majority of Vehitrons are Autobots, though there are vehicles on the Decepticon side as well. They do not have built in weaponry, generally, and instead favor hand held rifles, pistols, and melee weapons.
or the content is limiting and unsupported by a novel narrative.
Insectitrons: They respect and fear strength, so most aligned insectitrons serve under Decepticon coercion.
Why?
I suggest using these terms in a transformers narrative that you are working on or i the context of other transformer posts. The phrases will take your meanings over time. I will try to do the same if and when I post another transformer sub. Go to Comment
Human pets was the one I found the most interesting.
I really really like the idea of this, telling the story of your world through glimpses of culture, events and side-long looks at values. Yet you are not really mocking the language of news like they do in the onion. ButI would suggest making these shorter if you want to play up the humor/silly side. Take the first headline for example
Androids Demand Vote: No humor in the blurb and couple of political facts that could lay the ground work other conflicts or future posts but over all its pretty dry. Add a joke or make the AI protests a satire of modern protests, a allegory for modern protests or add something interesting.
Here are my suggestions if you want to play this for humor. Be warned, I am reaching for low hanging fruit.
Designer pets: I assume you are poking fun at how genetic engineering has become so common place and flippant in your world and how ruthless the commercial interest are
Just cut it down to the punchline, Giant Chihuahuas
or
Seeing Eye Dog Community Demands A Brail Version: Designer pet enthusiasts no longer satisfied with the tea Great Dane or the Mega Chihuahua can take comfort in *********corps new neon fur genes.
Alternatively:
*********, the designer pet corporation, suffered major forth quarter loses when their research team revealed that the their spring line of pets have no noses. Sam Chi, nephew of *********'s founder says "Dudes, I just told the AI that we wanted a dog that wouldn't smell."
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Ganymede Revolt "Put Down"
A 30 second data feed was leaked to the CogNet of an exultant 'Commander Talana' claiming that her organization set the explosives at a Bowman colony nigh club to strike a blow at corporate greed and puritanism. Local Law Enforcements says the data feed shows that Talana "is fat, squeaky voiced and mean". The federal delegated interpreted the separatists attack as "Haters Gonna Hate"
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Pope upgrades Zuckerberg's canonization status, from "beatified" to "Its complicated". The council of Cardinals will now meets to determine if Zuckerberg has been "Friended" by the divine.
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QuickScan Handheld
The Tycho Convention is slated to deal with privacy violations and rights in terms to holosimulation in the CogNet late next year. Now, pocket sized scanners can snap between three to ten images to create a rendered model of a person or place to generate in a virtual environment. This has lead to several lawsuits and protests as cutting edge programmers and snapping up replicas of famous people and selling their avatars online. In related new Quickscan shares rose sharply when it was announced that the "Chimera Scan" software would be available next month. One enthusiastic fan said "I gonna be sipping the bubbles, with Keira Daily's head on Tori Maths's body". *Click below to pre-order your copy now.*
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The Appalachian Church of Christ Protests Cancelled
The Appalachian Church, figurehead of Christian and Luddite movements has stated that the new Rally Revival series following up it's anti-android and anti-robot protests of last year with has been cancelled. The God Hates Clones campaign was put on hold when routine genetic screening of the ACC congregation revealed that level of genetic diversity among the members was so low that they were all legally considered clones.
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Unicorns Exist!
A small herd of unicorns exist in an unnamed European state. The animals are designer creations from a North American lab, where the animals were recreated from Andalusian, deer, and narwhal DNA. The lab's litigation and patent infringement AI has already served 170,000 teenage girls and their parents with demands for royalty payments. In related news Noah Floodgate, the director of Association for Ribonucleic acid Conservation (ARC) has said "Don't even try and give me any of that crap".
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Solstice Celebration Continues: Spoil Sport Protesters shot.
Syria-Israel Province: Law enforcement used live ammunition to disperse a small protest, barely a dozen people, that marred the annual announcement of the Urban Solstice Celebration Planning Committee. One members of the committee commented "It is sad that there were still people who were trying to pervert the meaning of a joyous commercial holiday with their bizarre religion and zealotry. This holiday is an economic markets, and sales are expected to grow as much as 2.5% over last year's solid growth. Thus the actions of our esteemed law enforcement community were justified. Our predictions show that sustained protests could cost us up to 0.02% retardation of growth" The dead included three astronomy professors from an estimated Far East University, a group of agriculturalists from a local sheep ranch and a local carpenter.
LAPD Shuts Down Jetpack Patrol Force
The skies above LA are a little less safe tonight after the megacity comptroller suspended the use of jetpacks by the police force. Sighting insurance issues following the a rash of accident following the adoption of the Martin Z86 Jetpack. The packs have been recalled by the manufacturer stating faulty turbine blades and overheating problems in the thrust nozzles. The comprtoller suspended all insurance coverage for Jetpack related accidents at 11:58am, and remotely deactivated all jetpacks at 11:59am. This evening the comptroller noted "My policies have already saved the city millions", referring to the two policemen that fell to their deaths at approximately 12:01pm. A third policeman had to be rescued by the fire department.
This exactly the kind of feed back you hope to get, when you post something on the Citadel you hope to get 5 readers in five years, maybe….so I am really honored and excited to have three people read this, and thanks for taking the time to suggest improvements.
The main focus of this story was to be an information dump about dwarves society without just listing facts, but by placing those facts in the context of personal interactions. It is esoteric piece of work, but I enjoyed writing. I also found that writing a story like this went much faster than writing "fact" posts.
The precocious Kiijanavyre character may have been out of my depth as a writer. I needed and wanted a character that was both a child and an adult, that possessed great talents and an intuitive intelligence, but at the same time lacked a great deal of self knowledge and certainty. The type of character/person that can be playful one minute and sophisticated the next because they lack a pretense or sense of self-awareness that would require them to maintain a persona. This is meant to be indirect contrast with the dwarves who very much keep a persona, and are very much worried about presentation. As she interacts with Gorn at the beach she becomes a little self-conscious, starts to pick her words, and eventually in a larger sense no longer pursues her sincere wants but takes a path of duty. I thought it would be banal to make these contrasts any more stark than I did, but I can certainly go in say these things. Yet I would love to know if you saw those things in the story, because what I wanted to put in the story is irrelevant until I put it in the story. I will try to go through say these things more explicitly.
I could make her older if that makes more palatable, I pretty much pulled 15 out of a hat, cause that is likely an adult in a stone age society. If make her 19, will she still seem as vulnerable, will her uncertainty regarding a course of action be understandable? The language thing is cultural, and I only meant her to speak two language fluently, clearly defining the events as they happen in different languages has always been a problem with this setting.
I will add a few lines to the first section to really emphasize her wunderkin status. That also might make the goddess's preoccupation with her specifically more understandable. But I do feel that wunderkin characters are basically annoying and I was trying to strike a balance. The characterization of Kiijanavyre may also be stunted by the lack other interactions with other characters. We can't know if she is a typical 15 year old girls if she never talks to any other humans, we also don't get much a sense for her in her element. Tell me what you think about the addition of scene, in the forest in which
1) she either talks with the druid some about what is coming and what she can expect
2) In beginning when she show the dwarves around, her lecturing Gorn might make a nice arc.
3) Her talking with the Mitirangu priest who gave her bread.
Okay the chronology, I like starting and ending with Kiijanavyre getting in the boat. But you nailed the other jumps directly, I wanted to keep the beach from being an information dump. But I also want to distinguish Gorn on the road from Gorn at the beach, the contrast in behaviors was deliberate, but maybe I am trying to do too much. I wrote this in a linear fashion and then cut it up when posting. So there are not even designed transitions between the scenes. Go to Comment
Update: reworked the chronology some, the beach events are now in order. I also added more details regarding Kiijanavyre's inner dialog and another Kiijanavyre conversation in order to try address some of Dossta's comments. Go to Comment
It is a little confusing, so I get under the covers and I transported back to known place, while a stone avatar in my shape stays under the cover. During this time, I can get up walk around and everything else as long as I am back in the stone bed after eight hours. If I don't get back into the bed before 8 hours I am turned into a small figurine?
What if somebody pulls off the covers?
The idea of stone avatars being place holder for "real" dwarves is an interesting one, and I think more interesting than the concept of the bed.
1) A cluster of statues is delivered to the urban estate of the lord, all the carved dwarves are armored and armed but appear a sleep. The lord is please for believes the statues represent his success in subjugating the dwarven lands, but then 4 hours, the statues pop up and the estate is occupied by dwarven separatists.
2) Perhaps a disturbed dwarven task master wanted to figure out a way for his men to work while they slept and thus he invented dwarven beds. Dwarves thought they were going to sleep only to walk up outside a mine shaft. "Alrighty lads, your protections are doing the resting, and you can do the digging" Go to Comment
I loved that this had a consistent tone, and the narrator being a character added to my enjoyment. I also really like the idea of tunnel dogs being used to check for types of ore.
Well done
"Grinx are not for eating" I could see this become expression describing any faux pas when visiting another culture. Go to Comment
Another interesting approach to this may have been to frame it around the day to life of dwavers, because much it already appears that way. If you want to tackle dwarven culture and values in list this is nice effort, I hope to use some them in future posts-give us a shared dwarven thread. Go to Comment
This strikes me as fairly complete post (not much wanting for content here), written with a consistent tone and flippant style that is fun to read. We don't learn much about Tornfurry's other side, or if he has one, but I am thinking this is more about the rage than the man. Go to Comment
I think this is great, we get a story and a location, well done. Thank you for writing this. I wish more subs took this tact towards locations or character, rather than just listing "facts". I feel inspired to do more in this tone, I hope you just raised the bar. I feel bad that I don't have a lot to say about it, but I really wouldn't change much, the story sticks to a tone, we learn a lot about the main character (mostly by what he choses to say and not say), and we get a whole encounter. These are the details you want in a setting. Plus you could take this whole piece and use it as a hand out. Go to Comment
Ceasar I agree with your sentiment regarding this place completely, most writing for role-playing games doesn't have a narrative, but is piece of a narrative and the story of a character could certainly use a peaceful island. You we only have some many temples of doom. But you could add a few things that might focus on character interaction with setting a bit, for example what is the weather like. are their latent conflicts between the natives and the conquerors, who is the King and from who is he descended. If I visit the island what should I use for money, where should I stay, will I be able to stable a horse and then there are visuals. We don't have many. I am not saying you need all of this but I suggest you a pick a direct goal for what this piece is trying to communicate. Here some options to consider
Is this piece for strangers who have never visited the island, perhaps you could do it as a travel log entry, (steal the format from one the lonely planet books and go with that).
If this is a meta-piece for GMs then give the GMs a few sample scenes or something least they pull this location out their binder and watch the players eyes glaze over when you list off continuing fractions and imports. Obviously a GM will have to make up somethings, but you can fill a lot of gaps with suggestions of depth.
Is this piece designed to give you world some cultural vocabulary as you suggested, could this be where a character is from or place the characters have heard off. If that is the goal, what is the cultural baggage that they carry by being raised here. Obviously the will instinctively view water as more valuable then other players and they might in their heart the beach is always just right over that next rise, but that could be any island nation. What are Sanguisinites like how does their independant, stubborn, and resilient nature manifest in day to day life on the islands?
Culturally it is dwarven, it speaks to dwarven values and behavior no? But the action is necromantic. Such is the divide between the two topics that we discussed earlier. LIke if we had a French guild and Architectural Guild, the french guild would be more culture, history and events and the Architectural Guild would be stories and items associated with the task associated with designing buildings.
Necromancy really isn't an idiom as dwarfishness will be when we are through with it. I would love to read counter arguments. Go to Comment
NPCs (Major) (Mercantile)