Mechanically, this is so much better than the other posts that I want to jump for joy.
It is an interesting item. That part works for me.
It will however change the world. See the Forge comment above. There are other uses that could be applied from castle defense to manufacutring. You should comment upon that in the post.
However, it is the history you included on the item that also totally does not work for me as well. It needs to be rewritten and given context for the items. If this all happened centuries ago, then there is no more of this stuff. If it happened last week, people don't yet know about the material (and will just be finding new uses for it) and you could "break the guy out" so he can make more for you. ..
I need you to put a little refinement on the history, to close a few open loops there, so we can focus more on the item. Go to Comment
By the way, this is only trying to be constructive criticism. We are not trying to tear you down. We see a really good post under some mistakes. Correct those and you have a winner. Go to Comment
Ok, let me first compliment you on coming up with a pretty good concept. I like it, and obviously an item like this has an awful lot of uses.
However, there are a lot of problems with this post, an I mean a lot.
1) Grammar. I have yet to carefully inspect your submission for this, but I did not notice a single comma anywhere. I suggest you go back and speak through it, adding a comma anyplace that you might pause.
Also make sure to fix capitalization spelling and any other grammar errors.
2)Format. You have the Magical properties with the full item description of the item. Worse offenses definitely exist, but I do think that the Description, History, Magical properties format does work very well. If nothing else, delete the Magical properties text so that it is not so blatant.
Now we have finished with the easy stuff. Let us move on to the larger problems.
3)Equivalent exchange. There is one fundamental law in all Alchemy. Equivalent Exchange: For every output, there is an equal input. Fire outputs heat, light, and energy. The input is fuel, air, and heat (which is partially self sustaining).
Now this rock does not use magic (which often fills the holes in equivalent exchange) because it is purely alchemical, therefore something has to be used up in this process, and that would have to be the rock. In other words, you have broken the most basic principal of Alchemy in the creation of this item, which of course, has lead to the accurate comments given by KendraHeart.
4)History (part one). I am not going to lie. I think that it is pretty bad, although some of that is probably the lack of grammar. Still, the plausibility of this story is pretty slim, and makes little sense.
The first problem is the total lack of detail. Who are these three boys, do they have names, aspirations or goals? What about the greedy teachers? What about the Guild itself? How old are the students in question? What year are they? On and on. Look at the submissions that have fours and fives next to them. These are the good examples. Use them. Learn from them. You never see a history this short next to a four or five.
5) History(part two). Three young alchemists have come across a secret that they do not realize is valuable. Now why exactly did the Teachers not inquire about the process as soon as it was discovered? If they are in fact students, then the teachers are practically entitled to know how this was done. Furthermore, I see no reason why the alchemists who made the stone, not realizing it's potential, would not be willing to part with it's secret, even without being asked.
Any aspiring student would want to show off how accomplished they are to their teachers for some recognition, unless they thought that the secret was somehow valuable. Which they did not.
And Kendra is right. They would have lab notes and journals everywhere. Where are those?
6) History (part three). Assuming that the teachers did not simply ask about the process of the Charstone's creation in the first place, the fight makes little sense.
Even if the student had no rational sense at all, how did he attack the teachers in such a way that two deaths could result? Are you honestly telling me that the student tried to kill the teacher? If you are, then this boy is demonstrating psychopathological behavior, in which case he should never have made it this far.
These students would have to be relatively well behaved in order to have made it to such a point. Just attacking the teacher represents, at best, an un-educated highschool mentality. I cannot imagine what kind of student would try to kill a teacher. These kids would have been taught for years exactly how dangerous the chemicals and potions in the lab are. Caution would be second nature, or else they would have had a serious accident years back.
As far as the teachers go, are you trying to convince me that they have no policy for protecting themselves from, and calmly dealing with out of control students? They have been enforcing rules and regulations for years. I would imagine that they would have a way to shield these boys off and deal with the problem.
It is not too hard to imagine that they would have protocols for dealing with juveniles in restricted areas that would also apply here. It just seems a little unrealistic to think that these people would over-react so strongly.
There is a lot that does not make sense here. I think that you need to seriously rewrite this post. I have tried to not repeat advice or criticism that you have received from anybody else, but that does not mean that I do not agree with it.
I suggest that you seriously rewrite this whole thing from ground up.
Poor history+lack of explaination+lack of plausibility+lack of care to grammar and spelling+potentially good idea=1.5/5.0 (Has a Seed of Usefulness Go to Comment
It is alchemical gobblygook for torches left burning in dungeons and ruins.
The History is pointless. In short, someone made some, then lost the secret of it. Nobody looked through their lab notes? Nobody scryed? No telepathy? In a world with that much magical booyah, the secret died with them?
So there is a limited amount of the stuff because of your psuedohistory. I understand that. But, the economic benefits of this stuff would casually pay for itself AND provide a tidy sum for the user, even with an obscene price. Put it in a forge. NO MORE FUEL. And the fire only needs to be "pumped up once" - since the fire will not diminish. Magic uber forges.
This is ghost rock without the side effects. blah.
Oh... and my favorite part...
"And there he remains refusing to reveal his secrets to the men that killed his best friends. all the while thinking about how to escape and get revenge. "
Well how long ago was this story? 3 months? 200 years? what? Pointless drama that leads no where. Are people trying to break him out to get more of this stuff?
Nope too many loose ends... it is a macrame after being hit by a weed wacker. Go to Comment
1 How is the history pointless it tells us who made it why there is so few of the stones and provides a plot hook for players who might be intrested in alchemy, I think the history made it quite clear that the young guy was put in that cell to be rescued. However now that i think about it I might make the Charstone into a plot.
Ummm No. Your history was not clear. The write up made it sound like there were a number of the stones, a good number. If that is not the case, that needs to be edited.
2 Who said anything about magical booyah, the boys may have been foolish by not seeing the stones potential but for heavens sake not all alchemists are the organised type. I said nothing about lab notes which means there are no lab notes.
Okay. So no alchemist had a potion of telepathy or truth forcing in their posession? What do these guys make?
Alchemists are psuedo scientists, lab notes are implied. That aside, the kids experimented a couple of times and didn't keep track of what worked and what did not. Was it just a one time accident? (If it was, you should put that in the history).
3 Oh and I definatly did not make this clear. The stones are small and you could not fuel a forge with with one or two it also needs oil to be poured on the stone at first to get it going. Even with all the stones put together the fire would not be sufficient to fuel a forge they need really hot fires and all the stone does is sustain the fire that is it.
Then fix it. If that is the case, then the best fire you can get out of one of these things is the spark of the tinder, since the fire can not grow. So there is a inconsistance there.
4.Like I said the history was only meant to give the stone a bit of background and if the plot needs more detail then I will do that when I make it into an actual plot.
If you are going to include it in the post, hit all the major points. If you want to make it a scenario, then make another post with the major and minor points. If it is not worth including, then don't include it in the post./ Go to Comment
I'm assuming that it only forgoes the 'fuel' part of the fire triangle and not the heat/air parts. Which would mean that after awhile locked in an air tight tomb the charstone would go out, AND there would be no O<sup>2</sup> left in the room. Go to Comment
1. How is the history pointless it tells us who made it why there is so few of the stones and provides a plot hook for players who might be intrested in alchemy, I think the history made it quite clear that the young guy was put in that cell to be rescued. However now that i think about it I might make the Charstone into a plot.
2 Who said anything about magical booyah, the boys may have been foolish by not seeing the stones potential but for heavens sake not all alchemists are the organised type. I said nothing about lab notes which means there are no lab notes.
3 Oh and I definatly did not make this clear. The stones are small and you could not fuel a forge with with one or two it also needs oil to be poured on the stone at first to get it going. Even with all the stones put together the fire would not be sufficient to fuel a forge they need really hot fires and all the stone does is sustain the fire that is it.
4.Like I said the history was only meant to give the stone a bit of background and if the plot needs more detail then I will do that when I make it into an actual plot. Go to Comment
Seeing how no one appears to have voted on it since the author modified the sub after criticism, I decided to take a look at it.
It's sort of an interesting idea, or a potentially interesting idea: a fuel source that does not expire. You light it, it stays lit until it's put out, presumably forever. I doubt that's the first time someone's come up with that, but it has potential as an interesting object.
The alchemical story is a little odd. It basically is an artificial cap on why there's only a few of these things around. That could be a good thing, but it's not very well written.
So overall, a sub-par submission. Could have been fixed with a more vivid story, or some more details on its operation and usage, but lacking that, I give it a 2.5/5. Go to Comment
All I have to say echos what has all ready been said. Why would these students attack? If the fire cannot grow, then how can it go beyond the spark-on-wood stage? And so on. A way to fix the how the fire grows would be to have a small spherical stone you put into the fire when it's where you want it. And maybe, to keep it from sustaining forest fires and forges, perhaps give it an area of effect. At least, that's what I would do.
Another comment I would like to make is how it works. Alchemy is the process of creating something without magic, with a completely natural process. I don't see how something without a healthy dose of magic could sustain a fire.
First of all to Pariah, the teeth would look weird if the wear filed down and this vampire is quite set on his goals. I never heard of a rule that Vampires cannot ingest food and there is no reason for it and I just don't like the idea so i'm keeping it out.
Their mother and pretty much all the vampires would know about Diacon and Pama being related and I thinks thats reason enough. Thanks anyway Go to Comment
Necromancer, A couple of things...
First, make sure to link members to their organizations, so put 2165 (Order of Restraint) in all of these. Keep linking the land of undead in the free-text.
Second: This post follows the rules of punctuation, capitalizaion, and spelling, better than your first one. Might I suggest you run your posts through a word processor with spell and grammar check before you post? It will help your writing be clearer.
Third: The flow of your story description is a little halting. Okay, a lot halting.
Might I suggest you outline your posts, determining what is important and has to be includes vs additional fluff, before you post. By setting the points up ahead of time, you can put them in an order that makes more sense... you can then "fill it in" as you write.
Forth: Related to above, Your posts needs to tell us nearly everything about the subject.To be complete, your post needs to answer; "Who is involved?", "What is happening (and where and when)?" and "How and why things occur?". If it is an item or setting then include: What is the item/place? and What can it do?
Details are not as important as completeness. Read your post. Is there anything that someone (who doesn't know your campaign and the backstory) might have a question about? If you find such a question, edit the write up and include the answer to that question. Keep reading your post until you have answered every question (including ones that seem really stupid... there are a lot of really stupid people out there).
Fifth: The Gold Standard
If your post could not be part of a published fantasy novel, it needs work. That is what you should aim for.
If your item/ npc/ plot/ setting is not as well described and developed as something you would find in a published fantasy novel (excluding most DnD licensed novels), then it is not equal to the gold standard and needs work.
This standard is really not that hard to meet. New members often meet it on their first or second try. You do not need to be a professional writer, you just need to put a little effort into doing it right. Go to Comment
Just so you know, The Order of Restraint ( http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=2165 ) has been moved to your 'work space', It needs significant updating to meet the standards of the site. You have done a good job working on the improvements on this one, (though it could use some more). I assume you will turn your attention to the Order of Restraint soon. Go to Comment
Moon's advice is sound, and it helps for everyone to read it, no matter how long we've been here. Never hurts to brush up on the basics as it were. Now, it's time for me to add my two cents on the matter.
Vampire basics - how is that Diacon can eat, as common usage vampires cannot ingest food, and certainly couldn't gain weight. Pama is mentioned as the daughter of the Vampire Queen, can vampires reproduce, or was she born prior to the vampire queen becoming one of the undead? Basically, how dead are your vampires? On a side note, how prevalent are vampires in Torin?
Diacon is interesting in that he has infiltraited human society to the point of becoming a fat, supple, soft court functionary. What is there about him that sets him apart from the others of the court, and from the other ranks of vampiredom? Go to Comment
My own half cent. Instead of tearing his teeth out forcible how about just filing them down? It causes a tad less pain and he wouldn't have to fool around with weird dentures.
And what do you mean vampires have morals? I know quite a few humans who wouldn't be adverse to marrying their sister (if no-one besides them knew they wee related) if it would give them even a little bit more power. It's not like they would hold each other to he whole 'no cheating on me' deal in this case because it would be a marriage of convience/power games instead of love. Go to Comment
Items (Tools) (Magical)
It is an interesting item. That part works for me.
It will however change the world. See the Forge comment above. There are other uses that could be applied from castle defense to manufacutring. You should comment upon that in the post.
However, it is the history you included on the item that also totally does not work for me as well. It needs to be rewritten and given context for the items. If this all happened centuries ago, then there is no more of this stuff. If it happened last week, people don't yet know about the material (and will just be finding new uses for it) and you could "break the guy out" so he can make more for you. ..
I need you to put a little refinement on the history, to close a few open loops there, so we can focus more on the item. Go to Comment