Story time

[drenrin2120]

I've always been interested by the idea of writing novels and novellas that turn into the typical, grand sweeping adventures that a reader could get lost in for hours. Because, you know, I was that kid who would read any kind of adventure story I could get my hands on. From Redwall to the Dragon Riders of Pern, to anything Vonnegut. When I finally lost the motivation to make an RPG I was left feeling very empty and unaccomplished. Especially because I had spent so much time on the sound track and the story. At least the sound track was there and I could listen to it, but as time went by I felt I had done the characters and world I had created a huge disservice. So, in the last few months I bucked up and started writing. It was all mostly random, character development and side-stories, until recently I wrote a piece that I'm very happy with. It took a long time to come to a point where I feel semi-comfortable about the world I've created. This is a spin off of my Apathy of Angels story, but is very, very different. Even the title will likely change. The freedom that comes with story-telling via a book and not within the limitations of RPGMaker has been, well, freeing. So, yada yada, I wanted to share with you all a first draft of the potential first chapter of this story I'm currently working on.

I guess you could categorize the story as sci-fi/fantasy and obviously nonfiction

Also, I guess this goes without saying, but as always, I'm open and eager to hear criticism and analysis, questions and spellchecking. 

Excerpt of Samson's Adventure
This was previously going to be Chapter 1, but I've decided to start the first book farther back on the story time line.

Introduction - Rought Draft

[Prpl_Mage]

It's terrible.





Just kidding, haven't read it yet. It won't load or something.

[drenrin2120]

Oh yeah, I guess mediafire wouldn't be able to read .odt files. I reuplaoded it.

[Fisherson]

Oh yeah, I guess mediafire wouldn't be able to read .odt files. I reuplaoded it.

XD I was gonna say that. Personaly though I'd love to give it read when I get time! I sometimes think that a few failed-to-launch games could make good stories too. Though I have to ask, as a major AoA fan, does that mean there will be no more attempts to make the game?

[drenrin2120]

d'aw, I have fan(s)!

I've thought about continuing the game many, many times. I would love to return to it one day but life has been less than accommodating and for now, other things of interest have taken the front seat. I recently played through the last version of the game and it actually helped me pin down a lot of the story I'd been struggling with and it also brought a ton of nostalgia tears to my eyes. I don't want to say I will return to it, but I can't bring myself to say I never will.

[Prpl_Mage]

I've thought about continuing the game many, many times. I would love to return to it one day but life has been less than accommodating and for now, other things of interest have taken the front seat. I recently played through the last version of the game and it actually helped me pin down a lot of the story I'd been struggling with and it also brought a ton of nostalgia tears to my eyes. I don't want to say I will return to it, but I can't bring myself to say I never will.

AoA PS4 confirmed.


Okay I read it now. It's pretty good, however I usually prefer to have books throwing me straight into the plot instead of having a slow build up. Y'know, kinda how 10 years later you're kinda done with RPGs starting with a "world history and mythology" intro. You didn't have this however and neatly weaved the important geographic facts and such into the actual story. I just kinda wished for some more action by now if you know what I'm sayin.
Also, any specific reason why the northmen are called Oroboros?

[drenrin2120]

AoA PS4 confirmed.


Okay I read it now. It's pretty good, however I usually prefer to have books throwing me straight into the plot instead of having a slow build up. Y'know, kinda how 10 years later you're kinda done with RPGs starting with a "world history and mythology" intro. You didn't have this however and neatly weaved the important geographic facts and such into the actual story. I just kinda wished for some more action by now if you know what I'm sayin.
Also, any specific reason why the northmen are called Oroboros?

Nah bro, Steam Greenlight.

And yeah, I get what you're saying. Originally, there was gonna be more action, but the story changed so much the original intro needed to change too. I am a little worried without more action, people might not stick around. It's also tough finding a good balance between delivering pertinent information to the reader while not boring them and keeping the story trundling along at an even and agreeable pace.

There is an intro piece I've been working on which is a bit more action oriented that would come before Chapter 1, sort of like a foreword which I may share.

As for the Oroboros, yes, their name is important. It might be a bit heavy handed, but it draws from ancient mythology, as a lot of stuff in the story will. I may change their name to something less obvious like "Boros", which currently is used in the story as a sort of slang term for the northern tribes. but anyway, Here's where the name comes from. and actually, one of the main characters has a tattoo of the opus on her wrist. The Ouroboros is also a symbol of ancient alchemy. This might also help explain why the name of story is likely to change to "Opus".

[Prpl_Mage]

Yeah it's a valid worry, these kind of things kinda needs to make people want to read more. I'd just advice to throw in some more actual human interaction sooner in the story, doesn't need to be a big epic battle or something life changing just something that sets the theme. But if this is the pace that you're gonna continue with then you might just keep it. Also, I didn't really get the first scene with Opee. Why Garret was mad with him even though the wounds had healed ages ago.

Oh don't get me wrong I've read a bunch of religion and mythology so I get the meaning of Oroboros. A symbol of eternity, a cycle of rebirth, a new beginning and all that very closely related to the ideas of both Hinduism and other Asian world views. It just felt odd that people referred to as northern barbarians would be called Oroboros. Just had to ask if you had a thought behind it so you didn't just read it somewhere and decided that it was a good name (I've seen that a few times). 
You'll have to teach me opus connection to alchemy though, as far as I can remember opus means masterpiece, so I thought it was kind of a ironic joke.

[drenrin2120]

It was implied at the end scene that Opee was still using whatever drug he was hooked on (it'll be elaborated upon later on in the story), so I leave it up to the reader to make conclusions. Basically, Garret didn't trust Opee but because he's his brother, he tries to show compassion for him. But Garret is... a violent guy, so when they discover the drugs in Opee's cabin and that Opee was wanted for some crime or another Garret feels betrayed and lashes out against Opee in an excessively violent manner. Of course, all this probably feels strange with out much context, but it's my attempt to offer some insight into these characters without just straight up saying it.

As for the Oroboros, the more you point it out, the stranger it feels for them to be explicitly called Oroboros. But it is worth mentioning one should consider "who" referred to them as barbarians. But from my understanding of the Ouroboros it was adopted by mid-century europeans practicing Alchemy. I did not know about its connection to Hinduism or Asian world views but it makes sense given its connection to cyclical life which I've read to being referred to as "the great return". That idea does become pretty central to the story and will play as a theme in the background.

Alchemists viewed their work in a spiritual context and some of the greatest or most well known Alchemists actually regarded some of the more materialistic endeavors of alchemy (i.e., turning lead to gold) as being superfluous and ridiculous. For them it was a spiritual quest to understand the universe. To complete this quest was considered an Alchemist's "Magnum Opus" which also coincided with the Philosopher's stone, which was more of a symbol. Alchemists didn't think such a thing as a philosopher's stone actually existed.

The eternal return, and thus the Ouroboros, was used by Alchemists to symbolize the basic concept of kind of "putting in what you get", the idea that you can not make something out of nothing (I'm wording this weird).

And obviously, alchemy meant different things to different cultures and varied between ancient societies. But that seems to be a basic summary of the connection that I've found. I may be wrong and I definitely want to do so more research if I wasn't even aware of the connection to Asian cultures, but that's how I understand it currently.

[Fisherson]

Wooooow/ That was pretty awesome. You have a very poetic and smooth voice when narrating. Only problem I had is I was expecting Sampson or somebody from AoA I was familar with, still I liked the descriptions and the way your world unfolded before my eyes. Felt very professional! ^_-

[drenrin2120]

Sorry for not replying! Thanks for the comments, guys! Writing is very time consuming. On average, I spent about an hour on each page plus extra time editing.

Fish, Samson from AoA is one of the main characters of this whole bit! How did you not notice that? lol Admittedly, he is the only recognizable character from AoA in this portion and his character has changed quite a bit.

I hope to write more soon but life has been taking a lot of my time. I've got a big move coming up and all my energy has been focused on that. Hopefully when I'm settled down again I can devote some more time to writing.

EDIT: Actually, I have been writing a bit and have changed direction a bit again. After writing a bunch of random miscellaneous scenes, I realized where I had started in the story was too far ahead in the timeline and I was jamming paragraphs with information I wanted the reader to know, which I could easily accomplish with another story starting earlier in the timeline. Fish, there's one recognizable character from AoA in this short excerpt. The places are actually there in game, too, maps, events and all, but I never got far enough in development to where the player would visit them. This story takes places roughly three years before the events in the previous excerpt and the events in AoA. Interesting thing I never thought to note before, the previous excerpt of Samson in the Northern continent is actually the events leading up to the beginning of AoA where Samson gets off the ship and meets Parry and the player is introduced to those characters for the first time. Though I really do want to stress that the story being told here is significantly different from AoA, though there are lots of references and similarities.

Introduction - Rought Draft

[Fisherson]

What...? But what I got was only one page long. o.o; Wait a second let me try this again and see if my PC had a malfunction or maybe I copy pasted the text to a offline Wordpad so I coudl read it later and didn't get it all?

[drenrin2120]

Um... there are multiple pages there, 5 to be exact. I'm not sure what you did wrong. Try following the link again? I suppose? It works for me!

[Fisherson]

Um... there are multiple pages there, 5 to be exact. I'm not sure what you did wrong. Try following the link again? I suppose? It works for me!

XD I see now! I thought the Media Fire contained only one page there's more. Will give you a review when I'm done then! ^_^