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[Cathar]

Uzu, his second son, will be featured in the comic I'm currently working on, so we'll hear about his family again in the future

Spoiler: Real, true, unadultered spoiler (click to show/hide)

The little guy in the top left corner

[IndigoFenix]

Oh, this is back!

If you want to make an adventurer and record your adventures, we can do that aswell but I'll ask you to keep in close contact with me as relinquishing editorial control is not something I'll ever do again

This would definitely be advisable, and to be very specific about the kinds of events you like and those you don't like.  I'm still not entirely sure exactly where your thoughts on my particular escapades went from "overall positive" to "shut the whole thing down".  (The last chapter I guess was unplanned and thus kind of arbitrary, but that wasn't included in the upload anyway.)

[Cathar]

My thoughts are...all over the place. Lot of missed opportunities, discarding happenings and retconning are something I hate with passion, some good stuff I liked (the old man from Luhmong is something I would have dearly liked to dig under), but in the end I could just not make sense of the story, despite having tried my absolute best. I feel like shit only by thinking about it.

I don't think I'm in a position to criticize writing because that is not my art, so I can't really give good advices on the matter. What I do usually is I try walk around, try to find a good topic for a story, then do a mix of digging and watching things unfold, select the part that make the story understandable, and then romanticize the thing.

In your story, what I would have done would probably to have gone adventuring with the king for a little while so the hero could prove herself, putting the two characters in relation (one adventures because she wants to prove herself to her adoptive father, the other adventures because he litterally already accomplished everything else a man can accomplish already / + possible subplot with a father/daughter relationship emerging between the two) then center the story over the kingdom of Luhmong. A possible end would have been her becoming the advisor /hearthperson of his son. With hindsight that's what I would have done...

But it's hard for me to get more specific. It's not about winning at DF or killing the most people, it's about telling a story

[IndigoFenix]

Ah, I was going for a more "epic fantasy" kind of feel, exploring the sorting algorithm of evil behind the problems in this world... Thrathnu (the god, that is) as the Prime Evil, Lomoth as his main servant in the world (and likely the ultimate Big Bad of this story), Anlar as the sorceress who uses the slab given by Thrathnu and is in some way connected to the "curse" on the Land of Confining, with the various vampires and werebeasts living in that land below her, and the gray goblins as the bottom rung on the ladder.

The broad idea was for one of these goblins to work her way up, subtly guided by these evil powers who want to use her as a servant, but at the same time rebelling against this destiny, ultimately coming to Mong Kima and eventually perhaps helping in the battle against Lomoth, should the story ever reach that point.

I didn't want to spend too much time writing since you seem to like taking DF's text and giving character to the...characters, so I focused on making interesting in-game conversations instead.

Well, it doesn't matter.  Perhaps this overall plot can be picked up by someone else.

[Cathar]

Yeah alright so here lies the problem. What I'm looking for is stories that would integrate themselves in the setting, not lore-sweeping stories that would require me years of work to make sense of and would eventually drag the universe lightyears away from where it's going right now. I assumed it was understood as a matter of course, obviously assuming was a fault on my part... I guess I can't really ask for help then, but it's fine, I can carry by myself.

[Imic]

Small stories in the shadow of an immense war, rather than a booming, High fantasy legend of good vs. evil.

[Sir Knight]

Doing it properly takes far more effort than I'm used to - some 30-40 comic pages to make, and I've made 13 so far.

Don't burn yourself out.  This all is supposed to be fun.  Fun!

Speaking of which, this update was fun.

[Megaman_zx]

I agree. It's interesting seeing what's happened to all the characters from Watershields post-retirement.

[Cathar]

Aw man, drawing won't burn myself out. I do that for fun, this is my escapism.

But in the meantime, every other similar thread in this forum died from heat death, MK is the only one of its generation to still be alive, and there are very good reasons for that (mostly, we go slowly and we have a plan).
I'm worried about working with others after the last attempt that crashed and burnt, so if someone wants to work with me I'll have to make sure they don't spin the wheel wildly as soon as it's in their hands.

So yeah that discussion was mostly a response to megaman. If you want to work with me, I'd be glad to find something for you to do, and I'll reward your efforts, but please do make sure this doesn't end up changing the nature of the universe we're building, stirring the story wildly off its tracks, destroying the world over its rebuilding capacity, and so on. Contact me by PM if you are interested, if you are not it is completely fine.

Also, yes ; recurring characters is one of the features that keep me going. Characters that have been in Watershield will still exist in the background of the next stories, they will still be alive doing their things, and can possibly influence the next fort, or the overall fate of the kingdom. Butterfly effect is a wonderful thing in DF

[Imic]

I love how the world keeps on spinning when you leave your forts and go out to somewhere else, or even in the forts themselves. As you farm, as you build, the world keeps going. And you change how those events go. No beast is undefeatable, no tyrant is unkillable, you can do anything. Even something tiny in Dwarf Fortress could change the world. These stories all collide, making a hundered thousand stories kept in libraries that maybe no-one will ever see. But those stories are still there.
I'll try to be more active in the future, and possibly think more about characters. The last one... Well...

[Cathar]

Well, outside of his love triangle (which I can no longer sort out), Imic had a pretty good run in Watershield, going from a low rank conscript from Tetzobsha to the rank of captain of Thomocemir's knights. He's among the top five military leaders in the world


He's a character I'm waiting to see the legacy of. Hope he gets kids soon !

[Imic]

I know, but I feel like I handled his character poorly.

[Cathar]

What why? I have no complaint about his character. He was a reliable and effective heartcaptain. He's a cool character. I mean sure you could have developped him a bit more to propel him from secondary to primary character, but it's cool. Besides we'll meet him again in the... medium term. The story will not be focused on him but he'll definitely be there. If you want, we can discuss how we can portray him.

[IndigoFenix]

Small stories in the shadow of an immense war, rather than a booming, High fantasy legend of good vs. evil.

Why not both?  All great epics have humble beginnings.

[Cathar]

Because :
• That's not how we work
• I said so

End of discussion