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May 20th - akoebel - Shrouds Chapter 5B


akoebel

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Hi,

 

This is chapter 4, second part from Shrouds, a fantasy mystery.

 

Mahau, god of vengeance was asked to investigate three gods disappearances. In the previous chapter, he uncovered the first body.

Arlon, a mostly dishinherited regional god asked Mahau to prove he didn't have anything to do with the disappearances.

 

In Chapter 5, first part, Mahau and Arlon met before going to the second crime scene and Arlon almost strangled Mahau. Now, they're going together to the next crime scene.

 

I hope you'll enjoy it.
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Seems to be a solid chapter.  I didn't notice anything glaringly wrong.  The personalities for Mahau, Neda, and Arlon seem strong and I'm starting to expect how they react to things.

 

I still don't quite understand shrouds (as I'm reading).  That's not bad, if you're planning on explaining more, but the following was confusing:
Pg 9: "Neda glanced at the two gods. They were still alive, even if it looked like a soundproof Shroud was laid upon this room – if such a thing existed."
-I don't know enough about shrouds to agree or disagree with Neda that it doesn't exist, so it threw me out of the story.


A couple editing notes, for when you get there.  Be on the lookout for excess words:

pg 4: "Mahau didn't comment on the usage of a past tense to reference someone which was supposedly just missing"
-you could probably stop at "past tense" and let the reader figure it out

 

Also, watch for Some of your er/est ending words (redder, biggest, etc).  You sometimes have the wrong form.

 

There are a lot of question sentences that don't have question marks.

 


I'm interested to see how the last god was killed--and if he was...  Looking forward to next week!

Edited by Mandamon
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I'm intrigued by this idea of a divine murder mystery, and there were some great details - the way the body was both hidden and revealed, the pot of urine (odd but made sense, funny to me but something the believers could take seriously - was this from a real life cult or did you come up with it yourself?).

 

Most of my thoughts on this were around the characters, so I'll split them up that way.

 

First up Mahau. I liked how the section started, using the descriptive scene of the setting to demonstrate something of his personality. But after that I lost interest in him. He seemed more like a modern human than a god of vengeance. Things like his commentary on worshippers as currency just didn't feel like the mindset of a vengeful, awe-inspiring divinity. Making comment on this within the story was good, but I'm not sure why it comes from him.

 

I really liked Arlon. Or rather, I loved to hate him. The guy's clearly a tool, but he's a hugely entertaining tool, kind of like I imagine many Norse gods to be. To me, he had the strongest personality, and showed the arrogance, insensitivity and indifference I expect from a mythological deity. Really enjoyed him.

 

I wanted to like Neda, and think I might have done if I'd read this from the start, but in this section she mostly just seemed grumpy. The intolerance within that fitted a priestess of vengeance, but I think I needed to like her first, so that I'd feel sympathetic. Like I say, probably works if you've read earlier chapters. But I also didn't buy in to how casually she was treating and thinking about the gods. She's dedicated her life to worship - shouldn't she feel a sense of awe and grandeur at working with two deities, including one she worships? And where's her confidence in the god she's dedicated her life to? For a lifetime believer, she didn't always have high expectations of him. Having her attitude turn casual through the story would be an interesting arc, but didn't feel right to me for an early chapter.

 

I had a similar view on the pope's behaviour, especially the things he said. He's the high priest of a temple, and now these outside gods are intruding right to the heart of the inner sanctum - where's the arrogance? Where's the outrage? Where's the assumption that his god must be doing things right? After all, he believes enough to dedicate his life to this guy, surely he won't quickly accept that he's anything other than awesome? It seemed at times that you were heading that way, but more of it could have made some really entertaining conflict, and if he doesn't view things that way I would want to know why.

 

Overall, I I didn't believe in this as a scene between powerful gods and their high priests, not because it was badly written but because of what I saw of their personalities. I like the plot and am interested in how the characters deal with each other. Especially Arlon - the more I think about it, the more he's my favourite. 

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

PS When they found the sock in the bed my mind immediately leapt to inappropriate jokes about teenage boys and crusty socks. Then I went 'no, not that sort of story'. But then after that I went 'wait, isn't that something Arlon might joke about?'
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Thanks to you both.

 

Neda has a very crude understanding of Shrouds. Stopping sounds is not what I would call a "classical Shroud use case", but someone ingenious enough could achieve such an effect.

 

For the pot of urine, it came out of my head. I wanted some of the cults to have very weird rites. As there are over 50 religions, I tried to differentiate them on some aspect or another (either temple architecture, priesthood names, or ... rites).

 

For the gods attributes : being god of vengeance doesn't mean one is vengeful, but that you become attuned to people asking for revenge.

As everywhere, you will find strong and weak personalities within gods and priests. The pope is a really weak person and kind of a sycophant. 

 

@andyk : I can send you the previous chapters if you want.

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