The Four-Novel Project

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

That was some interesting stuff. I think I have found the motivation to continue writing my stories. Also, would u put everything you post here into a convenient google doc?

[Quadrophenia]

Time for the final project:

A FIELD OF FOOLS

Here's the pitch: it's a high fantasy story... filtered through the lenses of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. The story follows an isolated town, blocked off from the rest of the world by an infamous and reputedly "cursed" battlefield known as the Field of Fools, finds itself attacked by Grendel-like monsters. When the authorities fail to prevent the beasts from slaughtering cattle and their best men, and with all help sent intercepted, all hope seems lost... 

Until an adventuring party consisting of a wizard, a barbarian, a ranger, a rogue, a cleric and a paladin walk into town. Heroes. 

They would take care of the beasts!

... For a fee. 

That was nearly a year ago. 

Here's the twist: this adventuring group? They're the ones behind the beasts' attacks on the town in the first place. But no one else knows that. They are, in reality, a gang of criminals who use this excuse to set up a protection racket, every month demanding greater and greater sums or tweaks to their racket, absorbing more and more into their organization until they have become nothing so less as a crime family. 

In public, they hold a facade of being these classic archetypal fantasy heroes. 

In private, they're the utter inversions of their archetype. The wise wizard is a drug-addled pretentious buffoon with pretensions to grander intellect; the noble savage barbarian is a rich sociopathic aristocrat playing dress up; the rogue plays up a Jack Sparrow/Dread Pirate Roberts act of class and affability... but he's really just a two bit scumbag; the Cleric exploits other people's faith and the Paladin is just a thug-

Only the Ranger has any ounce of nobility, but that's neither here nor there. 

The sheriff tried to protest against the family as they grew in power, as they collected the mayor into their pocket... and he was, um, "sent away" for it. Now the new sheriff is forced to watch, helplessly, as her town devolves into a wretched hive of scum and villainy... 

... In walks a mysterious stranger named Flint (or Sling, can't decide) which the man with strange metal gloves... with a snap of his fingers, he's able to discharge superheated bursts of flint as though they were bullets, and he seems to have a bone to pick with the family. With the pretender barbarian in particular. 

So, the sheriff and the stranger must team up to liberate the town and expose the "heroes" as the scumbags they really are. 

Neat, eh? I remember pitching this to a friend of mine as, "Hey, what if Fistful of Dollars, Shane or High Noon were told in the Elder Scrolls series?" That's kind of the aesthetic I'm rolling with. 

It's a Western that happens to take place in a classic, if cynical, fantasy world.  

What do you guys think?

[Zathoth]

@Quadrophenia *See other comments*

And go with Flint. I like the name Flint. It is anonymous and really fits a lonesome Cowboymage.

[Quadrophenia]

7 minutes ago, Morzathoth said:

@Quadrophenia *See other comments*

And go with Flint. I like the name Flint. It is anonymous and really fits a lonesome Cowboymage.

 

What do you think of the magic steel greaves as substitutes for six-shooters?

[Zathoth]

1 minute ago, Quadrophenia said:

What do you think of the magic steel greaves as substitutes for six-shooters?

I like it. If you use actual six shooters you are going to have to deal with how inaccurate they are, magic, super heated flint is better.

[Quadrophenia]

13 minutes ago, Morzathoth said:

I like it. If you use actual six shooters you are going to have to deal with how inaccurate they are, magic, super heated flint is better.

That, and I felt crossbows didn't quite have the same Western-ish "pow."

[Zathoth]

Just now, Quadrophenia said:

That, and I felt crossbows didn't quite have the same Western-ish "pow."

Exactly, you need something that goes "pow", just shooting fireballs doesnt feel cool enough. Super heated flints however is awesome.

[Quadrophenia]

17 minutes ago, Morzathoth said:

Exactly, you need something that goes "pow", just shooting fireballs doesnt feel cool enough. Super heated flints however is awesome.

I like to imagine he carries chips in pouches on his belt. 

Edited September 21, 2016 by Quadrophenia

[Zathoth]

6 minutes ago, Quadrophenia said:

I like to imagine he carries chips in pouches on his belt. 

Perfect. Then he has limited shots as well. I like that.

[Quadrophenia]

2 hours ago, Morzathoth said:

Perfect. Then he has limited shots as well. I like that.

Aside from my love of old Westerns, the main inspiration for the villains here? They're... well... 

RPG characters. I know every gaming journalist and webcomic since 1998 has made this witty observation, I know, I know, but it's kind of true though: in nearly every Japanese or Western RPG, with the exception of the always genre-twisting Undertale, the player character is almost always two steps away from being  full-blown criminal... and that's when they're on their best behavior (walking into people's home and busting up their furniture and pottery for goods notwithstanding). 

So the main villains here, this adventuring band? They're players playing characters. They put on the act of classical fantasy heroes, all the while getting away with blatantly criminal acts. Except in most RPG's, even when you are acting like a dick the worst you can do is random violence. Here, these guys have become a well organized and well oiled crime gang, if not mafia-esque organization in their own right. 

[Quiver he/him]

6 hours ago, Quadrophenia said:

Time for the final project:

A FIELD OF FOOLS

Here's the pitch: it's a high fantasy story... filtered through the lenses of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. The story follows an isolated town, blocked off from the rest of the world by an infamous and reputedly "cursed" battlefield known as the Field of Fools, finds itself attacked by Grendel-like monsters. When the authorities fail to prevent the beasts from slaughtering cattle and their best men, and with all help sent intercepted, all hope seems lost... 

Until an adventuring party consisting of a wizard, a barbarian, a ranger, a rogue, a cleric and a paladin walk into town. Heroes. 

They would take care of the beasts!

... For a fee. 

That was nearly a year ago. 

Here's the twist: this adventuring group? They're the ones behind the beasts' attacks on the town in the first place. But no one else knows that. They are, in reality, a gang of criminals who use this excuse to set up a protection racket, every month demanding greater and greater sums or tweaks to their racket, absorbing more and more into their organization until they have become nothing so less as a crime family. 

In public, they hold a facade of being these classic archetypal fantasy heroes. 

In private, they're the utter inversions of their archetype. The wise wizard is a drug-addled pretentious buffoon with pretensions to grander intellect; the noble savage barbarian is a rich sociopathic aristocrat playing dress up; the rogue plays up a Jack Sparrow/Dread Pirate Roberts act of class and affability... but he's really just a two bit scumbag; the Cleric exploits other people's faith and the Paladin is just a thug-

Only the Ranger has any ounce of nobility, but that's neither here nor there. 

The sheriff tried to protest against the family as they grew in power, as they collected the mayor into their pocket... and he was, um, "sent away" for it. Now the new sheriff is forced to watch, helplessly, as her town devolves into a wretched hive of scum and villainy... 

... In walks a mysterious stranger named Flint (or Sling, can't decide) which the man with strange metal gloves... with a snap of his fingers, he's able to discharge superheated bursts of flint as though they were bullets, and he seems to have a bone to pick with the family. With the pretender barbarian in particular. 

So, the sheriff and the stranger must team up to liberate the town and expose the "heroes" as the scumbags they really are. 

Neat, eh? I remember pitching this to a friend of mine as, "Hey, what if Fistful of Dollars, Shane or High Noon were told in the Elder Scrolls series?" That's kind of the aesthetic I'm rolling with. 

It's a Western that happens to take place in a classic, if cynical, fantasy world.  

What do you guys think?

I prefer Sling as a name, actually. Besides that though...

I like it. It's a cool set-up, with lot's of potential; I'm picturing a lot of cross-cutting between the past and the now, which could be interesting to play with.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

I think you need one more villain in your band... because... well... seven...

[Quadrophenia]

5 hours ago, Eagle of the Forest Path said:

I think you need one more villain in your band... because... well... seven...

... YOU'RE A GENIUS! I could kiss you!

[Quadrophenia]

6 hours ago, Quiver said:

I prefer Sling as a name, actually. Besides that though...

I like it. It's a cool set-up, with lot's of potential; I'm picturing a lot of cross-cutting between the past and the now, which could be interesting to play with.

 

Ooh, have you seen the other three yet? Dying Beast, Fade, and Veilpiercer?

And absolutely. There's gonna be some Once Upon a Time in the West-style flashbacks and everything.

I still can't decide between Flint or Sling. Both fit his overall theme. 

[Quiver he/him]

On 20/09/2016 at 1:53 AM, Quadrophenia said:

So, here's my first of the four novel projects...

THE DYING BEAST

Here's the pitch by way of "X Meets Y." Ahem... imagine this as a rich blend of Antz, Attack on Titan, Animal Farm and a dash of George R.R. Martin's Sandkings short story.Yeah. Crazy, right? But it gets better~

The premise here follows an entire civilisation, a mass colony, of anthropomorphic insects who thrive on the back of a titanic beast whose species will never exactly be identified by the narrative. This is not a world set on Earth; this is an all-around original fantasy world... that happens to focus on insects living in what is, to them, a country-sized literal beast of burden.

For years, the Colony has prospered gloriously. Settlements are built into tumour mounds of flesh on the beast's back, they dine on flesh and blood and other bodily liquids, with the more refined... "stuff" a thing for the higher echelons and tier of this rigid colonial caste system. Still, everything is fine...

Until, one day, a rancid smell permeated the Beast. No one knows where it came from or what is causing it. 

... They do know, however, that it's attracting them. The Carrions. 

In this setting, carrion birds like crows... might as well be dragons. They attack the flesh cities, picking at the insects for the grub. The insects fight back with wave after wave, sacrificing many to drive off so much as one bird. 

The main throughline here is that that rancid smell?

It's the smell of decay. As the title not so subtly suggests, the beast is dying. The insects have overused their natural "resources," the poor thing is on its last legs, barely a husk of the magnificent creature it had once been. This is why the Carrions are attacking with increasing ferocity- with the beast too weak to fight back, it's abuffet on legs. 

The main plot will be one of survival, following a lower-caste bug as it finds itself embroiled in conspiracy and revolution and a journey of survival.

That's the bare bones of it, really. What do you guys think?

Personally, I think this is such an alien society, that it might work best as a short story or novels; concentrate the disconnect and dissonance we feel, and don't really give us enough of a glass of their "full" society. Keep it somewhat bizarre and alien.

[Quadrophenia]

1 hour ago, Quiver said:

Personally, I think this is such an alien society, that it might work best as a short story or novels; concentrate the disconnect and dissonance we feel, and don't really give us enough of a glass of their "full" society. Keep it somewhat bizarre and alien.

 

Hm... I actually hadn't thought of approaching it that way. I was planning originally on a novel, but this... might be a better approach. 

[Quiver he/him]

On 9/20/2016 at 10:13 PM, Quadrophenia said:

Second Book of the Four Novel Project:

THE VEILPIERCER TRILOGY:

• Book One: City of Graves
• Book Two: Lifting the Veil
• Book Three: 'til Death.

This is my attempt to write an action-oriented dark fantasy/horror series, taking inspiration from The Dresden Files or our very own Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, with influences ranging from Upton Sinclair's Jungle to Fritz Lang's German Expressionist films. 

The premise? Imagine a gruelling industrial world where if you're a working class schmoe working in some textile factory and there's a fatal accident and you're in debt to your employer?

Well... that employer has every legal right to demand that you keep working off your debt even after you're dead. Literally. 

In the Necropolis (placeholder name), the working man is faced with the grim and existential spectre of living their horrible, soulcrushing occupations for their industrialist or noble employers well into the afterlife. These poor men, women and even children are referred to as the "Chained Dead," or "Chaindead" for short. They can work off their debt, but those who can afford the most amoral of lawyers know how to circumvent contracts and keep piling on the debt indefinitely... 

While compelling any surviving next of kin to pick up the debt themselves. If any of them die while in the line of duty, well... it's a vicious cycle.

God have mercy on your soul if you have no family. This has created situations where some working souls keep toiling day and night, no closer to finishing their debt... but generations have passed and their own descendants have forgotten all about their ancestors, leaving them trapped in a macabre societal machine. Oh, and if it wasn't depressing enough... well, sometimes some souls forget why they died in the first place, all memory of their mortal life dissipating under the endless strain.

Worse yet, this influx of indebted souls has promoted a "technically" legal booming market that everyone at the top profits from, and two competing organizations are vying for a monopoly on this market.

On the one hand, the Entropic Priesthood. They're a clergy of necromancers who utilise their incredible occult knowledge to bind the souls of the recently departed to the material plane, just before they escape to the unknown. 

On the other hand, the Funeral Parlour, a guild of alchemists and Doctor Frankenstein-types. Their brand of Chaindead? Reanimated and ostensibly brainless corpses. They argue their methods and results are far more humane; that corpse of your beloved Grandpa Manfred isn't really Grandpa Manfred, he's just an animated vegetable, more machine than man! See? You don't have to worry about debt as we desecrate your grandfather's corpse for menial and demeaning tasks... 

These two organizations, this divide between necromancy and... well, mad science... have been locked in a centuries old feud, with this fierce economic competition the first openly public displays of animosity and conflict between the two. 

(cont...)

I rather dislike this idea, simply because I was toying with the notion of "Necropunk" a while back. Please do not do anything with this diea, or it will overshadow what little I was tossing around.

...More seriously, this could be an interesting setting. I don't know what you had in mind, but I can't help but think of the Victorian era, with child workers, and smog blotting the skyline, and the shift towards industry rather than romantic pastoralism. 

(Also, the Frankenstein stuff, which I don't think is technically Victorian, but the industrial themes and stuff kind of fits and shut up.)

So... interesting setting, and probably  avery timely one what with the whole debt collection and wealth disparity stuff going on these days. Incredibly depressing, but hey; novels work as a reflection of society and all that.

On 9/21/2016 at 0:37 AM, Quadrophenia said:

Night, buddy! And I might be responsible for the insects...

Alright, now for Book Three...

FADE

And now, ladies and gentlemen, my sombre, bittersweet, Studio Ghibli/Watership Down/Last Unicorn attempt at fantasy...

The pitch here is simple: in this constructed world, creatures of myth, legend and folklore- fantastical monsters and otherworldly beasts are sloooowly fading from the world as civilisation encroaches on their lands, as scholars map the world and cities are built over fairy rings, croc-folk swamps and dragon's dens. 

In their place, as wars wage and a growing empire is struggling to unite feuding peoples under a single banner. The empress of said empire has turned her eye to a fabled island known simply as the Cradle. Legend has it the roots of all cultures, all societies, all peoples, all life on this world, began on this island. Man left that island eons ago, though legends per culture contest as to why. 

Either way, the empress finds it would be a symbolic victory if they settled that mystery island and claimed it as the new capital of the empire. Perhaps then, it would galvanize those warring states to unite under a certain commonality, a point of significance shared by all societies. 

To this end, she has recruited a world-renowned naturalist, an eccentric scientist and explorer, to go to this island, scope it out, and see if it can be deemed inhabital for civilisation. 

Said naturalist is given an entire expedition to lead, with all the resources money can buy...

... And she brings her precocious, little budding scientist and artist daughter along for the ride. 

The island, incidentally, the Cradle?

It's the last refuge of these fantastical creatures. It's the last place on this world where mystery and magic can still thrive.

Our mother/daughter duo go to this island to study the land... and the wonderful creatures that inhabit it.

Of course, the daughter has no idea of the colonialist intensions of the empress, so that'll hang overhead like the Sword of Damocles... 

What do you think?

I'm a fan of Studio Ghibli, so one might think I'd be more excited for this pitch than I am... but for some reason, I'm not? Dunno why. I think Asian culture is interesting, I love female leads, and this certainly hits a lot of the themes I'd be interested in reading about.

The pitch as it is, doesn't quite hit me as brilliant the way that the other three do though. And I'm not quite sure why that is, but I'll try and figure it out and get back to you?