The Bookwyrm

Okay, let's not let this die... @Halcyon The Only @Through The Living Glass any more character ideas? Or is there anything you need from me before you start hammering down character ideas?

I guess we could consolidate, though. Maybe a crew of explorers discover a huge alien structure, complete with an alien biosphere on its surface. Though it seems hospitable at first, as "night" (whatever artificial darkening the structure has) falls, something horrific begins to emerge and hunt them. Or if we don't want that we can think of something else. Either way I can work on some setting development.

Wait, we're doing Alien? Or at least that vibe? ...I had a different setting idea...

....Can it happen on a megastructure? (I am interested but my RP activity usually dies very quickly, and I'm only going to be around another month or so before my mission)

In my mind the reason Anna is rescuing him - regardless of his previous allegiance - is because he provides an advantage to her side. So if you do fit it in you still have to explain why it is that she's saving him. I might also get rid of the "other" nations for simplicity's sake; we all have to go off the exact same worldbuilding for the experiment to work and I don't want to overcomplicate it.

By the way, here's the rough draft map I made:

OOH GUYS WAIT What if Ferran is a turncoat? Like, he was an officer for the empire, decided to change sides for whatever reason, but got captured before the smaller nation (we're calling it Hearth, by the way) managed to get to him? And they're sending Anna to save him? And whatever clash they have comes from that? This doesn't work if we want them to vaugley know each other but, I think it could add some interesting depth to their interaction, depending on how their loyalties and ideaologies are.

Yes, war prisoner from the smaller nation, who got captured by the Great and Powerful Unnamed Empire

Those results say a lot about the kind of people on the Shard these days

I still need to do some worldbuilding. I want every detail to be the same version to version, only writing style different, as per the idea of the experiment. And in order to do that I want to make sure all the details are hammered out as much as possible. Sounds good. I'll go with whatever you decide on characters. I will say, maybe make it so it's been a while since they've seen each other. Also, the rescuer is less of a soldier and more of like a special agent, in my mind. She doesn't do tactics or battlefield fighting; she does sneaky operations and assasinations and whatnot.

Okay. That's fair; maybe I'm just biased because I'm super familiar with at least Allomancy and some of Surgebinding, so I'd be able to write it easily. I guess my general idea for suggesting it is it would ideally be something we're already familiar with, so it would cut down on time developing a context and allow more focus for writing, and comparing styles in something we're all familiar with. But I'm totally on board with making original settings. (Also there is Time Machine function on the Coppermind to turn it back to a version before WaT came out, Magi, if you didn't already know) And I might take you up on your offer for worldbuilding help; I didn't have much time to do it today. My idea right now is that there's a generic medieval empire (super original) that is slowly waning in power. It's in conflict with another smaller nation, and that's the war that the scene is a backdrop of. I haven't decided if the smaller nation's a previously conquered nation that declared independence, or a conquered nation trying to declare independence, or a nation that's in the process of an attempted invasion, or a nation that struck against the empire for some reason, or if they're fighting for a resource, or something else entirely. I just know there's a war between two nations, one an empire, one a smaller country. The scene in my mind takes place at night, at a fortress-tower-walled town/base thingy. The viewpoint character is a young woman, a special operative, who's tasked with rescuing a prisoner from her side of the war. (I've had her fighting for the smaller nation, but we could have her be on the empire's side too.) Her personality in my mind is like if you gave Spensa Vin's upbringing and job. Serious, a little snarky, not easy to get along with, very skilled. (Also a cliche. You guys can work on that. It's just the vibe I have in mind.) Her magic involves solidifying and manipulating shadows. Not super complicated; she can use them to climb up walls, make sharp tentacles to attack with, hide herself, stuff like that. (Think Pride from FMAB if you know who that is.) She uses her magic to sneak in and break the guy out, and then supposedly character drama erupts due to a situation she was unaware of. What do we think of that?

I'll be honest I read the title of this thread and thought it meant chilling as in spooky or unnerving.

If you do I just want to add this input; this is a military person. They have high tactical value, likely a commander or strategist, or maybe a powerful magic-user (depending on what the magic system is). Highly experienced. Other than that, go with whatever you want. That's just what's needed for the scenario.

Let me figure out the worldbuilding first so you can use that to figure out the characters?

In my mind it was more of a military base that has a prison inside it; because, like I said, this is a warzone. I also had an idea for a rudimentary magic system that wouldn't be complicated but would also fit the "dangerous weapon" vibe you mentioned.

Okay, I'm good with that. Like I said, I'm just going to focus on worldbuilding and maybe pitch some character ideas, but other than that I'll let you peoples handle that part. Relationship? Yes. Romantic relationship? I don't know. I wasn't thinking that, but if you want to you could. (Also in my mind the rescuer was female...but that was my mind.)

1. Not neccessarily, but if we want that to be the case we can do it. 2. Probably cosmere stuff for familiarity. (...Isn't fanfiction anything you write that has to do with a franchise you like?) (Regardless we aren't worrying about that right now) I was thinking it would be a prisoner of war situation. So there are two nations at war, a vital prisoner from one side was captured by the other, and now the one side is sending an agent to rescue the prisoner. I'll hammer out the details soon and then let the people better at me than characters figure out what the relationship between the prisoner and rescuer is.

I might also just make it so magic is there in the world somewhere but it's more of an arcane thing that people don't know much about. Or something. I'll figure it out. If we wanted to skip worldbuilding in future scenes we could also just write them in an already established world.

*pokes head in*

If you want, at some point to day I can hammer out some basic worldbuilding for the setting, and then the people better at characters than me can work on the characters? And once we have general descriptions of setting and characters, we can outline the scene, then all go write it.

If we want magic it can be more ambiguous. I don't want any worldbuilding beyond basic setting or what might be needed for the scene. One idea I had, that would mix some action and some character interaction, would be someone in a fantasy setting sneaking into a prison to break out another character. Only except maybe once they succeed some kind of character drama happens, like a betrayal or an uncovered lie or something.