ARCHIVED - 5/10/25 - It Began In A Tavern (OOC Discussion)

I don't mind being reminded.

 

Thanks! I'll add you to the list!

 

Sorry for the delay. My only time I had to work on the post was Wednesday and the site was down. I've been running the floor at my son's robotics tournament out of state and will through Sunday. I will get the post finished Monday. I hate being the one slowing things up.

 

No worries! We all understand

 

We do! I almost put out an announcement for an extra day due to site issues.

 

@EFMingo - It is now Tuesday, so your turn has concluded. Please go ahead @ps102.

 

Sorry, had a family dinner randomly sprung on me last night, the day after the trip. Found some time this morning.

 

Noted! I deleted the Skip turn post. Thanks so much I hope you had a good time with family.

 

What a marvelous piece of writing!

 

Very good post @EFMingo !

It's my turn now! I wonder what I'll come up with...

 

Well, I did write that post, but I didn't like how it turned out.

Oh well! Tomorrow is another day. I'll try again

 

Entry posted. I took the liberty to make my post quite intense again.

It does introduce the queen we were talking about. She is a powerful earth-style mage, who's ace is the creation of devastating earthquakes. She is also a bit... unhinged. But I feel that it works. The kind of country she leads needs a powerful leader who's got enough screws loose to make bold moves and decisions.

I also introduced some rivalry between the High Mage and High Scientist. I felt that it was appropriate, given that the trades they master are naturally opposing of one another. I also think that their relationship might provide some comic relief sometimes.

I've left my own character alone for quite a few turns. I want to spend more time developing her when my turn is up next

 

Excellent! This story just keeps getting better and better...

 

Your post is your own, you can make it as intense as you want. I am really enjoying reading this story and think this post is a wonderful addition.

Could you please make character sheets for Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and the Queen? I like to keep the Character index up to date. You can just post the sheets there in a separate post for each character.

 

Of course it is! Multiple minds are better than one...

Seriously. I would struggle a lot to get to this point on my own, normally. I find this surprisingly easier to write.

 

Agreed! I LOVE seeing this story become a story! It's awesome!

 

I was actually planning on doing that right now. It's been super busy but the past week has been calm. I've been resting but it's time to get this done!

Sorry for the delay, by the way!

 

Yeah, collective minds do tend to write well together.

And I understand. I think it's easier, because one knows they don't have to be perfect or come up with all the ideas on their own. Which makes this a very fun casual writing experience.

 

@EFMingo I wanted to let you know I enjoyed reading your post, too! I loved all the details and characterization. I also liked the touch on the orphanage, because it adds a new layer to the worldbuilding. It's just so logical and feels natural in the story for the bad guys to use orphan kids for lab experiments.

 

Me too, when it is my turn. I spend some time reading over what came before, and then the ideas come fast.

 

I find primarily it helps me get over my usual perfectionist's hurdle. I'm not solely responsible for the outcome of this story, nor the outcome of any one character. It exists almost on its own and I just get to add a little touch of me to it. It's nice.

 

This is a huge post, so, it goes in a spoiler tag!

Spoiler: Alphabet Society members

Name: Alpha

Sex: Male

Social Class: Mage

Age in human years (must be 18): 40

A brief description of appearance: Alpha's appearance is unknown. He hides his features behind his forest green hood, which represents his element.

Magic Style: Alpha is the mage of spring time. He uses earth-style wood magic (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen) both for defense and offense. He can armor himself, and create various deadly wooden weapons. His signature attack is the "Wooden Coffin"—a terrifying mass execution attack.

Background: Not much is known about Alpha apart from his membership to the Alphabet Society.

----

Name: Beta

Sex: Male

Social Class: Mage

Age in human years (must be 18): 44

A brief description of appearance: Beta's appearance is unknown. He hides his features behind his sunset orange robe, which represents his element.

Magic Style: Alpha is the mage of summertime. He specializes in fire-style heat magic (oxygen + hydrogen & carbon methane compound), mainly for offense. His signature attack is "Heatwave"—an attack that can heat the environment to levels lethal to most of his opponents. The oxygen and methane react together to product heat. He can also trigger explosions with the same combination.

Background: Not much is known about Beta apart from his membership to the Alphabet Society.

-----

Name: Gamma

Sex: Female

Social Class: Mage

Age in human years (must be 18): 48

A brief description of appearance: Gamma's appearance is unknown. She hides her features behind her yellow robes, which represents her element.

Magic Style: Gamma is the mage of autumn time. She specializes in air-style poison magic (various poisonous compounds), mainly for offense. Her signature attack is "Wither"—an attack that poisons her opponents with a deadly compound that not only kills them, but causes them to quickly wither as well.

Background: Not much is known about Gamma apart from her membership to the Alphabet Society. She is also the mother of Araspeth, the High Priestess.

----

Name: Delta

Sex: Female

Social Class: Mage

Age in human years (must be 18): 55

A brief description of appearance: Delta's appearance is unknown. She hides her features behind her blue robes, which represents her element. One known feature, however, are the antlers she hides under her hood.

Magic Style: Delta is the mage of winter time. She specializes in water-style ice magic. Like most mages, she works with hydrogen and oxygen to create water. But the compound, specially created using a rapid compression method, results in ice. She uses it both for offense and defense. Her signature move is "Blizzard"—an attack that superfreezes her targets. Her other signature move is "Ice Age"—a defense that constructs a highly protective structure around her.

Background: Not much is known about Delta apart from her membership to the Alphabet Society.

Any questions, ideas or observations, please say! I'm happy to make some modifications before this goes to the index.

 

Spoiler: Queen Melinda Sheet

Here is Queen Melina's character sheet.

Name: Melina II

Sex: Female

Social Class: Queen/Mage

Age in human years (must be 18): 40

A brief description of appearance: Melina maintains a slender but well-fit build to support her love for battle. She has chestnut-colored hair, brown eyes, and brunette skin. She dresses like a queen on most days, but like a warrior in heavy dark-colored steel armor when she trains or leads various battles. She has the emblem of a cobalt crescent moon fixed to her armour.

Magic Style: Melina is an earth-style mage, specializing in Earthquake magic. Her signature move is "Moonlight Devastation"—an attack move she uses to send catastrophic seismic waves. Her attacks can range from simple rifts to the sinking of islands and the opening of vast ravines.

Background: Melina grew up along with her siblings on the royal family. The previous queen was her mother, whom she succeeded. She was not first in line for the throne, and she was also discouraged from practicing the magic she was gifted with to instead engage in various royal duties that she hated.

She always practiced her magic in secret. Though when her father (the previous king) discovered it one day, she was severely reprimanded and strictly forbidden from keeping up. Melina then ran away to the mountains, where she let her anger loose by screaming her frustrations into the valleys. Frustrations that grew into earthquakes she subconsciously caused. This "incident" is what prompted her to keep up her practice voraciously until she developed her terrifying magic.

When she was 30 years of age and her parents died in an accident, she was not in line for the throne. It was with earthquake magic that she forced her way to the throne. Her power as a mage was unquestionable and her forced take over was quickly accepted as official.

I'm not entirely happy with this one, but posting it for now. I very much welcome some feedback here. I hope it's okay to edit the post later after it's in the index, @Gravy

 

Thanks for this and yes, character details can change overtime and we can make note of changes as we go. This is not supposed to be a perfect story with perfect characters. So, if there are changes that are made later, that's completely okay!

 

New post made!

https://www.writingforums.org/threads/it-began-in-a-tavern-official.177866/#post-2044347