Alright this plot/idea/whatever has been stuck inside my head for over a year maybe even coming close to two years. It has once been set up in it's own original rpg on a forum. So there's alot of information, I'm trying to downsize and explain it to you in simple terms. _________________ The planet is called Feoxes. On it are three different lands, Deora, littered with humans and minimal magical creatures. The ones that do are advances and sohpisticated. Dis, the desert. Minimal for both humans and magical creaturs. Exception of some parts of the desert that are livable. The Outlands, most magical creatures roam. Most barbaric. In Deora, the land is united under the Faethy Empire and under a king. Though below the King, the land is still sectioned off (by direction, Northwest, etc.) where a Lord and a Lady still advise but pay homages to the reigning King. Under the Lords/Ladies, They have their "Voices". They are essentially the living 'prophets' of The Octate (a league of 8 Gods and Goddesses) and are said the be hand picked by their patron God/Goddess to speak the will of them. (Note, each God/Goddess only gets one Voice.) Under the Voices are the clergy. (No particular system and what not set up.) __________ Then comes the religon. I'm going to be giving you the long version, from the roleplaying board. It's hard to downsize andd simplify when it comes to it. +|The History of the Gods|+ +|Foundation of the World|+ In the beginning, the Mother Lord Yolayn and her husband Jareth created the heavens and the earth through their marital bed. The earth was covered green, the sky ever-changing, dotted with the home of the Creators eternally, called Suns, and created two moons for their creation. The stars shown in their glory, and thus, the two began a family of Gods and Goddesses, almost endless in number. There was Beium, the Warrior God of the Forge and Fire; Maddock, the Blind God of the Lute and Pipes; Twain, the Goddess of the Beasts and Woodland; Mattel, the twin sister of Maddock, and Goddess of Fertility and Child birthing; and, most powerful of these, Xerxes, youngest and most rash, who took war as his domain. War, death, destruction, anarchy. Their Parents, called the Divines now, gave them the universe save the their homes in the Suns, as their own, to do as they pleased. They watched, and continue to watch, never growing bored with watching and lovemaking. The horror that soon followed shook even them to the core. +|The Celestial Rape|+ Soon, Xerxes grew bored of his Brothers and Sisters ignoring him and taunting him endlessly, and so, with his powers, he forged two new races: Demons, called formally by the Octate Priest and Sisterhoods the Fa'rintheit, and the race called Humans. They did his bidding, Demons more as his warriors and Humans more as his slaves, to make him a great Kingdom, a Kingdom called Dis, where he was worshipped by these beings. In response, the other Gods and Goddesses came together and created their own race, called Angels now, but were then known as Celestials, for their beauty almost surpassed that of Mattel, the Celestial Lady. The Gods and Goddesses grew tired of their Brother's arrogance, and when their parents failed to step in, they took matters into their own hands. They began to raid his Kingdom of Dis, liberating Humans and slaughtering his Demon Hoards. Soon, the Black Lord of Dis responded, taking up Spear (Called Gwar) and Hammer (Mordrip) against his Brothers and Sisters. The two groups battled four times the span of a Human's lifetime, for, unlike Demons and Angels, they are not ageless, and return to the Earth from which they were forged by Xerxes. In the end, Xerxes proved to be the strongest God of them all, and killed all but his beautiful sister, Mattel. His Kingdom of Dis lain in ruin, his Demon Hoards rebelling and creating their own vain kingdoms that lasted no more than a few years, the God took up his sister and ravaged her body sexually. From this unholy Union of Brother and Sister, spouted from the woman's belly eight beings, which were taken back to the World. Mattel died, leaving Xerxes as the only survivor of the original war. Standing from the mangled corpse of his Sister, a single drip of semen from Xerxes created his successor, called Naoko. The Divines stepped in at last, and, as punishment to their last Son, they banished him into a sleep that only his children could awaken him from, on the far side of the Universe. The Divines then appeared to their Grandchildren, calling them the Octate, and told them of their History. The eight of them agreed never to awaken their Father, and if they did, to align themselves with their Grandparents against him should they ever do so on accident. Naoko, unknown to her Brothers and Sisters, was told to take up her Father's Helm, except she had not as much power as her Father. The Motherless Bitch revealed herself to her Brothers and Sisters, and, for a time, was allowed into the Octate, and then called the Perfect Circle. +|Naoko|+ The Perfect Circle set about remaking the World. The Octate consisted of: Abdel, the Wise Warrior God of the Desert, where Dis once stood; Azurei, Lord of Greed and Wealth, the Coin and Luck his Trade; Ukrate, Daughter of the Wood and Wild, Lady of the Bow and of Solitude; Minstrel, Lord of Music, Dance, and the Arts, a jovial man of wit and charm endless, but fool-hardy and considered a drunkard; Helate, Lady of Beauty, Fertility, Good Housing, and Nobility, from whom Divine Right comes from; Masque, Lord of Honesty, Shadow, and Assassination; Qatar, Lady of Magic, Neutrality, and Arrogance, a War Goddess to match Eldest Abdel; and finally, Dust, Lord of Death, the Realms of the Dead, and ultimately, Fate. Angels and Demons both came into the Octate's service, working for individual Gods and Goddeses They began with a great flood, saving two humans and erasing the existence of the original Gods and Goddesses from their minds, making them think that this was the beginning. They reshaped the way the world was, creating new oceans and locations, but one place could not be changed: The Kingdom of Dis became a Desert, and would not change, for the ill will of their Father, Xerxes, was too strong. The Gods and Goddesses dwelled with humanity, and created an Afterlife for them, of two places, where moral character was judged: The place of those well-meaning or honest is known as Sharn, and the place for the fake, the liars, the godless, and the horrid called Beezelb. Dust took these as his own home, being in both at once. Sharn is the Kingdom of the Angels, Beezelb the Home of Demons, but both can be found in the realm of Humans. Soon, Naoko's nature was revealed to her half-siblings, as the Daughter of Xerxes and Xerxes alone, his will within her, though truly only half. The Octate had become arrogant, and she became resentful of them, thinking they should be humble, as the Divines could easily do them all away as they did their Father. She took a home to her own, recruiting humans and demons alike to stand against the Octate, although Dust and Azurei did not join with their Brothers and Sisters, somewhat sympathetic with Naoko. Thus began the War of the Millennium Spear. +|The War of the Millenium Spear and Beyond|+ Naoko soon became the image of her Father reincarnate to her Brothers and Sisters, she wanting to destroy them and their realms to spare the world of a fate of worshipping Gods for no good reason other than to worship them and thus, boost their already elongated ego. She was noble to some, the intellects of the age primarily, but the majority of people sided with the Octate. The war between Naoko and the Octate raged for centuries without end, ravaging lands and peoples, killing countless souls that Sharn and Beezelb could not hold. Thus, the Gods began the system of reincarnation, using karma as a form to keep their troops up. Soon, the Gods turned a man, known in history books as the Divine Traitor, to get close to Naoko and eventually, slay her. He remains nameless save this one name, and did his act, though many sources and the six remaining Angels and Demons that survive from this time say that this act was done with serious remorse. With a shard of Xerxes's Spear, Gwar came forth the Millennium Spear, and this was driven through the broken heart of Naoko in her weakest moment. She was laid to rest, though was said to come back. The Millennium Spear, broken now, sent her into a sleep, an endless that lasted only one millennium. Unknown to humanity, she would awaken, with no knowledge of birth or anything, and the Gods choose not to tell anyone, because, if they do, then Naoko may remember. The War ended, Dust and Azurei disgusted with their Brothers and Sisters, and the Octate continued on for a millennium. Not even Dust, with his knowledge of Fate, knows what the future holds. The story will pick up when Naoko reawakens (in their time, 2000 A.W [after war]). I have some other deeper ideas with this story. But so far this is the outline and basic knowledge of the story. Thoughts? Critques? I didn't want to throw everything at you, so I thought I'd start with the basic idea.
I have some critiques in general: 1. Don't take this the wrong way, but I've had misunderstandings like this before. So I have to ask: Is English a second language to you? You handle it in a way that makes it kind of hard to read. I can make it out for the most part, but there are some wonky bits here and there, so I'm curious. 2. Do you want to make this into a novel? Series? Second RPG? Because if you have all this exposition- and this is just the first tiny bit of it, and "dumbed down" at that- there is no way readers will want all this infodump. It would seem a lot of the details in here are extremely unneeded, and could be cut. Remember, show, don't tell. You either want to rethink all this stuff into more of a cliffnotes-y form for the masses, or find a more intereresting way to catch readers up-to-date in the actual story.
Sadly, is my first language. I had trouble breaking down the religion unlike I did the world, so I took the information that my friend wrote (of coarse I asked for permission to post it here) for the roleplaying board. So if that's the part you had trouble understanding, then, here's the real dumbed down version. Ok, so, there were two creator Gods, called the Divines. They created a set of Gods and Goddesses that all but killed themselves, save two. The War God Xerxes and the Fertility Goddess, Mattel. Xerxes raped Mattel, and from her burst eight new Gods and Goddesses, which killed her. A drop of semen from Xerxes created another Goddess, named Naoko. The Divines banished Xerxes into a seemingly endless sleep, and the nine new Gods and Goddesses began to rule anew. All memory of the Gods and Goddesses before the new generation were erased, or almost were, with a few exceptions no human can understand. Naoko began to resent the other eight Gods and Goddesses, called the Octate, and started a war that ended when she was betrayed by her lover and sent into a sleep that would last a millenia. That was a millenia ago, and only the Octate know she will awaken. The Eight Gods and Goddesses are: Abdel-The God of War and the Desert Azurei-God of Wealth and Profit Ukrate-Goddess of Nature Minstrel-God of Music, Art, Acting, and Drinking Helate-Goddess of Beauty, The House and Home, and of Nobility Masque-God of Honesty, Shadows, and Justice Qatar-Goddess of Magic Dust-God of Death and Fate Atheism is growing in Deora in the intellectual regions, denying the Gods. Abdel is worshipped heavily in Dis, the other seven Gods and Goddesses worshipped primarily in Deora. The Regions around the two continents, called the Outlands, worship twisted forms of the Gods and Goddesses in what is called Shamanism, sometimes just worshipping spirits or false Gods. Naoko has very few cultist remaining, less than 100. And I was thinking of creating a novel. Just the intention of posting it up at some sites that I've joined. And I understand that there's oodles full of information. I'm trying to downsize it with a friend because I'm trying to get different stories (that obviously connect and have importance with the main storyline) going on, but with the abundance of characters is hard to do that.
See, now that's great. That's the info your characters can give or be given, and as the story progresses, you can elaborate on how everything happened, exactly. Bravo! Good job!
Thank you! Haha, Well, I was going to reveal the history of The Octate and Naoko as the story progresses (which the beginning is when Naoko awakens, or that's where I'd like to start it with maybe a small prologue to get the readers on the right track.)
Oh, wait...this whole book is the story of what's happening with the gods? '.' *feels awkward and stupid* ....alright, I apologize, I didn't know this was the actual plot for the book. My fault entirely. Sorry for the inconvenience!
First a disclaimer - I have never written a novel, so take what I suggest with a very large grain of salt. If you plot out your story in too great detail, I would worry that it will force your characters' development to conform with the needs of the plot. I think you may be better off with some very general plot notes, but concentrate on what your characters are at the beginning of the story. As the story progresses, their character will cause them to react to events, which will drive the plot, and in turn cause your characters to develop in natural-appearing ways. You can introduce characters to nudge the plot in a particular direction, but it is te characters which cause events to take place. If the characters are not believable, the plot will be irrelevant.
Ivan: I don't know if you're on the right track, the story I want to write is when Naoko reawakens (you know when she was put to sleep after that battle) and is said to rage another war like in the past. this is the plot i've posted, but it's the back story to it almost. (like the prequel, you could think.) Cognito: Thank you, I will take it as the whole damn salt shaker
