Creation Myth

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Satsujin
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Creation Myth

Postby Satsujin » Wed Apr 27, 2016 2:51 pm

Son Of Edit: I lied, I didn't get to this over the weekend. The wiki will be updated with both OOC and IC lore information by the end of the week.

Most hear the word “apocalypse”, and they think of nothing, literal nothing – everything they’d known before gone in an instant. But for the people of a place long gone, their apocalypse came first in a trickle, only to become a flood before there was any chance to avoid it. They fought amongst themselves, divided by the arbitrary traits of birthplace and the crown they bent their knee to, and all the while, the gods they paid their lip service to – mere mortals who had taken up the mantle of divinity – watched in contentment, while other, lesser divines watched in horror.

These lesser divines, having watched as their betters did nothing to stop the people of their world as they fell to murder and corruption, then hatched a plan to put a stop to the fighting once and for all. The eldest of these lessers, a blacksmith in life, took a single ember from the forge of the greatest smith known to the world, and from that single shard of the old world, he and his siblings forged a world anew, forever barring the previous divines from interfering in their creation at the cost of their lives.

This new world, called Ciruin, formed itself in the shadow of the old, unaware of the chaos as the old world faltered and finally fell to the horrors created by their war, and those gifted salvation by the new gods flourished where before they had floundered. But the new gods learned very little from the horrors they'd witnessed before, and soon their world, too, had begun to fill with the horrors they had hoped to save themselves from. As time passed, the rift between the populace grew larger, and they formed themselves into two kingdoms, Alderra and (SUGGESTIONS WELCOME), stuck in a cycle of vicious warfare and uneasy truce.

One hundred and twenty five years after the creation of Ciruin, the story of the gods creating their world from a burning shard of the old has passed into myth, the kingdoms have entered another cycle of uneasy truce, and the gods have had enough of sitting on high and weeping for their creations. The world shard is dying, and with it, the protection it offered from the old gods long forgotten; something must be done to protect the world from suffering the same fate as the world before. The gods, with no idea what to do in their inexperience, gift the people of their world with the strengths of the god they worship, in the hopes that this would stop their in-fighting and prepare them for what may never come.

The fate of Ciruin, now in the hands of its people, is yet to be decided. But the gods are not finished with their creation, and the old gods have not forgotten...



I like to think this would still be open ended enough that builders could continue to be creative, while still helping to maintain a coherent story for the areas to fall into, as well as plenty of space for quests and such to add to it. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I would love to hear them, because critique is always nice (and "fuck lore" is not a critique).
Last edited by Satsujin on Mon May 30, 2016 6:31 am, edited 2 times in total.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die...
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Zilveari
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Re: Creation Myth

Postby Zilveari » Thu May 05, 2016 2:05 pm

Satsujin wrote:Alderra and (SUGGESTIONS WELCOME)


Omaclara.

I saw Alderra, for some reason Alpha/Omega came to mind and came out with Omaclara.

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Grahf
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Re: Creation Myth

Postby Grahf » Sun May 29, 2016 1:58 pm

Sounds great! My only request is could the world be older than 125 years? Maybe a millenia or more? Whats a few thousand years to a god? I feel that 125 years limits the amount of ancient evils/catacombs/tombs/old caves/ruins/etc that can be found in the world if it is so young.

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Re: Creation Myth

Postby Satsujin » Sun May 29, 2016 2:09 pm

The minor updates I'm going to do to this add enough reason for that, no worries. I've been meaning to update this today in fact :mrgreen:
Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die...
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Satsujin
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Re: Creation Myth

Postby Satsujin » Mon May 30, 2016 3:44 pm

wiki/index.php/Lore:Creation_Myth


Updated this finally. The creation myth is the creation of Ciruin as it would be known by the characters, not the players, and as such probably seems like it's missing some things. That's intentional, and the version only known by the players will be posted eventually.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die...
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Lavelia
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Re: Creation Myth

Postby Lavelia » Sat Aug 13, 2016 4:14 am

I'm going to be entirely honest here. I read it in it's entirety on the Wiki and it's kind of massively boring. Plus the overuse of comma's is very rampant. Not to mention the time scale you have it set to is vastly out of sync with the use of the term 'myth'. The player is choosing to play not only mortal races but the more long lived ones as well and that has to be taken into account with regards to time as also.

Truth becomes a story as the ones who were young and active during that time grow older and tell the tales to their children and grandchildren. Stories then, through retelling, become fables when the grandchildren of those grandchildren previously mentioned become old. Fables, after even more retelling, become merely legends. Only after passing through many generations does truth become myth. Along the way those same stories become warped as memories fade and time passes. One hundred and twenty five years is in no way a long enough time period for the past to fade into myth and then be forgotten. At most, three (and I'm being very generous here) generations will have passed in that length of time...and that's three of the mortal races.

Elves and Dwarves alone live much longer than mortal races like humans do and one hundred and twenty five would just be a mere drop in the bucket for them. Elves are keepers of Lore as well, so it would take a massive passage of time for the stories they hold onto to fade from memory. All of this has to be taken into consideration if you're writing a narrative that the player is meant to connect with.

The concept you're going for isn't a bad one but it almost comes across as being written by someone with very little writing experience or limited writing experience. I'm not trying to be mean. Not at all. But no writer improves by simply hearing, "This is amazing," all the time. We grow by hearing what we hate to hear. Even a professional writer will hear how their story needs improvement by their editor and because of this, their writing will improve. A writer who loves writing gets no good out of being in the "this is amazing" echo chamber. The concept (meaning the idea behind what's written as opposed to what's actually out there) is good but it's inconsistent and that detracts from what you're going for.

The player needs consistency and a time line continuity that makes sense for all of the various races.

Those that are tasked with building the world need that same continuity and time line because they are the ones creating the world around your narrative and in order to create the story that surrounds their areas they need to be able to work with the lore and incorporate that lore into the towns and even the npc's they're creating. They have to work together, with you the writer, to create a story that is told through their work; and for that to happen and bring something amazing forth they need what you produce to be much more consistent and easier to work with...which brings us back to the time frame you've set.

That was the criticism. These are the suggestions to help make what you've written much easier to read, more consistent, and much more fun to imagine a character into.

1. Get rid of a lot of the comma's you have in the story and turn those comma laden, run-on sentences, into proper sentences. (I had this problem for a while myself so I understand the why of having all those comma's. But they make for a really bad read overall. Ironically building for the game I worked on helped cure me of that problem.)

2. Extend the time line from one hundred and twenty five years to something much further along. I would say, at minimum, a few thousand years should pass if not even longer. (Elves and Dwarves. Enough said.)

3. Expand the story a bit. Give it a little life. Players can RP what their characters do and don't know easily enough. Especially once you put a proper time frame in place that isn't set in stone at one hundred and twenty five years. In Character their grandparents would have told them, in the case of the mortal races, what happened and where they came from which means they'd be on the lookout for the evil that you've brought into play in your narrative. Those playing longer lived characters would know first hand the events that brought about the creation of Ciruin. Therefore if you choose to keep the time line that short add in stories that a parent/grandparent etc might tell their children/grandchildren.

That's it for now. Sorry I was so blunt, please don't take it to heart as anything other than wanting to help a fellow writer improve.

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Satsujin
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Re: Creation Myth

Postby Satsujin » Sat Aug 13, 2016 8:10 am

Oooo, critique! I like critique! I do have to point a couple things out though.

First is that you're making a rather large assumption that elves and dwarves are naturally any longer lived than humans, which they aren't in the world I forked to create Ember's lore. Elves in that universe usually extend their lives with magic, while dwarves tend to just live as long as they do. The only naturally non-mortal races on Ciruin are dragons, which is one of the traits dragons on the previous world didn't possess so drakebloods couldn't have gained it, and Remnants, which are only non-mortal because they're dead.

Second is that this is an in-character story, not the full, out-of-character story, which I didn't prioritize finishing to put up because the roleplayers won't need that, since they won't know what the priests don't tell them. The government in Alderra is run by the church, after all, would they really want a story going around that paints the gods they serve in anything less than a fantastic light? You may find the full history without the religious bias from the priests supposedly telling the tale is radically different from the in-world lore.

The time frame will also be addressed more in depth there, which will be available once I finish making my notes readable.

As for the overuse of commas, that's a consistent problem I have, yeah. I didn't bother to go through and change it since it's an in-character story, but once I've got everything else finished that needs to be done before release, I do intend to go through and fix it to make it less hideously formatted. Trust me, my editor cried about the fact I put it up instead of sending it to her first.

Thank you for being willing to tell me I suck though. I need more people like you in my life (not even being sarcastic).
Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die...
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Lavelia
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Re: Creation Myth

Postby Lavelia » Sat Aug 13, 2016 5:55 pm

Satsujin wrote:Oooo, critique! I like critique! I do have to point a couple things out though.

First is that you're making a rather large assumption that elves and dwarves are naturally any longer lived than humans, which they aren't in the world I forked to create Ember's lore. Elves in that universe usually extend their lives with magic, while dwarves tend to just live as long as they do. The only naturally non-mortal races on Ciruin are dragons, which is one of the traits dragons on the previous world didn't possess so drakebloods couldn't have gained it, and Remnants, which are only non-mortal because they're dead.

Second is that this is an in-character story, not the full, out-of-character story, which I didn't prioritize finishing to put up because the roleplayers won't need that, since they won't know what the priests don't tell them. The government in Alderra is run by the church, after all, would they really want a story going around that paints the gods they serve in anything less than a fantastic light? You may find the full history without the religious bias from the priests supposedly telling the tale is radically different from the in-world lore.

The time frame will also be addressed more in depth there, which will be available once I finish making my notes readable.

As for the overuse of commas, that's a consistent problem I have, yeah. I didn't bother to go through and change it since it's an in-character story, but once I've got everything else finished that needs to be done before release, I do intend to go through and fix it to make it less hideously formatted. Trust me, my editor cried about the fact I put it up instead of sending it to her first.

Thank you for being willing to tell me I suck though. I need more people like you in my life (not even being sarcastic).


Point by point here:

Elves and Dwarves: Most people, unless it's mentioned, would assume that they are the longer lived versions. There are ways to incorporate it into the narrative so that the characters know that they aren't the long lived, without magical enhancement, variety. Even a blurb along the lines: "Even the Elves and Dwarves were affected by the remaking of our world," the priest explained softly. : would work. We, as writers, must always remember that if it isn't explicitly stated in print then the player can only play the race as they know it.

The church in Alderra: Of course they wouldn't want to paint their Gods in any light but a positive one. Right now the narrative reads almost too technical in nature, and if you want it to be an in character story then you need to revamp it some. Give it life. Hell, make it a speech from the Pulpit in one of the temples, or split it into multiple blurbs from each of the temples as a speech that the priests give and make there be a shift in the telling of the story as each priest gives that particular belief's twist on the tale. The reason I'm suggesting this is because in doing so you then end up tying the actual lore into an aspect of the game the players, as characters, would be able to use and run with. (and thus the other point included in that paragraph is also addressed :P)

Readable Notes: I feel your pain there lol -enough said- I can't wait until you address the timeline since right now it's glaringly horrific, simply by a story teller's standpoint.

Comma's and Edits: If it's an in-character story then the product you put out there HAS to be properly edited to be easily and enjoyably readable. Knowing from personal experience the over-reliance on comma's does not make for good reading -lol-. We, as writers, tend to add comma's where a person would breathe while speaking. It's sort of....an odd instinct (sorry, putting this into words is a bit difficult since I've not had to do so before). I'm glad you'll be editing it since right now it's kind of a nightmare >.<;. There's a full paragraph pretty much that's all comma's and not much else, punctuation wise. lol.

As for you sucking...totally didn't say that :P Your writing has enough good qualities that I bothered to comment without completely ripping you to shreds (if I don't like someone's writing I'm more than blunt typically....I'm brutal in a really vicious way). It's because I see the potential that I've called out the flaws and inconsistencies ^_^;.


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