A Beginning

A Beginning

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

I am Sebastian, an aspiring novelist who has been writing a book for several years now. It is my biggest passion in life and my worst fear is failure. The book follows a fifteen-year-old named Taka, a sixteen-year-old half-elf noble named Beriyl, and a mid-twenties, deeply traumatized, emotionally out of touch ex-mercenary named Arthur.

The story begins with them all at the most vulnerable points of their lives (a topic I will likely touch on and provide context to in a later post) and follows them as they make lifelong bonds and memories, and overcome countless struggles-- emotional and physical.

It is also a story of blossoming love, as Taka and Beriyl eventually find in each other what both were missing in one way or another. A story of what it means to truly find yourself, what you stand for and who you are.

For many reasons, it is a tale very, very dear and personal to me-- for reasons i'll likely explain later. (so i stop editing this one blog post over and over)

I hope that you will follow my journey (and by extension, the journey of Taka, Beriyl, and Arthur) as I talk about my book and what inspired me and my random beliefs most likely, and random excerpts im proud of as I continue polishing my book.

Thank you,

Sebastian Crowling

i dont usually reblog stuff but omg is this relatable

Me waking up: I want to write

Me eating breakfast: I want to write

Me getting ready for work: I want to write

Me at work: I want to write

Me eating lunch: I want to write

Me driving home: I want to write

Me at home, sitting in front of my laptop:

ROAW Stuff - Weekly Writing Post #2

Hello, and welcome to my second weekly post ^.^

Like I promised at the end of my last weekly post, in this one I have a few topics to cover. This might be a bit of a long one! :D

Topics covered: Twin Feathers, Towns and Cities, The Afterlife

On that end, let's start with the members of Twin Feathers, the rival adventuring party that the members of Lucky Seven meet and become so inseparable from.

Eirairr

Eirairr is an interesting one-- he's a full elf, but due to his many long years of isolation he's incredibly eccentric. His personality changes on a dime, he is very much a person that takes from other peoples personalities and tries to mimic them if he thinks they're "cool" or "funny". Despite his weirdness, he's dependable when it counts. He's a good friend, and loyal-- even if he IS a bit immature and annoying at times. (and almost incapable of taking anything seriously) He is definitely the most childish out of the six.

Some of my favorite Eirairr scenes are when he's acting like a total nutcase, and then Qlul joins in because he's a bubbly, energetic birb.

Qlul

Speaking of Qlul, let's talk about him next! The resident birdfolk healer of Twin Feathers, he shares a few similarities with Eirairr. Namely, he's awful with directions, is far too energetic and happy, (although honestly, you can never be TOO happy) and has a problem taking most things seriously. His serious side does come out more often than Eirairr's. All in all, Qlul is a very empathetic person who cares deeply for his friends and the general well-being of those around him. He's dependable when it counts.

Contrasting Ecirr, he's an eagle-like birdfolk with white/brown plumage. (although honestly, i always see him as pretty much completely white)

(and he's dating Ecirr)

Ecirr

Ecirr is the closest thing to a leader Twin Feathers has-- stoic, stubborn, and serious, maybe a bit arrogant. He (also a birdfolk, but raven-like in appearance) and Qlul grew up together as close friends. They attended a prestigious university in Kaarda, then headed to Kommodia to become adventurers-- and see the world. I'd say Ecirr and Qlul are both of above average intelligence, but you wouldn't really guess it with how Qlul acts.

He has a good heart, if a short temper. He's the kind of person who won't say anything if he sees other people doing something wrong, until they notice. This tends to result in Twin Feathers getting very lost in the middle of nowhere for days on end. (and arguing alot)

Honestly, it's a miracle their party works at all. It's thanks to that when it really comes down to it, all of them can really "get their head in the game" so to speak.

Final Words on Twin Feathers

Before we move onto the next topic, I just wanted to say that I really love Twin Feathers. They give a much needed "happy" vibe to the world when they're around. They're the kinds of people that when you're around them, you can't help but smile, even if they're acting utterly ridiculous.

It may not seem it, but these three silly guys have a huge part to play in the overarching story. Without saying too much, there's a certain part where their lives (Taka, Beriyl, Arthur's) would have taken a very dark turn had they not been able to intervene/had they never met one another.

What is a "starting town"?

This will be a relatively short explanation, and I started thinking about it because I watched a scene from the new Sword Art Online Aincrad movie, (which i still need to watch, really want to) and i was like hmm... Why do I call Leln a "starting town"?

(anyway, i think that's why this came to mind)

Anyway...

In the first chapter of my book, I describe Leln as a "beginners town" or something to that effect. The reason is relatively simple:

In the world of commercialized adventuring, where everyone wants to do it and tons of people *are* doing it, it's a very lucrative business.

Leln is situated in the perfect part of the world where new adventurers can get the hang of things, do a few jobs, figure stuff out, all that good stuff. Leln is smaller than most cities, it *is* a town, after all. (I think with something like less than 20,000 people living there, probably in the 5,000-10,000 range. Compare this to the capital city which is like 300,000 or more? So...)

(the numbers aren't exact, i have them written somewhere but i'm too lazy to pull them up rn)

Basically: Leln is relatively safe. The goblins in the area are culled regularly by government-sent high ranking adventurers who can be trusted to do the job and do it right. (This, of course, is standard procedure and happens in Hamelan Territory, too. Hamelan is actually very safe, the towns outside Hamelan's walls pay a tax to the royal family to be under their knights protection, so pretty much everyone up there is relatively safe)

Back to Leln: There aren't too many caves or dungeons nearby, and given that it's a small town, the "risk level" of jobs at the Guild are, naturally, much lower than the ones you might see in a sprawling city like Hamelan (the capital). or even Demarcos (a coastal city) idk if that makes any sense.

tldr: leln calm area of the world, other places not so much, but still safe enough. leln good for new adventurer, other places ok too, but leln is the most popular destination (and also the one the *MAIN* Advent Route has carriage's go to!)

And finally... Let's talk about The Afterlife

First, there are a few things I think it's important to understand about the world before I delve fully into what awaits people after death.

In the world of Tamalnh, the Gods tend to not intervene. They do exist, but a very long time ago, they swore to not intervene in the world any more than absolutely necessary to ensure it's survival. (As the Gods are omnipotent, they'd step in if a world-ending threat were to crop up, but as long as 50% of the world remains safe they won't intervene. To reiterate, if a threat capable of killing more than 50% of the worlds population arose, they would step in and destroy it to save their world, and their creations.)

Here are some fun bullet points:

When you die, there's a short period of time as your soul leaves the Mortal Realm, ascending to the Judging Realms for the "Will of the Gods" to, for lack of a better word, judge you for your actions and intents in life. When a soul has reached the Judging Realms, it can not be brought back into the body it was from- ergo, resurrection magic only works within a short window (and it's very, very hard to pull off. I will talk about healing magic, magic in general most likely, churches and resurrection magic/etc in a later post. I also want to talk about "Wills" as that is very important to my world.)

The "window" shortens or lengthens based on the individuals will/desire to live, how much they have left undone. I think the longest time a soul could stay tethered to it's vessel would be 8-10 hours. It's usually a pretty short process of a few hours, although theoretically the most strong willed of people could stay tethered for a day or two, i suppose.

You are not conscious as your soul ascends, and as souls cannot be pulled from the Judging Realms or the Afterlife itself, no memory of the "in-between period" remains, hence nobody knows the afterlife exists.

However, there are some practitioners of specialized magic known as Soul Diviners/Spiritual Diviners/whatever u wanna call em. These people serve two purposes: They can read your soul and tell you your fortune, like a palm-reader, or they can tell you the color of your soul. The color of one's magic is tied to the soul, so the proof of a soul, magic that interacts with a soul, and some other phenomenon prove that souls exist (and hence, the afterlife.) Also, Ghosts, Revenants, Wraiths, etc, exist.

The Gods believe that Soul Erasure is the worst "crime" one could ever inflict on another (apart from the act of killing someone to begin with, I wager. Although they aren't going to condemn you to eternal torment for killing in self defense like Arthur has/does, it's circumstantial.), as life does not end in death, it only begins. Your eternity begins in death, an eternity of doing whatever you wish for as long as you wish, with the ability to sleep, be intimate, read, write, do whatever you like-- forever. Taking that away from someone, taking life away from someone is something the Gods can not condone. Even the worst of criminals aren't subjected to the erasure of their soul, and only one in history was ever punished in a way even slightly reminiscent to that-- they were put permanently to sleep. They still exist, technically, but are unable to experience the afterlife, as they are asleep. Forever. Fun little loophole for the Gods, I say.

If a person dies before the age of 15 (or was it 20-25, i dont remember), when their soul is "completed", they are given a second chance and allowed to reincarnate. They lose the memories of their past life. Similarly, the two examples of isekai'ed people (Rend, Arthur's childhood friend, and Lelnas, the legendary hero. fwiw, this will never be brought up in my book, so it's not a spoiler at all) lost their memories of their time in their original worlds. For the most part, generally people who are murdered or lose their "remaining/full life" in some unfortunate way are granted a second chance if they wish to take it, a chance to reincarnate. Their soul and personality would remain the same as they're still the same consciousness/person but in a different body, going through different circumstances. You know how every person you know kind of has their own "feeling" to them? It would be like if one person you knew died, and you met another who had the same "feeling". That's how you'd know someone you cared about had reincarnated.

Closing notes:

I'm not really sure what i'll cover next, but i should still have a few things I can talk about that are general lore that wont be talked about in the main books and isnt a huge spoiler for anything. I might talk about the "Body of God" and the nature of reality and some other fun things. I think that'd fit in well to my long expo dump about magic in my next post :p

Unrelated: this song reminds me of taka, beriyl, and arthur's dynamic (and it reminds me of ecirr, qlul, and eirairr)

(the tone of the series changes alot with book 2 and i feel like this would fit as an anime ED showing the lighthearted moments of book 1 as a sort of parallel)

its a good song :D bye for now!

some random things i deleted from my book #2

Another informal post, this one'll be pretty short.

origin page: pg. 23

deletion context: unnecessary, basically filler. even if i think its "cool" and shows the liveliness of the guild/makes a point of how many parties are really in here, it's just overall unnecessary imo and i really only wanted to keep it for, well, two reasons: Reason 1: It's a callback to a old dnd campaign I ran, and also a goblin slayer reference. (Xalubisteya was the name of a PC in my Saltmarsh homebrew campaign I DM'd. In another campaign, I played a human fighter named Coile Eisner, so thats the origin of him...)

It's a goblin slayer reference because the party comp is elf - human - dwarf - lizardfolk (yes ik if it was a "full" gobslay reference i'd have another human as a stand-in for priestess)

Reason 2: I wanted a way to show Arthur getting in line in the background, and like i said in reason 1, show the different people standing about, doing various things. that's really it. imo its not a particularly strong excerpt or anything, and can be removed because it isn't really doing much. I figured i could put the stuff regarding arthur getting in line somewhere else if that was all I *really* cared about, so...

Here's the excerpt:

Elsewhere in the guild, a lone lizardfolk woman looked around confused, seemingly lost. A rough-hewn man dressed in simple traveling clothes and a mix of brigandine and leather armor, the selfsame man who had spoken to Beriyl and Taka on the carriage entered the guild and stepped into line quietly. A drunken dwarf loudly argued with their party members about early-morning alcohol consumption. The latter was an amusing display to anyone who overheard it, and went something like this:

In a space amidst the crowd, stood a member of the proud dwarven race. A forge dwarf, some called him. Suited to forge and fire, making home of mountains and caves in equal measure. Currently, he was standing with his chest puffed out, thirstily drinking from a simple leather flask. His garments were plain white and beige clothes of dwarven make, with heat-resistant fibers woven in. This was the dwarvish standard, for most of their clothing. Interestingly, what he was currently wearing seemed more appropriate for a dwarven blacksmith to wear than a dwarven adventurer. His ginger orange beard and hair were well groomed and likely an object of great pride for the man. As he gulped down the contents of his flask, droplets of liquor fell into his beard, but he didn’t seem to mind.

"You’re drinking this early?" One of his companions, an elf, called as she headed over to meet him. Her clothing was truly odd, and made her look like an exotic dancer of some type. It was completely out of place even in an adventurers guild. Compared to her, the dwarvish man’s clothing choice was normal. The dwarf in question grunted, and for a moment, removed the flask from his lips. "Yes, do you have a problem with that?" Then, he was back to drinking.

"Yes!" She cried, snatching the flask away from him. "Hey!" He protested, trying to reach for the flask. Unfortunately for him, the elf had much longer arms than he did, and the flask was quickly taken far from his reach. "Stop getting drunk before we go off on jobs, Torval!" She demanded, holding the flask far above her head. At that, the dwarf’s face grew red and he clenched his fists before bellowing up at her; “You! Give me back the flask, you damned flat-chested, knife-eared wench!" The elf’s eyes widened, and for a brief second she nearly let down the flask. "Damned?! F- flat?! At least I’m not some barrel-chested brute, like you!" For some reason, she did not take issue with the "wench" or “knife-eared” part of his insult.

"Oh, just give it back already!" He cried, jumping up and down and trying to reach for the flask, to no avail. "No! If you can't be responsible with it, you can't have it!" The dwarf scowled up at the elf. "You're not my fuckin' mother! Give me back the damn flask, or I’ll-"

"Now, now." Soothed a deep, sagely voice. A towering lizardfolk laid his massive hands on the shoulders of both the elf and the dwarf. The elf yelped in surprise at the touch, while the dwarf quietly flinched. His hands were rough and intimidating. "Let's all get along, yes?" His voice, while calm, had a forceful air to it. He wanted them to know that they had to get along. Because he wanted them to.

Craning her neck to look up at the lizardfolk who was behind her, he met her gaze with a question. “Hmm. I don’t see Sir Coile. Where is he, I wonder?’ "I don’t know, but what does that matter right now?! Xalu, Torval- he's drunk, already!"

Since the arrival of their lizardfolk friend had caused the elf to let her guard down, the dwarf had managed to snatch back his flask. "As dwarves are won't to be, no?" Xalubisteya toothily smiled, still maintaining his firm grip on their shoulders. "But if he’s drunk, he's a liability, and I don't want-" "I'm a thousand times more useful drunk than you'll ever be sober, Elise. And for your information, I’m not even close to being drunk. Just think of it as a dwarf’s morning coffee and you’ll sleep better.”

He wasn’t wrong. Dwarves could drink a lot. During drinking contests among dwarves, it was not uncommon to see entire taverns drunk dry. In fact, if there was ever any doubt that someone was actually a dwarf, a drinking game would be held. Any real dwarf could drink at least a barrel before feeling anything. As such, one meagre drink was never going to be enough to make any dwarf drunk.

"I don’t need to sleep, Torval. Besides, how many of those have you had?” The elf had a defeated and deadpan expression on her face as she said this, her arms hanging loose at her sides. The dwarf peered over his flask at the elf as if she were insane. “How many flasks?” He raised an eyebrow. “Hate to say it, but just the one.” Trying to conclude the unproductive argument between the two, the lizardfolk firmly chimed in again. "Let's all get along, yes?"

While the dwarf and elf had clearly picked their sides, he was determined to remain impartial. "Xalubisteya,” The dwarf began, turning to his lizardfolk friend. “Doesn’t it speak volumes if a drunk dwarf is more capable than a sober elf?" The elf and the lizardfolk sighed, although for the lizardfolk it was more a gusty huff of hot air that was almost steam-like in nature. “You know elves can’t get drunk, Torval. We’re always ‘sober’.” The elf muttered. Smiling, the dwarf said; “I know! That’s precisely what makes dwarves better than elves!”

Being drunk, or being able to get drunk could be seen as a negative for some, but to dwarves, it was both a blessing and a boon. Of course, while elves were physically incapable of getting drunk, that meant, in theory, they would always beat dwarves at their own pastime; drinking games. Smiling to herself, Elise kept that realization confined to her thoughts.

Elsewhere, as the argument came to an end, Taka found he had been completely wrong. Not even an hour had passed before he found himself face to face with the receptionist.

edited 6-12-24 5:48 PM

ooh, additional fun fact about Coile Eisner:

I was inspired by L. Lawliet and Byleth Eisner. Coile's name is a mix of two things:

Eraldo Coile, one of L. Lawliet's alias' in Death Note, and Byleth Eisner's last name... Eisner.

Hence, Coile Eisner. And i think it's an awesome name. He's a mercenary, proficient with longswords, kinda no-nonsense and stoic, gets creeped out by weird party members and won't hesitate to leave in the middle of the night if he doesn't like you ;D

(some more context is, when i played him my party members, when he died, cut off his head and attached it to their belt.... and then he woke up in the tavern in the original reality they were from, with all the memories of the awful torment they'd put his head through (unspeakable tbvh, it was gross) and said "yeah alright i've had enough of these genuine psychopaths" and ran tf away to a different town so he could keep doing his merc stuff without being near borderline sociopathic dysfunctional freaks who endangered his life at near every turn lol

just something i thought was funny while writing:

microsoft word will randomly change my font when i do italics sometimes and i just thought this was so funny, like suffer being in a different font is just hilarious to me for some reason lol

btw my font is High Tower Text if anyone's curious

I will try and get my third weekly post out, (and respond to the stuff you've tagged me in @jev-urisk) even though at this point i'm pretty sure its been more than a week since my last weekly post. fwiw I don't think i'll be able to maintain weekly posts but imma keep calling them that, or maybe i'll rename it to something cool like "Kommodian Archive Day" or something, something unique like that cuz its like we're "walking through the archives (of gods i guess) that somehow have info on the entire world/things that even the denizens of it dont know"

idk just random nonsense, anyway back to writing for me

random rant about music

I really, really love music. Music is super important to me, same as how writing is really important to me.

I hate english music and literally only listen to japanese music, because english music is really grating to me for some reason and it all sounds the same. It's all very soulless imo. Here is a playlist of basically my favorite songs:

Anyway, at a future point i will talk about songs i feel represent the people in my book best and why :D