ROAW Stuff - Weekly Writing Post #1 (spoilers)

ROAW Stuff - Weekly Writing Post #1 (spoilers)

Hello!

Since this is just the first real post i've made that isn't an introduction, I won't talk about any lore stuff this time. The reason im doing weekly is because having a schedule feels better than doing it randomly, and also because i didnt know what to title this post. Maybe I will do it randomly anyway, we'll see. It just depends.

For future context, the series title is Record of Another World, abbreviated as ROAW. The "collection" title (encompassing the "main" series) is Party of Three. The first book will likely also be called Party of Three. idk if that makes sense.

So I suppose like how you have A Song of Ice and Fire - Game of Thrones, or A Song of Ice and Fire - A Tale of Dunk and Egg, you have Record of Another World - Book 1, Party of Three, Party of Three(?) idk lol

In any case, in this post I wanted to go over who the people in my book are in a bit more detail, as that feels like an appropriate first "real" post, to me.

Taka

Starting off with our main POV, we have Taka. When he was born, his parents didn't want to deal with the burden of a child, so they gave him up to a lizardfolk who had been a part of their party for a very long time. This lizardfolk, named Dane, became Taka's adoptive parent. At the beginning of book 1, Taka has just turned fifteen, the age of majority in Kommodia (and the age one is allowed to register as an adventurer) and wants to experience the world for himself.

He may have seen a lot of the world traveling on Dane's ship (Dane is a captain with his very own port, and at a certain point became responsible for the Advent Route, which is the sea path from ports to adventurer-centric towns.) but he wants to see it on his own two legs, of his own volition. He wants to explore, and meet new people, try new things. He wants to live, and satisfy the intense wanderlust he'd harbored for so long.

Even still, he is very young at fifteen, and has a lot of anxiety and worries.

Taka is neurodivergent, like most people in my book are in some way. He has ADHD and Autism.

Soon enough, Taka finds himself wrapped up in a world of adventure, surrounded by people he never thought he'd meet, friends with people he never could have possibly thought he'd befriend.

Beriyl

Next up is Beriyl! He is a half-elf who hails from a very prestigious noble family. While he can come off as abrasive and even incendiary at times, he has his moments of genuine caring and warmth. He connects with Taka on a very deep level, I think.

Beriyl is probably one of my favorites to write because he's a know-it-all, he possesses a very large vocabulary and REALLY wants to show it off. He's spent so much time cooped up reading, his brain is a literal vault of random tidbits and facts. He is a textbook bookworm, and he *will *make sure you know it. He's very snarky and sarcastic and I find some of his exchanges with Taka really funny. Their dynamic, although it softens with time, is one of my favorite things ever. Not unlike Taka, I believe Beriyl also has Autism.

Arthur

Last of team Lucky Seven, Arthur.

When we first meet him, he's incredibly depressed, giving off this awful vibe of a man who has all but given up. He hasn't slept in days, probably hasn't eaten or drank much either. His eyes dark pits of horrible despair, but gradually he learns to live again, to love and forgive himself.

The rest is a bit spoiler-y, revealed within the first half of the book. I will be spoiler marking it, but just so you all know! (The stuff at the end about Rend is never revealed, so that counts as lore i guess)

Anyway, pretty big spoilers actually, and i cant hide them because tumblr doesnt have a spoiler text feature for some reason, and i cant figure it out with html or anything. All of this is revealed at roughly 55% through the book or so, so i guess it is pretty massive spoilers. Don't read the stuff about Arthur, skip down to the Advent Route if you don't want to be spoiled on Arthur's backstory and my read on his mental state.

Arthur is a sufferer of extreme PTSD, he likely has DID. When he tells Taka and Beriyl of his past, of how he felt when his friend and family died, when his town was razed to the ground, I believe it's really hard for him to really stay "present". I think he probably suffers from an extreme emotional block, he feels very absent and er, numb, I think is the right word. When he was a mercenary, I don't imagine he was truly himself. I do think he created a separate persona who didn't think or feel just so he could get through it. At that point I think he was just biding his time until he died, only truly happy when he was able to do things that reminded him of his parents like train or cook. Yet, we see that when he meets Taka and Beriyl, he starts to look better. He starts to sleep, to eat. He makes Taka and Beriyl his life's goal, his one true priority. He becomes unhealthily co-dependent on their safety and existence, so I think that reflects in how overwhelmingly overprotective he is, how quick he is to justify violence in the sake of defending Taka and Beriyl. Without them, he never would have had the "color" restored to his world. He'd still be wandering in a storm without a light. Taka and Beriyl are that light-- without them, he would be dead, most likely.||

Hell. He says it himself: how he tells them he'd become an adventurer to die helping someone, so he'd have an excuse for Rend in the afterlife.

(little does he know, Rend died young enough, and as a person who was isekaied to Tamalnh without his memories from Earth, the Gods allowed him to reincarnate again. He is the Spear Warrior that Taka asks for directions to the guild in Chapter 1.) I will elaborate more on how this works, how the afterlife and things like that work, and summoning and blablabla, all will be explained in a future post.

some minor adjustments 8-26-24. Rend cannot be the Spear Warrior, iirc Arthur was a merc for about 10-15 years, from 18-26? i think? Smth like that, anyway, that means Spear Warrior would have had to have been born the instant Rend died, so... it makes more sense to believe he isn't the Spear Warrior, but someone else. Arthur will probably meet him (whoever rend reincarnated into) towards the end of his (arthur's) life.

Now, about the Advent Route...

The Advent Route, to be better explained, sort of works like this.

On Kommodia, the most popular starting town at present is Leln, a town named after the legendary hero who felled a Dark God several thousand years prior.

Each port runs along a prescribed route and anchors on the coastline. From the coast, adventurers are taken via carriage to the town of their choosing.

Simply put, the Advent Route is a searoute chosen specifically to maximize safety and efficiency, seeing all those who'd wish to become adventurers to their destinations with relative safety, barring extreme circumstance. It is conducted at a time of year (the book starts as summer ends.) where the water in the sea becomes cold enough that sea monsters like Krakens and such go into a state of hibernation.

I'll do a follow-up post talking about the people Lucky Seven meet at the end of ch1 and their incredibly important role in the overarching story, also with spoiler tags soon. I will also elaborate on the afterlife/reincarnation process and what that really means, how people were summoned from another world, their role, and about what a "starting town" actually means.

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

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

something a bit random

I'm replaying BG3 on tactician as Gale (he's hot asf and i was like, well i'm not gonna be able to romance him this playthrough, why not play as him?), and was thinking about how the people my book follows would answer this question.

I think their answer changes based on where they are growth-wise.

For the most part, Twin Feathers reason stays the same. Perhaps until book 2, anyway.

Taka: 6

Early Beriyl: 5

Late Beriyl: 2

Early Arthur (pre. ch1 most likely): 3/some sort of middle ground, lingering in "i dont care." territory

Late Arthur: 4 (Except only in reference to people he cares about, as he truly would give up anything and everything to save someone he holds dear.)

Ecirr: 2

Qlul: 2, 6/maybe 1

Eirairr: 1 (and maybe jokingly, 5 or 3)

Special bonus: (villains and other, exceedingly minor or otherwise unmentioned people)

Coile Eisner: 3 (dead serious)

Edge (Edward Dagger): 5

Valerius: 5/3

Ergo: 1/2/4

A certain katanese catfolk: 1/2/4/6

Eortimer: 1/2/4

Esmerelda: 2/6

Beriyl’s parents: 2 (6 depending on interpretation) 3/5

Vitsmunir: 5

Sargantas: 1 except it’s “no life matters!!!! we’ll all be equal in death xDdDdDd” 😊 *kills you*

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