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This is Zōēā’s second story. The first is "Food Chained" at https://aryion.com/g4/view/425609.
Zōēā makes her first journey outside the Velnēs, the jungle she calls home. There, she meets a wizard, a lover, and a dinosaur with a taste for everything it can catch…
Edited 11/28/2017 to make minor corrections.
As always, comments are welcome, but not expected.
Posted by illirium 7 years ago Report
This one was a fun adventure, definitely like an engaging campaign from a vore-themed D&D session. Which is no bad thing at all! :D I would make a couple of notes for the constructive criticism bit, though neither of them is a huge deal by any means. The first is that the "Ass End" pun feels a little bit over-played when the village is first introduced and described. It's a very fitting name for a good old-fashioned hive of scum and villainy, mind you, but... Just mentioned a bit too often in that part of the story, I think. :P Another minor point is that I feel our Mr. Mastersten gets a *tiny* bit too exposition-ey while describing the quest to Zōēā; the only point where this really bothered me was when he mentioned the jewels hidden within the dagger. It... doesn't really feel he has a reason to mention them at that point, and really, why would he be trusting enough to mention the valuable jewels to someone he's just met? I rather like Mastersten's character on the whole, though. :) Oh, and, um, maybe the description of the love scenes, especially the second one, was... a teeensy bit over-done? But this last complaint, I think, is just a matter of the reader's taste. I quite like your writing style on the whole. :)
My favourite part, though, was the staircase of smoke... Just a lovely idea! :D
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Posted by IvesBentonEaton 7 years ago Report
Thank you for your comments. You have a point about the jewels; there is no need for Mastersten to mention them prior to the recovery of the dagger. As for the exposition, well, pedantry is an occupational hazard of wizardry. Also, don't overlook the tendency of males to talk too much around attractive females. Even wizards can be rather stupid that way.
I claim no expertise in writing love scenes. One maxim of writing is to "write what you know". In that respect, all of my knowledge is at second remove (or further). Those are always difficult scenes for me to write, but I do not doubt for one moment that if I condensed them I'd get complaints about that, too.
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Posted by IvesBentonEaton 7 years ago Report
Oh, and the staircase spell is smoke stairs from the Spell Compendium.
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Posted by illirium 7 years ago Report
Ah, I was not aware of it, but in either case, you used it well. :) As a side note, are you by chance a reader of Sir Terry Pratchett? :D
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Posted by IvesBentonEaton 7 years ago Report
Of course. I'm civilized. All my camel brethren tell me that this is true for at least three data points. :P
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Posted by sweetladyamy 7 years ago Report
Ah, turning a vapor into a solid platform. Low-level, basic Alteration magic.
I don't mind the 'drawn out' sex scenes at all. Hell, that level of description is more than enough to imagine it in full detail as if it were a Bollywood film.
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Posted by IvesBentonEaton 7 years ago Report
Technically speaking, within the setting, the spell's school is transmutation, and limited to the druid and assassin classes. I was wrong about the source, though: it comes from the Complete Scoundrel, not the Spell Compendium. My bad.
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Posted by IddlerItaler 1 year ago Report
Awww, Ameldēān died? My condolences.
"“Perhaps not. Būshān cannot be more than she is. No creature of nature can be, not even we elves. Part of maturing is discovering one’s limits.”
And overcoming them, Zōēā thought."
Lovely exchange. Seems like Zōēā is setting for a new adventure in a more familiar land - with humans, dwarves, and more classic sylvan elves. The humour surrounding Manfrid seems to be heralding a shift towards a more lighthearted direction; we're outside of the deadly jungles of the Velnēs, and even if Zōēā does go back to them, she'll be far more capable to handle herself.
"Ass End" ...is this going to end in anal vore? Just what I first thought of.
"and Cartaina, the language of the sea-faring human nation of Cairtage to the north that was known in many places with which they traded."
Cairtage, you say? Hope they never get into a war with Roime. ;)
"Through her sorcerer father, Gelorn, she learned the language of his magic, Draconic."
A draconic bloodline sorcerer, I see.
A tyrannosaurus, living in the Swald. Is this the notorious T-rex on the plains, meant to deter ambitious adventurers from straying off the intended path?
Good on Zōēā for having prepared some way to defend herself. Watch yourself from your enemies, but also from friends.
...Those mercenaries wish they had trained on mounted shooting.
Breathing spell letting a kiss last longer... that adds another point for creative application of magic.
A couple typos:
Was "It" meant to be "I" in the last one?
I also want to nitpick the narration's continued usage of "monster" to refer to the Tyrannosaurus even after Zōēā's line: “I see no cause to kill the beast. It is only acting according to its nature. It is a predator; almost anything smaller is prey to it. You said you needed your dagger. Do you also need its life?” Though fair enough, as monster can also be used in the sense of "behemoth", plus RPG conventions to refer to any hostile creature and whatnot.
As for the afterword... letting a druid player have a giant constrictor snake companion with the caveat that it would start as a much weaker hatchling feels like a very fair compromise a good GM would make. I did not mind at all High Ashenten being represented as Latin. Humans speaking English is less of my cup of tea (get it?) but it doesn't really impact my enjoyment of the story, also it's completely fair for Cartaige's language to be represented as English. I also found the rendition of Velnēs into Wetweald to be very pretty.
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Posted by IvesBentonEaton 1 year ago Report
The offending typos, as well as a few others I encountered hunting those down, have been eliminated.
It may amuse you to know that as the town of Ass End grew, the town elders renamed it to “Ascension”. Unfortunately for them, giving something a more respectable name does not necessarily make it so.
I render all languages in my stories to English because I’m an English speaking writer whose target audience is largely English speakers, of course. I am not an Oxford linguist like Tolkein was to construct entire languages such as he did with Quenya and Sindarin (and to a lesser degree Khuzdul and a few others), but I do like to at least fake it as convincingly as I may. Cartaige
In version 3.5, D&D allows as animal companions a snake (Small or Medium viper) at 1st level, a constrictor snake (size Large) as an animal companion at 4th level, and a giant constrictor snake (size Huge) at 10th. Usually a druid would dismiss the smaller one and summon a bigger one, but for story purposes I found it better to simply start with a hatchling and have it grow as Zōēā grew in power as a druid.
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Posted by IddlerItaler 1 year ago Report
Thanks for the typo-hunting.
As for the languages field, you've already put in a considerable amount of effort in fleshing it out - the opening excerpt about Ladahūnā vowel lengths and diacritics in the first story immediately stood out to me. It definitively worked for me, helping make the adventure feel immersive and the world more unique.
I also have nothing against Anglicizations, like Ameldēān -> Doomjaws or Velnēs -> Wetweald, and am more than happy to use them sometimes. My main vore-related OC bears an English last name even if in-universe she'd go by a different one. When I said "Humans speaking English" I was simply reacting to the opening line of "Velnēs, the vast equatorial jungle that humans called the Wetweald." But since it's later specified that those humans were living in the nation of Cartaige, speaking Cartaina, which is presumably represented as English, I have no problem there.
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