Ambrosia Software Web Board: Random Story Trivia - Ambrosia Software Web Board

It's Chey! O_O Quick, Writing-Pony-Katerei, bite him! (Very nice to see you back, Chey ^_^)

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That was my favourite post in the entire story ^_^

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Tyry's here, Chey's here, we just need to drag Day back *glances at Tyry*, and y'all can finish this thing :D

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That explains why I couldn't find the wedding. I determined it wasn't in any chronicle, and was starting to look through the Taverns and TSes, but I was getting too many spoilers (I haven't read these stories yet) so I gave up. I'm curious how Moonshadow and Flynn got a 16-year-old daughter so fast @_@

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So that's why my computer refused to let me put any colons in the titles :[

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At first I thought you were talking to Tyry and I was like, I don't think they'd gotten around to that before she died. Then I realized you meant the other Moonshadow's husband, and I agree that that's a good question.

This post has been edited by BreadWorldMercy453: 12 November 2013 - 09:37 AM

Pallas Athene, on 12 November 2013 - 07:58 AM, said:

I picked the name, but I ran it by Moonshadow first, as I tried to do with any chron that involved her characters as well. I didn't want to mess up her plans for her own characters, which was always a danger once they got so closely connected to mine.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 12 November 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

Time jump. 'Dark Legacy' was supposed to be set around 20 years after the then-current Tavern.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 12 November 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

Avatara, on 12 November 2013 - 02:30 AM, said:

BreadWorldMercy453, on 12 November 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

Progeria?

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I thought the teenage daughter appeared in the Tavern also, though I may have misunderstood. I didn't actually read the posts because I intend to go through all these stories eventually, & didn't want spoilers.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 12 November 2013 - 01:40 PM, said:

I think you're thinking of the bit in Dark Legacy when Kurt and Jadia almost enter the Alraeican Tavern.

I did actually write up a lot of the background stuff on the CytheraRP wiki a long time back. I don't think anyone visits that site much anymore, and I can't promise it's spoiler free.

This post has been edited by cache22: 13 November 2013 - 09:41 PM

I tried to register for that site when we were first discussing the archive, but it's run by R0k and he doesn't seem to check his email anymore.

Guest access seems to work, if you only want to read the info already there. Looks as if R0k left everyone else's accounts at 'member' status, so he's the only one with admin rights.

You might be able to contact support to get a different member set up as admin.

Who would we suggest to be the new admin? None of the members are very active. Maybe Kat?

Regarding Grapper, I'm working on reading through old stories, and it seems she tried on multiple occasions to kill him off, but other people kept resurrecting him. Man, it must've been hard to kill off your character, back in the day! I wonder, when did resurrection become forbidden? (And imagine how different modern stories would be if death was still trivial)

Hmm, there's a lot of interesting material on this thread, and I don't think that I have time at the moment to do a full reply. Thus, I shall just make a few brief, random remarks (mostly concerning the stories or characters that I have worked with).


The "emperor" mentioned in the Tale of the Treasure (and a couple of other stories, I think) and the ring slaves (used in Requiem) were two of the concepts that most interested me when I first joined TSs. It's kind of unfortunate that nothing else has been done with them since the old stories.

By your comment, I take it that Beorn is turning out to be a fairly unremarkable concept. I'll see what I can do about that in future posts.

Actually, I did remember KL. I always thought it was unfortunate that it was not finished. (It'd be fun to throw Selax in just to get Avatara to hit his head on his desk. )

I also remembered the Dark Legacy story. I have at times toyed with the thought of doing a chron set during the time period (although I did a brief one with Rapierian in response to an old chron challenge.)

The villain from LKH was used in Witch Hunt because I was trying to make the DK more of a interdimensional villain; hence, I grabbed a character from another world to serve as one of his henchmen. Like most of my work on the DK, it wasn't a particularly successful venture.

The fight between alt-Selax and others at the end of DM grew out of an idea first discussed during/after Shadow Games.

Selax was not actually originally intended to be so unemotional. Avatara observed that I was writing him that way, so I decided to run with it.

Selax, on 15 November 2013 - 06:11 PM, said:

I honestly remember neither. There was an emperor in TotT? Maybe, it was so long ago...

I don't think I was in Requiem.

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I think for a while early on you were there, but lately he just seems like he's a non-flying Selax. Which he is, but still. The idea of forcing him out of his comfort zone and making him vulnerable doesn't work if he's always off on his own doing powerful things nobody else can match. (Believe me, I should know!)

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Oops.

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Turns out I have a KL folder buried on my hard drive that contains the last story post, two pictures drawn by Moonshadow that represented a crucial landmark for the third world, and an IRC conversation explaining a few of those notes. I do think even if Moonshadow came back, it'd be really hard to restart it, because most of those characters haven't been touched in over ten years, and I don't know how much anybody remembers about it.

Since people seem slightly interested, here's some KL trivia:

- There were going to be six parts. We divided them up so we'd each create at least one:
I believe the first world was my idea. I also think it didn't play out nearly as well as it could have. A bunch of characters from a fantasy world suddenly lifted up to a moon base, being caught way out of their league.
I don't remember for sure if the second was mine or cache's, because I see a lot of my influence in some of the ideas that surfaced (in my descriptions, I believe I always pictured the temple as a xel'naga temple and the desert at night looked like the dark templar blue desert tileset from starcraft - yeah, I ripped a lot of things off from other sources back then :/ ).
The third world was going to be Moonshadow's. We were going to meet her people, and she was going to have to choose whether she wanted to stay or continue with us.
I don't really remember the fourth at all, aside from maybe it was a waterworld? I just recall that like Moonshadow, Renari could shapeshift, but instead of a bird she could turn into a dolphin. (I could be confusing this with Moonshadow's world.)
The fifth very loosely had Herget's assassin's guild and probably was going to be the place where he died (also ripped off from another novel). It may or may not also have had some modern elements in there, like motor vehicles. I think I was wavering on that.
The sixth was going to be Avatara's homeworld and he could've helped them try to return home. Except, it wouldn't have been quite so easy because the strife that made him flee in the first place was going to get in the way.

- KL contained my first attempt at writing a love story. It was pretty terrible. It was also the source of the argument between cache and I that broke it up. Maybe that was a good thing though. Looking back, I don't think my writing was good enough to pull off the ambitious storytelling that something like KL required. I think if it had kept going, it might've ended up with a lot of disappointment. These days, it'd probably be more successful (in terms of writing quality, not so much activity!).

- If you're curious, the main reason for the friction was that the Lemenath/Renari arc was "detatched" from the rest of the story. cache felt their whole arc could just be deleted and it wouldn't affect the story at all, because they were always off doing their own thing, unconcerned about anything else. I took that criticism to heart for future stories. I still like the idea of having multiple story threads (as opposed to one big lump of characters rumbling through everything) because it offers a chance to explore multiple avenues through a setting - you can see more of what's going on with additional perspectives and you can also focus more on the actions and development of individual characters when you're dealing with 2 or 3 or 4 instead of a big group of 12+. If you read some of the later stories, like Echoes and Witch Hunt, I kept trying out this idea. But, I don't think I really was successful until Bell Tolls and especially Dark Mirror.

- If you've played with me on battle.net 2.0 at all, you know my account name as Troyen. That name was actually stolen from one of cache's characters in KL1. I've always been terrible at coming up with character names on my own.

- I think KL 2 was abandoned no more than a handful of posts from the end. We were really pretty close.

In retrospect, and as mentioned earlier in the thread, I think the ideas behind it were interesting and may be worth revisiting at some point. Personally, I also think my characters were fairly shallow and holding back the story. If someone ever was to revisit it, I'd recommend changing up the cast list a bit to fix that.

Avatara, on 16 November 2013 - 07:07 PM, said:

It was mine. The idea was to have a world where the traditional fantasy roles of elves and humans were 'inverted'. The elves would be the city-dwelling tyrants who'd lost their magic, while the human resistance would be forest-dwelling magic users.

Avatara, on 16 November 2013 - 07:07 PM, said:

That's pretty much it. I wouldn't have objected so strongly if their thread had contributed to the main plot, or even intersected it somewhere, instead of being completely independent.

I was also taking things way too seriously back then.

Avatara, on 16 November 2013 - 07:07 PM, said:

Interesting. I remember the name, but not a lot about the character - I think he was shanghaied in KL1, and I was going to write him out in KL2.

Avatara, on 16 November 2013 - 07:07 PM, said:

It probably wouldn't have been too much longer, the big showdown was pretty close. Avatara kept insisting someone had to die, but I didn't want to kill off any of the characters I'd created for that world. I think that might be another factor in why I lost the drive. He was right, of course. That story demanded a blood price.

Going back to the some of the material on the first page, Ruffian Encampment was actually supposed to be a fairly simple TS with a fairly simple goal. Activity had dropped significantly in Witch Hunt (which was scaled back significantly from its original plans). Looking over the previous TSs, I thought a simpler, more game-based TS might be a good way to renew interest. Introducing Rapierian (my most successful character in my opinion) was part of my own effort to create a more Cythera-based character.

Actually, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, my character did quite a bit more than just get knocked unconscious. Unfortunately, I doubt that the subplot with him will every really be revisited.

The KL information is quite interesting. Perhaps, in the future, we should attempt another TS involving other worlds...

BreadWorldMercy453, on 12 November 2013 - 01:40 PM, said:

Yeah, I was thinking of Moonshadow's sister, Ranari. A teenage girl who looked a lot like Moonshadow entered the Tavern, and I had just been skimming through Dark Legacy... oops.

I've finally finished reading the Kul'Shar Legacy! (What was written, that is). It's really disappointing that it was never finished, as it was well-written (for a TS especially) and interesting. There seemed to be a lot more character development in this story than in other TSes of its time - or maybe it's just that there was so much romance in this story. Flynn/Moonshadow, Lemenath/Ranari, Wolmark/Leandra, with hints of two other lesser-character couples, and also Sideline/Katze (who weren't exactly a couple, though you got the impression that they could be). It was a lot.

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I thought it was one of the most interesting parts of the story. I was curious when/if they'd die, etc. I was left wondering if they were still even infected, as neither of them were even acting sick like Lemenath was in Part 1. Yet Lemenath was still all depressed like he knew he was about to die... Or maybe it was for another reason.
Anyway, I guess their romance could have been removed from the story, but I thought it added a nice layer and belongs in there. (Also I felt it was more relevant to the plot than the Wolmark/Leandra or even the Flynn/Moonshadow bits) It's not like they were totally dominating the TS either. Maybe Chey's main problem was that Tyry wasn't contributing enough to the main group (because he didn't have a character there. I'm not sure how it would've worked out, but I feel it might have been better if Tyry had a character in the main group, as Bryce had pretty-much dropped out, leaving Chey and Day to write that whole section of the plot on their own).

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You had already killed one, Damar, and Tyry killed another one of your that-world chars, Niamh. I'm not sure why more character death was required, but I'm not really into the death-for-the-impact thing.

More random Kul'Shar Legacy questions:

1) Phinril. Or Phinral? His name confuses me. He was first introduced in the Tavern as Phinral, but his character info says Phinril and he seems to be referred to by both spellings in the story. Overall in Kul'Shar Legacy / the Tavern, he's referred to as Phinril 82 times and Phinral 29 times. My best guess is that his name is from some foreign language where the second vowel is a weird sound somewhat between an "a" and an "i"? (I don't know what that vowel would sound like)

2) Why was it called the Kul'Shar Legacy? Part 2 of 6 was nearly done, and the title had still not come up in the story -_-

3) In Part 1, Hergat decided Phinril must be a traitor, & killed him. Then he got mad at Flynn & killed him too. But Flynn turned out to be Phinril in disguise! So, um, was Phinril not properly killed the first time? And did he enjoy being killed by Hergat so much that he disguised himself as the man Hergat had been hired to kill? That part of the story kind of lost me.

4) Does anyone know who Tana'May was or what her purpose was intended to be?

5) Did Part 1 take place on a spaceship, or in some kind of huge building on an alien planet?

BreadWorldMercy453, on 06 December 2013 - 09:13 PM, said:

That would actually be an e, ɛ, or æ, which seems unlikely. Potentially, it's ə, which occurs in 'pencil' where the i is. It's sort of a neutral, easy-to-say vowel that replaces a lot of other vowels.

/linguistics

A schwa. Phinrǝl. I'd pronounce either of Phinral or Phinril like that.

This post has been edited by Pallas Athene: 06 December 2013 - 10:10 PM

1. I think Phinral/Phinril was misspelled by mistake but then turned into a running gag. This is all a very long time ago. I don't even remember the character.

2. Something to do with the temple on either the second or sixth world, I forget. I believe they were the race that set up interworld travel but this story was so long ago I'm probably wrong.

5. I believe it was a moon base somewhere.

Avatara, on 07 December 2013 - 01:06 AM, said:

Yeah, I had a vague recollection it was something to do with the inter world travel gates, or whatever they were using.

cache22, on 08 December 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:

It was one of those "pick a random cool-sounding title first and explain it later" things.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 06 December 2013 - 09:13 PM, said:

The proper spelling is Phinril. Apparently, that was my character.

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I haven't actually re-read the story, but according to the Character Info thread... Phinril was part of the group who were hired to kill Flynn, but things didn't turn out so well. Xenar was the real traitor and apparently framed Phinril. Both of them ultimately died.

I don't know about the Flynn disguise thing without rereading the story.

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This sounds like one of Moonshadow's characters. You could try checking the tavern around then. I don't see her listed in either Character Info thread. My totally-wild-and-probably-inaccurate guess™ thinks she was being set up as the initial antagonist for Part 3.

I haven't read KL recently. When did Bryce drop out of the story? It doesn't sound like he was much involved in the planning for later worlds. Were there any rough details for worlds 4 and 5?

Bryce wasn't very involved in the story. The impression I got was that Chey tried to rope him into it without explaining how long & complicated the series was going to be ;) He did post several times in the first part and I think once in the second part.

Avatara, on 09 December 2013 - 12:32 AM, said:

Hey, it always worked on Star Trek.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 26 December 2013 - 09:31 PM, said:

I don't think I knew how long and complicated it was going to be.

cache22, on 12 November 2013 - 12:25 PM, said: