| From: | Bull bull@*******.net |
|---|---|
| Subject: | good story |
| Date: | Sat, 17 Jul 1999 06:43:56 -0400 (EDT) |
I hope it's okay that I sent this to the list... I had a couple people ask
similar stuff, and I wanted to answer this all at once :]
>bull, the two parts so far are excellent. the characters are
>very well-defined and even in the short space you have used, you
>used it to the fullest, embellishing them beyond the
>two-dimensional.
>
Thanks.. It's much appreciated. Unfortunatly I've been wanting to work on
this story for close to a year now, and Just keep getting distracted :]
Chaos was sort of a character I played off and on for about a year and a
half or so. I had a decent Background on him worked up, and as I had just
recently started GMing, was using Chaos to play with the Magic and Spirit
rules... I eneded up doing a few pure RP sessions over IRC with him, and
eventually the characters fleshed themselves out, honestly... I have an
outline of the complete story finished. In fact, if you read my started
(but not yet finished) Wings in the Night short story (A Gargoyles/SR
crossover story), you can kind of see a possible ending for the story, sort
of. I'm not going to quite go that route with this story, sticking with
the core SR world as much as possible, but... The character and some of my
plot give me a chance to play with some seldom seen elements of SR.
Part 2, once written, will continue what I started in the first part, which
will explore a little bit of teh concept of Magical College life. And one
day the image of a kid mage using magic fingers to drink beer struck me as
hilarious, so that went into the beginning... There's sevral images like
that that I have. Small scenes that help bring stuff that's designed
mostly to be useful in the RPG and make it a little more "real", tone it
down to the everyday level. At least in the opening section of the book
while Chaos is in school.
I'm also playing with some ideas regarding Spirits. Spirits are one of
those really undefined areas of SR. i've seen Elementals portrayed in teh
novels as everything from simple Elemnet influenced balls (Water, Fire, gas
for air, etc) to D&D looking elentals (Humanoid beings made of the element)
to actually havinga defined image. Our home game sort of combined all of
these ideas, figuring this:
Elementals were fairly stupid (Naive or childlike may fit this better than
stupid) when they're newly summoned. Nature Spirits, on the other hand,
I've always seen as having a more defined personality, influenced by their
background, since they are more "active" in the current world. Elementals
are froms omewhere else entirely, and are alien, for the most part. But, I
figure that the longer an Elemntal works with a mage, the more personality
develops, as the mages personality, or in Chaos' case, desires manafest
themselves in the spirit.
Bonding a spirit repeatedly is dangerous, especially in this setting.
Bonding is really a form of enslavement more than anything, and everyone
has heard or seen the horror stories of spirits getting free and killing
their mage. But, if a mage was careful and treated the spirit with respect
and kidnness, or something similar, the spirit may reciprocate those
feelings. This was sort of shown in Burning Bright, when the main
characters ally spirit went free, but decided to stick with the mage and
help him.
BTW, I do have game style info for most of the storyline at any given
point, so can explains tuff in a little more detail. I'm trying my best to
avoid actually throwing references to game concepts into the story (bad
form, really), but it is there if there are any questions.
>one thing though, and i think this may just be because this is a
>draft and not the finished product, yes? it needs to be proofed
>and edited. i am sure many on this list would offer to help if
>you asked.
>
This is a big time draft. I actually wrote Part 3 last night about 6 AM
(When I had to be at work at 11 AM and I hadn;t been to sleep yet), and I
typed it up while I was half asleep and then passed out :] Plus, I suck as
a typer, so... Lots of crap thrown in there :] So yeah, I'll edit it up
eventually... right now I'm working out some ideas and scenes, and figured
that this would be as good a place as any to bouce stuff off people :]
At 01:52 PM 7/16/99 +0200, DV8 wrote these timeless words:
>Please just don't let him become all-powerful-fire-mage-of-the-universe :)
>
Don't worry... There's enough of them floating around already(Though is it
my imagination, or do mages in the Shadowrun Novels have a hideous
attrition rate??)
Chaos has a huge natural talent, but as you'll see in later sections (and
gets strongly hinted at in Part 3) Chaos goes a little off his rocker, and
that seriously effects his "studies". He's powerful, but more than
anything this is a character exploration, not a heavy combat story :]
Chaos now has a death wish (I think I over did that idea a bit at the end
of Part one), as he feels he has nothing to live for. The only thing he'll
eventually find to hold on to will be revenge. And we'll see Adam, from
his Illusion class, some more.
BTW, to answer any possible questions:
In Chapter 2 in part one (I'm gonna pull the chapters for a while, I
think), Chaos has the Focused Concentration edge, and his two strongest
magical skills are his illusions and his summoning skills. As of Part 1 he
didn;t have any fire/combat spells, though he'll pick them up probably in
Part 2, if for no other reason than he hangs out witha Fire Elemental.
In Part 2, most of the damage was done when the Fuel tank of the limo went
up. The hellblast (Sometimes I still think in SR2 tersm, sorry) did
considerable damage, but at least the bodyguard for the Renraku guy would
have surviuved the initial blast. The second vaped him good :] And the
gangers were pretty much scared off by pyrotechnics. The alleyways was
being scorched was a result of a second Fireball that he cast sometime
after he and Cindy got to the alley and before he wakes up. He's in and
out for a while, and was more a reflex from his now kinda shattered mind
than anything else. And the only reason he survived the flames himself is
Cindy, who did her best to protect him.
The time setting, BTW, is around 2056 or so... This will allow a couple
cameos by a certain Ork Decker :] I originally had Chaos in Seattle, but
moved the setting to Cleveland (Which was our home campaigns main setting,
since I live there, though that campiagn was mostly for Bull and Johnny
99). We've done a good deal of work over the last 4 years or so working
out some SR background for Cleveland, and I'll work some of that into the
story to give us a slightly new setting for SR.
Anyways, like I said, I really do want some good critiques... My writing
has gotten kinda rusty and a bit hit and miss over the last few years, and
I'm wanting to sharpen it up, a lot :]
Thanks :]
Bull
--
Bull -- The Best Ork Decker You Never Met
bull@*******.net ===== bull22@***********.com
http://shadowrun.html.com/users/bull
ICQ: 35931890
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= Order is Illusion! Chaos is Bliss! Got any Fours? = =
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