I like the imagery of this one. Swords as tombstones are awesome, even though they would rust. I thought about the caretaker, there ought to be at least two alive at all times, in case someone just ups and kills the present one. The recipe for Coca-Cola is only known by two people for instance.
I find it plenty logical in the context of the submission. As long as it makes sense in the boundaries of its internal logic, I can easily suspend belief. Having trouble trying to frame your argument with that in mind. Anything on the site wouldn't make sense if you imposed outside logic and beliefs into it.
Loss of space, expansion, etc would mean very little to a city that was developed to be the Holy City of Trianarianism. Go to Comment
Your points are all well and good. A triangular city is very illogical. All I can say on why Triastu is a triangle is that Adonis was an archaeologist, not a civil engineer.
Now, for your growth concerns: Triastu is not planning on growing. If they did, they'd either have to build on the Green (which they find useful for circuses, merchant vendors, public announcements, etc.) or expand past their wall (which they find to be more beautiful without a bunch of buildings in front of it). To avoid growth, they do three things: export people, employ people, and educate people/
First, they either exile petty criminals or execute serious criminals. Or just jail them for life. But most of the time they exile them. It's also not just criminals who leave, though: being the Holy City of Trianarianism, they also train and send priests all over Atheus to tend their flocks. Some lucky ones get sent to cities, some unlucky ones to villages.
Second, they employ people. Around the belt of forest that surrounds Triastu are farms and villages. Typically, the city will provide the homeless with a small farm by one of these villages (which also has the added benefit of improving Triastu's appearance). They do the same with the poor, who specifically ask and provide a good reason for it. There are also mines and logging industries that require workers but don't set up shop inside the city. People are sent to make a living their.
Third, they employ lots of population controls, and educate their citizens about them. They also impose heavier taxes on families with three children, with more and more taxes the higher amounts of children there are. They also have lots of healthcare, which keeps the birthrates and the death-rates roughly even. Of course, in times of plague, the taxing-children thing would be dropped. Go to Comment
This really got me thinking, specifically about the holy trinity of christianity. No matter how fanatic they have been in the past and present, they've never once (to my knowledge) built a triangular city. And it doesn't take much thought to understand why, I'm no math-wiz but I calculate that approximately 50% of the space is lost in a triangular walled city as opposed to a square one. Not to mention, that if you were to expand the walls as the city grows, you would have a much harder time doing so in a triangular city.
Don't get me wrong, I like the novelty of the idea, but it's not very logical and speaks volumes about the level of fanaticism and stupidity needed for anyone to build it.
This was a hard one to vote on, while the sheer length of it deserves recognition, the content feels a bit bland. I'm missing some really outlandish locations to go with the novelty of the city.
Since you don't seem to appreciate when I correct typos, I will refrain from doing so. But since you misspelled alleys as allies twice, I felt inclined to at least point it out. Go to Comment
Well you wouldn't necessarily run into the same issues with a castle as with a city. Sometimes castles are built on very narrow hills and what not, in order to make them better defended, so not all castles have the room to expand, or for that matter, the room to build in a more traditional shape in the first place. Go to Comment
Even in a world of magic or hyper advanced technology, a triangle is still a triangle. That's not outside logic, that is an essential truth.
There's nothing wrong with the idea, it would just suggest that the followers of Trianarism are fanatical beyond anything we've seen on Earth (which isn't saying a little). But I would argue that secular interests (expansion being one) normally comes first, usually to the benefit of the religion, after all, a bigger city means more pilgrims, more wealth, more impressive statues and what have you.
And there are ways to work around this fanaticism, as I would presume not everyone living there are so deeply religious, but more practical at heart. For instance the city could expand beyond the initial city walls, or even build secondary city walls. All this without having to suspend belief. That's just my preference, I enjoy logic, it makes things so much easier. Go to Comment
This is brilliant, it combines many well tread tropes but it also very original to my jaded eyes. I agree with Moon that the mistake section seems a little jumbled and tedious. Why the description of the egg hatching?
At any rate fantastic, as a narrative its great in that I was really interested to find out what the raven would be doing, then when it blew up corpses...well I didn't see that coming.
I really like the journal asides. We learn so much more about your world and your vision from these types of posts as opposed to "gaming" posts that just list facts. Go to Comment
I was a bit torn over whether to give it a 3.5 or 4 when I first read this but I slept on it for a day and now I've decided to vote for the higher one.
Overall, I do think the piece is well-written. I really liked the intro. The idea itself- ravens that can blow up corpses, I'm sort of so-so. At one pt, it did cross my mind that it's not clear why the Raven v.10s want to blow up corpses, a pt that Dossta already mentioned. But then I came up with a reason for it myself that this is a way that makes their feeding on carrion meat easier (i.e. for a normal raven, they need to peck at the corpse but if they can blow the corpse up, their food will already be in a size that's easily consumable) so I didn't deduct any pts from this. What really lost me was the Mistake section with its description of the fight b/w the two opposing sides. What I mean is I get the gist of it but all these refs to the Merthians, Ostarians etc. sort of just got over my head a bit (could be b/c I'm down with a cold at the moment) and this made me want to stop reading this sub. But then the "no one noticed" bits did save the day b/c I found that they have some sort of poetry flair that adds to the flavour of this piece. And also, what definitely sealed in my higher vote was the the idea that the mating b/w a normal crow and a Raven v.10 gave rise to the Raventens. Personally speaking, I just really like the idea that what occurs in natures sometimes is and could be way more terrifying than what humans could construct thru science. Go to Comment
Reads more like a short story than a game piece, but that's definitely not a bad thing! I found myself becoming absorbed in the development of this unique species. The intro was a little long, but not boring.
As for the bird itself, the descriptions are evocative and the effect unique, but I'm not entirely sure it's plausible. How much force would a corpse have to explode with to kill nearby enemies in armor? Where is that energy coming from (It seems like the raven is "putting" energy into the corpse, not "pulling" it). Does the raven subsist on this same font of energy, or does it need actual flesh and blood? If so, how can it possibly get anything to eat if its food source inevitably blows up?
Its intelligence also seems a little high. Why would it be concerned with things like "bigger returns" from exploding an arm mid-air? Does the bird have an intense desire to kill?
My suggestion would be to somewhat tone down the birds' power. Perhaps a corpse only has a one-in-three chance of exploding, or the raven has to intentionally trigger an explosion once it has stored up enough energy from eating other corpses. Maybe they can only explode every third or so corpse this way. Something like that.
This is so well-written that it's still getting high-marks from me, "fuzzy magic" aside. Glad you finally released it. Go to Comment
Update: I seem to be slightly lost physically, mentally, and emotionally on where I was going on this one. I've been updating it every so often in the segments as shown above. I kind of wanted to make the Raveten more... creepy. Strange. Terrifying. Something more for something that blows up corpses. So, yeah, here it is. The oh-most-beautiful Raveten. Don't give it a corpse. Go to Comment
The Ravetens eyes are black in adulthood. As an infant, their bloodshot. And as for the other phyical changes you suggested, well, I wanted to make it look like a Raven, with a few "tells." Like the silent thing. Go to Comment
As I said, I'm lost on this one physically, mentally, and emotionally. I guess I just don't know what I want with the Raveten. It's just that when I imagine it, I see a regular raven, but twisted slightly. Something... Off about it.
On a side note, what about exploding corpses is not strange or terrifying? Is it normal for the corpse on display on a funeral to suddenly send bone fragments and brain chunks flying at those attending? Is the sight of your buddy's corpse suddenly covering your face, and as you look down at where his corpse used to be you see a regular raven *not* terrifying? Go to Comment