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Messages - Nickeris86

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Author Craft / Re: Where to hide your Eldridge Abominations
« on: September 04, 2012, 03:47:39 AM »
Well the question was answered without me asking it.

The question was does a twist ending like the suspected big bad turning out not to be really evil have warrant within a published work calling itself Lovecraftian?

OK, i know you said you had this, but I had already come up with a suggestion, so maybe you'll find some other use for it:  if they are as efficient as you say about tearing down older construction and putting up new within weeks, it would stand to reason that they are generating a lot of construction waste, which has to go somewhere.  Maybe there is a landfill somewhere with all this stuff that baddies set up shop in, proping up chunks of wall and scrounging old piping, or digging out modest tunnels throughout as they excavate for useful cast-off.
Well Korean law has it set up where most everything is recycled in some way. there are a few places where there are mounds of garbage and waste, but they are realtivly small in comparison to the size of the city. I probably will use them in some context but not as the main hiding place. Possibly foraging grounds for food or followers.

Quote
That sounds awesome but Im not seeing your question.  I have a few though:  How did such a powerful being get forced into said role?  Ancient Mystical Binding spell?  Did he make a bargain and get the shaft? Is there some even more Uber entity out there antagonizing him?  Did humanities growth/presence inadvertently screw something up and somehow trap him?  If he is shouting for help, how will such relatively tiny and fragile creatures be able to help him?

I a little torn on how it got stuck where it is. I have two ideas. The most logical would be that it was already imprisoned here centuries ago and humanity discovered it and its jailors (the lesser abominations). They were driven mad by the revelation of finding this place and mistook it for a fallen god and the jailors saw no reason to dissuade them and in fact played along in order to spread corruption. What actually imprisoned it would be left to mystery which should inspire fear given how strong this thing is and there is something out there that bitch slapped it into a jail cell. The other is that the creature was imprisoned by the mortals who now worship it, though most of them are unaware of this fact. They managed this because the creature has something that already partially binds it to the world, something it has to protect. The cultists used this to force it into a binding.

In either case the creature does have something that it is protecting that is key to the story.

As for back story, o_O, the creature is very powerful but it also has a job and can only act within the confines of performing that task. It is otherworldly but is cut of from that other place from which it spawned. Thus its choices in asking for help are very very limited to what is around it. Humans or animals. It is also not the only one of its kind though this will not really come into play much in the story. Most of these others are not imprisoned but many are. I think the city infrastructure could be used as part of their bindings and dive into the conspiratorial cults and secret societies that have influenced the construction of several major cites in the world.

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Author Craft / Re: Writing villains
« on: August 24, 2012, 02:51:45 AM »
I agree that a villain that is knows they are evil, not just bad, and doesn't care is boring. It falls into the Saturday morning cartoon thread of villainy. Now that's not to say that someone can have a purpose in their villainy but they are so consumed by they're insanity that its impossible to make since of it until its to late. There are also cases, usually with serial killers, where they killed just for the sake of killing. No methodology, no reason, no passion, just hey their a person and there's a sharp rock that needs to meet their head.

There was a particularly disturbing case several years ago in the USA where a guy was responsible for like twenty to thirty deaths nation wide that were discovered. Nothing connected the deaths he just did it for the heck of it. Very scary. Also very very very rare thank god.

Now i think that this type of villain would only work in a crime drama of some sort. Most murders are filled with some kind of motivation, even the truly sick ones.

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Author Craft / Re: Where to hide your Eldridge Abominations
« on: August 24, 2012, 02:27:00 AM »
Okay I have the little bastards nailed down to a location and even how they can move around the city without causing to much suspicion.

Now I have another question for you. I want to throw in a twist at the climax of the story where the big bad that all the lesser bads worship as a dark god actually isn't malevolent at all but has been forced into this role due to circumstances that it is not at all pleased with. This being is still mind shatteringly powerful and beyond human comprehension that even being in the same general area of it can drive you mad. The nightmare fuel it inspires in people that it comes in contact with are its cries for help. However, because it is what it is and the circumstances that led it to its current position it can't really be gentle about it.

However its true intentions and motivations are left to mystery.

I know it contrasts with the general concept of Cosmic Horror but there is not happy ending in this story, or at least its a very dark grey ending. I took my inspiration from the fact that angels, the messengers/warriors of the Almighty are freaking terrifying to behold. Whether the creature in my story is an angel or something else is up to the reader in the end.

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Author Craft / Re: Where to hide your Eldridge Abominations
« on: August 18, 2012, 02:33:22 AM »
A soju brewery.

The presence of ancient evil would explain a great deal regarding what that stuff's done to me.
Lol yes that stuff is rather nasty, not as bad as Machaly though.

Would it work with the kind of thing you were doing to do something like a pocket dimension ?  A perfectly normal apartment building with one extra door somewhere that leads into a space that's not actually on the real-world map, and can be as big and complex as you like ?  That's an idea that would lend itself to Lovecraftian creepy, I think.

Sorry, I'd not realised you were local and didn't mean to sound like I was suggesting dangerous things.

I have thought of using pocket dimensions later in the story as part of the characters descent into madness. The first encounter i wanted to be underground. Though a pocket dimension in the subway tunnels could work. I am also only a local as long as my contract is going. I am from America but I teach English to kids here.

Eh, ah, too bad water is out; that would have been my first suggestion.   

Question: do your Abominations have a "life"-cycle that would have allowed them to exist in rural settings?


Rural setting is out because i want the terror to being living in the city so close that their is not escape. Rural settings work but not for what i have planned.

 
You can make something up too, or just make MORE out of something that is already there.
A quick search of historical sites found a few possibilities. I read an article about how modern the city is, but someone was quoted saying that every time they start a new project they dig up something that would be considered artifacts or historically important.

Any of the older temples or fortresses have potential.
I also found this:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/kpa-tunnels.htm

You might be able to expand on that somehow. Maybe the tunnels made it to Seoul and they gave a passage to the surface for things that would have otherwise been buried?


Yeah i had heard of these and may use them. Thanks for the article will help a lot.

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Author Craft / Re: Where to hide your Eldridge Abominations
« on: August 17, 2012, 05:09:38 PM »
Seoul doesn't really have abandoned buildings. In Korea when someplace goes under the rip it down and rebuild it in a matter of weeks, they are very officiant in that way but things have a tendency not to last very long. I am also trying to avoid water as much as i can for this story so as not to rip off Deepones so bridges don't work.

Google maps does but not of the underground. Due to the strife between North and South. You really don't want to be labled a North Korean sympathizer here.

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Author Craft / Where to hide your Eldridge Abominations
« on: August 17, 2012, 08:28:52 AM »
To put it simply i want to write a short story in a H.P. Lovecraft type style based in the city of Seoul, South Korea. I am currently living in the city so writing about it is not an issue but I have no idea where to put the damn monsters.

I know how i want them to look. I know what kind of nasty things they do to people. I have them pretty much fleshed out.

And I don't have a damn place to put the buggers.

Seoul is the second largest city in the world next to Tokyo but as far as i know there is nothing like Undertown here. There are the subway tunnels but they are all pretty new and well maintained. The sewer system is also very modern. There are tunnels, mostly dug by people fleeing North Korea, but they are found quickly and either sealed or collapsed quickly.

The problem is putting underground system that normal people couldn't find easily but could still access quickly within the city if they knew where it was. And as far as i know Korea is very efficient in keeping track of their underground in Seoul.

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Author Craft / Re: Writing villains
« on: August 17, 2012, 08:21:15 AM »
i never put my villains in a situation where I would have to write them harming a child, teenagers (16 and over) are fair game. I am ok with giving vague descriptions of the aftermath of something like that to build up how purely evil the particular son of a bitch is.

For my villains,  unless they are completely alien (insane or otherworldly) in their thinking, they always have a reason. Now that reason may not make much sense or could simply be to cold and calculating for most people but its still a reason.

It also depends on how i want the audience to react to the character. If I want them to despise this guy and cheer when he gets whats coming to him then he is going to do somethings that are going to make you hate him. If i want them to sympathies with them then i work that in somehow. Then their are the ones who i want the reader to love to hate, like the Joker. No one roots for him, well no one that i would want on my Christmas card list anyway, but we love him all the same.

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Wiped out a short and sweet four page steampunk inspired piece last night after talking with a friend about the genre.

If anyone is interested in reading it I would appreciate the feedback. Just pm me

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Author Craft / Re: Are Readers Growing Tired of New Urban Fantasy?
« on: April 21, 2012, 09:32:08 AM »
the entrails flying head ones look humanoid until they feed then they get icky.

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Author Craft / Re: Are Readers Growing Tired of New Urban Fantasy?
« on: April 21, 2012, 02:53:56 AM »
So here's a question, in a story I'm working up, which I think is pretty cool so far, I'm in need of a couple vampires. I can't help it. They have the whole fangs and suck blood thing. Now I do intend on making them the bad guys, and menacing and sneaky, no sparkles here. But I can't help but wonder if I try to sell this to a publisher or an agent or even to readers will they see vampire and say "oh God not more of them..."

I also have that concern but since my story is not urban fantasy and my "vampires" are a race with a culture I can make them very different from the current generation of blood suckers.

I agree with Snow-leopard look into other myths. Nearly every culture in the world has some sort of vampire like creature in them. A lot of the Asian vampires are messed up, Think floating heads with entrails hanging from them that they choke you to death with then feed.
Or you can go the old European style vamps where they were hideous walking corpses that slaughtered people. There was zero sexy vampires until Stoker.

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Author Craft / Re: Are Readers Growing Tired of New Urban Fantasy?
« on: April 20, 2012, 07:11:36 AM »
someone, somewhere decided sex sells. I wonder if the producers of game of thrones know the difference between a masterpiece and a porno. ugh.

personally i don't mind romance in books that much. I don't buy the books specifically for the romance, but I can ignore it fairly easily enough.

I am of the same opinion though its not limited to the show. The books have gotten rather porntastic to the point where I don't want to read them any more simply because of how over the top it is. Same goes for the Anita Blake series.

I don't mind romance or even sex in my books so long as it serves to further the story line. If it doesn't further the story then it shouldn't be in the book. That's my opinion anyway.

As for sexy pictures on the cover, yeah most of the ones I have seen are rather ridiculous. Cover artists seem to have mixed of attractive/sexy with slutty. Bad ass vampire hunter is not going to be hunting in a freaking corset and stripper boots. And its not just in UF but SSF as well in the form of fantasy armor.

Its not just women that face these sort of issues either, men portrayed in fantasy are usually portrayed as shirtless testosterone gods of sex and abs. I find this equally annoying in a different way.

Buy some damn clothes you twats. lol

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Author Craft / Re: Christian influences in Fantasy writing
« on: April 18, 2012, 05:58:56 AM »
I like the feed back that you have all given me thanks. It has confirmed what i was thinking of doing in the first place.

Since this story takes place in a world of my own creation Christianity itself will not make an appearance however I do plan on using a lot of Christian symbolism, such as the Holy Trinity and the idea of know the father through the son, except in my world its Daughters not Son.

I hadn't intended on being heavy handed with it but i love symbolism and how complex and deep it can be while at the same time looking like your saying something else.

I am also going into the contrast between spirituality vs religion but it will more focus on how people can easily twist something into a horrid nightmare of hate and intolerance very easily.

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Author Craft / Re: Technomancy
« on: April 12, 2012, 07:51:44 AM »
Star Wars is not Technomancy its an epic space opera, yest their was some mystical elements but they didn't effect technology directly but more the living body and mind.

The Matrix is closer but not quite their in my opinion. The reason I think this is because Neo was not using magic to manipulate the Matrix but rather his mind and will. I would classify that more along the lines of Technopathy rather than Technomancy. A fine line to be sure but still one that I think is there.

From what i have seen technomancy is rather rare in pop culture. I have seen it used in RPG's in two different ways. First in Shadowrun where technomancers used magic to commune with the Ghost In the Machine GIM in the form of sprites that they could manipulate. They were essentially hackers that used spells rather than computers and astral projected themselves into the computer world. I have also seen it in the Rifts setting and to a lesser extent D&D with Techno Mages and Artaficers but that was more along the lines of infusing technology with magical properties like a gun that could fire shuriken and lighting. 

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Author Craft / Christian influences in Fantasy writing
« on: April 12, 2012, 07:40:10 AM »
So I am a Christian and have resiliently gone through a spiritual reawakening which has done wonders for me personal level. I have been trying to figure out where God wants me and what he wants me to do with my life rather than what I want to do. I believe that God me my gift for writing and creating a story but I am not sure if what I have been writing is working towards Gods goals for me.

What I am trying to ask is does anyone know a good way to incorporate Christian themes and morals into a dark fantasy novel. The only example I have of a fantasy novel with strong Christian influences and messages is The Chronicles of Narnia. Are there others out their and I just don't know about them?

Your help is much appreciated.

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Author Craft / Re: When did people start writting?
« on: April 03, 2012, 01:58:34 AM »
I have always enjoyed creating stories, ever since i was little. My imaginary friends had very thought out back stories and our adventures could have filled a novel. I didn't actually start putting words to paper seriously until i started taking collage level writing courses.

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