[Report This]Date: August 24 2022 6:24 PM Title: Out of the Mountains
Exceptional work! Can't wait to see more scenarios shaped out of Vann's piety!
Author's Response:
Thanks, we'll see more of Zenovia's "guidance" in the world.
[Report This]Date: August 24 2022 3:43 AM Title: Out of the Mountains
Really like the relationship between Rumana and Chadwick, glad they got together. This chapter made me feel for Chadwick, I'd be pretty pissed if I found out an elf had been stalking my family for ages and treating them like poodles only to trick me into thinking our relationship wasnt predetermined by her. "Never trust an elf" words to live by. Hope she's paying for the ale when they have the talk (I'm not a dwarf I swear). All in all, I can't wait for next chapter!
Author's Response:
There will be some more exploration of Eletha's doings later in the story, yeah the dwarves definitely have a point on those elves lol.
[Report This]Date: August 24 2022 2:48 AM Title: Out of the Mountains
Fair of why the elves take these new ideas and changes so slowly, probably also why it will be a while till they get why it might be questionable to be ‘guiding’ a family line. Even if not malicious a majority of the time. And I know that the world was found be round so long and ago and know, hence the mention of figuring it out by now
Wonder it would be considered insanity by normal elves for an elf to actually adapt as fast as humans or dwarfs. And orphan or kidnaped elf baby raised by humans and so has the mindset and timeframe.
Or some humans found out or got told (this couldn’t have been the first time), and took it far worse then Chadwick, and did something. Killing or ensuring some long term hatred of elves is the least that could happen. I could see someone erasing the elf’s memory, taking some illusion flesh crafting for the ears, and passing them off as a humans and made to life as sone for a whole, not even noticing the lifespan themselves. And thats if the person has the magical skills for it, things could be so much cruder, and some use for a magical and immortal creature could be found. Or other curses.
And then there wether any gods care about this, or even what the ones who do do. Or some culture or secret society of human is around to deal with this somewhere because they didn’t approve.
So interesting stuff.
And not really a spoiler to me, of course some of Zenovia’s followers are up to no good still. It would be interesting in itself of the history of the followers of other gods and how they do thing the diety doesn’t wish, what they were, how they were dealt with, and what/if divine law/protocol is about this. When it becomes relevant of course, doesn’t even need detail just casual comments.
Author's Response:
I think that as the elves age maybe some of them realize why humans react negatively to it, for Eletha at 800 she's still a "young" elf who thinks she has humans figured out but clearly doesn't. Elves are probably saved from too harsh of a reaction by the fact that ones who do this probably cultivate a positive relationship before the revelation, that said yeah there are probably some people who took it worse than Chadwick, outright murder is probably pretty rare but some elves might not find their reception with their friends to be as warm as it was.
The gods probably don't care, the elves are "immortal" in the sense that they don't age, most of them still find their end eventually. To the likes of Zenovia Eletha's 800 years are nothing and she's no different than the rest of the group, even more spiritual beings like Enid, who may or may not be immortal themselves, don't spare a lot of concern for what the peoples of the world are doing unless they really start upsetting the balance of things. I doubt the elves would be successful manipulating their way into power over humanity as a whole, this world has too many other players and humans are capable of their own magic, divine intervention, or technological growth. Any elf who wanted to use this tactic against humanity would also run into the same problem as a Crusader Kings player, 300 years breeding your perfect king and then one lucky assassin brings you back to square one.
[Report This]Date: August 24 2022 2:02 AM Title: Out of the Mountains
Well, I bet other elves take the human “guiding” a little farther then even Eletha would be conformable with, or even thinking about.
And outright immortality, yeah some elf follower of Zenovia has got to still be around, and doing her own human breeding program for all those millennia. The smaller since make storing and controlling easier, and they could easily kidnaped new people for more diversity if needed. If were talking practicality. Might have even forgotten what Zenovia is all about, and so has to get a reminder or dealing with now that shes awake, and to clean up the mess now that she might need to change her image and not get on the worst side of whatever keeps the gods in check. Or the elf went insane as immortal can, having somehow avoided whatever normally let elves not go crazy from time.
Some pantheon of Order Undivided, or some chaotic lawfull eldritch thing is their enforcer, lawfully in that it follows the laws of physics, and somehow doesn't need magic or even divine power to do anything, and chaotic cause chaos theory and quantum mechanics. Maybe even the gods are unnerved by it, needing “sock puppets” in its “appendage”, that doesn’t make peoples heads explode, go mad, or freak out, to even interact with mortals.
Could be funny if it had an anti magic effect, in that the laws if physics beat up magic for its oucnk miney and then assert dominance with a T pose, causing all magic to undo its effect and everything follows physics, get everyone’s interviews of whatever divine legal case it was doing, and then leaves. Just weird.
And the Dwarves already know the world is round, kinda surprised the elves didsn’t figure it out, going to some high enough mountains and looking, or just being around so long so notice.
Guess we’ll find out latter, goblins need dealing with.
Author's Response:
The thing is elves in this setting are (mostly) not evil, just kind of arrogant. The ones that do what Eletha does really do believe themselves friends of the humans they "guide," like most would never do anything to hurt them and would be really troubled if they upset them somehow, at the same time they don't really understand why humans might find the knowledge that their best friend basically acted as a mentor to everyone in their family for centuries might be off putting.
Without going into spoilers there are some servants of Zenovia who are still around and doing things they shouldn't be.
Knowledge that the world is round was actually pretty common among educated classes since something like 300 BC, mostly thanks to Greeks and various groups that learned from them. This world is a sort of medieval fantasy mash up, so they'd actually be late in making that discovery, but the dwarves here are more scientifically oriented rather than magically inclined. There are probably elves that do know the world is round, but their society and ideas change slower than others.