A Longship to Dyrrachion - Sail to the Byzantine Empire for Viking riches and glory! [HISTORICAL WIP]

[Elijuneau]

Hi, everyone!

Back in late 2022 I was working on a game called A Longship to Dyrrachion (old thread here) and got some very helpful and positive feedback on the concept and story. In the four years since then, I have moved to another continent, gotten my first! Bachelor’s Degree, a new job, and many other things. I have finally found the time/motivation/fire to work on this again.

Reposting this portion from my old thread:

Game ideas have always popped in and out of my head like whack-a-moles, but rarely have I found the white-knuckled commitment (and time) to actually start writing any of them.

Today though, I started working on A Longship To Dyrrachion, a historical fiction story set in the 1100s that features you, a hopeful Viking who has just left home to seek fame, fortune, and glory as part of the Varangian Guard.

As a member of the Varangian Guard, your job is to get close, up and intimate with blood, steel, and protect the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos from harm…at least in theory.

This story is still very much in infancy - I literally started it last night and have not stopped writing since, so please bear with the shortness of it.

I’m still learning to code in ChoiceScript (am a programmer, but this is new to me), so there may be mistakes that appear every now and then.

If you happen to spot one, I will fist-bump my computer in thanks.

That also applies to things like spelling errors/pacing and continuity errors, or things you feel would make the story go better.

If you’ve see something historically inaccurate, or if I’ve inadvertently been culturally insensitive, please point it out to me, as I am not a resident of the areas depicted in this story, and may make missteps in this arena.

Features:

• Play as male, female, or non-binary.

Due to this being a fairly historically accurate Viking era story, people will notice and take your gender into account in their dealings with you.

• Be gay, straight, bisexual, pan, asexual and or/aromantic.

Given that it is the Viking era, social mores do apply, but there is always the chance to find clandestine love…or something closer to the groin.

• Play traditional Viking games like hnefatafl, dice, and tug-o-war! Loser provides drinks and coin, of course.

• Customize your appearance and personality.

  Do you…

  Solve problems with strength?
  Wisely reach for poultices to heal wounded comrades?
  Charm your way into the Emperor’s inner circle?
  Dodge Turkish assassins by hiding in shadows they didn’t even know existed?

  Fall over the side of a Viking longship like a proper drunk?

There’s an option for that last one, too.

Options. Many of them. Coming, to a longhouse near you!

Currently it’s about 10,000 words long, and I am working on it while I am out of work.

To play the demo, go here to Cog Demos: A Longship to Dyrrachion

AI Disclosure:

No — This project does not contain the output of Generative AI
Yes — This project contains the output of Generative AI

[Zetttic]

Byzantine Empire Story…

I’ll go through in a few moments

[Mid-Evil]

Byzantine Empire you say?

[Random_Person]

So will this follow a strict historical course, that’s just shows how life is as an Varangian Guard, with the only alt path is just being friends with high nobles, or will there be chances to do some alt history, and maybe change some things, like keeping someone alive who historically died, or what ever

[Elijuneau]

Let me know what you think of it, it is still fairly short at the moment

[myeraland]

I like! Good luck!

[Zetttic]

Alrighty, I’ve read through a few times. As you’ve said it’s rather short, but I like the premise, that being said I’ve a few suggestions. Do with them as you will, I’m not a writer yet, these are just my two cents.

1. I do think you could benefit from a glossary page. Like a choice set up at the bottom of the stat section or some such. You introduce a lot of time-related / cultural phrases that might be lost on a fair amount of readers. It’s nothing too pertinent, but I think you could easily place Miklagard, Penningar, Hnefatafl, and other such words there. You won’t ever have to explain them again for a returning reader and I think it will polish things up a bit. You could also possibly move the stat descriptions there as well to declutter the main stat page a bit.

2. When you choose secrecy / intrigue as your primary stat you gain some extra wealth (+100 iirc). I think it could maybe be neat if selecting it as your secondary stat gave an extra +50, because it mentions you stealing trinkets from travellers and the like.

3. This one is entirely personal taste (most of these are) but I think the italicization is done a bit too much. I think it’s fine for names or glossary words (eh, eh?) but it’s used on some random phrases at times and I think it might be better if they were just left as plain text. Example:
   

   

4. A grammatical error (missing is), and also the reused phrase/ sentence twice on the same page reads as a bit clunky
   

   

5. I do have some comments on the pacing but I’ll reserve this thought until I reread a few more times and get you a more exact critique, it might just also be do the shortness of the story so far

6. I hope we’re able to inscribe our name on the hagia sophia some point during the book lol
   

   

These are my thoughts so far. Overall, I enjoyed it, and I wish you good luck with your endeavors! Anything with the Byzantine or Holy Roman Empire is a big win to me so I’ll try and keep tabs on this

[Elijuneau]

Thank you so much for such a detailed response! I’ve added in a glossary page, hopefully I haven’t missed any terms.

Yeah, I need to unfuck my economy, don’t want to do a Mansa Munsa by accident, and need to flesh out some parts for pacing, lol. Let me look into the italicization.

Thanks for pointing out the grammatical error, and yeah, that reused phrase was not supposed to be there, lol

[Elijuneau]

It won’t be a strictly historical path - you may get to befriend/seduce some high nobility/royalty/save people/meet people who you normally won’t get to meet. Timelines can change

[Zetttic]

The pacing comment was mostly in reference to how quickly the journey between Scandinavia - Constantinople was. I think there is a tangible benefit in expanding the focus of chapter 1/ prologue to be on the journey or atleast incorporate some more aspects of it. I just felt that it was a bit jarring in how quickly you’re with your father, to you being on the ship in the baltic sea, to you being at Constantinople. For example, the journey could provide some opportunity to better meet your companions and whatnot, but I do understand why it’s not implemented. It’s not the focus of the story, after all.

I was simply imagining it from the perspective of you being at sea / on the rivers for a long time and growing weary of being couped up before you see ‘The City of the World’s Desire’ on the horizon and it snaps everything into picture. “I am now in an entirely different world.”

I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s really what I meant by ‘pacing.’

[Mid-Evil]

Are there going to be any ROs’? And if there are could you perhaps list them?

[Random_Person]

I know it might be a bit of a stretch, but can we pull a Basil the Macedonian, and sleep our way to the top, like not necessarily to the emperorship like basil, but become like a high ranking noble in the empire or something, also I read the some vangarian guard went home and given how rich they became guarding the emperor, managed to become nobles in their homeland, can that be like an ending here?

[Iello]

Ah, excellent. I remember seeing the original WIP a few years ago! I’m glad to see it again.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the story develops and how it intersects with Constantinopolitan high society and culture. The opportunity to play a female Varangian is intriguing and I want to see how that plays out. I enjoyed the initial culture clash scenes on the first arrival to the port.

[Retrovirus]

This is an intriguing premise (don’t think I’ve seen any IFs set in the Byzantine empire) and though short so far you have a clear writing style and have established some interesting characters.

A comment about the cultural references though: there are a lot of terms that would be unfamiliar to readers who don’t know much about Scandinavia. I appreciate that there’s a glossary but I have had to flick through to it many times or even Google it and personally I think there could be a bit more explanation included in the story text.

If one were writing a fantasy story and had constructed a society or religion involving new terminology, one would introduce these terms gradually to the reader along with explanations that are incorporated without breaking the flow of the story. Choice of Rebels has excellent world-building in this regard.

For example, on the first page MC’s father mentions “seeing Freyja”, which you have added to the glossary but maybe this could be a chance to have a paragraph or two about the MC/potential warriors praying or making offerings to Freyja before departing, which helps introduce the role of this goddess in warfare and simultaneously explaining what seeing Freyja means. (I know nothing about the Norse or the Vikings, but just Googled a bit and read about that. I’m sure you would be able to think of something more accurate and fitting.)

Another example is when Farulf is offered as a name to harken back to other travellers. I had to Google what this relationship was and it makes more sense now that I know the name means “travelling wolf”. I think this translation could’ve been added into the text of that choice.

Of course these are just my thoughts. Readers prefer different things and some probably would rather the glossary than any additional text. Maybe most readers know more about Norse culture and mythology than I do. (I have a Byzantine warship tattoo on my arm - very much more familiar with that side of the story than the Scandinavian aspects.)

A question regarding this: would the MC, presumably a teenager from Scandinavia circa 1100, when there was, to my understanding, little formal written tradition and little contact with the rest of Europe apart from the Varangian Guard, be familiar with Greek playwrights and philosophers? Sophocles wouldn’t have been well-known in even Western Europe until the Renaissance a few centuries later when Latin translations of his works were made.

[AE19]

Just following on from that above screenshot, shouldn’t Odedipus be Oedipus?

[Ando_Kest]

When I’ve read I assumed that these have been retold to the protagonist by a Varangian guard veteran, but i agree and it could be made clearer. I enjoy the demo overall though

[Raju456]

Eagerly looking forward to what comes next! I can’t believe it took this long for someone to figure out the idea of a Varangian adventure WIP, thought it would’ve been fairly obvious as a good concept.