This story takes place in Henlan which means “Old Dirt” in the language of the ancient dwellers of the land. only four generations before you were born Henlan did not exist. What is currently a united kingdom made up of Barrons, Arls, Lords, Godimen and other nobility was dozens of separate Kingdoms. Then during your grandfathers’ lifetime one of these Kings, a hero named Ivarr gathered together and united each of these kingdoms under him. King Ivarr build up the kingdom of Henlan setting the framework for his son to lead it on to greater heights. Unfortunately when Ivarr’s son, called the Old King due to a religious custom where the deads’ names are not spoken until their sons declare that they have heard their own songs merge, died he had no legitimate sons to take his place on the throne and a succession war began. The four candidates were
Alexia the Hensdottr-The Old Kings eldest daughter
Jon the Younger- The Old Kings eldest child a bastard son
Arn the Ancient-The Old Kings mothers brother
Rurik the Waraxe- Brother to the Old King
On the day the war is decided you are born. The prologue consists of two parts, both establishing part of your character. One part is from the perspective of your father at the battle where he inadvertently turns the tide of the war in favor of whichever monarch he chose. The other part is from your mother’s perspective leading up to giving birth to you. A major theme of this game is inheritance and the prologue serves to set up what form of inheritance your character will receive from your parents. The rest of the game follows the life of your character in this kingdom. You aren’t some chosen one, you aren’t an ubermensch. Your character is fighting to make something of themselves. I’m halfway through the prologue and hopefully should be able to post something up in a week or less. What do you all think? What piques your interest? What tips can you give? What more would you like to know? What would you like to see included?
First of all I’d like to say, good luck with your writing! The history is pretty interesting. What I’d like to know more about though is what the general plot of the story is; or if telling us is going to spoil it, at least that you have something pretty cool planned out! What kind of events will occur throughout the story? What kind of goals will we have?
How much character customization will there be? Will we be able to choose our gender and orientation? What kind of stats do you have planned? What is our place in society? Peasant, soldier, scholar, nobility, etc?
1.) It is I think going to be the fifth choice in the game if you choose to hear your fathers song first. You also get to choose what both your parents occupations and strata were before the monarch uplifts them, and the season and weather of the day you were born. That last one is surprisingly important because the last seen of the game is going to be your characters last opportunity for death.
2.) After the prologue sets up the events of your birth and a bit about your upbringing the next chapter will cover your early childhood up until age seven. You’re raised at the Kings court, and develop your stats sheet plus make atleast two life long friends or enemies. Then chapter two has you become a page. following that you go your whole life and life the life of this character. He starts off as almost a nobody, but as of right now he can end the game as a legend. The explicity details are still falling into place. ( I write like Stephen King huge spurts of creativity from nowhere.)
3.) The last words of the game if you don’t die prematurely are “If you could look back what would you do differently?” the last scene was the first I mapped out. Your character can probably end up living well into to their eighties and die in battle.
4.) I’m trying to make it as unique as possible but there’s still some baselines that I can’t shake. It’s sort of a mix between immediate post Norman England, Great Heathen Army England, Christian Scandinavia, and Third Rome Russia. The pantheon is ending up scarily unique though and as the pantheon gets more fleshed out the culture gets more unique. Individual questions on aspects of it will get even more detail. lol
This sounds quite interesting. Real quick question: Can we choose our characters gender, and also their name? (Know thats usually a given, but im just making sure!)
Your place in society is essentially a medieval Andrew Carnegie, except instead of making steel your using steel to carve yourself out a fiefdom. Plot wise I’m not too far passed that analogy in ability to explain it, because I literally want you to live your characters life. One thing that always disappoints me a little about CoGs is that it seems like you lose so much experience with time skips. In an ideal world each chapter after seven would be a year of your life though that’s not possible. You will hopefully be able to be anyone from Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish to Sir William Marshal, and anywhere in between (female examples alluded me.) As for a little more in depth on your starting strata here’s what your parents could have been
Father
pick_his_name Wyld- The Wylds are a baseborn line going to his great-grandfather King Kallen Yron and Kylki the Wild. The Yron’s bent the knee to King Ivarr and the Wylds kept on being their equivalent of country cousins. He became a bard and traveled the realm and earned the nickname the Wyld Shrub[erry] (It’s half a Monty Python, half a he doesn’t think before he speaks and gave himself the nickname.)
A Miklaman- Henlan equivalent of a Varangian. With tattoos covering both his arms, and stands two heads taller than most men. With this one and the right chooses people start legends about your character being descended from giants.
A Mastermason- A member of a guild who has traveled the world and earned his mastership before the age of tweny-two.
A Herdsman- starts out as nobody great yet when it comes time for him to turn the tide of that war he quickly rises to the Kings right hand.
A Poacher- And an outlaw. Literally goes from a nobody with a bounty on his head to head of the kings archers.
Mother sadly ties both into what her father was and what she becomes which would take a little longer to explain. But let’s just say no matter whether she’s on the same level as her husband or not her father hates him.
Gender I’m on the fence. It all depends on how much of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief I can give myself to have a woman rise higher than most men in a medieval setting, though it looks like a yes that gender and sexual preference will be customizable.
Your firstname will be customizable. Your surname will be a bit more complicated because you won’t really have one. It’ll all go down to how you choose to style yourself. At the moment it appears you won’t actually get a last name until your character is fourteen-twenty-one.
Awwww. It would of been fun to see life as a 14hundred year old. “Damn kids! Get off my lawn!” You yell feebly while lying in bed, barely able to muster up the strength to stand. “Never should of asked for eternal life!”
Be sure to include the ever present loophole! Eternal life NOT including Eternal Youth! Then add a scene similar to what i said up there. In some format. It’ll fit!
The history is pretty interesting. What I’d like to know more about though is what the general plot of the story is; or if telling us is going to spoil it, at least that you have something pretty cool planned out! What kind of events will occur throughout the story? What kind of goals will we have?