Hello folks. Since I broke the 40k word count on this (including code) I have decided to post this WIP on the forums. For
those who are still waiting for news about Runner’s Shadow, I am continuing with the process but due to it’s massive scale and four somewhat complex interlacing stories, I tend to crash into writer’s blocks quite frequently. This is a project I started to get an idea out of my system so I could keep drafting my original WIP.
Thanks of Sabres of Infinity, Choice of Broadsides and being introduced to a tabletop-RPG called Pendragon, I have decided to do something a little different. I have no idea if the scope of this will be huge or not, the original idea was to detail the life of a knight from birth to inevitable death and with possible future installations detailing the lives of descendants, giving some nice cross-sections into history within one bloodline. That might change, depending on how
massive this work begins to stretch into.
I am calling it “Knightly Tale” but that is liable to change. I have already changed the name of every country in the story at least five times. Feedback is very much appreciated. I ran the quicktest several times along with continuously playing it for errors it might have missed, so I hope it is good enough for some digging into by the public.
I will keep coming back to this, but since I am also involved in the competition during this month this will be a secondary project I will keep coming back to when I have ideas that just block every other kind of creative juice oozing out of my orifices. Bugfixing I will be doing as they come in. Right now the story is going along nice and speedy-like and you will be able to play roughly to the end of chapter two, in which our hero is knighted.
As a small warning which I doubt will offend nobody, I am trying to keep the story accurate in a way that satisfies the huge history buff that is screaming at me at every turn. The MC is gender-locked to male, as the times did not allow women to fight outside of holy orders, which is a whole different kind of setting and culture.
Also if you have the idea of chivalry in your head from that renaissance fair you went to as a kid where two men in plate armour wobble at each other with oversized swords until one keels over from tripping on his own feet, I would say keep an open mind. The setting for the tale is roughly a century before plate armour would be in common usage and three centuries from the show-like nature of jousts and melees that you might see at a renaissance fair.
Interesting, very interesting indeed. I will refrain myself from saying more for now, because I have little time to get to know it thoroughly, but I can certainly tell you that your game–and its premise–caught my attention, and I hope to get to know it further soon.
@StarWarsMaster There will be romance. I don’t know quite yet if it will go into full detail, but at least a political marriage will happen at some point. Whether that will also involve a bit of courtly love on the side, I haven’t decided yet. It’s more than probable something might evolve.
@Miki Thank you. I keep making little oversight errors and appreciate people pointing them out. I’m quite surprised you already went through it though.
Knighthood line 1067: Non-existent command ‘wealth’
it is in this line
A few weeks went by before you heard anything from the King of Alemagne. King William the Lionmane had sent messengers to his distant court in the south to make clear his demands and his presence on the coast with an army by his side. Both Kings knew that the armies of Alemagne were still in the thick of fighting in the south to drive the infidels back to the Orient. Still the foreign King might be able to muster enough resistance to beat your army back across the channel if King William did not act soon.
You meanwhile had practically perfected the emblems of your new status. You had found nobles who had painted coats of arms before and knew exactly what they were doing and a week after you had arrived in Alemagne a group of maidens arrived from Norwall who you quickly made sure to make a few banners with your new coat of arms on them.
I received the same wealth error. Pretty interesting game. It seems like it’s going to be a long one too. At least I hope so since the set up seems to be very long. I feel like after being knighted and receiving my coat of arms that the game is honestly just going to start? But then again maybe not. Haha.
Loved it, though I got the wealth error as well on this page.
A few weeks went by before you heard anything from the King of Alemagne. King William the Lionmane had sent messengers to his distant court in the south to make clear his demands and his presence on the coast with an army by his side. Both Kings knew that the armies of Alemagne were still in the thick of fighting in the south to drive the infidels back to the Orient. Still the foreign King might be able to muster enough resistance to beat your army back across the channel if King William did not act soon.
You meanwhile had practically perfected the emblems of your new status. You had found nobles who had painted coats of arms before and knew exactly what they were doing and a week after you had arrived in Alemagne a group of maidens arrived from Norwall who you quickly made sure to make a few banners with your new coat of arms on them.
Interesting game, though I have to say that there’s way, way too much text in between choices. When there’s ten pages of text to one choice, the reader’s likely to lose interest.
Compare your knighting scene to, for example, the one in Sabres of Infinity, or the scene where you make lieutenant for that matter. Trim those walls of text down!
@djma46 That error has been fixed. And thank you everyone else who noted the same error. Good to know that seems to be the only one when it comes to variables.
@BrianBlack Aye, technically it is just about to start. Where the story currently ends, the MC is finally an adult and a peer, giving him a wealth of options that aren’t dictated by the society.
@Ramidiel It’s probable I will go back and add in choices where they fit to make it seem like less of a wall of text for ten pages. But at the same time, that’s just how I write. If anything, I had planned on expanding the first two chapters, mainly adding some action scenes in there where you had bigger impact on the moments and actual choices.
If you wish to compare the knighting scene in SoI and in my story, the fact is that in the early and high middle ages the knighting ceremony was even longer and more ceremonious than what I detailed it as. For example, a squire to be knighted would after his vigil spend ten hours praying by the altar he would be knighted next to. As much as it pains me to take away such details of history that might help break some stereotypes of how a knighting goes in a medieval setting, there are simple some things you cannot make interesting. In SoI the knighting ceremony was essentially a heat-of-the-moment battlefield promotion whereas the MC in mine is knighted in a more traditional fashion.
A question I would like to ask from everyone who has so far read it, have you felt that it is linear?
I know I’ve been trying to throw in variables along the way to make it less bland, but those usually turn up only on second or third tries. I’m curious as to how it feels the first time you go through it.
