Raven's Flight (very early WIP) [26 September 2020] - Tumblr is up!

Raven’s Flight is a low-fantasy story about ambition, betrayal and love, set in a dystopian future, where truth is more dangerous than any lie.

DEMO

NOTE: This is a character-driven story.

Tumblr: https://fullyfadingnight.tumblr.com/

FEATURES

  • Play as female, male or non-binary,
  • Decide on your MC’s personality and goals,
  • Form alliances, fall in love or make enemies,
  • Scheme, protect, destroy or be destroyed,
  • Determine the fate of your people.

Premise

This is a story about a Society living deep under the earth’s surface, where people are connected together in an enormous mental network.

As one of leaders of your people. the duty to guide and protect your Homeland rests heavily on your shoulders and being the youngest chancellor has certainly not eased your job. With people thirsting both for your power and your favour, it is impossible to tell the enemy from a friend.

One thing is certain - trusting the wrong person will surely bring your end.

Background lore

Centuries ago, nations went to an all-out war. Neighbour fought neighbour. Family killed family. Land was soaked with blood. Water turned red. Millions have fallen. Young. Old. Women. Men. Children. Civilians and soldiers alike.

No-one was safe. Nowhere was safe.

Earth, scarred with explosion and bathed in pollution, grew desolate. More had died. People on every side had to stop fighting, forcefully united against the new enemy – extinction. Leaving piles and piles of bodies behind, survivors retreated deep under the surface, to escape the deadly claws of radiation. Nobody was left unscathed.

In a weird twist of fate, humanity was with unexpected mutation, allowing them to form almost telepathic connections with one another. These bonds later cultivated as the very core of the first Societies.

Faced with the harsh conditions of living under the ground, leaders of the survivors had to make difficult choices and take even more drastic measures.

Yes. In attempt to preserve the human race, they did the unthinkable – they put a price on every life.

From then on, each action had consequences. The bad apples – criminals, rebels, slackers – were slowly rooted out, leaving only model citizens behind.

You are one of the descendants.

Other Characters

Captain B (M/F/NB): the leader of team Beta, who has been at your side almost since forever. Having been granted both B’s loyalty and favour, this captain is prepared to follow your every word. Even if it means dying for your cause. A stark defender of the Society.

Captain A (M/F/NB): the leader of team Alpha and one of the youngest captains in Hunting Division. Considered to be somewhat an enigma with an impressive record, though lacking in the social department. Impossible even for you to read, unless you are ready to dig deeper. [RO]

** Chaos (F): dry humoured fighter and your fellow candidate for the Council. [RO]

** Joker (M): whimsical jokester(?) and your fellow candidate for the Council. [RO]

??? (?): Someone you have yet to meet. Should you go down this path, hardship awaits you. [RO]

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my second-and-a-half CoG. Since this is also my first time writing anything of this scale, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. If there’s anything you’d like to add or ask, feel free to do so. Consider leaving a like, if you enjoyed the demo :wink:

And since I am on the constant hunt for feedback, please consider answering some of the questions below.

Questions
  1. What kind of a chancellor will you be playing as?
  2. Who caught your interest?
  3. What would you like to see in the story? (eg. stalking A, teasing B, planning to overthrow your enemies)
  4. What did you like? What could have been done better?

Raven’s Flight is a parallel story to my WIP The Hunter’s Sacrifice with the focus on intrigue, scheming and human relationships (whereas Hunter’s Sacrifice deals more with war, exploration and team dynamics). The two are two sides of the coin, so to speak.

If you played Hunter’s Sacrifice, beware! Raven’s Flight might contain some spoilers.


For now, this is a test project.

217 Likes

I like it so far
Also i have a question (its a bit dumb) withHe/she/they ,too, is just a person are we setting B’s gender and MC’s or just one of them?

1 Like

This is a great idea two story in one cool :grin:

1 Like

@Aleksa100 Glad you liked it! When choosing the he/she/they you are only choosing B/A’s gender; MC customisation will pop up later :small_airplane: Questions are always welcome!

@howlin_drak I’ve been reading some old posts on writing stories from different perspectives and it sounded like an interesting idea. Plus, it is a wonderful excuse for writing about underhanded tactics and backstabbers!

4 Likes

It’s certainly good to know the other perspective (I played your other WIP The Hunter’s Sacrifice and loved it)

1 Like

Thank you for your kind words! Hopefully, this WIP will be on par with Hunter’s Sacrifice, since telling the story of both Raven and captain A is something I would really, really like to do well.

Keeping my fingers crossed it will work out. Just in case.

5 Likes

Okay you don’t know how much I was facepalming and low key screaming because it’s in the TITLE how did I not see this

Typos & Stuff

*had

*hunter to grow

*will

*with a decent

*one of the safest areas
*had relayed (perhaps?)
I forgot to mark it, whoops, but also, near the bottom:
*possibly choked

*they had
*had

*with hesitant steps

*such an ill-fated
*one of the huntresses

*possess
*one of the brightest minds

Anyways, I’m so excited to see where you go with this!! It’ll be really interesting to play as an RO from another story! Needless to say, you hooked me with the intro once again XD

4 Likes

Instead of being a hunter this time, your a chancellor. Cool. I like how we can play as both sides.

2 Likes

I’m inclined to play as a schemer (that is a word, right?).

Can we plot the downfall of the society?

1 Like

Forgot to answer this, sorry.

@Illusiveacorn54 Glad you like the idea :slight_smile: Writing both sides is definitely interesting, because of the mismatch of information available to the main character and I have to be careful not to spoil something too soon!

Hidden in plain sight, yes :smiley:

Awesome! I’m pretty excited myself :smiley: to put it mildly

Thank you for the typos! I will fix them after my exams end.

Maybe? There certainly will be a lot of plotting involved, but I imagine that outright sabotage would require specific skills, since you are living in a telepathic society. You can, however, manipulate someone in doing your bidding.

Actually, this story is practically riddled with manipulative characters. Poor Raven.

3 Likes

Forgot to paste it here as well: shiny new tumblr

You are kindly invited to come by drop by, say hi, ask questions and read up on my writing progress :slight_smile:

1 Like

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you had a nice holiday, wherever you were.

Here’s a small update that was long overdue. Enjoy!
Current wordcount: 5k words

It still has a long way to go, but we are getting somewhere.

18 Likes

The addition of the flashback is very entertaining! I’m already curious about both Joker and the unnamed female candidate! Love how different the start of RF is in that Raven’s circumstances need him to be wary of everyone, and even the trust he shares with someone else is tenuous at best, compared to Captain A who has to trust their team, at least on the Surface. Raven is so sly, very different from how I’ll be playing my A/Thirteen, so it’s really fun to see the cheeky, faux-polite dialogue and ulterior motives. Will we be seeing more flashbacks? Showing us how Raven became a Chancellor wasn’t something I expected but is something I’ll enjoy if it’s in your plans hehe. I also see there was a Chancellor Tiger mentioned. If I remember right, he isn’t mentioned in HS, correct? I wonder what could’ve happened?~…

Typos & Stuff

*are ?
*find

*march right past. (instead of passed, because it’s acting as an adverb)

It seemed like you meant this in the present tenses? so:

*quieten
*string

*save for
*rises as

*open

*open ?
*other than for

*Wrong pronoun XD her company

*less strongly than before ?
*tell you it will

*Space between “life.” and “The”
*Take out “the”. Running heedlessly into danger never does any good.
*not necessarily

(This was such a fun scene to read by the way lol)

*fulfill

*Not sure if it’s missing a word or has extra, but this sentence was confusing to me, sorry :confused:


*Switch that around? “What else could you say?”

*This is probably just a nitpick, but it might sound better with the as the preposition rather than “a”
*You heard whispers, of course. Of the keen intelligence of Chancellor Fox. (and so on)

4 Likes

EDIT: Updated the demo. You can now choose to meet the other possible companion.
Current wordcount: 7k words


I’m glad you think so.

I love it. This is exactly what their stories are about.

Yes. Though technically they won’t be flashbacks anymore, because I intend to move the story’s start to when Raven started becoming who they are today. Hunter’s Sacrifice will be similarly updated with the A’s backstory.

I want more time to flesh out the characters and let the player to build MC’s motivations, instead of piling it all into flashbacks. Does this make sense?

And as always - thank you for your help with the grammar!

Summary

… I don’t have a clue what it is supposed to say either. Will definitely change it.

4 Likes

The concept seems very interesting, but I admit that I immediately lose some interest when I see a complete lack of skill progression. I like seeing my character grow, not just trade off. Personal sliders have a lot of value as well, but they just don’t mean as much to me.

Great!

Just to clarify: you would prefer a single bar skill to opposed pairs? I agree that my current system is more about maintaining balance between different sets of skills as opposed to raising one particular skill (sans Influence).

I could certainly break apart pairs like Telepathy and Sanity, Charisma and Cloaking.

Which skills would you be interested in developing?

Basically, yeah. I can’t say which ones I would want to develop yet, though. A good example would be Drag Star (which was SO much fun, btw). They had a self-care/center of attention that weren’t directly opposed, but it was often the case that increasing one decreased the other.

You could still make it so raising one decreased the other, but allow a rare choice to occasionally raise one without lowering the other. For example, maybe an option to improve charisma by practicing some inflection, or meditating to improve sanity. Wordsmith/Straight Arrow and Merciful/Ruthless work better as opposed traits since they are just that…traits. Neither are inherently positive or negative.

I hope that helps.

2 Likes

Ooh okay! Yes it makes sense! As TheZod said in the HS forum, I look forward to the “baptism by fire” A will go through to gain their status as Captain :smile:

No problem! It’s always a pleasure haha!

2 Likes

that’s a weird date

@kckolbe Plenty helpful, thank you.

@Bloodraven Funny, I’ve never noticed. Fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out.

2 Likes