Also I want to thank everyone for the feedback. I’ll have another build up sometime over the weekend (including typo fixes, big thanks for those, they’re so easy to miss when you’ve read the same thing repeatedly
You haven’t seen the last of Danna!
(Actually maybe you have, I don’t have anything in the outline for her so far but I’ve only got 1/4 of the first semester outlined so there’s still a chance)
That’s exactly what I’m going for. Sure, there’ll definitely be a path for using your powers for evil, I think anyone picking this up on title alone would be disappointed if that weren’t an option, but I also wanted strong reasons/applications for good necromancy as well.
I’m deliberately keeping this vague so you can imagine yourself in whichever end of the age range you want. I only put a lower-ish bound on the age so that there could be second/third year students younger than you
Uuu this looks interesting cant wait to try raising the dead Kelthusad himself will be in awe and possibly try to romance Yessie
Also Ember feels like hamster on coffeine or could be just hype from getting accepted
You will hold it in one hand, covering it as fully as you can, until i tell you to let go
I
"The third rule is simple: You will not use forbidden magic. That includes, but is not limited to, Blood Magic, Necromancy, Fleshshaping, and unsupervised usages of Charm or Summoning.
Bu-But, those are the fun ones!
I’m surprised that all necromancy is forbidden, considering the headmaster points out peaceful uses for it.
Ember was originally going to just be enthusiastic but she’s way more fun to write this way so ‘hamster on caffeine’ it is
There’s an in-game lore reason for this that’ll be explained the first week of class. Your necromancy instructor will go over the many forbidden uses of necromancy. Before the end of your career, you will use all of them.
Necromancers don’t have powers beyond their own death unless they do something like become a lich or an especially angry ghost. The necromancer way to come back from the dead is to not ‘die’ in the first place. As for what it can do, I’m basically envisioning it not as death magic, but as life magic. So, it can make the undead and steal people’s life and call souls back from beyond the veil against their will, but it can also heal, regrow lost limbs, etc. I mean, sure, if you want to get technical, that’s fleshshaping, but the fellow with the brand new arm isn’t going to press the point.
As for how capable you are at other magic, I want to make that up to the player. In fact, the next system I write for the game is going to be me figuring out how. I’m torn between two approaches:
The first is straightforward but very game-like. You have 30 points, you can divvy them up however you want among the other four schools of magic. The pros are that this is easy to code and easy to understand. The big con is that it’s very immersion-breaking. You’d be taking a break from the story to basically move stats around.
The other approach is that, for each class in your first week, you can decide how good you want to be in that class. You’ve got two "good"s and one “great” that you can allocate. (which will be something like 5, 5, and 10 points). The pros is that this is doesn’t disrupt the story at all, it’s a choice like any other and I can weave it in. The con is that it’s clunky and, unless I do some immersion breaking to explain what’s going on, people are going to be good at the first three classes and then miss out on summoning. Plus if I want to let the player reconsider their choices afterward (which is probably a good idea, given how likely it is they’ll make those choices without knowing what they mean), I’m basically writing the first option in addition to this one.
In the meantime, I’ve updated the game! Changelog is:
+5000 words
One single day of heavy branching.
It’s amazing how many words can turn into so little played time. I’m still getting a feel for balancing branching and keeping things interesting vs writing a bunch of words few people will see.
Very interesting premise, I’m looking forward to seeing where this story goes. I like that this story starts off with the mc having a forbidden power rather than the typical ‘not having powers and struggling to learn’ bit that seems more popular in stories. I found a missing word error in my first play through:
Fascinating, in any case I hope that the first class they teach at that school is: “how to become a muscled 8ft tall giant real quick” cause that is the only way we’re ever going to be wielding that heavy and supremely impractical shovel thing like a wand.
On the other hand my poor mc is probably regretting getting tested at all by now as being a necromancer in this world seems to be all about doing more work for about zero respect and pay, to paraphrase the mc “being an orphan is starting to look a lot more attractive all of a sudden”.
I honestly think a little immersion breaking for a better overall experience is the best path besides you could cover it up with stuff like (if summoner points > 10 then: you spent a bit of time studying summoning, now able to summon a single sou etc) or at least something akin to that so that it won’t fully break it
Big thanks to everyone who’s spotting the typos/grammatical errors/missing words; these things are seemingly impossible for me to see in my own work. Keep 'em coming
Yes! That is exactly the impression I’m trying to give. Of course, I wouldn’t have a “mad with power” stat if you couldn’t (mis)use your abilities in cool ways.
I settled on somewhere in the middle; you’re deciding all at once and picking stats you want to be good at, but it’s done in a somewhat more in-character way (i.e. you overhear students talk about Conjuration and think “I’d be great at conjuration!”)
I found myself laughing quite hard when the Headmaster told me “Imagine the undead taking control of the land. The dead emipre…” hehe if only he knew what would happen in the future
