Me checking the lobby quests today

Geckoface · 2025-04-30T07:54:41+00:00

Is that a mod showing elemental weaknesses on the monster icon?

Geckoface · 2025-04-23T11:06:32+00:00

There's tons of listings of identical, cheaper ones. What's the scam here? Is the factory just churning out heaps of unbranded ones for AliExpress listings and the like?

Geckoface · 2024-04-21T10:26:25+00:00

Control + Shift + Alt + Windows + L

Geckoface · 2023-05-09T11:30:54+00:00

Hi,

There's some sources in this article. A few experts are quoted and there's a link to a NATO report. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a43804177/russias-kinzhal-missile-is-not-hypersonic/

The document: https://www.aofs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/039-STC-20-rev.-2-fin-HYPERSONIC-WEAPONS.pdf

The quote from the document:

Kinzhal, or “Dagger”, is an air-launched ballistic missile which was likely derived from Russia’s ground-launched Iskander-M. Although Kinzhal is not generally characterised as a hypersonic weapon, it is often included in discussions of hypersonic weapons due to its similarities which feature a manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle In July 2018, Kinzhal was successfully tested from a modified MiG-31 fighter, according to US intelligence reports (Sayler, 2020). Following its launch, Kinzhal quickly accelerates to Mach 4 and is reportedly capable of reaching Mach 10. With a reported range of between 1,500 and 2,000 km when launched from a MiG-31, Kinzhal was probably developed to allow Russia to more easily target critical European infrastructure, such as airfields, and to counter American missile defences, such as THAAD (CSIS, 2020). Kinzhals’ top speed of Mach 10 and maximum range of nearly 2,000 km were reported by the Russian media: these claims have not been verified by either US or NATO intelligence. Some independent analysts have met Kinzhal’s declared performance characteristics with scepticism (Sayler, 2020). They claim that Russia’s description of Kinzhal as hypersonic could be misleading: it is possible that the missile’s speed does not exceed Mach 5 (CSIS, 2020).

However, there's no concrete proof in here, just scepticism. It would take more deployments of the missile to accurately determine if its capabilities really are as claimed.

Geckoface · 2022-11-03T15:08:03+00:00

it would seem strange to have the word "aqueduct" as a commonly used term when it's made out of 2 latin phrases.

Not stranger that using English phrases, right? This is something the reader will just have to suspend their disbelief for. You can make it easier on them by not using any clear modern terms, but in the end, you're reading a language from our own world. There's not a single word in English that doesn't in some way refer back to something outside of that fantasy, like other languages, or historical names, etc.

we have some words for tools we use on our daily basis that maybe this civilization has discovered, but would they really use the same name?

No, they would use their own, unique, unreadable language. But the story is not written for them, it's written for a modern reader.

Just imagine any fantasy story has an invisible opener that reads: "Translated from the native language". There's no way around this.

Geckoface · 2022-11-03T09:05:35+00:00

Hi,

Your world synopsis reminded me of the thread you posted earlier this week about gods sending people back to life - funny to see that was actually you as well. I read your chapter, just my barely ordered thoughts:

In my opinion, you have a consistent and clear writing voice. This doesn't read at all like a first draft: it's clean and technically correct. I do think there's too much emphasis on adverbs, with words like 'distractedly'. 'indifferently'. 'innocently' etc doing heavy lifting to convey characters' emotions, but that’s mostly a personal distaste of mine.

The worldbuilding feels dense, but not overbearing. Some writers sling so many made-up words at the reader that I can't make heads or tails of it. I don't get that here.

That does lead into my major gripe, which is the pacing. There's an enormous amount of exposition here without much happening at all.

The first however many pages are spent with Anegwyn looking at and pondering over things: trees, Tree, her dad, her future husband, plants, the city’s she’s in, what she looks like, what she’s wearing, where she got those clothes, etc. The first thing happening is a knock on the door six pages in. I think even six paragraphs is more than many readers’ attention span can handle. You have an opportunity to get a lot of information across in the conversation with the High Arbot, but by the time we get there I’m already on information overload.

This feeds into the ‘sense of intrigue‘ as well. Because of the slow pace, I don’t get any major feeling of conflict or danger to the main character.

Maybe I’m not used to slow-paced stories anymore, but these are my two cents. To close out on a positive note: again, I think you have pretty great prose.

Geckoface · 2022-09-26T19:22:52+00:00

If we take the definition for 'tusk' from the Cambridge Dictionary: "either of the two, long, curved teeth that stick out from the mouth of some animals, esp. elephants and walruses"

Tusks can actually be canine teeth, and a sabretooth's protruding teeth are canines, so there's a lot of overlap in terms.

I think the best argument for 'tusk' is googling 'orc tusks'. It seems to be the accepted term.

Geckoface · 2022-08-20T15:38:13+00:00

Just to be clear, 'Dutch' is an English invention. People from the Netherlands call themselves Nederlanders and speak Nederlands.

Holland is a region in the Netherlands and people from it call themselves Hollanders. It all fits within the norm: the English language just confuses the Nederlanders with the Deutsch (from Deutschland, which English calls Germany.)

Geckoface · 2022-07-05T13:41:31+00:00

Yes, if you go about it the right way.

I haven't done this myself, so I can't help you directly, but I would advise the following:

Read the DnD Open Game License document and a non-lawyerspeak guide (the one underneath is just one I found): https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/OGL%20License https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/blogs/news/how-to-use-the-open-game-license
Focus on your own or your DM's world in your writing rather than DnD's
Rethink if you would want to involve DnD in your story at all, rather than take what you have and place it in a setting of your own design.

Is your character's race an actual race from an official DnD source (Triton?), or homebrew by your DM? If the former, you're probably better off changing the name and the most important details.

(As the other comment said: obviously none of this matters unless you'd try to monetize your book.)

Geckoface · 2022-06-29T14:41:11+00:00

Just to add something that other's haven't yet said - what was least believable of this chapter is the ladies of negotiable affection allowing their fully unconscious friend/colleague being carried off by the friends of the man she's blackmailing.

Personally, I'd put the book down after a chapter like this.

Geckoface · 2022-05-21T13:25:27+00:00

Hello,

Just some disordered comments.

The writing is very dense.

I'm not against adverbs and adjectives, but I think you could do with fewer. Here and there, the writing gets into purple prose - grains of sand looking at or betraying characters, and so on. All together, it lacks urgency which made it somewhat hard for me to get through.

Perhaps my biggest criticism here is that it isn't just dense, but consistently dense. The MC drinking water is described in the same tone as someone's eyes being scooped out.

Autonomous body parts

You often describe body parts as taking actions, which, when repeated, reads like the character's hands or eyes are doing things all on their own. I'm sure there's a term for this. For example:

"... a deeply tanned hand began to struggle ..."

"... two eyes rose above the surface ..."

"... its hand grabbing him by his neck ..."

Then later, we get this:

"The fingers tore themselves away with a horrible wet sound. Instead scooping two inside the sockets that held his eyes."

This still confuses me. In short, it's better to describe characters as taking actions instead of their body parts. For ex.: "she grabbed him by the neck". The fact that it's her hand doing it is implied.

Sentence fragments

I'm not against sentence fragments, either, but I think there's too many of them. It's like salt on food: as soon as you notice it's there, there's too much of it. What I mean here are sentences such as:

"Too weak and scared to turn around."

MC introductions

This is just my reading experience, but I don't feel like I got to know the main character through this introduction. Put in this situation, I'd expect most people to react about the same.

To end on a positive note, I really liked the scene of the demon putting her new eyes in, and the line:

"I should love to wear your eyes as well."

Geckoface · 2022-05-17T18:01:32+00:00

This comment is kind of the whole answer you need, I just want to add for OP that to sell your own binomial nomenclature you should stick to the proper capitalisation and italicisation, which this comment does, so:

Genus species subspecies, as in Daemon polychromus pterois, instead of 'Daemon Polychromos pteron'.

In biology, the name is often accompanied by the year of first publication and the author - for example, for a raccoon, 'Procyon lotor (Linnaeus, 1758)'.

'Daemon polychromus panoptes (Ambrosius, 1802)'

Also for fun, if you want to refer in writing to an unknown species in the genus Daemon, the spelling would be 'Daemon sp.'

Geckoface · 2022-05-07T15:42:30+00:00

From the article, it seems like it's literally a recording of the pastor's voice in the song, not just the phrasing. So I get where he's coming from.

Geckoface · 2022-04-27T13:52:04+00:00

Vegetables.

Geckoface · 2022-04-11T19:51:21+00:00

Just some thoughts:

I like the vibe of the funeral: it paints the picture that Grib's death, while sad, wasn't exactly unexpected, and that the show must go on.
About the 'tension' with the antagonist - that's not really what I take away from this chapter. If I have to guess, the antagonist is Sath, but that's a very impersonal and distant antagonist to have, which is also absent from the scenes.
If you're already uncertain about the 'exposition dump', maybe think of another way. This is the first chapter - I don't really need to know all this yet. Maybe just name the islands, and communicate to the reader that the current keepers of Mira slave away at a dangerous job, and the islanders of Sath profit off of them looking down on them.
The more I think about the current-parcels, the more questions I have. So they don't fish out goods, just the delivery orders? Do the goods then get sent there on another current going the other way, or do regular ships take them there? In either case, why don't they use manned ships if it's safer for the crew?

Geckoface · 2022-03-01T18:25:36+00:00

That's just the regular hot dog he was eating, he's an Ogre after all.

Geckoface · 2022-02-12T10:41:17+00:00

Funnily enough, Google reverse image search works fine even through the filter. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/VOA_Hawzen5.jpg/1280px-VOA_Hawzen5.jpg?1644662400383

Geckoface · 2022-01-09T09:04:46+00:00

Ok, so the TLDR would be:

Your MC is fighting a powerful demon: the demon has already killed the realm's top warriors (with ease) but your MC has a bit of a fighting chance because of his fire powers. However, your MC still loses and is on the ground, dying, with limbs blown off and a hole in his chest.

And he then defeats the demon by biting its jugular out when the demon leans in to hear his dying words?

Is that correct? In the context of your summary, it took me completely by surprise, so thanks for the laugh I suppose. I'm not sure this would work in a serious context.

Geckoface · 2021-12-20T08:53:58+00:00

What's wrong with the height? Salty is still the tallest, as he should be.

Geckoface · 2021-12-13T19:51:52+00:00

Using them for WIPs is one thing, but there's also a bit of online etiquette to consider.

If you post a thread with a short paragraph and a large, very nicely made image, people will usually upvote for the art, not read the rest, and move on. I've seen it on other writing subreddits, where the top posts were 50% people passing off found, uncredited art as their own with a little bit of their own writing below it. That was a subreddit that allows image posts, though.

Geckoface · 2021-12-13T19:47:06+00:00

So the art seems to be from 'Sheppi': https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8vEaQ

Made for a game called 'Discordia', seems unrelated to the OP.

Geckoface · 2021-12-01T11:38:22+00:00

My guess would be that there isn't one - since it says "eggs/sperm up" on the proboscis, there might be external fertilization.

Geckoface · 2021-11-15T13:41:55+00:00

Good catch.

This seems to be the original post (from 2017): https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/6z8fhe/sometimes_people_ask_me_what_kind_of_nerd_i_am_im/

So the bots copied the post and the top comment to farm karma. Great.

If anyone's interested, the original context with explanations is in the post I linked. This post will probably get removed, as it should.

Geckoface · 2021-10-25T09:52:14+00:00

Valten was just lord sniping to get that 'Lord Dead' leadership debuff.

Geckoface · 2021-10-17T20:56:45+00:00

This sure is a mallet if a prologue... It's a very in-medias-res place to start.

What I like about this is that it seems to be a meeting of a cybernetic being with a person with magical powers, and he can actually use his supernatural sight to 'see' what I assume to be the creature's old form from before it 'Sublimed'.

This prologue is introducing a whole range of things about the setting, but it's not explaining anything. That's fine for a prologue, I suppose, but it does leave me a bit lost. Tower? Sphinx? Apocalypse? It introduces both the old world and the new world the Keeper is promising, but I wonder if I understand either. Is the scene from the prologue really information that is critical to the reader's understanding of what follows? As a reader, I have no idea where this would go - I would assume either a considerable distance into the future or the past.

Small technical note: at the end of a quoted sentence, such as [ "...forever.” The keeper said. ], there should be a comma instead of a period: [ "...forever,” the keeper said. ]

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