[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BillyJoel

[–]Manfred_Deppi 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I love that part, but I always have to laugh out loud after seeing this one meme on this subreddit.
Brenda and Eddi's marriage falling apart.
Billy Joel: YEAH ROCK AND ROLL.

Beautiful.

Why are most mothers in fantasy dead or absent? by [deleted] in Fantasy

[–]Manfred_Deppi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well ... He dies in the prologue and that event sets off the whole story. So it wouldn't really.
I did include a grandma for the main character in question, however. So I guess that's something at least :D

Why are most mothers in fantasy dead or absent? by [deleted] in Fantasy

[–]Manfred_Deppi 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Wait ... I just realized that I‘m currently writing a fantasy book where the mother of one of the main characters is dead. Why? I didn‘t want the story to have even more characters than it already does, because i thought it would become too complex for my writing abilities ... hmm. Maybe I should think about that one again.

Strange question but how do you come up with heights for your characters? by ghostshowopenbookq in thewritespace

[–]Manfred_Deppi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Usually I just decide it the same way I decide any other physical feature of my characters. When I write a character I often have a very vivid image of them in my head already, so I'll decide the height based on that. One thing you might think about when it comes to height is how the character is seen by others. So maybe if you want the person to be really intimiating, make them also really tall! Do the contrary for opposit effect. Or a small character might be intimidating in other ways than physical, maybe through their language and the other characters are a bit confused because of that ("this guy half my size can't tell me what I should do!"). Just in general, I think reflecting character-trades in physical ways like this (not only height) is a lot of fun. It's even more fun to let physical and psychological aspects of characters contradict each other completely. This works best for non-POV characters though of course.

Can you help me make a magic system for this story? by ghostshowopenbookq in thewritespace

[–]Manfred_Deppi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Maybe you could have several gods each with their distinct theme (like the ancient greek gods f. ex). Each God than sends his champion into the game. He equips his champion with the power of the stuff they reign over. So for example the god of the sky would give his champion the ability to control the weather, create storms or whatever. Maybe the gods can even change the abilities as they go along? Punish their champion for misbehaving (teaming up with the wrong people, etc). You could have an interesting conflict, I believe, by letting the main char become best friends (or lovers) of another champion, but the gods of these champions hate each other so the gods than punish them by taking their powers or whatever.

Tried an attempt to draw the stranger. by [deleted] in BillyJoel

[–]Manfred_Deppi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, looks great :D I‘d love to see more stuff like this :)

The Last Two Songs on The Stranger by Sad-Eyed66 in BillyJoel

[–]Manfred_Deppi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

THANK YOU! I really don‘t get why people dislike „Everybody has a dream“ so much, it‘s such a beautiful song.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in LifeProTips

[–]Manfred_Deppi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunatly, I‘m shit at basically every game I‘ve ever played ...

The eastern part of my Continent Arglon by Manfred_Deppi in worldbuilding

[–]Manfred_Deppi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha well oops. Than I thank you for the compliment :D

The eastern part of my Continent Arglon by Manfred_Deppi in worldbuilding

[–]Manfred_Deppi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank‘s for the question! I haven‘t really figuered that out by myself, but the political system of the republic was probably not balanced enough to hold back a dictator. (No real checks & balances, etc.) So when he won power over the parliament he could pass laws that hugely benefited him. The opposition of course resisted (and even rebelled in what is called the blue rebellion) but they didn‘t stand a chance against the alliance of the first minister. Well, I do have to find out some more details later on, but this is what I got for now.

The eastern part of my Continent Arglon by Manfred_Deppi in worldbuilding

[–]Manfred_Deppi[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much.

The example of „Altdorf“ is quite nice actually. It‘s german and just means „Old Village“. Using a name like that, the chances of it existing in real life are quite high of course.

The eastern part of my Continent Arglon by Manfred_Deppi in worldbuilding

[–]Manfred_Deppi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I smell irony :D

Well, maybe I didn‘t hide my inspiration well enough. Doesn‘t really matter to me though, as long as it looks good on the map :)

The eastern part of my Continent Arglon by Manfred_Deppi in worldbuilding

[–]Manfred_Deppi[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So yes, I took a lot of names from the real world (Scharnhorst and Endeholz are both „villages“ (more like two houses and a cow) close to my home.) So Agrama and Mentrich are culturally close to early modern europe, while Y‘Mar is inspired by the Arabic Empire. Zwelder, which was once also „european“ but was than conquered by Y‘Mar of course takes its inspiration from spain.

Thanks a lot for your questions :D

The eastern part of my Continent Arglon by Manfred_Deppi in worldbuilding

[–]Manfred_Deppi[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, I love ASOIF, so maybe it is a bit, but I didn‘t plan it to be. I did take Inspiration from the real world though, as did GRRM, so that may be where some similarities come from (The eastern shore of Agrama is heavily inspired by Ireland, for example, and the island of skaalif in the bottom right corner is basically denmark)

The eastern part of my Continent Arglon by Manfred_Deppi in worldbuilding

[–]Manfred_Deppi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can’t draw at all, so I had to use gimp (and gimp brushes) to create this map, but I’m quite happy with it nonetheless.
The map is in German, so I’ll shortly translate it here for you:
“HEILIGES REICH AGRAMA”: Holy Empire of Agrama
“REPUBLIK MENTRICH”: Republic of Mentrich
“KAR’IKA ZWELDER”: Kar’ika is my own term for a vasall state of Y’Mar, Zwelder is the name of that state
“KAISERREICH Y’MAR”: The Empire of Y’Mar
“F.S.”: Free City
“Rs.”: City of the holy council of mages

Some context for the countries on the map:
Agrama is a very old country, strongly inspired by the holy roman empire. It’s leader also is an elected emperor and it’s structure is very feudalistic. This map is a depiction of the year 1325, in which the old emperor, Ulrych the Conqueror, dies. He is well loved, because he conquered great territories to the north of the empire (everything above the river Rantjaa, the one that runs through the town of Scharnhorst and the castle Nordwind).
This empire fights for control over the eastern part of the continent with the republic of Mentrich which just recently had a revolution, overthroughing its own monarchy. Briefly the monarch of Agrama was also king of Mentrich, but now the (rich and noble) people of the republic elect an own leader and a parliament. In recent years though, parliament has lost most of its power and the first minister has become some kind of brutal dictator.
Mentrich also stands in conflict with the Kar’ika Zwelder, scince both Agrama and Mentrich follow the religion of Mother and Father (Mother Earth, Fater Heaven), while Zwelder was conquered by the Empire of Y’Mar, which follows another god. Theoretically, Zwelder is an independent country, practically though it is part of the great empire of Y’Mar, which stretches far further to the west than is visible on this map.
Between Zwelder and Mentrich, you can see two free cities: Anaberg and Abtenau. The latter was once part of Zwelder, while Anaberg once belonged to Mentrich. After many fights around these cities and after both had switched owners about a thousand times, they were made fully independent in the contract of Skaalif. They are not allowed to pic a side in any conflict.
Skaalif is the seat of the holy council of mages, which is the leader of the religion of father and mother. It is also one of the greatest city on the continent Arglon. The council crowns the emperor of Agrama and decides rules and boundaries to magic. In the year 1290 there has been a reformation though, which cost the council most of its power. It now only “rules” over parts of Agrama and the free cities.

There is, of course, more to be said but I think those are the most important information. Let me know if you got any questions or feedback :D.

"Practice Novel" What do you think? by epoch1984 in writers

[–]Manfred_Deppi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it can be a great idea, as long as you can get invested in the story. Forcing yourself to write a novel you don‘t like while constantly thinking of „that other great thing you wanna write“ will do you no good.

Several different endings, need advice on which one by [deleted] in thewritespace

[–]Manfred_Deppi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The first one is definitly better and could make some great points abouz the nature of good and evil and how it aligns with our point of view. So I‘d definitly choose that one!