Author Topic: The Balaria Thread  (Read 67930 times)

LilWolf

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Re: Something you might enjoy
« Reply #15: October 30, 2011, 10:23:02 AM »
Just noticed this; looked over the map, calendar, races, history, etc. Started reading the longer narrative. Being an avid fantasy world maker myself, I very much enjoy this sort of thing.

You asked for comments, so I'll give you a few of my thoughts:

Very much appreciated :)

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1. Why do you call months moons? Are they actual lunar cycles, but the lunar cycles vary in length. The idea of a lunar calendar is neat, I'm just curious why you decided to use a lunar word for what does not immediately appear to be a lunar calendar.

To be honest it just seemed like a sensible name that did not sound like it was forcefully invented.

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2. Regarding "Common Date," that's a reasonable enough convention for your use, and, in Balaria, for "scholars." But could you flesh out the race-specific calendars? I'd be very interested to see those as well; and fleshing them out could allow some interesting setting material for characters, if they consistently refer to their own calendars. You introduce "Common Date" as being originated by scholars; would folk calendars really have vanished?

Other calendars are something I've got on my to do list. Just had to start somewhere and it felt best to do the simple calendar that ties everything together in an easily understandable manner instead of putting out the ten thousand year elf calendar and then the dwarf calendar next to it or some other more complex monstrosity.

The other calendars have certainly not vanished, but the CD calendar just has taken over in many places, especially in many of the human kingdoms where they tended to tell the year by how long a ruler/family had ruled.

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3. Why so many two-syllable names? Your city names are remarkably conventional, across cultural and national lines. This might be intentional, I don't know; it just seemed worth commenting on.

I originally scribbled the map about 10-12 years ago. At the time I just put down names that popped into my head. I didn't really have any other plan for the map or the world than to use it in a AD&D game with my friends. Come to think of it, we never did get to play the game I had planned :/

The first parts of the story I wrote in 2006 or so. Again, I just used names that popped into my head. Maybe my mind is just a two-syllable machine?

In the later chapters I've referred to online name generators so hopefully the names will have a bit more variance in that regard.

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4. Did anything happen between 0 and 2426 CD? I was curious about that time period; it seems like it is probably significant, but it's a gap in the timeline.

Certainly. Probably a few kingdoms falling, wars and stuff like that. I just haven't completely decided what. Work in progress and all that :)
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Zakilevo

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LilWolf

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #17: November 22, 2011, 05:52:39 PM »
Well, just got chapter 8 done yesterday. Updated link in the first post or here.

I hope to have the next chapter done pretty soon. Chapter 9 will essentially conclude what I consider to be “Part 1″ of the story. The chapter after that will kick off “Part 2″ so no need to worry about the story ending quite yet. We’re up to a little over 40 000 words now and I’d say there’s easily another 40 000 words yet to come, maybe more, maybe less. Depends on how I decide to resolve certain things.
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Zakilevo

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #18: November 24, 2011, 07:16:00 AM »
In East Asia, months are called moons. Because people used to use the lunar calender there. It is still more accurate to use the old calender over what they are currently using which is from Western.

LilWolf

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #19: February 05, 2012, 05:43:33 PM »
Hm..really neglected to update this. Anyway, updated the first post now.

Since the last update here the first part of the story has been completed and the second part of the story is well under way. The links are here:

Guardian Spirit - Part One (complete)
Guardian Spirit - Part Two (ongoing)

Last update here had chapter 9 as the newest, as of today chapter 14 is the newest. So..lots to read :)
« Last Edit: February 07, 2012, 04:56:44 PM by LilWolf »
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Fury

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #20: February 06, 2012, 09:28:39 PM »
I'm a fan. In support of LilWolf's Guardian Spirit  :D

http://filesmelt.com/dl/Nala1.png
http://filesmelt.com/dl/Nala_11.png

Nala - pensive

Fury

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #21: February 07, 2012, 02:19:34 PM »
Just finished Part 2. So good. It was even better than Part 1. Loved the ending. Now where's Part 3?  ;D

LilWolf

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #22: February 07, 2012, 04:46:39 PM »
Just finished Part 2. So good. It was even better than Part 1. Loved the ending. Now where's Part 3?  ;D

Ah..part two isn't complete yet. 2-3 more chapters of it to come to set things up for the next part. Sorry I didn't make that clearer.

I try to get a chapter done every week and usually make them public every Sunday. So it's going forward at a steady pace.

Oh, right, and a public thank you for the pics as well  8)
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Fury

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #23: February 07, 2012, 05:59:15 PM »
I think Chapter 14 makes a perfect cliffhanger ending for Part 2 :D.

About the pics, I know I said it would be easy to make the ears sharper but I ran into a problem with that  ::) I'll repost once I get it working.

Anyway here's Deremoth. Did some post rendering work on this one.

http://filesmelt.com/dl/Deremoth_1.png
http://filesmelt.com/dl/Deremoth_21.png

P.S. Thanks to fodder for highlighting the free 3d software  :D
« Last Edit: February 07, 2012, 06:06:00 PM by Fury »

LilWolf

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #24: February 12, 2012, 07:09:44 PM »
New chapter is out. Just download the PDF for part two of the story to read it :)
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LilWolf

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #25: February 19, 2012, 05:05:46 PM »
Well, chapter 16 is out and with it part two of the story is complete :)
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Fury

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #26: February 23, 2012, 09:49:03 PM »

LilWolf

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #27: February 24, 2012, 05:22:05 PM »
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LilWolf

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #28: February 27, 2012, 05:43:36 PM »
Well, next chapter is out. You can find it here: Guardian Spirit - Part Three (ongoing)

I also put in a few Balaria related short stories in the first post. I'll just post the links here:

The Encounter
The Practicioner

These short ones aren't related to Balaria, in fact they're more sci-fi themed, but you might enjoy them anyway.

Failure (this one actually got a shared fourth place in a writing contest on deviantart)
The Rescue
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LilWolf

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Re: The Balaria Thread
« Reply #29: March 06, 2012, 08:15:50 PM »
Uhm, so, yeah, Sunday saw another new chapter posted. It has been added to the Part Three .pdf file, so just re-download it.

Anyway, I'm going to stop bumping this thread with these announcement. Seems a bit redundant and spammy at this point. I tend to post a new chapter every Sunday or so, so Monday's a good time to check for yourself if there's something new.

There are places you can still find regular updates:

You can follow my website since I post every update there.
Or add me on Google+ since I post updates there as well.
Or you can check me out on Deviantart for updates(I actually post chapters individually there).
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