Next Story: Zebrican Warlord · 2:28pm Apr 18th, 2018
This is very long:
As I have already hinted at before my next story takes place far from Equestria and the politics of that happy, go-lucky land and instead focuses on a region of the planet that I barely touched upon: Zebrica and Saddle Arabia.
Unlike Underworld this story should be better written and laid out since I have spent more than a month jotting down ideas, locations, characters and more about this area and how it works. Another major break is that I am switching over to a story where there are several main characters all interacting with the world around them and the consequences of their actions; Underworld you rarely saw this, things worked more or less in a straight line.
Now as for the story itself:
1. Zebrica is located to the South West of Saddle Arabia (just think relative location of Middle East to Africa) but with many a twist and turn: the ancient civilizations had a major tiff with each other over this region so they left a lasting impression on the region in way of culture, dress, warfare, food, etc. Though long gone their legacy remains so you will see a mass smattering of ancient culture: Egyptian, Hittite, Persian and a few others to smaller degrees like Minoan. How does this all work out? Read the story, an entire chapter will be dedicated to this much, much later on.
2. MAP! Thats right, I drew a map. And colored it! Not a great map but its a map and it will be part of the story so the reader can keep track of what is going on where and when. As such some things are left out: Saddle Arabia and other nations are a LOT closer than they appear, for one thing there is no Arabian Peninsula. None, I removed it in favor of bringing all the ancient cultures and land masses closer together. This also caused problems for these ancient peoples as you can imagine... (A key will accompany the map explaining the colors, numbers, etc)
3. Nation building, major departure from my first story but a theme I enjoy a great deal, I love the old Civilization games (III) and Caesar III so I am going to play on this and see how it works out and this being a story of a mans rise from being a nobody to a warlord you can imagine that there is going to be a lot of bumps along the way including wars.
4. Character pictures, I started drawing again for the first time since I left high-school (long time mind you) and have done what I could to practice till I can draw the characters well enough to give you an idea of what they look like, so if I pull this off without breaking the "NSFW" rules due to how some of them dress and linking issues... You can all see what some of the characters look like, others will never be drawn, best to let the imagination take care of them...
5. Personalities, I wrote those out too and am still trying to figure out how best to write all that in... When I say there are more than forty pages of plot lines, stories, conversations, etc for me to write on... I mean it, still coming up with more ideas too.
6. The man himself. Verik, one thing I never want to have in any story of mine is the whiny, piss his pants, scream in fear, run away character I have seen in just about every story I have ever read on here save for the comedy ones featuring Anon (sometimes). Departing from the "scared of everything, runs and hides, cries while huddled in a ball because the Zebras can talk" theme I see all too much of I instead wrote a character that is more... Relaxed, goes with the flow and will not pass up an opportunity. While others cry they lost earth but he could not give a rats arse about that and sees it all as the greatest opportunity ever presented.
7. Adventure and Dark: Lots of adventure because you do not just GET to be a warlord, too many stories are just...
Day one: cries about never seeing earth again, vows to find way "home."
Two: Ponies, screams in terror, wets pants, runs and hides while sobbing like a two year old.
Two.01: screws half of them while insulting them.
Two.04: egotistical maniac, halfwit, greedy SOB, wantsawalmartandmcdonaldsthisworldsucksbecausethereisnowalmart, others to take care of him, somehow winds up in power with extraordinary abilities.
Three: Grand pooba. Also winds up with a magical army somewhere along the line along with the sword that can kill gods and raise the dead. Never gets hurt, EVER! Can survive a nuke to the face.
Not happening here: reputation, combat, politics, struggles and all the rest of the filth of the world is dumped into the story for a dose of reality on how brutal things really are when you stick your neck out. People are born, die, get tortured, injured, insulted, thats just how it is. So lots and lots of adventure and warfare in a quasi-ancient/classical world that is just hitting medieval.
8. Sex, this is one tag you will see and frankly I dont know. This aint a porno but I know the importance of romantic and sensual moments in a story, sitting on the fence.
9. Chronological order, I created a time table, lets see how well I can follow it.
10. Characters! Remember those forty pages? Oh its gets worse. I have drafted up enough story that frankly I could turn this into a D&D setting at this point and still jotting down notes, there are over thirty characters at this point but not sure how many will actually be used, I hope ALL of them.
11. Political map, since politics plays such an important role in the story you will see the map I made is divided up and numbered showing the various national boundaries.
12. Religion and Faith, going to play a part in this story, be certain of that, I intend to flesh out the beliefs of those in this part of the world more than I did in Underworld, still a work in progress.
I will stop here for points of interest, now to give you a brief overview of the story.
Verik is a man who has the short end of the stick, not wealthy by any means and in fact is just plain disgusted with the way things are going "at home." No family to speak of (vultures and harpies circling over him looking for a chance to dive do not count) and as a dreamer with grand delusions he desires more than anything to just dump it all and disappear.
The hand of fate whisks him away from his living nightmare that is threatening to give him a very early heart attack and an ulcer. Dropping him in the middle of the Zebrican Savannah he has finally gotten his wish for a new life far away from a world he can not stand but no world no matter how desirable is perfect.
In steps the Zebras and Saddle Arabians, remnants of ancient empires and long forgotten nations now caught in a massive regional iron man contest between various powers hell bent on taking it all or trying to keep their little slice afloat while the hurricane rages around them.
Verik is not the trusting sort but something strikes him about them and when he meets Asha (Zebra, read the story) whatever plans he had of "living the peaceful life" are smashed to pieces as lifes struggles and hurdles crash into him sending an unlikely band of characters down a path leading either to their immortal glory or just as likely: their early demise at the hands of an executioners axe if they would be so lucky compared to the alternatives should they fail.
The Eastern edge of Zebrica, nestled between many larger foreign powers and barbaric tribes hell bent on staking their claim is the site where this man will either rise to power or die trying rather than remain squatting in the muck at the bottom of the totem pole like the rest and with a world of infinite possibilities at his fingertips, he takes the chance.
Unbeknownst to him however is that on the eve of his arrival the world around him just took a turn for the worse.
So who is interested?
May i can inquire which is expected post schedules? If is there.
I wish protagonists isn’t typical young man setting who spat too many swear as he goes around and use knowledge from previous world. (namely reason that stop reading other Zebrican story by Navanastra but no offense to author)
Like Underworld, destroy and twist around cliche plot that i will love to read it
Thanks.
4842587
None at the moment, still fleshing out the world and coming up with more ideas, spent the last two days drawing and scribbling down more plot material.
Oh and one thing that annoys me: young men in stories. By the gods I cant stand those stories, even when I was that age I never acted like that! Reading all these stories (I have pointed out how they all act) the only thing that governs them is the tiny brain between their legs or ego, that and acting like an idiot while binge drinking themselves into the floor as some kind of "proof of manhood." Feh.
Check your mail, sent you a long one.
Well I can't deny the planning you've got here, but in most writing, I find the journey is what matters more than the destination.
Verik is, strange name aside, the kind of protaganist that seems like the kind of guy that's rather...cynical. I don't want to call him edgy, he's hardly a red/black wearing goth punk that threatens violence to anything that doesn't go his way, but I can see things going in that direction if he isn't balanced out by some more optimistic or empathetic elements. I'll try not to judge, since it's the first chapter and all, but I hope you don't try too hard to not write a marty stu you end up driving off the other end of the cliff. But I guess that'll depend on the development of your other characters.
So far, you've given descriptions of what you want to do, and what you don't want to do. Might be spoilers for you, but some of those points seem rather brief. You've got enough to write early chapters on when you don't have to delve too deep into details, but as things go on you'll need that world lore and character development for Verik and the group in order to keep things interesting. Personal experience here, real life is real good at sapping away your motivations and ideas for writing projects like this.
Still, it's a story type that's interesting enough, I'll be sure to keep an eye on things. I can tell you're an author that doesn't want to stick to cliches, especially bad ones. I wonder, what's your general plans towards the sex/gore/violence tags? He'll become a warlord, but will he bear witness to such atrocities, or participate, or even instigate them? What else is there to his personality? He did mention that the Zebra mare has pretty eyes, so he's open minded enough to consider another species - even one as similar to human as they are - as having physically attractive qualities. Can i then assume he's also open minded enough to ignore gender when it comes to romantic/sexual preferences? I admit, I find it a little hard to believe someone would be dropped into a completely new world without some feeling of disbelief, to have a guy so in despair about his life be suddenly dropped into a new one and take it all in stride like his prayers have been answered? I'd wonder how he didn't become suicidal or depressed if the situation was that bad before. Surely there would be some things he'd miss, some things he'd worry about right off the bat. Like I said, it sounds like you've got big plans, but the little that's already here makes me wonder if your main character is going to end up an edgy self-insert, worst-case scenario.
This is a realy intorestin consept and i am definetly going to read.
But i need to ask, where can I find this map?
4902597
furaffinity user Arelak
4902772
Ah thanks
I was just looking for like a link or something but thanks