Young Writers Society

"From the core of the world, evil arose. From thousands of years of imprisonment, lingers revenge and malice." - Egmund Kronston, Scholar
Welcome!

Through out my childhood I've been intrigued by the world of fantasy. Dragons, magic, knights, monks, necromancers; the whole bunch. When I was only 7 I started playing Dungeons and Dragons by myself (because everyone else was into Pokemon) and I discovered my creative talent in designing large-scale dungeons complete with traps, puzzles, links, design and back-stories.

During my times in writing little fantasy scenes within dungeons, fighting monsters and using spells. I have thought up a theory for this community; and who all participate within this story are not only part of the adventure, are also the dungeon designers themselves.

The Background
As the force of evil remained within his prison at the center of the world, it's dominion grew with the absorption of strands of chaos within the core, giving the embers of power to evil. During this time of ever-growing power, a certain actuality came forth, taking form the figure of darkness, Barobael. Gathering his armies of darkness, Barobael constructs the elaborate labyrinth toward the surface. His kingdom of evil at the core of the world brooding, building and scheming against the surface and the heavens.

Now, Barobael's forces have completed the journey to the surface, with their fortress built upon a mountain in the midst of the ocean. In place of the albatross are the harpies, the corrupted dead are armed and stand sentinel upon the battlements awaiting any challenge that comes. The kings all across the many lands have pooled gold into a special treasury to fund a large force of adventurers, heroes and any one brave enough to take on this gauntlet.

Your group has formed together from someplace, somewhere, to answer the call to glory and gold. Go forth, with sword and spell!

Welcome, to Veralov, the world of true fantasy.

The Basic Outline
This storybook is the collaboration of adventurers making progress into the depths of the world, discovering treasures, fighting monsters and solving puzzles.
Here are some rules, to maintain a fair and easy to use structure.

- Each user is entitled to a group of 2-5 adventurers.
- Each post is classed as a "turn" for a group.
- Groups will be named and posted in bold in each turn.
- Each group starts at the beginning of the dungeon, and goes down.
- Groups will record and expand the directions of the journey.
(ex. Start,n4,e2,room,s2,w1,room-)
- No OP items, artifacts, characters.
- Loot gets better the deeper you go, don't give yourself too much.
- Magical energy does have it's limits, can't just keep casting those lightning bolts.
- If an adventurer dies, it's your fault. No necromancer nor cleric may revive them, as their souls have been recruited into one of the dungeons many denizens.

These may expand under the discussion of the official players. Questions and ideas are welcome among this thread.
As this is my first official storybook, I do need assistance in recording who is on the field and cooperation of all to help this go right!
PM me if you have any concerns.

I think you've got an excellent idea I would love to help you however I'm not sure how I could help though I still can if you'd like me to I'd be so glad to help as I myself am creating a game at the moment hehe it's quite hard because not many people are helping me so I'd love to help with whatever I can

Any and all help will be appreciated, and if you're creating a game as well we can share our ideas for the technicalities!

I can't believe nobody thought of this before- a Storybook where you control your own group instead of an individual. This is an awesome idea since this will make it easier for the story to progress even if people drop out of it without notice. I'd be game for this, but you might want to set up a thread in the general discussion area to advertise this (barely anybody just browses the specific SB Discussions).

I've never played D&D, so I have no idea about the rules, but I've run and co-run various storybooks and I'd be glad to help you out if you need any help with the SB, I think this one really has potential!

I was only referring to D&D as my gateway into these kinds of things. I will be pulling ideas from old MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and Rougelike games, mixed in with some group collaboration and plenty of creative writing to make this experience fun, easy to use and memorable.

Yeah, this sounds great, and I am in love with all things fantasy, and I also like the idea of each user getting to control a whole group of people, it's really different but I think it would be fun.

But I'm confused about running it as a game since I've really never played any online games like this. So I'd need a lot of explanation, but I'll join once this gets going.

Well Cailey, I was thinking about how it works. It helps to think of it as one big big book, that just switches characters every once in a while. I've read a few books that told the story in each characters perspective and it really shed a new light on how a book is read with more than one character.

I was thinking that we could have one of two different approaches. One possible method is we could write in third person so we cover all our characters in detail. Alternatively, we could role-play as the leader of the group to give the story a more personal element.

yeah, @jimdandy that's how most storybooks work, and they're so much fun. This:
"- Each group starts at the beginning of the dungeon, and goes down.
- Groups will record and expand the directions of the journey.
(ex. Start,n4,e2,room,s2,w1,room-)
- No OP items, artifacts, characters."
Is the only part that I could see myself getting confused about.

Cailey, with the points you mentioned. Those are only the fine tuning of the play. The navigation system comes into place to keep track of how the dungeon has progressed, to map that area of the dungeon and to avoid unnecessary and repeated basic descriptions of corridors and rooms.

This sounds interesting, and I would be interested in joining. I wonder, though, how participants will interact? If we each control our own group, what kinds of dynamics will be possible between us? Will we just end up 'playing alone together'? Perhaps you could clarify that each group is part of a larger company. Each group could consist of the champions of one kingdom (or any kind of state), each kingdom being in an alliance against the common enemy.

Participants may interact if each group is in the same room, for now I have no basis for PvP battles, but if you want, you folks can roll dice and pm each other the rolls and go from there. I don't really know.
Each group is affiliated with a humanoid kingdom of your creation, I do wish to have many different feudal societies to make creativity and diversity prominent in this story, as it will add more fun, and your own back stories for your kingdom and your group.

I plan to start this story by the 20th, if you wish to pre-apply, of give some background to some "default" kingdoms (If anyone just wants to get-up-and-go.) and give more ideas before I type down the hard copy, please message me.