"I am with the FIREBEARD!"

I appreciate the encouragement delivered in typical wholesome and supportive Fergus style :)  I haven't quite known what to post in the midst of all this fantastic and serious character drama, while Opi is just pleased to have finally squished Garduk, haha.

Then again, Opi has always been the goofball in the midst of the drama, so I reckon I'll get back to it and post something ;P

No squishing during the drama, Opalia!!!


I'm just happy to hear from people again.

On an unrelated note, has anyone read any of Steven Erikson's Malazan series (Gardens of the Moon is the first one)? I was looking for something new to read and this came up on a list somewhere. Also considering Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, but I vetoed that one due to the length of the books! Opinions welcome.

It's been a while, but I read the first Malazan book and found it hard to get into.  It was cool, but pretty dense and I had a hard time getting a handle on what was going on :/  The series comes highly recommended by most everyone else though, so maybe I'm just the weird one!

If you're looking for recommendations for sci-fi/fantasy/generally nerdy book series, boy do I have some of those!

• The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson, first book 'The Way of Kings' : This is a popular one for good reason, because it's epic and a really original fantasy paradigm that's a big departure from Tolkien.  This is the only series on this list that isn't complete, but it has four HUGE books and several novellas, and is well worth getting into.
• The Book of the Ancestor by Mark Lawrence, first book 'Red Sister' : One of my favorite series and possibly my favorite fictional setting ever.  There's a follow-up trilogy in the same setting that connects and builds on the first, called Book of the Ice, equally fantastic.
• The Expanse by James S.A. Corey, first book 'Leviathan Wakes' : Another popular one that you might have heard of!  It's a completed series of 9 books about epic political drama in space alongside spooky alien mystery.  Also a really good 6-season show on Amazon Prime that's a faithful adaptation (wish they'd do the last three books though, wah).
• The Lightbringer Saga by Brent Weeks, first book 'The Black Prism' : Cool 5-book fantasy series about magic based around spectrums of light, with entertaining characterization.
• The Powder Mage Trilogy by Brian McClellan, first book 'Promise of Blood' : A fantasy series about fighting gods with cannons and gunpowder magic!  What more could you ask for?!  Follow-up trilogy Gods of Blood and Powder is also great.

Better stop myself there!  If you give any of those a try then I hope you enjoy :)

This is great! Thank you, Opalia. I'll have to check one or more of these out. I did read Leviathan Wakes many years ago and enjoyed it, but never read the rest of them. All the others are new for me, so I'd better get my reading shoes on!!!!


I don't really have reading shoes, but thought it would be fun to say.

I second Opi's take on the Malazan books. I put down the first one about 10% into it. I read the first Wheel of Time book and have had no desire to read any more of them. Frankly I think the fantasy genre has come a long way in recent years and while folks like Tolkien and Jordan laid important groundwork that facilitated those advances, there's better stuff to read now.

I'm currently reading Perdido Street Station, which is wild in a very fun way. It's steampunk-y but mostly just weird. My investment in the characters and plot is only so-so but the setting is fantastic and the creativity and prose are audacious in a spectacular way.

I would also recommend N.K. Jemisin. Her most famous series, the Broken Earth trilogy, is as excellent as all the accolades it's received would suggest. The setting is technically futuristic but it still feels more like fantasy than sci fi to me. But she also has some other works that are more explicitly fantasy. I read and enjoyed the first book in the Dreamblood Duology, which is in an Egyptian-inspired setting and revolves around dream magic. I haven't read the Inheritance trilogy but have heard good things, I think that's being adapted for TV currently?

S.A. Chakraborty's City of Brass starts out in a more recent (19th century) Egypt but mostly takes place in a fantastic city inspired by what I guess is Persian and/or Arabian mythology (lots of djinni and efreeti and such).

I'm starting to think I've recommended some of these here before. Sorry if I'm repeating myself.

It was well worth the wait :)

Sorry, I've been traveling the last few days.

Also, great suggestions for my next reads! I haven't read any of those series.

I made it through the first two Malazan books.  They are dense, and are not generic western European settings.  If you really like strong settings then you'll probably enjoy the books.  But they are involved.

I'll second the Mark Lawrence recommendation.  I enjoyed both the Broken Empire and Book of the Ancestor series.  I did find them pretty violent, perhaps moreso the Broken Empire series, but they were fairly easy reads.  Red Sister was probably my favourite.

I gave up on the Wheel of Time in the third or fourth book.  It wasn't so much that I disliked the story, it just needed serious editing in my opinion to get rid of the fat.  It felt to me that whenever he returned to a particular character he rehashed all the same stuff over and over again, and the story only moved forward incrementally.  With books closer to 1000 pgs than not, I just got fed up with all the (perceived) repetition.

I'm a big fan of older, pulpy fantasy, so Moorcock's Eternal Champions (Elric, Corum, et al), Leiber's Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser novels, LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy, and so on.  They aren't dark and gripping like many modern fantasy stories, more like old-fashioned romps.

Currently I'm working through the Song of Shattered Sands series by Bradley Beaulieu.  I'm in Book 4 and losing a little steam, but I really like the setting in which the novel is placed and the concept of the main plot.  I'm invested enough now to want to see how it all ends.  Hopefully it won't turn into a double-digit colossus like Wheel of Time.

Great recommendations! Thank you to one and all. Looks like I have some reading to do.

Oh, yeah, Tombs of Atuan is one of the all-time greats. I don't always read Author's Notes and Afterwords and such but LeGuin's for ToA was great, really enhanced my appreciation of the book.

Great post Cora! Well worth waiting for.

I've had great appreciation for LeGuin ever since I saw a clip of her in 2014 accepting the National Book Foundation Medal, where she basically scolded the industry for greed and reminded authors that they aren't just producing a commodity, but a work of art. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that such an accomplished author would have an eloquent, meaningful acceptance speech, but I was impressed!

The address below contains the transcript.
https://www.ursulakleguin.com/transcript
This message was last edited by the player at 02:08, Sun 12 Feb 2023.

Aside from delivering the sword to the Druidic Council, what would you all like to do to wrap up the story? What will your character do next? Is there anything you'd like them to do "on stage" before the curtain falls?

Arvid would make the return trip to Lawton's Glen to apprise the council of events, as previously promised. After that he'd be inclined to return to his village - and at some point Opalia's village high in the mountains. What, if any of this, needs to be played out on screen is debatable though. I think its enough to know that he's found a place at last. I've been quiet through this last scene because I don't think it needs a more active voice from Arvid at the moment.

Sikuaq has no tie to Lawton's Glen, so she has no particular desire to head there.  She also has no tie to the Council anymore, now that she has been stripped of her title of anatka, so heading back to her old duties is also off the table.

Given her current internal struggles, I expect she will head off to a secluded spot away from anyone she could hurt and there try to divest herself of her inner demon.  That will either end up being successful or she will succumb and be lost to the fires forever, but that will be something for the next group of adventurers that traipses across the Qopol Qalak to discover, for good or ill.

Like Arvid, I did not want to stomp on the family moment that is evolving in the thread, which is much more upbeat and heartwarming than anything I could add.

I know that given time Cora would try to find a way to help Sikuaq if she could, but that might be years and years down the road.

Years and years? Oh, you kids (humans and half-orcs)! You talk like that's a long time!

As for final plans, Fergus would like to return to Lawton's Glen/Knutsdir, but not before a stop at Ruldheim first to visit Farra in her new home (and I suppose to visit Keth - sigh). While it isn't necessary to play that all out, I think it would be fun for each of us to at least write one final summary post describing the rest of our life (or at least the next few years), be it haunted or happily ever after. That might require some planning with one or more other characters (Fergus will stay connected with Cora, for example, and as a result maybe also with Caell). I don't know how all that would work, but I'd be happy to plot and plan it out if others are.

I can't believe we're talking about how to wrap it up! It's kind of like the youth hockey banquet at the end of the year when I was a kid. Bittersweet.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:38, Fri 17 Feb 2023.

Sorry - I know I keep saying this, but new things keep coming up every time I feel like I'm getting to a place where I can turn a little more attention toward this. I haven't forgotten you.

I had a murderous few weeks at work that kept me mostly off RPOL, so my apologies for my absence as well.


Hmmmmmmm.  As Arvid says and as Opi just said IC, we've gotta go visit Lawton's Glen first.  Perhaps there'll be parades in our honor since we just saved their butts!  Beyond that, a victory tour of the north to visit Guthluthic and Ruldheim and Kerit-town, and even back up to the Skykeepers.  Opi would still be worried returning there, but would be welcomed as a hero and would finally earn her Name (would need to think one up) and be accepted by her own people.

I think somewhere along this tour Opalia would want to finally get together with Arvid :D  Only if Arvid agrees, of course!  If we were already together by the time we reached Kerit-town then Opi would ask Signe's blessing, and there would likely be a similar interaction with Opi's family and people.  Eventually they get married in a ceremony blending traditions of Skykeeper and Kerit, and everybody's invited, and then happily ever after and stuff ;P  Corny, I know, but I'm a sap like that so leave me alone, lol

/signed

I feel like this is how its supposed to happen. I can't imagine a better send off for Arvid and Opalia.

Also Arvid hits level 11 and can manifest his whole Astral self. I was *this* close ;)

Sorry giving time for people to respond here, don't want to close anything off in the thread.

As a side mental exercise, I was briefly looking at hexblood (and by extension the lineages from Van Richtens) and noticed that a winged tiefling (already an unpopular choice with DMs) should by the rules retain its fly speed if hexblood (or reborn or dhampir) is applied to it. But mentally, though I can picture a vampiric lizardfolk or an undead owlin, it seems like "tiefling (with wings!) but it's also a hagspawn" might be too many flavours in one cereal bowl

If that's what you're interested in, we can find a way to make it work. My objective would be to use the layers of weirdness as an impetus for creativity.

You're welcome to be even more free-form than usual in your last posts, in terms of inventing details or simply stipulating things that have transpired since the battle with at the Obsidian Pass. You're welcome to post in the Epilogue thread and/or the Chapter Nine thread as you see fit, and if there are any other threads you'd like me to make so that you can write a final scene for your character I'll be happy to do that as well, just let me know.

Honestly I'm just embarrassed with how little I've written but I can get the "lineage agnostic" versions up today if I really push myself. Hexblood winged tiefling is A LOT and it's more me distracting myself with what I'm more comfortable with, finding novel ideas for characters. But novel doesn't cut it for the next long-term commitment, and I guess I'm just anxious about rising to both the standard I've set with Cora, and to the standard of my fellow players

In reply to Cora (msg # 960):

No rush. I'm going to start a new game soon where I'll most some more concrete info about the setting now that I've got some more input from you all. I just didn't want to do that too soon and step on the ending of this game.

As the man-bear-son in question, I just want to say that the opening to the epilogue was well worth the wait. Thank you. This seems like a fitting conclusion to our story, or at least, to Arvid's story. Wonderfully written. I'll try to do it justice.