Subject: NPCs
Author:
Posted on: 2013-07-01 21:54:00 UTC
There's a whole bunch of NPC types available, Makes-Things springs to mind immediately.
Searching 'free to use' on the Wiki should turn up something/one useful.
Subject: NPCs
Author:
Posted on: 2013-07-01 21:54:00 UTC
There's a whole bunch of NPC types available, Makes-Things springs to mind immediately.
Searching 'free to use' on the Wiki should turn up something/one useful.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r2Ir-NB29Fiydj584FlH1i9bl_tPBwdCwwa9bEbjc80/pub
Hopefully, the cameo at the end isn't against regulations or anything.
First off, I quite like Yorick's interactions with the Marquis. He has the right sort of flippant obedience down, which works well with his outfit.
I'm not so keen on the way you have the Marquis talking... actually, no, that's not quite true. There's only two points that stick out to me:
-He's very inconsistent in how he refers to Valon. Given who he is - the Head of Personnel - I think he'd be more likely to choose either 'Agent Valon' or 'Agent Vance' and stick with it. The former is slightly more common, I believe. He would certainly never use 'Mister Vance'. Titles are there for a reason. :P
-This line: Note, Agent Vance is red-green colorblind... And, what exactly is this skeleton for?
--The first clause feels like you trying to work that fact in, rather than something the Marquis would say. I'd go with something more like, 'Purplish'. Hmm. Well, I suppose we should expect such understatements if we go about hiring colour-blind staff....
--The second clause... has already been answered, with the earlier 'So you made your own?'. He knows Yorick is supposed to be Valon's partner. Actually, given Yorick's response, I'd put something more like, And you... undead bony thing. What do you have to say for yourself?.
That said, I did enjoy most of his lines (You would not be able to explain your existence. Agent Vance would.). Although, two other notes:
-The last Marquis line in the first section isn't really a question.
-Hahaha, six hours downtime? Valon'll be lucky if he's allowed five minutes to explain to Yorick what a 'PiPiCee' is, and another five to show him which end of a sword (or gun, or staff) to hold. The Flowers don't give people time off because it'll make things easier for them - they make them go and do the work anyway, because, as the Queen Anne's Lace once said, If we don't keep them working, they might find the time to ask when they get paid... and no one wants that. Except them. And they don't count.
On to the actual narrative... which again, doesn't bother me most of the time. There's only a couple of lines that feel a bit, well, off:
-'He was colorblind, and the skeleton was urple, the worst color'. Um, that's a very strange description of urple. I'd either cut the last three words altogether, or string it out a bit. If I were writing this sentence, I'd go with something like: '[to one glaring problem://]The skeleton was urple, that particular mix of purple and pink which makes canons quail, fangirls scream, and agents cover their eyes in horror... unless, like Vanon, they happened to be colour-blind.'
-'made this already strange pose even odder. Well, as odd as being a pinkish-purple skeleton made it, anyway.' I assume the 'strange pose' is the salute, which doesn't seem all that strange. I think you want something like 'strange sight/vision', since it is an odd mental picture. And the final sentence ('Well, as odd... anyway'), um... I don't know what you were trying to say, so it didn't work.
-Given that Valon had to check the book for 'Create Undead', I'm not sure why he suddenly knows that a 'Wand of Prestidigitation' (whatever that is) can change Yorick's colour. Urple is notoriously hard to get rid of anyway, and if you're using it, I'd recommend reading OFUM, since that's where it comes from. There's a line in Chapter 15 that 'the only stuff that got urple off was Wormtongue's Wonder Wash – although most were convinced it was because he had helped created urple in the first place', and I'm sure there's more. Also, it's fun to read. (And yes, the original description is 'the worst possible colour', I know - that doesn't make it the best description). Eitherhow, that line should probably be something more like 'Valon saluted as well, though much more lazily than Yorick. “I'll look into it, sir.”' To which the Marquis would no doubt make a snarky comment.
But in general, I quite liked it. You've given your agents personalities - somewhat different ones - and that's always a good sign.
hS
While the description of the spell (found in most editions of Dungeons & Dragons) does say it can change an object's color (and is more than a little vague on what the limits are), I would say that urple is a special case. Probably the best you could hope for is to get another suvian color. For example, if you tried to turn some thing from urple to white, you'd probably just get wilver.
Urple was established in its original appearance to be difficult to remove entirely, but I doubt all Suvian colors show the same resilience. Eventually, after enough changes, the Suvian colors would likely mitigate to a state in which the resultant color would not cause adverse effects. It would still be pretty annoying to look at, like a bright neon yellow or something, but it wouldn't have the impossibility factor of urple or glose or the like. That many changes might exhaust the wand, though. Do Pathfinder magic wands do that?
Yep, because chroma-shifting magical energy is exactly like mixing food coloring. I'm pretty sure I have very little idea what I'm talking about, but it might be a decent enough hand wave.
Valon's Wikia page says that he is from World One. If so, how did he cast a magic spell from an RPG-verse? Normally, you need to have levels in a character class to cast spells, and getting a first level in a character class isn't something that just happens. Was the scroll that he used a non-restrictive scroll of some kind that anyone could cast? And in that case, wouldn't it have been under heavier guard to keep some random schmo from walking in and using it, which is exactly what ended up happening?
Maybe Valon has a wizard, ranger, cleric, or a member of another magic-using class as a contact in or from the Pathfinder continuum, and that contact cast the spell for him, but that only raises more questions as to how the two met and why that character decided to cast the spell to bring a random impossibly-colored skeleton to life.
Basically, that could use some clarification.
You need to check with Laburnum or Snowspine before putting the characters of Skyfire or Stromsong in a PPC story (the former was their PPC writer, and the latter was their creator). I'm not sure of the details; there was an agreement to that effect several years ago.
I'm sure if you could find some way to contact either of them, they wouldn't mind having their character show up just to be repulsed by urple, since everyone is repulsed by urple, but you should make it official.
I wouldn't know how to contact Snowspine. As for Laburnum, I thought she dropped off the face of the Internet.
As described in very big letters on their wiki entries, Stormsong and Skyfire are not available for anyone to use other than Laburnum. That's the result of a specific negotiation with their author, Snowspine - it was a condition of her being allowed to use them.
So don't do that. Really.
hS
The pages for Agents Stormsong and Skyfire say (in those very big letters you mentioned) that they are 'NOT AVAILABLE FOR USE IN PPC MISSIONS by anyone other than Laburnum(emphasis added).
Such a specific statement could be said to imply that it's OK to use them for non-mission writings, and Voyd's piece is clearly an Interlude rather than a Mission.
Maybe the wording of those big letters would benefit from being tweaked slightly to make things totally clear?
The only NPC agent I know is Luxury, and I don't intend to ever try writing her. I still need someone to fill that Stormsong-shaped hole, since the ending just looks kinda forced without that.
You could always just create a generic NPC, you know. Or perhaps you could ask someone on the IRC if they wouldn't mind having one of their Agents show up for a cameo, or you could stroll around the wiki and find an Agent who hasn't been in many stories but is not bound by a specific agreement IN LARGE LETTERS, or you could write a different ending, or several other courses of action.
This has probably been more trouble than you were expecting. Here, as a consolation, take Stromsong, the Stormsong mini-Agent I created accidentally by typing too quickly a few posts back. I think you'd be more suited to take care of him than I would, what with the eight other mini-Agents I have running around the place.
There's a whole bunch of NPC types available, Makes-Things springs to mind immediately.
Searching 'free to use' on the Wiki should turn up something/one useful.