[X] "I met Sypha's friends. They seemed nice. If we can find her, then maybe everything can still be patched up."
Fire Emblem: Last of the Manakete
- Thread starter SoaringHawk218
- Start date
- Fantasy
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
1) What do we want? A lot of things, but our three-ish primary goals are as follows:
a) Stay safe and be able to explore / learn about the world as we wish, which means most people not knowing we're able to be a dragon.
b) Keep Artemis safe.
c) Figure out what's going on such that we can do something about Sypha. (The Countess's last name wouldn't happen to be Belnades would it?)
2) What do we have? Very little, such that it's very easy to enumerate.
a) Artemis, unarmed and unarmored and unmounted. Currently not strictly a liability, but not exactly as strong an asset as she might otherwise seem.
b) Ryza, who risks forfeiting our dragon secret if she faces a large problem. Definitely an asset, but one with restricted utility.
c) The knowledge that Duke Letoro is, if not a big good and if not a reasonable authority figure (it would make life easy if he was the first, I would gladly settle for the second), going to be very interested in the information we're able to provide and very happy we were able to bring back his daughter safely. Helps guide our path.
d) The knowledge that Artemis doesn't want to leave her people with the Countess. Helps align our path and our goals.
3) How do we use what we have to get what we want?
a) Take Artemis to Duke Letoro.
b) Encourage Artemis to lead a rescue mission and have Duke Letoro hand her a big hammer of troops to rescue with.
c) Use our rescue mission troops to pull off the rescue mission and then while we're already there recon the Sypha situation, lean on the Countess for more info, or just march in the direction of Sypha's captors and smack them with the rescue mission troops hammer.
That is my chain of logic, that is my desired course of action as far as we can reasonably make plans before the combination of new information and non-information renders any potential further plans irrelevant.
No. I just suck at coming up with original names.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
There are some really good random name generators on the internet. This one has real and fantasy names for basically any culture you can think of. Super useful tool for writers.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Maybe I'm weird, but I think it's better to be consistently derivative in your naming schemes than random, especially if you're
- Location
- Florida
[X] "Let's just go to Agrithe. We've both had a really bad week, but we can still make it."
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Names as winks to obscure or ancient culture or myth or story? Cool.
Names as truly meaningless bits of data which only exist because their absence would be more striking (see also: eyebrows)? Pass.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
I find that following a cultural theme works well enough for it to feel quite real. The names we encounter in daily life are effectively random, as chosen from certain cultural pools of common names, with the occasional unusual one.
You can go with names that mean something relevant to the character (Harry Potter did a lot of that, Professor Sprout the herbalist, Professor Vector the math teacher, etc) but it gives the story a less realistic feel and brings it more into the realm of 'this is a story'. Which may fit the feel you're looking for, depending.
Personally, I aim it differently depending on the intended audience. For a child/young adult audience, the more fantasy feel works well, I think. For an adult audience, I think they appreciate things that feel more real and immersive.
In any event, if an author just isn't good at coming up with names and a generator helps them get over that hump and write? They should absolutely use one. Getting words down is the number one most important thing at the end of the day.
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I never claimed that Artemis's dad would have more information about the situation than Artemis. I don't even particularly think I believe that... although to play devil's advocate there: he may have knowledge of troop movement or other odd happenings that may only come off as curiosities to him at the moment that might make more sense if we hand over the puzzle piece of "By the way, Sypha was allegedly kidnapped from Legerius" and he'll suspect some report he got about some movement might be related.
My logic has always been based around Artemis and Ryza basically being out of supplies (and now party members) and needing to restock if they want to make any serious move. If they stop somewhere in Legerius territory or even head towards the Empire it's a lot riskier. We're broke too, as far as I know, so it's not even like we could buy supplies without throwing Artemis's family name around which could be very dangerous in potentially hostile territory. Argithe is pretty much the one place we can be reasonably sure is safe. From a mechanics standpoint I'm sure we can't just load up on Silver and Killing weapons and as many Elixirs as we can fit in a bag but we should be able to get everything we realistically could need. Also maybe more new party members to aid us.
It is also based around the fact that we have no real actionable intelligence that I can think of here. Hypothetically, sure, maybe Artemis was somehow told everything we need to know (but why? and by whom?) but I'm assuming she doesn't know much more than what she told us. We don't have an idea of where to go or how long Sypha has been missing. An imperial Baron was there while we were and yet Artemis says she was going to be turned over to the bandits. Was she just simplifying for us so she didn't have to explain all the connections and political intrigue or is the Countess trying to hide the fact that she has Artemis from him because he was there to deliver an ultimatum about Sypha and she was perhaps still trying to consider her options? If so, why?
Assuming House Cartese has some kind of intelligence/spy network it's possible we can pick up more puzzle pieces from there and figure out details we're missing and put together a plan of action. Now, if you're arguing from a purely meta perspective that we wouldn't be offered the option to explicitly bring up Sypha and trying to rescue her if it was a complete dead end then, I mean, yeah I mostly agree with that but while I'm not always perfect about it I usually try to avoid grounding my reasoning that way if I can.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
Yeah, if Artemis' dad is competent (and he sounds like it) he'll be well informed of the political situation and the various characters playing their parts in it. He'll also probably have a network of people who send him information, if he's smart. Not necessarily spies, but at the very least people living in the various cities that keep an eye on goings on and can infer quite a bit. Tavern owners who overhear guards gossiping, that sort of thing. That's a great way to get forewarning of what your neighbors are up to, and for a major lord the cost is insignificant.
That's a lot more information than we have. With the information we bring him he may well be able to put some pieces together about who's doing this and what they're trying to accomplish, then act accordingly. (And warn his other allies. They'll almost certainly be targets too.)
That's a lot more information than we have. With the information we bring him he may well be able to put some pieces together about who's doing this and what they're trying to accomplish, then act accordingly. (And warn his other allies. They'll almost certainly be targets too.)
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- Location
- USA
If we go with the Sypha vote we can ask the bandits.
- Location
- scrabbling
[X] "I met Sypha's friends. They seemed nice. If we can find her, then maybe everything can still be patched up."
This is just a nicer story that I would prefer to read, and one that feels more Fire Emblem.
This is just a nicer story that I would prefer to read, and one that feels more Fire Emblem.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
I mean, running to the Duke is just about inverting the Manster Arc of FE5 pretty much perfectly.
Leif in the Manster Arc: Leif gathers some people, goes to a castle, gets captured, has one of his allies with him (if you got the gaiden chapter and actually recruited Lifis the thief, God help you if you didn't). Gathers people in his escape (including Asbel your first mage, and once again God help you if you miss that gaiden), and then eventually gets out and gathers his people back.
Artemis in the Mantrae Arc: Artemis gathers some people, goes to a castle, gets captured. Has one of her allies break her out. Gathers people on the outside and goes back in to rescue her people.
It's not a perfect repeat, but there's a very strong echo there. Considering the reference to FE8 that's been made previously, deep cuts aren't out of the question.
Leif in the Manster Arc: Leif gathers some people, goes to a castle, gets captured, has one of his allies with him (if you got the gaiden chapter and actually recruited Lifis the thief, God help you if you didn't). Gathers people in his escape (including Asbel your first mage, and once again God help you if you miss that gaiden), and then eventually gets out and gathers his people back.
Artemis in the Mantrae Arc: Artemis gathers some people, goes to a castle, gets captured. Has one of her allies break her out. Gathers people on the outside and goes back in to rescue her people.
It's not a perfect repeat, but there's a very strong echo there. Considering the reference to FE8 that's been made previously, deep cuts aren't out of the question.
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- Pronouns
- He
In my opinion, the people who ended up getting caught are going to end up grossly underleveled and benched in a gameplay standpoint.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
It's okay, maybe it'll be one of those games where they're upleveled to the party average when they rejoin. In which case we should tell Artemis that we want to go to her father on foot and kill absolutely every monster and bandit along the way. I'm sure she'll grasp the brilliance of the plan immediately.
Seriously though, I doubt we have to worry about that sort of thing in the quest.
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[X] "I met Sypha's friends. They seemed nice. If we can find her, then maybe everything can still be patched up."
Vote closed
This is probably going to be a fairly short update; telling a little story, learning a bit more about your dragon form by necessity, and setting up your high-speed journey to Agrithe.
In other news, I got a dragon model for my birthday, and I've started painting it as a Yellow manakete's dragon form. Not sure if it's an older Ryza or one of her parents, but I'm having fun so far.
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TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
Sorry to those who wanted to see if a valiant rescue was possible; I have faith we'll get our valiant rescue in the future, though.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes.
Good question. That picture's more of a guideline for how Ryza looks: her normal clothes are a lot less ornate, and her ears aren't actually pointed.
The ears are mostly because I didn't think of that when I was writing, and so I don't want to go back and ret-con everyone into being completely blind.
Maybe they're just covered by her hair.
Alternatively, a thought I just had: it's tied into her draconic nature just like her wings: when she's starting to transform, her ears go pointy, but when she's fully in heart-form they're rounded.
I like that idea: reinforces Ryza's shapeshifting. It's now canon.