The Land of Ilvar: The Forgotten (Intro)

[Apocalypse]

Here is the intro to the story I am writing. It is NOT the Prologue. It comes BEFORE the prologue. Please give any suggestions as to how I could improve it.

‘Certain evils of this world cannot be understood by mortal minds. Such evils scourge the realms of the living, the dead, the eternal and the gods, ever plotting and ever scheming.
Certain Divines of this world cannot be understood by mortal minds. Such beings plague all realms known by mortals and immortals and, very likely, realms that are yet to be discovered, ever forcing the mortals to worship them as gods.’

The Tome of Knowledge​

Tome I​

Chapter I​

 

[Boneman]

Nice lyrical tonality to it... P'raps you could find another word (or add another word) in this section:

Certain Divines of this world

Divines? That's an adjective isn't it? Divinities? If it's a Tome of Knowledge then it would probably leave out the bit:and, very likely, realms that are yet to be discovered, that's speculative, not knowledge, no?

 

[The Judge]

I liked it too. I agree with Boneman (this is getting to be a habit!!) about dropping the 'very likely' bit - it detracts from the rest.

I think the two paras need to balance each other just a little more. You've gone into detail about the evils' scourge, but the Divines only get a blanket all realms; and the Divines only get one 'ever' not two. Also the common rhetorical device is to work in threes - think Dolittle in My Fair Lady 'I'm willing to hear you. I'm waiting to hear you. I'm wanting to hear you' (quote isn't accurate I know). Is there a third something of the world that can be introduced??

As for Divines - it is a noun as well, but it means 'theologians' rather than gods, which I don't imagine is what you intended. On the other hand it fits better with the rhythm of the sentence than Divinities does. I might be tempted to leave it and tell any objectors you're expanding the English language like Chaucer and Shakespeare before you!

J

PS Love the font!

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Hi, Apocalypse. If I'm feeling really picky then I had some issues.
Strangely I liked it it however, when analysed:-

Here is the intro to the story I am writing. It is NOT the Prologue. It comes BEFORE the prologue. Please give any suggestions as to how I could improve it.

‘Certain evils of this world cannot be understood by mortal minds. Such evils scourge the realms of the living, the dead, the eternal and the gods, ever plotting and ever scheming.

The problem I have here is that we are told they are evils of this world yet they exist and act in worlds that are not of this world. I would loose the

'this world'

and leave it just as

'certain evils'.

I would also loose the 'and' in 'and ever'. Then I would end it thus

ever present, ever plotting, ever scheming.


Certain Divines of this world cannot be understood by mortal minds. Such beings plague all realms known by mortals and immortals and, very likely, realms that are yet to be discovered, ever forcing the mortals to worship them as gods.’


I agree with Boneman about the divines not being correct.

This causes another problem though. Certain divinities etc. implies that there are other divinities that mortals do understand. I can't see mortals understanding any divinities (or divines for that matter)

All realms known by mortals - I can only think of the one.

very likely, realms yet to be discovered :-

Implies a knowledge of these realms even though they have yet to be discovered - a bit catch 22 ish.

You imply that immortals suffer the same fate as mortals at the hands of these beings yet only mortals are forced to worship them. So how does this plague the immortals. It seems the immortals are free to ignore them.

In any case wouldn't it be more likely that the immortals would be ever worshipping them. The mortals get eventual relief.

It sounds like what your trying to suggest is:-
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy - William Shakespeare, "Hamlet".
Now you could try -

All life is mystery.

Or

Life's hard.
Then, if you're lucky,
you die.

The Tome of Knowledge
Tome I
Chapter I​

This is The tome of knowledge

Tome I implies Tome II
therefore these are The Tomes of Knowledge.​

I didn't like the font.

 

[Apocalypse]

Thanks, I have made a few changes. Here it is:

‘Evils cannot be understood by mortal minds; such evils scourge all realms, ever plotting, ever scheming.

Divinities cannot be understood by mortal minds; such beings plague all realms, ever forcing the mortals to worship them as god until the sweet release of death, ever forcing immortals to worship them for all eternity.’

The Tomes of Knowledge​

Tome I​

Chapter I​

 

[The Judge]

I hear what TEiN says (legal-speak for 'but I'm not going to listen to a word of it') but I have to say that by being logical about the realms and mortals etc as he is, you've lost all the poetry. I much preferred the first version, flaws and all. And let's face it - this is a work of fantasy and these are the portentous opening words - they're not meant to make sense, they're meant to sound good.

J

PS Actually, I did prefer his ending to para 1 - the rhetorical 3 again, you see.

PPS Bring back the font!

 

[Boneman]

By The Judge

PPS Bring back the font!

You've got things back to font, again.......

Funny how the original font made my mind read it in deep, sonorous tones, but this is just an 'oh well, here's a bit of writing' tones.........

So, I'm agreeing wit' t'judge.....

 

[dreir]

Funny how the original font made my mind read it in deep, sonorous tones, but this is just an 'oh well, here's a bit of writing' tones.........

Damn, you're right. And I never even noticed it.

- Dreir -

 

[BSCVadhan]

Here is the intro to the story I am writing. It is NOT the Prologue. It comes BEFORE the prologue. Please give any suggestions as to how I could improve it.

‘Certain evils of this world cannot be understood by mortal minds. Such evils scourge the realms of the living, the dead, the eternal and the gods, ever plotting and ever scheming.
Certain Divines of this world cannot be understood by mortal minds. Such beings plague all realms known by mortals and immortals and, very likely, realms that are yet to be discovered, ever forcing the mortals to worship them as gods.’

The Tome of Knowledge
Tome I
Chapter I​

There are realms that exist now, there are realms that will exist in the future (as opposed to may exist). Thats a concept one can always explore. Divines or Divinities are beings capable of stepping into future realms by simply moving between time and space, like time travel. It can come naturally to them. Nothing wrong with that either.

Evils can only travel amongst the dead, the eternal and the gods, whereas divinities can travel (plague) to other realms of man and immortals including future realms, so they can do time travel forwards, whereas the evil cannot. Fair enough, which means the divinities are superior to the evils.

The questions are, are the Divinities and the evils opposed to each other? Do they co-exist? Is one superior to the other or are they equally matched in terms of strength and powers in the realms in which they co-habitate? does each of them control one or more realms? Is there an unwritten rule that they shouldnt step on each other's toes?

the more important questions are, how does that effect the narrator? (there is someone narrating this I suppose). If there are evils and Divinities, how are they positioned? from whose perspective are we looking at them? why is it important to look from that perspective? Lastly, am I asking the right questions?


Sai