The Pariahs: Magus Gray

[Seed22]

Hey there fellow Architects!

 

After the success of Odd Stories [Arc ID: 57289], I thought I would try my hand at long form story telling. I give you one of five arcs covering a supergroup and their adventures titled The Pariahs. This first arc follows Magus Gray, the founder of The Pariahs as he gets to the bottom of who killed the Winter Court, the court he belonged to for centuries. He believes the summer court was behind it, but needs the aid of muscle, which is where you come in.

 

Arc ID: 58682

 

Please be critical of my story! I can't get better at long-form if I'm not given proper critique to work off of. Also, I'm aware that the ally rescue in the fourth mish will not show up in the navigation HUD. I've tried to fix it, to no avail. The other rescue pops up though, and both rescues are still in the mish.

 

I hope you enjoy the arc, and look forward to more coming soon!

[cranebump]

I’ll put it on my agenda:-)

[Seed22]

37 minutes ago, cranebump said:

I’ll put it on my agenda:-)

Appreciated as always! I hope you enjoy

[cranebump]

Okay, here we go:

Spoiler

M1:

Catching stuff as I go

*Mission description says that "summer" might be involved. Is "summer" a person? If so, it should be capitalized. If not, ignore my pickiness.:-)

*Send off text: "slaughter" is missing the 't.'

*Summer Court was capitalized the first time. Lower case the second. Since it's a named organization, we should cap those first letters.

*Don't need the period in the Nav Objective text, unless you're giving 2 objectives there, and need to separate sentences. This jibes with in-game format.

*woo...those guys are end drainers. AND they fly all over the place. Glad I brought the tank.

*interesting they're in a warehouse. No bigs, just an observation. Then again, we don't have a lot of good Croat maps to use, outside caves, and those "mushroom patch" maps.

*Annnd done.

*End screen: check spelling "devastation." Also: I wouldn't use semi-colons, since you're writing speech patterns. People don't speak in semi-colons. Just put a period, and don't worry about being grammatically correct. THAT SAID: you're not technically wrong to use them. But I think Vonnegut got it right on these. Anyhoo, your call. It's not an error, obivously. Crane just hates them.:-)

*End Clue: Again with caps on Summer Court. Writing and info are lovely. But this needs a tweak for grammar/consistency's sake.

*Sheesh...Oberon sounds like a real douche.

 

Verdict: REALLY like your contact (esp. info, which is clean, clear and direct). Speaking mannerisms give them personality. Mish is straightforward, but leaves some mystery (which gets revealed in the end clue, with the court info). Good call. You're deepening the narrative as you go, in nice, digestible chunks (not like that Crane guy, who has some mishes that read like novels [that bastard]). 🙂 I like seeing the witchies! Croatoa perps are sadly missing from a lot of AE arcs. Good start! 

 

M2: (I'll try to keep the verbiage down a bit here--I tend to ramble)

*Caps on winter court, as well (Winter Court).

*And the CoT are involved. Good. I hate those guys.

*Ooh...what is this map? Enter and there's a door. Noice. FYI: The NPC text re: guard popped after I approached it, as if I "heard" it through the door. Nice effetce!

*"King's Departure" clue: Just notice, "mulling" is missing an 'l.' (on that: provides a new mystery [disap. of Obie]. Excellent. Narrative is always deepening).

*Tell you what...you get a couple CoT groups back to back in these halls, it can go south VERY fast. Again: thanks, TANK!

*Ooh! The white star signifying my objective popped up early! Without clearing the map, per usual. Was this something you did? Or is this something the map does? HELPFUL!

*Abraxis's clue appears AFTER the book retrieval clue on the clues screen. The objectives may need to be switched, if you want to maintain clue order, with new clues spawning at the bottom.

*END TEXT: "...that interest me greatly." Need an 's' there.

VERDICT: I LOVE this map. Close proximity fights in narrow hall. Nice change of pace from dispersing witches. You have presented disparate challenges. Bravo

 

M3: 

*I like how tight the intro/send-offs are. You get the basics in the former, then the latter is "got get 'em." Economical and effective.

*NAV Objective: "Alters" should be "Altars."

*RED CAPS! It's a who's who of Croatoa here!

*Love the map.

*Great allies. Slows & heals. We're making this mish our beeyotch.:-)

*All 4 altars appear in the same room. EB Selune appears right behind us, at entrance to the cavern. Excellent placement.

*FYI: Gray says "Caderon went ahead of me," but I found Caderon before Gray. Spawn issue, so you can't control that. But if you want, you could just have him say, "Have you seen Caderon? He's here somewhere." I know he mentions something like that in rescue text. In any case, if you really want to cover your bases, this would be a small edit. It isn't 100% necessary, though, since it's 50-50 it would be the way you intended.

VERDICT: LOVE this mish. It's perfectly paced, placed and executed. Like a dream. Great allies. Red Caps. Enjoyed the hell out of it.

 

M4

*INTRO: I'd drop the semicolon and go with a dash. But Crane hates :'s, so perhaps he is biased.

*LOVE the introduction of "the impending doom." Discovery, revelation and surprise should always be a part of arc design (imho). You're nailing it.

*Oh, sh*t...Requiem. Better put my big boy pants on.

*"trounced expeditiously. Heh. I like that.

*GREAT intro pop. Evocative!

*You're gd right I'm meeting up with Gray. Gonna likely need him.

*I missed Magus Gray. I think he was in one of the rooms behind me, since I saw him pop up after Jubes and I trashed Req and his minions. Turned out I didn't need him. Jubilent and her pet and I cruised. I like how she ran off and engaged on her own. 

VERDICT: Great map, mish, and ally. The 4 glowies were in the same room with Requiem. Perfectly executed! (again)

 

OVERALL: So, it's a 5/5. REALLY, REALLY well done. Clever way to work in a variety of bad guys (with a focus on Croatoa/magic). Judicious use of allies. Excellent objective pacing and placement. Great use of clues (nothing is wasted-everything is essential). It's professional, and on par with anything in the game (and better than a lot of it!). Well done.

 

TWEAKS:

*Fix the caps issue with the courts. I know. Pain in the arse, as all those "summer court" refs need to be Summer Court. I suppose you could go the opposite route and lowercase the few that are capped, but I think that's not the best approach. This is a named entity. No reason not to treat them as such (other than having to go back through and drop in letters here and there (editing...blah, right?).

*Still uncertain about Cabal in a warehouse, but the mish works as is.

*A few minor spelling errors.

 

Keep on truckin' hombre,

Crane

Long story short for the no spoilers crew: this has Crane's unmitigated seal of approval (if that means anything...I mean, it's not a Honus Wagner baseball card, but I WILL provide gum). Well done, @Seed22!

[Kyksie]

I ran through this myself, it was pretty good. Lot of high quality writing, a plausible story, no time wasters. Only nitpick is a few little spelling errors.

[Seed22]

5 hours ago, Kyksie said:

I ran through this myself, it was pretty good. Lot of high quality writing, a plausible story, no time wasters. Only nitpick is a few little spelling errors.

Thanks so much for running it! Yeah I need to get back in the architect and fix those spelling errors(and I will! Once I'm done running a few HM TFs to get back into the swing of things before p7)