Hello Coryn,
Thank you for taking the time to read through my story idea and leaving feedback. I have created a post in the welcome center, to give a little more information about myself and the goals that I have. Thank you for the suggestion.
It was my mistake to not be more clear in the previous posts. The first post and the second post are separated by about a year of events. After being left on the island, Dorian finds a cave that leads to ruins of a tower that have been swallowed by the earth. While exploring this sunken tower, he discovers that it is riddled with traps and that belonged to a mage researching mimics. At this point Dorian learns more about physical and mental aspects of mimics. At the bottom of the tower he meets a mimic who doesn't have a name and a magical ring on the corpse of the dead mage. The mimic agrees to be Dorian's ship, but in return Dorian agrees to letting the mimic try many different types of food (mimic biology functions essentially like alligators in that they do not die from old age, have even slower metabolisms as they do not need to move most of the time, but they can get smaller through reproduction by division). After agreeing to the name Belephore, Bele being the name of the mage and Phore being Dorian's last name, Dorian heads straight back to his previous country to reunite with his wife. The ring that belonged to the mage is identified as a ring of clouded vision here. The ring hide the person wearing it from any type of tracking magic. However, upon returning to his home, he found that his wife was not there. He finds her journal and after reading through it discovers that she had been having an affair with with a high ranking noble. This affair had been going on while Dorian was out to sea, and that the noble was the actual father of the child his wife was having. This noble is also the one who hired Borgar (previous captain) to transport slaves.
It is also where he looks at the port city he resides and sees the true disparity between the humans (primary race) who live there and most other races. This is when Dorian decides that he will be going against his previous government by freeing the slaves before they actually arrive in the country. Due to the time he spent in the military, he understands the methods and tactics used to track down and eliminate enemies. Through some careful maneuvering, he manages to get a hold of a lineage crystal. These crystals, when placed over a magically attuned map, gives the location of a person or closest living relative within one step (ie father, mother, siblings, and children). The magic of the crystal requires some kind of physical object closely tied to the individual. He sets his previous house on fire, an attempt to destroy anything that could tie him to a lineage crystal, and flees the city with Belephore to find his birth parents.
Dorian arrives in the port city of the second post, as this is where his birth parents are. He orders a large amount of supplies to be delivered to his ship, and spends a few days trying to locate his birth parents. When he finds them, they are homeless people, living a miserable existence of scrounging for food, begging for money, and doing anything they can to escape the reality they are in. Drugs, magical potions, and spells that fascinate/hypnotize them to take them away from their reality. The guards of the city basically ignore them, and sometimes abuse these homeless people themselves. The night before the second post's events. Dorian rationalizes to himself that killing them ends the existence that they are constantly trying to escape, and protects them from the previous country if anything should happen to where a linage crystal is used to find him. That night, he kills them in an alley while they are under the effects of some magical spell or potion that they have taken. As he walks out of the alley, two guards are on patrol, stops him, investigates the scene, cracks a joke about if he got anything on him, and good riddance that there are two less rodents on the streets. He heads back to the tavern in the first post, and attempts to drink himself to sleep, but even alcohol cannot provide the relief needed to stop the mental anguish he is in. This is when the second post/first chapter starts.
As you mentioned, Dorian is a broken character to start with. I wanted this to paint him as a "bad guy" to allow him to grow into a character who is willing to create bonds again, as he spent so much time breaking the old ones he had. Both the physical and emotional ones. The second chapter has his first raid on a slave transport ship where he pick up his first permanent crew mate. Verigal Fin is a lycanthrope who had a similar idea to Dorian, in that stopping the slave ships and freeing slaves is the way to help those affected the most. Verigal is a Natural Born Wereshark (Doesn't go absolutely berserk during full moons and has full control of his shapeshifting) who is brawny, brash, ruthless, and intimidating, but he is willing to sacrifice himself for the betterment of others. During this raid, Dorian is wounded. The wound is cauterized by Dorian using the heated barrel of his pistol, but he ends up going into shock. Verigal leads Belephore to an island where he knows a physician is. This is to give Dorian a reason to form a bond with Verigal, as he realizes no mater how strong an individual is, he needs others to do what he cannot.
There are a total of five crew mates that will end up aboard the Gluttonous Anemone, not including Belephore himself. Dorian the Pirate, Verigal the Wereshark, Nicodemus the Cartographer, Lloyd the Researcher, and Sylvana the Cloud Shaper. Each of these characters will have their own quirks and goals that happen to align with Dorian's. There will also be many characters from the rescued races including Orcs, Minotaurs, Goblins and Hobgoblins, and other various creatures. However, not all of them will be in need of rescuing, some of them will be fighting back as Verigal did. As Dorian progresses through the story, he will start to build ties with both his crew members and the different creatures he rescues and meets along the way.
Dorian doesn't start by trying to take down the government, but rather stopping the flow of slaves. However, once the government starts using slaves to transport new slave, sending more battle hardened ships as escorts, and eventually using airships instead of traditional boats, Dorian realizes that just treating the symptoms won't stop the corruption, and actions need to be taken to break down who is currently in control in order to start the healing process.
I hope this makes things more clear. Again, thank you for taking the time to read through my idea, and if you have any more suggestions or comments, please feel free to let me know.
Thank you
Topic: A Deadman's Search For Redemption (Read 1471 times)
