BoM/TWS Message Forum

Alright, so after reaching this very important milestone for me, I feel now confident on basically introducing myself to the crew.

*In my best Troy McClure rendition." Hi, I'm Nostrum. You may know me as the author of the branch starting with "Father Knows Best" . I'm essentially the newbie to the group, but I enjoyed the interactive so much that I decided to finally contribute (and make an account, too). For my first contributions, I wanted to explore Will's family, which I felt was vastly underexplored - mostly, the dynamic between Will's father and him (which was somehow explored in "A Dad's-Eye View" ), but also the dynamic with his brother (also explored in a way in multiple chapters, including one in Wandering Stars) and with his mother, which I feel has been the least explored.

However, besides that, I settled on a little challenge, which I hope hasn't driven Seuzz mad. (He knows I can basically baffle him almost effortlessly, and I apologize for that.) One of the things I wanted to explore was the possibility of having the Libra Personae without the book. Thus, you may have noticed that Will lost the book early on. This also tied in to the lore behind the Mitchells (for which I thank smitch for a few things, including some minor lore clarifications and stuff like that); almost from the beginning, I visualized the Eastman notebook as one of the keys to reverse-engineer the contents of the Libra. I'll admit that it happened on the way, compared to how I had structured the story, but the effort has been fruitful, as there's now a branch that essentially proves that Will doesn't need the Libra (or, rather the Summa Personae) to do the magic. I do apologize in advance for not having Will use the masks until very late - part of the reason I like the interactive is because it handles the concept of transformation in a rather mature way, not just by Seuzz, but by his long-time contributors (rugal, imaj, smitch, Wordsmitty and Masktrix).

What's interesting is how, between the act of brainstorming, a few things emerged that I actually liked. One of them was Lucy and Taylor hitching in - don't care what you guys say, I'm shipping 'em hard. (To Will's chagrin, sadly.) Another was the idea of emphasizing Will's ties with Kenandandra, as we know a lot of his Sulva qualities; in fact, one of the main reasons I decided to tackle the idea of reverse-engineering the Libra/Summa Personae was to have Will get deeply in touch with the least-explored of his ousiarchs, and justify why he fits as a Kenandandran. (The fact that his father's an engineer and his family has quite the inventive makes it easy.)

You may have noticed that, at some point, I followed a branch originally, then switched. That deviation was made for a rather peculiar reason; while I was writing, I was enticed by the idea of exploring how to solve Will's predicament without magic, despite having the tools to do so. This also set up Frank and Joe as antagonists, something I had a little struggle with, but interesting to explore. However, that branch was meant to be short-lived; it was also meant to have an ending, but I was convinced otherwise, so if you feel you'd like to explore it, be my guest. It's set on a nice, cozy set of cliffhangers, just as these interactive chapters should be. However, the reason for my switch was because I really wanted Will to travel the path of pulling off the reverse-engineering of the Libra/Summa, and eventually to use its powers for Good (yep, Good, with a capital G and everything). That's why you see all these references, these arc-phrases that appear every now and often (like "give a little thought to what you want to be in the future", for example); it's meant to lead Will into the path of maturity and responsibility over adversity.

And, as you may have noticed in both branches, I set up Will for a gut-wrenching loss. This was intentional, and the reason why I consider Chapter 40 ("Frankly, an Unexpected Twist" ) a milestone: I wanted to write up this chapter for so long, it served as a drive for all the chapters behind it. It's basically a culmination of a bunch of hard work and addition to the lore, which I intended to make to enrich the story and leave a mark. (And also, to have Blackwell as a rather imposing villain, even if one behind the scenes. I felt Blackwell an interesting villain, because he's basically a mid-boss on an RPG, hardly a challenge, but one that could be quite devious if playing his cards right.)

So, is this the end of this branch? Well...I'm a rather stubborn guy, and I want to see this branch to its logical conclusion, so no. This branch will continue, and I hope it can explore a lot more of the world, and hopefully have an exit valve to the "Wandering Stars" interactive. That's not to say that it's not fraught with difficulties, but I have faith that they'll be solved soon enough (and with the almost-entirety of Seuzz's sanity intact - again, sorry!) and will lead to even greater discoveries. I want Will to become a magician, and by golly, I will! And after that? Well, there's a few places I wanna explore, so all I can say is that, at the moment I finish this, I'll explore a very early offshoot of this branch that has to deal with papers, pencils, small painted miniatures and Platonic solids...
Why yes, I am a Dungeons & Dragons player! More to say, a tabletop RPGamer, and a bit of a Munchkin at that.
That said - what can I say about me? I think I'm the only one in the crew that's Latin American (meaning I'm bilingual, which is the reason why I said that Spanish is my native language). I've been writing for years, but this is the first time I'm posting stuff on the Internet OR writing for someone else; I consider this and the character limitations a challenge, since it forces me to evaluate the action and the content of each chapter closely and carefully, to encompass a good chunk of action in as short a space as possible. I generally like to write a LOT - easily chapters over 30 pages long. This exercise has also helped me with my other works, including the one I'm currently working besides the Book of Masks. Will that story see the light of day? I'm unsure, but I feel tempted to write some short stories based off that universe, which I adore just as much as the BoM-verse. But that'll be for a bit later, hopefully as I develop the lore of my world a bit more. (It's another reason why I like Book of Masks and Wandering Stars so much; I'm a sucker for urban fantasy.)

Before I finish, I wanna give a big heap of thanks to Seuzz, who has been mostly the editor of this rollercoaster, and at times has also done a bit of life coaching. And also, to everyone who has tipped any of the chapters I've written; it means that at least one guy liked them, but that is better than not knowing if someone likes your work or not. That said: I'm open to critique, questions and whatnot; I want to become a better writer, after all, and silence is not the best ally of an aspiring writer.

Anyways, thanks for reading this long and winding rambling of mine. (So, when do I get my mask and mind band via parcel service? That's...part of what being part of the crew's all about, right? )