Random Questions Thread

That's quite an assumption to make, De Marquis. And if it were an automatically valid assumption, the question wouldn't arise in the first place.

edited 6th May '13 12:37:47 PM by Madrugada

I appear to have misread the question. Jab was asking "what should the villagers do?" and I read it as "what would the villagers do?" That, obviously, are two different questions.

It's still quite an assumption. Not everyone falls victim to Honor Before Reason.

It's an assumption based on strong historical precedent.

[Citation Needed]

edited 6th May '13 6:13:01 PM by KillerClowns

This is turning into a derail, so I'll be brief:

In societies where the rule of law is weak, a strong code of honor is a rational response strategy for safeguarding oneself and one's resources.

A more academic study on the same theory. It focuses on the American South, but the underlying ideas would apply anywhere.

Quote: "...Such cultures are likely to develop where (1) a man’s resources can be thieved in full by other men and (2) the governing body is weak and thus cannot prevent or punish theft.

That would obviously be a part world-building and the social/economic/political culture this takes place in, then.

I took issue with the 'women will flee, men will stay' part of it more than the Honour Before Reason part. Whether women are expected to participate in defending their homes from a threat is dependent on the society they were raised in.

Well, in communities under survival pressure, Men Are the Expendable Gender is to a significant degree enforced by biology. A community can afford to take losses among men much higher than among women. So...yeah, in any community that's not well off the norm, the majority of women will flee, unless the threat is trivial enough to make the danger to those who stay but don't fight low. How many men end up staying is more difficult, and depends on circumstance.

Does anyone have a list of death flags?

What do you mean by "death flags"?

edited 7th May '13 5:25:00 PM by peasant

They're phrases or actions that foreshadow the person saying/doing it dying, despite there being no direct connection.

One of the examples would be something like, "After this war is over, let's all *insert mundane recreation event here* together" from what I remember. Simply saying that will greatly increase the chance of that person dying, despite how their physical abilities or whatever haven't changed.

Is it better or worse to reference the original in a reworking?

Oh. So, stuff like Retirony? In that case, there are probably too many for anyone to come up with an anywhere near comprehensive list off the top of their head. Your best bet, I reckon, is to look up the various Death Tropes and Last Words tropes. Anything in particular that you're looking for?

I don't think there's an answer for that. It would very much depend on how close/related the reworking is to the original and individual preference. Some people, upon seeing the reference, might decry the reworking as being a shallow copy, unoriginal, immersion breaking, etc; while some people, by not seeing a reference to the original work, might accuse the reworking as a plagiarism, trying to pass it off as one's own work, etc.

edited 8th May '13 3:10:19 AM by peasant

It's pretty obviously modelled on The Saga Of The Volsungs.

What you want is a "shout out"- a quote from the original at the beginning of the first chapter should do it.

Does anyone have a list of legendary shields and scabbards anywhere? Preferably with what makes them legendary, or any magical powers they might possess.

Best I could find was this bit of a Wikipedia list. I didn't turn up anything on scabbards aside from Excalibur's.

@demarquis: I've got quotes from a variety of Norse texts at the beginning of every chapter.

After this, I'm working on a sequel; a retelling of "Ragnar Lodbrok And His Sons" focusing on Aslaug, Sigurd's daughter, who's fostered out to her great uncle and then adopted by a peasant couple, who change her name to Kraka. in this version, the foster parents are serfs and Kraka then gets a job as a scullery maid. One day she swims in the river and meets Ragnar, and then she has to help out his cooks with the breadmaking.

ignore post i'm stupid.

edited 9th May '13 7:12:04 AM by HeroShepherd

Sort of a random question, but suppose someone already has several kids, most of whom are adopted. Then he gets his memories stolen, and he meets this girl in the middle of nowhere and he decides to take her home since there aren't any other relatives in the picture for her. Then he gets his memories back and realises that he can't exactly keep the kid due to money and space issues, and because he up and agreed to it without asking his wife or any of the other kids, but he can't just dump her because she's clingy and he did promise her, and she'd probably develop some weird abandonment issues.

I'm not even sure what answer I'm looking for or what outcome I want, come to think of it...

I'm designing a Cast Herd comprised of a Joker-expy Monster Clown who serves as The Jester to a modern-day Evil Overlord, and the members of his personal comedian troupe that serve both as assistants in his bigger performances and as a "family" of sorts to him (e.g. a few female Villainous Harlequins for girlfriends/molls, some adopted Enfants Terribles). Any suggestions for adding variety in terms of roles/specialities that would be of use in the troupe's performances? A ventriloquist with a Perverse Puppet for a Demonic Dummy, for example?

And yes, I might be a bit inspired by more than few members of Batman's Rogues Gallery for some of the characters' concepts/designs.

That's a rather challenging question to tackle — one that I'm unfortunately drawing blanks for an answer.

Contortionist, fortune teller, stage magician, dangerous juggler, sword swallower, knife thrower, beast trainer, illustrated man, bearded lady...?

@Spaz: Actually, if he's become her legal guardian, he probably cant abandon her... and if he has developed an affectionate relationship with her, why would he want to?

He hasn't yet. He has yet to have an opportunity to contact any authorities about her adoption. However, you're right on the point of him not wanting to dump her, either.

I dunno. I considered him taking up a third job to pay for all of it, and then the combined stress of spending extra time away from his family and tension between them and himself and the stress from other things going on outside this particular arc would gradually cause him to self-destruct and collapse in on himself, but I'm not sure if that would really work.