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edited 11th Apr '18 6:31:51 PM by dRoy
- Viper
- Some kind of violent snake.
- Whip-like somehow. Perhaps in how it's sudden and painful?
- Sharp fangs.
- Adder
- Safe-ish. Not as unfamiliar as the others.
- That one joke about how even Adders can multiply on a log table.
- Serpent
- Somehow beautiful.
- Has a mythical quality to it.
- Archaic, there would never be a serpent in my garden.
If I start writing something that is "based on true events" while still having some fantastic elements, does it counts as "fan fiction" or what is the right term we can have.
My example:
- A French baker living in Mexico for a long time starts losing the way to understand Mexicans due to watching Emilia Perez (despite living several years and understanding spanish, the film modifies his mind into think that real Mexicans speak like in the film), meanwhile a Mexican living in France has the same problem after watching the Mexican parody counterpart film... My title: "The Pastry War: Le Reconciliation"
Edited by Travsam on Feb 5th 2025 at 11:09:23 AM
Isn't that just Based on a True Story, specifically Very Loosely Based on a True Story?
This is kind of a "two questions in one" thing since they are so related that it almost seems foolish to ask separately.
Is there a reliable way for werewolves to keep a supply of clothes on them? The nudity from changing back into human form doesn't exactly bother them, but they have enough common sense to know that they need something to wear when among humans.
I'm trying to think of a way that they can transport clothes around while in wolf form aside from carrying them in their mouths, which wouldn't work well. I did consider the Twilight Saga trick of tying them to a limb on their human form and then transforming so it is attached to the limb of the world form, but their transformations are so...messy that this wouldn't go very well.
The second question:
Werewolf transformations in this setting are extremely brutal and produce a certain amount of heat and light. When the change is complete there are a great deal of "leftovers"—-blood, gore, bone fragments etc—from their human form left splattered on the ground. How would one go about hiding these unpleasant remains, as well as disguise the small glow from the change so that humans don't come across it?
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Feb 5th 2025 at 6:56:30 AM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar WalllaceMy first thought to the first one was "Doesn't Spiderman keep spare changes of clothes around NYC?" So that's an option, especially if there's a lot of werewolves around. Alternatively, since they do have hands, they could just stuff it in a bag and carry it around.
For the, uh, spare parts, my first thought was that they could Eat the Evidence. I mean, they're wolves, it's meat, why not? Growing several times larger probably makes you hungry anyways, gotta gets the hood you can get. As for the light... Well, this is pretty silly, but maybe they could hide under a blanket or tarp? Like, it's primitive, but would keep the light in?
Read Otr of the Flame (She/Her)@Swordofknowledge My question is, how sudden are these transformations? If they've got time, they could carry their spare clothes around and just toss the bag aside right before transforming. Sometimes they may not be able to and be left without a spare set, but they may see it as necessary risk.
You may also consider some sort of pack mentality so if a member of the 'pack' of werewolves is left without clothes, others nearby will notice and try to get them something to ear.
The final idea is for werewolves to leave clothes lying around, maybe buried, tucked away in a corner, hanging from trees, etc.
As for the gore, technically as predators they shouldn't care too much about it if you wanna go with the more realistic approach. If you still think they should hide that stuff, you could just have them bury it. Cats and other felines hide their poop not because they're clean, but as a way to hide their tracks so bigger predators won't find them.
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@ Marchen:
The point about spare clothes is a good point. They definitely have enough control over the town where Part 1 takes place that they could have hidden clothes caches hidden all over the place or even in the woods. The control/presence of werewolves certainly varies in other places, but the same principle could apply.
Eat the Evidence was my go-to as well, but I just struggled with due to wondering if made things a little too dark (although considering the content of this story...
). Anyway, that is a good one too. I suppose they may look at it either as just more meat or do it instinctively the way deer and moose will eat their own antler skin in winter. In other words, if I do decide to go with that, I would just have it so that their brains "turn off" the disgust factor of doing something like that.
A blanket or trap might work for the light that might be a good way to cover up the light. It's certainly not blinding light; it's more of a shimmering white glow that emanates from inside their bodies while transforming (think of it as the way glowing hot embers/particles flare up inside burning wood). The only issue is that any tarp or blanket would be torn apart quite quickly as the body grew and changed.
@ Cid:
It actually varies depending on a number of circumstances. "Normal" transformations (i.e. ones that happen at will) take place the instant they mentally commit to it and last for a little over a minute. The involuntary ones last longer and are more unpredictable as to when they happen since the cause varies. Either way they definitely have time for your idea of an emergency bag to discard before changing, at least most of the time
Yes that's something that I can imagine happening and be quite understandable in context of the story. I'm trying to balance out how much time the werewolf characters spend naked to avoid blatant fanservice (or at least the perception that it's what I'm doing) so maybe I'm being too cautious.
I addressed it in my reply to Marchen, but yes, I like this idea a lot. The "clothes cache" thing works especially well for the pack that gets the biggest spotlight in the story since they essentially "run" an entire town unbeknownst to the human populace, but it could apply to any group of werewolves.
I wasn't so much thinking of them being bothered by it (apart from maybe being a little disgusted by it the same way we are by the leavings of our own bodies). It was more about the werewolves wanting to hide it from attention, since any human authorities or just laymen/civilians coming across it would think they found a human body that had been through a woodchipper and open a murder investigation.
But anyway, based on your advice and Marchen's I think either burying it or outright eating it would be the way to go. I'm trying to decide which one makes more sense.
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar Walllace
Why not both? Maybe some werewolves prefer to eat it and others prefer to bury it? That way you can have different personalities for each. Just a thought.
Or, they could follow the lead of the first werewolf you had mentioned previously and unconsciously do what he did the first time he transformed.
Could make thee eat/bury your meat thing a characterization thing. Some do one, some do the other, some might even switch depending on the situation. Could be funny if it's, like, an in universe divide between what "should" be done about the meat, ala coffee vs tea or something. Course, might not fit depending on the tone.
Read Otr of the Flame (She/Her)![]()
@ Cid:
If you're talking about the first werewolf to exist then I have to thank you genuinely came up with an option that I never thought of before and ties into the established "rules" of the story. All of the werewolves do carry mental and physical aspects of the very first one (like their weakness to silver and hatred of vampires) so them just following his "lead" in terms of their human remains would go quite well.
@ Marchen:
I think I've decided to default to them just eating their human "leftovers" but I do also like the idea of debates about it. Debating on what to do with those remains is definitely a conversation my main protagonist and his childhood-friend-turned-girlfriend would have since he would find the practice completely vile while she would fail to see anything wrong with it. It fits the tone of some of their more lighthearted conversations.
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Feb 5th 2025 at 8:23:38 AM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar WalllaceI'm considering changing the name of the 'humans' in my fantasy world because it's so generic. I would also like to use the word 'humanity' to easily refer to all races such as alfar, daearannún, vol'ken, etc. Besides, human does look rather simple next to all others, heh.
Would it too obvious or look too much like I'm stealing from The Elder Scrolls if I use 'Bretons'? What about 'Bretos' or Brotos' to borrow from the greek word for mortal? What do you guys think?
My main concern with "Bretons" would be that it would look, well, British. Like your humans are a fantasy counterpart to the ancient peoples of the British Isles.
"Brotos" could work—although, from a personal perspective, I do find the word unlovely.
That said, my concern there is that it seems to me likely to be an unfamiliar word to most, and so it might not be clear that it refers to, well, humans. But I suppose that sufficient exposition on the traits of "Brotos" could cover that.
As to using the term "humanity" to refer to all of your fantasy races... are they all of the same species...? Are they Human Subspecies?
My Games and Asset PacksGood questions regarding werewolves, dude.
The first part is about transformations, it depends of how the transformations are triggered, because there are different criterias (do they transform at will?, watching the light of the full moon? just because it turns night? just because is a full moon light? ) and the transformations are so different (from the very light way to become a wolf in Twilight to the very hardcore transformation of In the Company of Wolves were literally the wolf came out from the human)...
Probably the man would be very intelligent to hide clothes here and there (at least the transformation prevents to get all the clothes ripped... magical pants?) like Spiderman does in NY (or maybe you have money in the magical pants as Dr. Banner does in the 70s Hulk series), there was even a romantic film of a time traveller that was able let her girlfriend know where he is going to be the next time so she can be there with clothes for him.
Now, the part about the parts that are left in the transformation also depends of how hardcore is it... normally magical transformations don´t care much about it, it just a movement of muscles, organs and human parts to the right place so the worst that would happen is the pain and the nervious shock that the host would have in the first time, but if you thing that real physics would apply you should be careful to not exagerate... or you will kill your wolfman in the name of logic
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Hmm... See, your use of "Breton" kinda primed me to dislike "Bretos" and "Brotos", since they all sound quite similar to "Britons", and I'm not sure those guys should be representative of all of humanity, so to speak. Though I am a fan of using "Humanity" to refer to all the, uhh, "races".
Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth uses "Earthlain/Earthrun" to refer to the "baseline human" race, so that's something. What are those other races you mentioned derived from? Might help engineer a good fit.
Edited by Marchen on Feb 5th 2025 at 8:43:03 PM
Read Otr of the Flame (She/Her)It'd be weird to call all humans "Bretons", since there are actual Breton people, speaking a Breton language, in real life, unless the whole setting is inspired by Celtic mythology.
As for "Brotos", it looks and sounds too much like "brute", and people would just assume you're calling humans brutes.
For my constructed Historical Fantasy world, I keep calling humans "humans" or "men", and the term for any species that has culture, speech and technologynote is "civilization".
Oo oo ah ahFinally got back into writing my novel. The thing I am still not sure about is whether the victim was murdered or if it was an accident.
The killer has Psychic Powers, so I initially imagined him losing control of his powers and the victim happened to be in the way. The other idea is that the victim was an Asshole Victim who experimented on the killer, and the killer wanted revenge.
Either way, the victim's death is meant to be a catalyst for the MC to uncover a conspiracy.
Which Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness Level do songs of the band I Prevail "Choke" and "Gasoline" creep up?
Edited by KonstantinVakhtangov on Feb 6th 2025 at 5:14:57 PM
02/24/2006Thanks for the responses, everyone. Sorry I couldn't reply before; I fell asleep.
@ArsThaumaturgis
Yeah, I'm aware of the connection to Britain. In Spanish it's called Bretaña, so it's even more obvious, lol. That's why I considered brotos ('mortal' in Greek), but it's also a bit ugly. And it kinda reminds me of the protoss.
Technically, my races are different species and there's no half-elves or anything like that, but I wanted to use the term 'humanity' because a huge theme in my novel is how spirits represent emotions and virtues such as joy, affection, justice, purpose, etc. I'd like to use the term 'humanity' to refer to all sapient species both for the etymology of the scientific term ('wise men'), and to represent the virtue of humanity.
@Marchen
Fair enough about 'brotos'. I don't think using 'earthlings' is a good fit since the planet is not called Earth and there is already a race that uses earth (as the element) in its name.
Some of the races are
- Alfar, which comes from the word for Elves from Norse Myth;
- Daearannún, which roughly means 'Earth of the Annwn', being fox-like little creatures with a connection to the underworld;
- Vol'ken, avian-like humanoids whose name roughly means 'People Given Knowledge' (Volk + Kün);
- Amintitli, which are a group of rodent-like humanoids who focus on history and record keeping. Their name comes from the Romanian word 'aminti' (to remember), and a Nahuatl suffix, making it something like 'Those Who Remember'.
@TMH-Sir-Iron-Vomit Hehe, only one city-state is inspired by Celtic cultures, and it's not even the 'main' human nation.
I guess I'll keep brainstorming terms for my 'humans'.
My mind keeps going to the Bible, so these might be a tad unfit. Perhaps Adamites or Adama or something else Adam derived? Actually, just "Adam" was apparently used Finn the original Hebrew to refer to mankind collectively, both men and women. That said, it does mean earth.
For a different biblical bent... Noah? Or Cain. Really, any human the Bible claims we must be descended from four whatever reason (mostly being one of the few surviving humans after some of them die) could serve as a base.
Finally, what about some of the earliest known people? Among the earliest names known is the pharaoh Narmer
, who may or may not have been the same person as Menes
. There's also pharaoh Iry-Hor
, who might be the earliest historical figure we know the name of. And then there's Kushim
, who may be the oldest name of a person in writing.
Oh, uhm, sorry. I've been not responding because it's not exactly my field of expertise, and I do try to not leave my wheelhouse too much.
That being said, I'm not sure trying to, like, factually pin down a hardness of a song is all that helpful? At least from my perspective. Like, the page says
My boringest answer would be to compare, like, the Levels 10 And 11 entries?
Edit: Building on what I said
For example, many tropers place metal ballads in level 6. On the other hand, seeing as how metal ballads typically interconnect softer acoustic/piano passages with harder electric guitar/percussion driven passages (that may otherwise reach into 8 to 9 range), one could just as easily assign them to level 7 or 8, depending on how far one felt certain passages removed the music from a level one felt was enjoyable
So the scale is fundamentally subjective. Though, it might be worth checking out the Harsh Noise genre.
Edited by Marchen on Feb 6th 2025 at 6:27:56 PM
Read Otr of the Flame (She/Her)Sorry @Konstantin Vakhtangov, didn't mean to hog all the attention.
I'm not familiar with the metal genre but, based on what little I know and my own interpretation of the TV Tropes page in question, my answer to can this vocal style alone push a song to level 11? would be, not exactly, not on its own at least.
Vocals are part of the equation, not the only part to be considered. The scale is about the overall impact, therefore, the instrumentation is also crucial. Level 11 requires more than just harshness. A song with only growls and screams, but with a slow, simple, melodic, or bluesy musical backing, would not be an 11.
If I understand the trope correctly, a song with only hoarse, gravelly, false-chord screams, metal screams, and mid-register growls has the potential to be lvl 11, but it also requires the musical parts to match that level of extremity. The instrumentals needs to be equally relentless, dissonant, and intense to be considered lvl 11.
Hello, @Cid. I'm not jackass. I meant, the song's instrumental will also be grave and intense such as Slam/Brutal Death Metal or Mathcore. How could it be otherwise? Have you ever heard pop songs with harsh vocals?)))
Edited by KonstantinVakhtangov on Feb 6th 2025 at 9:32:50 PM
02/24/2006@KonstantinVakhtangov:
I don't think that you were saying anything wrong; as others have suggested, I think that you just happened to ask of a group that doesn't have much knowledge in these matters. I know that I don't.
Even after the explanations given above, I don't feel qualified to really give an answer. A pop song with harsh vocals? I really don't know. ^^;
@Cid:
I'm not sure that I see the connection—are you saying that all of those species have the virtue of wisdom, and that other beings have other virtues...?
And I suppose that this highlights part of the problem with using the word "humanity" in this way: it's not clear to me whether you're referring there to members of the species Homo sapiens (your "Bretons"/"Brotos"), or to all of your various species. There's an ambiguity introduced.
And, well, I'll confess that I just don't like the inaccuracy: those other species, even if they're kin in spirit, are not in fact Homo sapiens, and so not part of "humanity".
(To be clear: that doesn't make them less.
What I'm saying is that it's a bit like using the word "French" to mean "anyone from Europe". People from, say, Germany are no less people than people from France—but they're not French. They're German.)
But of course, replacing the word is tricky. The word "human" can be replaced, for example, with "person"—but I'm not sure that English has a good word to mean "all sentient beings".
(If nothing better occurs, "Mankind" is arguably preferable, as it doesn't quite specify "Human". Of course, it does carry the burden of having become gendered—"man" was originally neuter, not masculine, if I'm not much mistaken.)
I suppose that you could lift from Tolkien and go with something long the lines of "The Free Peoples" (possibly replacing "Free" with some other adjective).
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Feb 6th 2025 at 9:31:19 PM
My Games and Asset Packs

What different associations or connotations spring to your mind from each word?
- Viper
- Adder
- Serpent
~*bleh*~