This is the third of three LitRPG stories I mentioned I'd do to see how I'd fare in the genre, and it's the only one that actually fits into current popular tropes and conventions. The other two are the cool, alternative kids who don't follow your rules, man, while this one's the good and obedient child of the litter. And despite that, I still just can't quite shake off the desire to throw in something slightly different. So it's the obedient child who frequents 4chan, I guess. It was Horizon: Zero Dawn that gave me this idea, as well as the fact that most LitRPG is of the science-fantasy variety but always keeps the two separated by a virtual border like Trump is the guy who designed the full-immersion gear. What if you had a High Fantasy setting, but trappings of post-industrial society leaked into this world? Most notably, robots. Except while some NPCs in the world can recognize that they're in a video game, they are completely ignorant to these mechanical creatures. In other words, robots are another fantasy race in the game, with a decent explanation for why they're there but their underlying technology hasn't been used to transform a pre-industrial pseudo-medieval society into a post-industrial one. It's actually the most obvious answer possible. Even with that, it's definitely a safer choice than either of the other two, considering the current trends. And I figured that the easiest way to get myself hyped for it is to toss around heavy metal references. Words: 0
Title reminds me of pinball. That could be showing my age, though. Heh. Maybe make it an 80's litrpg? Complete with Metallica and Atari references? They get sucked into a VRMMORPG from the future somehow?
That's actually the intention. A triple-entendre reference to the Who and the doom-metal band Electric Wizard as well as the whole deal with lightning magick. My intention here is I go full Blood Dragon and it turns out the '80s never ended (metaphorically). So there's the Atari 6760X VR system. At the same time, since I'm using Electric Wizard's name, they're not gonna be pleased with me if I don't throw them and their whole shtick a bone. So the tagline has to be "High Fantasy indeed."
Haha, Metallica is a part of Seventh Talon, one of the dragons sings various songs while he fights which is how my MC connects with him, through the music. Both are metal heads.
I hope you know that this means I've essentially just subscribed to you. Probably literally in a little while.
Haha, awesome. I'll be sure to let you know when I publish, just keep an eye on my sig, I usually keep that updated. I'm in the edit stage currently and I hope in the next few weeks I can get it into the hands of some alpha/beta readers to help find things I missed. And/or point out things that don't make sense.
Oh and the book literally ends on a Metallica lyric from the song 'Am I Evil?' I would paste it, but it contains spoiler content.
^ To be perfectly fair, that's actually a Diamond Head lyric filtered through Metallica, but I'm not judging.
If fits the story ending too well haha. There is a few songs / lyrics I use throughout. Would it be fair to say that Twisted Sister sucks? The MC makes fun of the dragon when she overhears him humming a Twisted Sister song. How do you feel about that assessment?
Oh, I have a Pantera song in there too, Mouth for War. The dragon starts singing as he leads a one dragon crusade against and army of his enemies. He dances through them like a war machine, tearing them apart as he goes, a thing of beauty and art. The MC watches on in awe as he engages his warlike nature and everything on him becomes a weapon, four legs for rending, a tail for bashing, wings for knocking around enemies and his breath attack blinding all those in its path. Brings a tear to me eye.
Twisted Sister isn't explicitly bad; just the ones alongside Def Leppard who opened the door to the glut of hair metal. Yes, that's pretty good.
I had some hidden Metallica lyrics... gotta be careful, though, because they and others like to sue, sue, sue!
Damn. I thought if quoted it then it'd be fine. I forgot how much the music industry is full of sue happy d-bags. But that's ok, I can still have them talk about the songs, just not use the lyrics. By all accounts getting permissions is a pain in the ass, so I'm not going down that rabbit hole, if I need to I can change up the lyrics so they sort of resemble a Metallica song haha, but aren't their actual lyrics. I'll just put a disclaimer that the lyrics in this book seem like common heavy metal songs, but are completely made up. haha.
So I've been thinking more about this story in recent days and came to the conclusion that I should drop the pseudo-medieval setting and go for pseudo-primeval instead. For those OOTL: Primeval: Old era. Before civilization/Rome. Of course, ever since we Westerners discovered that Rome wasn't actually the start of civilization itself, we've pushed "primeval" back further and further until you can basically just call this "paleo/neolithic fiction." You can still have all the Tolkienesque races, but you'll never see a shire or a castle. This is the Hyborian age, which succeeded Atlantis and preceded the Sumerians. More often than not, you'll see fantasy authors throw in dinosaurs alongside sabre-tooths and mammoths because dinosaurs are cool. Medieval: Middle era. After Rome but before the Renaissance. It can all be summed up with this picture: And of course, you get around either on foot, on horseback, on a ship, or on dragonback. Novaeval: New era. After the Renaissance. The term isn't much used because we live in novaeval times and instead call it the "contemporary" or "modern" era. No one during 10,000 BC or AD 1200 said they were living in the medieval period. Pseudo-primeval, thus, allows me to also mix city creation in with some level of difficulty. With no trade whatsoever but with robots everywhere somehow. And the main character can also be a Neanderthal.
With savage-looking, thick bear-like beards that neatly contrast again their hairless, shaven six-packs and chests. Which should come in quite handy for that harem stuff I keep hearing about!!
I could turn this one into a harem too, just to annoy people. It'd at least fit the setting. But I'm not planning on doing anything with this concept until after Wukong X is done. Going with the harem concept, what if there was a system where breeding with certain species created new hybrid races? Like if the MC is a Neanderthal and he breeds with an elf, that leads to an Elf-Neanderthal hybrid with certain stats that an Elf-Sapiens hybrid wouldn't? And once a large enough population of such a race has been created, the race opens up to outside players.
There would also be at least 3 other forms of humans running around, Denisovians, Flores 'hobbits' and Red Deer Cave people.
I've played so few video games in recent years that I've had to rely on YouTube longplays just to keep up with it all. Which is odd because I used to literally dedicate every waking breath to gaming. Edit: As for BrĂ¼tal Legend, I've made it my mission to never play that game because I feel I'd just wind up losing myself in it.