Stray Soul

Hello everyone! I am Observr and I would like to thank you for reading this novel up until, and sticking with me through the first few chapters of the novel which are... bad to say the least.

Though I will not be re-writing them, not because I don’t want to but because I don’t know how to. And I will let this problem rest and fester like an open wound.

But, right now, I want to talk about my initial plans for this volume that I drafted 6-7 months ago, but before I get on that, I’d like to announce a Q/A!

If you have any questions for me about the novel, please feel free to ask them in the comments, and I will be answering every single one of them to the best of my abilities and compiling them for others to read at a later date.

Now, let’s move onto my initial plans for the book that have... gone out the window.

My idea for this book was always about making a new cult ran by William, but the way I wanted to do this has changed due to a few reasons.

Most important of them being (a). The scenario I had in mind initially was riddled with holes, and didn’t really make sense. And (b) I wanted to write a fantasy novel that had at least somewhat realistic characters in it.

I always planned for Heinrich and Caroline to exist, and to some degree Xavier too, but Elise, Lazarus, and Xylene were simply characters that came about from me cutting out a lot of characters that simply weren’t needed.

Heinrich’s initial expedition was supposed to have around 60 people in it, instead of the 6 we have currently, and the main plot was about a band of mercenaries led by Xavier just taking all the valuables off of Heinrich, and leaving him and 30-40 odd people to die in the wilderness, and William would be their somewhat saviour who they couldn’t communicate with, but knew he had their best interest in mind.

Why couldn’t the 40 odd people just take the month-long trip back home, and use Heinrich’s connections to sue the mercenaries that betrayed them into oblivion, and most likely, execution? Like I said, this first version had a lot of plot holes, that’s why I cut it.

And this was also around the time where I wanted to make it so that the beliefs of 10 people would give a divinity a day, and divinity would just stack so William could just sit on it.

But then I came to the realisation that some random Joe Schmoe could very well become a deity because he was just a very likable person in a time of crisis, like a drought or whatever.

So, it was cut, and I made it so divinity couldn’t stack, and you needed 100 people to start getting divinity.

And as William needed 100 people to start getting divinity, we needed to somehow increase the amount of people William could convert into believing him in the first volume, and also do it in a way that wouldn’t make the already bad plot holes worse.

Solution? Goblins.

I always had a plan for when and where William and The Pale Lord would clash, but The Great One and all the gobbos, and the ever so helpful dryad Rifu to some extent, exist because William needed to have 100 people believing him by the end of the novel.

Which... hasn’t actually happened because I am a bad writer, and I didn’t want people to call me out on it by pointing out the fact that no one dying in the fight against Alexander would be nothing sort of a miracle, so I killed 5 people just to not be called out for being a bad writer which... I am admitting to being right now...

I have never claimed to be an intelligent person, and I never will!

And also, Grok, a person whose father is canonically imprisoned and has been surgically disabled from using mana and magic on the orders of William, just wouldn’t become a follower of William in any world, without some serious incentives that is. So, put a -2 to the total follower count and now we have 93 people believing in William rather than 100.

And talking about Grok, Krone, his father and the shaman, had a very real chance of dying in the fight against Alexander. I was really conflicted about letting him live or die as I believe I can make a good story either way.

If he lives, I have the opportunity to make a soft rivalry between Grok and William where they both know Grok doesn’t respect William, but he is useful and ambitious enough that William is just willing to let him go as long as he doesn’t try stabbing anyone other than William.

And yes, this is the way I’ll be going with Grok, but if Krone had died, I was planning on turning Grok into a proper gigachad that was going to start off as a weak person, and a threat that could be totally ignored by will, but turn into a proper threat that could’ve killed William if things had gotten even slightly wrong for Will.

I also planned this cute scene were a demon Krone and still alive Grok share a few moments together—but then I remembered, oh wait, I implied the angelification/demonification process take a generation or two to complete, and I sure as hell ain’t adding a few more volumes to this novel just so I can see Grok become the sigmar male he was always supposed to be. So, I guess Krone lives now?

But with the way the story is going on, my original plan for the Volume 2, where William just goes down south and start infiltrating the kingdoms of the north while searching for a Bishop, and continues to do so even after he finds one can’t happen because William is simply too goddamn weak.

And I also got this cool thingy I want to do that I won’t be talking about right now because... well, spoilers, that I can’t do if Will doesn’t have any divinity!

Solution, add another region to the world you never bothered thinking about before, and actually realise that doing so isn’t that hard after spending half a day scripting out a rough plan for the New Second Volumetm.

So yeah, I’ve got a rough idea and plan for the peoples of the north but, in making them, I’ve had to smash apart a few rules of the world I made before I started writing, that were, while not too important, made the world feel more realistic... in my correct opinion.

And if I had not said this here, no one would’ve known that I had ignored some of my own rules while doing the rough outline for the second volume but... erm... shut.

Anyways, now I should probably talk about Heinrich’s current expedition members, and what roles they are going to play in the future volumes.

Initially, after setting up the goblin village and cutting down the size of the now over bloated expedition, I came up with 7 characters, Heinrich, Caroline, Xavier, Xylene, Lazarus, and Zephyr.

But as you may or may not have realised... and I am honestly concerned for you if you haven’t realised it, but Zephyr is missing from the final cast of characters we have!

Zephyr was supposed to be a gnome-ish spearmen, yes I was planning on making the short person the spear man shut up, that would also be the groups cook, and get close to Caroline, who was going to act a bit like a fangirl towards the Gnome as there are only a few million of them around the globe, and are known for their alchemical prowess.

Though, Zephyr was going to get quite angry at her and all but forgive her over the course of their journey and all, but he just got absorbed into Lazarus as I quickly realised, I didn’t need a 7th character in the expedition, and everyone other than him and Lazarus were kind of important to the plot, so they just got united into a single character.

But Zephyr is not the only cut out character in the first volume, as I had another character that I wanted to add because... cool, but couldn’t due to... stupid idea.

Aeren, the higher spirit was going to be my way of explaining a few of the inconsistencies in the story that... you are hopefully not aware of.

He was going to do a bit of gaslighting, talk about the reason why Gram, a pretty normal goblin warrior, had access to a few drops of true dragon blood and all.

Well, he wasn’t going to directly reference Gram, as they’ve never met, but you would’ve understood how and why he had access to true dragon blood from listening to the things Aeren said.

And where was he going to come into existence? The core of the perfect golem aka the floor boss.

I had this really stupid idea for the last fight where William would be given the chance to become a mana being, but ultimately reject it and all.

And no, if you are wondering I don’t have any intentions of turning William into a mana being. I kinda told a dude a dozen chapters ago in the comments that I’d give William the option to become a mana being, but ultimately make him reject it but... yeah, the unfired Chekov’s Gun I talked about kinda became an unfired Chekov’s Finger Gun.

Yeah, Aeren didn’t came to be because it was a stupid idea and there was no way the golem was strong enough that it could’ve easily threatened the life of Xavier, Elise, and William.

And also, because I wanted the perfect golem to be... well, the perfect golem. A golem made from months upon months of work of people, and not something that existed because they managed to capture a dumb higher spirit or whatever.

But... yeah, I think I’ve talked about everything I wanted to talk about in this semi-announcement thingy.

Though, as I sit here I am coming to the realisation that, if I didn’t try and make things somewhat realistic, I could’ve definitely gone with my initial plans.

...WAIT, there is something else I forgot to tell. Rifu-san and her entire nation was initially supposed to be based off of Chinese people instead of japanese, but there is also a faction of evil dryads that I may or may not have revealed in the talk between David and Alexander, and I was planning on making the evil dryad faction based on japanese people and culture but I, for some reason, though that making the evil people would be worse than making them Chinese, so I swapped them and now we have japanese inspired “good” dryads, and Chinese inspired “evil” dryads.

No need to thank me people! Just doing my part!