A story in the world of Overgrowth (Second chapter is up!)

[Ollieh]

Edit: Part II has now been added. It seems that a good number of people have visited the forum, but left no comments. I’d really like to hear something if you have read the story so far and it would encourage me to work towards fixing the stories and possibly writing more.
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[Johannes]

First and foremost, really guys, constructive criticism please. If you like it or even if you don't, give some well thought out reasons, and possible ways to improve it.


On to my actual comment:

Man, this is quite epic.
I'm a sucker for good stories and I really like how you've taken what little we know about how members of the different races tend act so far and superimposed that on actual unique characters.

I didn't see any blaring issues when I read through this the first time, except maybe a few places where your wording is off or awkward, but all relatively minor fixes. for example you often say that a character did something in 'a -blank- manner' rather than saying that it sometimes is best to just say they did it -blank-ly. for example "he called in a louder manner" just sounds a little less awkward when you write "he called louder" or more descriptively like "he called more urgently". I'm no English professor so sure, my suggestion might not be 100% grammatically correct, but I just think it sounds a bit clearer. (I'm sorry, when I did this I was tired so my quotes might not be exactly like what you wrote. I'll fix it the next time I log on)

The transitions between sections are generally smooth enough to not feel lost, but sometimes a little bit of clarification for the reader might be nice. for example when turner realizes that he's in a dog Cemetery you just say that he now realized where he was. It would be better form to say 'he then realized where this was: a dog Cemetery". I know most of us would have figured it out because we've seen Aubrey's work on them, but generally it's good to assume that your audience is stupid and doesn't know much. also it adds a bit of a sense of realization, kind of what turner is experiencing if you actually have him saying it. Similarly after you start the paragraph "then the howls started". You say "Turner estimated the amount of howls to be made by around a dozen dogs"
I think a better way of saying that would be to start the sentence concerning the howls as the subject, it would give, I think, a better flow to the story: "They were the howls of dogs, and turner estimated that there must be at least a dozen callers."


just adding the line "Turner immediately realized that they were the howls of dogs and..." and then you continue into the current sentence about how many they might be. Again, just a bit of clarification that might not be necessary, but I feel would be better form, and would have it feel a bit cleaner.

Though I can see this as possibly being used in the game, I like that It can definitely just be a story that stands on its own feet. If someone were to decide to make this an actual campaign I can see several ways that user-controlled fights could be implemented, but I also like that much of it would just be plain cut scenes. The cat fight would be pretty bad-ass. Whether or not this will actually be used in the game is relatively irrelevant when reading this. it'd be cool, but we don't need to get our panties up in a knot about 'omg this should or shouldn't get in the game'

All in all, I like what I see here, and regardless of if it might ever make it into the game or not, I can't wait to read more

[tokage]

As construcive criticism is called for, I will try to do my share. First let me say, that this is a good story and although the plot is not the most original it fits nicely into what we know about the Overgrowth world. Personally I wouldn't want it to become a campaign, because I would think the defeat of the player character stands in contrast to later situations in the game and wouldn't make sense. But standing alone as a fanfic short story it is really good.
So the basic story is good, what needs work in my oppinion are little details and narrative flow.
jo-shadow already mentioned some points. What struck me as odd, was your repetition of the references to the characters. When referring to Turner you used "Turner" too often instead of using other words. Same with the other rabbits in the first fight. There were times were you could have used "one" instead of using the word rabbit again or using more indirect references like him, the other one and such.
Basic example:

The muscular rabbit swung his broadsword and it narrowly missed Turner’s ear as he crouched and swung his leg to sweep the feet of the muscular rabbit, while he was trying to recover from the sword strike. Turner’s leg hit something sharp and he could feel a blade penetrate his right foot. The muscular rabbit had a small blade hidden outside his leg, covered by a piece of cloth.

Here is an example where you used "muscular rabbit" three times in three sentences. I think the flow of the narration would be better, if you replaced the second one by something like "his opponent" and remodel the last sentence, for example use a passive phrase that captures Turner's thought at the moment like "There must have been a small blade hidden outside his leg, covered by a piece of cloth."

The muscular rabbit swung his broadsword and it narrowly missed Turner’s ear as he crouched and swung his leg to sweep the feet of his opponent, while he was trying to recover from the sword strike. Turner’s leg hit something sharp and he could feel a blade penetrate his right foot. There must have been a small blade hidden outside his leg, covered by a piece of cloth.

I think there are some places like this were you could rework your use of names and references in the same way to make the story better and more immersive.
Also there are some places where your descriptions feel rushed, the one feeling akward to me the most being the one during the end with the death of the cat.

Five dogs faced him and showed their teeth, growling at their hated opponent. The cat hissed loudly and tried to strike again, his attacks landed on the swords of the dogs and soon he was surrounded. “You will all perish”, the cat shouted and spat on the dogs. Then he was cut down with a long weapon, which Turner had heard to be called a ‘rabbit catcher.’

It works here, but only because everyone knows the 'rabbit catcher' from the blog posts. It still feels strange to me because it comes out of nowhere. There were only mentioned dog swords up untill now. Maybe it is just me but I think you could have given this scene a few sentences more. Maybe describing like the cat being surrounded and held under control because of the dogs having this staff weapon and elaborating more on the design. It just feels a bit rushed to me.

So basically, good story, but needs polishing to ease out rough spots. Keep working on it a little and it will get even better.

[Ollieh]

I appreciate the feedback so far and I'm happy that some have liked the story. The suggestions have been very enlightening and helpful. I'll start fixing the story now.

EDIT 1: The initial fixes have been made. I've now moved into writing another part.
EDIT 2: Part two has been added!