Holy haberdashery, Batman! There’s a whole new world down here!

[chrispenycate]

Originally Posted by Marky Lazer

I think it would be good if you participate that you comment on the assingments of the others as well...

You might well regret that.

Far from the sunlight, deep under the Cold Mountains lives a people

the "lives a people" is inessential, and breaks the geodraphical flow

in the town called Argath – The Lightless City. Ruled by the immortal King Mauglín the Proud and his Queen Shari, Argath is the only place to find shelter from the Evil Wind, who chants Her hymns to drive man and troll to madness in the arctic lands of Pehr. But not the people of Argath for they are the very children of the Wind.

Long ago, when Mauglín and Shari were still children, the Wind spared their lives. In trade for their humanity and allegiance to the Wind, She gave them… immortality.

The Wind dropped them in an immense

comma, I think, unless it's an "immensely deep chasm"

deep chasm in the Cold Mountains. At first, it was darker than a winter night in

"at this depth"?

this depth, but with touch and the draft of a breeze

don't like "draft of a breeze". A current of air, merely a draft or a breeze

they found a tunnel that was leading westward; it was

comma

however

comma

too small to crawl through. The children used their bare hands to carve a path true

through

the stone mass, finding ore, coal, gold, silver and other recourses

I suspect that's "resources" and probably, seeing where they were, "in their path"

on their path. After what seemed minutes to the young children, but in reality was more than years,

what exactly does "more than years" imply? It was years, many of them. If it had been "more than a year" I'd have understood

they found out the labour didn’t tire them, nor did they grow hungry or thirsty. Once they

"had managed", I think

managed to crawl through the enlarged tunnel, they found their way into an immense cave, illuminated by more tiny, sparkling lights than stars set in the sky.

I'd "than there were stars" simply because they've abandoned the sky, but dont consider it important

In the sparse light, they hadn’t been able to see the metamorphose

metamorphosis

of their own little bodies, but now they could. They had turned… into Shadows.
Years and years they worked, carved, restlessly. Every day the underground city drew closer to its completion; a Great Hall, houses, stables and a temple to worship and praise the Wind, and barracks, archeries, alchemists, blacksmiths, leatherworkers, engineers... Until whole a granite city had risen from within the deepest of the Cold Mountains.

had it risen? I get the feeling it had remained in the depths, hidden and defensible. And what are "archeries"? Shooting ranges or bow manufacture?(sorry, but every time I see a list like that I start thinking "no granaries, food stores? Armories but no agriculture? Militarisic culture that lives by raiding." It's just me. Historically, every culture has put most effort into feeding itself, followed by shelter, though if all the inhabitants are shadow like their bosses (we're given no indication where they came from, after all, or how they got in- just that smiths and tanners (from where the raw material?), soldiers and armorers exist.

Millennium after millennium passed until one day, Shari bore a son, and they named him Hargath – Vengeance. Mauglín, now called Mauglín the Proud, took his son in his arms and walked to the balcony of the Great Hall that viewed

overlooked? A hall can't view. And I find the "large" weak. Either go overboard and make it enormous or immense, or don't adjectivise it at all

over the large city square to praise the Wind for this unforeseen gift. To his own shocking surprise it was filled with his kind, cheering at the sight of their Prince; all equipped with the finest armours

I think the armour should be singular

and armed with the strongest of all weapons. The Age of the Shadow was about to be unleashed…

There, that wasn't what you wanted at all. But, being a specialist in the nitty gritty details (and believe me they're gritty down there- though I suppose if the inhabitants don't eat I don't have to design a sewer system) I find that people who just ignore them are less believable than those who know how they work, even if they don't actually tell you so in the story.

[Marky Lazer]

Even though I'm grateful for showing me my horrible spelling, this workshop is more focused on story-telling. And the using of red is so depressing! Don't be a teacher, Chris :P

[Theorycraft]

Here, I'll give this a shot.

I am trying to get into writing, so forgive my clumsiness. My first attempt at making something believable and exciting, but I fear I may be missing that oomph off the start...

Prologue – The Old Planet

The last forests of the old world are terrifying things; alive with a malevolent energy like nothing we created on the new home planets. Leafy gargantuans of impenetrable bark and long heavy limbs are the clumsily interlocked tapestry that prevents the red sunlight from reaching the choking darkness of the forest floor. Very little actually grows down there, where it is dry – mostly arachnids of prodigious size and their smaller insectoid prey: the things that climb and feed amidst the sharp, irregular hills of debris flung down millennia ago from the marvelous world above. Decomposing sludge has percolated into the deepest depressions forming pits and oceans of an unbearable darkness. The largest predators lurk here, omnivorous, generally subsisting off of the fluorescent funghi warmed in these toxic pools of stygian energy, eating anything else that draws too near the only source of heat in these perilous depths.

When we left the last men behind on our world, we left them different from us. Some things have to change, with time, and some things change so rapidly from one year to the next that that which precedes can no longer be borne. When we finally developed the tech to choose our genetic attributes affordably, we did. Many of us chose larger, better brains. It just made sense, the risks were negligible and soon everyone was doing it for fear of being left the only idiot or pauper afloat above the savage continents. What started as competition for wealth and greed and survival swiftly evolved, as for the first time our intellect became capable of subconsciously subverting biological imperative and base emotion. We felt so much. Our refined tears cleansed the murder and the rage from our primitive hearts. From there it was only 5 years to the complete paradigm shift – no need to wait for the next generation, we tested the most brutal advancements on our own flesh even as we pushed ahead further and farther out. By the time we were unrecognizable to our fathers and mothers, they had changed to be like we used to be too, and the great industries of earth had no longer needed raw natural materials from below to build the world above. We had created the means to make better lives of those spots of light out there.

This earth, our primitive boneyard of genocides and atrocities, our vast indifference, was anathema to the new mind that was incapable of forgetfulness. We were tormented by the perfection of our emotions, each day an agony of recriminations at what we had thought were our graces as much as that we had thought were our sins. The stresses of space travel and long intervals of dreamless rest distracted long enough to ensure our survival – the human body was redesigned, and we went out as much to escape our terrible guilt as to make new lives in the vast cold.

We chose smaller frames with thinner skin and smaller organs, so as not to tax the ships systems overly. A slightly larger and denser skull to protect our massive brains. Weak lower limbs and a powerful torso, to best navigate our artificial environments in zero gee. Our advancements were logical and necessary, and every man, woman, or child who wished for the untainted life in space had to undergo these advances, because there would be no place for them otherwise.

But there were those that stayed behind, large factions of dissenters who we called Naturalists. They sought to preserve the illusion of an untainted genetic heritage, rejecting our improvements, and descending into the unknowable below the endless green canopy. When we finally returned in peace, we were rebuffed by enmity and war. Their tribalism had harnessed a power beyond our ken, and for the first time tech was not the answer. We modified our bodies and dropped into those jungles, to learn and to destroy. We did not expect what we found.
**************************

That's it for now. I'll try and get to some critiques once I get out of school and have some more time. Finals are not being nice to me right now and I have a 15 page term paper due in 2 days.

Cheers

[Theorycraft]

Err, is this workshop over now?

[Saeltari]

Not over yet. I just remembered I need to post something here. I am going to go write it and then I will be back to offer an opinion on yours.

[FelineEyes]

I tried an exercise like this for a history class once. Mine turned out to be 40 pages.