Dilmir: A Tale of Feylund

[TGRF]

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

Keeping up, although I continue to bounce back and forth between my hedged bets on where the story's going. Right now I think the Dark Elves are clearly not evil at this point, but I still think Eltuthar is gonna turn out to be bad. The council--however antagonistic towards our hero--doesn't have enough named characters to house a main villain right now. If age = power in this universe, Eltuthar's gonna be pretty darned strong if he gets his limiter removed. And then he'll turn out to be an a-hole or something.

Also there's a weird typo in Ch. 19:

Perhaps it's a skim-check to see if the reader's really reading

~TAF

Pretty strange. It was in the Word document too. Fixed now, thanks.



As for the rest of it:



~TGRF.

[TGRF]

Chapter Twenty-Four - Assault on the Mountain is now live! I'll leave you to fill in an appropriate one-liner.



~TGRF.

[TGRF]

Chapter Twenty-Five - Through Flame and Spell is now live!



~TGRF.

[William099]

I don't remember from my first reading what you ended up doing with Eltuthar but I always felt he was pretty sympathetic.

[TGRF]

Chapter Thirty-Seven - Plots in Eld'rin is now live! The tale of Dilmir and Eltuthar comes a close. Following are two short chapters, wrapping things up. Through a Tangle of Roots and the Epilogue conclude Dilmir's adventures.



Be sure to let me know your thoughts on the story as a whole!



~TGRF.

[TGRF]

For a long time, the tale of Dilmir looked a lot different than the version I've presented. Dilmir was a character from LBV, the fan fiction directly following the Quest for Valhalla. There, Dilmir was introduced as just another character who joined Dan on his quest to ultimately defeat Utgar. The introduction for Dilmir, which, following the pattern of LBV, took place on his home world of Feylund, caught my interest though. Hence this fan fiction.

Because of Dilmir's origins, the tale originally included a trip to Valhalla. I did try to write it several times, but eventually had to concede that Valhalla really had nothing to do with the tale. As far as I can tell from my ancient records though, this was the general sequence of events on Valhalla (spoilers for LBV):

Spoiler Alert!

Dilmir would be summoned by Ullar. With little time, he would attempt to fight off Utgar, who was at that very moment besieging Ullar. He failed however, and eventually escaped to the Thaelink Tundra, where Artorus, the last free Valkyrie, was assembling every soldier he could to fight Utgar and Vydar.

In LBV, Dilmir is first shown when Dan meets him. In Dilmir's original tale, there was a lot of training between meeting Artorus, and meeting Dan. First, Dilmir trained with Francois, one of Dan's company. Francois taught him some lessons in combat, but because I myself knew literally nothing about combat when I wrote it, I will spare you the details, since they contribute nothing.

Dilmir then met with Astia, an elven mage who would test his magic. I always wanted to bring Astia back in somewhere, in some fan fiction, but was never able to. Astia was an elf from FAR in Dilmir's future. Many, many centuries. As such, she was far more adept with magic than Dilmir was, and knew secrets he did not. In the chapter "Unseen Suspicions", Ilrin's mother mentions that Dilmir seems to have improved with magic and swordplay overnight, and questions Ilrin about it. Originally, she was right, and Astia's training was the reason why. In the original, Astia's training, and then Dilmir's subsequent full use of his magic to defeat Utgar, unlocked his magic, thus starting the chain of events told in this version of the tale. When I scrapped Valhalla and Astia, I had to invent a different reason why Dilmir could no longer control his power. I chose the attack on Cyprien.

Utgar finally arrives and besieges Artorus' fortress. Dilmir has a brief conversation with an elderly Syvarris atop the walls, but that conversation was quickly scrapped, as it was going nowhere. The rest is fairly identical to how it turned out in LBV. Dilmir battles Utgar, gives it his all, and is eventually summoned back to Feylund.

Upon returning, Dilmir had a major change of attitude towards his magic. Ullar and Artorus had convinced him that he should use it since it was a part of him, and he did so. In this version, he loses control of his magic, and can't stop it. I don't remember why I went with this route, but I think it's for the best. When Dilmir was in full control and just using his magic because he could, he started to get a lot less sympathetic.

The rest of the story followed the same general lines as this version, except for the end. For a long time, from the very beginning, I had a really strange ending in my head. Only when I got close to writing it, did I begin to realize that it didn't make any sense compared to the rest of the story. However, I'll relate it here. Mainly because TAF called it. So if you hate it, blame him. (Spoilers for this tale)

Spoiler Alert!

Things change when Dilmir finds Alfimir after being banished. There was to be a short duel, which Alfimir would easily win. However, Alfimir would have let Dilmir go. Dilmir however, was angry at Alfimir, since he believed he started the whole process by attacking him. Not allowing Alfimir a chance to show his true intentions, he would release his power.

When I first started thinking of Dilmir, there was no Curse. There were no rules to the magic. Dilmir really did have dark magic, Eltuthar really was evil, the elves and the council really were right in thinking that Dilmir would follow Eltuthar's path, turn to darkness, and start the Dark Wars all over again. At this point in the outline, exactly what Dilmir possessed was a bit hazy. I knew it was some dark and evil form of magic though, and in his anger, I had him release it at Alfimir.

The magic (conveniently enough) conjures an actual dark elf. At this point in the outline, Eltuthar was long since dead. In the original version, when everyone says they thought Eltuthar was dead... well he was. This conjured Dark Elf was an image of him, a creation of the Dark General.

The Dark Elf flattens Alfimir easily, greatly wounding him, and he and Dilmir then march on Eld'rin. At this point the outline breaks up. I believe the Dark Elf really wanted exactly what the council said he did: to rule the elves. I guess Dilmir was going with him because he was still mad at Alfimir. It isn't explained in the outline.

The part where Eltuthar removes his hood in the middle of the city actually comes from here: originally, both Dilmir and the Dark Elf were hooded, walked in, removed their hoods, and a general panic ensues. Unknown to either of them, Alfimir had at this point managed to warn the elves through magical means.

The Dark Elf then begins a general rampage of destruction. It is unclear to me why, or exactly what his plan was. Eventually he gets to Ilrin's house, and blows it up before Dilmir can stop him. Ilrin is nearby, calls to Dilmir, the Dark Elf sees her, attacks her, and that finally kicks Dilmir into action. He attacks the Dark Elf, but at that point his power is beyond his control, and the Dark Elf beats him easily.

Then Alfimir arrives, much as he does in this version, and the epic duel ensues. Dilmir gets a spell in on the Dark Elf at a critical moment, allowing Alfimir to finally kill him. In the end, Dilmir acts to get the banishment on Alfimir lifted. The motivations near the end are not explained very well.

So that was the how the original tale of Dilmir went, which I have never before shared. Do you think the changes I made were good ones? Why or why not? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

~TGRF.

P.S. Also, concerning Astia, for a very long time, I had in my head a scene for a fan fiction, or maybe just a contest entry. (spoilers for LBV)

Spoiler Alert!

Astia will have escaped the destruction of Artorus' castle by fleeing North, off of the wall, into the freezing wilderness. She doesn't know that Utgar is defeated, and struggles on, determined not to be caught. At the same, Ragnak, who was also originally from LBV, has escaped the castle, knows Astia is out there, and is persuing her, also not knowing that Utgar is defeated. I was imagining a scene where Ragnak finally catches her, but for unknown reasons, doesn't kill her, and they face the new Valhalla together. It was a cool idea which I still like, but it was missing too much to ever be put into writing fully.

[TheAverageFan]

Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend

The rest of the story followed the same general lines as this version, except for the end. For a long time, from the very beginning, I had a really strange ending in my head. Only when I got close to writing it, did I begin to realize that it didn't make any sense compared to the rest of the story. However, I'll relate it here. Mainly because TAF called it. So if you hate it, blame him.

Hey; don't blame me! I do prefer the changes we got, although it's interesting to think how easily the story could've gone with Alfimir being good and Eltuthar being evil as opposed to vise versa.

Anyhow, another few chapters read and I'm all caught up, although there seems to be 10+ chapters missing between Chapter 26 and Chapter 37. Oh well. Here are my thoughts:

Spoiler Alert!

I think I'd rate this one a 7/10. It started out pretty sluggish and spent a huge amount of time establishing the world for a story that ultimately only feels like the beginning of a much larger narrative. And there was so much training. So much training! But it got consistently better and more interesting as it went. Once Dilmir met Eltuthar I was hooked because I had no idea where the story could possibly be going.

There were a few minor confusions for me. I didn't expect Alfimir to come back because I thought Eltuthar had killed him with that spell he used, and I wasn't sure how he fits in with the fake narrative Dilmir spins to the public at the end since he knows the truth. Maybe it's because Ilrin has dirt on him or something. I also thought Dilmir's parents were dead--is his father not also gifted with magic? It was also strange that we never met the king; I don't know if his name is even mentioned once.

Anyway I really liked the direction it went, even though I was wrong about Eltuthar being a secret asshole. His character was really interesting and unique being so genuinely good. The magic was well done and there were some unique spells that stuck out to me imagining them in my mind. I also thought the ending was clever. It's very difficult making a story interesting when the main character is in-universe canonically the most powerful person and basically undefeatable, but you made it work. I'd read sequels to this, even ones that dip into Valhalla. What happens if our characters meet Sonlen?

~TAF

[William099]

Yay! I love maps

[TheAverageFan]

That is official looking to be sure, just like the maps in my D&D modules. To think of all the hours I've wasted in Photoshop doing the same

~TAF

[TGRF]

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

That is official looking to be sure, just like the maps in my D&D modules. To think of all the hours I've wasted in Photoshop doing the same

~TAF

Wonderdraft is good for sure. Well worth the $30 IMO if you're making maps frequently. He also has a dungeondraft version specifically for making dnd dungeon maps; might be useful for you.

~TGRF.

[TGRF]

@TheAverageFan @William099

So like I said a few posts ago, I've been re-reading the Dilmir sequels. I've been discovering again all the worldbuilding I sank into that world, and reliving the unexplored plots and ideas I never wrote. The trilogy definitely has a good number of flaws. The first book is slow and has lots of training. The second book has more training and lacks direction. The third book is paced better but suffers from undeveloped motivations. But there's a lot of potential there, and I feel like if I were to rewrite the series as a whole, and perhaps bring in a lot of the stuff I never wrote, it could yield some good reading.

The question is if there is interest for such a rewrite. It would follow the same lines as my Utgar rewrite in that it would have the same basic setting and start, but the story would probably be pretty different.

I'm currently at a point interest-wise where I could take or leave Dilmir. If you think you'd read a rewrite series, I could get the development going pretty quickly. If not, then I could just as easily continue where I am.

What's your preference?

~TGRF.

[William099]

I’d certainly read a rewrite