ThisAdamGuy
Proud inventor of the chocolate onion
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2024
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This isn't the first time I've tried to write a pirate story. Over the past couple years, I've started and given up on probably half a dozen different versions of this one idea. Each one had things I liked, but something about it always kept me from getting more than a few chapters in. I think I've finally come up with the winning formula (which to be fair, is what I said every other time I tried writing it) but there's one thing I can't make my mind up about.
One of the things I liked about the previous version was that after being isekaid to the pirate world, the MC was turned into a sea monster and spent the rest of the story acting as the rest of his crew's living ship. I decided not to go with that, but I still kinda like the idea, so I'm considering bringing it back in a slightly different way. This time, he gets brought over to the pirate world because he put on a piece of cursed jewelry or something that came from that world, and the curse forces him to transform into a gigantic sea kaiju. Once he learns to control his transformations, this will come in really handy since he's going to become a professional kraken hunter.
The problem is, he's also going to be a spellcaster. The magic system in this book is based on speaking the True Names of things to gain control over them, and the MC is going to have a book that records all of the True Names he learns. But you can't just read and memorize True Names, you have to understand the things you're naming on an almost spiritual level. So throughout the story he's going to be discovering True Names that are somehow related to the adventures he's going on. Like, in one adventure he has to convince himself to never stop moving forward, and through that he learns the True Name for forwards, giving him the power to propel things forward.
What I'm worried about is, will that make him too powerful? Like, once he has a few Names under his control and becomes proficient at using magic, would it leave the story feeling like there's nothing at stake since you know that if things get too hairy he can just morph into freaking Sharkzilla at any given moment? Should I throw out the kaiju thing and focus entirely on making him learn Names?
One of the things I liked about the previous version was that after being isekaid to the pirate world, the MC was turned into a sea monster and spent the rest of the story acting as the rest of his crew's living ship. I decided not to go with that, but I still kinda like the idea, so I'm considering bringing it back in a slightly different way. This time, he gets brought over to the pirate world because he put on a piece of cursed jewelry or something that came from that world, and the curse forces him to transform into a gigantic sea kaiju. Once he learns to control his transformations, this will come in really handy since he's going to become a professional kraken hunter.
The problem is, he's also going to be a spellcaster. The magic system in this book is based on speaking the True Names of things to gain control over them, and the MC is going to have a book that records all of the True Names he learns. But you can't just read and memorize True Names, you have to understand the things you're naming on an almost spiritual level. So throughout the story he's going to be discovering True Names that are somehow related to the adventures he's going on. Like, in one adventure he has to convince himself to never stop moving forward, and through that he learns the True Name for forwards, giving him the power to propel things forward.
What I'm worried about is, will that make him too powerful? Like, once he has a few Names under his control and becomes proficient at using magic, would it leave the story feeling like there's nothing at stake since you know that if things get too hairy he can just morph into freaking Sharkzilla at any given moment? Should I throw out the kaiju thing and focus entirely on making him learn Names?
