The Famous Five, Heroes and Villains of the Age of Martin Septim Options

[Ceidwad]

Welcome to my fanfic. I've been planning on posting this up for some time now. Now that I have the first 10,000 words or so down seperately, I feel ready to post some stuff up here. I hope you will all enjoy reading it as it develops. I haven't a clue how much I will write eventually, if I manage to finish it. But it will likely be very, very long. Indeed, there's an excellent chance that I'll finish writing a Skyrim fan fiction before (if) I finish this!

The Famous Five is an unusual fan fiction. It takes the form of a historical commentary/synthesised text written some 90 years after the events of Oblivion, and relies rather heavily on my own creative license to fill in some historical gaps in between 4E2, when the stories end, and 4E85 when the book is written (I should add, I have not read any Elder-Scrolls related lore works, such as the Infernal City).

This work weaves together the stories of five different characters that I roleplayed in Oblivion, and I hope to include some of my minor characters in it too. Subject to approval, it may also be nice to include some other chorrol.com members' fanfic characters in it too. It would be entertaining to see the outcome of a meeting between Luther Martinus (who you will get to know) and, say, Buffy or Teresa, for certain!

At present, I regrettably do not have screenshots; however, I hope to add some in future if and when I can get Oblivion for PC.

This is my first attempt at writing a fan fiction. I have thought about it for a while, though. I welcome critique of my writing as well as positive comments. I have not planned most of the fanfic, but have a general plan of how it will pan out. It will include actual in-game events, relationships and quests which inspired my roleplaying, and be supplemented with whatever ideas take my fancy at the time of writing.

Below is the prologue and the first entry. I plan to update every few days to a week, depending on how much I can write. This will vary. At times, I may not update for a while. I do, however, hope to persevere with this and update pretty regularly.

Happy reading!

This post has been edited by Ceidwad: Mar 26 2011, 05:00 AM

[Destri Melarg]

I agree. This is an interesting premise on which to base a fan-fic. I think you have made an excellent start and I will be watching to see how this one progresses.

A few suggestions:

The Prologue of your story is the single paragraph in which you introduce Hjallfred Skrollsen. The second paragraph, which begins the body of the book penned by Harald Steel-Quill (great name, BTW) should carry the title Introduction to give the book a more scholarly feel.

In that opening paragraph (the Prologue) you state that Hjallfred is ‘Sitting in the dining hall of the Bruma Mages Guild, destroyed and rebuilt about this time,’. Since the time of his reading is the end of 4E 85, we are led to believe from that sentence that the Bruma Mages Guild was ‘destroyed and rebuilt’ in 4E 85. If this is your intent then no worries, but if you are referring to the destruction of the Bruma Guild during the time of the Oblivion Crisis then you need to be a bit more specific with the time frame:

Of these, the memoirs of Luther Martinus, the one-time Champion of Cyrodiil, are by far the most popular, and have been reproduced numerous times sympathetically by historians since 4E64, when Ida Ottus published a glowing tribute in memory of his life, adding her own thoughts to Martinus’ in a large volume.

This sentence could use some work. First thing you should do is break it down into multiple sentences. As a rule I don’t like to re-write other people’s work, but if you would indulge me for a moment:

Of these, the Memoirs of Luther Martinus, the one time Champion of Cyrodiil, are by far the most popular.
- Here we keep your opening exactly as you wrote it. However, we use italics to turn Memoirs into an actual book, underscoring its popularity.

It has been reproduced numerous times by historians, who have always treated the subject with the sympathy that attends hero worship.
- ‘sypathetically by historians since 4E64, when Ida . . .’ reads as if the book did not exist before 4E64. Ida Ottus’ glowing tribute may be considered the definitive work of scholarship on Luther Martinus, but she only added her thoughts to an existing memoir. You can also use this sentence to tie into the subsequent paragraph in which Harald takes to task those who think he is being negative toward the great man.

In the final sentence you should conclude with what exactly made Ida Ottus’ book different from the others that had come before. Did she humanize Martinus? Or was her ‘glowing tribute’ somehow considered heresy for its time?

An interesting dilemma is raised in the next paragraph. Martinus seems to blame the Mages Guild for failing to support his recruitment efforts on behalf of the Imperial Legion as well as his desire to convert everyone to worship of the Nine Divines. On the one hand it immediately raises the question of why the Mages Guild should care about who does and does not join the Legion. On the other hand, I can see that if the Mages Guild hoped to provide order in Cyrodiil after the collapse of the Septim Dynasty then they would have a vested interest in these things. I will trust that the reasons for Martinus’ animosity toward the Guild will be outlined in future chapters.

I like the way that you have maintained the professional, scholarly tone throughout the introduction. And Gwenyan’s first journal entry is interesting. I did sort of wince when you decided to make Berrick illiterate, but that is my own pet peeve and has nothing whatsoever to do with your work. Keep it up!

This post has been edited by Destri Melarg: Mar 26 2011, 08:05 PM