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OPR Writing Jam - Our Wisdom's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Flow & Clarity | #2 | 4.058 | 4.278 |
| Concept & Originality | #11 | 4.058 | 4.278 |
| Overall | #16 | 3.689 | 3.889 |
| Adherence to the Theme | #28 | 2.951 | 3.111 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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As an avid Dwarf, Orc, and Saurian enjoyer, and a constant for playing the Chivalrous Kingdoms. I have never learned to love the Beastmen more than in this writing Jam. The two stories I’ve read on them thus far have been absolutely phenomenal.
This one reminded me a bit of WolfWalkers, at least with the setup, and I loved how much care you put into crafting Yak-dul.
I also loved the minute detail of the story referring to Yak-dul as an “it” when it’s from the Gaoler’s perspective, and refers as “her” when it’s from a more omniscient perspective.
The only thing that I’m not sure on is how it follows the theme,
If it does, perhaps it’s just a bit murky.
In any case, a story that’ll stick with me much longer than this event will…
thank you so much!!! The intent towards the theme is that the Angelic Kingdoms are in a position of indomitable strength on their home terf - namely, a big big wall. The Barrister and his gaolers don't regard Yak-Dul as a threat - she's bound in iron chains too strong for her to break. Her victory lies in stalling them until her warherd can dig under the wall and collapse it, something they're able to do because of their understanding of stealth - there's the intelligence. Regardless, I'm so glad you enjoyed my work!
Now I feel guilty for self-isolating in my walls of stone far from morning dew and sunrises. Good spin on the Beastfolk.
This was great! I do wish her execution had actually happened before the attack--with this order, it feels like she committed suicide just before she would have been rescued.
oh, she wasn't jumping off - remember, she picked up the barrister before stepping towards the ledge :)
Plummet padding. lol
Great story! really liked the descriptions and some amazing lines of dialogue
Good stuff! The dialogue was nice and you have some fantastic descriptions there. The interpretation was interesting but I think it could have done with perhaps a tiny bit more time - only a little bit more. I think that you can trust your audience to fill in some of the blanks, if you give them a compelling enough sketch they will fill in the rest. The bodies scattered on rooftops, the sunset seeping through windows were brilliant at setting the mood.
I would have liked to give it a little more depth, but I ran up exactly to the word limit (had to prune from over 1300 words to get down to exactly 1000). Was there any specific part you feel should have been expanded? Would love to hear your thoughts!
This is just me, but I felt like I knew I had a good image of the beastman, but you had about 600 words of description and scene setting before that dialogue beins and the plot began to move apace. I think potentially you could have pulled back a bit on some of the description and blended it in with the dialogue. That conversation paints a pretty vivid image of the characters as well. I think I would have liked to see more of the characters shown through them interacting with each other, your world shown through that interplay - something sitting just beneath that let your audience read into the world.
Its never said in the story but to me the Barrister reads as a 'holier than thou' person who is looking down on his captor, unlike Yak’Dul who might be but isn't showing it as the scene opens - two opposing philosophies with room for interpretation. I always like it when an author gives me space to fill in the blanks, and here is a great example of it. Just my two cents but hope it helps.
nicely done with probably the most thought given to to beastmen that I have read to not just go the total savage route and could easily be expanded upon for the future, though not sure why the prisoner wouldn’t be more restrained given what they knew of their prisoner even in an arrogant society (as you pointed out in the story about protocols being maintained despite personal feelings)?
the lore friendly answer as to why she's not more restrained is that she still needs to be able to march up the stairs to her execution; the real one is I hit exactly 1000 words and had zero more room for descriptions. I'm glad you liked my take on Beastmen - something ive learned studying world history is that if you look at a culture and it seems unsophisticated, there's probably something you're missing (the American great plains are entirely terraformed to optimize bison harvesting, and fully 1/3 of the Amazon Rainforest grows on artificial, self replicating soil)
Was a good read, the dialogue was great. The theme of this is more "civil vs savage" instead of "strength vs intelligence," but well done never the less. I hope you participate in the next jam.
thank you, I'm planning on it! My intent with the theme was to position the angelic empire as strength (the power of indomitable stone walls, the absolute control held by jailers) and the beastmen as intelligence (knowing how to sneak up on the wall and dig under the damn thing!), but I figured it might be a stretch haha. I'm excited for the next one and might wind up doing a bit more writing about my beastmen army in the meanwhile :)
This one was great fun, and you had some fantastic turns of phrase.!
“I have never seen a wall mightier than a spade." is such a metal line
thank you! I'm glad you liked it, the word count was my enemy on this one
There's nothing I love like hubris born of safety!
The description of the bodies on the rooftops was by far my favorite part