↓ Transcript
1Anne: So how are you?
1Alex: Fine thank you, in fact if the new recruits weren't simply miserable I'd say I'm actually satisfied...
1Alex: The new youngsters, however, are a real problem, there's only one interesting newbie today.
1Alex: They are so bad, I'm starting to worry a bit about the future of the Dyrian mage guild.
1Anne: They can't be that bad.
1Alex: You'll see for yourself soon.
2Alex: We're here at Urs Academy of Magic.
2Alex: It's been a long time since you were a student here, hasn't it?
2Anne: It sure has.
1Alex: Fine thank you, in fact if the new recruits weren't simply miserable I'd say I'm actually satisfied...
1Alex: The new youngsters, however, are a real problem, there's only one interesting newbie today.
1Alex: They are so bad, I'm starting to worry a bit about the future of the Dyrian mage guild.
1Anne: They can't be that bad.
1Alex: You'll see for yourself soon.
2Alex: We're here at Urs Academy of Magic.
2Alex: It's been a long time since you were a student here, hasn't it?
2Anne: It sure has.
This academy of magic looks very much like a fortress (well, the outside wall is awfully thin and should have on the inside a walkway for defenders. Also, there should be towers flanking the gate.
This is too much a warrior home 🙁
Also, as an engineer I am totally underwhelmed by the train engines :(. A steam train engine was a huge construction, and even the onset of aerodynamics didn’t alter much the beastly look. Steam train engines designed for speed and tractive force had 2 meters tall tractive wheels (up to 16 of them), and huge boilers.
I completely understand this is a world of magic, and I appreciate it. I like the sail ships used for transportation. I am still waiting for a close look at airships – if one was seen at the most northern trading post, I would have expect them to appear more often.
Anyway, I’m only at chapter 10.
I hope there is a lot more to read 🙂
Thanks
Calin
Architecture is generally not a strong point of Tales of Midgard. Urs Academy here, for example, has no real life equivalent. You could say it’s a castle or a fort, but it definitely is not one, as it lacks quite a few very standard defensive features. There’s no gatehouse, there are towers, but not proper defensive ones, there are walls, but no ramparts for the people to stand behind the walls. What’s more, you see no significant geographic defensive features of the location, which is more or less the main basis of building a castle. And we’re not mentioning yummy stuff like drawbridges, machiculations and so on… Then again it was never meant to be a castle or a fortress. It’s just a part of the town that’s separated from the rest of it.
Vehicles are a bit more complicated. As a matter of fact most items that appear go right into the more complicated box. A lot of the most basic item designs are affected by the fact that magic is commonplace and has been so for several centuries. People have access to it and it is plentiful. The most prominent example is probably the magimade structures everywhere, which ironically are more like architecture than objects. Roads are often not built, but magimade from the soil present. Another example that is shown fairly common in the earliest chapters is the Orb, which is a multifunctional item. It can serve as a backpack, or as a phone or even both at the same time.
Now, having such items around is cool and everything but it can easily lead to us not fleshing out everything as much as it should be. You mentioned trains, and yeah those would probably not be realistic. The problem with them is that there are three main kinds of engines: Magicore, Magic driven, and of course, there’s good old regular steam engine. It can easily happen, that a lot of realism was lost in the idea-generating part.
One way or another I’M happy to hear that you enjoy the story so far. Unfortunately, there isn’t that much left, and Tales of Midgard is currently more or less on hiatus.
Oh and before I forget… Airships… Well… They will be shown a lot more, but that first only happens around chapter 32, which is very far from being drawn.