Saga Scribe is in the House!

How many times can I mess up his name?

Author

John B
December 25, 2024

This week on system analysis now with a red and white theme, Santa Scrub is coming to town.

Saga Scrub is the man behind the Saga Scribe Newsletter which you can find here:

He interviews some of the same people I have and basically does everything I do but with a moustache. (Hah, you thought I was going to say better? Nah!)

He is currently writing his first big fiction on Royal Road, check it out here:

(1) How'd you come up with this system?

The “System” is pretty loose in my story, and it’s going to be expanded upon. But I really liked the idea of the System just existing, and there are extremely powerful beings that are just recognized as “Gods,” within it.  In a world where powers exist, and people have the ability to get stronger, eventually some would get so strong that there would be no one to fight them. Or very few people.

Overall, I like soft magic systems as opposed to hard magic systems. I wanted a blend of both, and that’s why a lot of characters have Skills with charges, the MC’s cultivation style is numbered, and there are still levels to unlock. This is definitely loose LitRPG, and I have plans for a more bread and butter one, but for this story I think it lends to keep things a bit loosey goosey.

I think a better answer would be to talk about the whole “Debt” system I have going on in Abyssal Curse. I really like Western style Isekai novels, but there very rarely is a cost to being isekaid. With literally half of my friends drowning in student debt, car payments, or putting couches on four easy payments, I thought it would be interesting to have a character that is tied to debt. It chases him, it affects his powers, it changes his character in ways I hope I get across without literally spelling it out in “Look, drowning in anxiety made him act like a murderhobo,”. Because it does feel like that in the real world at least.

I just took “debt” and wrapped it around the evil dark lord in my world. Of course the evil one would give the MC the debt. Or maybe there is something a bit more going on that we haven’t explored.

(2) Was it based off a game you played and loved or a book? Tell us about your inspiration, girl!

I wouldn’t say based off of a book or game, but I can definitely tell you where my inspiration comes from!

Phil Tucker has always been a massive inspiration for me. I love all of his books, and love the weird takes he does on pretty traditional stories. Phil if you ever read this, Dawn of the Void was awesome!

Simon R Green is a bit of an old school writer, even though he still publishes, but his Deathstalker series is my personal favorite series of all time. Fantastic Space Opera satire that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and we get basically everything within the Sci-Fantasy. Seriously worth a read.

Obviously I love Souls games. Bloodborne is the best video game I’ve ever played. I knew I wanted to do something with souls in the world. As a resource, and as a power source for my MC.

(3) Is the math a constant obstacle for you?

Not with mine, thankfully. I have a pretty soft system without Stats, but there is a reason there are no stats. It just wouldn’t make sense with the cultivation aspect of the story. I always preferred cool skills for cool skills sake, not “I need to kill 100 of these monsters to be able to level my character,”.

(4) What are the main skills and why did you choose those?

Oh Skills!

Agony’s Embrace: I really wanted the idea of cultivation. But since my MC only has affliction skills (because that’s metal as hell and this is a world being constantly invaded by hell), the main skill our character has allows pain and suffering to be transferred to strength. So the more pain he takes, the stronger he becomes. Agony’s embrace also allows Mitch to take flesh and souls from his Abyssal Vault and “burn” them to heal his minions, himself, and his followers. Souls and Flesh as resources are fun, aren’t they? Editors note: Yes they are.

Abyssal Vault: The main skill of our character and what kicked off his quest to kill hell. He is reborn with this skill. It allows Mitch to store Flesh, Souls, and Credits. Those can then be used amongst his various Skills, or transferred, albeit extremely brutally, to a Collector that can help pay off his debt. The Collectors constantly search and trap and attack Mitch to get those tasty payments, as the Abyss always demands it’s interest. This is a necessary Skill for our character development, plot, and most importantly, the setting of the entire story. Nice and wrapped up in a tidy bow.

Abyssal Bind: The final, and extremely important Skill. Due to Mitch’s unknown nature, he is able to have both followers and minions. This allows them to sense his emotions and directives, and also allows him to use his healing and influence over them. I really wanted to have power play dynamics, as well as Kingdom building. This skill achieves both of those things.

(5) Did you make the system first or work through the plot first?

I made my plot first. Well, the premise and the ending. To be totally honest, I am a pantser and had an idea for a man who’s powers come from his debt and his unknown history. Since then, we’ve been pantsing our way through the skills, the characters, the developments, everything.

I have major things I want to hit, like the Kingdom building, certain themes I want to touch on, but for this story anyways, kind of feels like I’m just on a journey! It keeps it fun for me, though looking back, I think I should have plotted things out a bit better. It’s still extremely fun to write, but I think with more diligent planning, I could have done a lot better. Lessons for next time.

(6) Is there anything you wish you had done differently?

Absolutely! I’ve already published about 30ish chapters at the time this will go out. Here’s some things I would wish I did differently:

  • Have a much bigger backlog. I released while having about 80K words written. I thought that was so much. It’s not. You burn through 20K day one if you’re doing things right, and then the clock is ticking. I wish I had closer to 120K (what I have now).

  • Have a better title. At first my title was Abyssal Curse [Debt LitRPG]. Too spooky. I think my current title of Abyssal Curse [Soul LitRPG] is stronger.

  • Shove Mitch into the Abyss right away. I get there pretty quickly (10 chapters), but there was a missed opportunity to have the bar he wakes up in to be in the Abyss itself. At the very least, connected to it. Maybe I'll fix that at chapter 50 ;)!? Who knows?

  • Define my MC a bit more from the start. I found it hard to not put my voice in his internal thoughts. Mitch is not a happy go lucky yapper. Thankfully I fixed his internal thoughts before release.

(7) What's a "level up" in your system?

Level Ups are similar to my system in general. They’re pretty loose. What I tried to do is have it level up when Mitch learns to use his Skills in a new way, or pushes them in a direction. As it’s a soft magic system, there isn’t XP or anything like that, but I still wanted it to feel like he could push himself in a direction and shape his Skills.

Other characters add their Skills when they make choices, or are under a certain amount of stress. I really wanted to use the feeling of mystery around Skills, and build upon it throughout the story, not have the story be about leveling up skills. Example here, the sidekick character Sable gets a new Skill when she becomes “bound,” to Mitch. It’s more sinister in nature than what she had before, and I hope readers pick up on the fact that decisions and happenstance change both them and their skills. Mitch has breakthroughs through major plot points.

What are you currently working on?

Currently, I’m working on Abyssal Curse! It’s been a really fun story to write. I’m excited to finish book 1 (2 more chapters to write). The story is scoped for 3 books. I have an ending planned, and I think book 2 is going to be a whacking good time.

In the background, I’m writing a buddy comedy LitRPG System Apoc. I’ve got about 70K words of that one, but it’s mostly just fleshing out ideas. I’m going to do a major edit and rework it, because the bones are very strong. It’s set in cottage country. There’s a big System Empire that rolls in, there’s portal dungeons, there’s politics, and most importantly, there’s fun.

What do you want to shout out?

Oh shout outs! Well, I’ll be shouting out a couple of things.

  1. Simon R Green’s books. I’ve read everything he’s ever written, and it’s all fun. Without him, I don’t think I would be in this space. A good place to start? Deathstalker.

  2. I need to shout out SerasStreams, Dominick Ruiz, and justinwrite2. They’ve all helped me in such amazing ways with my story and I am forever thankful. I’ve learned a ton from each of them.

  3. I do enough shouting every week on my own newsletter! https://sagascribe.beehiiv.com/subscribe

You can find more about Saga Scribe here:

Thanks for reading System Analysis. If you have a suggestion drop me a line [email protected] or check out my author website https://storyweaver.quest

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