GoT vibes:
His beard was dyed a deep blue.
That aside, D&D also seems like an influence, but then again, D&D is influenced by many things, so some similarities might be just a common point of the inspiration (and I'm not just talking about Tieflings, heh).
Other than that, reading this reminds me a little of reading the 7th book of Wheel of Time without reading any other books first (I think it was the 7th). Mind you, it is not quite the same, not as many words I don't understand, and the character's here feel like they're being introduced more, but...are Mouncks Monks?
Many Character's Problem
You seem to have an idea of what you're doing, so I won't ramble about this, suffice to say that multiple povs and characters can work well, they're just trickier than one protagonist stories.
The chapters you've shared establish stuff well, and I'm curious where it'll go, just be mindful of the pacing I guess. Think of where each characters' pov is going and work towards that. Focussed chapters, and keeping things tight, tends to be important to not have the reader get lost and bored when you've got many pov characters. Stuff is split into chapters that have solid individual endings, so things are looking good.
This brings me to my next point (that Mizal [and others] brought up).
Overwriting
The good news is that editing stuff to not be overwritten isn't the hardest thing to do, but getting rid of lines you like will still be unpleasant (if it comes to that). You probably have some idea of how to do this, but I'll offer my thoughts in case they might prove helpful.
Creative descriptions and strong imagery is good, but thinking about where and why you are using it helps to avoid going overboard (this ties into pacing). Since you have the scenes written, you can try to cut all unnecessary words/sentences and see if things still make sense.
Mind you, doing that might have you go too far (people probably don't want a barebones outline, lol), but it is a good way to help identify the core of your scenes, and then have the more superfluous stuff exist to support those cores. Foreshadowing (by mentioning world information that will be relevant later) is another thing you don't want to cut, even if it doesn't matter for the current scene directly.
Alternatively, just watch out for where you get more descriptive, and then examine the impact of that description to see if it is worth slowing down the pace for (as generally, more words = slower pace). Slow pace isn't bad tho! Variety tends to be more interesting, but it is all about the goal of the scene and your style of writing.
Mistakes
Dialogue punctuation is a common mistake, but getting used to it can feel a little weird. Ask if you have any questions and someone should be able to answer.
Other than that, there were some small mistakes, but overall it reads well.
first followers home, should be: first follower's home.
Apostrophe here signifies possession, the home belongs to the first follower.
his families spear, should be: his family's spear.
Same concept. Families is plural for family, like cities is for city (or spies/spy).
Anyway, I'm not here to proofread, so I'll leave it at that. As I said, it reads well to me.
General Points
This section can also be considered as either nitpicks or 'stuff to maybe think about'.
- Total Transcription Scribe
Having someone write down everything that happens reminds me of stenographers, and I believe stenographers don't write in plain English but use a shorthand of some kind.
Ah, they've got 'advanced technologies' to help them. Wiki Link for Stenotype.
This also reminds me of a character from the Kingkiller Chronicle who wrote down stories as he was told them (again, real-time writing), and he used a code shorthand thing to write faster.
Anyway, in the text it says her hands have been replaced with a 'pair of inky pens', and that 'One Tyfling, one Estrian elf and one stoutfolk enter the room' was written down.
First, the word 'Tyfling' is like 'human', so I think it shouldn't be capitalised? Not 100% on this when it comes to fantasy stuff, as there might be a reason Tyfling's are written like that.
Anyway, consider this:
- Finger-ends replaced with pens. This is more pens, so faster writing! The image is different tho.
- Change nothing but if someone looks at the writing directly they won't be able to understand it (or they'll remark on it not being plain common).
- Change nothing because it is not needed (lol).
the golden ratio soldier was screaming and kicking her legs
I think you referred to her as a spy earlier. Calling her a soldier here stood out slightly, but it isn't necessarily a mistake (which is why I'm pointing this out here).
- The sun sunk further down the sanguine skyline: the damask dawn burning bright, as if the cotton clouds themselves had caught fire.
Mizal mentioned this line, but I wanted to point it out for a different reason.
Earlier you had written: but saw nothing but the blue dawn drowning the fields on the horizon.
Is the sun blue? Does it shift? Thinking of cotton burning I imagine more red/orange than blue, but fire can be blue, so it could be a context thing that makes sense in universe.
You do also mention a sanguine skyline (which happens at dawn/dusk?), I imagine what colour you get depends on the atmosphere too, but now I'm getting a little off track (this is a fantasy story after all). Anyway, my point is that the description here seems to be more based on our sun, so I thought I'd point it out.
Oh, while I'm talking about suns, did you consider the scientific viability (as in, existing according to physics and stuff) of your planet/solar system? I generally assume no, and if you did I wouldn't notice (lol), but I'm sure some people do enjoy doing that. Anyway, I ask because you have a 400k worldbuilding document, hehe.
Anyway, as I was rereading what I wrote, I realise there could be two suns (which would render the above a moot point, whoops).
Why are human's the standard? Obviously, humans exist in our world, and your readers are (probably) going to be humans, but the PAIs seemed to be written as an in-universe things.
Anyway, humans were mentioned as a superior race (alongside Tyflings), so them being the standard can make sense. Mind you, not everyone seems to think Tyflings are a superior race tho, aha.
Speaking of races, are elves just tall skinny humans with long ears (physically speaking)? Just curious.
I'll add that I like the fantasy nouns (& names), they didn't read like shit, which is my main fear when I see them (and a mistake I should stop making).
Future Feedback
If you write fast enough to be capable of spamming the forum, just write three posts worth of content before posting, heh.
Anyway, don't worry about that, people will let you know if you spam (and you won't get banned since it is clear you've put in effort and aren't trolling etc). Worst case scenario is you get less feedback since it requires more of a commitment to give when there is more to read.
(But if you get feedback multiple times you'll probably get less anyway, because stuff gets improved and the setting won't be something drastically different).
I will say that asking more specific questions (or follow up questions) might help in getting responses if you're asking consistently.
Other than that, I have one final question. What size font is that?
(Story's looking good, keep writing!)
