u/Psychological-Bed-92

Right now I’m planning on a fire sorlock, 4 elements monk, gloomstalker assassin (melee based tho). Ideas for a fun build for the fourth?

I haven’t played since the game came out.

Trying to choose between the two. Battlemaster is better, right? It doesn’t look like it relies on as many ability scores, since AA makes you level INT.

I posted about this project back in December and got some really good feedback. After a few months in the drawer, a good chunk of edits, and some newly found confidence, I'm starting to feel ready about throwing it into the query trenches. I've attached the query and the first 300 words. Side question: Is it even worth putting that honorable mention in there? TBH, I don't really know what the reputation of Writers of the Future is. Cheers!

QUERY

ALL’S WELL IN DESERET is a 65,000-word science fiction novel set in a near-future American West where the lines between technology and theology have blurred as churches merge with corporations.

Eighteen-year-old Emmy has been raised to believe that loyalty is a virtue. That belief shatters the day she is called to be a proselytizing missionary, and her Church informs her that her father committed an act of terrorism. 

They convince her to open his sealed lockbox, which reveals that he leaked information about sacred research projects and finally achieved a method of implanting a competing consciousness into an unwilling host. Her father’s first subject is Jane, now fused with an artificial intelligence named Redline that conquers will and corrupts memory. 

As Emmy prepares mentally and spiritually for her mission, she confronts the dangerous possibility that faith, integrity, and obedience no longer point in the same direction. Meanwhile, Jane, both victim and weapon, escapes the Church’s grasp to search for the truth of her creation, and a seasoned bounty hunter is called to rein her in. When their paths converge, they face the Church’s transhumanist ambitions and the monster that wears Jane’s face.

The State of Deseret in the novel echoes the cultural and theological legacy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reimagined as a corporate faith-state. It will appeal to readers of The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara and Ten Low by Stark Halborn.
 
With public interest in Mormonism at an all-time high, ALL’S WELL IN DESERET thoughtfully depicts the loss of faith for a growing ex-Mormon community. Chapter One, titled ‘Redline,’ received an honorable mention for the Writers of the Future Award.

Thank you for your consideration.

FIRST 300

The PT Cruiser wouldn’t be worth much, but Jane scanned it anyway. She had a new toy to play with.

Blue slivers flashed like a grasping hand and spelled out: Chrysler PT Cruiser, 2083 reissue, fuel edition. The biodot’s display was worth more than the occasional prick in her right eye; with a bit of cash and a short drive over the border, she had something better than any printed Net posting. 

Estimated valuation four hundred seventy-six UOT.

The number hovered above the emerald green hood before fading. If only it had the leather seats; then she might’ve needed to hop in herself. She’d have to strip them for cash afterwards, of course. 

Acres of abandoned vehicles lined the way to the Bonneville Flats and a lonely station to service them all. The neon sign pulsed in flashes of yellow sometimes IOSEP, and other times H SEPA. 

She squatted next to the dilapidated vehicle. The owner would’ve been the sentimental type. Or the too rich type.

Jane liked the Cruiser, though. Curves like that? It was hard to say no.

When she got to Cheyenne, she’d get something like it. A car and a place with a nice mattress. No more of this inflatable shit. 

Jane raised her face to the night sky, sprinkled with twinkling satellites and roving weather bands. The world telescoped and her stomach lurched. The biodot tracked the movement and zoomed in on a singular drone, then tagged it SCMC Node 12 - Operative.

She tracked it for a while, watching its soft blinking lights get absorbed by the night. The sky folded in on itself and her gut flipped as her vision was pulled by a leash. The dot hiccuped, a half-second lag she just barely noticed. 

Then something else moved. A flash of white dropped from the sky. The dot scanned but couldn’t focus, just flashing between node, AV, satellite.