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I loved the new beginning and the way you only "glanced at Siren" (displayed her appearance but left possible movements to nothing, making her a bit of a mysterious, and actually, a more menacing character with what little info you give the reader). But as far as crits go, Celestial-Fox covers the only things that I noticed.
With how much I write, you'd think I'd post more.
Anyway, here's 100 more fantasy writing prompts:
SPOILER! :Section 1: Character
101. Your protagonist is a sentient tree.
102. Your protagonist is the wise old mentor.
103. Your protagonist has already lost his confrontation with the antagonist.
104. Your protagonist is morally obligated to protect children, but doesn’t care about grown men or women.
105. Your protagonist makes up his adventure as he goes along.
106. Your protagonist draws his/her companions on paper and they come to life/he hallucinates them coming to life.
107. Your protagonist narrates his/her adventure out loud.
108. Your protagonist is the exact opposite of you in every imaginable way.
109. Your protagonist is driven mad because his/her mind automatically counts the number of steps s/he takes.
110. Your protagonist is one of the Evil Overlord’s henchmen.
111. Your protagonist discovers s/he can choose to be suddenly amazing at one thing at the cost of two other things.
112. Your protagonist takes over the world.
113. Your protagonist goes to space (in a fantasy setting, not sci-fi).
114. Your protagonist can revive like a phoenix, but only after being killed by fire.
115. Your protagonist is a sentient creature dissimilar to elves, dwarves, or humans, of your own design.
116. Your protagonist is cursed and must kill at least one person per day to stay alive.
117. Your protagonist can look into the future, but every time s/he does, s/he loses a memory.
118. Your protagonist is eighty-five; s/he looks, acts, and talks his/her age–s/he is not a long-lived elf who looks twenty at eighty.
119. Your protagonist is immortal, but his/her body continues to age at a normal rate. S/he cannot die of old age.
120. Your protagonist never wears clothes.
121. Your protagonist gets a cool power, knows about it, and never uses it. Ever.
122. Your protagonist is the leader of a band of mercenaries. Twist: the mercs are all rabbits.
123. Your protagonist commits a crime you personally deem unforgivable–in the beginning of the story. Make him/her likable.
124. Your protagonist is the first sentient being on his/her planet.
125. Your protagonist is hunted for bounty and turns his/her pursuers away without either magic or combat.
126. Your protagonist discovers ruins of a modern city and tells no one.
127. Your protagonist has a falling-out with his/her love interest and doesn’t get back with him/her in the end. The love interest cannot be turn evil or die.
128.Your protagonist can see ten minutes into the future, then passes out for an hour.
129. Your protagonist predicts a disaster in the future and takes measures to prevent it. Make these measures perfectly reasonable, but let them lead up to your protagonist being an “evil” overlord in the end. Bonus points if he’s never actually evil, but neither are his enemies.
130. Your protagonist develops the medieval/industrial/stone age equivalent of a tank.
131. Your protagonist wears a disguise throughout the entire story and reveals him/herself at the end.
132. Your protagonist is a blacksmith, but never actually fights with any weapon he makes.
133. Your protagonist is a prophet. Bonus points if he’s a false prophet, knows it, and is still a good guy.
Section 2: Setting
134. A magic system only lets people throw shoes or other small objects at high speeds.
135. The world has seen four apocalypses already. Some old people have lived through every one.
136. There are no bodies of water; water is extracted from trees and underground pools.
137. Music can affect the weather based on pitch, rhythm, melody, timber, dynamics, and texture.
138. The primary race breathes fire and eats ash like we breathe air and drink water.
139. Trees grow minerals instead of leaves.
140. Instead of mineral veins in mountains, there is wood.
141. The edges of the world turn up instead of down; the world exists on the inside of a sphere.
142. A culture where eating is done in solitude and pooping is done in groups.
143. A religion where you’re not righteous until you’ve saved someone’s life.
144. A culture/religion where adults are sacred and children must protect them.
145. A religion that considers albinos holy symbols and/or prophets and/or angels.
146. A world that has no concept of good or evil.
147. A race that lives inside the sun.
148. Sound impregnates women; babies are born when the father composes a song, and that song determines the baby’s appearance, personality, lifespan, etc.
149. A culture that holds music as a rite of passage. In order to become a man or a woman, a boy or girl must charm a powerful figure with singing or playing.
150. The sixth/seventh/eighth/whatever sense allows people to feel others’ emotions in–so yes, finally an excuse for a scary stare to make someone stagger or back off.
151. People are evaluated each year after they become adults. If they haven’t accomplished something worthwhile, they are killed.
152. A religion where deformities and/or disabilities are regarded as holy.
153. People have to put bags on their heads with eye holes unless a) they’re completely alone, b) they’re married to the person who sees their face, or c) they’re the king/queen/high priest/whatever.
154. A religion that believes its followers were created by a god and that heretics are a step above apes in evolution.
155. There is a worldwide language, but each family has its own.
156. Primary education teaches acting, music, art, poetry, and game design (not video games). Secondary education goes on to teach the core subjects.
157. Only the upper class and/or religious elite may listen to or compose music.
158. Armies have a musical battle before proceeding to kill each other.
159. In an urban setting, poets and writers are valued like sports players are now.
160. In a seafaring setting, sea creatures are used rather than horses and boats replace cars.
161. “Monkey spheres” are limited to five people.
162. Chairs are never invented.
163. At random intervals, the entire world hears a song from everywhere, like everything is contained inside a massive omnipresent orchestra.
164. Think of a random animal. That animal is the only non-human animal in the world, or at least in the area where the story takes place.
165. Rabbits are sentient.
166. Humans, as they appear today, are not sentient.
Section 3: Plot
167. In a setting where monkey spheres are limited to five people, your protagonist only cares about either four or six people.
168. A human accidentally switches places with the world’s god.
169. Tell the typical hero’s journey in reverse.
170. Your protagonist befriends a sentient cow.
171. A sentient cow is the primary antagonist.
172. The antagonist is a 5-year-old.
173. The antagonist and protagonist spend the entire story in the same room.
174. The last man and woman on the world live on opposite sides of the planet.
175. The first two humans, a man and a woman, hate each other.
176. The protagonist, forced to build weapons for the antagonist, designs every fifth weapon to malfunction.
177. Your protagonist is executed. S/he survives.
178. Your hero is the first to explore the depths of the ocean.
179. Retell “Lord of the Rings” (or any magical fantasy) without magic of any kind.
180. Retell the American Revolution (or any real war), but add magic.
181. Politicians discover magic and keep it to themselves, but use it.
182. Tell a horror story from the perspective of the “creepy little girl.”
183. Take a slasher/gore porn film and rewrite it with only one violent scene.
184. Your protagonist becomes a high-ranking religious figure and talks to the world’s god just as the world undergoes its industrial revolution and secularism begins to spread.
185. Your protagonist turns to secularism just as the person from the previous prompt becomes a high-ranking religious figure.
186. Your protagonist literally can’t count to five, but is put in a position where s/he must lead a group of people to survival.
187. Your protagonist’s emotions affect the thousand people closest in proximity to him or her. The girl/guy s/he likes rejects him.
188. The protagonist is the stereotypical evil overlord’s adviser and is not secretly helping the heroes–s/he is, in fact, supporting the overlord’s plans with all his or her power.
189. The protagonist is among the thousands of faceless minions in the overlord’s army, and wants to prove him/herself by killing the hero/ine.
190. In a culture where only two children are allowed to live at a time in a single village, there is an underground network of kids. Bonus points if this doesn’t end in an uprising or an uprising being quelled.
191. Write a fantasy so stereotypical it makes your eyes bleed. Then make it a musical and make the protagonist tone-deaf. When you’re done, read it out loud. (This exercise is meant to boost your confidence.)
192. Write a fantasy so stereotypical it makes your eyes bleed. Write it 100% seriously. (This exercise is also meant to boost your confidence.)
193. Let your most disgusting, uncensored, depraved, most insane fantasy dribble from your brain onto the page. Don’t stop. Don’t edit. Don’t self-censor. Don’t show anyone. Write like you’ll never have to show it to anyone else ever–not even your internal editor.
194. Your world approaches its new millennium, and several prophecies say the world will end. Several things are set to happen on the night of the new millennium, but despite all these things happening together, every prophecy only predicts one and predicts only it will cause the end of the world.
195. Your protagonist is a blacksmith for the evil overlord. His rival blacksmith on the good guys’ side suddenly invents and mass-manufactures guns.
196. Your protagonist has super-powered hindsight. Instead of seeing only what happened in hindsight, he sees every single possibility in full detail, and can see the future of each possible path.
197. Your protagonist is a video game hero/ine. The story follows video game mechanics: the hero/ine is suddenly controlled by someone else for long periods of time, respawning happens, the hero/ine is ridiculously overpowered compared to anyone else and communicates via saying absolutely nothing, but the people he’s talking to know what he said anyway, etc.
198. Your protagonist is an economist and knows the importance of keeping the value of cash steady. Then he finds out he can spawn money at will.
199. In a world where there are four distinctive sexes, your protagonist’s society debates their equivalent of gay rights.
Section 4: Setting because I can’t be bothered to come up with one more plot
200. In a world where extreme emotions cause death, battles are fought by warriors playing songs, telling stories, debating politics, etc.
All 200 are here.
My creative writing teacher, who is absolutely sick of student fantasy, has challenged me to write a fantasy he doesn't immediately hate. So I'll take him up on that challenge and post the results here.