So there exists a phoenix, created by the supreme god Zeroz, the phoenix can grant wishes to anyone who hunts and successfully catches it, hence why everyone, and I mean everyone, wants to get their wish granted, the protagonist is an orphaned dwarf who lives in a tree, he gets recruited by a wizard to hunt it down due to his cleverness and loyalty.
The protagonist wants the phoenix to grant his wishes of a family, since no one seems to adopt him.
They live in an age where giant lizard and mammals exist, and the dwarf, Bird, must evade and outsmart these threats and protect the others with him in the adventure, and while the main protagonist evades the giants animals, the main antagonist gets evaded by them, and they protagonist must evade him more than he evades the animals because he is as clever as him and more powerful than the animals.
The antagonist is a demigod who is so powerful it takes him one hit to defeat any opponent, and I still want to find a good motivation for him to want the classic villain goal of world domination that fit with the themes.
The themes are of family, friendship, legacy, and love.
I might seem to forget some details, so ask for more info and I will try to answer.
I like the phoenix wish concept and the dwarf protagonistit. A couple thoughts:
Thank you, I do dislike writing power levels, I'm no Akira Toriyama after all
and the villain's motivation, what can be a good motivation behind someone wanting to rule the world and ties into the themes of legacy and relationships?
I had an idea of him wanting to rule because he grew up as a nobody but was discovered as a demigod and went on to rule and be adored, so he wants to rule the world to make sure he never dies a nobody like he was before.
I got an idea for what their motivation could be.
what if he wants to rule the world in a desperate attempt to stop what he wasn’t able to stop from happening in the past: the loss of family. Maybe a god accidentally killed them during a battle or whatever, and said god maybe didn’t care that they did or was detached from the pain it caused him. So that day he vowed he would take control of the world so that he can prevent that from happening to anybody else ever again.
This idea could also make their encounters more moral than physical. Like your protagonist wishes for a family while the antagonist has lost theirs and wants to prevent others from losing their family. They are foils to each other in a sense, two sides of the same coin that is family. It would also work out well since you said you dislike writing power levels. It would help add multiple layers to every encounter the two have. Like, there is the physical layer (the battle), the emotional layer (two individuals driven by family), and the moral layer (is the antagonist wrong? Is their conclusion and solution wrong? Is there even a “right” or “wrong”/ “good” or “bad” side here?)
It can also lead to couple different endings depending on how you want to go and how you want to emphasize your themes.
That's nice and very fitting for the conclusion I have in mind for them both.
Okay, but maybe try to flesh it out so that it feels as something a bit more distinct than Dragon Ball with dorf protagonist and One-Punch Man as the antagonist?
Funny because both are two of my favorites, but I do have a habit of making concept then I watch a show, and it has the exact same concept.
The key is to not describe your setting in terms that so readily map onto the inspirations. Bounce your ideas around for a bit and think what you wanted to add or change from your original inspirations, then explore where those differences lead to. After a while you'll end up with something that while recognizably similar is also recognizably yours and different.
The story works well as a typical travel story -- like The Hobbit or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
This hero has a lot of obstacles to overcome. They are enough.
They live in an age where giant lizard and mammals exist, and the dwarf, Bird, must evade and outsmart these threats and protect the others with him in the adventure, and while the main protagonist evades the giants animals, the main antagonist gets evaded by them, and they protagonist must evade him more than he evades the animals because he is as clever as him and more powerful than the animals.
The antagonist is the dangerous world in which the Protagonist lives. And, of course, the Phoenix once the protagonist reaches him.
I'd drop this secondary antagonist altogether. This distracts from the main story line. If you want to write this story. Write this as a different story, perhaps in the same world. This can be your LOTR against your first story.
The antagonist is a demigod who is so powerful it takes him one hit to defeat any opponent, and I still want to find a good motivation for him to want the classic villain goal of world domination that fit with the themes.
And, I don't know that the phoenix needs its backstory explained. There simply is a phoenix that grants wishes. It is enough. What is the origin story of Leprechauns? YOU might know but I doubt that 99.9999% of people that know the base story of Leprechauns know their origin story. I certainly do not. It only distracts from the main story.
So there exists a phoenix, created by the supreme god Zeroz
Funny you mentioned the Hobbit and Huckleberry Finn, I just bought them few days ago, and I might have been influenced by them subconsciously.
My advice would be: Remove the 'takes one hit to defeat any opponent.' He's a superduperpowerperson. That's good enough. He can kill you easy. Good enough.
He already caught the Phoenix once, and wished for ultimate power. That's how he got his power.
His motivation? He wants to wish that the Phoenix won't rise again. That way, nobody can ever challenge his rule.
The dwarf ends up understanding he already has a family because he found it along the way, and wishes that, retroactively, nobody can ever wish for anything for themselves; they can only ever make wishes for others.
Since 'retroactively' is part of the wish, the demigod loses his power, and can never get it again because nobody will wish it for him.