I changed the blog heading. I'm actually probably going to talk quite a bit more about Dark•Heritage again, especially given that I just ordered a whole bunch of map-making tools from Amazon today. Should arrive soon, then I'll start drawing up my revised map, and I'm not stopping until I make a really good one this time. I've done that in the past for other settings; for some reason, I never got around to doing it for this version of Dark•Heritage.
I spent hours on a really big map, on a posterboard no less, for the last version of Dark•Heritage, the Mk. IV. Now that I'm up to Mk. V, or simply DH5 as I normally call it, I thought a revised logo was in order to emphasize the new emphasis that I should have had all along. I also thought the old tagline of "d20 rules; Call of Cthulhu play paradigm" was getting a little corny sounding. Plus, I'm not sure that my m20 system really qualifies as d20 anymore anyway. In my attempt to be too nitpicky and precise, I'd become just esoteric. Plus, nobody likes a nit-picker, right? My other tagline that I used to sometimes use, "fantasy + horror + madness" seemed better. More evocative, too. Perfect tagline for my conceit of being a pioneer of sorts in the dark fantasy genre that doesn't get as much play as I'd like in the greater fantasy solar system.
Although nobody besides me (and my old gaming group, who spent a few sessions playing a few sessions of DH4) cared about the update from DH4 to DH5, but still; I liked using the Remixed idea that I'd taken to Eberron. And, as an electronic music junkie, the concept of a remix is a fun one to me. If you want to be technical, it's a bit more like a mashup than a remix, though—but again, nobody likes a nitpicker. And I like the way the new logo looks.
Anyway, even though I'm obviously waiting on the art supplies I ordered, I can do pretty good with what I have. Most of the maps I've drawn on my more than 35 year career as a doodler of fantasy maps has just been with a ballpoint pen on typing paper anyway; having varied tip art pens and Bristol board will be nice, but hardly necessary except for the really nice, high class "hi-def" version of the map I'm going to draw. I played around a bit with a regular gel pen on some typing paper today, just sharpening up a few of my techniques for how to draw mountains, forests, coastlines, swamps, hills, deserts, etc. and make them look evocative. I'm going to actually do even more of that in preparation for the "big day" when I draw the Very Serious™ "hi def" version of the map of the setting. I want it to be the best map I've ever done.
Now, this doesn't mean a complete and total change of focus for me, although... I haven't really been in the mood to play and Old Republic today. I logged on for a few minutes, but I've been kinda busy doing other stuff and mostly just claimed my daily login rewards. I'll spend more of my free time on Dark•Heritage again, though. Y'know; like I always intended when I created this blog many years ago and called it Dark•Heritage in the first place. But I don't want to do so much bouncing around that I don't finish things that I start, and I want to get the Old Republic stuff done, and I want to get the Eberron Remixed stuff done. But I also always figured that I'd get to the point where I'd done what I wanted to with Old Republic, and then I'd probably shelve it and forget it for a long time to come. Dark•Heritage and Ad Astra, on the other hand, will always be with me.
As an aside, I put in this Amazon order because I got an unexpected tiny little windfall of a $100 gift card. I never really know what to get when that happens. If there's something big I want, it's not enough to buy it, and I probably already have a plan in place about when I'm going to disburse the budget for it. It's also not so small that I'd just buy stuff without thinking. It was kind of that awkward amount where I had to think about what to get, but nothing was really super obvious. The map-making tools, i.e., mostly some better art supplies than I normally keep on hand, seemed like a pretty good choice, albeit only a fraction of the money I had to spend. I also bought three or four Q Workshop dice sets, because you can always have more dice, and I enjoy having new ones. And I bought a leather bag with three score metal fantasy coins in it; certainly better tokens to use for my Heroism Points than the plastic party store pirate coins that I've had. So yeah; mostly that means I'm frittering away better part of $100 on fancier party favors for a game that I don't have any immediate plans to play and no group anymore to play with either. Sigh. Sometimes having RPGs as a hobby is a tough one.
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