New map

I’m doing more of my “blogging” as “vlogging” on Youtube. It’s still just as rambly and incoherent and more for my own benefit than for anyone else’s as my blog is, but it’s a different format, obviously, and I’m having a bit of fun doing dictation into my phone, and then adding some video and a backing track to it to make it look like a documentary slide-show, kinda. I even add grainy image manipulation and some VHS-like tracking effects. This is just for fun to make the whole thing look old and scratchy. It also covers up a lot of the crappy audio on my recording; by adding a scratchy record effect and visual cues that reinforce it, the whole thing looks like an old movie, and nobody expects old movies to sound super crisp. Frankly, I find the whole effort more fun than typing blog posts, although it’s more work and is more time-consuming. And my audio is even more rambly  than my typing; at least I can go back and easily edit typing!

In any case, there’s a few streams of things that I want to update and work on in the next relatively little bit:

First, I didn’t end up running my game on Friday. One guy had car trouble, and wasn’t going to be available. He was bringing his fiancé. With two of my three players out, it didn’t make sense to try and do some one on one with the other guy, and I wouldn’t have wanted to anyway. So first off, I’m going to try and get caught up on what I need to read to run more smoothly. I put off re-reading The Skinsaw Murders, but I want to do that so that I’m not just completely winging it without stocking my barrel—metaphorically speaking—with enough apples to get me through the session. I’m also reading a number of other things; the Power Behind the Throne Companion from the Warhammer “remix” of The Enemy Within campaign, and Manual of the Planes from 3e. I started reading that in anticipation of my business trip, because I always bring that on business trips, but it turns out that I didn’t read it at all while away. But I’ve read it some before and since the trip. (I also finished a Simon R. Green novel; I've got two more in the same omnibus to read before I can put that back on my shelf.)

Secondly, I want to flesh out the next four Cult of Undeath fronts. That shouldn’t take too long if I can just buckle down and do it. Then I can decide what the next project is; Mind-Wizards of the Daemon Wastes, or some of the other ones that I’ve considered adding. Cult of Undeath didn’t end up being very vampire focused after all, and is only kind of in the eastern portion of Timischburg. That’s ironic to me, because years ago I invented Timischburg specifically to be the (as then conceived) Cult of Undeath setting in toto, but as the campaign has changed focus, my game and world-building efforts have changed focus, etc… well, it is what it is.

Thirdly, I have an EFX map drawn and a new DFX map. The new DFX map is actually kind of a draft, although I didn’t necessarily intend it to be when I started it. It’s a bit more Tolkien-style, and I added some more stuff on many of the edges, although they’re not very detailed. Much like how Tolkien’s map has South Gondor and Khand and Rhûn and Forodwaith, etc. on his map but they’re not anything except labels and blank land forms, that’s what I’ve got so far too. Mostly. But I do want to talk just a little bit about the new areas that I’ve added and expand on them in the next few weeks; Gunaakt—the orcling homeland which I’ve mentioned many times, as well as Hyperborea and Nizrekh, two places that I’ve also mentioned off-hand many times. I also added a new territory Porhomok, which is really meant to be, more than anything else, a place for the current crop of Nizrekhi to have come from who aren’t actual Atlanteans, but people who come to the ruins of Atlantis in the wake of its destruction. Porhomok also gives me an opportunity to develop a more tropical seafaring center; a place for classic pirate stuff, jungles, and all that; something that otherwise the Three Realms simply didn’t offer—but which I really kind of wanted to have anyway. And then finally, I have a reason on the eastern edge of the map for the ending of the coming of more people from the Old Countries; Normaund, Carlovingia, etc. Nobody else can come. There’s a major barrier that cuts off travel, which I’ve never really talked about, but now I’ve added, so what we've got is all we're going to get. No more immigrants from the Old Countries anymore.

So I have a little bit of world-building guidance on this new map. I’m actually planning on scanning both of those maps later today, and I’ll post there here when I do. Maybe I’ll even modify this post and add them then.

I’ve also got my “solo play” experience to launch, and sadly, I’m considering yet another stream, where I detail some NPCs and villains in more detail; some backstory and background. Maybe even character sheets, although that won’t be super helpful to anyone else, I don’t think. This is stuff that I want to do because even people who aren’t at all interested in my setting or my rules could still find interesting and useful. I think I'm going to start with Alys, but I want to do more "super-villains" of the setting; the Heresiarchs and more. I'd love to talk about the mind-wizards just a bit, and Jairan Neferirkare, and Hutran Kutir and more. After I figure out for sure which ones from my original list I'm actually interested in pursuing.

UPDATE: Got one of the images OK. The librarian scanning them for me screwed up the EFX map and cut it off. And of course the files arrived a pdfs that I then had to convert to an image format, which isn't quite as easy as it should be. Sigh.

Government employees. At least she was more friendly than your typical DMV lady.