User talk:Cptlogic

2/22/2006

Added a few more content pages, including information on Kidalethil and adding a namespace for Items.

2/21/2006

I am currently in the process of adding new content and eliminating dead-end pages.

3/3/2005

I'm recapitulating my last progress post to the list. I've got about 30 pages of text featuring: several songs, a few spells, weapons, various rings and talismans, new character classes, and lots of atmosphere.

1/26/2005

Well, I'm still experiencing snags and hiccups in the attempt to get the novel from one hard drive to another without wearing my fingers off in the process. Networking older computers can be such a pain in the neck...

Anyway, I've also been working on spells, weapons, and such. There's also another shorter story idea taking shape in my mind. I think I may try to sketch out the shorter story as a part of getting the larger story clearly in mind. It concerns some of the structure and particulars of Dun Barethsol, so hopefully I'll get the essence right without tying the hands of our artists and graphic designers. That would be most unfortunate, I think.

I'll try to get access to a scanner soon, so I can scan some of this stuff in that way. My concept sketches really really stink, but I think our artists can take the ideas and make something of them.

1. Andrew Phillips - Thursday Jan 20 00:55 2005

I am in the process of posting those portions of the novel that I have completed to date. I have four or so chapters complete, plus other chapters started or otherwise thought out, though ten-fingering them between my lovely old IBM luggable and an ssh terminal will take time, particularly since I can only sit at a console for so long. Chapter one is posted completely, chapter two is in progress, and I have at least created files for all the chapters covering the action I've written or imagined to date.

One or more of Cirrus' drawings will probably help me a lot as I imagine all of this.

BTW, good to see folks using the diary again.

1/17/2005

I'll work on the dev diary navbar thing soon. However, it may be that the navbar is borken because some of the content is on Endor and some is on a linuxgames server. Also, I'll see about validating the code. (Cirrus pointed out that it wasn't validating)

I'm also thinking of adding a new feature to the admin script - accessing and editing files that already exist on the Endor site, working from a script I once wrote while trying to build my own weblog. The way the basic type-and-load script works is that one types one's text - tags and all, with the exception of the opening and closing html and body tags - into the textarea and the script saves it as an HTML document. Very simple, mostly noddy, but it works. My plan is to write a companion script that will load whole files into the text area, allow for preview, and then allow submission.

Mostly, it's meant to make my site upkeep work easier (and to prevent shoving the entire plotweb site down a pscp tunnel every time I need to make changes). My admins don't allow ftp (I don't think) and I'd rather not annoy them with regularly scheduled massive uploads. Endor use and access is a privilege, particularly for an alum like myself, so I want to respect it scrupulously.

1/15/2005

Well, I think the dev diary may be working again. This is just a test, really. In other news, I'm working up a novel set in the Adonthell universe. Settings include Cirdanth, Uzdun'kal, Elgilad, Erinsford, the area around Waste's Edge, and other places.

12/9/2003

Well, I've published a pair of new pieces regarding backstory events. I hope our webmaster gets them up and available soon. Enjoy.

In other news, I've begun to work on items for Dun Barethsol and future versions of the game. The going is slow, at this point. I probably just need to sit down with some loose-leaf notebook paper and start writing.

Mostly, I'm working on special magick items right now, including their histories. Much of my inspiration of concentrating on items with historys comes from playing Icewind Dale (Goodbye, Black Isle Studios), and the histories provided with some of the magickal weapons and armors found in the game. The detail provided by the IWD writers gives very nearly gives some items lives of their own. Also, once I've done the items with histories, the magick items without histories will be easier since I've already got the basics of a given item type built into the really powerful forms of that type.

Some of these things will be familiar, I suppose. Enchanted or runemarked weapons, magick rings, and Ancient Items of Incredible Power are normal fare in fantasy roleplaying. Of course, there are things that other CRPGs probably haven't done, unless some crazy crafter in an MMORPG has done what I'm thinking of doing. I can't tell you what it is, though. That would spoil the surprise.

Above all, expect continuity, since I'm looking forward and backward in the development of our story for some of my ideas.

8/16/2003

Serendipity. That's the only word for it. I was inspired by a drawing done by one of my sister's friends to add badgers to my list of werebeasts in the Adonthell bestiary (this one, specifically). Of course, given what I've done already with the Marring of the World, I decided to add make some Dwarvish werebadgers as well. Today, after a quick trip to the local branch library, I discovered just how smart that decision actually was. Badgers are like Dwarves in many ways. They're solitary. They dig very well. If cornered, they're fighters. Their claws are big, long, and sturdy enough to put marks in stone. I couldn't have done much better if I had known what I was doing!

I'm going to have to change a little of my preliminary write-up, since I realize that Dwarves, rather than being the least happy of the badger-prime hybrids, would actually adapt quite well to being part badger. As there are about eight different badger species, it wouldn't be all that hard to make different Hill Dwarf (aka Runebadger) setts (the proper word for a family of badgers) look different. Their relation to badgers also lends them some interesting abilities and statistics, relative to other Dwarves, such as a greater resistance to poison and probably better dexterity.

7/6/2003

I've decided to update and brainstorm this way this time, mostly because my only other way of creating by typing would be excruciatingly slow across a 56k wan link.

I'm a writer. It took me a while to come to that conclusion, given that before now, my writing has always been called something else. That, however, is beside the point. The real point is that as a writer, I can't really get the juices flowing until something is going down somewhere. So, since pen and paper are also excruciatingly slow, I'll do it this way.

I've been thinking lately about a handful of things. (No, I haven't forgotten the poem, I just haven't dredged up the notebook that the first part of it went down in.) One of them would test the limits of the rules we've set out for ourselves as world builders. Another of them just needs to be checked with the rest of the team, to see if my idea has any merit to it.

My first idea can be summarized like this: What if, in the true Golden Age, before Adonthell, like Avalon, was lost to the mists, the four races of the modern world were not so much sundered? The Elves and their magick weaken. Why? The Dwarvish folk dwindle. What caused this? What if members of each race once worked together on things?

But that is just a question. I think I should actually say something, develop an idea. I've been working on the various groups to be found in the south of our main continent. I've not really explored the central or northern parts of it yet, but that will come.

So...groups. My main focus has been on what I call the mixed companies. These are a relative handful of groups where two races can work in concert. In these companies of Rangers, Witches, Shamans, and Monastics, Half-Elvish and Human folk work together.

The Rangers are fairly united, as organizations go. They work in bands - scouting, hunting, protecting, and learning. Rangers are the eyes and ears of the Deep Forest Tribes. They are the sentries and spies of the Half-Elvish dominions. Unlike the Witches and Shamans, they are not divided into distinctive sects. Bands of Rangers do differeniate themselves over time, however, and new ForestKeepers are selected and trained by individual bands rather than by a central authority. Like the Shamans, they venerate and emulate totemic animals. More than anything, it is the choice of totems and their particular areas of patrol that distinguish one band from another. Like most in his band, Andare's totem animal is a bear.

The other groups I will just name for now: The Sisters of the Green, the Sisters of the Red, the Rods of Amber, and the Knights of the Green. Each is a druidic order, though the Sisters take the most beneficient approach to nature and balance, while the Rods of Amber are the most violent and chaotic in their approach to keeping the balance. All, however, serve the Green Lady and the Axe-bearer. All honor the Lord of the Beasts and Her Grace, the Mistress of the Birds.