Update

A General Update

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Wow, it’s been over a month since my last post. I’m not quite ready to put anything new of substance up, but I did want to provide some assurances that I’m still here and there’s still plenty more to come in the (near) future.

So, what’s with all the radio silence? Well, it’s probably a combo of things. Work has picked up dramatically over the past month, which is a great thing, but it’s left me less time for other pursuits. Then there’s the general COVID malaise we’re all under, of course. The time I’ve had (which hasn’t been sucked up by video games or our weekly RPG (currently Blades in the Dark)–the only way I’ve really got to hang out with friends right now–has been spent in reading and writing. But wait, if I’m writing, why isn’t there anything on the blog?

The writing I’ve been doing has been to produce first drafts of two new short stories. They need some good rounds of revision (which I need to find time and will for) before I send them off to see if either of them makes it to publication (I’ve got significant doubts about one, though I still think it’s a good story; the other I’ve got some serious hopes for). If, as it likely, both are rejected, they will appear on the blog in a short while.

In addition to those stories making it to the public in one way or another, here are some additional things to look forward to or to enjoy now:

(1) Avar Narn World Anvil: I had previously mentioned that all of the background information for my fantasy world, Avar Narn, has been made viewable for everyone. Well, because of a setting error, that wasn’t exactly true. That has been fixed, and if you want to delve more into the background and lore of the world in which my stories are set, you can go here. This will, of course, continue to be expanded upon.

I’m also, slowly, working on a set of RPG rules for Avar Narn. These will go up either here or on World Anvil (or both) as playable iterations become available. While they are being created with Avar Narn in mind specifically, most of the rules will work with other fantasy settings and game operating under similar assumptions.

(2) Fatherhood: We’re getting ready to open our home again for a foster/adoptive placement. It’s hard to believe it’s already been almost a year since the boys left, but we’re keeping up with them and their family and they seem, by all accounts, to be thriving! This may be a slow build, as we get all necessary approvals in order and then wait for something to happen, almost certainly with a narrower set of parameters than before.

(3) Frostgrave: COVID hit before I could get everything prepped to actually play this amazing game. With the time looming where I can get together with friends soon (I’ve got my second vaccination shot at the end of the month and most of my circle are already vaccinated or waiting on their second dose), I’m returning to the prep work to get this worked upon.

(4) Theology: I’ve got several half-written theology posts that I’ll be returning to shortly. I don’t want to call my time during COVID a “dark night of the soul,” per se, but I’ve been putting off writing that is very important to me on this front.

(5) Reviews: I’ve been rereading through old sword and sorcery works (Howard and Lieber, specifically), and I imagine some thoughts about the genre and the context of those stories are bubbling into an article. I also recently listened to “Black Crow, White Snow,” a fantasy novella available on Audible, which provides a great juxtaposition with the antiquated views of Howard and Lieber.

I’ve also recently reviewed a lot of different RPG systems in thinking about my own and I imagine I’ll have some things to say about all of that as well–along with my thoughts on the Blades in the Dark system after getting a few more sessions of the game experience under my belt.

Hopefully that gives everyone something to look forward to. More to come soon!

Short Update

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I don’t know about you, but the present situation has me all discombobulated. I’m an introvert by nature (a “socially-capable” introvert as K likes to say), so I’m not suffering from the cabin fever that assails a lot of us (at least not in the most noticeable of ways), but this coronavirus stuff still has me off of my game.

With my work drastically slowed down, I have the benefit of having some downtime to work on my passion projects–writing Avar Narn, gaming, this blog. I’d anticipated having a lot more posts up by now, but obviously things have remained as erratic as ever for my blog schedule. I’ve got about half a dozen unfinished posts of varying degrees of readiness that will be completed and posted at some time in the not-so distant future. I’ve been spending a lot of time, though, on Avar Narn worldbuilding, some mapmaking (which I’ll perhaps put up soon) and some work on the novel–most of which isn’t ready to be shown to the public.

Hawkwood and Marshal have both been continuing to go to daycare, which has been a godsend given some very tough behaviors we’ve been dealing with with Hawkwood–a post for another time. With the church mostly shut down, K has also been working from home. Every day is played by ear, which makes it difficult to focus on creative work, especially to the extent that staying home with little professional work to do had promised. There’s much more to be said on this front (and again, I realized I haven’t been posting much on the Fatherhood portion of the site), but that will go in a future post.

That’s a quick update; I hope you are all well, staying safe, and effectively managing the stress and anxiety we are all facing.

I’ll have a follow-up post with some of my thoughts about playing Dungeons and Dragons later today, with some of my other half-finished (once completed) posts and additional items coming to you very soon!

Faith, Fiction & Frostgrave: Laying a Foundation

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The last few weeks have been a little crazy (hence a lack of posts), but I’ve managed to sneak in a little time on some projects–the one below and some other things that will make their way to the blog shortly.

If you’ve looked at my previous posts on Frostgrave, you’ll see that I have two warbands painted and some terrain under construction. Recently, I completed most of the construction work on the first level of the large square central tower I’m building for the Silent Tower scenario (and whatever else it happens to be useful for–I’m not sure whether the new edition of the core book coming out this year will mean a change in scenarios). It struck me that, given the design of the building and the idea that (at the time at least) I had no intention for making the levels separable from one another, I’d ought to paint and finish the base and lower level before adding more to it that would make it even more difficult to paint the lower areas. If I’d been smarter, I’d have done all of the brickwork painting on the inside of the building before attaching parts of the second-level walkway (as you’ll see, I caught myself before finishing that installation and diverted to the painting!). Live and learn, I suppose.

It’s been a long while since I’ve painted terrain, and I had–and have–a lot to learn and relearn. I took a lot of cues from the Black Magic Craft videos for the stonework (though my technique isn’t near as good as his so far), and I even followed his instructions to make my own terrain washes using Liquitex acrylic inks.

I’m giving myself a B+ for the results. It’s not as good as I’d like, but it’s still a terrain piece I’ll be happy to put on my table and play on. I may consider some additional accents, like vines on the walls and perhaps the addition of some torches or lanterns, once I’ve finished the other levels. In future works, I think I’ll be using some lighter tones for the wood, but I used here what I had on hand and I think it turned out just fine for a sort of cedar-look.

I’ve opted for a muddy coloring for the base earth for the terrain, as I wanted some color contrast to the stony grey that will be ubiquitous in the buildings themselves. I’m happy with how this turned out and I’ll be adding some embellishments to other pieces–puddles where the ice and snow has melted and pooled, particularly mushy and gross mud patches, etc.

I admittedly had some issues with the snow–at least to my taste. I was using the Busch snow paste, and the top of the container held a pastier type of snow easier to create ridges and textures with. When working on this piece and delving deeper into the container, I found that the component parts had separated out into the pastier part and a heavy liquid. Like an idiot, my immediate response was to stir everything back together, which gave me a flowy-ier, smoother compound that makes for fluffy banks but wasn’t so much the look I wanted. And, I realize I didn’t think about the effects of the direction of the sun in determining where to put my snow, but meh.

On the other hand, it was driving me crazy trying to figure out how the Busch snow paste is made so that I could replicate my own in larger quantities and for cheaper. The paste had an immediately-identifiable smell to me–spackling paste–but I wasn’t sure about the other parts. After some thought, though, I think I’ve zeroed in on enough of the materials to create something very similar. If I get good results, I’ll post my recipe for your use.

In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of the work so far. Helpful criticism is welcome–I’m always happy to learn better ways to do things!

Nano-Update: Final!

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It is finished.

Last week, both of the kids had the flu, so between trying to get work done and staying home with them, it became difficult to put all of the time into writing that I had hoped to. Neither K and I seemed to have caught it (thank God!), but I think we’re both still feeling a bit exhausted in scrambling to make sure they were comfortable while meeting work deadlines and trying to plan for the holidays.

Nevertheless, while I didn’t write as much as I’d wanted to, I did get enough in to hit my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. Yay! I win! Although, I have to admit that I don’t actually feel much at all about hitting that deadline. The things I feel good about–a constant schedule of writing, feeling productive and creative while writing, reaping the benefits of the massive amount I’ve time I put into plotting the novel–really don’t have much to do with the event itself. And, given that the novel is looking more and more like it’s going to be right at 150,000 words when complete, 50,000 doesn’t feel like quite the big milestone it might be. I realize that this kind of treatment of NaNoWriMo might make me an asshole (I feel like it does given that completing NaNoWriMo is a significant achievement on the way to finishing a novel for aspiring writers such as myself). But, as they say with unassailable logic, “It is what it is.”

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m trying to finish (the first draft of) the whole thing by the end of the year; while I’ve previously been optimistic about this, the events of this past week especially have made me wonder whether I’ll be able to keep that up in light of all of life’s competing demands (though I do now believe that, if I didn’t have to work a “day” job, I could be a prolific writer). In order not to stress myself out overmuch, while I will continue to try to get the draft done by the end of the year, I’m going to focus more on making time to constantly work on it until it gets finished than worry too much about the deadline. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve got a few side projects that will make their way to the blog in the near future. One, a set of optional rules for cybernetics and human augmentation in the Fate RPG system, should be out in a week or so.

Another (which I’m quite proud of) is an Excel spreadsheet to make adjusting Fate’s “dials” easy for planning new settings and campaigns in the system. There is a single-page Fate worksheet for this, but the dials it includes are relatively basic and do not account for many innovative rules mods that have been added by the many books that have been published since Fate Core first released. This spreadsheet will incorporate (by reference only–I’m avoiding any copyright issues by providing explanations of the rules referenced) sources from the Fate Toolkits to the Fate Plus and Fate Codex periodicals to rules from various published settings (like Transhumanity’s Fate, Tachyon Squadron, Interface Zero 2.0, etc.)

“Dials” will include variables such as number of character aspects, general category each aspect should fit, special aspects rules, whether you’re using Approaches or Skills (or both!), what your skill list will be (from options I’ve developed for my own games), what starting Refresh will be, how magic, gear, weapons, armor and human augmentation will be treated (if they need to have special rules at all), how many and what type of stress tracks you’ll use (and how they’ll be calculated), whether you’ll be using rules for Resources and Contacts, how consequences will be factored, how recovery will work, how character advancement will work and much more. It makes me excited to plan out different potential settings and games, and I hope to share that excitement with you. It is certainly possible to do all of this planning without the kind of tool I’m working on, but the spreadsheet (I think) allows you to look at the “big picture” and think about various rules mods you’re going to use will all fit together. I know one of my issues with the customization of the Fate system is that I get tempted to do too much when simpler methods can often accomplish the same results (or similar enough) while better keeping to the elegance and efficiency of the system altogether.

Spreadsheets with automatic referencing and drop-down menus is about the closest I get to computer programming, but I do enjoy it when I need something a bit more rote and that doesn’t take too much brain power to work on. This has been a little respite for those times when I’m too tired to write creatively but not ready to sit still and passively watch TV or something (at least not without multitasking, a bad habit of mine).

All of this is to say that I’ll be returned to doing some more regular posting on the blog in addition to trying to keep up with the novel’s progress. More to come soon!

Nano-Update 1

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Three days in to NaNoWriMo 2019 and I have 10,443 words in the bag, which is almost my first four chapters done.  It’s been about 2 hours a day to hit that pace, which I’m extremely happy with. If I could find time to keep that pace and write three or more hours a day, I’d be very satisfied. Alas, so far I have not been able to achieve that.

I’m trying not to self-edit too much in this first-draft run through so that I can focus on getting the complete story to paper (or screen, as the case may be). I can clean it up after the first draft is done, and since that will be unavoidable, no sense trying to forestall it by editing as I go. Still, sometimes I can’t help myself.

If I can sustain this writing pace, then I can reasonably expect to finish the novel by the end of the year. It’s plotted at about fifty chapters, so I’m expecting somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000 words when finished. Any more than that, and I’ll have to seriously take the scissors to parts of it. Yes, A Game of Thrones is 298,000 words, but I’m not going to pretend I’m Martin on the first go-round. Not from a writing standpoint and not from a marketing standpoint.

Nevertheless, I’m finding relatively few moments when I’m stymied about what to write next, which is new for me. Hopefully it keeps up!

If you’d like to read the first chapter, click here. If you’d like to be a reader and journey along with me as I write, please be in touch!

Update 6-18-19

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The blog’s been quiet for a little over a week and, as usual, I like to explain myself a little bit when that happens.

The Writing
I had planned to wait until NaNoWriMo to start working on finishing a novel again, but those plans have been happily dashed. What started as a short-story ended up as a twenty-thousand-plus-word text, one that needed a lot of work on pacing and a lot of filling in of details. So it just made sense to turn it into a novel. That’s been the bulk of my writing time in the past few weeks, both in the original story and now in plotting out the novelization.

Plotting is almost complete and I’ll begin the writing (and re-writing) proper shortly. If posts to the blog are sporadic over the next short while, that’s what’s going on.

This novel does not yet have a name, but I’ve also already got broad-stroke plans for three sequels; two of which will likely be part of an initial trilogy and the last of which (which also started as a short-story that expanded out of hand) will likely be the start to a second trilogy. The story is set in Avar Narn (of course) and is something of a noir story. Saying it feels in some ways like a bastardized mix of noir fairy-tale and dark fantasy is pretty close to the mark, I think.

If you’ve followed the blog for a while, you may remember that, in 2017, I began work on a different Avar Narn novel, tentatively called Wilderlands. I fully intend to finish that novel, potentially as part of a trilogy between the two trilogies discussed above (the characters in the current novel and Wilderlands are entirely different), but it’s on the proverbial back burner for now.

Kiddos
Any day now, K and I could get the call that brings kids into our lives again. We’re going a little crazy with the wait, to be honest. But, when it happens, you’ll see the Fatherhood section of the blog come to life again.

Shadowrun
If you’ve been keeping a weather eye out for RPG news, you’ll know that a Sixth Edition of Shadowrun has been announced for release this summer, boasting a “streamlined” ruleset.

Shadowrun: Anarchy disappointed me greatly in its failure to translate some of the most fun things about the Shadowrun universe into a more narrative-focused design. As such, while I’m excited to see a new edition, I’m not sure that it’s going to provide what I think the rules need to really present a modernized and excellent take on the game’s design. So, look out for two things: (1) continued posts for my Cortex Plus/Prime hack of Shadowrun (which may end up remaining the sweet spot for me for playing games in the Shadowrun universe), and (2) a thorough review of the Shadowrun Sixth Edition Rulebook when I get my grubby hands on it.

Theology
More to come and soon.

Blog Update

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I completely missed posting last week and haven’t posted anything this week. This post is not going to be as substantive as usual, unfortunately (I’ll try to get a substantive post up over the weekend!), but I wanted to let my readers know what’s going on and what to expect in the near future.

NaNoWriMo is not a go.
Last November, I made very good progress on the first draft of my first novel set in Avar Narn by participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I had hoped to participate again this year to get the first draft finished. Unfortunately–at this point–I’ve made the decision not to participate this year.

K and I are still waiting on a placement of kiddos, which could happen at any moment now but (obviously) hasn’t happened yet. I’m concerned that, as November nears, I’ll need to be focusing more of my time on the kids when they arrive. As much as I’m yearning to get the first draft (and then revisions) done on this novel, it simply must take a back seat to the children and their needs.

Additionally, K and I are purchasing a house and will be closing and moving around November. K’s got a lot going on with her worklife right now and into the near future, so I intend to take on the better part of the moving efforts.

That doesn’t leave much room in my schedule to try to fit in 1667 words a day in November, so I’ve decided to give myself a little break on that front.

This does not mean I won’t be writing–just probably not as intensely as I would be if participating in NaNoWriMo. I’ve been spending time working on (and reworking) some of the setting information for Avar Narn (mythology, legends and history, religion, geography, etc.) that will be the basis for (hopefully) many short stories and novels in the future. Expect some posts related to this “background” information.

I’ve got one Avarian short story currently underway (though I’m not sure I’ll end up happy enough with it that it will get posted) and plotting in the works for at least half-a-dozen more. I have more plotting to do for the rest of the novel (and some changes in the part that’s already written, which I’ve been slowly working through) and I hope to get some writing done towards the novel in the near future.

I had said not long ago that I’d be working on some sci-fi short stories (and a few are in their infancy), but Avar Narn is my truest passion and that’s where I’ve decided to really focus.

On Publishing
I’ve been thinking a good bit about how to approach publishing some of my work. That’s a daunting set of decisions, and I’m not fully decided, but I am currently leaning toward some form of self-publishing. While I’d love to have a large readership, I’d rather follow some advice from Joss Whedon. On talking about making TV shows, he reportedly said (and I’m paraphrasing), “I’d rather make something that a few people have to watch than something that a lot of people want to watch.”

For me, the major issue (other than perseverance through mountains of rejection letters, which I could live with) is control over my projects, staying true to the story for its sake rather than caving to market demands, and taking things in the direction I want them to go. This likely means a smaller audience and less money (to the extent that there will ever be any money in my writing, which is not a guarantee) but more personal freedom. It is a quirk of my personality to prioritize my independence and doing things my way over most other advantages–for better or for worse.

This may merit a full post, and I’d love to hear the thoughts of any readers who are themselves published (I know there are a few of you out there!).

On Theology
One of the reasons I failed to get a post out last week is that I’ve recently been teaching for a Sunday school class at the church. I love to teach and its an honor to have been asked to teach by people I so deeply respect and admire. We did two weekends on the history and polity issues confronting the United Methodist Church relating to our position on homosexuality (and the LGBTQI community in general) and are now doing two weekends on the Trinity.

There are certainly some posts in the works based on this research and some other reading/studying I’ve done recently. I’ll of course have a post on the Trinity in the near future (and why it’s such an amazing aspect of orthodox Christiany faith), but I’ve also got some ideas kicking around about theories of salvation, about William of Ockham and his theology, about (modern) Gnosticism and more.

On Reviews
I’ve finished a few Great Courses on medieval history recently and I’m currently in the midst of one on Imperial China (which, as K will attest, has really gotten me geeking out a fair deal, though perhaps no more than usual). I may do some reviews on these sometime soon.

I’m also working through a few theology books which I may have some comments on.

There are a number of video games either recently out or that will be out in the next few months that I’d, one, like to play, and, two, like to share some thoughts about. The Pathfinder: Kingmaker isometric game just released; it both takes me to an RPG setting and ruleset that’s always interested me (though that I’ve found far too complex and, ultimately, flawed to play on the tabletop) and to the isometric RPGs of the 90’s that were the mother’s milk of my early (digital) gaming life. The last installment of the recent Tomb Raider trilogy is also out and I’m definitely interested in following up on the first two very-well-done games of that series.

Of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Cthulhu will be out soon, both of which I’m excited about. I was in law school about the time the first Red Dead Redemption came out, and I distinctly remember sitting with a judge in his late-sixties or early-seventies at lunch during a summer internship as he ranted about how great the game was. He wasn’t wrong.

On Roleplaying Games
As those of you who are interested in such things may have noticed, most of my recent posts on the truest-and-highest art of gaming–the tabletop RPG–have been about the Cortex Plus/Prime system. I’ll be continuing to post about my Shadowrun conversion for those rules.

I have always dreamed of an RPG to go along with Avar Narn. I’ve run several games set in the world over the years (using rulesets as diverse as The Riddle of Steel, Cortex, Fate, and D&D), but my ultimate desire is to build a roleplaying game specifically designed for the unique nature of the world (said every RPG designer with a pet setting ever, I know). While I love “generic” roleplaying games like Fate and Cortex for a wide variety of play, I am also a believer that systems specifically designed for particular settings are usually better, because the mechanics can reinforce the setting and vice-versa.

One of the most annoying things I see in D&D is the assumption by some players that the rules of D&D are the immutable physics of any setting using that ruleset rather than the rules serving the setting (and being subordinate to both normal and narrative logic).

Both Fate and Cortex intend to be rulesets that bridge the gap between the completely generic ruleset and the one-setting ruleset by using modularity and a toolbox approach that encourages customization. But even this, I think, will not be sufficient for my purposes.

I see games like The One Ring with mechanics that really bring forward the themes and motif of the game as a whole–not to mention indy games like Dogs in the Vineyard, Houses of the Blooded and Torchbearer that really push the envelope of rules for narrative games or RPGs (however you parse those two out)–and I am inspired. We’ll see what comes of it, so expect posts as I struggle through issues of design and ask for feedback (and, hopefully, some eventual assistance with playtesting).

I had mentioned a ways back that I was working on a massive campaign set in the Warhammer 40k universe. That is on a backburner, to be sure, but still in the pipeline.

I’d like to do some review of the newer Warhammer Fantasy and 40K rulesets in the future as well.

Reader Involvement
In case it isn’t apparent, thinking critically and imaginatively and then writing about those thoughts. Maybe it’s a disease–I’m just not happy if I’m not doing it, and I find a lot of fulfilment just from writing and from posting here.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know that people find some usefulness in what I write! I’d love to have more comments, requests for topics, questions to follow up on from posts and more reader involvement in general! Drop me a line, even if it’s just to tell me what you think of the blog in general–or if you think there’s something I could improve on. And invite your friends!

Conclusion
Well, that’s a long list of things I’d like to do, perhaps more than can reasonably be accomplished. But it seems worth trying to do anyway, so we’ll see what comes of it.