Year One, Then Year Two

UPDATE: It is true that the Same Universe Wiki, launched back in 2011, failed to get off the ground, largely due to difficulty in navigating a home-built platform.  Such are things with computer programs, I trust that people understand.  Dear reader, please take note that the child of the SUW, Tao at Wikispaces, is doing very well and has a total of five editors working on it.

The below is left unchanged for the sake of historical posterity. 

Alexis, August 2015


It is just about a year since the first steps were taking to developing the Same Universe Wiki ... which has been a troubling project from the beginning.  It began due to some posts I wrote about getting the community to work together (here, here and here), describing how it might be done and what it might try to accomplish.  Not surprisingly, the message was not well received in the beginning and in the last year, that circumstance has not changed.

Carl and I went ahead with the wiki and built the thing up.  I then went ahead and put more than 200 pages of general description, some useful and some not, hoping others would add maps or descriptions of their worlds, for the general benefit of the community.  And, not surprisingly, they didn't do that.  There have been a number of reasons, mostly having to do with my involvement and concerns about my attitude.  Someone else with the same idea might have done better overall with contributions, being a nicer and fluffier person.  This I don't doubt.

Motivation was never my intent.  If I wanted to motivate people, I'd invent some conspiracy, pump that conspiracy up to eleven and get people really scared about the end of RPG's, and then use that fear to encourage people to 'save' their hobby.  My personal plan was just to see if there was anyone brave or tough enough to take me on.  I'm convinced now there isn't.

So ... there's no sense in wasting any more time with this.  If I'm going to have a wiki that is going to be all me (and I still like the idea), then there's no point in presenting it as if it is something for everyone.  It might as well just be called Tao's World or something like that.   And with all due respect to Carl, who is very busy these days climbing the Great Ladder of success, I'll have to search for some technical source I can control.  But the wiki idea is too convenient, and there's too many visual problems with blogger to just put material on this blog.

I don't know what steps I'm going to take in this direction at this time.  It is part of the reason why I haven't been contributing further to the wiki (though I have things to put there).  I suppose I'll have to go look at the system Wikipedia offers.

Haven't got much else to say.  Been working on researching the cities of France, still mapping India and still developing my background generator for characters.  Those are the upfront projects these days ... that and starting the online campaign, which is a time sucker for sure.  Fun, though.  I remember how much fun it was the first time around, and it feels good to have that again.  I guess I just needed a long break.

Noodling Around

This comes in the middle of the week, but starting Monday I've been working to make the new commodities pages I linked earlier more accessible - or more meaningful - to the DM and player.  So have another look at the following pages:  banking, markets, antimony, bismuth, chromium, cobalt, copper and gold.  The gentle reader might find them more interesting now.

There are a lot more pages under Commodities, too.

Wiki, March 28, 2011

I didn't even do one of these posts last Monday.

I confess ... the Wiki does not fit my world-designing nature.  I was supposed to work on spells.  I was supposed to work on describing my combat system.  I did my best to guilt myself into working on these things.  For three weeks I wrote here on the blog that I was going to work on these things, with the expectation that if I said it in the public sphere, that would ramp up my guilt to the point where I would work on spells and the combat system.

It didn't work.  It just didn't.  My headspace was someplace else, I found myself bored by both prospects, I was tired after a long, spectacular weekend and really, I wanted to work on other things.  So I did.  I worked on things that did not translate to the Wiki, I worked on things that had nothing whatsoever to do with D&D (I have, in fact, other projects) and I hid.

So here it is a new week, and I'll come clean.  I haven't worked on any of the things I said I would.  As it happens, I am nearly always working on D&D or something related to it, but I work on various projects, switching from project to project as I feel in the mood.  Sometimes, I will leave a given project for up to a year, or even two, to work on other things.  Steadily the various aspects of my world build up.

But the Wiki has been making me feel for a couple of months like a ball and chain.  Gotta put up something the people will like, I keep thinking.  Gotta astound them.  That is how magazine writing works - every month you trouble yourself to think of interesting visual or tantalizing gimmicks that will blast people off their seats and make them talk about the magazine.  And having been in publishing for as long as I have, its a habit to think that way.

Unfortunately, it's different when there's no money involved.  I could go on guilting myself if this was my occupation.  But my occupation right now is in other projects, and they tend to sap my energy like little vampires.  And all I've had to give the wiki has been, really, the dregs.

By stages I have been stepping back.  I started posting something every day.  Then, accumulating material to post something every weekend.  And now, four and a half months after starting, I'm having to say fuck a schedule.  I'm going to post, or not post, as I feel.  This is a dangerous thing.  It tends to lead people to never post.  And then the Wiki just becomes another bloated dead thing on the Internet that hasn't been updated in the last three years.  Interesting, sure, but the same old stuff.  "How long's it been since I was there?  Eight months?  I wonder if it's got anything new yet ... nope.  Oh well."

The Wiki is at least as important to me as this blog.  It is just as important for me to post material there, as it is to post material here.  And I've been keeping this blog going for almost three years, still writing posts as long as those I did at the start.  Three years and I haven't run out of words yet.  I think, with the right attitude, the Wiki will still have new material three years from now.  But as the old material piles up, the new material will fall like drops on the ocean.  That is the way of things.

I did spend time posting this last week.  I added material that was fairly easy to pull together, which may or may not be of interest to anyone.  I began a 'Commodities' page, listing off my trade references for banking and trade markets, as well as mining references for antimony ore, chromium ore, copper ore, native gold and gold ore and iron ore.  I'll continue adding other tables in this group until I get sick of it ... and move back onto some other project.

Something I really have to do is to go about the pages that have been created and add text.  This is a goal for me these next six months.

Wiki, March 14, 2011

Here offered are again the paltry totals for this week's usable work.  It's rather sad to see at the end of seven days how little I manage to put together ... too much time playing video games and having sex, I suppose.  Still, we do what we can.

For spells this week, I took on a few that required a little more than average work to get the language just right.  Those spells would be monster summoning I, monster summoning II and phantasmal force.  As can be seen, only three spells this week.  Regarding the last, since no one is ever really clear what was meant by the spell back in the day ... I like phantasmal force, but creating exact limits on what it can do has always been a source for contention.  This description, now updated, seems to work.

The two monster summoning spells do beg the question (in regards to the creatures appearing whereever the caster likes within the spell range):  can monster summoning be used for spot bombing?  That is, if I'm on a great height, looking over the edge, can I create goblins (or whatever appears) ten feet in front of me, so they rain down onto the earth below, reaching maximum velocity and such?

I can't see why not.  Summoning spells are minimum 3rd level.

Because I was trying to get back into the swing of things after two weeks of being sick, I settled on calculating land areas and population statistics for a few regions.  So, three cities lists:  Genoa, Sardinia, and a group of smaller states starting with F to M.

And this is all from me.  I will try, honestly, to work on the combat rules for next week, and I should think about working on my monster lists again.  I've been thinking since starting the spell lists that I should just go ahead and do them all ... even those which I haven't really changed from the original books.  I wonder if WOTC would bother to sue.

Wiki, March 7, 2011

Getting back on the horse is such a bitch.

Having been half dead, I still don't have much to show regarding the wiki.  However, there is an addition that's been put there by Anthony, who has taken me to task many a time on this blog.  He's put up some rules for Restoration period firearms, for those wishing to mix it up where weapons are concerned.  I believe he's having some technical troubles with the permissions to get some pictures up, so once you've had a look today, pop around again by the end of the week ... hopefully those issues will have been sorted out by then.

I have only four spell rewrites to offer: magic missile, melt, message and mount, all 1st level magic user spells.  I'll have more next week, and hopefully a wider range of materials for interest's sake.  As always, drop me a note if there's any particular rule you'd like me to work on.

Wiki, February 21, 2011

I'm off today, as part of a long weekend working on the interactive system.  I have 87 cards designed, each needing some artist to work on in the next four months (*I hope!), but the mock-up should be ready for printing by Saturday.  This, obviously, has been holding my attention ... but as a kind of rest, I have been working on other things too for the benefit of the Wiki and for interest's sake (such as the game started on the previous post - don't forget to vote).

As promised, I've added four more spells to the list.  All of them are spells possessed by the party of that same post.  In all honestly I should have posted them before the battle post went up - but this is the way of house rules.  You don't learn just what they can do until it is too late.  Some, no doubt, will have voted without realizing that my bless spell or my protection malevolence don't quite work the way they expect.

But this is a condition of playing in someone else's world.  Things are never quite as expected.  Since there never will be a single accepted interpretation of any rule, this is how things go.  One has to roll with the punches.

The spells I've added to the wiki include Bless, Command, Protection from Malevolence and Tasha's Hideous Laughter.  These are the spells the fighting party possesses that are most different from the Player's Handbook (the others are pretty much as written).

With combat on the brain, I have started a rule set for that system that I've been talking about for days.  The two new pages I've created on the Wiki to handle it describe Movement, Scale & Space, and Surprise & Initiative ... the latter, I'm afraid, is only half done.  I'll get to 'initiative' if I get the time this week.

And this is a notable day.  I have the last maps up to date - none in reserve at all.  Obviously, new maps will be created from time to time, and all the old ones around the edges will be updated.  Plus, there will be additional terrain maps added to the individual pages, plus political maps that I will eventually add (showing the nations without other information, to make the boundaries clearer) and the possibility of other maps someday for climate or resources.  But for now, yes, the maps are all up.

These are mostly empty, I'm afraid.  The actual finished portions are the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula ... the rest are all empty Africa.  But someday I'll get to them.  These should show how ambitious I am:  there's Dahomey, the Lower Niger, Bornou, Oubangi, Darfour, the White Nile, the Blue Nile, Ethiopia, the Gulf of Sheba and Socotra.

I am not certain I've explained this before.  I began experimenting with this map system in September of 2004, and did not produce the first portion of my first map until November of that year.  The small section was that of Voronezh province on the map D 05, the Don Basin.  The party started in a small town called Kolyeno, in the upper right quarter of that map.  If the gentle reader looks, they will find the Caves of Chaos shown on the map, just across the thick border from Kolyeno (some 50 miles away).  That thick line is the border between Russia and the orc-mastered Jagatai Empire.

Step by step, a world gets made.  I hope others will find themselves encouraged by this work as it is ongoing, and will recognize that great things can be accomplished through perseverence.

Wiki, February 14, 2011

James C. suggested last week that the end of my maps might not be such a bad thing, as it might lead to my posting things he would find more useful to his campaign.  That's fair enough - obviously, the maps are limited in their immediate-use value, if you don't run the Earth as a setting.

The difficulty is that the good-looking material I have "ready to go" is, mostly, the maps.  And lately I haven't all that much time.  Still, I've dug up a few bits and posted those to the wiki ... things worthy only of a quick glance, but hopefully inspiring.

To begin with, a probability chart for the 4d6 method of rolling dice.  It occurs to me now that I should put a 3d6 chart up next to it - I'll try to get that up by the end of the day.  Also, my personal druidic level advancement table, and a rewrite of some spells I use in my world, which differ from the traditional books.

I still have maps to post, mostly area which are prepared for me to later fill.  Have I mentioned yet that I know the elevation statistics on every hex everywhere in my world?  I do.  They are laid out on more than a dozen excel files ... and this is then transferred to the hex maps as I need them.  I could make hex maps for everywhere, but transferring numbers gets somewhat dull after making a map or two, so I tend to create them only as I need them.

I realize they're not very interesting as they are, but they will be filled up over the next several years (yes, years), step by step.  This last year, without much time to work, I've created Norway, Italy and the Low Countries - but non-European areas are much easier to produce than European.  The latter are very detailed, whereas much of the rest of the world is marked by large, empty spaces - such as the Sahara I posted last week.

This week I have finished maps for the Empty Quarter, the large southeast desert of Arabia; Oman, and the very empty Arabian Sea.  Parts of India, further east (parts I will be filling up in the next six months), include Gujarat, the Deccan Plateau and the Eastern Ghats.  They've been made precisely because I hope to work on India.  Someone very familiar with the geography of these regions would be able to follow the ranges and valleys from the elevation numbers posted on each hex.

A fine thing about the wiki is the number of views per visit ... for over half the viewers, three or more page views per visit is the rule.  For one in 20 readers, seven or more page views - and for some, dozens and dozens of views.  That is very heartening.  It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the numbers say that in three months - we launched three months ago tomorrow - we have had some effect.  There's no telling what another three months, or three years,  of continued posting will accomplish.

I will continue to call for others to step forward and bravely contribute.  The Wiki's purpose is to make a better game for all players ... not just to dramatize or bring attention to your particular world, but as James says, to provide materials that other DMs can use.  Without question there's a lot that can be done to improve this game, more than I can think of.

Wiki, February 7, 2011

Well, we get down to the dregs of the maps now.  Most of those I'm posting are empty, blocked out areas for the day when I'm ready to fill in the details.  And since those empty maps represent areas of the Sahara desert, we are talking really empty.

The principal reason why these maps are even sketched out is so that I could be certain that the map numbers would start with the first map, 01, falling on the 0 degree meridian.  At any rate, if you consider each map is about 324,000 square miles, or the areas of Texas and Oklahoma combined, the size of the Sahara quickly becomes evident.

The maps have names associated with those parts of the Sahara they cover:  Adrar, Azbine, Tibesti, the Libyan Desert, the Nile Bend and the Nubian Desert.  On the other side of the Red Sea, there is this map of western Arabia, titled Mecca.  Note with the last that the borders simply stop where the desert begins - there is no real authority further on ... which draws my attention, at least, to those scattered hexes deep in the desert, representing oases.  Interesting adventuring there.

I am adding one more map, which would fit at the tail end of last week's post ... the unmade area around Bhutan.  The map has made its 90-degree turn here - the orange line would represent the 90th meridian.  This map should start to flesh out in the next three or four months, along with the unmade F 14.  I discovered that Assam stretches even further east than what's been graphed out here.

A last contribution would be a couple of cities pages, one for the Duchy of Savoy (Italian provinces only, I haven't remotely started France yet), and one for a number small states scattered throughout the maps, from A to E.

I'm sorry I haven't got more.  I am pushing the other project for all that I'm worth.  I hope to begin game testing in less than three weeks.  I have my own group lined up, and hopefully another with players who are less sympathetic to my playing style.  I hope they will be merciless.  Another group in Seattle will also be testing the cards.  If anyone is in the Calgary area, and wants to get a glimpse, I suggest they email me at alexiss1@telus.net.

I've had some bites for putting more content on the wiki, but nothing has yet materialized.  I continue to encourage world designers to get their feet wet.  There's no need to produce the sort of material I'm producing ... monsters, spells, dungeons, floorplans, artwork and other materials will be appreciated.  Contact me at the email above if you are interested.

Wiki, January 31, 2011

I have very little material to offer this week, since I have been working day and night on another project.  I knew that times like this were bound to come: there's only so much work that can be done in 7 days, and for some weeks the subject of the work is bound to be too long range for regular posting.

As always, I have three maps.  The list of maps on the map index page looks awfully impressive to me, even if a lot of them are only half done or less.  What I'm offering this week is the Indus Basin, the Himalayas and Nepal.  At present, these are the maps I'm working on right now.  When I have the time, I am half way through the researching of over 600 Indian cities, some of which I have plotted.  If you look at the bottom of the Nepal map, you can see where I've placed symbols to indicate which hexes would be part of various regions inside the modern day province of Uttar Pradesh.  During the time of the Moghuls, obviously, this province didn't exist ... it was divided into Rohilkhand, Bundelkhand, Awara and other entities.  Thankfully, my world takes place prior to the British arriving and really splitting up the country in their efforts to pit India against itself.  There were many fewer regions in 1650.

Has the gentle reader ever considered that people often want to set campaigns in China and Japan, but never in India?  Do they play D&D in India?  I've never heard tell of it.  Be interesting to know what sort of take they would have on the game.

That is it for the wiki.  I hope to have more next week, but we will have to see how things go.  And please still consider posting your own material.  Contact me at alexiss1@telus.net if you wish to do so.

Wiki, January 24, 2011

I am running out of maps.

What I've had has sustained the wiki for the past two and a half months ... and while maps were not the only thing I've added to the Wiki, it's felt good to know that if I produced a dribble during the week, the maps would pad out my contributions.

But, that time is nearly over.  I have perhaps three more weeks after this to post what I have, mostly the southern edge of what's mapped, and then nothing.  Oh, yes, I will occasionally print updates, like the addition of the Low Countries I finished last week.  But the big complete maps, those will all be up.

Sigh.  Oh well, here's what's been added for this week: Babylonia, the Persian Gulf and Gedrosia.  There's a lot of desert in these three.  People might be interested in the first one, since it includes southern Iraq, Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia.  Sorry parts of the southern kingdoms, around Burayda (should be Buraydah) are unnamed.  If someone complains, I'll label it a bit more and post an update.

The Persian Gulf is mostly southern Iran, or Persia, at the time of my world ruled by the Safavids.  Gedrosia is a huge empty chunk of southeastern Iran, western Afghanistan and western Pakistan.  The large river on the right side of the map is the Helmand, which serves as a very important breadbasket for modern day Afghanistan.  The familiar city of Qandahar is just off the map to the right (east of Qal'eh-ye Bost), at the point where the various feeder streams for the Helmand descend out of the Hazarat Mountains.  It will be included in a map next week.

Maps aside, the really big work that I finished last week is the Tarot, which I've been working on for months.  After a long hiatus, I plunged into finishing it for two weeks, which proved to be a daunting task.  The hard portion was, in fact, the research.  Not content to just make up 156 different story arcs which would serve to apply to the cards (both in the upright and reversed positions), I did my very best to identify the core meaning of the card and to build the interpretation from that.  Since most interpretations of the Tarot are written so as to be intentionally vague, to facilitate bullshitting people for money, this was not easy.  It required delving exhaustively into symbolic references, and puzzling out how that could be applied to a D&D campaign.

As an aside, the research I've done into the Tarot has done nothing to interest me in the use of cards has they have come to be used.  Most of the cards are given the exact same meanings, over and over again, with the least bit of distinction, and at least half the cards enable the card reader to counsel the querant (the so-called mark) to "look within" or to "change your outlook" ... which really means jack shit.  Of course people should be introspective or open to change.  How exactly are the cards useful in telling me the obvious?

To reassure the gentle reader, my interpretations are not like that.  I would ask that the cards are given a good read before being dismissed; even if the Tarot has no interest, I assure you there are a great many story arcs which could be incorporated into your sandbox campaign, which perhaps you've never run before.  The list is intended, if nothing else, to be a resource in creating adventure ideas.

Part of me wants to take certain cards and write posts about just those interpretations, since they proved to be interesting and with definite potential that might be missed in the short description space on the table allowed.  I may do that at asome point.  For now, I'm happy to be finished.

The actual application to my campaign, and how it works according to my principles of wild magic, haven't been tested.  But many of these story arcs are fairly common.  I'm not worried about incorporating them in, only in how often the tarot cards can be read and still have an effect.  After all, you can't have a reading, then sit down and request another reading.  Only the first card pulled on a particular day has any relevance ... and I am unsure as to how long that relevance should last.  I'm going with one card being potentially pulled every three sessions; I'll have to see if that is too often, or not often enough.

I'll finish by making another pitch for people to contribute to the wiki.  I promise not to bite.  The process works no different than any publication would.  Send me, the Wiki's editor, material you think would make a positive addition.  If it looks good our IT Guy, Carl, will give you a password and you can create a page.  If you have lots of material, I'll only ask after that you give me a sign when you've posted something.  I'm afraid that there is a certain level of quality that is requested, primarily that the information is clear, concise and detailed.  By 'detailed' I mean that a fair amount of thought has gone into the content, that it isn't something that's been slapped together in an afternoon.

If you can meet these standards, I'm not concerned if your material would be something I would agree with or wish to use in my world.  I am not here to judge the nature of the content, only its quality.  There is plenty of room in the Universe for differing ideas, for every kind of world and for every kind of play system ... so long as an honest labour has been applied to its creation.

Please do not feel intimidated by my usual rhetoric on this blog, or worry that you will be publically hounded by me.  There are no comments permitted on the Wiki, precisely so that materials posted there will stand on their own, and not suffer the reflections cast by abusive Internet persons like myself.  I will give you three answers if you make an offer: "No," "Work on it some more," and "When can you post?"  I will restrain myself from personal observations.

My email is alexiss1@telus.net.  Submissions should be sent there.

Intimidating?

Arduin made a comment on the last post, the wiki post, that the bar for content for the Wiki has been set intimidatingly high.  Is this true?

If so, what is it people need me to do, in order to generate more interest in putting more stuff on the wiki?  I believe that there is personally created RPG material of sufficient quality on the net, if people would step forward.  So should I remove material, if that will reduce any intimidation?

Please tell me.  What is needed to inspire others?

Wiki, January 17, 2011

It takes a long time to design anything.

At this point in the wiki, two months in, I begin to realize how much of my world I actually keep inside my own head, or which exists as easily looked up material on the Internet.  My party, as of Saturday, is rushing across the middle of central Europe pell mell, trying to catch a boat in Hamburg ... and to help me run that journey what I have is my maps, Wikipedia and a lifetime of geographical and historical studies.

Seems to be going pretty well.

I suppose I have spent a lot of my time working on maps because they serve as memory aids to me; when I see a particular city or mountain range, my head engages and I can see the trees, the mountains, the castles, the battles fought over the ground by everyone from the Romans up to the present day, the political intrigues to retain that land, the ethnic peoples, the artwork and even the literature.  I've tried to write out lengthy descriptions of areas ... but the fact is, Wikipedia does it better.

 I completed the map (except for some labelling, which I never quite get around to).  Below are two maps showing the difference between last week's appearance and this:

For anyone who plays war games, the First and Second World Wars, this should look pretty interesting.

I continue to hope that some gentle reader will come forth and have the wherewithal to publish some of their own material on the Wiki.  It does not need to be maps ... there is always a demand for monsters, magic, floorplans, tables of all variety and much more I can't begin to guess at.  Creativity knows no limitation.  If you have something you'd like to post - remembering that no one is free to comment on the Wiki, so you can't be vilified there - email me at alexiss1@telus.net.

Wiki, January 10, 2011

I continued to work on maps this week, mostly on calculating the areas of additional provinces, since there are a lot of grayed out places on the 'Cities' list.  I finally succeeded in reformatting all the city files for the Wiki, but since the area data is missing there isn't much point in publishing it.  The updated tables for world population and area, and for regions, can be found at the city index page.  At present, the world has a population of 116,092,588, and a measured area of 12,313.7 hexes.  In square miles, this would be roughly 3.8 million, or the size of Canada.

I have published a few city lists which are complete.  Namely, Cumana, Milan and Moskva.  Cumana is a half-orc client kingdom in what would be eastern Ukraine in our world - one only has to imagine that the Cumans were orcs, and were never fully defeated by the Kievans ... the two races then interbred.  The Dworkin colony is in the Donets Hills ... these are slightly different from ordinary half-orcs in that they are shorter and heavier.  Players playing dworkin characters still subtract 2 charisma, but instead of adding a point of strength and a point of constitution, they add 2 points of constitution.  At any rate, Cumana can be found mostly on this map (labeled twice, which is an error - ah well, fix it later).

Moskva is, of course, Russia.  Both it and the maps for Milan have been posted on the Wiki.  Enjoy finding them ... heh heh heh.

But very few of you are here to look at cities.  For monsters, I updated the Presence and Encounters tables to match the Biology table I posted about a month ago.  This means that all 0 to 1 intelligence creatures have been created, as well as canines and felines with 2 intelligence.  You can find the latter at the bottom of each table, highlighted in yellow.

Things get more complicated, as creatures with 2 intelligence may be encountered in four different ways.  So far I have a mere 16 different types of encounters for which a monster must have at least a 2 intelligence.  But this is only a beginning; there are other 2 intelligence monsters - of course - which I have not yet added (I will do more in the next few weeks).

Moreover, for each 3 intelligence monster I must invent 7 encounter types; for each 4 intelligence monster, 10 encounter types; for each 5 intelligence monster, 13 encounter types; and so on.  Thankfully, I'm only working on a 12 point scale for intelligence, AND encounter types can apply to more than one monster (I don't have to make unique encounter types for every monster).  Most monsters fit into categories where they all tend to act similarly ... most canines and most felines, for instance.

Apart from cities and monsters I've continued to add maps east of the Caspian Sea: Kara Kum, Turkestan and Hindu Kush.  Pay special close attention to the bottom of the Turkestan map.  'Kabolistan' on that map corresponds roughly to the eastern part of Afghanistan; the city of Kabol appears on the very bottom row of hexes, towards the right side.  Note how the centre of that region forms a lower plateau amidst very high mountains on all sides.  The reader can see how high those mountains become on the Hindu Kush map; the unmade portion is extreme western Tibet.

Finally, I've updated the Germania map again.  It is slow going, as each region I work on with this map is complicated and difficult to sketch out.  Compare the changes to where it was last week:

This is about as cluttered as the map gets.  After this point I start cleaning up the notes and smoothing out the coloring, and it becomes easier on the eye.  I messed about for quite awhile before getting a color scheme that was comfortable to look at, but still gave the necessary information.  Aesthetics are important.

This is one of the reasons I like working on a graphic design program, and having complete control of a map I make myself.  Last week people asked me why I bothered, why I didn't just use an existing map.  The answer: flexibility.  With my own map, where everything is a constructed element on the program, I can change any element I wish, whenever I wish, without having to re-pixillate someone else's imagery.  Believe me, this is greatly needed.

As well, if you haven't considered learning how to use Quark or Publisher, I would point out how I can make many little notes on how I'm going to color this hex or take that river, right on the map, so that I'm not dependent on my memory for each feature.  I can work on all the features at once, graphing them in general, before going in and microdesigning each one.  For myself, I keep it relatively simple - this looks a mess, but it really isn't too bad.  Admittedly, these little tiny states of Europe have raised some signficant bumps on my forehead, and a slightly grooved place on my desk; but a little sanding should sort both out.

Wiki, January 3, 2011

Despite hopes that I would get back to working on monsters over my holidays, it turns out that obligations outweighed my time, and what I could find left me with too thick a head to work on my biology table.  Making maps was much less cerebral, so that is what I continued to do this last week.

Principally, I tackled the undesirable task of working out Holland's coastline.  The problem is that modern maps are quite different from the reality of 1650, the date of my world, since Holland has continued to expand its territories through the building of polders for a great many centuries.  However, I was lucky enough to find this map, produced by Jan Janssonius in 1658:

It took some considerable effort to match up this map to the accuracy of modern satellite coastlines, but I'm happy with the results.  For posterity's sake (so I can come back myself and look at it years from now), here is the map of the Low Countries as of one week ago, and as of today:

As the reader can see, I've begun plotting the cities, which is the next stage (the tool I use for plotting is on the map).  Also, note that I've had to alter the border for Bentheim, having plotted the location of Enschede.  One must be flexible with new information.  The whole map of Germany can be found on the Wiki.

James, of A Dungeon Master's Tale, has contributed an outline for the Gnome Class, for those gentle readers who play D&D versions prior to AD&D.  I strongly recommend having a good look.

Other new things on the Wiki include lists for the cities of the Swiss Confederacy and for Tuscany.  I have added maps for Anatolia, Asia Minor and Transcaucasia.  The strange warping of the Anatolia map is due to it being located on the 30th Meridian, and thus subject to the 60 degree twist resulting from laying out a round Earth on a flat, hexagonal map; it is something I've talked about before.

I continue to encourage those who have material to post to contact me - my email is alexiss1@telus.net.  For those who have contacted me, I hope to see your material on the wiki soon.

Wiki, December 27, 2010

More than half the reason I don't post more information to the Same Universe Wiki is because most of the information I have is in a non-formatted, not easily understood table, or consists of scattered information that needs gathering together.  It should be apparent to anyone who has seen a good deal of the Wiki that my world is in a constant state of creation, or flux.  So I post material as I format it, and I format as I gather that material together.

Such as it is with the Father's Table which I've posted.  The original is somewhere on my blog, though I can't find it without combing through it post by post it seems.  This table is marginally updated, with some new professions and some of the added abilities (now called 'legacies') cleaned up after running with them.  My players love this table, since it gives them a bonus ability, plus a sense of origin; it is seen as a kind of lottery which you win or don't win at.  Every profession is technically a 'winner,' but some are obviously much better than others.  Life isn't fair.

Some of the bonuses fit into house rules for my world, which I haven't gotten around to posting on the Wiki because I haven't worked out yet how to standardize the rule.  The worst of these is the "+1 weather grade" benefit, which refers to an individual's ability to live comfortably in weather conditions different from that of their birth ... someone from a desert climate finding themselves in sub-arctic surroundings would be much more uncomfortable than someone who originated in a temperate climate.  The table for this has been on hold for more than a year (puzzling it through in my head), but my players tolerate these things.  I hope to have something together for it soon.

I have added the standard maps: the West Mediterranean, which isn't much of anything yet; Italy, which the reader should compare with this image here, prior to my completing the Italy map (northern Italy is included on the Germany map); and Greece.  Believe you me, the islands on that last map were no picnic.  I trust the maps continue to impress my readers.  I have received lots of feedback for them.

This being Christmas, I haven't much more.  I've added two tables to my Cities page ... not the standard fare, I assure you.  If you will scroll down the page you will find a list of independent territories, all including the population of that territory and - in some cases - the area in hexes.  It should be obvious from the cities links I've been putting up for weeks (Poland, Sweden, etc.) that the population numbers are not generated out of my ass, but result from reading through material on individual cities, assigning a population to those cities based on an algorithm computed to their 1952 population, and that information used to determine the total population of the area.  Hex areas are computed according to population density and land use.  The numbers for area are, I'm afraid, inconclusive ... since in the case of many of these nations I have total population statistics but not total area.  Still calculating the latter out, province by province.

You will find a break-down of the World Population & Area table below (still on the cities table) as two jpegs, Provinces A-L and Provinces M-Z.  This shows which regions have had the area computed and which have not.  The Ottoman Empire, for instance, is much bigger than 397.4 hexes ... but if you scan down the page, you'll find that only parts of the European Empire are accounted for.

I hope this will feed the fascination of those gentle readers who adore statistics.

For the rest of you, I continue to encourage you to get involved in publishing your own material.  We are regularly getting more than 1,000 page views a week, so I can assure you that posting will drive eyes to your own website and it will get you attention.  Contact me at alexiss1@telus.net if you have anything you'd like to see on the Wiki.

Wiki, December 20, 2010

This last week I have again been working on maps, but moreso upon a character background generation machine in excel which, unfortunately for the general reader here, does not translate well to a blog page.  I have some vacation time over Christmas, so I hope to squeeze some space in between family and get up at least one of the periphery tables, the one that determines what your father taught you.

In the meantime, I offer on the wiki this week the meagre bit that I've added.  More cities tables (will they ever end?) for Poland and Sweden.  And five maps: Balkhash, the Altai Mountains, West Mongolia, the Selenge Basin and a mostly unfinished map that is part of Mongolia/northern China.

I have a reason for including these last four, all of which have large areas that are not finished.  This is the edge of the world as it stands right now.  I worked my way through these four maps last year, trying to map the source rivers for the Yenisey ... that's the part of my maps that isn't done here and here.  I've found that it is easier to map the lower river if the upper river is done.  The Yenisey, however, has several extensive sources, some of which are not even considered part of the origin of that river.  The Selenge River, which most readers will not have heard of, drains north central Mongolia, rising in a bunch of narrow river valleys that join together to flow out of Mongolia and into Lake Baykal.  The outflow for Baykal is the Angara, which then flows 1,100 miles before joining with the Yenisey and flowing into the Kara Sea.  Anyway, to map the Yenisey meant mapping the Angara, and to map the Angara meant mapping the Selenge, which meant working out the four maps above.  All this was done while I was 'on vacation' after my previous position went south when the magazine I was working for up to 2009 died with the recession.

Why bother to say all this?  I want to make it clear that the maps themselves, each being 30x35 hexes, are added as I follow political divisions or topographical features in this direction or that.  I needed to create the map that would allow the little corner of 'done' material that is in the upper left on the Unknown China map ... but I'm really uncertain what comprises the rest of that territory (the Gobi Desert, I think), so it remains unnamed.  It always gets me down a bit when what I'm doing requires 'one more map' - since it means identifying the elevation of every hex on that new map.  Believe me, it's not the sort of thing to be done piecemeal.

I'm not working on any of these maps right now.  I will eventually, and when I do I would like it if regular readers of the wiki would see that the process of building a world is done bit by bit.  Just add another province, and then another, until map after map is done.  That's how it goes.  It's what I recommend for people who design a world, and it's not new advice.  Just work around the edges of what you already have; don't worry about how much you're doing today, or this month ... because eventually what you will have to show will be a huge, sprawling map.

It is a question of having a clear idea of what makes your maps work, so that as you add and expand, you're not going back and doing the same maps over and over and over.

Though I've done that.  Oh yes, I have done that.  Once too many times, I can tell you.

Wiki, December 13, 2010

Confession time.

I spent virtually the entire week working on maps.  I was in the mood.  Vegetation maps for those which I've already posted, and a lot of time hammering out my Italy map, which I am happy with despite the fact that 20-mile hexes are awfully general for a country with Italy's terrain variability.  Sorry, no, won't be posting Italy for a week or two ... there are still details to be added.

As a result, the wiki is shy some any new tables, and shy any new monster information.  To be honest, those tables I've added so far were those that were easy to bring up to a publishable state.  But there will be more in the future, added as I steadily upgrade them.  There's no rush for me ... I said I was on a four-year plan.

In the meantime, I have a list for what I've added this last week.  First of all, because it's easy, three more cities tables - the second half of the Lesser States of the Holy Roman Empire (aren't you impressed with how many there are?) - which I had to break into a separate image because of size - along with Hungary and Ulthua.  Hungary in 1650 is a narrow buffer state between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Turks; you can find the provinces listed on the cities table on the Carpathians map.

Ulthua is my name for the land of the Elves, which occupies northern Finland, Karelia and the Kola Peninsula.  The map for the area is B 02 - Lapland, to which I've added a vegetation map (scroll down the page).  I've also added a vegetation map to B 01 - Lofoten.  I'll be adding further vegetation maps as I continue the process of labelling the maps themselves (I did a lot of that this last weekend with the Lapland map, as well as adding mountains to it. ... it is a slow process).

Finally - and its a shame this is all - I've added maps for the Don Basin, the North Caspian and for Kirghizia (western Kazakhstan).  I will continue to have additional maps to post each week for quite some time.

Finally, I should like to encourage others to step forward and offer material to appear on the wiki.  At no time was it intended to be for my contribution alone.  There's a great deal I have little talent for: floor plans, artwork, more tables, creatively new monsters, even adventures and modules that you don't mind delivering to the reading public for free.  Be brave and contact me at alexiss1@telus.net.

Wiki, December 6, 2010

Here is what's been added or changed in the wiki this last week:

A table that outlines Combat Actions for use with my combat system.  In truth, the inspiration for these came straight out of a 3rd Edition book, I think the Dungeon Master's Guide for that edition, though I'm not sure.  Only goes to show that some things can be stolen from anywhere.  I haven't seen that original table in years, though, so I can't say how similar my version is to the original.  I know I had to fix up the times to suit my needs.

As an aside, I must laugh.  I defended that I played D&D to Zzarchov in the last week or so, and it says right on the blog post I've linked for my combat system that I don't play AD&D.  What a liar I am.

Cities lists for Saxony, Trier and Lesser States of the Holy Roman Empire.  I'll be honest, I don't know how useful these lists are to anyone but me.  I am enjoying putting them up because it's a digital back-up for me, should anything happen ... and at any rate they show the consistency in the overall data I'm offering.  The cities in these lists can be compared with the maps that I post, so that it can be seen how large this city is, or how small those are.  As well, the Lesser States table above certainly shows the considerable array of German states ... every one of them annoying to fix on the maps, I can testify.

I've also added maps for the Carpathians and for the Mouth of the Danube and western Ukraine.  I only added 2 more, since I added 5 last week.  To date, that's 22 maps.  I have another 43 left to post, all the same size.  Yes, that's not a typo.

I added information about clerical Tithes & Boons, which the gentle reader can familiarize themselves with from the link.  If you came across it last week, there were some errors and misplaced information in the text which has been fixed.  I have had very few incidents where players have taken advantage of this ... it's too expensive, overall.  But it is a means of collecting wealth for higher level players who have constructed churches.

And finally I have updates for the Monster Presence and the Monster Encounter Behavior tables.  I did not quite bring them as far along as I had hoped to this last weekend, but Christmas is beginning to take hold (and we had a 10 hour running on Saturday).  Still, both tables are greatly expanded.

Enjoy.

Wiki, November 29, 2010

Listing off the things added to the wiki this last week:

A table for Dice Combinations.

The cities files for the Kingdom of the Habsburgs, the Archbishopric of Mainz and the House of Nassau.

A table for the effects of armor on movement.

A description of my Bard character.

A considerable expansion to the first Biology Table.

And maps for the Yenisey basin, the Angara basin, the Upper Lena basin, the English Channel and Germany.  Don't get too excited.  All of these maps fall in the category of not finished ... and in the case of England, maps not even started.  But I decided when I started this that I'd just go ahead and show the partially done work along with the completed ... the Germany map, though only 2/3rds finished, still represents a terrific amount of work of which I am proud.

I hope the above links provide some interest.

Wiki, November 22, 2010

Bit by bit, I do make the effort to add something to the wiki every day.  Here are the most recent additions:

A table indicating Encounter Actions according to intelligence.

Stubs for three tables that will eventually be a sprawling mess of information: a biology table, a table for details about monster presence prior to encounters, and a table for types of encounter behavior.

Three maps: Upper Volga, Central Urals and the Ob-Irtysh river confluence.

More coming throughout the next week.

In other news, my friend Carl is no longer posting at Three Hams Inn ... so I am removing that link from my blog.