Well, I warned you I would be remarkably busy, this year (and next year ain’t looking good, either). I did get in some writing time during my last deployment, but it was all spent on continuity edits, improvements, and structural adjustments preparing for the final two chapters. Honestly new material just started in the last month or so, when it became unlikely I would be going overseas again, soon. Something about an Afghanistan disaster and overwhelmed logistical systems…

Anyway, in the meantime I have done some other things. Like world building. For instance…

This is part of a map I’ve been working on. It’s f’ing enormous (relatively), so I’m going by sections. You’ll notice that The Orchards are filled out with lots of nice little details like fields, houses, roads, fences, bushes, cattle, and so on, while the section immediately southeast is still bare except for a basic layout of roads.

Likewise…

This one has experimental translucent plates/plaques behind the text to try and make it easier to read. Not sure if I’m keeping that, yet.

And this.

You’ll notice a fairly dense part to the left, with alleyways and a more haphazard layout, while the center is full of walled enclaves with one or a handful of houses, where the rich families live. There are statues and monuments, ornamental greenery, and even a pond fed by the city’s original artesian spring. The House of the Blind in the corner is a religious institution. The walled areas on the hill are larger, and you can just barely see the corner tower of a fortified keep in the upper right.

These are all parts of a (major) city map I’m making for The Dark Brother. Since I insist on trying to do things right (and I’m stupid), I’m making it more-or-less accurate at a 1:1 scale and doing it all by hand, because I don’t think the automated tools in this program come out looking quite right. I might change my mind as this drags on, though.

I also won’t be able to show depth, like multi-story buildings, very well, but the geographic layout will be quite close to a real city of the same population and size. Aside, real data on the layout, populations, and dimensions of ancient cities is pretty hard to find. But I have leeway because, you know, fantasy.

Three Incomplete Parts of a Map? I’m not impressed.

There are four-and-a-half, actually, but wait, there’s more! I discovered World Anvil earlier this year. It’s basically a very fancy, largely automated Wiki you can rent space on for creating and storing your creative projects. You can use existing maps and label them, making the labels interactive and even linking to other maps; lay out character genealogies and family trees; set up multiple overlapping timelines with specific dates and descriptions of events; create an encyclopedia of critters, minerals, customs, magic things, and other different kinds of templates; and generally organize, develop, link, and build your world(s). You can also control who sees what when and write ‘Secrets’ into articles that can only be seen by you or someone you authorize (like a co-writer), even if the article is otherwise viewable by the public.

So, I’ve put a lot of time into that. Aside from recording things that have already been developed, it also spurred more creativity in filling things out. It sort of offends me to see a listing of seven or ten named things in a category but without any filler. I’ve written in at least one new legend, a sarcastic name for a world event, a brief history of a place Drake goes in the early part of The Dark Brother, and other assorted fluff, aside from the meatier topics like the coronation and disposal of every single Sindathi Emperor, major wars or happenings, and so on.

It’s a hell of an interesting tool, and one I have been glad to pay for. And, when I get sick of paying for it, I can export it all and keep my work in pdf format.

And I figure it’s going to replace my little baby World Wiki on this website, once it’s in a state fit to share with readers.

Anything else?

There is a playtest going in Texas using the fantasy RPG rules I made for this setting. I debriefed the GM for a few hours after I got back from the desert this last time and got the rundown on what was going on. So far, it has been a smashing success. Everything worked, though there needed to be some minor adjustments based on feedback (like healing, which is limited and slow for a modern fantasy RPG). The priest loved being a priest and incorporated her Acts of Faith (how they recharge their magic) into strong roleplaying. The thief relished doing thief-ish things other characters couldn’t do. The warrior loved being able to swap from a ranged focus to a melee focus without “re-specing” or otherwise losing anything.  And the lethal combat made things exciting; stakes were never so low as to be boring.

So that’s nice.

There were also some unexpected requests, like pricing for real estate. The players wanted to save up and buy a house as a base of operations and the GM needed to know what to charge them. So I took the cost for a modern hotel of a certain quality, compared it to a home of similar quality, took that ratio and multiplied it against the cost for in-game lodging, and arrive at an analog price for a home in a Terrythian city. Math!

So I haven’t actually been lazy. Honest. It’s just a super busy year.