What are you working on?
There are bunch of us in this club who create things. Some of us create RPG material. Some of us write fiction. At least one of us makes music.
Sooo...what are you working on at the moment that you can share with the club? Either things which will be for sale, or things for your own enjoyment?
For me, there's more material for Liminal, my contemporary fantasy RPG, both by me and by other people. Soon there will be crowdfunding for my take on world hopping fantasy, Beyond Dread Portals, with a D&Dish rules influence but heavily drifted by both my tastes and to fit the setting (it's about exploration and politics rather than dungeons). And most excitingly of all, the epic @Apocryphal and I wrote, Mythic Babylon (for Mythras) is with the publishers.
Anyway...what's yours?
Comments
Not much for me at the moment. I'm catching up on a number of things I let slide over the summer. I still have a few odds and ends to wrap up for Mythic Babylon - mainly preparing maps.
I'd like to work on something else, and I have several half-baked ideas. The most developed idea is called The Awful Hand, a game of medieval intrigue, superstition, and derring do in a kingdom cursed by the Devil. I have chunks of setting written, and a pretty decent back cover blurb:
In darkest Gallowa' twa kings brood
An guid fowk gather abut the rood
For the de'il has broached the dyke, tis said
And comes tae put thy sons to beid.
.
Now brae and haugh and carse once feir
Are bonny, bricht, and gled nae mair
For Hornie the De'il has cursit is this land
And long is the reach of his awful hand.
.
THE AWFUL HAND: Adventures in Mythic Galloway is a sourcebook and campaign set in the medieval kingdom of Galloway during the late twelfth century. The kingdom is poisoned by a Bishop's curse, and the awful hand of the Devil stretches its shadowy fingers across the hills and into the hearts of its people. The campaign follows the fortunes of its two rival kings as they struggle against the power of the curse. Can the kingdom be saved and re-united, or will it fall into damnation?
What is Galloway?
The land of Galloway lies on the north shore of the Irish sea and has counted among its inhabitants Picts, Romans, Britons, Angles, Norse, and Gaels. Each of these cultures have left their mark upon the landscape in the forms of old diked fields, ancient pack roads, half-forgotten strongholds, and some of the most evocative placenames in Britain. Here you can visit the Nick of the Balloch, the Corse of Slakes, the De'il's Dike, The Black Water of Dee, Cainsmore of Kerseban, The Cauldron of the Dungeon, Viride Stagnum Abbey, the tombs of Sunnoness, the Murder Hole, the Mote of Urr, Screel Hill, or The Range of The Awful Hand itself. Though Galloway has long been a meeting place of cultures, this “Land of the Stranger Gaels” remains something of a land apart. Its inhabitants, the Galwegians, are sometime called the Southern Picts, for they are thought to be descended from that long lost race.
What is the Awful Hand?
The Awful Hand is the highest range of hills in Galloway, They are desolate and remote, offering the perfect refuge for those who wish to hide their sins. In these hills and the glens between your characters will meet wrathful kings, prophetic saints, industrious warlocks, gluttonous monks, secretive brewers, scurrilous tinkers, blaspheming priests, vengeful vikings, slothful servants, simple giants, black-hearted pirates, peripatetic grave-diggers, proud clan chiefs, hideous brownies, envious fairies, creeping wyrms, angry poltergeists, lusty merchants, and all manner of other deviltry.
Here's what famous people are saying about their favourite Mythic Galloway characters:
"[We fielded] An execrable army, more atrocious than the pagans, [and] neither fearing God nor regarding man, spread desolation over the whole province and slaughtered everywhere people of either sex, of every age and rank, destroying, pillaging and burning towns, churches and houses... For the sick on their couches, women pregnant and in childbed, infants in the womb, innocents at the breast, or on the mother's knee, with the mothers themselves, decrepit old men and worn-out old women, and persons debilitated from whatever cause, wherever they met with them, they put to the edge of the sword, and transfixed with their spears; and by how much more horrible a death they could dispatch them, so much the more did they rejoice." Henry of Hexham
“[Our Galwegian characters were] Men, agile, unclothed, remarkable for much baldness; arming their left side with knives formidable to any armed men, having a hand most skillful at throwing spears and directing them from a distance; raising their long lance as a standard when they advance into battle.” Ralph de Diceto
"[Our Galwegian characters] after their custom gave vent thrice to a yell of horrible sound, and attacked the southerns in such an onslaught that they compelled the first spearmen to forsake their post." Henry of Huntingdon
"Like a hedgehog with its quill, so would you see... [my] Galwegian [adventurer] bristling all round with arrows, and nonetheless brandishing his sword, and in blind madness rushing forward now smite a foe, now lash the air with... strokes" Ailred of Reivaulx
Nothing much - an RPG, a board game, yet another album. The creation process is fun!
For me, the main project is finishing my latest book, set in the universe of Far from the Spaceports, but a couple of decades on and with a completely different focus. It's called The Liminal Zone, 'cos after all you can never have too much liminality The setting: Pluto's moon Charon rather than the asteroid belt. So you can take the liminal zone concretely in terms of location, or metaphorically in terms of inward experience.
As with earlier books in the series, it's (what I consider to be) moderately strict SF, with a heavy focus on human-AI relationships. Much more interest in the personal and relational side of life, and a marked absence of battles with laser cannons and such like.
The storyline has moved away from the fraud-in-space theme of the previous ones, and is more of a first contact book, with Arthurian overtones. But unlike @Apocryphal, I don't have any sort of blurb yet. I always struggle with that, bigtime. A third and final story in the Far from the Spaceports arc is in very early preparation, but won't see the light of day until The Liminal Zone is out there.
I had originally hoped to have finished The Liminal Zone some months ago, but life has been very busy this calendar year and I will be happy if I get a finished text ready by the winter.
Hilariously, I misparsed your last sentence by transferring the meaning from "epic Mythic Babylon" to "epic @Apocryphal". I'm sure you could read all kinds of interpretations into that...
Well, @Apocryphal IS epic...
Those who can, write.
Those who can't, blurb.
Real Life has gotten the better of me for a while now, so I'm not working on finishing the first draft of my first novel, nor am I tinkering with an RPG inspired by our LotR slow read. Alas! Hopefully I'll get back to one or both soon.
(Everyone else's projects sound very cool.)
I’m writing a poem (maybe song lyrics) entitled “Psychedelic Fidelity.” Here is its current firm, which includes some gaps.
I’m chatting with a frog
Underneath a secret log
Waiting out my granny’s steam
He shows me to a door
A sure and certain metaphor
For crossing the bar to my dreams
So I slip a signifier
As my consciousness goes higher
And my dead pawpaw appears to me
He says, “Grandson,
No matter what you’ve done
You can always come home, you see.”
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I am lying in a bed
The doc has just pronounced me dead
After chugging 151 proof
She asks no one a question
That provokes a mild reflection
About whether I would even know the truth
So I slip beneath the sheet
To find the reaper’s receipt
Which reads, “Lucky Day! Have a rain check!”
And I realize
As I open up my eyes
That I’m not exactly at my apex
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I’m standing at the altar
My knees have just faltered
But I manage to croak out, “I do”
All of life’s potential
Everything that’s essential
Is now multiplied by two
We’re swinging from the moon bow
Listening to the water flow
Receiving its ethereal blessing
guessing
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I’m pinching my nose
The excitement, God knows
Has caused it to start to bleed
I’m holding my new son
A new world has been spun
More sacred than any kind of creed
I’m giving him away
And I hear the preacher say
Congratulations, you’ve got a new daughter
I will always lift them up
And never corrupt
Love is our new alma mater
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I kneel before the bishop
This is more than just religious
As the wind and the fire attest
The power of the yoke
And the words that we spoke
Seal the covenant by which we are blest
In a trance in seventh heaven
That’s cranked up to eleven
I fly to the top of the temple
Saints glow with love’s glory
As we sing the sacred story
example
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Between Charybdis and Scylla
Depression, a blue gorilla
Jumps up and down on my chest
She submerges me in love
And lifts me up from above
Baptized, restored, refreshed
The waters of the womb
Wash against my tomb
Cool - as it happens, I know someone who could turn those lyrics into a song. Amiright, @clash_bowley ?
That would be very cool.
That would be true! I'll see what I can do!
Here is what I was working on, BTW - My sixth album, Sextillius, released Friday: https://clashbowley.bandcamp.com/album/sextillius - don't worry, you can listen without paying!
Also a board game - The Great Game, released Thursday: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/294208/The-Great-Game?src=hottest_filtered
Also an RPG - StarCluster 4 - In the Beginning, released Thursday: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/294213/StarCluster-4--In-The-Beginning?src=hottest_filtered
So, I've been busy!
To warn you, talking about these things here is my equivalent of a media blitz...
Wow! Overachiever!
Why yes, I am insane!
@WildCard - here it is:
Not my style, but it's not bad. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rG3HZCL8QDqM7wjK5nTTNgNeAoUHIwBT
I would have worked it a lot more if I were going to release it. The lyrics have a lot of syllables, and I messed up a couple of times. I think a country singer would really do it justice.
Wow, that's awesome! Pretty catchy tune in there. @WildCard you need to take up playing drums.
Thanks, @Apocryphal! The inherent rhythm in the lyrics forced my hand.
@clash_bowley, this is awesome! I’ve worked on the lyrics a bit more. I’ll post the finished product here when I’m done. May I share the link to the music on social media? Just with friends?
I still haven’t figured out how to get notifications here.
@WildCard See this comment for notifications. It's easier on a PC than a phone, but should be reachable from either. https://www.ttrpbc.com/discussion/comment/2037/#Comment_2037
Sure! Of course you can! Have fun with it!
Perfect! I think that is exactly what I need.
Ironically, as I’m poking around, I find a draft from months ago where I was asking how to set email notifications. I guess I never got around to posting it. Now that I have them set up, I hope to be more involved. I read Recursion when it was the selection, but didn’t get in the discussion. I’m about halfway through Sarah Canary Maybe now I’ll read them in time to discuss.
Awesome, Wild Card! Welcome to the club!
@clash_bowley, Thank you. It’s more like “welcome back to the club.” I was an on-again off-again participant, depending on how busy work was going, for the last couple of years of Google+’s existence.
I didn’t manage the shift to this site very well, having difficulty keeping up, since I hadn’t figured out the notifications.
Well then welcome back!
@WildCard was one of our earliest new joiners when we moved to G+, but he went by a different name there. For a time I thought you and @Michael_S_Miller were related because of the amazing insights you could both bring to the table.
My notifications worked this time! Woo hoo!
And those are mighty kind words.
Here, I think, is the final version of “Psychedelic Fidelity.”
I’m chatting with a frog
Underneath a secret log
Waiting out my Mama’s steam
The frog shows me to a door
A sure and certain metaphor
For crossing the bar to my dreams
So I slip a signifier
As my consciousness goes higher
And my dead pawpaw appears to me
He says, “Grandson,
No matter what you’ve done
You can always come home, you see.”
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I notice the paint
That covers reality
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I am lying in a bed
The doc has just pronounced me dead
After chugging 151 proof
She asks no one a question
That provokes a mild reflection
About whether I can handle this truth
So I slip beneath the sheet
To find the reaper’s receipt
It reads, “Lucky Day! Have a rain check!”
I begin to realize
As I open up my eyes
That I’m not exactly at my apex
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I sniff at the paint
That covers reality
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I’m standing at the altar
My knees have just faltered
But I manage to croak out, “I do”
All of life’s potential
Everything that’s essential
Is now multiplied by two
We’re swinging from the moon bow
The cadence of the river flows
Pronouncing an ethereal blessing
All our sunny days together
Every storm that we will weather
Are revealed in that moonlight caressing
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I point out the paint
That covers reality
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I’m pinching my nose
It’s the excitement, I’m told
That has caused it to start to bleed
I’m holding my new son
A new world has been spun
More sacred than any kind of creed
I’m giving him away
And I hear the preacher say
Congratulations, you’ve got a new daughter
We will always lift them up
And never corrupt
Love is our family alma mater
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I scratch at the paint
That covers reality
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
There’s a girl with truest blue eyes
Every glance produces new highs
Reality shifts when she smiles at me
She’s the sunniest of days
The world is brightened when she plays
At least it is for her PopPop and GiGi
I am dancing at her wedding
The direction that I’m heading
Will require some metanoia at the least
Her power, love, and spirit
Give me wisdom when I hear it
On her sunshine only will I feast
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I peek beneath the paint
That covers reality
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
There is a world which we can touch
And taste and smell and see
And there’s a world found underneath
Where all we do is feel
Depending on my state of mind
Perhaps my state of heart
I can’t decide which world it is
I think is really real
I put my father in the grave
Can my face be put on brave?
I’m held upright by my moonbow girl
“I love you” rings in my ear
I taste a bittersweet tear
Can I repay her grace here in this world?
I am sleeping in the womb
The waters lap against my tomb
And I dance in my ancestral home
In my end is my beginning
When I lose I find I’m winning
When I look into the part, I find the whole
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
I strip away the paint
That covers reality
Ooooooooh
Psychedelic fidelity
Excellent! Thank you!
Hello Chris, I have a friend who loves the bronze age and recently bought Mythras to start a campaign. He used to play Runequest. Can you tell me when your book is coming out?