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Planning for July 2024

Planning for July 2024

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June was a productive month. I made progress on building the Fourth Millennium timeline, especially using Notion to collect and organize all my notes. I also wrote a complete novelette, “Penthus at Bay,” from a standing start – over 15,000 words of new fiction set in the Fourth Millennium universe. All that and keeping up with my other commitments, too. Whew.

This month, I’m going to continue to focus on Fourth Millennium. I’m not planning to write any new fiction in July, unless a story idea really leaps out at me, but I’ll be continuing to push the timeline forward. I also plan to lay out the outline for the eventual Fourth Millennium setting-bible-slash-TTRPG-sourcebook, and possibly get started writing chunks of that.

Meanwhile, I have a few chores in relation to Architect of Worlds that need to be done, so that’s going on the agenda too.

Here’s the list:

  • Front Burner:
    • Fourth Millennium: Continue work to rebuild the alternate-historical timeline.
    • Fourth Millennium: Begin work to outline and write the setting bible (BRP sourcebook).
    • Architect of Worlds: Deal with outstanding reader comments and errata, and finish setting up the page(s) for the book on this site.
  • Back Burner:
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work on the new draft of Twice-Crowned.
    • Human Destiny: Write a new Aminata Ndoye story, set when she’s about seventeen years old and attending an academy for officer candidates for the interstellar service.
    • Human Destiny: Continue rewriting and adding to the setting bible (BRP sourcebook).
    • Great Lands: Begin work to revise the geography and back history of the setting.

For my patrons: At the moment, I’m skeptical as to whether I’ll have enough genuinely new material to justify a charged release in July. Some combination of new Fourth Millennium timeline material and the first interim draft of the setting bible might reach the threshold, but we’ll see. Watch this space for status reports.

Planning for June 2024

Planning for June 2024

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May was a pretty big month. The final round of edits for Architect of Worlds is done, and the book is well and truly on the market. PDF sales are under way, and I’ve been hearing about sightings of the hardcopy book in the wild, although I haven’t personally seen it yet. I pulled together a submission package for the “Human Destiny” setting for the Chaosium design challenge. I also finished my university courses for the year, and although I haven’t seen my final grades yet, I’m reasonably confident I passed both courses “with distinction.”

That closes out one of the more demanding years I’ve ever had in my life. Starting last June I’ve had a flooded basement (which pushed me out of my usual living quarters and office space), some pretty extensive home repairs, an infestation of mice, yet another flooding incident (this time on the upper floors of the house), a nasty outbreak of office politics, and the biggest course-development project on the shortest time-scale I’ve ever had to work on. Amid all of this, it’s been a bit of a challenge to take on an aggressive course of university study and keep pushing my creative projects forward.

So, now that I’ve reached the summer of 2024 with my sanity more or less intact, I think I’m going to pivot to something different for the next few months. I’ve barely touched my Fourth Millennium or “Danassos” universe in over a year, and that’s going to make for a nice change of pace.

What will that involve? Well, I’m almost certainly going to get back to working on Twice-Crowned, my half-finished novel set in Danassos and Athens in the time of the Second Peloponnesian War. I also have a couple pieces of short fiction in the back of my mind, and I might try to get those into readable form. Finally, I think I’ll work on the Fourth Millennium back story timeline a bit, and start collecting notes for what may one day be a setting bible and tabletop RPG supplement for the universe.

None of which is to say that I’m not going to work on plausible interstellar world-building or the “Human Destiny” future history any more. Just that I feel the need to take a break from those for at least 2-3 months and see if I can make progress on some other projects.

So, here’s the planning roster for June:

  • Front Burner:
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work on the new draft of Twice-Crowned.
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work to rebuild the alternate-historical timeline.
    • Fourth Millennium: Write at least one short story set somewhere in the timeline.
  • Back Burner:
    • Human Destiny: Write a new Aminata Ndoye story, set when she’s about seventeen years old and attending an academy for officer candidates for the interstellar service.
    • Human Destiny: Continue rewriting and adding to the setting bible (BRP sourcebook).
    • Great Lands: Begin work to revise the geography and back history of the setting.

As far as items for my patrons go: I’m going to work hard to have at least 10,000-20,000 words of new material down by the end of June, in which case there will be a charged release for my patrons. Most likely this will consist of some new fiction, and possibly the first stab at a Fourth Millennium setting bible. Look for a Status Report or two in the course of June.

Planning for May 2024

Planning for May 2024

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As of this evening, I’ve completed the final edits for Architect of Worlds and sent the release-draft PDFs over to Ken Burnside. Assuming all goes well, that’s the project finished. Ken tells me he ought to be able to make the complete PDFs available for purchase (and for me to share with patrons and playtesters) very soon. I imagine the process of printing and shipping physical copies won’t be too far behind.

My next big project is going to be to put together a Human Destiny package for the Chaosium design challenge, due at the end of this month. I suspect that’s not going to involve just adding to the existing partial draft of the sourcebook. Instead, I’m probably going to take the material I already have, maybe add some additional content, and assemble a package specifically for the contest.

Meanwhile, I have the finals for my university courses coming up at the end of the month too.

All of which is to say that there probably will not be a substantial new release for my patrons this month, although I may have a small item or two for them that won’t amount to a charged release. Once I get into June, however, a lot of my prior commitments are going to be off my plate over the summer. I’m hoping to get a bunch of useful and interesting creative work done in the June-September timeframe.

Here’s the current lineup, notable as the first time in years that Architect of Worlds hasn’t appeared as a front-line item:

  • Front Burner:
    • Human Destiny: Continue rewriting and adding to the setting bible (BRP sourcebook).
    • Human Destiny: Complete and send a contest entry for the Chaosium design challenge.
  • Back Burner:
    • Human Destiny: Write a new Aminata Ndoye story, set when she’s about seventeen years old and attending an academy for officer candidates for the interstellar service.
    • Great Lands: Begin work to revise the geography and back history of the setting.
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work on the new draft of Twice-Crowned.
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work to rebuild the alternate-historical timeline.

I’ll keep everyone posted with a Status Update or two as the month progresses.

Status Report (23 April 2024)

Status Report (23 April 2024)

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Looking forward to the next few days, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I’m in the midst of some rather aggressive prioritizing.

Since September, I’ve been involved with a big course-development project at the office, one which has been shattering every barrier that would normally allow me to avoid office work in the evenings and over weekends. This is the biggest course-development project I’ve ever been involved with – one which I would normally have said required 18-24 months of research and development before starting the pilot offering – and we’re having to pull it together in a fraction of that time. So that’s item #1.

Item #2 is the university courses I signed up for last summer, on the assumption that my established work-life balance was going to hold and I would have plenty of time to study . . . yeah, that hasn’t turned out as expected. My last set of exams came back with lower marks than I was willing to accept. I have two exams due at the end of April, and finals due at the end of May, and I am feeling a wee bit under-prepared.

Item #3 is Architect of Worlds, for which (good news!) I now have final edits in hand from Ken Burnside. Unfortunately, that means (bad news!) I need to get those final edits implemented and a release draft back to Ken ASAP so we can finally get the book out the door, right when #1 and #2 above are already demanding a big chunk of my energy.

None of this rises to the level of existential crisis, but I need to prioritize and manage my time a lot more aggressively than usual for the next couple of weeks.

This afternoon, I pulled together an interim draft of the Human Destiny setting bible and RPG sourcebook, and sent that to my patrons as a free update. I now expect to set that project aside for at least the next 10-14 days while I knock out other tasks.

I’ve got a commitment to appear on a Traveller podcast on 1 May, but aside from that I think I’m going to be limiting my social media time for about that long too. Don’t expect any posts here and only minimal noise on Facebook, and my May planning message may be later than usual as a result.

Hopefully by about 8 May I’ll be in much better shape, and I’ll have some good news to report, especially about Architect of Worlds.

Planning for April 2024

Planning for April 2024

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The planning messages remain fairly short and simple, as my status isn’t changing much from one month to the next.

I know, it’s April and Architect of Worlds still isn’t out the door. Ken Burnside has been having a difficult few weeks, and the final textual edits on the book are still on his plate. At this point I’m not going to make any more estimates as to when the book will be finished – hopefully sooner rather than later, but it’s not in my control.

For the moment, I’m focusing on the Human Destiny setting bible and RPG sourcebook, with an eye toward being able to send an interim draft off to Chaosium at the end of May for their “design challenge” contest. I was able to push out a medium-sized update to my patrons on 31 March, and I’m hoping April will be a productive month for that project.

In particular, I’m going to be concentrating on those parts of the book that are directly tied to game mechanics. The Chaosium blog has mentioned that one of the things they’ll be looking for in a successful entry is clever and original ways to apply the Basic Roleplaying rules to support a game’s themes. That’s something I think Human Destiny can do very well, once it’s closer to completion – in fact, I have several game systems in mind that are not quite like anything that’s been done with BRP before. So that’s where my focus is going to be, leading up to the deadline for the contest.

Which is not to say I won’t be continuing to add to the setting background, of course. The sourcebook has a lot of outline sections that are still incomplete, and I’ve found it’s best to work where my muse wants to work on any given day.

So here’s the formal plan for April, very similar to the plan for March:

  • Front Burner:
    • Architect of Worlds: Implement final-release changes to the text and turn the release draft over to Ken Burnside for publication once his editorial work is finished.
    • Human Destiny: Continue rewriting and adding to the setting bible (BRP sourcebook).
    • Human Destiny: Write a new Aminata Ndoye story, set when she’s about seventeen years old and attending an academy for officer candidates for the interstellar service.
  • Back Burner:
    • Great Lands: Begin work to revise the geography and back history of the setting.
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work on the new draft of Twice-Crowned.
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work to rebuild the alternate-historical timeline.

There may or may not be a charged release for my patrons this month, most likely some combination of new Human Destiny setting-bible material and a new Aminata Ndoye story. As always, that depends on whether my other commitments leave me enough time and energy to get creative work done.

Four Spaceships

Four Spaceships

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Purely for amusement’s sake, here are the GURPS Spaceships writeups for four spacecraft in the Human Destiny setting. I’ve been finding it useful to draw up these ships using the GURPS rules, because they’re a pretty clean (and appropriately generic) system for spaceship design. Naturally, I’ll be adapting these to more system-agnostic terms as I write them up for the Human Destiny sourcebook. You’ll notice I’m already converting certain measurements to the metric system . . .

Human Protectorate Heavy Utility Lander (TL10)

Built on a 1,000-ton (SM+8) 60-meter streamlined hull, this large vehicle was a workhorse of the development of the outer Solar System.

Front Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
  • [2]: Passenger Seating (60 seats)
  • [3-6]: Cargo Hold (200 tons)
  • [core]: Control Room (C8, C/S 7, 4 control stations)

Center Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
  • [2-6, core]: Cargo Hold (300 tons)

Rear Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
  • [2-3]: Cargo Hold (100 tons)
  • [4-5]: Fuel Tank (100 tons hydrogen fuel, 30 mps delta-V)
  • [6]: Fusion Torch (0.5 G acceleration)

Features

  • Exposed Radiators

Crew Requirements

  • Pilot (Lieutenant)
  • Co-pilot (Sublieutenant)
  • Communications Operator (Enlisted)
  • Sensors Operator (Enlisted)

Details

dST/HP 70. HT 12. Hnd/SR -2/5. Move 0.5G/30 mps. Air Speed 2,800 kph. Air Hnd/SR -2/5. SM+8. Loaded mass 1,000 tons. dDR 10. Occupancy 4+60SV. Load 606.4 tons. Cost $28.9 million.

Khedai Hegemony Utility Spaceplane (TL12)

Built on a 1,000-ton (SM+8) 75-meter streamlined hull, this large spaceplane can be found all across the Hegemony. It can ferry passengers and cargo to and from the surface of inhabited worlds, make short journeys in interplanetary space, or serve as auxiliary craft for a starship.

Front Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 30)
  • [2]: Passenger Seating (60 seats)
  • [3-6]: Cargo Hold (200 tons)
  • [core]: Control Room (C10, C/S 9, 4 control stations)

Center Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 30)
  • [2-6]: Cargo Hold (250 tons)

Rear Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 30)
  • [2-4]: Cargo Hold (150 tons)
  • [5]: Engine Room (1 control station, 1 workspace)
  • [6!]: Reactionless Engine (1 G acceleration)
  • [core]: Fusion Reactor (de-rated, 1 PP, 3,000 years endurance)

Features

  • Exposed Radiators
  • Wings

Crew Requirements

  • Pilot (Lieutenant)
  • Co-pilot (Sublieutenant)
  • Communications Operator (Enlisted)
  • Sensors Operator (Enlisted)
  • Technicians x2 (Enlisted)

Details

dST/HP 70. HT 13. Hnd/SR -1/5. Move 1G/c. Air Speed 4,000 kph. Air Hnd/SR +3/6. SM+8. Loaded mass 1,000 tons. dDR 30. Occupancy 6+60SV. Load 606.6 tons. Cost $73.6 million.

Human Protectorate Heavy Utility Vehicle (TL10)

Built on a 100,000-ton (SM+12) 200-meter unstreamlined hull, this ship has a deep and rich history in the development of the Sol system. One of these vehicles, named Enterprise, was the first (and for a long time the only) Hegemony spaceship ever placed under human control.

Under human command, Enterprise spent decades journeying tirelessly through interplanetary space. The ship was used to set up asteroid-mining bases, to place industrial colonies on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, even to venture out to the Kuiper Belt and harvest comets for the terraforming of Mars. Along the way, the ship gave thousands of humans experience in deep-space operations using Hegemony technology. This cultural experience stood them in good stead when the Hegemony unexpectedly opened the way to the stars in the early  23rd Century.

Front Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 70)
  • [2]: Comm/Sensor Array – Science (C/S 13, 10 workspaces)
  • [3]: Habitat (600 CE, 10 workspaces)
  • [4]: Hangar Bay (3,000 tons capacity, 500 tons/minute launch, 10 workspaces)
  • [5-6]: Cargo Hold (10,000 tons)
  • [core]: Control Room (C10, C/S 11, 20 control stations, 10 workspaces)

Center Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 70)
  • [2]: Cargo Hold (5,000 tons)
  • [3!]: Factory – Robofac ($10 million/hour capacity, 10 workspaces)
  • [4!]: Mining (500 tons/hour capacity, 10 workspaces)
  • [5!]: Refinery (1,500 tons/hour capacity, 10 workspaces)
  • [6, core]: Fusion Reactor (4 PP, 200 years endurance, 20 workspaces)

Rear Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 70)
  • [2-4]: Fuel Tank (15,000 tons hydrogen fuel, 180 mps delta-V)
  • [5-6]: Fusion Rocket (0.01 G acceleration, 20 workspaces)

Features

  • Exposed Radiators
  • Spin Gravity (0.5 G)
  • Total Life Support
  • Auxiliary Craft: Human Protectorate Heavy Utility Lander x3

Crew Requirements

  • Bridge Section: 12 officers, 8 enlisted (Captain x1, Commander x1, Subcommander x2, Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x5, Enlisted x8)
  • Technical Section: 11 officers, 99 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x7, Enlisted x99)
  • Flight Crew: 6 officers, 6 enlisted (Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x3, Enlisted x6)
  • Administrative Section: 4 officers, 8 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x1, Junior Officers x2, Enlisted x8)
  • Science Section: 26 officers, 54 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x22, Enlisted x54)
  • Medical Section: 2 officers, 2 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x1, Enlisted x2)
  • Services Section: 3 officers, 29 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x1, Junior Officers x1, Enlisted x29)
  • Passengers: 26 (2 luxury passengers, 24 passengers)
  • TOTAL: 296 (64 officers, 206 enlisted, 26 passengers) (Captain x1, Commander x1, Subcommander x7, Lieutenant x15, Junior Officers x40, Enlisted x206)

Habitat Allocation

  • Luxury Cabins x2 (8 CE)
  • Cabins x145 (290 CE)
  • Passenger Luxury Cabins x2 (8 CE)
  • Passenger Cabins x23 (46 CE)
  • Briefing Room x10 (10 CE)
  • Establishment x10 (20 CE)
  • Large Astronomy Lab (20 CE)
  • Large Chemistry Lab (20 CE)
  • Large Geology Lab (20 CE)
  • Large Physics Lab (20 CE)
  • Office x6 (6 CE)
  • Sickbay x40 (40 CE)
  • Steerage Cargo x92 (92 CE)
  • TOTAL 600 CE

Details

dST/HP 300. HT 14. Hnd/SR -4/5. Move 0.01G/180 mps. SM+12. Loaded mass 100,000 tons. dDR 70. Occupancy 344ASV. Load 18,494.4 tons. Cost $16.34 billion.

Khedai Hegemony Long-Range Exploration Starship (TL12)

This starship, built on a 30,000-ton (SM+11) 150-meter unstreamlined hull, is a mainstay of the Hegemony’s mission to explore and monitor interstellar space. Thousands of ships in this class are constantly on the move throughout the wilderness spaces supervised by the Khedai Hegemony. In particular, ships like this began to fan out from Sol soon after the Conquest.

Early in the 23rd Century, the Hegemony began to recruit human crew for these exploration missions, permitting them to contribute to surveys within ten parsecs or so of Sol. Later, Aminata Ndoye (one of the first humans to earn officer’s rank in the Interstellar Service) worked aboard several ships of this class. Indeed, she was the first human to command one of them, the Challenger, during its history-making expedition toward the stars of Orion.

Front Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 150)
  • [2]: Comm/Sensor Array – Science (C/S 14, 3 workspaces)
  • [3]: Open Space (0.5 acres, 3 workspaces)
  • [4-5]: Habitat (400 CE, 6 workspaces)
  • [6]: Defensive ECM (-2 to hit, 3 workspaces)
  • [core]: Control Room (C11, C/S 12, 15 control stations, 3 workspaces)

Center Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 150)
  • [2-3]: Hangar Bay (2,000 tons capacity, 200 tons/minute launch, 6 workspaces)
  • [4-5]: Cargo Hold (3,000 tons)
  • [6!]: Factory – Nanofactory ($30 million/hour capacity, 3 workspaces)
  • [core]: Total Conversion Reactor (5 PP, infinite endurance, 3 workspaces)

Rear Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 150)
  • [2]: Defensive ECM (-2 to hit, 3 workspaces)
  • [3-4!!]: Reactionless Drive (2 G acceleration, 6 workspaces)
  • [5-6!!!!]: Super Stardrive (FTL-4, 12 workspaces)

Features

  • Exposed Radiators
  • Spin Gravity (0.3 G)
  • Stealth Hull (-12 to detect)
  • Total Life Support
  • Auxiliary Craft: Khedai Hegemony Utility Spaceplane x2

Crew Requirements

  • Bridge Section: 9 officers, 6 enlisted (Commander x1, Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x2, Junior Officers x5, Enlisted x6)
  • Technical Section: 5 officers, 40 enlisted (Lieutenant x1, Junior Officers x4, Enlisted x40)
  • Flight Crew: 4 officers, 8 enlisted (Lieutenant x2, Junior Officers x2, Enlisted x8)
  • Administrative Section: 3 officers, 5 enlisted (Lieutenant x1, Junior Officers x2, Enlisted x5)
  • Science Section: 24 officers, 48 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x20, Enlisted x48)
  • Medical Section: 1 officer, 1 enlisted (Lieutenant x1, Enlisted x1)
  • Services Section: 1 officer, 11 enlisted (Lieutenant x1, Enlisted x11)
  • TOTAL: 166 (47 officers, 119 enlisted) (Commander x1, Subcommander x2, Lieutenant x11, Junior Officers x33, Enlisted x119)

Habitat Allocation

  • Luxury Cabins x2 (8 CE)
  • Cabins x90 (180 CE)
  • Briefing Room x6 (6 CE)
  • Establishment x6 (12 CE)
  • Astronomy Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Biology Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Chemistry Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Geology Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Metallurgy Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Physics Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Office x4 (4 CE)
  • Sickbay x20 (20 CE)
  • Steerage Cargo x98 (98 CE)
  • TOTAL 400 CE

Details

dST/HP 200. HT 14. Hnd/SR -2/5. Move 2G/c. SM+11. Loaded mass 30,000 tons. dDR 150. Occupancy 184ASV. Load 5,508.4 tons. Cost $14.0 billion.

Aminata Ndoye

Aminata Ndoye

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Here’s a first cut at a Human Destiny character under the evolving Basic Roleplaying (BRP) design. This is my occasional protagonist, Aminata Ndoye, as she first appears in the novelette “Pilgrimage.” At this point she is sixteen years old, having just finished her primary education, and she is starting to consider what she plans to do with her life.

Aminata Ndoye

  • Female human, age 16
  • Height 1.72 m, mass 60 kg
  • Deep brown skin, dark brown eyes, close-cropped black hair, solid athletic build
  • Resident of Dakar, Haute-Guinée du Nord
  • Mixed Wolof and Egyptian Arab descent
  • Sunni Muslim with Sufi influences
  • Social Standing: 22% (Gold card)

Characteristics

  • STR 13 (Effort roll 65%)
  • CON 14 (Stamina roll 70%)
  • SIZ 12
  • INT 17 (Idea roll 85%)
  • POW 12 (Luck roll 60%)
  • DEX 16 (Agility roll 80%)
  • CHA 13 (Charm roll 65%)
  • EDU 11 (Knowledge roll 55%)

Damage Modifier: +1d4
Hit Points: 13
Fatigue Points: 27
Power Points: 12
Experience Bonus: +9%
Movement (MOV): 10 units/round

Skills

Only those skills that have been improved from their default value (based on skill base values and category bonuses) are specifically listed here.

  • Communication Skills (+9%)
    • Language
      • Wolof (native) 90%
      • Arabic 40%
      • French 60%
    • Persuade 50%
  • Manipulation Skills (+10%)
  • Mental Skills (+8%)
    • Knowledge (Literature) 20%
    • Science (Astronomy) 30%
    • Technical (Computer Use) 40%
  • Perception Skills (+10%)
  • Physical Skills (+7%)
    • Pilot (Small Aircraft) 30%
  • Combat Skills (+10%)

Personality Traits

  • Sympátheia – 60% kosmos, 40% khaos
  • Logismós – 70% kosmos, 30% khaos
  • Prónoia – 50% kosmos, 50% khaos
  • Prokopé – 50% kosmos, 50% khaos
  • Andreía – 70% kosmos, 30% khaos
  • Evexía – 50% kosmos, 50% khaos

General Commentary

In my opinion, this exercise didn’t turn out too badly. It took me maybe an hour to draw up this character, and that’s with me being out of practice with BRP character design and without a paper character sheet to work with.

At this point in her life Aminata is clearly very talented and she has started to develop some skills, but she is far from being a world-class expert on anything. She’s just the equivalent of a precocious high-school student, after all. Her personality traits seem reasonable – Aminata tends to be cool and rational, but she has a sympathetic streak, and she’s also quite brave in a tight situation.

This would be a good example of a very young Human Destiny character with exceptional characteristic rolls, just starting out on an adventuring career. I’m thinking that the character-design rules are on the right track so far.

An Unexpected Opportunity

An Unexpected Opportunity

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This was announced yesterday: a contest for indie designers who are working with the Basic Roleplaying (BRP) engine.

Normally I dislike creative contests. My experience with literary contests in particular has been invariably bad. I’ve lost control over some of my work in exchange for promises of publication or other opportunities that never materialized. I no longer pay any attention to literary contests, and I don’t advise anyone else to enter them either.

Game design contests are usually more well-founded, and my experience with those hasn’t been so negative. I participated in (e.g.) the design contest that eventually gave rise to the Eberron setting for D&D, and that went well even if I didn’t make the short-list. Of course, my usual problem is that I almost never have the right project under way when a contest is announced, so – given how many irons I usually have in the fire at any given time – I rarely have a good shot at producing a viable entry in time.

This one looks like an exception. Chaosium has already placed their BRP engine under the ORC license, making it available for indie designers under very friendly terms. Now they have just announced a design challenge for BRP, with a planned short-list of 10 entries and pretty substantial cash prizes.

Oh, look, and here I have an (admittedly early and incomplete) draft for a BRP-based game. To which I had already planned on devoting most of my creative time over the next few months.

I think I know what I’ll be doing between now and the end of May.

Planning for March 2024

Planning for March 2024

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Fairly short planning message this month – things are straightforward at the moment. Getting Architect of Worlds into people’s hands is taking a little longer than I expected, but we’re getting there.

Ken Burnside is still working on the final round of textual edits, but it sounds as if he’ll be done with that sometime around the GAMA Trade Show this week. He and I have discussed the number and nature of his editorial requests, and aside from the tweaks I’ve already made it sounds as if I’ll be able to rip through the whole list in just a few hours. So the current guess is that he’ll have the final release draft in hand by about 9-10 March, after which he’ll be able to do his first print run and start shipping hardcopies. The e-book version should be available about then too, including rewards for my patrons. Further delays aren’t impossible – Ken is a one-man shop too, and he has a lot more on his plate than I do – but we’re certainly getting closer to release day.

Meanwhile, I was able to release a substantially revised version of the Human Destiny setting bible to my patrons as a reward, the first charged release I’ve made since April or May of last year. That’s still going to be my primary creative project over the next few months. I feel as if I’ve underestimated the amount of setting-bible work I need to do before I start writing new fiction in that universe, but I’m at least getting closer to the point where I’ll be confident.

Here’s the formal plan for March:

  • Front Burner:
    • Architect of Worlds: Finish editorial work on the release draft and turn that over to Ken Burnside for publication in the mid-March timeframe.
    • Human Destiny: Continue rewriting and adding to the setting bible (BRP sourcebook).
    • Human Destiny: Write a new Aminata Ndoye story, set when she’s about seventeen years old and attending an academy for officer candidates for the interstellar service.
  • Back Burner:
    • Great Lands: Begin work to revise the geography and back history of the setting.
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work on the new draft of Twice-Crowned.
    • Fourth Millennium: Resume work to rebuild the alternate-historical timeline.

I’m betting on a charged release for my patrons this month, most likely some combination of new Human Destiny setting-bible material and a new Aminata Ndoye story. That all depends on whether my other commitments leave me enough time, as usual.

Status Report (28 February 2024)

Status Report (28 February 2024)

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Just a quick note, especially for my patrons.

I’m coming down to the wire, but I think I’ll be able to release a new interim draft of the Human Destiny setting bible and tabletop RPG sourcebook by the end of this month. This includes a fair amount of new and substantially revised material, in particular a first rough cut at the Basic Roleplaying-driven character design rules.

This means you can expect a charged release by sometime tomorrow, 29 February. This is the first charged release for my patrons in about a year.

Meanwhile, Ken Burnside and I are still working to wrap up final edits for Architect of Worlds, and I’m hoping the ebooks will be available before too much longer. I beg a little more patience, please.