I have chronic hand pain. Not as debilitating as the medical problems you have faced, but I understand a little of your struggles — one against the flesh and one against the medical system, if your history’s anything like mine. However yesterday went or tomorrow goes, I hope you’re OKish today.
What beavers are for you, birds are for me. They, too, cover themselves in ass oil as a sealant — perhaps the two kinds of animal are in cahoots. Now there’s a wacky hook. And you’ve inspired me to consider giant birds in my world. The Atlas Mountains seem like a good place for a roc, and with such a big wingspan they could range far for their dinner. Maybe even menace Spanish shipping, Moroccan traders or Salian pirates — but the risk / reward ratio would be poor. Better to snarf a cow.
I’m also thinking about giant tree birds, and thus giant fruit, giant berries. Or, imagine a giant’s orchard, with giant peaches — and several regular-sized birds all pecking at one giant peach.
By the way: if I understand correctly, both you and Alexis live in Calgary. What are the chances?! Would that I could discover another “work hard on a reality-based world” DM here in Southern California. At least we can all connect on the web.
Hi Maxwell, apologies for the absence. My kids are going back to school next week so we have spent a lot of time preparing for that and doing fun things with them these past few days. In the meantime I have been working on what I call “Mythic Canada”. Right now the only goal is to use that as my own world. But yeah, I like the ideas of strange and unique races. I am fond of Elves and Dwarves and Halflings, but I don’t often find they really “fit” into the worlds I make. I have a couple of bigger pieces planned for this space over the next week or so but have been dragging my feet both for the aforementioned reasons, and the fact that I am also starting two new D&D campaigns and am preparing for those. As far as Alexis goes, I didn’t realize he was in Calgary until running across a post where he mentioned that several years back. I have had a brief exchange over email with him, and he was friendly and accommodating, but I have not run into him in fleshworld. He initially followed this blog, but since removed himself. I don’t take it personally - I try not to take ANYTHING personally, and my content is not “typical” by any means; I am still finding my voice here. I want to focus on better and more depthful pieces with less “punk zine” rhetoric going forward, and Mythic Canada will be a big part of that. That said, I am hoping Alexis is doing okay. His most recent post on his blog indicated that he is going through a bit of a struggle concerning the game in general. But I don’t pretend to know him as a person apart from what he reveals in his writing, which I remain fascinated by. I need to go over your thesis tomorrow as well! Thank you for sharing that, and thank you for reading.
Nothing to apologize for, brother. I wasn't trying to goad you into writing: when I have something to say, I say it, that's all. (For which you have ass oil to thank; the rest of my comment grew after that.)
No need to rush the thesis; it's ~200 pages after all. Take it piece by piece; if you have questions, email me -- or better yet, write 'em up here and we can do the whole public convo thing.
>I am fond of Elves and Dwarves and Halflings, but I don’t often find they really “fit” into the worlds I make.
On the one hand, it's good to give players something they can understand out of the gate, lest they feel unmoored in an overly surreal landscape. On the other hand, those bits of familiarity certainly don't have to be the races; one could certainly run a game with human-only PCs and everything else being weird and foreign. Might even be smarter than the traditional racial smorgasbord.
What I'm saying is, I'm curious to see what you come up with.
The name of this DMing game has always been "pick and choose your influences." My elves, dwarves, and halflings have some of the traditional flavor to them, but also unique stuff that's only for my world, inspired by riffing on my choices for their racial ability modifiers and the places of the real Earth that I've chosen to have them inhabit. (Sometime next month I'll get the damn game app public on the web, then I'll be able to link to the rules, wiki, etc.)
>I am still finding my voice here ... Mythic Canada will be a big part of that.
Looking forward to it. Maybe your vast forested tracts have room for freaky wendigo motherfuckers -- call 'em "elves."
I have chronic hand pain. Not as debilitating as the medical problems you have faced, but I understand a little of your struggles — one against the flesh and one against the medical system, if your history’s anything like mine. However yesterday went or tomorrow goes, I hope you’re OKish today.
What beavers are for you, birds are for me. They, too, cover themselves in ass oil as a sealant — perhaps the two kinds of animal are in cahoots. Now there’s a wacky hook. And you’ve inspired me to consider giant birds in my world. The Atlas Mountains seem like a good place for a roc, and with such a big wingspan they could range far for their dinner. Maybe even menace Spanish shipping, Moroccan traders or Salian pirates — but the risk / reward ratio would be poor. Better to snarf a cow.
I’m also thinking about giant tree birds, and thus giant fruit, giant berries. Or, imagine a giant’s orchard, with giant peaches — and several regular-sized birds all pecking at one giant peach.
By the way: if I understand correctly, both you and Alexis live in Calgary. What are the chances?! Would that I could discover another “work hard on a reality-based world” DM here in Southern California. At least we can all connect on the web.
(crossposted to mxjn.me/2024/08/29/1)
Hi Maxwell, apologies for the absence. My kids are going back to school next week so we have spent a lot of time preparing for that and doing fun things with them these past few days. In the meantime I have been working on what I call “Mythic Canada”. Right now the only goal is to use that as my own world. But yeah, I like the ideas of strange and unique races. I am fond of Elves and Dwarves and Halflings, but I don’t often find they really “fit” into the worlds I make. I have a couple of bigger pieces planned for this space over the next week or so but have been dragging my feet both for the aforementioned reasons, and the fact that I am also starting two new D&D campaigns and am preparing for those. As far as Alexis goes, I didn’t realize he was in Calgary until running across a post where he mentioned that several years back. I have had a brief exchange over email with him, and he was friendly and accommodating, but I have not run into him in fleshworld. He initially followed this blog, but since removed himself. I don’t take it personally - I try not to take ANYTHING personally, and my content is not “typical” by any means; I am still finding my voice here. I want to focus on better and more depthful pieces with less “punk zine” rhetoric going forward, and Mythic Canada will be a big part of that. That said, I am hoping Alexis is doing okay. His most recent post on his blog indicated that he is going through a bit of a struggle concerning the game in general. But I don’t pretend to know him as a person apart from what he reveals in his writing, which I remain fascinated by. I need to go over your thesis tomorrow as well! Thank you for sharing that, and thank you for reading.
Nothing to apologize for, brother. I wasn't trying to goad you into writing: when I have something to say, I say it, that's all. (For which you have ass oil to thank; the rest of my comment grew after that.)
No need to rush the thesis; it's ~200 pages after all. Take it piece by piece; if you have questions, email me -- or better yet, write 'em up here and we can do the whole public convo thing.
>I am fond of Elves and Dwarves and Halflings, but I don’t often find they really “fit” into the worlds I make.
On the one hand, it's good to give players something they can understand out of the gate, lest they feel unmoored in an overly surreal landscape. On the other hand, those bits of familiarity certainly don't have to be the races; one could certainly run a game with human-only PCs and everything else being weird and foreign. Might even be smarter than the traditional racial smorgasbord.
What I'm saying is, I'm curious to see what you come up with.
The name of this DMing game has always been "pick and choose your influences." My elves, dwarves, and halflings have some of the traditional flavor to them, but also unique stuff that's only for my world, inspired by riffing on my choices for their racial ability modifiers and the places of the real Earth that I've chosen to have them inhabit. (Sometime next month I'll get the damn game app public on the web, then I'll be able to link to the rules, wiki, etc.)
>I am still finding my voice here ... Mythic Canada will be a big part of that.
Looking forward to it. Maybe your vast forested tracts have room for freaky wendigo motherfuckers -- call 'em "elves."
(crossposted to mxjn.me/2024/08/29/2)