More work on the WttW peripheral materials. I was doing some work on Sanity Checks and their intersection with Charisma Checks. Thrilling stuff, I know. We’ll see what else comes up. Stay tuned.

I continued to do some work in the peripheral materials of WttW, working on the system for NPC companions, dubbed Hirelings, Pets and Familiars. Hirelings are People of the World contracted to serve the Player, Pets are Beasts and Monsters that are either tamed or subdued by Players, and Familiars are Beasts and Monsters bound to Mage-type Players by a Pact. The method of acquiring these three classes of companions vary, but the general restrictions based on Level category is the same. There’s a singular cap, so if you want to mix and match, you have to be Level 11 and up. The max is 95, which aligns with the 96-Player limit of an Adventuring Company, treating the Player as the anchor for the formation. (For reference, a standard Party is six Players, a Troop consists of at most four Parties, and a Company of four Troops.) While this might sound rather broken from a gameplay perspective, the People of the World are actually a liability at the more advanced Trials because their Level cap is so much lower than Players (PotW cap at 40 while Players cap at 80) and there are a lot of complications with trying to manage an army of high-Level Monsters.

I’m glad I already have this week’s chapter ready because I haven’t done any story writing and it doesn’t look like I’m going to get to it anytime soon. It’s pushing my limits just to jot down some of these ideas amid all the other stuff demanding my attention. We’ll see what I can get done. Stay tuned.

I was doing work in the WttW peripheral materials and while I was trying to figure out which Trade Guilds would actually have Trade Skills associated with them, I came up with the idea of guilds without official sanction, covering the goings-on in the grey and black markets. They mostly serve as a way to better organize the activities of organized crime in the World. How much our gang gets caught up in this sort of thing remains to be seen. Once I make some more progress on the Trade Skills list, I’ll try digging into Chapter 11 of RttW. Stay tuned.

I did some work in the peripheral materials, both for CoP and for the WttW series. For the former, I spent an inordinate amount of time working out the rank structure of the military of the Kiennar Federal Republic, even though I don’t think it’ll end up being all that prominent. Their Army Chief of Staff is at best a second-string character, but I guess we’ll see if something develops. I am thinking about doing a gaiden about the political machinations in that particular country, so it may come in handy for later. As for the WttW stuff, I’m working to codify the Trade Skills, as it’s particularly relevant to Chapter 11 of WttW1. We’ll see what else I can get up to. Stay tuned.

I didn’t get any story writing done, but I was working on a breakdown of the daily progress of Rio and Ellis down the Warrior’s Road. As you might imagine, with Ellis setting the pace, things aren’t going to go quite as briskly as Rio would want. My first run through was allowing for one off-day a week, but this came up almost 400km short of the mark, so I turned those off-days into half-days, which Ellis certainly isn’t going to like. I now have a good 100km surplus, but I still have to account for the assorted bumps along the road. Because I already have a little lead time on RttW, I may spend a little more time sorting things out a bit more. Stay tuned.

You know that I like to let chapters sit a while before I go back over them prior to posting, but I also want to reduce delays to the schedule, so this time I pushed through to the end of Chapter 2 of CoP and went right on to review, prep and post it. I would then go on to write a bit on Chapter 3 to give me a little head-start on next cycle and did some reworking of the outline. I’d like to have all the chapters named and it’s already looking like I need to expand things by a chapter or two. I’m also having to decide if I want things weighted so much toward the final battle or if it’d be better to do something closer to a monster-of-the-week approach to build steam. These are things I intend to work on a bit more before switching over. Stay tuned.

I managed to get through the first section of Chapter 2 of CoP, but I didn’t even get to the second. There were a few things chewing up my time, but I really didn’t have much excuse for not finishing. I’m going to try to finish it tomorrow and go for a same-day release or just shift the release schedule by a day, as I’d really like to get things done relatively on-schedule. Stay tuned.

I made a little progress on Chapter 2 of CoP. Again, not as much as I would’ve liked and, again, for the same reasons. I only have a bit to go in the first segment and the second shouldn’t be too long. Stay tuned.

I made a little progress on Chapter 2 of CoP. Not quite as much as I would’ve liked, but work is keeping me hopping a bit, then I crashed out in the evening. I was doing some of the logistics, so that does contribute a bit. Anyway, I’ll try to make up for lost time. Stay tuned.

I managed to make some nice progress on Chapter 2 of CoP and filled in a bit more of the world map. Meeting my deadline is looking rather feasible at this point, so all that’s left is to make it happen. Stay tuned.