I managed to make some respectable progress on Chapter 25 of TWH. Brainstorming the dialog the day before definitely helped. (I have to do something when I’m biking to and from the station, after all.) I potentially could finish the chapter by the time the weekend’s out. I can’t guarantee it, but it makes for a nice goal. Let’s see what I get done. Stay tuned.

I did just the barest amount of work on Chapter 25 of TWH and a more respectable bit of progress on ColoFlip, doing a bit of exposition on the crew’s behavioral programming. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m really enjoying this opportunity to explore the ground level on the fringes of the Empire. So far in the Cross Arc, our view of the Empire has been skewed by the fact that we don’t get to see much outside of Project Reclamation and the Expeditionary Fleets. As fun as Reclamation stories are, I want to explore more of the post-Union universe. I really need to kick off The Æther War Chronicles as I’ve dived into the aftermath of the Æther War without digging into the war itself. Things to consider as I move forward in the Cross Arc.

What’s that? I said I was going to be focusing on TWH this week? I really do need to do that, don’t I? I’ll see what I can do. Stay tuned.

I had another project to eat up most of my time on Monday and it was looking like I wasn’t going to get anything accomplished yesterday either, but I was wanting to rework one of the scenes I’d written in ColoFlip the other day, so I made a point to scratch out some time to sort that out. Basically, I redesigned that cybernetic augments on the featured character.

To that end, I was doing some research on cyborg designs, doing a fair bit of browsing on Pixiv, and I was surprised at how much of the art now is AI-generated. You see, there’s a particular style I’ve been seeing a lot of lately, especially in shovelware, that looks fairly appealing yet occasionally has odd aspects to it. I really should’ve connected the dots when I was seeing basically the same style so many places. Anyway, it’s just a mildly interesting observation.

Hopefully things will settle down so I can redirect my energies into TWH for a bit. I do at least have the chapter due this week already finished, but if I’m being good, I’ll maintain my lead time. Stay tuned.

I did a little more writing on ColoFlip. Not much, mind you, but enough for me to make this post. It’s off to TWH starting tomorrow, though. Stay tuned.

Friday I didn’t do much beyond formatting the guidebook for the WttW series, which I didn’t quite feel was worth making a post about. I shifted gears a bit to do some work on Colony Flipper. There were a couple scenes I wanted to put down on the page. Something I forgot about at the time was that the crewmembers have inhibitors that, among other things, prevent them from cursing. They either have to use minced oaths or else their voice gets overridden by the censorship protocols. The joke may not be as funny as I think it is when put into practice, but we’ll see as I develop the story further. I need to be switching over to TWH, but I may still fiddle around on this some more. Stay tuned.

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.