What little time I had for any story-related work was devoted to continuing in the peripheral materials from yesterday. You see, with the formula I was using, the religiously unaffiliated are calculated by subtracting the total population from the sum of those with some religious affiliation. The way I had distributed the numbers didn’t quite work out in some places and trying to move stuff around proved to be more of a hassle than it was worth, so I ended up adding to the total population to make the formula work and get the final number to the original figure of 0.32% of the population. Why such a low percentage, you ask? Well, in the Kiennar Federal Republic, the Holy Catholic Church (known elsewhere as the Church of Kien or the Church of St. Crispin) is the state religion and all citizens are registered as members of the Church by default. It’s a bit difficult, but certainly not impossible, to change your registration later in life, but few do because there’s nothing much to gain by it and only the most dedicated atheists bother. You do have some activist groups like the Freethinkers Society that have agitated to eliminate the automatic registration (and more ambitious goals such as the abolition of a state religion and the Cabinet-level Ministry of Religious Affairs basically being the Church’s direct hand in the government), but they haven’t found much success.

While Crispinism is the predominant religion in the KFR at 62.29% of the population, Ahorazedism and Sabaotism have significant shares at 11.57% and 10.43% respectively. Ahorazedism is most represented in the coastal states, where there’s a strong influence from the Midland Magrebi states in northern Kartia, and Sabaotism is strong in the eastern states bordering the Principality of Velian (where Sabaotism is the state religion). The northern state of Elwyn, which was originally part of neighboring Glamwyg, has a plurality of Tairists, and if you combine the Fordists, the “heathens” have a majority. In the case of Elwyn, and also Grenik to the south, maintaining traditional religious affiliation is more a matter of ethnic identity than actual faith for the most part. (Consider it similar to the Quebecois retaining their Catholicism in a mostly Anglican Canada.) Another case worth noting is the agrarian Brodnar with its significant minority classified as “other religions” (28.07%) is mostly traditional Mennonites. (And before you start wondering how so many Mennonites poofed into existence, we’re talking about less than 28K people. Brodnar only has a population of about 98K.)

This may or may not be of particular interest to the average reader, but I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that I love the worldbuilding process and so much story potential comes out of this stuff. However, we’re at the point where I need to switch gears to RttW and actually work on the story and not be figuring out the habitat range of stag beetles (which does need to happen at some point). Stay tuned.

To better put things together for Chapter 5 of CoP, I was working on encyclopedia entries, particularly about the government of the Kiennar Federal Republic, which prompted me to do a more detailed map of the country and a demographic breakdown by its 24 states and the federal district of the capital city of Fedelis. That work is still underway, as I have to take the data I already have for the country and make it fit with the sum total of the aforementioned states. Yes, because I’m just making up numbers, those numbers aren’t set in stone or anything, but I don’t want to throw off the proportions I’ve cited earlier too much.

Once I finish the demographic breakdown, I can figure out the number of congressional representatives each state has to better visualize their relative political sway, the regional power balance, etc. You may wonder how all of this is relevant, but it does play a role in the C Plot. (The A Plot being the Protectors getting Ellis to Ahorazed and the B Plot being Sarek and the Shields’ efforts to stop them.)

As a bit of a side note, as I was going over the manuscript for Chapter 4 before posting it, I was really liking that I gave Ellis a smart aleck side that makes for some fun banter with Rio that will hopefully serve as a counterbalance to his whining. Without that aspect of his personality, even with character development, he might just come across as Aurelius from Tzipi’s Garden. (Aurelius did serve his purpose in that story, but in the back of my head I had been considering having him go on more of an arc in the course of the story and part of me regrets not doing that, but there is a thematic element of having both the protagonist and the reader question the cause being fought for.)

I expect to continue that work on Kiennar, but maybe I can also squeeze in some writing while I’m at it (and dealing with the update). Stay tuned.

I was doing some tweaking to that demographics spreadsheet I was taking about yesterday. No big changes to the numbers, just to the way I had the formulas work. You see, I started with the percentages and used them to calculate the numbers, but with that done, I’ve since reversed it. One reason was that when you had the same percentage (due to rounding as I only went out two decimal places for readability purposes), you’d have the exact same number, which isn’t very natural. It was only an issue in a few spots, but I wanted to fix it all the same. Yay for Excel magic (or LibreOffice Calc magic in my case).

You know, I have population data for Altamira (EM), Miravel (JJ), Bellator (NagaTen), and obviously Korush V (CoP), but I never drew up that information for Erdi (CeleKing) or Merkab (Tzipi’s Garden). I may have to change that. (For CeleKing, more than population data, I was focusing on breaking down all the Imperial fiefdoms, a task that remains incomplete.)

I did a little writing on Chapter 5 of CoP but was spending more time writing encyclopedia entries. There’s a lot of work to be done there, so I may be dividing my time between those two tasks as the weekend commences. Stay tuned.

The main task for the day was finishing that breakdown of the religious demographics of Korush V (where CoP takes place). After the initial rough figures, I went back in to do some fine-tuning. I wanted Ahorazedism and Crispinism to be neck-and-neck in terms of followers, but when I made an adjustment to some of the populations in Iona (the Europe analog), that threw the balance out of whack, so I had to make further adjustments in Kartia (ersatz Africa) and Padash (ersatz Asia) to get things back in line. As it stands now, the Ahorazedi are at 14.39% of the world population and the Crispinians at 13.54%. They actually rank behind assorted local religions (17.74%) and those without religious affiliation (14.90%). Let’s just go ahead and give you the full breakdown as it stands now.

1. Local religions (usually animist) – 39.588,185 (17.74%)
2. No religion (atheist, agnostic or otherwise unaffiliated) – 33,247,965 (14.90%)
3. Ahorazedism (pseudo-Zoroastrianisn) –  32,111,127 (14.39%)
4. Crispinism (pseudo-Christianity) – 30,221,142 (13.54%)
5. Devapatha (pseudo-Hinduism) – 21,414,949 (9.60%)
6. Other (often remnants of more orthodox versions of Earth religions) – 17,267,072 (7.74%)
7. Sabaotism (Gnosticism with Kabbalistic influences) – 13,569,231 (6.08%)
8. Razism (pseudo-Islam) – 10,162,387 (4.55%)
9. Madhyapatha (pesudo-Buddhism) – 8,951,839 (4.01%)
10. Wangmuism (what’s left of Confucianism after Lord Shang is done with it) – 5,104,120 (2.29%)
11. Hsintaoism (vaguely Daoist) – 4,853,538 (2.17%)
12. Tairism (neopagan goddess worship) – 4,150,193 (1.86%)
13. Fordism (neopagan nature worship) – 2,493,292 (1.12%)

Most of these are already syncretic spinoffs of original Earth religions that then go through further syncretism with many people mixing and matching as they go. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve only listed people by their primary affiliation. For instance, there’s enough in common between Tairists and Fordists that they could basically be called a single religion and Crispin-Sabaotists are by no means rare. Why, do you ask, are the old religions not more prominently represented here? Well, first you need to bear in mind that these Cross Arc stories take place hundreds of years in the future. Also, most Lost Worlds were originally Imperial colonies and there was a period in history where the Empire cracked down rather hard on other faiths when it was trying to prop up the cult of the Emperor as the state religion. Toss in the isolation of the Lost Worlds and the devastating effect of the Skyfall Calamity on civilization and society, and things having changed quite a bit, old traditions being copies of copies of copies and such comes as little surprise. That being said, Korush V is an example of a Lost World where the Skyfall Calamity wasn’t quite so much the massive reset button as it was for most of the others.

In other news, I added three more chapters to fill that gap in the timeline and I don’t think I’ll be adding more at this point. With all these additions, this makes CoP my longest book in terms of chapter count. What the wordcount looks like in the end remains to be seen. And with all this done, maybe I can do some actual writing on the story itself before it’s time to switch over. Stay tuned.

I didn’t get any story writing done, nor did I slot in those two or three chapters I was brainstorming, but in the process of the latter, I was thinking about the religious demographics of the world, which prompted me to start working on a census. I’m looking at the map here and if I just counted correctly, there are 74 nations in the world (plus two unincorporated island chains), so I drew up their populations and then started to break down the numbers by religious affiliation. Most of the religions on Korush V are crypto versions of Earth religions that have changed over the centuries of isolation, but there are some newer ones as well (or new takes on old faiths). There are some isolated old holdouts of the old orthodoxy, but they get lumped in the “other” label due to their extreme minority status. I still have a good ways to go. I’m off for the next week, so hopefully I can make some good progress. Once I finish this task, I intend to get those chapters figured out and then get a little more writing done. Stay tuned.

I managed to finish Chapter 4 of CoP and with that in the bag, I went to examining that dry patch in the timeline. I added three more chapters (as of the time of this writing, the new Chapters 17-19), but there’s still a 32-day gap between Chapters 19 and 20, so I may want to add a couple more. I was thinking a nice little breather episode or something, then maybe something to better set up what’s coming later in the story. I may also want to consider more chapters covering other Protectors as I really don’t want us to go from Chapter 2 all the way to Chapter 31 without giving the rest of the crew much screentime. For that matter, I need to think about better fleshing out the baddies as well. I’ve already added several scenes to get them a little more build-up before the final battle. Part of me wants to set up the two teams Basilisk-style, but I’m pretty sure I’ll remain tilted in the Protectors’ favor as there are other actors besides the Shields working against them (though a lot of this is part of Sarek’s machinations).

As I was going through the character database, I started working on filling out the different characters’ power sets. I mostly just used the abilities list from the Tellus Arc (in no small part because they operate on the same system), but I may want to do some work to refine what I have there, as a lot of it is stuff I haven’t touched in over ten years.

And that was enough to keep me occupied for one day. I imagine I’ll be looking to fill in that gap in the timeline and then get some more writing done. If I could build up some lead time, that’d be amazing. Stay tuned.

I started out the day doing some work in the WttW peripheral materials, to no one’s surprise. I have this list of medieval professions, and I was going down the line looking for jobs that weren’t covered by the current Trade Guilds and when I got to the job of bureller, a weaver of burel cloth (also known as bure, bura and a good dozen other variants), I decided to add burel (a kind of cheap, thick, coarse wool) to the list of textiles and made a selection of clothes made from burel, which I dubbed the Peasant’s Winter Line. Like the nettlecloth and hemp stuff I made the other day, it’s easier to craft and cheaper than the regular stuff at the cost of being slightly worse than regular woolen garments (the idea being that the burel isn’t woven as tightly and so it isn’t as efficient at keeping you warm despite its heavier weight). It’s a cheap way to stay warm in the winter, so it’s something for the Adventurer on a budget to consider.

Going back to the original goal, I now have ten so-called limited Guilds. More may get added in the future, but I think that’s enough for now. I still have do that work chronicling all the twists and turns of the Guilds’ history. Right now all I have is the Silversmiths splitting off from the Goldsmiths, taking advantage of gold currency being withdrawn from circulation during the reign of Raibeart I. (Cue conspiracy theories of a golden hand being behind Raibeart’s assassination.)

Before I got to writing on CoP proper, I was going through the timeline of the story and adjusting travel times and distances based on the events that happen in the story. In the course of doing so, I ended up expanding the story quite a bit, adding ten whole chapters as you’ll see reflected on the site. Honestly, there’s a pretty big gap in time between the current Chapters 16 and 17 (58 days) that I’m probably going to want to fill with another two or three chapters, but we’ll let that percolate a bit.

I closed out the day by writing a bit on Chapter 4 of CoP. I would’ve liked to have done more, but the hour was growing late and beddy-bye time did await. With some concerted effort, I may well finish the chapter tomorrow, but we’ll see. Stay tuned.

I didn’t make any story progress (not unusual for Sundays), but I did do a little work in the peripheral materials of WttW. In particular, I was wanting to detail when different Guilds were formed, to cover the different splits and mergers that happened over the years, and while I was at it, I was thinking about certain professions that weren’t included in the current set of Guilds. I could’ve left those professions unregulated, but I decided to come up with the idea of limited Guilds, that is, Guilds that aren’t represented in Axios but may have their place in other parts of the World. This is in contrast with the “Wicked Thirteen” that exist but are neither recognized nor authorized (though likely overlooked, especially with the right “donation” to the right official).

Next is something I meant to talk about in yesterday’s post and that was the extended set of Elementals. As I mentioned before, I was going to use Kodama and Kanadama for the wood and metal Elementals until I decided that the terms wouldn’t have much currency outside Murakumo, then I decided to adapt the names of Greco-Roman gods, which led me to Artemid (wood), Vulcanid (metal), Maiad (life), Thanatid (death), Themidian (order) and Eridian (chaos). While Artemis is indeed a goddess of forests, I tend to associate her more with the moon, and I imagine a lot of other people do as well, so I wanted to do something different. You might think that Dryad would be the natural choice for a wood Elemental and I’d agree, but Dryads are Nymphs, which is a distinct subcategory of Fae, so I didn’t want to do that. I was thinking about “Woodheart” after the Houchi Shoujo character (who I recently got the MR skin for), which would then make “Ironheart” a natural choice for the metal Elemental, but that just makes me think of friggin’ Riri Williams, and I didn’t want that. I decided to go with “Protodryad” in the end. For the metal Elemental, I briefly went with “Metallo”, but people will just think of the Superman villain, so instead I chose “Jarnling”, adapting from the Norse. I kept Maiad and Eridian as they were, but I renamed the Thanatids “Reapers” (as death Elementals are seen as minions/emanations of Death itself) and the Themidians “Eunomians” as I thought that would be a little clearer (though either way I’m counting on some Greek knowledge on the part of the audience). Anyway, there’s some insight into the thought process when you don’t have something served up on a plate for you.

The primary goal next week is to move forward in CoP, but I may also work on finishing Chapter 26 of TWH while I’m at it. And I’m sure there will be more work in the peripheral materials as well. Those Guild histories aren’t going to write themselves, after all. Stay tuned.

I continued to make progress on Chapter 26 of TWH and officially made the split into two parts (as you’ll see reflected on the site). I don’t think there’ll be the need for another split at this point, but I suppose it depends on how much detail I get into with the various fights. Interestingly enough, in my original meta-tag summary of the final battle, I describe Lys as having to fend off both the Hecate’s minions and Prince Wilfried’s party. You may recall that I had a much different conception of Prince Wilfried during the preproduction phase. I’m much fonder of the character he’s become.

It’s mostly something I was doing while I was chatting with my family, but in the one spreadsheet file in the peripheral materials where I have the comparative timeline of different reigns and dynasties and such for the Tellus Arc, there is a parallel chronology of Earth with a place for major events to compare the developments in the two worlds. I mostly just had some of the events related to King Arthur, but I started expanding that out. It perhaps says something about me as the sort of people and events that first came to mind for me. It also made me think of the significant ignorance of history and a disinterest in the subject on the part of some of my colleagues. It’s not something I can understand. I suppose if I take their attitude toward the pursuit of knowledge and compare it to my own toward something like sports or music, I can understand the mindset a bit more, but whatever, I suppose. We’re only educators, right?

Anyway, I expect to continue to work on TWH tomorrow in whatever time isn’t dedicated to the update, then it’s off to CoP. Stay tuned.

As you would imagine, the first part of the day was all about the WttW peripheral materials. And what was I doing? Why, I was digging into the exciting world of nettlecloth and hempen textiles. I first learned about nettlecloth when I was working on TBP. I was wondering what Barnlings would do for clothes and nettlecloth made perfect sense for a race that can’t afford extensive agriculture or animal husbandry. I was reminded of it recently for some reason and decided to add it into the world. I’d already used hemp a little, but I made it more extensive. Stats-wise, nettlecloth and hempen clothing aren’t that different from linen, but linen is slightly more difficult to craft and more expensive. (As a gameplay benefit that helps justify the added expense, linen offers both heat resistance and cold resistance, the only kind of cloth to do so.) Another benefit to nettlecloth and hemp is that they’re not regulated by the Trade Guilds like other textiles are, so you can make, buy and sell these goods without having to worry about going through official channels. It makes for a good option for Adventurers on the go who need to replace damaged clothing. (Basic clothing has a fairly low Durability rating, so it won’t hold up after any extensive ranging.)

Another thing I spent a lot of time on was continuing to flesh out the Summoning system. This included assigning a Soul Grade to each and every entry in the Bestiary(there are over 700 entries currently). I also decided to have different scales. For instance, common Beasts are rated lower than Magical Beasts, which are rated lower than special classes like Dragons and Fae. For instance, at Level 25, a Centaur is in the same Level band as a Level 26 Drake, but as a Demihuman, the Centaur is a Grade C Soul while as a Dragon, the Drake would be Grade B. Keeping all that straight was loads of fun.

Fromm there, I decided to make Necromancy a unique kind of Summoning with slightly different rules. Rather than capturing the Souls of the Monsters and such that you kill, you instead bind the Souls to the corpses and raise them up. You don’t have to worry about Soul Gems, but instead of Soul Gems breaking, Necromancers have to worry about trying to raise too many Undead and losing control over them. It’d be a fine thing in combat to raise yourself an Undead army just for them to turn on you. Hope you put some extra points into Luck.

One thing that comes with regular Summoning is the mid-level ability to call Elementals (drawing from the ambient æther rather than captured Souls in a Soul Gem). Now, we have the classic four Elementals: Salamanders, Undines, Sylphs and Gnomes; but I needed to cover all of the Twelve. I’d already devised Lumens and Shades in the Tellus Arc for light and dark, so I went ahead and brought them over, but what about the other six? Here in Japan, we have kodama and kanadama for wood and metal, but I decided that since the Japan-equivalent Murakumo is a Hidden Trial with limited contact with the rest of the World, their terminology wouldn’t enter common parlance. I ended up adapting the names of relevant Greek gods, but I’m not entirely happy with this. More on that later.

With all that done, I switched gears to work on TWH like I said I would. I made some respectable progress in Chapter 26, which is almost definitely going to get split at least once at this point. Although development has been a chore on this one, I really do enjoy the character dynamics and the divergent threads are coming together here at the end. I imagine I’ll be continuing my work over the weekend and then we can be looking to pick CoP back up next week. Stay tuned.