I know what I said I was going to do, but that wasn’t what I did. You see, I was looking at the bestiary in the WttW peripheral materials and I had just taken the first steps toward marking the habitats of the different critters. Now, I’d started by just having a text block, but the thought of cross-referencing all 24 areas for the current 746 critters and editing the text string for each and every one sounded like way too much of a pain and it wouldn’t be that readable either, so instead I decided to make a chart for all the areas to mark their presence or absence. It’s still a lot of work, as I’m checking the lists I made for the Trials as I go, but it’s a lot more manageable. Also, at least for the normal critters, I’m checking their real-world ranges and using that as a reference for their equivalents in the World.

I spent the whole day working on this and I doubt I’m even halfway done yet. I’m noticing several different categories that I hadn’t really included in the earlier lists, so I’m going to have to account for them, plus I’ve been expanding the ranges of a lot of the more fantastical sorts. I’m being a touch cruel by allowing overlevelled Monsters into certain areas, but they’re not meant to be common or anything. Speaking of which, once I finish the first pass, I think I’ll go back through and add further labels to indicate rarity. For instance, you could be really unlucky and encounter a Demon (LVL 23) in the 1st Trial, but it’s not all that likely, and you’d probably have to be in a rather dangerous neck of the woods anyway.

These are all things to occupy the time that should be dedicated to actual story content, but what can ya do? Stay tuned.

Again, I didn’t get any story writing done, but in my continued work in the WttW peripheral materials, I decided to convert my notes on different alloys into a spreadsheet format in a bid to confirm whether or not the stated densities of certain alloys matched a proportional sum of their components, e.g. does the density of sterling silver match 92.5% at 10.5 g/cm^3 and 7.5% at 8.92g/cm^3? This assumes a fairly uniform mixing of the components, but I was curious if there might be some other chemical process at work that would alter the density. I think some of my formulae don’t quite line up, but alloys are often represented by a range of values and my results were generally in the ballpark. One of the things I’m thinking about is how many alloys I want to have at play in the World.

Another thing I’m thinking about but haven’t acted on is changing gold and silver equipment to being simply gilded and silvered, especially in the former case as pure gold is both really soft and really heavy, which makes it garbage for armor and weapons. (Gameplay-wise, there are metaphysical benefits such as a buff to Luck and Charisma that partially justify the cost in the case of gold, while silver has a number of magical properties that make it rather valuable for equipment.) If I switch to gilding and silvering, you’ll have actual steel under the fancy stuff, which will better justify spending more, rather than just sticking to hardened steel gear. I’ll then have to go back and recalculate weights, so that’ll be fun.

Anyway, now that my first week of the new school year is done, maybe I can work on getting that head-start on Chapter 27 of TWH. I really would like to get at least half of the chapter done so I have some chance of meeting my deadline next cycle. Stay tuned.

I spent a whole lot of time in the WttW peripheral materials continuing to play with currencies and relevant measures. I came up with a basic exchange rate among copper, brass/bronze, silver and gold to use as a rule of thumb and measured out things accordingly back when the face value better matched the real value. (Learning that currency often had more of a token value even in antiquity made it easier for me to do things like keep the sestertius’ dimensions consistent until it was withdrawn from circulation even as the debasement of the denarius messed with the two coin’s real value in relation to each other.) I also gave dimensions for ancient coins that Adventurers might find on the way. (I didn’t go so far as to make multiple varieties per region or anything like that. There are seven different varieties based on material.

Further research supports the idea of making larger denominations of the denarius, not from the classical perspective but from equating the denarius with the penny in the Late Middle Ages/Renaissance Period, which accords with the general cultural and technological level of the World.

Another issue I’m having to puzzle through is the handling of storage space. Each block of storage space in one fluid pint (the fluid pint of the World being about 591cm^3). However, the dry pint is about 80% the volume of the fluid pint. Simply having dry goods occupy the space of a fluid pint per dry pint is an easy enough solution for things like cereals and such, but since I’m dealing with currencies, should I have a single stack occupy a single slot (a more gamey sort of mechanic; think along the lines of the RE4 attaché case) or should I allow multiple stacks to fill a slot if they can fit? Currently I have coins stack at 100, but if we assume a uniform cube for a single storage slot, you could fit 896 denarii into a single slot, but that would end up weighing almost 3.5kg. The basic Small Coin Pouch would surely break and even if it didn’t, who wants to lug around 3.5 kilos of change? Of course, we don’t usually fill our storage items to the brim, so simply doing a single stack per slot is probably a reasonable choice. It’s something I’ll have to think about a bit more.

Anyway, Friday is going to be a really busy day for me, but maybe I can settle down and get some writing done in the evening. Stay tuned.

I didn’t get any story writing done, but I did do a fair bit of work in the WttW peripheral materials. I was thinking about the stack of coins Pawel handed over to Dupont in Chapter 12 of RttW and I was thinking about making larger denominations of the denarius. Mixed currency means more items to account for, especially in light of the five different iterations of the denarius. However, the fact that I’m blending ancient Roman and medieval English styles gives some additional headaches to account for. I decided to add currency weights to the list of units, which led me to add some from antiquity like the mina and talent that I figure will mostly be used by dealers in currency.

I was also trying to figure out the ratios for the values of different metals, though even when used as a reference point, modern prices can’t be equated to ones from the past. (Consider a 12:1 ratio for silver to gold in antiquity when it’s more like 100:1 based on the current market.) And of course values are going to fluctuate over time and we have over 650 years the Game has been going on. I don’t know how interesting this is to general audiences, but I find it fascinating and trying to replicate something this complicated, is both a fun challenge and rather frustrating, and the real kicker is that the average person reading the story itself will have no idea all this is going on behind the scenes.

Perhaps I’m just playing with weights and measures and the commodities market to avoid digging into Chapter 27 of TWH. I do intend to get some work on it done, but there’s also plenty of work-work as well. Fun times ahead. Stay tuned.

All I got accomplished Monday was a little review of Chapter 26 of TWH, which I didn’t figure warranted a post. However, this time I didn’t work my way through lunch and stole a bit of time here and there in addition to getting some writing done back at the ranchero in order to finish Chapter 26. Yay. Chapter 27 is a big fight episode, so that’s going to be a pain to arrange and choreograph. Best get a head-start on it.

I also did a little work in the TWH peripheral materials. I set the times for each of the instances of currency debasement and also decided to come to an arrangement for small weights and volumes. Normally, I list weights in stones and volume in pints, but I’ll use grains for things that are less than 100 grains in weight and minims for anything less than 100 minims in volume. I’m debating whether to make a separate column in the spreadsheet so I can continue to handle the weights as numbers (as they’d be treated as character strings if I add the unit). Yes, that’s probably what I’ll do.

Anyway, that covers it for now. I’ve still got loads of work-work to do, but I think I’m at a point where I can strike a balance. Once my full load of courses starts, it’s bound to be another story, though. Stay tuned.

As expected, I didn’t get much accomplished beyond the update, but I was thinking about the history of the debasement of currency and because I draw on Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum Prices as one of my references, I decided to integrate similar monetary policy in the World. I haven’t finished it yet, but I put down the basics, as well as making different formulations of billon as separate items, each named after the king whose policy led to that formulation being used. So far I’ve just identified Robertian billon (from Raibeart I) and Gregorian billon (from Gregor III).

I need to move on to TWH, but I’d like to finish this bit of my work first. This is all amid what’s going to be one rough week. We’ll see what gets done. Stay tuned.

Even a half-day at work is enough to take a bite out of you. (It was more like two-thirds of a day, really, and it probably would’ve been a full day if they weren’t going to lock up at 1400. So much stuff to do…) As I ended up napping a fair chunk of the remainder of the day, that didn’t leave much time for anything else, but I did do some work in the WttW peripheral materials. I’ve moved on from tableware for the time being to think about oil lamps. At first I thought it was enough to provide a a few made from different materials, but then I started to think about sizes and styles and I’m going to be kept busy. I was also working to categorize more of the items and to break down material requirements. I generally try to limit it to one or two materials to simplify the crafting system, but I’m going to have to probably expand it to at least four for the general items list, maybe even six or more. (One formulation for orichalcum uses five elements, another eight+, for instance.) Oh, the fun that awaits…

Anyway, I’ve got one more day before I need to switch over to TWH. It’s going to be hard to squeeze in the time for writing given how hectic the week is going to be, but I’ll see what I can get done. Stay tuned.

As expected, I was quite busy at work getting things ready for classes starting up next week ad even so, I was still letting myself get drawn into the peripheral materials adding details to the general items list. What’s the capacity of a wooden spoon? How many varieties of spoon should I make? All this is very important.

Because I was going to have work on Saturday as well, I knew I needed to have the chapter done before then or I’d never get it out in time, so even though I was rather exhausted in the absence of the afternoon nap I’d gotten accustomed to, I still managed to push through and finish Chapter 12 of RttW, in part because I decided to break off the third scene into its own chapter. I’m able to meet my deadline now, so yay for that. I don’t imagine a whole lot is going to get done over the weekend, but we’ll see. Stay tuned.

I know what I said I needed to be doing, and I bet you can imagine how it turned out. I did make some progress on Chapter 12 of RttW, that’s true, but the vast majority of my time was spent in the peripheral materials. I was particularly focused on storage items. As I’ve been increasing the number and complexity of the item list, I decided I needed to account for different materials and such for crafting purposes, adjust prices, measurements, etc. I decided to convert some of my materials data to a spreadsheet, so instead of crunching numbers on the calculator, I can just set up some formulae to take care of it. After all, double-checking the density of different metals or the GSM of fabrics for weight calculations gets to be a pain after a while. Anyway, if you want your bag to be made of nettlecloth, hemp or jute, I’ve got you covered. (Now I’m realizing that I should make canvas bags while I’m at it.) Thinking of mounts, I also worked on data for saddlebags and I’m more than a little annoyed at froufrou brands like Dior call their dumb little purses saddlebags and mess with the search results.

Somewhat more relevant to the chapter at hand was dealing with tableware. We now have eleven kinds of drinking horns, and because I’m insane, I’m already thinking about providing them in different sizes. Oh, what fun.

However, such fun is going to have to be put on the back burner for the moment as I’m going to be really busy at work. I’ll try to get the chapter finished by Saturday, though. I’ve got one more scene and some change to write and it’ll be good to go. Stay tuned.

I continued to be wrapped up in the WttW peripheral materials. I have this idea that may end up as a short story of an Adventurer getting separated from his party in the mountains of Murakumo and he gets picked up by a Yuki Onna. The idea is to play on how much intellect and autonomy the Monsters actually have. Anyway, this prompted me to make a whole set of Yuki Onna gear. Great for cold resistance, so you’ll do A-OK in Niflheim, but the tradeoff in heat resistance means you’d practically vaporize in El-Samak, to say nothing of Muspellheim.

From there I started working on the cycles of the Trial Masters being defeated. You see, as you advance in the Trials, the respawn time for the Trial Masters becomes longer and longer. The gameplay function is to ensure Players actually have time to level and assemble before taking on the later Trial Masters. The past day or so I added a system that caps the number of Players that can take on a Trial Master at a time. It is of course possible for more to join in, but only the eligible formation will get credit. Smart Players could work it out so that they abuse this system, but actually getting a large number of Players together is quite a challenge, both because of their high mortality rate and the fact that they tend to be bad at cooperating. Anyway, I had expanded my chart to include all the Trial Masters, as before I’d just covered from 11th Trial Master on, so I was filling out the exploits of past parties and ended up having to make a number of adjustments. For instance, Jean (who appears in the prologue briefly and gets mentioned in Chapter 8) was originally supposed to be a member of the Red Griffins before he joined the White Lions, but he was too underlevelled for the Red Griffins’ exploits, so I ended up making another Adventuring Company that got wiped in Jotunheim.

With the new Player limit system, I also got to thinking of alliances and such that would form prior to the foundation of Adventurer Companies and that’s going to have a big influence on how the White Lions were formed and how they operated. Originally, it was all headlined by Ramachandra and his party, but now it’s more of a joint effort with another party that has yet to be detailed and so leadership positions have to be shared accordingly. This will all play a big part in the plot of WttW2 and WttW3.

Speaking of WttW3, I was developing more details for Jun’s backstory, so I had to pen the first draft of her monologue about what happened to her first party. No, it doesn’t get me any closer to finishing Chapter 12 of the current story, but it’s all connected. However, at this point, I may just need to gloss over the details that sent me down this rabbit hole in the first place as I only have one more day to freely dedicate time to writing. We’ll see what I can get done. Stay tuned.