I never go into too much depth regarding the political system of the Earth Union because A) I try to avoid info dumps in my writing, and B) I really try to avoid irrelevant info dumps. For the most part, what goes on in Atlantis City doesn’t apply to the day-to-day lives of the characters of the Tico series. Well, it does apply, but rarely in the sense that a working knowledge of the system is necessary.

At the beginning of the New Era, a one-world government emerged from the pit of the Blackout, an undefined period in the late 21st Century that’s been wiped from all records. I don’t plan on committing to exactly what went on during the Blackout, but I will say that it wasn’t pretty.  I will say that the global population as of the NE 010 census was 7.6 billion. Those of you aware of demographic trends should be able to infer some stuff from that.

The Earth Union was originally composed of ten supranational ‘provinces’, the borders being the result of some rather intense wrangling prior to the Union’s formation. Each province is represented by a member of the World Council. Add in the Chairman and Vice-Chairman  and that makes twelve. The Chairman’s role as a member of the council means that the Union doesn’t have quite the same degree of separation of powers as, say, the United States, but it isn’t too far off as the Chairman has considerably autonomy in the administration of the executive branch.

As the Union expanded out into the Sol System, the World Council was expanded as well. Luna was the first to be added when it was given special provincial status and a nonvoting seat on the Council. As its status would imply, Luna is a bit of a special case in that it’s viewed as a Colony but legally regarded as one of the provinces of Earth.

The planetary spheres beyond Earth are dubbed ‘regions’. The first was Mars, which gained a nonvoting seat on the Council in 021. As colonization progressed, the number of regions increased to the current total of nine. In the aftermath of the Lunar Revolt, the Colonial Bloc was established to represent the rest of the Colonies (which were never projected to have a sufficient population to warrant individual representation) and, of course, given nonvoting status.

While the Colonies had a voice on the World Council, they didn’t have a vote until the Colonial Bloc was enfranchised in 070. Although it was originally intended that the Colonial Bloc would provide the sole vote for the Colonies, the Councilors from Luna and Mars were enfranchised in 081 and thanks to the population boom on Ganymede, Jupiter was given its own voting seat right out of the gate in 101.

Though officially part of the Earth Sphere, Luna has historically held solidarity with the Colonies. The bad blood from the Lunar Revolt never really went away, you see. Typically, the ten provinces of Earth will unite in lock-step to defend Earth’s privileges first and foremost, but occasionally there will be breaks depending on the political winds of the moment. (The political parties are a can of worms I’ll save for another day.)

Where we find ourselves in Chapter 20, the Earth Sphere isn’t going to sacrifice a single ship of Fourth Fleet to defend Mars. All the provincial Councilors agree on this and the Councilor of the Colonial Bloc, Ragna Nilsson, isn’t willing to support Mars’ Councilor Vincentez 100% on his call for more aid and Jupiter’s Councilor Lau isn’t going to stick his neck out either. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to decide how reasonable they’re all being about this.

This really only scratches the surface, but it’s at least something to get you started. When I get to writing Avni, you’ll see a lot more of Union politics in action as Tziona Avni is up to her neck in the stuff. I’ll probably do more posts like this in the future and shed a little more light on how the Union operates. Stay tuned.

The title for this entry isn’t in quotes because a little research turns up that it’s derived from a misquote more than anything else. When I was in the CW program at my university, the above was attributed to Stephen King. As I was trying to confirm it, I was pointed to TS Eliot. Digging into it further, I found what was claimed to be the actual quote and I decided just to dispense with the whole deal and waste a paragraph telling you about it.

I’d been crafting stories for about as long as I can remember. When I was 10, I was brainstorming an intergenerational epic about a bloodline that kept on crossing paths with the assassins of US Presidents. At 11, I started several stories that were terribly derivative (titles like Mesozoic World and Galactic Strife, still cringeworthy over 20 years later). I would, of course, swear up and down about their uniqueness, coming off much like a pint-sized Oglethorpe from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. (“Jurassic Park uses velociraptors. I use deinonychus. It’s totally different!”) I ultimately realized that these early efforts really weren’t so unique, so most evidence of their existence is restricted to the inside of my skull.

I became obsessed with originality after that, even though I continued to do a lot of rather generous borrowing. Though not terribly obvious now, the Quest for the Pendants arc of KoG2 was heavily inspired by A Link to the Past. You can still see some resemblance to the map of Byrn and that of Hyrule, though this will be less apparent once I reorient the map so that north points up.

I eventually came to see the vanity of my quest for pure originality because it doesn’t exist. No matter what conscious efforts you might make, the multitudinous influences you assimilate will unconsciously shape your product. “Nihil novum sub sole” became the motto that checked me. From then I opted to embrace my influences and be as conscious about them as I could. I won’t hide any influence I’m aware of. For instance, Sonia’s character design is a mix of Charlotte from the Samurai Spirits series(or Samurai Showdown as it’s known in the States), Pirotess from Record of Lodoss War, and Tsunami from Tenchi Muyou. I have to admit, Nobuhiro Watsuki of Rurouni Kenshin fame has perhaps helped me along this path with his own notes making no bones about his inspirations. Really, I don’t see anything wrong with it so long as we’re honest with ourselves about it. If anything, we should get a laugh out of it. (In the Tellus Arc finale The End of Times, the introductory premise bears no mere passing resemblance to that of Stargate and I don’t hesitate to lampshade it for a chuckle from the reader.)

This is quite the roundabout way of getting to my actual goal for the post and that’s a little background on It’s a Sunny Day for a Bank Job. You see, I’m a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Seeing numerous references to it on TVTropes and the rise of the Brony phenomenon piqued my curiosity, so I checked the series out and it hit all the notes I look for in a show: clever writing, appealing character design, interesting characterization, etc. (It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a way for me to bond with my niece.) I’m not an active member of the fan community, but I do peruse a sampling of fanworks and the FiM fandom is quite the prolific one. I’ve enjoyed abridged series, such as hbi2k’s rendering of Berserk and Team Four Star’s DBZA, so I started looking into the abridgements of FiM and my hands-down favorite is Greg Hoffman’s Mentally Advanced Series. Sure, the first few eps were rough, but the charm was there from the start and from Episode 5, things really took off. This led to the Rainbow Dash Presents spinoff, a sort of Fractured Fairytales take on various pieces of fanfiction. In “RDP: Haunting Nightmare”, a commenter said that there should be a heist story with the MAS characters. Cue the lightbulb moment.

Back before Episode III came out, there were a lot of rumors about what might cause the break between Anakin and Obi-wan. One theory was a love triangle with Padmé. This idea resonated with me and you can see some evidence of it in the film, but it wasn’t really developed into much of anything. It mostly just comes off as Anakin’s hypersensitive jealousy as he goes coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs on the Dark Side. Well, it was a shame to see such an intriguing premise go to waste. I then reminded myself, “Hey, you’re a writer. Write the story yourself.” The basic premise then went on to become the basis for the Brothers Pendragon prequel Broken Vows. I’m telling you all this because that selfsame reminder came to me when the idea of an MAS heist story was proposed.

Now, Sunny Day is still a long ways from even being considered for a serial run, but it’s very much becoming its own beast. The influences are there, of course, and in-jokes abound. Although it would’ve been interesting to retain an all-female main cast, I did do some gender-flipping so that the makeup of the cast more closely resembles the conventions of the heist subgenre. (There’s something to be said for breaking with convention, but it’s good to be judicious about adherence. Play up some of the audience’s expectations so your surprises have all the greater impact.) It should be accessible to general audiences with just the right amount of fanservice for fellow MAS fans. We’ll see.

Another thing about the story is that I’m using a first-person perspective contrary to my usual narrative practice, centered on MAS!Twilight expy DC. I don’t know if I’ll succeed in this endeavor, but my central challenge is to craft a real jerk who the reader can still sympathize with in spite of all his jerkiness. In MAS!Twi’s case, she’s so abrasive because she has no real concept of how healthy social interaction operates having lived her life under the iron hoof of a tyrannical psychopath. I imagine it’s very much a YMMV deal with a lot of viewers and I imagine much of what I’m trying to do in Sunny Day will be the same way. It’s a very different beast than almost any of my other stories, but therein lies its special charm for me. Also, a transformative work of a transformative work with a bevy of other transformations grafted makes for all sorts of incursive knotting that it’s bound to tickle someone’s metacognitive funnybone, even if that someone is me and me alone. Of course, I write for myself first and just hope other people will enjoy it too.

Well, it’s been a while since my last good commentary/rambling piece, so I hope you enjoy it. Maybe I can remember to hop on some of those other things that need doing. Until next time.

I said I was going to post some commentary about Duke Cronos once his section of the story came to a close and now is as good a time as any to do so. If you haven’t read through his section, turn back now because below there be spoilers.

Duke Cronos was originally named Cromwell before I settled on a pseudo-Byzantine culture for Zephyr. The name was, of course, a reference to Oliver Cromwell. I wanted to evoke Cromwell’s military genius, even though the character himself is more of an inversion. It’s actually Rowland, the leader of the Promethean Alliance, who has more in common with Cromwell, politically speaking at least. Anyway, ‘military genius’ is the key setting when I was devising the character.

I needed Cronos to have demonstrated his abilities beforehand, so I devised the Nanoi Campaigns. When Solon became King, he sent out olive branches to the non-human communities of Zephyr: the Elves of Goldleaf and the Dwarves of Delate and Vione. (In-universe, the two races are known as the Xotikes and Nanoi respectively.) Were anyone other than Xanthe Queen of Goldleaf, the Elves probably would’ve just dismissed the Zephyrian envoys and that would’ve been the end of it. The Dwarves, on the other hand, were much more suspicious of Solon’s overtures. The King of the Vionan Dwarves in particular was paranoid that the Zephyrians were simply trying to find a way through their defenses to plunder their cities. Rather than simply rebuff the Zephyrian envoys, the Vione Dwarves declared war and when the Zephyrians responded, the Dwarves of Delate joined in as well.

You’ll see a little more of this in Garm’s scenario in Book 3 (Garm being a refugee of Vione resettled in Notos), but the Dwarven side of the war was horribly mismanaged. (What would you expect when the primary driver of the war is mad with greed and paranoia?) Cronos happened to catch on to this and use it to his advantage, thereby bringing the war to a quick end. (The Nanoi Campaigns didn’t even last four months, though they were rather bloody.)

Cronos’ star rises after this, as you might expect. He goes from being a common knight to a peer and is later selected to become the new Governor-General of the Protectorate and Legate of the Third Legion (the two were previously separate positions, a sort of duumvirate, but because of his famed ability, Cronos was entrusted with both posts).

I’d mentioned in an earlier post that in the earlier draft of the story, Cronos felt terribly incompetent to me. You may still get that impression, but I was kinda working two angles in the current draft. On the one hand, I wanted Cronos to actually live up to his name, but on the other, I wanted to cast some doubts. Cronos himself suffering so much self-doubt is a major part of this new development. It’ll become especially clear in Book 3 that the Promethean Alliance has a lot going for it that really doesn’t make it a fair fight, though wars are never fair. It’s worth noting that the position of governor-general is typically for eight years (though some have served longer and many have served for much less) and Cronos was winding down his term of service when the challenge from the Monarch Lich was first issued.

Waging insurgent warfare is a very different beast than fighting an insurgency and when the Duke’s attention is also divided between fighting the rebels and preparing as much manpower and materiel for the war effort in the Darklands, it’s little wonder he fared as poorly as he did. Cronos was always looking on the horizon to the Dominion and he fought the Alliance with one hand tied behind his back, though Rowland proved to be an opponent that you have to pull out all the stops to take on.

You might think that Cronos’ failure in the Darklands seals the deal. If he really was as great as he was celebrated to be, he wouldn’t have lost as badly as he did. Well, even there I have to cut him some slack. Sir Caligo, the Knight of Chaos, who went unnamed in Cronos’ scenario, happens to be an ancient vampire who was once one of the most celebrated generals in all of Euros. Again, the deck was wildly stacked against poor Cronos and so he comes off looking much worse than he would have in a more conventional campaign.

Looking back, I find Cronos as a man to be pitied. He rose to greatness in his youth and it cast a long shadow over the rest of his career. He faced odds that perhaps no man could’ve won against and ultimately died in a bid to salvage what honor he had left. It’s a shame. It really is.

Today I find myself picking up a thread I started a while back but never brought to completion. I realized that Gladius having no border defenses didn’t make a whole lot of sense, so I established the marchlands with small castles acting as border outposts. Four castles were built by King Rorik of the short-lived Rorician Dynasty (short-lived only because his fool of a son ran afoul of the patricians and was driven from the throne after a mere six-year reign). Randwulf then bolstered the defenses with four more castles.

Our current issue shows up when I was wanting to adjust my maps to accommodate these changes. While I was trying to pinpoint the locations of each of the castles, I noticed myself tripping up on which march was which. The reason for this is because my map of Gladius doesn’t have the conventional “north on top” orientation. The same is true of the map of Byrn. Now, you might be asking why they’re like that. Well, sit back for some story time.

You see, when I first started formulating the stories of my canon, each one was meant to be completely independent of the other. I imagine I was influenced by the RPGs such as the Final Fantasy series that rebuilt its worlds from scratch each game (until we started to see the more recent trend of lateral movement). Well, when I started to digitize all my materials back in ’01, I decided to compile all my stories into a single world and that meant stitching dozens of maps together. I’m rather pleased with the results. I didn’t have to change a whole lot make it work. However, I retained the original orientation of the maps, which leads us to our current situation.

The cheesy MS Paint bitmaps I have were only meant to be a temporary thing and I really need to redraw the maps and maybe this mess with the marchland castles in Gladius might be just the trigger for me to actually make it happen.

My relationship with The Trident War Chronicles has been a complicated one. Its origins lie in a PnP strategy game I attempted to design back in high school. It was loosely based on Ogre Battle (or rather, what I could gather from articles on the game in Nintendo Power, as I wouldn’t actually play a game in the series until Ogre Battle 64, which came later). However, back in those days I wasn’t as meticulous an archivist as I am now and I wound up destroying the original materials in a fit of pique. (I’m glad I was so attached to the KoG and Tico series or I might have lost their original documentation as well. The rocky road of my canon formation will be the subject of a future entry.) Even with the materials having been destroyed, the premise of the scenario and most of the characters remained in my head and I later resurrected the concept, though without the strategy game mechanics. (I have, however, drawn up a prototype game design document for a turn-based strategy game based on the TTWC series, though I don’t plan on developing it further at this time.) I believe its relation to The Brothers Pendragon developed later on in the process, as I seem to recall adjusting some dates in the timeline to fit everything together more snugly.

A lot has changed in the course of revisions (though TTWC is only in Version 3, as compared to KoG being in Version 7), but almost as soon as I revived the series, I developed the core conceit of telling the story through short segments devoted to major characters from each of the three factions. In Version 2, I was going to have everything together in a single massive tome, but by Version 3 I realized each faction had more than enough material for their own book. This decision forced me to make further changes to standardize things. You see, originally I had as many characters as I found interesting with as many chapters as I deemed necessary to tell that character’s story. When I made the decision to break TTWC up into three books, I realized how unbalanced everything was.

From the beginning, I had this chess conceit, but I wasn’t as thorough as I should’ve been back in V2. I had too many characters on the Alliance side and too few for the Zephyrians. This had to change (and led to some interesting story developments as I rebalanced the cast). Then there was the matter of the number of chapters devoted to each character. The Dominion fared the worst with comparatively few chapters devoted to their characters. To be honest, they didn’t really interest me that much (except for Sir Caligo). I then reminded myself, “You’re the author. If these characters aren’t interesting, make them interesting.” And so I’ve been working toward that end and the Dominion’s charas are making significant progress toward being compelling enough to carry their own book.

Another part of the standardization process was to give every character an equal share. As I mentioned before, a lot of the Dominion charas had very few chapters for their segments while some others had quite a lot. I decided to average it out with five chapters in the main storyline, plus a prologue to establish their background and an epilogue for their final fate (or a closing note if they’re lucky enough to survive). This streamlining also prompted me to cut back on redundancy. There were a number of events I told from two or three different perspectives. Besides letting you glimpse into that particular character’s head, it didn’t add much if the two charas in question were on the stage together most of the time. Now you really have to take in all the characters’ accounts to absorb the whole story.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m particularly fond of TBP (and the fact that the first thing I put out was the TBP prequel short “The Stranger” should tell you something) and this kinda makes me feel some resentment toward TTWC because I feel it has to be told before I can get to TBP. (Of course, if I’d just buckle down and commit to, say, 1000 or even 500 words a day, I’d be where I need to be sooner than I’d think.) It might actually be a good thing, though, because it seems like I’m pushing myself to make TTWC worth my while and if I’m working that hard to make it worth my while, I’m sure it’ll be worth your while too.

Well, I think that’ll do for now. Just thought I’d share some perspective on this somewhat maddening series of mine. I really get into this sort of commentary, so I need to make it more of a habit. On a good week it can complement story progress and on a bad week it can offset the lack thereof. Stay tuned.

I’ve been a little preoccupied with other stuff the past couple days, but I need to post something. Besides his 3D work, Kazuya’s playing around with sprites for A Tale of Gottfried, or GottMono as I like to call it for short (from the series’ Japanese title, Gottfried Monogatari). You might find it a little curious as it’s not something that gets much attention, but, believe it or not, it’s the flagship series of the Earth Arc and actually the oldest of all the franchises in the canon.

First, let me speak briefly on the concept of the flagship series. Each of the Arcs (except for the If Arc) has a series that acts as the foundation for everything else. In the original three Arcs, they were naturally what came first: KoG for the Tellus Arc, Tico for the Space Arc and GottMono for the Earth Arc. The Cross Arc is a little different, being a later creation, in that the Aether War series were designed specifically to act as a flagship series. (That being said, it’s the Post-Apoc Cycle that’s most captured my imagination there.) This plays into release dates as well, as I want to reveal the Arcs to you a certain way. Should I ever actively pursue traditional publication (or even resort to self-pubbing), I’d want the flagship series to be the first ones out the gate.

Okay, back to GottMono. The basics of the characters and scenario date back as far as ’93, I think. (For comparison, the initial concepts for the KoG and Tico series were drafted in ’95.) I might talk about the idiosyncrasies of my writing career as it developed another time, but I’ll mention briefly that I started really writing in 2001. It’s coming up on twelve years now, so why haven’t you seen anything for GottMono besides the short “Nobody Likes the Chocolate Ones”?

The truth of the matter is that I find the GottMono series to be a nightmare to plot. I have a bunch of scattered scenes, but properly tying them together and fleshing them out is a real pain. Interestingly enough, I used to have a similar problem with the Tico series. I found Tellus Arc stories incredibly easy to plot, but the (then) other two Arcs just weren’t coming together for me. As you’ve seen, I overcame that problem with the Tico series and am chugging along at a decent pace (thought the rocky update history, especially for Tico1, is a testament to the challenge it’s been). I haven’t had the same fortune with GottMono, but a while back I had an idea and I think it’s a good one if I can implement it.

I may have mentioned this either on the site or on Twitter at one point in the past (around the time the idea first came to me), but I’m going to talk about it here for good measure. My idea for GottMono is to compose it like a TV series: 26 episodes with a 22-minute apiece. I don’t intend to time them exactly, but I think these parameters give me a framework to operate in. While there is an overarching plot for each book (and for the series as a whole), an episodic approach was pretty much my vision for the series from the start. This way I suppose I can balance the slice of life and the mythology.

Seeing where Kazuya is with those sprites, I spent a little time adapting my old outlines to the episodic format. It’s served to highlight just how much work I have to do. As it currently stands, I have the basis for seven eps of GottMono1, nine for GottMono2, seven for GottMono3, and 14 for GottMono4 (which has thus far proven to be the easiest to plot, perhaps because it shakes up the formula of the original so much).

Maybe all that is interesting to you and maybe it isn’t, but I thought a little peek into the process might prove educational. I’m really fond of these characters and I’d love for you to get to know them better. I suppose I’m just going to have to step up my game.

I meant to follow up sooner, but things have been rather hectic here. It’s finally calmed down, though, and I should be able to maintain a more regular schedule for the near future. With that being said, let’s get into what I was wanting to talk about in greater detail.

You see, I don’t just detail the immediately relevant information in my peripheral materials. The breadth and scope go well beyond what is revealed in the stories themselves. Perhaps one day compendia of these materials will be made for the benefit of the most die-hard fans, but for now it’s just stuff I use to explore my worlds and make them more complete.

One of the things about the Cross Arc is the much broader latitude I enjoy compared to the original three Arcs. Yes, as the author I have the power to do whatever I want, but each Arc is governed by a certain internal logic and bound by a particular set of rules. There are also boundaries to the setting as well. The Tellus and Earth Arcs are restricted to one world and the Space Arc to the solar system, but the Cross Arc spans the entire galaxy and is set far enough in the future that I don’t need to worry about rooting myself in real-world history as much. I can make all manner of worlds with the tech, culture and history that’ll best serve the story.

Most of my recent work on Junker Jorg has involved more fully realizing the world of Miravel where the story takes place. Our protagonist hails from the Kingdom of Byrandia, but, ironically, I spent so much time not on Byrandia but rather its archrival, the Kingdom of the Palatine (commonly known as Palatinia). I have no small interest in genealogy and I’ve detailed the family trees of a number of characters across the Five Arcs. In drawing up the family tree for the Palatinian royal family, I devised an interesting concept that started to run away with me.

We should all be familiar with the principle of male primogeniture for inheritance. Well, the Palatinians go a step further. You see, the eldest surviving son will inherit a man’s title and holding, but for the next generation, it’s the eldest surviving male of the entire clan who is next in line. If the second generation heir has an elder sister and she bears a son, that son will be the first in line to inherit once the second generation heir dies or bequeaths his inheritance. The order of succession of kings has a further wrinkle. When a reigning king dies or abdicates the throne, the crown goes to the next eligible male heir in that generation of the clan, based on both the internal primogeniture of the individual family as well as that of founders of each branch of the family. Ergo, the descendants of King Marcellus I’s eldest daughter Marcella take precedence over those of his youngest son Julian (though, technically, Prince Julian’s line died out with him as his sole heir was his daughter Juliana, who died at age three). This sounds interesting enough, but there’s a key problem to it. Normally, I simply ignore the irrelevant branches of the family tree and follow the line of succession. With this construct of Palatinian inheritance law and the order of succession, I had to detail every single branch generation after generation. The Palatinian naming convention made this a little easier, following a pseudo-Roman model.

Allow me to make this momentary detour to detail this naming convention. The firstborn, male or female, is named after the father, the second after the mother, the third after the paternal grandfather, the fourth after the maternal grandfather, then the paternal grandmother and the maternal grandmother and the paternal grandfather’s father and so on and so forth. If any two names are the same (which would happen when the father is the firstborn male and you get to the third child), a variant is used. This meant I didn’t have to spend too much time agonizing over names, but I did have to keep track of the increasingly tangled lines of succession.

Going back, to my problem, I started making a move to simplify the tree that also had a good in-world justification. As the more distant branches would be further down the line in the order of succession and risk missing their chance at the throne entirely (and, conversely, the branches at the front of the line might not see the crown again for a while if the more distant branches have younger heirs that outlive their own in a given generation), they begin to intermarry. Typically, nothing closer than second cousin marriages are permitted, but this didn’t always hold. Now, when two cousins in the royal family marry, the placement of the heirs depends on the parent who’s furthest up the line. (Ergo, the descendants of Princess Marcella were in high demand.) This mess of kissing cousins only went so far to streamline the family. After spending days on this dang tree, I was wanting to take more drastic measures. Enter Julius the Gardener.

If I was getting frustrated with this convoluted system, imagine how it must be for a man of ambition eager for his day in the sun. Julius the Gardener got his byname because of his pledge to “prune the family tree”. And prune he did. He led a three-year campaign of assassination known as the Julian Revolt which killed off pretty much all of the royal family save for his own descendants (though his eldest son Cassius was one of the casualties of reprisal attacks). Julius is one of the more evil characters I’ve created, a shameless kinslayer and oathbreaker who cared only about gaining the throne and preserving it for his descendants and his descendants alone. One particular episode involves a man later vilified as “Yohannes the Coward” because of his vain bid to save himself and his family from Julius’ purge by renouncing his birthright and place in the line of succession. Guess what? It didn’t work. Yohannes, his wife, four children, and young ward (the daughter of his cousin) are all mercilessly slaughtered. I’m even toying around with writing a short about this sordid episode, so be on the lookout for that.

Julius the Gardener, who became King Julius III, did a pretty solid job of paring down the royal family, but I figure all that bloodletting isn’t going to just stop. Enter the 100-year curse of Goetia the Heretic. (She’s a story for another day.) Now, whether you believe in the curse of an exiled witch princess is real or not is up to you, but the end result is that the royal family goes extinct and I get to start over again with a new dynasty. For the time being, at least, catching up to the timeframe of the story is enough for me.

So, yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing, mostly. Days of work spinning an overcomplicated web of blood and incest. What else would I be doing? ^_^;