I mentioned last time that I wanted to debut the kid versions of Lia, Rachel and Carlo along with Annabeth and I got everything together to make that happen. I then proceeded to do a bunch of renders of Annabeth, most of them silly, just for funsies. Most won’t end up getting posted.

I then did some profile work on the KoG charas. As I was both thinking of how to adapt Mark’s backstory to the Alkoresh setting and also looking up relevant Japanese terminology, I came to discover that the Orthodox Church doesn’t have religious orders like the Catholics. The Church of Antioch in the Tellus Arc has its origins in the pre-Schism Church, albeit generally more Eastern than Western in character, though their Western Rite more closely resembles Catholics in practice. The Heilegers (as in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church) much more strongly resembles the early medieval Catholic Church as its origins lie with later arrivals to the Planet. Anyway, point being, the Order of St. Arita shouldn’t exist. (The Order of St. Niccolo can squeak by as coming from the Western Rite.) The order as it existed really didn’t have a presence beyond Whiteheart Abbey, so the fix isn’t that incredibly difficult, but it’s another thing I need to be thinking about when I put the KoG series through a round of revisions.

Another thing that may be up for change is the name of the Kingdom of Gladius itself. When I made the name change back in 1999, I was mixing my still recent Latin study with the idea of a naming convention with Japanese sensibilities. However, I find myself questioning that choice now and for the time being, I’ve taken to calling Gladius “Branstock”, which is canonically the Saxon name for the region back on the Planet. In-universe, I explain the name as being derived from a saying by the Patricians about the land falling to a single stroke of the sword. After all this time, I’m rather attached to the Knight of Gladius name, so I don’t think I’ll be changing the original, but derived works like the Alkoresh Cycle stand to be a different story.

Again, as always, there was assorted work in the peripheral materials for this and that. I didn’t lose quite as much time to being unconscious as the day before, but I still don’t get half as much done as I’d like. So it goes. We’ll see what I can get into next. Stay tuned.

On Thursday I once again further enriched DA by purchasing not just one but two character packs. I was actually thinking about making characters from Tzipi’s Garden, but what I ended up doing was creating a selection of charas from KoG, namely the original six members of Mark’s party (Mark, Sonia, Edward, Jasper, Jill and Teresa), Randwulf, Vincentian and Adrienne; and I followed them up with a sextet from TBP: Seth, Cassandra, Aurelia, Drago, Rafael and Umbriel (Rafael is going to be a bit of a problem because that also happens to be the name of Maya’s father, who may or may not find his way into the system one day, though I’ll have to think about how to distinguish him from Mikel as they’re suppose to be quite similar in-universe and Count Rafael is still too young in Elven terms to look that much older). While I could’ve just had these Tellus Arc charas there as their canonical selves, I got to thinking how I could integrate them into the Alkoresh timeline. In the thousand years since the end of the Second Great Demon War, there was a period of several centuries where humanity was struggling to recover the technological level they could no longer support without Earth’s backing while the nations of the Grand Alliance descended to in-fighting in the absence of a common enemy and fears about the human newcomers role in disrupting the balance of power. As I thought of it, I figured I could fit the early Brynhildr Cycle in first, follow it with the Trident War, The Brothers Pendragon, possibly Tellus, and then KoG. As for KoG itself, setting the events in northern Valeria makes sense and the Camp Gladio where Luka and Carlo’s father served can be a cultural artifact from that period.

Anyway, the concept for the KoG charas is that the Demon Realm rather than the Dark Eternal is the source of all the evil plotting (though I suppose I could adopt Dox as one of the Ancient Demons if I wanted). Instead of being a way to regulate the balance of power with magic in a world where magic is dying out as in the original continuity, here the Elemental Knights are a sort of test for humanity to see if they can wield the power of magic responsibly and the roles of the Council of the Elements and the Shadow Clan are rolled into one. In this new combined role, the Shadow Clan is a circle of Elven sages who observe and test the younger races of the world as a way to foster their progress, operating outside the mainstream of society in El-Ashara. (In fact, the way they involve themselves in the affairs of other races is seen as heretical.) You then have Shadowbright (later Shadowblight)’s corruption and betrayal of the order and everything that follows from there.

The eight principalities of the old Kingdom of Valeria correspond to the occupation zones of the UN task force sent to Alkoresh. As Gladius and Byrn are analogues to England and Russia, the former British and Russian occupation zones make for a good fit. While Valeria was warring with her neighbors, she was riven by internal conflicts as well, to include a number of separatist movements with varying degrees and duration of success. In this continuity, rather than full independence, House Dumont (the Mountain Kings) simply achieves a greater measure of autonomy, to include allodial rights to their territory. It’s only when Randwulf deposes Edgar that the region goes full separatist. Here Randwulf has become Partially Demonized as part of his bid for greater power, as have all of the Marauders and most of the Gladian Guard. This will naturally up the challenge level a bit.

I’d been considering an If Arc story that has Mark going to Gladius without abandoning his vows, thereby increasing the internal conflict when it comes to him taking up the sword again. I realized that this would be as good a place for it as any, and so we have Mark heading eastward (as the locations on the Alkoresh map are in the opposite position) still as a monk. That should help shake things up and further ensure that I’m not just retreading old ground.

As for BroPen, I have the idea of casting Lother as Adam Penwood, the illegitimate son of a knight with delusions of grandeur who takes on the name Pendragon and seeks a crown for himself. The heck of it is that he actually has the right combination of skill, luck and fortuitous personnel choices that allow him to carve out his slice, a little petty kingdom with pieces of the Duchies of Sigrdrifa and York. Unlike Tellus Arc canon, his dynasty won’t be lasting any 400 years, but it’ll take a bit for the original occupants to reclaim their territory.

Establishing the new timeline is going to take no small bit of work, but all this and more remain on the horizon. Stay tuned.

You’re not going to believe it, but I did it at long last. I finished Chapter 3 of TKoH. Yes, I did end up giving the sequence something of an abridged treatment, but I didn’t think you wanted to read five pages of Sigurd getting bucked off and kicked in the face by Grani any more than I wanted to write it. Now I should be able to get a decent start on Chapter 4 if not finish that, but I need to pick up Thidrekssaga again before I can really dig into the next couple chapters. One thing at a time, I suppose.

I also did a bit of the inevitable work in the WttW peripheral materials. The main thing I remember doing is making cervelliere’s function on either the main layer or under layer for head protection. The former allows you to put something like an arming cap on for padding while the latter allows you to wear it under a mail coif. If I haven’t mentioned it before, in the World’s game system, you have three layers for armor (which includes regular clothing) and only three, so you have to think about the best combination based on the climate, your combat role, your proficiency, your finances, etc. (And I just had to step away to make a bunch of other armor pieces work on two layers for greater flexibility in armor options, such as being able to wear a hauberk over a gambeson or mail under plate. You’re welcome, Adventurers.)

Another thing I worked on was the background material for a story I’ll probably be launching a teaser for in the very near future. The idea’s been percolating in my head for a year or two and I’ve committed to moving it into preproduction. I may wait until I have another one or two teasers to roll out with it (not necessarily related stories). I was thinking about making at least two sequels to TKoH, so maybe once I’ve put a little more work into those, I can make an announcement on the main site. That should do it for now. We’ll see what comes from here. Stay tuned.

Reader: “How have you not worked on TKoH this time?”

But I did work on TKoH!

Reader: “Really? How much did you get written?”

One whole line!

Reader: *sigh*

Yes, well, a funny thing happened. I was watching a video on the distinction between knights and men-at-arms (mostly confirming what I already knew) and as the video got into the 17th Century, I thought that a lobster-tail pot helmet would make a nice addition to the WttW armor list. However, as I was making the entry, I realized I didn’t have lobsters in the World. This led to another fun round of expanding the World’s repertoire of marine life and then a whole bunch of new helmets getting added to the armor list. Previously, I’d limited the number of helmet types to keep the list manageable, but as a slight compromise, I add some particular types but without going through all the different materials. (For instance, you won’t be able to get an Adamantite Great Bascinet, just steel.) For a lot of these, the base stats don’t change, but combat calculations will be influenced by such factors as coverage. Speaking of great bascinets, if the visor is down, strikes to the face will be calculated the same as other parts of the head, but your visual Perception will be reduced. If the visor is up, your visual Perception goes back up but a strike to the face will be calculated without taking the helmet’s Armor Defense into account. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

I’m bound to push through and finish that daggone chapter eventually. As the deadline looms ever closer, perhaps the heat will light a fire under my tail. Stay tuned.

Reader: “So what did you do this time besides write on the chapter?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. You’re going to love this. As you should be aware, the World in the WttW series is based on our own world. I decided to map the Trials to the areas of the Earth that they correspond to and then used it to execute this neat idea. You see, normally Players are bound within the limits of a particular Trial. The invisible walls of video games is an actual mechanic in the World. If you try to go out of bounds, you’ll be repelled by a magic barrier. However, the People of the World aren’t bound by this limitation. As such, I devised so-called hidden pathways that connect the Trials in unexpected ways. For example, if you travel southeast out of Lower Midgard (the 1st Trial), which corresponds to southern Germany and eastern France, you can get to Costa Concordia (the 9th Trial), which corresponds to Italy. A journey of 2916 leagues along the Golden Path can be accomplished in just 157 leagues. These hidden pathways aren’t always this convenient, but it can be a major boon to merchant caravans. The downside is that you don’t have the relative safety of the Golden Path or much if any human settlement along the way to support your journey. For instance, along the Golden Path, at least in the more built-up Trials, you at least have an inn every eight leagues where you can rest, get food, change horses, etc. On the other hand, by bypassing the Trial Gates, you also bypass the tariffs imposed on entry and exit in each domain. It’s a bit of a high-risk, high-reward proposal.

Players can take advantage of the hidden pathways, once they’ve opened up the destination via normal progression through the Trials. In other words, once you’ve cleared the 8th Trial and opened up the 9th, the hidden pathway between the 1st and 9th becomes available to you. This is actually vital to late-game play, as human settlement ends at the beginning of the 16th Trial. Players are able to magically transport themselves via the Trial Gates, but it only applies to themselves and whatever they are carrying. If you’re wanting to move a lot of materiel to support large-scale ranging, the kind of which you’ll be doing late in the Game, you may want to take the 1445-league journey between the Killing Fields (4th Trial) and Nidavellir (19th Trial).

As you can tell, I was calculating distances between real-world locations to get me the figures for the length of the hidden pathways, and considering the ones that go over water, I started thinking about the need for nautical miles as a measure for sea navigation. This sent me down the rabbit hole of calculations of the Earth’s circumference from Eratosthenes to the 16th Century. You may recall that the measures used in the World are a mix of Roman and old English units, which fall out of sync with modern measurements. For instance, the long mile of the World is 1.476km compared to the 1.609km of the modern US mile, both because the World inch is based on the Roman uncia (2.46cm) and the long mile is 5000 feet (as was the imperial Roman mile). We have Eratosthenes’ overestimation of 252,000 stadia (700 stadia per degree) and Posidonius’ underestimation of 180,000 stadia (500 stadia per degree), though both were using differing lengths of stadia. The current calculation for nautical miles is that there are 60 per degree, which is convenient for calculations when dealing with circles, so I came up with a long furlong (the furlong corresponding to the stadion) when calculated at ten to the nautical mile actually got within 0.556% of the actual circumference of the Earth at the Equator and just happens to be almost the same length as the Attic (also known as the Ptolemaic) stadion. This long furlong also happens to be an eighth of the long mile, so it works on several levels. (Yes, I’m obsessed with weights and measures.)

In spite of all this time being spent on the WttW peripheral materials, I actually did do something related to TKoH. I went ahead and named all the chapters and updated the Table of Contents on the site accordingly. It certainly leaves a better impression on the reader seeing that everything is clearly planned out. (I should probably spend a week or two before starting serialization to actually ensure all that is sorted first. Looking at you, RttW.) I’m sure I mentioned this elsewhere, but I spent years before I actually committed to writing KoG1, so a lot of my early stories had been brewing for a long time, while more recent books have had a rather short preproduction phase, for better or for worse. On the one hand, it’s a good thing to be so eager to write a story that I’m just getting it out there, but as a general rule, the more preplanning that goes into a story, the better the finished product. Anyway, maybe I can actually focus on TKoH a bit. Stay tuned.

I got a little writing done on Chapter 3 of TKoH, did some more research, but even more research is going to be required for sorting this one out. My father’s antipathy toward horses ensured that I would have little experience with them. Perhaps the most time I’ve spent with a horse is riding halfway to school from my cousin’s place in 3rd Grade (before dismounting because I decided I didn’t like it). That and wanting to be somewhat accurate to roughly 7th Century Norse horsemanship is another challenge. I’m pretty sure they didn’t drive ’em into the corral, lasso ’em, mount ’em and bronco bust ’em, but I could be wrong, hence the need for further research. I then have to factor in the fact that Sigurd is more stubborn and prideful than he is smart, so that’s got to be considered as well. We’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned.

I did finally dig into Chapter 3 of TKoH, almost did enough to count for two days’ worth but not quite. Scripting this next bit will be a bit tricky, but I don’t expect it to be all that long, so once I figure out how I want things to play out, I should be able to wrap it up fairly quickly. If I’m doing really well, maybe I could even knock out Chapter 4 this week and build up some lead time. We’ll see how it goes.

I also spent some time in the WttW peripheral materials, mostly doing minor tweaks throughout the guide. Speaking of the guide, I need to think about starting work on the wiki. It’d be nice to get some of the peripheral materials out there for public consumption. A project for another day, I’m sure. Here’s to me not getting too distracted by the peripheral materials and staying on target. Stay tuned.

I thought I was just going to wrap up Chapter 2 of TKoH in the course of the morning, but I didn’t actually finish until about 2300. Normally I like to let a chapter sit a half day at minimum before putting it out, but instead I settled on just a couple hours before getting it out. The chapter ended up being a lot longer than I was expecting, over 6500 words long. This could be a rather hefty book by the time I’m done. I imagine most chapters will be in the 2000-word range, but there may well be a few more chunky ones to be had.

Anyway, with that done, I’ll be switching over to CoP. Stay tuned.

Again I made progress on Chapter 2 of TKoH but not as much as I was hoping. There were some unanticipated obstacles that came up, so now I’m going to have to try to finish the chapter in the a.m. so I can post in the p.m. We’ll see how that goes. I’m really close to the end, so I’d hate to postpone for another week. (I think at worst, I may have to push the release back by a day.) And that’s to say nothing of the fact that I haven’t done any anime viewing for review purposes, so I need to try to get through at least one series. I have some doubts about my chances of success, but we’ll see what happens. Stay tuned.

I made more progress in Chapter 2 of TKoH, though not as much as the past couple days. I’ll have to step it up to get the last scene finished so I can meet my deadline. I’ll see what I can do. Stay tuned.