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 started off by working on that calendar error that was giving me the dickens the day before and now everything should be square from BE 382 to 355 (and by extension, the 262 to 235, 142 to 115, and 022 to AE 006 segments of the subsequent three cycles as well).That’s 28 years out of a 120-year cycle. Amazing. (Then I think about the remaining 92 years I have to eventually deal with… -_- )

I then switched gears to get to work on RttW. I made a bit of progress on Chapter 12, but then I got hung up on figuring out how much Pawel and Zofiya would have to spend to get their ten kiddos decently equipped before leaving Axios and then I realized that I hadn’t done character sheets for the seven kiddos besides Fedor, Zsazsa and Arjun. (Actually, nine eventually, as we need to round out the two parties.) When I do the character sheets, I chart their stat growth all the way to Level 80 (whether or not the character actually makes it that far) and as I do it, I try to get into the character’s head and think about what’s important to them, what they actually need for their Job and how all that comes together. For instance, Spirit rating wasn’t a priority at all for Pawel as he was running a Fighter build, but then in Tier 2 he decided to cross-rate to Mage in order to become a Mage Knight in Tier 3, so he had to focus on building up stats that he had completely ignored the previous 30 Levels. Among the new kiddos, there’s this girl Elishavet who’s a Fighter who insists on steadily building her Intelligence stat, not because she needs it that much from a gameplay perspective but because she doesn’t want to be seen as stupid compared to her party members. (Though the INT stat only really applies to intelligence in a meta sense, as a very grouchy Oscarius will tell you if you ever try to make fun of his 4 points of INT, and if that doesn’t work, he does always have his 189 points of STR to fall back on, as that poor table had to demonstrate back in Chapter 5.) Anyway, these are all things I’m thinking about as I work.

As I can expect rather hectic days back at work Friday and Saturday and probably on through July, I really need to get the chapter finished in the next couple days. We’ll see if I can get it done or not. Stay tuned.

If you’ve been following the long and rocky road of TWH’s production, you won’t believe me when I tell you that I finished Chapter 25 right out of the gate this week. Yes, I’d already finished about half of it beforehand, but for me to get through a chapter so quickly (in this book at least) is definitely a rare thing. I was looking back to see when serialization began. It was all the way back on 23 Dec 21. If I can stick to schedule, it’ll mean it took me three and half years that should’ve wrapped in less than half that time. As far as released novels go, I think Tico1 still has the worst of it, but “The Case of the Spotted Leopard” is without a doubt the grand champion, still stuck in development hell after all these years with no foreseeable way out on the horizon. I will finish it one day, but it won’t be today.

Anyway, I went on to do a little work on Chapter 26, which will very likely get split into two or even three chapters by the time I’m done, and then returned to the WttW peripheral materials. I’ve made it to Raibeart III (#27), but the High Kings are starting to get a little Habsburgian, so it’s time for them to start introducing a little exogamy. Oh, yes, I also wrote a bit on Chapter 12 of RttW for good measure.

I intend to continue working on a bit of this and that in the days to come, so hopefully I have something more exciting to report than several generations of consanguineous mating in Clan Mac Culién. Stay tuned.

First, let me happily report that I finished Chapter 11 of RttW, so we’ll be able to go forward with the update on schedule. Of course, I spent a lot of time on the peripheral materials as well. I proceeded down the family tree of the High Kings to Domhnall V (#17). That may not sound like a lot of progress, but there’s a fair bit that went into getting that far. I always end up making such soap operas when I do genealogy work. Anyway, I’ve already done some work on Chapter 12 before, so I’ll try to get more done over the weekend to give me some lead time for next cycle. Maybe I can get more that four High Kings sorted while I’m at it. Stay tuned.

I made some respectable progress on Chapter 11 of RttW, finishing the first section and cracking into the second, but a lot more time was spent in the peripheral materials. Similar to what I’ve been doing in the Tellus Arc peripheral materials, I’ve been providing regnal years for the High Kings of Axios (and will do so for the monarchs of the other domains as I flesh them out) and I also wrote up summaries of the Trade Guilds in the Player Guide (as it was relevant to my work on the current chapter). I’d say I’m pretty well positioned to meet my deadline at this point, so yay for that. Besides doing that. I’d like to finish detailing the family tree of the High Kings. My earlier work left off at Dubhgall the Terrible, the thirteenth of 36 High Kings, so I’ve got a bit of work to do there. Well, all fine things to keep me out of the beer joints. Here’s to another productive day. Stay tuned.

I was actually spending a fair bit of time yesterday rereading posts on this blog. I had to go back and apply a recent retcon regarding Emperor Michael I Neologos in “A Brief History of the Emperors of Earth” among other minor tweaks and corrections. There was stuff at work that chewed up a fair bit of my time in the office, but I did actually start digging into Chapter 11 of RttW. Will I make my deadline? That remains to be seen. Anyway, I can try focusing on that and see where it gets me. 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.

The plan was to get Chapter 10 of RttW done in the morning, let it sit for a few hours, then go back over it before posting. It didn’t quite work out that way because I was getting distracted by adding stuff to the peripheral materials, like separate mail sleeves as a medium-level alternative to the plate arm armor set. Anyway, I did get the chapter done in the afternoon and prepped and ready to go in the evening… only to discover that it wasn’t Chapter 10’s turn yet. It was Chapter 9’s turn, so I had to go back and prep it instead. This is why you check things first, not that it hurts to have the next chapter already ready. Maybe I can stay ahead of the game and avoid the sort of delays we’ve seen with TWH and that CoP has been dealing with right out of the gate. More work on the peripheral materials followed after the update. I really should sort out the ability list, but that means squaring away over 400 abilities. Whee fun. Well, complexity addiction is what gave birth to this series, so I’m stuck with it to the bitter end. If I can, I may squeeze in a little more WttW-related work before switching over to TWH for next week. Stay tuned.

Yesterday was a 12-hour monster that didn’t leave me with a lot of time for writing, but I managed to squeeze in a bit of work on Chapter 10 of RttW. Unsurprisingly, when I figured I’d make more progress in the evening, I passed right out. I would decide to try to finish the chapter the following morning. If you’ve been paying attention to the main site, you know how this story goes, but for the sake of narrative continuity, we’ll save that for the next entry. Stay tuned.