Right Now:
Weekly Book Update

Some weekly update. I have felt bad and discouraged these past few weeks, and so my writing has slacked to zilch. Adding to that, I got a copy of Baten Kaitos Origins. Baten Kaitos, the first game, was an excellent, if very, very long game. I highly recommend it.

Now even if I have not been writing, I continue to think. I love to think out stories and worlds while I am at work- it's a good way to pass the time. Something I have noticed in my characters is my tendency to build important characters from pieces of myself. In a way, I suppose I characterize my faults, fears, wants, and ideals. I devise characters with problems similiar to mine, and then I give them friends to help them overcome them. I think the struggle with personal faults will prove a recurring them in my characters and stories. Now, if I would only write them...

I enjoy coming up with new ideas as I stand there, wrapping meat. Recently, I conceived of one of the most devestating weapons of the War of Tears- hellstorm bombs. Aptly named, the devices are figmi-magical in nature. First, figmentism is used to alter the physical laws of the target area, specifically so that the air and the ground will combust with remarkable ease. Next, a very simple magical construct is used to set the target area aflame. All of this is rolled into a small package, to use the term coined by the magic-wielders of Huin, a "shell." In instants, a very large area is turned into a raging inferno by these terrible weapons. Some versions of the hellstorm bomb surpass nuclear weapons in terms of destructive power- a nuclear blast is one sudden release of energy; a hellstorm can last a long time depending on its construction and the lack of enemy interference.

It will be enjoyable, I think, to write about warfare during the War of Tears. I can envision the mages of the Mage Army sending artillery shells slamming into the machines, blasting them apart and finally making headway in a war that had been threatening to overwhelm the underadvanced worlds of the Step of Matter. ...I definitely need to find a better name than "Step of Matter, Space, Time, Chaos."

Anyhow, the future history of the worlds is much more fleshed out now. It is remarkable the way thing have grown from when these worlds were first conceived. After the War of Tears ends, the Alliance of Free Worlds unites to form what will commonly be referred to as the Nine Thousand Nations. I think a more realistic (as well as more interesting) set-up is to have there be hundreds of nations on any one world, as in real life, rather than to have a few one-world nations. Indeed, with the rise of interuniversal politics, more one-world and multiple-world nations are able to rise. However, nations as small as city-states by no means lose their place in the emerging political reality. Pinnacle moves its infamous role of noninterfering neutrality (a la Switzerland) into a new age, offering the worlds a safe and secure place to store information and money.

As I have said so many times before... when I take the time to think about it, I realize just how much I love these worlds and stories. They long ago took on a life of their own and refuse to quit growing.

Till later.

~Speeyard

quod ultra



Games
AdventureQuest
NationStates
The Kingdom of Loathing

Comics
Count Your Sheep
Gaming Guardians
8-Bit Theater