Game Design

As we rebuilt Telrhin a few years back, the impulse was a full embrace of nostalgia. The whole panache of beloved geek fantasy from our gaming years. But there comes a time to de-elf the world.  We may have re-invented everything top to bottom in Telrhin Mark IV, but the old names were still there, ripe with stereotypes and the stolen ideas of others before us. The backstory to the "older" races was re-imagined, history re-thought, origin myths re-invented. But as soon as someone hears the world elf, that's all out the window.

Back in the day we put out a newzine for the campaigns called the Adventure Log. There were over 40 issues by the end. To honor our current campaign's second year we put out a Rahman Brothers Special Edition. The campaign centers around brothers from the Rahman clan. When someone dies, we roll up a new brother! It's almost like Clone Club.

Victory at last! The tedious job of manually entering all of the old entries from the WordPerfect file to the new database is complete. Yes, I said WordPerfect. Started that file in the 80s. The encyclopedia has about 750 entries right now. Each of the old entries needed to be integrated into the new world 'vision' (read: totally rewritten/re-imagined) and all of the fields carefully selected for political, social and geographical assocations, various checkboxes checked...   glad that's over. Now I can search it, sort it and mine it to my heart's content. Excelsior!

The current campaign has made the leap to the Borderlands of Wallendahr following their expedition to the Mad Labyrinth of Zen the Mad. This takes the Rahman Brothers out of the Lowlands for the first time, which will help expand the world design and development.

The Encyclopaedia now has over 700 entries. And I've finally finished migrating the 'S' section from the old version.

And for those of you following the blog: I made the final table at Origins! Go Catan! I then managed to squander my lead through a series of catastrophically poor moves.

This is a write-up of the story at the center of the world, the flavor and theme inside the structure. The Tale of the Ember Queens:

The Two Queens, first among the Old Ones (the Ethrings) and last vessels of the creation song. They are the soft silk of an ancient truth, a long thread of purpose in the tapestry of the world, shaped by the unfolding of years, the choices of man and the dreams of the Embrings as they slide into forgetfulness.

In their unfinished tale lie the secrets of the world.