Wednesday, December 28, 2016

2015 World of the Fifth Sun summary

This year has been very fruitful with several interesting results. First I'll review what happened leading up to 2016, and then the next post highlights of 2016. In the third post I will do a post that is looking forward into 2017 and beyond - more of a hopes, goals, and challenges post.

WotFS 2015

I began World of the Fifth Sun on March 13, 2015.
Exploring into RPG engine source documents
In that post I was looking for a rules system to maybe support the world that I had created during the November Nanowrimo. I had started looking into rules systems late summer of 2014 before writing Song and Fire, my first attempt at a fantasy novel. The Fudge rule system seemed interesting. I used it to attempt to create two Fudge rule sets over the time since, which have never been used or entirely fleshed out.



Later that month I wrote a personality post which discussed using the stats with modern five factor personality theory. Modern personality theory was in my mind carrying over from the character creation notes and systems which helped create my fictional characters. I found that personality theory really helped me create several unique characters based on personality types rather than basing it on real life people that I know.



Some of this character personality work would end up as sections influencing my Stories vs RPGs series which I put into an Ebook format in 2016. My Fudge personality post is likely being added into the Fudge Compendium which may be published soon.


June of 2015 I looked into Fate Accelerated, drawn by the simple and more compact rules system. 

July  of 2015, after ordering FAE and RMX which I had decided to purchase in late June, while I was waiting for it to arrive I spent time looking for RMX stuff on ICE's forum and looked at the updated beta 2 RMU file and was drawn back to RMU. I had sworn off RMU the year prior due to a format that is written for someone who already knows the RM system. This new version was easier to understand and had a better learning curve - which since then is being reversed unfortunately from what I read by the powers that be. Most likely the final RMU will be as clunky, blocky, and user unfriendly as the RMSS that proceeded it.

Instead of playing RMX which I ordered because of a review that said it was similar to MERP, I ended up test playing RMU and doing a thorough review on ICE Forums. I gave my feedback and 2 cents of input from a returning GM perspective and former MERP GM.

October 28 I began trying to build Aioskoru using online random content generators and learning to expand map techniques. 



November of 2015 for Nanowrimo I wrote the compiled collection of tales for my world which acts as a prequel to Song and Fire. Two of the tales written I released in a two short-story book called Worn and Lanic.  The remaining stories have yet to be released.



Mid December I started trying to make city maps. Two of my attempts were later designated for Melos and Denusos. 


Despite looking into city maps, I continued trying to make better and more detailed Aioskoru region maps. The next day I put together information that I had gathered in late October and November making maps and experimenting with graphical processes started my Quick free world maps using GIMP filters and Donjon fractal maps series of posts.


In my experiments I came across a radical breakthrough technique which brought me closer to knowing how to do what I wanted to do with the maps - greater details found within the free maps. This was the technique used to make topographical maps, which became the focus for the book along with the 3D bump maps. This is the Melos region which I posted on December 20, 2015.


On December 23, 2015 I made and posted two pictures which I would use later for the Aioskoru World Guide and the Aioskoru OGL Maps.



On December 28th, 2015, I ended the year by choosing a logo for the world.


So these events leads up to the beginning of this year 2016. Although many of these things were last year, they would help influence and be used in several projects/posts studied and created this year.

In the next post, I will look at World of the Fifth Sun in 2016.

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