State of Play 2,018

A drop in posts over Easter, but I am still about. Further, somehow this little Blog with a mealy-mouthed name has garnered over 2,018 views. Many thanks! A slightly arbitrary number to commemorate, but not entirely unfitting.

Points about the Blog I am mulling over:

• An explicitly international audience, though the quantity of views apparently coming from Algeria is somewhat baffling. The bulk of readers seem to be Anglosphere.
• A lack of comments. If you have a pertinent remark, I should be interested to hear it.
• The 'default orange' look of the site. I might spruce things up at some point.
• The most popular posts are: Azoth, Fifty Religious Processions, Majipoor and both Sphinxes.

A few things for the near future:

-I might have said I was done with Terrae Vertebrae for a bit, but I have at least one thing of that setting I should like to put before you. Given Terrae Vertebrae's somewhat generic status, this should be easy enough to tailor to fit other settings. It started in my mind as (North) Western European Medieval, but elements of it could fit in quite nicely with what I know of Tang Dynasty China (for instance).

-That said, I should like to put the Land of Punth, the Qryth and some of the surroundings in a separate category (A new label will be affixed to posts). Besides it having an explicit different flavour to the rest of Terrae Vertebrae, it would be an easy 'unit of setting' for somebody to drop into a game un-tailored. Though I should like to flesh it out a little more first. A few random encounter tables, another hexcrawl perhaps, a partial list of the Codes and a few access points to Punth (Austergate being an example). 

-Progress grinds slowly on the 18th Century setting (referenced initially here, hinted at elsewhere), which probably would be (sub-) titled White Hot Sparks from the Crucible of the Enlightenment. I have some moderately fleshed-out World-Building stuff so I have named cities or gulfs or kingdoms. But the trick with this seems rather to be a feeling of magic that participates in the nature of the Enlightenment and that systematising of knowledge. I might post a reading list of things I've been looking at. 

-In mock-tribute to this post over at Monsters and Manuals, and with an eye kept on this, there will likely be further C.S. Lewis posts. (Though I can't say the same for Terry Goodkind or some others on that list).

-I should like to put Fallout: Home Counties in some sort of finished state, though any serious work on it is unlikely until I can ground myself well in a system that might support it.

-A few more reviews might accumulate.

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Finally, to ensure this post isn't purely self-regarding and inward-looking, have a d8 list of encounters based on a collection of beer caps I recently saw.

1. A thistle half the height of a man. A red eye stares balefully from its centre. Its leaves rustle, even when there is no wind.
2. Crescent hounds, backs twisted into the curve of the moon scamper across the moor, yapping and snapping at anything crossing their path. How are these dog's backs bent into that cruel shape? No-one knows, or no-one tells.
3. The skull of a drowned mariner, still wreathed in seaweed. Who took it so far from the coast?
4. An elongated badger seeks something in the ground. There must be something in the beast to stretch it's body so - or to bring it out during the day.
5. A harp all of black - soundboard, pegs, strings, column. What kind of music does it make?
6. On a rock, the mark of a red hand. There is nothing out here to point towards; surely nothing to be avoided. Who spent time cutting and staining the stone?
7. Leaves grow through a red, demonic skull. Vines entwine barbed crimson limbs. Is this a possessed dryad or an ensnared devil?
8. Could that be a windmill on the horizon? What else would stand so tall - or wave its arms so?

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Any thoughts would, as ever, be appreciated.