And It Begins Anew!
A new year and another blog.
It will contain everything you have come to expect from me, so nothing really new in that department.
Work is keeping me hopping, which is keeping me happy. There is an old adage which states ‘if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life’.
As it stands, I do love my work. I love being on the road and doing deliveries and not being anywhere near the shop. So I am happy and loving it.
Few people can say the same.
The downside is more often than not, I end up missing lunch and as such I don’t get to write, so my writing has suffered greatly because of that.
I still manage to get the creatures up for New Mutant Monday, however, and this week I put up the final four for 2016… Voltapume, Nagafem, Beaore, and the Sleipnir. And with these four, series two has come to an end.
Which means on Monday, January 2nd (tomorrow to be exact), series three will begin. Several months ago I stated I was thinking of doing a theme this year and I have decided after taking the time to think about it to do just that. It will be a combination of plant and psionic mutants, so each week will have one plant, and one mutant which possesses psionics of one form or another.
And for a new weekly article – I have decided to write up a new magic item (or more) and post them weekly. I am not sure what day I’ll do this, but it won’t be Monday, nor will it be Thursday.
I haven’t even come up with a name for the new series of articles, but I will soon enough, hopefully with Michael’s help.
So at least that is something else to look forward to. Hell I might even continue with the occasional Entertainment monster write ups, since I still have to convert several creatures from Fallout 4: Nuka World.
To be honest I had hoped to post a new piece of fiction before the end of the year, but it is not in the cards. I have gone back and did some serious re-writing and still have to finish the story, so here is hoping I can get it up sometime early next week.
And once it is up, then I have… two or three more stories I intend to write. First of which will probably be called ‘Relations’, all about Cheonsa’s true father. Second will most likely be Natheria and Ronnath dealing with the survivors of a Hag Coven who were responsible for the deaths of a dozen of Eilistraee’s priestesses. I have a feeling this story will end up being one of my longer stories. Finally a little story called ‘Reunion’ where Cheonsa meets Natheria after many years of wondering what had happened to her tutor.
Oh yeah of course I will be working on that mystery novel as well. I originally planned on having it done by today, but circumstances with the publisher and events taking place right now have pretty much ensured it would be a waste of time so there is no immediate rush.
Before I forget to mention it, I have been purchasing T-shirts online from various companies such as Shirtpunch, Ript Apparel and Tee fury since around 2011. I have in excess of seventy shirts from these various companies now and I will be purchasing more as the years pass.
I am also a fan of Lar DeSouza, the artist for Least I could Do and Looking for Group webcomics. I has recently been discovered one of these online T-shirt companies is selling his, as well as numerous other artists work without their consent or compensation. The company is called Teechip and if you are currently thinking of purchasing from this company or have done business with them in the past, boycott their ass! Lar has sent a cease and desist and so far they have not responded and it doesn’t look like they give a shit.
So make sure to hit them where it hurts – the wallet. Boycott them and spread the word. I know I have!
On a far more pleasant note, there is a fantasy artist who I discovered on Facebook by the name of Travis Hanson. He does a comic a few times a week about the experiences all Role Players face at least once during their gaming lives and I have really enjoyed these.
Soon, very soon he will be launching a Kickstarter for the first compilation of his work, and as of this blog it will be going live in about 9 days. You know for a fact I will be backing this one!
Oh yeah… I will be sending Michael the Mental and Physical Mutation books in the next week or so. I have to cut a lot of material from the Plant Mutation book, as I never did bother speaking to the creator of a lot of it, and even though he would make money from the sales, without getting his permission is just wrong.
And frankly I couldn’t be bothered.
I know, that’s a dickhead attitude but I would rather just cut the stuff he created. It will reduce the book size by I figure 25% but so be it. Once that is finished, Mike will get it. At least beforehand he’ll have the other two books, which are far more important in my view anyhow.
Oh and I do believe I have mentioned this in the past already, but once these are done I can then get the New Mutant Monday volumes ready for Mike and of course the Entertainment creatures. Other than the New Mutant Monday series three, I will be finished with the OSR material.
It just does not sell.
And with Starfinder coming out this year, I would much rather take all the SF material I have created and make sure it’s compatible with that system. And all new material I decide to write up will be for Pathfinder and probably 5th edition anyhow.
To be blunt – most OSR gamers are cheap and don’t want to fork out the money for material. And there really isn’t that huge a following for it anyhow. I might as well write material I know will make more money for me.
Due to the week being shorter than usual because of Christmas, I had time to finish a single novel this week. I finished F. Paul Wilson’s Panacea novel. This is all about two factions, one who has created a literal ‘cure all’ for all disease and known ailments, and a group of religious fanatics who believe they are Satan’s servants and will do nothing to kill them all and destroy this miracle cure.
Religious fanatics abound.
Excellent read and because of the fact it made me angry several times should speak volumes about how well it was written.
Also my wife and I finished Season one of Van Helsing. It is a post-apocalyptic series using vampires instead of zombies. The series is all about a marine and a doctor who happen to be watching over a woman who has been in a coma since the ‘Rising’ began, the day when the vampires took over the world.
Several survivors come to join these two and it is discovered this mysterious woman’s blood is capable of turning vampires into humans. She is also incredibly strong, has serious combative skills, and can heal as quickly as the vampires.
They are far more terrifying than zombies because most of the vampires are fully capable of thinking and reasoning.
We enjoyed it! Bring on season 2.
Normally I would mention the weekly D-Infinity podcast and this week is no exception to that. The difference is I participated this week, and depending on my weekly schedule for training, I might be able to join far more often. I just don’t know what the schedule is going to be like over the next few months…
So it was all about unboxing gifts we got for Christmas – of course all gaming material. So I was able to show off the swag I got.
One last item to talk about.
It has come up in the weekly pathfinder game I participate in that one of the players cannot stand metagaming.
The GM and I are friends and have been for years and we were discussing this earlier today. The player bitches about how it breaks the game when we use knowledge our characters could not possibly possess.
My friend and I disagree with him. We both look at it as the characters having a general knowledge of things, having heard tales, rumors and stories. It is very easy to incorporate metagaming into the game as long as it is not the type which would hurt the overall campaign, which the kind of material we discuss does not.
And on that note, I am done with the first blog of 2017.
I hope you all had a great night last night and are going to have a good year.
Try to stay happy and try not to get all the crazy crap which is going on get you down.
