Four Ugly Monsters Content Pack

This week I'm finally finishing up my work on a content pack for the gaming company I co-own. The art has been ready for two months now (at least). My job has been to consolidate the art into a content pack that can be used with the virtual table application Fantasy Grounds. Also as part of this content pack I've created around 30 NPCs, descriptions, story hooks, etc.

The content pack is a small town that can be used as a stopping point for any campaign a DM is running. The various maps and tokens can also be extracted from the pack and used separately... if a DM needs a map of an inn and some tokens to represent an innkeeper, maid, and bartender, they can easily pull them out of the pack and use them as they will.

Book update: Another 400 words written over the last couple of days during lunch.

Word Count: 138,456

I also upgraded my mapping program recently (Campaign Cartographer 3). I should have the world-map for the book finished in the next couple of weeks.

Family not Spared...

Samantha finally got the bug. She's starting to feel better today (after two car seat incidents we don't have to go into here). Alexis has not gotten it; hopefully the drugs she's been taking for her first respiratory infection will keep this out of her.

Accordingly, I haven't been meeting my writing quotas this past week. I have been able to spend some time going through my hard copy, continuing my line edits. I'm up to page 200 (out of 310). The goal is to finish the first draft by the end of the week, and then go through my line edits (of course I've said this several times before). While I'm doing that I'll be adding the new scenes I've mentioned before.

Current word count 137,637

Stomach Viruses Suck!

I caught a 24 hour stomach bug that made me do something I haven't done in several years... something I'm sure you can figure out for yourselves without me having to describe it. Then the wife got it yesterday, and it still has her feeling less than 100% and it's been 48 hours for her.

We're just hoping the kids don't get it. It sucks.

Look, Up In the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman

Wasn't sure if this was a first showing or if its been on for months, but saw this retrospective on A&E tonight. It crossed all the incarnatinons of Superman (comic book, tv, radio, movies, broadway musical?) and was a good way to spend two hours.

It did touch upon several of the established mythology and symbolism of Superman, including the allusions to Moses, to Jesus, to the hero's journey. I had also forgotten (if I ever knew it) that some of the elements of the superman lexicon (flying, Perry White as the editor of the Daily Planet, invulnerability to everything but kryptonite) were established in the Superman radio show and not the comic book. At the end of the show it turned into a sales pitch for the new movie, but it served its purpose: I now want to go see Superman Returns when it comes out.

My first podcast mention!

The guys at the Round Table mentioned the website on their podcast earlier this week! As I've stated before, I'm really enjoying the gaming, writing, fantasy and sci-fi podcasts I've found so far. They help me pass the day at work, and I still get my work done (I promise!).

Finally Taking the Time...

Spent an hour or so tonight updating my blogger template. Added several links on the right side of the screen, mostly to podcasts I subscribe to. This podcasting thing has taken me over... I love being able to listen to my iPod at work.

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off to continue writing the last chapter and a half of the novel. I'd so love to have the first draft finished by the end of the week.

Three Podcasts

Like I mentioned in another post I've gotten into podcasts lately. I have found several great gaming related podcasts:

Dragon's Landing - Discussion of role-playing games by gamers. They have a lively forums where they discuss role-playing, gaming, rules, etc. They are working on a generic, modular role-playing system called CHUPA that I may one day convert for use with Fantasy Grounds.

They have a segment in their podcast called The Frugal Gamer, which points out free websites that support role-playing games and inexpensive rpg products that one might look at as a frugal gamer.

In one podcast they briefly discussed virtual table apps such as openrpg and mentioned Fantasy Grounds and Battlegrounds:RPG Edition. I posted a brief response in their forums about FG. When the time came I posted about our webcomic at Four Ugly Monsters. The comic and FUM was mentioned in their latest podcast. It was great to see the first mention of our small gaming company in a well-respected podcast.

The House of the Harping Monkey - This is a podcast that deals more with the subject of mythology and philosophy and how it is used in gaming, movies, literature, etc. But the podcast is made up of gamers and the topics on the podcast and the forums deal with these subjects extensively.

They are beginning to build out a MUX that I want to check out. They also have a play by post game starting up. I have never gotten involved in a pbp game... it looks interesting.

Gamer: The Podcasting - Gamer the Podcasting is a show dedicated to talking about games of all sorts, specializing in roleplaying games and live-action roleplaying games.

They focus on the art of role-playing, more often on LARPing than table-top gaming, but their forums take on both sides of that fence.

Plus they've got a female perspective you don't find very often (and she's good looking to boot, not that you can see someone on an audio podcast, but hey, does that really matter?).

I am going to attend a couple of cons this summer and will be concentrating on the podcasting tracks going on there. I plan on doing a podiobook of my novel after it is done, and if I continue to listen to six plus hours a day of gaming/sci-fi/fantasy/writing podcasts that are out there, I might just have to throw my hat in the ring at some point.