As I mentioned yesterday, another thing I am doing is working on a computer game. I wont give out many details since it is only about a month or two in development. But I included some screenshots on getting farming up and running. I cannot take credit for the coding that is the ever awesome Matt, but I do the design work and world building.  Also, ignore the art… we are using free stuff from Unity until we can find a decent 3d artist.

Here we see the overgrown field, with a ruined house to your left. WOW! That field is overgrown! Look at how high that grass is. Next, while attempting to cut the grass down, I have to stop to put down and attacking mutant.  The mutant is dead and I can finally plant some corn. After waiting a day or two, I come back to see my corn has already begun to grow. Finally, after a few more days, my corn is fully grown and ready for the harvest.

Another, ANOTHER thing I want to talk about is the world I use for my gamebooks and my first novel, is based on my old D&D world. So I hope to flesh it out more and more here.

Even though it is the same world I have used since I was eight, this map was drawn when I wa ten. The premise of the world hasn’t changed (as my players can attest to), but as I grew older and obtained more knowledge, details of the world have changed. I wont go into detail now, since I can save that for a future topic.

Here is even an EARLIER map. This is the earliest map I could find.

This is damn painful to look at now, but see how the ‘Sea of Glass’ has moved from the top of this map to further west in the world map? I also heavily stole things as a lad. See Firetop Mountain (from Warlock of Firetop Mountain) and Lion Castle (From Ghost of Lion Castle)…  Yeah. I know I added those to the map a lot later since I bought those two things and wanted to add them somewhere so I just plopped them down at the top since my players haven’t reached those areas yet. I WAS just a young Mad Overlord! Cut me some slack! Jimeny Jeepers. Uh… let us continue… shall we? *hangs head in shame*

Oh, I should also mention, the second map’s location in the world map is toward the top just right of center. You can see the Sunken Lands just north of The Great Midland Kingdom.

This was pretty impressive for a kid I think. The idea behind the second map is that it is mostly a land of barbarians (hence all the open space). Off the eastern edge of the map was a great dwarven kingdom, Kobur Illud if i recall – I don’t have the notes in front of me, and they were losing a war with the elves ((On this map, the ruins of Kobur Illud are called Shadow Stone). Who lived even further east in ‘The City at the Edge of the World’. Yeah, some of my elves were city dwellers, there is a reason for that. For now you will just have to wonder. DUN DUN DAAAAAAAAH! *Ahem* let us continue shall we?

The elves were winning the war, and were planning on making the dwarves extinct for all their mining and destroying of the environment. The dwarves would have been toast, if it was not for a group called ‘The Benefactors’. They used great magics to raise part of the floor of the Great Inner Sea so the dwarves could escape across it, fleeing the island of Hespae. Kind of like a reverse Moses. Except there was a group of them. The sea floor did not sink back right away, it began to sink a week after the escape, but slowly. The map takes place about ten years after the dwarves escaped, and you can see the land is a huge mire, but one can still transverse it.  Why did’t the elves follow? I actually do not remember anymore. Maybe they were microwaving a burrito and they forgot about it or something. They DID send halflings (who were elven allies) into the barbarian lands to spy on them. Forming the village of Brandy wine, but more on that later.

After they raised the lands for the dwarven escape, The Benefactors disappeared as quickly as they showed up. Whether they went back to their cities in the Broken Lands far to the west, or to somewhere else, no one knows. Actually I know, I am just not going to tell you since I am a jerk. HAW!
Anywhos, the remaining dwarves founded Kobur Nogan, I think the map here says Khazul Dum, which my players pointed out was stolen from Tolkien’s Khazad Dum (which is was. I was just a kid,cut me some slack!!!!!), so I changed it. Kobur is the dwarven name for Dwarven made, and Nogan was the dwarven name for North, sad that I can still remember this stuff after so long.
ANYWAY, as I was saying, shortly after founding their city and they began mining, the river turned darker, since they used the river in their mining operations (one of the reasons the elves attend them, darn polluting dwarves), the river which was once named ‘The River of the Divine’ adopted a new name of ‘Rust River’ or ‘River of Rust’. The town on the southern edge was changed from ‘Sweet Water’ to ‘Black Water’ because of the color of the river as well.

There was only one real settlement in the area that some of the more ‘civilized’ barbarians used. Since they needed somewhere all the clans could go to trade goods with other civilizations, and some times set up raiding parties, but again, that is another post for another day. This was the city of Norcross, I actually have a map for that place as well. But again, another day folks, I don’t want to make this post a zillion lines long for those of you who have ADD or a two year old who just ate five bowls of Cap’N Crunch cereal (you and the Cap’n, make it happen!), so I will try to keep this short.

Eventually the halflings of Brandywine disappeared and to this day no one knows where they went (actually they do, but no one will admit they know. Again, another story for another time). The Shard Plains moved further west and off of this map altogether. They are named so, because of the strange, jagged, shards of rock jutting up into the sky. Some of them almost 60 ft high. Where they came from, no one knows. But no one really sticks around to find out since huge tribes of Beastials (wolf-men, cat-men, etc.) patrol the area, capturing and devouring all they come across.

Finally, the barbarians worship the all-Father, but they still pray to the spirits of the trees and animals as well. Once a year all the tribes head to the Forest of Whispering Wind, where they have a Wyrd, talk with other tribes about news, the latest movies they have seen, or whatever else is on their minds.

Did I miss anything? Is there anything I did not cover and you would like to find out more? Is there some of my grammar that is so terrible you would like to point it out? Please do!
As always, thank you for visiting my little hole in the wall and I hope your day goes well.