Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Agendas & Almanacs

Where does the time go?

I regret not having posts recently; things have been a little crazy, and I suppose it's normal to have an ebb and flow when you're not a "three times a week or die" blogger.  So what's been going on?

Well, first off, it's Santicore Season, so that takes some brainspace.  The submissions I've seen so far as a 'Santicore Wrangler' have been excellent - I can't wrap my brain around how big Santicore is going to be this year.  Parallel to that, I've been running Wampus Country like usual (although we missed a week) and fiddling with writing stuff in the margins.

If you're waiting on a prize package from the Summer Contest, hang in there.  I hope to get those out in the next couple of weeks, I had some delays.

I want to grab a copy of Publisher so I can easily do decent pdfs without having to learn a new trade - this is the basic holdup with "Rumpscullion's Summer Holiday", as I don't want to assemble the damn thing in LibreOffice and get frustrated, I just want to get it done in the right kind of tool.

I've had a lot of reaction to the 'It Gets Worse' articles, and there will be more on that front in good time.  Working on a "seed table" to assist in jump-starting the brain in coming up with IGW quandries.

But all is not quiet over here.  Once we get through the holidays, and Santicore's out the door, and Rumpscullion's out the door, we're going to talk about publishing a compilation of Wampus Country goodness.  Here's a tentative table of contents, subject to great change:

*WAMPUS COUNTRY ALMANAC*
layout/design concept: Mimic a classic Farmer’s Alamanac, with lots of sidebars, charts, little anecdotes, recipes, bawdy limericks, aphorisms, factoids in the margins.  In-game advertisements.  Equipment lists should look like (illustrated) mail-order catalog pages.   Some pages ‘written on’ by previous owner.  Cartoons?  Sheet music for ‘The Snollygoster Stomp’?  Flip-book in the corner?  Go crazy with it.  A GLORIOUS LAYOUT NIGHTMARE.




INTRODUCTION
Foreword (by whoever’s enough of a sucker to write it)
How the Wampus Country Came To Be (by the author)

HOUSE RULES
It Gets Worse
Hats & Tuxedos
Firearms & Artillery
Mounts & Livestock
Guard-goats
Singing Cows
Owldogs
Owlbunnies
Chrome Stallion
Path-Racers
Riding Snollygosters
Prismatic Zebra
The Spirit of Wampus Country: Community, Healing & Music
Consecrating Weapons and Locations
Cross-Dimensional Paradox Loot Transformation Table

CULTURE & PEOPLES
Keep Your Wits, Tenderfoot
The Frontier Way
On Civilization and Alignment
Religion in Wampus Country
The Scorpion Cult
Church of Weeweauk, the White Mouse
Blessings of Weeweauk (New Cleric Spells)
The Vicelords
Web of Darkness
Lost Gods of the Sixty-Sixth Path
Lesser Godlings
Gloriana of the Mysteries
Taronja the Eternal
The Horned Baron
Sethet the Golden Snake
Blessings of Sethet (New Cleric Spells)
Kaal-Uk-Ur, the Grinning Glutton
Mix-Gan-Jai, the Celestial Frog of Inexorable Progress
Wining & Dining
Adventurer-Chef (class)
Periodicals & Language
Hokum, a Game for Gentlemen Bastards
A Dozen Legendary Magical Banjos
Dogfolk
Poggle Miscreant (class)
Boxtoon Mercenary (class)
Lakeborn
Rabbitjacks
Frog-folk
Frog-folk Ragtimer (class)
Aerophants
Aerophant Scout (class)

HISTORY
Legacy of the Owls
Sagacious Rex
Extant Owl-Beasts
Arcane Secret Society: The Strigiform Masters
The Great Ape Empire
City of Mazes
Arcane Secret Society: The Simian Scions
The Peacock Throne
Grandpa’s War
The Great Desert Lich
The Grand Army
The Battle for Cadaver Canyon
The Curse of Al-Fulaq


WORLD TOUR
Thistlemarch
Town Map
Denizens of Thistlemarch
Small-Town Adventure Seeds
The Mad Margrave’s Keep
Saltvale
Denizens of Saltvale
The Sobbing-Stone of the Disappointed
The Strange Secret of Echo Valley
Crumbledown
The Wasp-Hive
The Giraffe In The Tower
Antonius the Great
Under Crumbledown
Massacre Mesa
Hotfoot’s Oasis
Vulture-Men of Buzzard Gulch
Blood In The Rock
The Abandoned Potbelly Mine
The Coyote Moot
River-Town
Town Map
Random Street Encounters in River-Town
Denizens of River-Town
The Silver Scorpion Casino
Hound-Priests of the Vicelords
The Diamond Peacock Bordello
Thunderbolt Black’s Amazing Action Show
Random Sideshow Performer Dubious Gift Table
City Beneath The Lake
Underwater Encounters
Denizens of the Lake
Snollygoster Swamp
Frogport
Denizens of Frogport
Snollygoster Squeezins & Other Swamp-Magic
Tower of the Swamp Hermit
Ghoulgoyles
Smoke-ghosts
The Snowdeeps
Big Eagle Mountain
Dwarven Ice-Pirates
Bonespur Glacier
Barbarian Tribes
Cloud Rabbit
Black Eagle
Yellowscale
Wolf’s-Paw
The Death-Clans
The Mad Unicorn at Rainbow’s End
Liquid Gold & Rainbow Wine: Fairy Intoxicants
The Mysterious Kandylands
The Witch-Queen of Sugarplum Castle
Arcane Secret Society: Sucromancy
An Assortment of Kandylander Magic & Weaponry

THE WEIRD WILDERNESS
Dangerous Critters
Wampus-Cat

Snollygosters
Fire Caribou
Vampire Moose
Spring-snake
Greedy-pigs
Dolomphious Duck
Bunkaroo
Razmataz
Guffalump
Dunderbosh
Frangbadger
Flapdoodle
Whizbang
Lumberjack Giants
Inbred Giant Quirk Table
Sub-Men of Wampus Country
Wild Ogres
Snobgoblins
Yahooey
Rumtum
Undead of Wampus Country
Gravekinder
Tundra-Wights
Ghostrilla
Necronaut Cultists
The Meebs of Djelu
Meeb Expeditionary (class)
The Three Terrible Sloads
The Clade
Cloud-Folk
Vegetitan & Sproutlings
The Limb Gypsies
The Fearslayer
Fairy-folk of Wampus Country
Gastrognomes
Devil-Fairies
Honey-fairies
Flitpixies
Snailoids
The Princess of All Moths
Creatures of Nightmare
Moops
Jeepcreepers
Slubberdegullion
Tui-Tui-Sem, the Beast With Three Heads
Mants
Kandylanders
Sugar Soldier
Doppelgangster
The Ill-Fated Heatherington Expedition
Emperor of Rubbish
Valley of the Anti-Primitives
The Man Who Killed Ghosts
The Boxtoon Detectives
Rukhspine, the Memorious
The Finding-Chicken of Sullah-Saloo


MAGIC
The Madness of Wizards
Famous Wizards of Wampus Country
The Magnificent Montranto
Hazel Brandywine
Ded-Moroz
The Swamp Hermit
The Stump-Witch
Old Man Hut-Tep
Arcane Abecediary
New Magic-User Spells (78)
Rainbow Magic
The Heavenly Realm of Rainbows and Sunshine
Creatures of the Rainbow Realm
Flowering Fruitkin
Sphere-Folding Beasts
Psychursinoids
Chalkydri Hybrids
New Illusionist Spells (12)
Magic Bullets
Elementals
Elementals with Personality
Emomentals
Paraelementals of Wampus Country
The Midnight Sea
New Diabolical Cleric Spells (12)
The Anglers


RANDOM TABLES
d100 On the Trail
d100 What’s In The Backpack?
d100 Amusing Diversions
d100 Fairyland Weirdness
d100 Demonichaos
d100 Potions
d100 Treasure Maps
d100 Arcane Books
Resurrection Quirks
What’s He Riding?
d100 Magic-Users
d100 Fantasy Names
Frontier Town Name Generator
Striga Generator
d100 Minor Treasure Objects
d100 Quick Personality Quirks



So drop me a line if you have ideas about the sorts of things that "ought to be" in such a work. Longtime Wampus aficionados (I tell myself this is a thing) will note there are a number of things on the above list which have yet to appear on the blog; some of them are already written or sketched-out, others will be written (and maybe appear) between now and Spring. This is kind of a target list to keep me motivated and help me during those moments when I'm paralyzed by the choice of what to write about.

The Wampus Country Almanac is going to be a proper project, with paid-for art and layout and everything, and I'm pretty excited to get things rolling on it after the holidays.

"Be bold in your planning!" said Mr. Jumbles, the famous gorilla motivational speaker.  "The successful entrepreneur must attack the future with certainty born of mad confidence.  When opportunity presents itself, you must seize it by the throat and vigorously shake it, as though chastising a neighbor's wayward child, or an absent-minded barista!"

5 comments:

  1. I'd be all over this like ugly on... well, it would be ungentlemanly to say, wouldn't it?

    Count me in as interested in acquiring a copy when it bears fruit. Best of luck on making it a reality.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd like to help out with the artwork. I'm very much intrigued by this setting/campaign.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Erik, I'm late seeing this but would like to donate some of my scribblings to the almanac project.

    ReplyDelete