Where I sit, I dream for days

I've been thinking about where I need to go next in terms of writing. 

( I'm not the type to forget or to bury my head )

IMPORTANT STUFF: 

RESTLESS HEAVENS CHATS WILL TAKE PLACE WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, AND FRIDAY of this week.   Mostly in the afternoons, probably starting at around 4 PM PST each.  The chat name will be KirinRibbonParty, so if I don't see you/get distracted by shinies/you are on invisible, you can invite yourself and at least I should be there.   EVERYONE IS INVITED, EVERYONE, even if you aren't yet sure what Restless Heavens is or joined in on the Sandbox or whatnot!   I will be there to teach and inform and also discuss the game!

Topics of discussion include reviewing over completed wiki articles (particularly kirin and kings, and the individual kingdom articles which should be at least half-completed by then), in-depth kingdom discussion, and debate over the application process.  

For the kingdom discussion, I am aware that I'm not the best world-builder, and I really want other people's eyes over what I already wrote, and other people's opinions as to how to make each kingdom unique and striking.  I know Ingrid was interested in having different fashion styles for each kingdom, and I'm interested in discussing social progress in the kingdoms and determining who is ahead in terms of equality and who is behind.    

Hay hay hay three relevant RH links!

RH Character Sandbox!   It is where people have been dumping off ideas for potential characters!  Again, going to note that nobody is accepted or 'canon' yet, not even my own characters, but seeing what other people are considering could give you ideas of what to do yourself.  

Tangorin Japanese Dictionary.  Admittedly I'm a moron when it comes to foreign languages, but I've actually been able to understand this website, and constantly use it to identify and find kanji that suits my purposes, whether it is coming up for character names, place names, or item names.  

RH crests, flags, and wiki banners.  THE PROGRESS THUS FAR.  K has been kind enough to start up on some crests and flags that we'll be using primarily as identifiers on the wiki, to keep characters and articles properly organized.    I'm especially fond of some of the shape symbology we've come up with - circle for Heaven, square for earth/land/kingdom, and diamonds for people.

I made fudge <3

HEY 

HEY 

HEY 

HEY LISTEN!

Someone is working on Restless Heavens again :D   Just spent a half hour clearing all of the spam out of the wiki , need to fix things tomorrow so that only the moderator can edit stuff cause the spam was SO BAD GUYS I suck. 

(For all the new kids to my DW - The Restless Heavens, A Fracture in the Sea of Clouds is the Twelve Kingdoms RPG that I've had in the works for a year now.  Though due to moving across the country and general flakeyness I haven't actually worked on it in eight months.  Restless Heavens takes place in an AU version of the world - all of the mechanics and geography and etc are still the same as in the book/anime, but we are working with an entirely new cast of people, meaning Keiki and Youko and Rakushun never exist in the context of this game.  New sandbox, baby.)

BUT YES, PROGRESS IS BEING HAD.

( HERE ARE MY THINKY THINGS ) I need to play more Pokemon (I need to play Pokemon my life depends on it), but I hope those of you who were interested in RH are still with me after all this!  Thank you! 

zuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh

So anxiety is something that always hits me very hard, and that's what's been up with me for the past few days.  (Well, I also badly cut one of my index fingers at work, which has made typing a bit tough and way slow).  I'm incredibly anxious about moving, and about really stupid stuff too.  Like the possibility that my car explodes on the way and I lose everything, and have to use all of my funds to buy a new car to get out there.  Or getting robbed.   Or just underestimating how much money I needed in general, and ending up broke by May and unable to go to Fanime.  Or a thousand other things.  I just have to wait until my excitement overpowers my anxiety again.

This is my last week of full-time work at least, and next week I only work 17 hours.  Hurrah for that at least.  And my coworkers are all incredibly excited for me, which feels nice because I always felt that a lot of them couldn't give a shit about me one way or another.

Anyways, I just chilled out yesterday and filled out tax forms, and today I'm going to mail them out and try to get a few other odds-and-ends sorted out (like laundry, and sorting out my winter stuff from my summer stuff.)  I also hope the Goodwill takes the yarn/fabric I don't want.  Angie and I are going to eat at the downtown tonight, at Apollo Grill, which I always meant to eat at but never got around to XD 

Also, I have not forgotten about Restless Heavens!   Today and yesterday I've been reading A Thousand Miles of Wind, which is probably the most socio-political novel in the series, and taking down a shitload of notes.  Already I found a few major errors in information I had started to assemble on the Wiki, so in April I'll be able to go back and revise, and obviously finish the rest of the major articles.   While Tokyopop's translations are awesome to read while out and on the go, I recommend re-reading using the Eugene Woodbury translations, since he offers extremely helpful language and context notes for every chapter.  More than anything, his resource has been the most helpful to me so far.

Also I've decided that Sou accidentally (...sort of) gets plagued with pineapple trees.  Hee. 


( Meme Questions 12-16 )

AS YOUR REWARD FOR READING THESE THINGS I WRITE, HAVE THE THREE SONGS I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO ON REPEAT CONSTANTLY FOR THE LAST WEEK.

Shark in the Water - VV Brown

Conventional Friend - Cartel

Deep South - Cartel  (I wish this could be a Deon song, some of the lyrics are spot-on, but the LA LA I'M FROM THE  DEEP SOUTH part doesn't fit at all for obvious reasons.  However, I might make a Southern gentlemen character from it XD  For either CoMi or Mystics of Tarot, depending.) 

OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH FOR TODAY, NOW FOR DOING STUFF.

WE GOT A RESTLESS HEAVENS WIKI ZOMG

So the wiki is roughly as orderly as my bedroom (if you want to know how orderly that is, either look at the wiki, or have Angie take a picture of my room for you), and as of yet it is mostly stuff that had previously been in the Google Doc.  But PROGRESS.    Please do not try to sign up for the wiki though, as I'd like to keep it closed while it is under construction. 

If you look at the Application page, there is a basic application guideline set out, but it is subject to change.  You'll also notice that we're going to be wanting at least one paragraph about the given character's political beliefs, and this will apply to EVERY CHARACTER, even shusei and kaikyaku.   So that's one thing to think about with your character: how do they think one best rules a kingdom?

Anybody have any articles they'd like to request me to finish soon?  Any articles you'd want to see, period?

Also, I wanted to put in a page that is a 'Recommended Reading List' for Restless Heavens.  Obviously the 12K books are on there, but I want to pull together books on general politics/political philosophy and also Chinese/Japanese old culture and sociology (reading the extra reference materials isn't mandatory, of course).  I know I've been reading The Prince by Machavelli really only because of RH (...and because inner Warren wished me to), and it's been giving me a lot of ideas.  I want to reread some Confucius too, and perhaps read The Art of War.  So, anybody have any books you'd like to recommend?

---

Thank you for the comments the other night, guys.  I have determined to tell my boss early next week about my desire to quit, especially since that's the only thing on my mind lately.   I need change so badly that I'm going crazy for it.

As for tonight, you probably won't see me as I'm determined to do three things:

A) Finish reading The Prince

B) Finish the anime series Towards the Terra (FEATURING SPACE!KEIKI)

C) SLEEP A LOT

But I will see you dolls tomorrow <3

Restless Heavens @ Google Docs

Restless Heavens Character Sandbox @ Google Docs

Because of the massive influx of fail into my life this week, nearly jack has gotten done on RH T_T   Two bits of note:

1)  In nearly every regard, I do want the game to reflect Ono's world as closely as possible.  Some questions came up recently about issues like the non-existent practice of inheritance (the novel A Thousand Miles of Wind states this as fact) and also about gay marriage (since you kinda don't need male and female bits to create a Ranka baby).  It means a lot to me to stay as rigidly close to canon as logic will allow, and where a practice isn't specifically outlined in the novels, I will look to the inspirational periods in Chinese and Japanese history.  So...gay marriage is not part of the picture, sorry kids.  I'm still on the fence about inheritance, and I will have to look into the Chinese/Japanese precident, and figure out if Ono was inspired by any system in particular. 

2) There will be two different kind of calendars in the game.  The first type, and the type more of the characters are likely to know, are based on the era system of dating - that the years are counted starting from the first year of the king's rule, and those era years keep on continuing until a new king is crowned (so if a king dies, the era is still named for him until a replacement is crowned).  The first type of calendar is going to be similar in terms of days of the week, weeks in a month, and the passing of a New Year, but each kingdom is going to be in a different era name and year.

Obviously it would suck for the players to have to keep up with 12 different calendars though.  So I added in a second kind of calendar, the Soinkaishi, which is basically our Gregorian calendar.  In-game, this is an obscure solar calendar which is used really only by historians and kaikyaku, but the players will also use it to help figure out where events in their kingdoms correspond on a master timeline.  So we can say that an event happened in 1903, and players will quickly be able to figure out what in their characters' histories corresponds with that date.  


In February, I want to start graphing out how I want the wiki to operate.  I am actually taking a LOT of inspiration from the game River Twine Holt  in general for RH, and I want to study their wiki, as well as Gesma's wiki, before I get down to organizing.  The temptation is high to just go in and start writing a lot of random articles, though I know that's a bad idea unless I have a sort of game-plan (plus I want to wait until all of you have read the books, cause maybe I can make wiki-writing monkeys out of you lot :D :D :D ) 

And two SHOUT OUT notes:

1!) BRING OUT YOUR LADIEZ FOR THIS GAME.  SERIOUSLY.  WE BETTER HAVE LIKE SIX FUCKING BADASS BITCHES RUNNING THESE KINGDOMS.  AND COME ON, FEMALE KIRIN, FEMALE CHOUSAI, FEMALE MINISTERS, FEMALE GENERALS... This game has so much potential for FEMALE EMPOWERMENT that I will cry into a hankie if it is not seized and abused.  (Before you wag your finger at me for having male king and male general, do know that I am planning to make a female Chousai :D )

2!)  HEY JUST BECAUSE I'M A SUCKER FOR THIS KIND OF THING:  PEOPLE WHO ARE SITTING ON KINGS AND KIRINS, DID YOU THINK ABOUT THEIR SHINY MAGICAL TREASURES YET :DDDDDDDDDD   Again, kings each get a sword named after their kingdom's animal and some natural element/object (like how Sou has the Ruby Horse Sword), and the sword can have a secondary magical power and some mindfuck capacity, ala Evil Sword Monkey.  Kirin get pretty pretty magical treasures with very sparkly and possibly powerful magic (some of the treasures may seem like they have useless powers, but then pull through in a dire situation).  Kirin treasures tend to be delicate and beautiful, in the shape of jewelry, gems, wands, even a book if you like. 

Okay now to sleep.  Maybe.

Restless Heavens Public Document @ Google Docs

I've been adding in more information about each kingdom, and I've been starting to define each character 'type' and also starting into the structures of the government and military.   I did give the Youma Hunters a name, Akuniku - basically, they are like the Shusei in that they are kingdom-less wanderers, but instead of plays and amusement, the Akuniku kill the shit out of youma plaguing countrysides in decline.  They might have some connection/relation to a Sen-nin from Mt. Hou, but I'm not sure yet (also tell me if Akuniku is a stupid name - it means 'butcher of evil' roughly so I thought that was neat XD ).

Lately, I've been hammering and debating and pondering some of the mechanics of the game as they relate to members. 

-  I talked with a few different people about the character limit on Kings and Kirin.  The reason why I want to keep it at only one King OR Kirin (alive as of 2005) is in case the game explodes and suddenly there are twenty players, so that people don't feel like they have lost out on a shiny just because they are late (I do not want to be like a game I will not mention but most of you remember).   However, the flip-side is the possibility of not having that many players, and then we have half of the world's government missing.  So I'm thinking of having a delay before people are allowed to go for that second King or Kirin (well, you can't have two Kings, if you have a King already your second must be a Kirin, and vice-versa).   You must have been active for at least 4-5 months, and have reached a certain quota of stories already.  

I like the delay idea because, 4-5 months into the game, we should have a good idea of how big the game is going to remain, and plan accordingly.  Plus, I think the game/plots would survive 5 months with missing figures, while I know that it wouldn't be able to continue indefinitely that way.

- As of yet, I don't have a character limit set on TOTAL chars a person can have.  In fact, I think with a world this big, it would be reasonable for a person to have 6 player-characters, honestly.  However, like the King/Kirin issue, certain types would be rationed out - each person allowed one Taika, one Hanjyuu, two non-royal Sen-nin (but in different capacities - like if I had one military Sen-nin and one civil servant), Shusei, Akuniku.   That should be plenty of shiny for everyone, really.

-  I am kicking back and forth the necessity of having story quotas.  For example, must write at least one 1000 word story every three months, or contributed in a tag at least 1000 words worth.   I think this is very necessary, cause I personally don't want to have to worry about deadweight players (obv. if there is an excuse, that is different).  However, I want to know how other people have felt about games with story quotas, and how their experiences in such games where.   Any opinions?  Recommendations?