Future plans (Patreon)

Posting separately from today’s chapter, so it can be public.

As I mentioned a few months ago, I don’t like the idea of a patreon that does nothing more than contain a fixed count of advanced chapters, because such a setup punishes people for subscribing. Hence I try to run a faster release rate, or extra side stories, or exclusive extra stories. (Yes, unborn hero will hit royal road eventually, but not until it’s completely finished here. Also, it may do a 3 month stint on KU in between, like fetch quest did.)

The current pattern has been one extra chapter a week, starting with side stories, but once they ran out, one chapter a week of unborn hero. (Or, for the commoner tier, one chapter of unborn hero every two weeks.) November had extra chapters of unborn hero in return for new subscribers, which hasn’t really worked out; November is currently my second worst of the past 12 months, and is only £1 above being the worst. :(

Alas, that’s not going to be sustainable, simply because both stories are running out. (Which is why I’ve not enabled annual billing, for those wondering.)

Unbound soul is hurtling towards the end of the main plot at the end of volume eight, which is maybe 20 chapters away. Unborn hero was only intended to be a single volume to start with, so is equally only 20-ish chapters away from completion. (Although at the rate things are going, it may overrun… I doubt it’ll be by enough to split into multiple volumes, though.)

So, what next? Unbound soul still has sufficient chapters to fill December and January, so nothing will change for a couple of months. Once it finishes, I plan a long chain of side stories. Maybe even a full volume’s worth. Peter still has places to visit and kittens to have, after all, but there won’t be any suspense left. Unborn hero, with its slower release rate, has even longer. If it overruns a bit, it won’t finish till April or May.

Even so, that’s not that far, so it’s time to discuss future plans.

I have four potential stories lined up. Two are set in Glimmerhome. (Where the bulk of friendly voidling was based.) One centred on the arch-mage Christoph as he deals with the Abode of Abhorrent Alchemy as they get their hands on some of the diamonds Anya magiced up and discover they’re still a bit voidy, and the other centred on an employee of the Glimmerhome Serious Incident Office as he tries to protect Glimmerhome from a Serious Incident.

The next is ‘A Disappointing Reincarnation’, about someone discovering he’s about to get reincarnated, getting excited about it, and then popping out into the most boring, blandest world possible. (Dying on Earth, Alex is excited to discover that he will shortly be reincarnating. He wants excitement. Swords! Magic! Cat girls! DRAGONS! What he gets is... disappointment. No monsters, no system, peaceful and entirely human nations, and magic that’s so rare and heavily regulated that common people would never even get the chance to see it. Even attempts to introduce pizza fall flat. But he’s going to do his best nonetheless. For his family, for his friends, and above all because he really, really wants a dragon.)

And the last is Straight Laced, about… No, actually, never mind. That one was a stupid idea. Let’s pretend I never had it.

Or, of course, I could go off on a completely unexpected and accidental tangent again, like when a single casual line uttered in a discord caused me to write unborn hero. Or I could do an unbound soul sequel, but it probably would have to be set elsewhere from Erryn’s world, if it wants an actual plot.

So far I’m leaning towards that second Glimmerhome story. (Which was supposed to be my next story anyway, until unborn hero supplanted it.)

The other thing I started but never finished was a text-based open world RPG set in Erryn’s world. It’s set a little before Unbound Soul, with your character being one of the founding colonists of Dawnhold. I intend to beat that into a releasable state, so I can demo character creation at some point in December. I doubt it'll ever turn into a full game, but I hope I can make something interesting from it.

Anyway, that’s enough typing for now. If anyone has any thoughts on what they’d like to see, now’s your chance, before I’ve settled on my next stories.