Work In Progress: Red and Blue Lands (OGA) (Patreon)

Dear heroes, be well greeted!

It's been three weeks of the child at home and I am still trying to quite figure out a rhythm between the child's night hungers, the hound's day walkings, the wife's necessary social freedoms, and my own creative priorities.

Everyone is well, but let's say it's been interesting.

Our Saint Priority

My hunt for a functional routine has forced me to focus on what I am doing that would be better left undone. As we're adapting to the child's simple life goals, I've also started simplifying my process. Let's say a whole-life spring cleaning of sorts.

Now, I won't bore you with the details of how I, barefoot, decided to disassemble an Ikea Kallax for disposal. Of how I overlooked the feeble nature of the pegs that alone held the heavy boxy storage unit together after I had removed its topmost screws. Of how said pegs broke and the storage unit helpfully disassembled itself. On my foot. No, those details are boring and I won't pester you therewith.

But, the routine of making a game book, that may be of some interest.

The guide book, that simple A5 booklet to introduce players to the rainbowlands and the SDM, while also providing examples, has already been very successful in clarifying my work process. It also shewed me I was doing one thing very wrong with Our Golden Age: again, I was cramming too much into too little space, and not giving my art space to breathe! If a human-made picture is worth a thousand human-made words, then I was devaluing my art by at least 75%. With the guide book in hand, I developed principles to work with. Very roughly, they are as follows:

• Larger body font: 10 points. No less. Even my eyes prefer that these days.
• Less enormous headers = more space for art.
• A maximum of one item per column or two items per page.
• Each page no more than half full of text. Save the rest for art.

With those principles in hand, I set about revising the layout of the Red Land as one of the core parts of the book (i.e. the setting).

Each regional chapter starts with a big spread that summarizes the whole place. Big picture left, big map right, bit of text. Something the ref-cat can give the players.

Then, a single encounter spread with everything a GM needs when players arrive in a region. It'll have art. To do.

Next, a general spread of stereotypes, specialties, and a few local weirdnesses. Art missing bottom right. TBD.

Then a few spreads of major (not shown) and minor factions (new! shewn!). Each faction gets (roughly) a column. Roughly one paragraph of gratuitously satirical description and one paragraph of adventure hook. This way, a DM has a ready made inroad into each faction when the players poke their whiskers where they don't belong. I shared this minor faction spread because I really like the art I did for the hexads and the vampire knights and the free parliamentarians. I still need to do some art for the R.L.D. priests.

Then, a big, very visual opening for each major destination within the region. In the Red Land, those are the Red End (shewn), R.L.D. (a future update), and the Rust Hills (also a future update).

Each of these destinations will basically match the destinations in the UVG.

Local encounters. A vignette. The vignette is similar in style to the Vorgo side-event in the Violet city. Some characters and a storyline that can unfold if the players decide to pursue it. Also - a limogolem. Loosely styled after the chest-breaking Escalade.

Umm ... I also wrote up every one of the labelled locations on the Red End panorama. Sorry not sorry.

Finally, the Red End discoveries. Like in the UVG, finding one of these hidden spots gives experience. However, I've adjusted the format a little, so that each discovery now also has a little secret within / some kind of trigger than become a sidequest or modify the game world in some way.

... ok, the proof of concept works. I like it. Yes, it's much longer this way, but even without the art, it just looks nicer than cramming everything into half as many pages.

Our Blue Land

OK! Finally! Getting to here was super frustrating. I have a ton of art done for the Blue Land, but before I got a layout looking nice, I didn't want to put it together yet. Gah. Here's the region chapter opening.

And the first destination - the Ruins Azure! This one gets a big detailed story on this page ... and I'll probably do a diagram-map, sort of like for the Last Serai, on the other page.

I really like this story.

Here's a piece of art for a coastal location, and I'll have a piece on the Géants. They got a mention briefly in the Uranium Butterflies, but now they're coming here all big and proper.

Flying creatures make a showing in the mountainous Blue Land with their aerolith mountains.

There's an ancient town where the inhabitants turn to stone to make the city walls. The Costa Mura.

The tower of birds, where, according to legend, the First Cat made all the birds for the cats to hunt.

A mycelial monk holdout in the Deep Blue.

Local boathumans enjoy the view of the proud peacemakers making peace on the rivers of the Blue Land.

A drone tower. A dangerous, corrupted invasive colony symbiote species in the Blue Land. Note the shielder with its bloopy eyes. Also, pretty birds at top right.

I might have shared this one before. A fortress village in the Blue Land mountains.

So there you have it!

Work progresses. Soon, the Blue Land will be assembled. Soon, the Red Land will have more art.

And, I confess, cross-referencing these two lands, I've written about 5 pages of the Orange Land already, and that is quite possibly the most dystopian of these golden civilizations.

I hope to have a proper nicely done update for you soon!

Now, I feign hear the wail of the witching child ... no, I am wrong, it is just my fear of the dark.

Wishing all of you a lovely day and week till I post the Blue Land. And, also, more than anything: a lot of good, solid sleep. Sleep is truly a divine gift, a blessed state.

Take care, good heroes!

—Luka,
-=Sleepless in Seoul=-