Topics

1

Art Gallery / Commission me!

« on: January 18, 2017, 07:12:25 PM »

So...as much as I hate to be the one to ask for help, I have recently found myself without a job, and with bills coming up on the horizon.  As such, it would be appreciated if any of you had anything you wanted drawn, if you could perhaps Commission me I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks (and sorry. >..>)

Edit to say commissions would be filled in order received, first come first served style.

2

Random Topics / Good Programming Practices

« on: June 29, 2016, 10:05:37 AM »

So I'm trying to get back to making progress on my programming after a somewhat lengthy hiatus, and it's been going ok.  There's been a bit off re-learning what I had coded, but I usually have everything commented and documented well enough that I can figure it out.

But then I found this:


I laughed.  I still have no idea what it was for, or why it's still in there.  I'm gonna' either delete it or at least comment it out, but I felt like I should share it first.

3

Random Topics / Re: Dragyn's most recent absence

« on: November 28, 2015, 06:52:45 PM »

So, as most some of you have likely noticed, I haven't been online much lately.  This isn't terribly surprising, because I seem to have a habit of vanishing without warning.  This time there are Reasons, though.

As some are aware, I have a wife (who you may know as Fayth) and a daughter.  While that takes some of my time, most of my time goes onto building on our land, so we have somewhere to live.  This has, however, become a much more pressing concern of late....

Because we're expecting triplets.

Yup.  My little family is literally doubling in size.  This is both exciting and terrifying, as you may well imagine.  Triplets are almost always premature births, so the mid-March due date doesn't mean a whole lot.  Mid-January to February is more likely.

While I do hope to be on more often soon (we are almost done with the building phase), I suspect I'm just going to be even more busy...

4

Random Topics / Regarding my prolonged absence

« on: August 28, 2013, 11:42:43 PM »

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been around much, of late.  There are reasons for this, and they are thus:

Fayth (my wife) and I are in the process of crafting for ourselves a new home, so we can stop living on her parents land.  As such, I have spent much of my time clearing land to set up a tipi (a definite step up from the bus we've been in), and trying to make ready for winter.

I'm posting this now, because we plan to move out there this weekend, and, Horror of Horrors, there is no internet on our land as yet.

 I'm hoping to get in'net out there soonish, but I have to clear the land well enough to get a signal, and make it easily accessible for the techs to set it up...so I have to clear around 600 ft. of trail and make a way to run a cable for most of it, so it'll likely take some time.

Rural internet takes actual work to get, and you still have to pay for it.  Honestly, it's amazing you can even get internet out there.  Microwave internet for the win.

I'll try to pop in, but I'll probably be even quieter than I have been--after all, I'll only be on the in'net on public WiFi, or at friends' houses.

Wish us luck!

TL;DR: I'm not gonna' be around for a while.  

5

Random Topics / The State of Dragyn

« on: May 15, 2011, 06:31:36 AM »

(Not really sure where to put this, so I guess I'll put it here...)

So...I wrote a simple post regarding what I'm up to, and I'm curious as to your opinions.

Here is the post in question.

6

Random Topics / An informal poll

« on: May 08, 2011, 12:58:50 AM »

Just pondering...

7

Game Room / On MMO Housing

« on: February 11, 2011, 10:37:31 AM »

In my daily trawl of the in'net, I ran into an article by Greg Dean, who writes the comic Real Life, and which I would like you lot's opinions on.

Repost to follow:  Be warned, he rambles a bit:

The Player Housing Manifesto
by sagus
Feb. 10, 2011
01:59 PM

Note: The following was written over a number of days, and is a rather long and in-depth discussion about player housing in Massively Multiplayer Online Games. If you don't know what those are, or don't care, I figured I'd save you the time of reading it. Also note going in that this comes from a place of love - I'm a big giant fan of MMO games, and have been since 1997. I want to see the genre grow, and I want to see more innovation in the field, and this is merely intended to provoke some thought and discussion on the topic. Okay, now that that's out of the way...

Developers of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games: I am officially putting you on notice. You've had over 15 years as an official genre to develop and move forward, to hone your craft and deliver a fully immersive experience. And I am here to tell you, right here and now, that on one key point, you have failed. Miserably.

It's not combat - MMO combat has evolved to the point where players can quickly change battle strategies and turn the tide of a fight in their favor with judicious use of special abilities. It's not the grind - most studios have managed to make character progression robust yet simple, and skill trees are as common as levels, thankfully. And it's certainly not graphics - for all its flaws, Final Fantasy XIV is a stunning visual experience.

It's HOUSING.

Now, I excuse games where housing is either not included or not feasable. As much as housing would be nifty for World of Warcraft, for instance, WoW is not a game focused on ROLEPLAYING. It's a combat game in a fantasy setting. And furthermore, WoW never mentioned having player housing in the first place, so that kind of game is off the hook.

When I mention housing, I'm referring to the games that do choose to offer it as a selling point of the game, or, to some degree, to games where it SHOULD be offered, but is instead ignored. It seems very much as though game developers don't fully comprehend what "housing" means, so I've decided to take some time and detail, point by point, what it means to offer player housing.

1. A house must not be instanced. It's funny that this point should even need to be pointed out, but one thing nobody in the MMO community seems to understand is that in order to be even remotely useful, a house must occupy real estate somewhere in the game world. It seems as though the easy band-aid applied to most MMO games is the instanced "apartment" model, where you go to a centralized "housing" district and wind up in your own private space located somewhere in never-never land. Where is that apartment located? How would I get to it other than being magically teleported there or selecting it from a list? How would others find it? This is a pocket in nether-space. It's not a house.

An example of this model is Final Fantasy XI. To get to your "Mog House", you needed to run to the zone border where the housing district is located, and after a few seconds - pop. You're in your mog house, wherever that may be. And it's increasingly vague as to its location, since you can access the SAME mog house from any of the four cities in the game. You can decorate it to some degree, but there wasn't much point, since nobody can visit you there. You couldn't use it as a shop, obviously, since nobody could ever visit it anyway. It was a pointless little dwelling, if you could call it that. Other games in the past have used this same model - Anarchy Online, Phantasy Star Online, and lord knows how many others. Even Uru, as much as I love the game, took instancing to the Nth degree, since you have to find a neighborhood from a list to visit it, despite the fact that they're all identical and ostensibly share the same physcial space. Come on - the game is about a giant underground city - you're telling me you couldn't find the space for a few thousand players?

Now, too often I have brought up this point only to be shouted down by younger, less experienced MMO players - "You can't put houses on the world map! The server wouldn't be able to handle it, and it'd be total chaos! That's why nobody's ever done it!" Well now, this won't be the last time I use it as a reference, but Ultima Online, released in NINETEEN NINETY-SEVEN, has had this form of housing included since day one. Its implementation may have been far from perfect, but players were able to take a house deed out, claim a piece of land, and build their dwelling there. Other players could see that house, and if it was public, they could even enter and visit. If you had wares to sell, you could place your NPC vendor on the porch, and open up shop. Because of this, player-run cities could sprout up somewhere in the forest, or at the very least, suburbs to the main cities in the game were commonplace.

2. A house must be customizable. I don't necessarily mean that you need to be able to change EVERY ASPECT of your dwelling space as in the Age of Shadows expansion to Ultima Online, but players should have some choices when it comes to their house. Whether this comes in the form of being able to modify an existing structure, or simply offering different choices as to which house model you buy/build, not all houses should be identical. That's not how cities work. Even in tract home developments in the real world, houses have some degree of variety to them. To feel like a home, it needs to be YOURS. If everyone has the same room or square building, there's nothing special about your house. In Final Fantasy XI, for example, every Mog House was the same square windowless room. This is supposed to be Vana'diel, not communist russia.

3. A house must be a privelege. I realize there are many that will cry elitism on me for this point, but hear me out here. A major flaw in the standard cookie-cutter instanced house model is that housing is something that is granted to every player, regardless of whether they want it, or whether they would be willing to work to support it. It's a "given", and I honestly think that's a bad thing. Because housing is ubiquitous, it becomes mundane. Why would any other player WANT to visit your house, when they have one themselves just like it? (This becomes especially true in games where interaction with objects such as chairs, benches, and beds is not allowed - but that's a whole other rant)

Houses should be earned. I'm not suggesting they be a massive goldsink, costing millions of gold, only available to the most elite player, but there should be a cost of ownership. UO hit this on the head - there was a cost to place the house (which was really fairly reasonable, assuming you found an open plot of land) and there was the requirement that you had to log in every X days in order to keep it from falling down. Players who didn't maintain their house would lose it, opening the land up to other players. The house becomes a cherished possession that you have an attachment to, and you become more likely to play the game to keep it from falling into someone else's hands.

But more than anything, this gives younger players something to aspire to. It shows them that if they work hard enough, they too could own their own house, or tower, or keep. Think of houses as alternatives to endgame raid content. People will claim their plot of land in your world, and that ownership of virtual real estate gives them a reason to log on and play. I can say from personal experience that when I played UO, I spent a good portion of time sitting on the patio of my house, which sat along the road north of Vesper. I had a table and chairs there, with a chess set ready to go. I would occasionally chat with passers-by, who would sit down to a game of chess, or talk about the adventures of the day. (remember, UO was much more roleplaying centric at one point than it is now) I was perfectly content to play a virtual homebody instead of going out and slaying dragons or orcs. This is another way of saying something I've been saying for many, many years about MMO development: Give the players something to do when they're not playing the game.

With all three of these points, realize that I'm not saying every MMO needs to follow these rules or anything. I'm not saying every MMO needs to include housing. What I'm saying, in a nutshell, is that if you give your players personal apartments without any connection to the real world, where nobody can just pop in and say hi, then You're NOT offering housing. Call it whatever you want, it's not player housing.

Now, don't think I don't understand technical limitations inherent in non-instanced in-world housing. I get it - depending on the implementation, it could cause some server strain, and if improperly handled, it could also cause ridiculous overcrowding... not to mention the chaos that ensues when houses are randomly placed willy-nilly across the countryside. I'm not simply standing here on my soapbox shouting about injustices without ideas to back them up, so just to prove that a LITTLE bit of thought can solve some of these issues, let me address a few points below.

Point 1: Housing placed in the game world will put undue stress on the server.
Sure - if you had EVERYTHING load for every house in a given vicinity whenever the player was nearby, that would be nuts. Perhaps not as much nowadays as internet connection speeds have increased, and the graphic elements would have to be held in memory to begin with... but there are many, many ways around this. Just off the top of my head, you could go the UO route, and opt not to load in-house items and decoration until the player stepped onto the doorstep of the house. You could adapt this for 3D games to decrease lag time in items loading by expanding it to a wider radius around the house, but still - we're not talking about loading EVERYTHING for EVERY player. Again, this has become SLIGHTLY less of an issue than it used to be, but the point is, there are solutions.

Point 2: Random house placement would create utter chaos.
This is true, to a point. UO players will recall wandering through the forest only to come across the sea of random houses, sometimes blocking your path and forcing you to make a severe detour. This is remarkably simple to deal with, however. For starters, designate certain areas as "housing areas", and only allow houses to be placed there. In this way, you prevent random housing from interfering with the average player in the game, and you still allow people the freedom to place houses wherever they want.

There is an even SIMPLER solution, however - don't allow random housing. Set up pre-defined "neighborhoods" in your cities where housing is already built and ready for move-in. This allows for two things - one, it allows you to control the visual look and feel of the world and prevent it from going crazy with housing where it doesn't belong, and two, it allows you to make the houses a static part of the game world, preventing excessive load times of custom structures. Neighborhoods could contain all sorts of different houses, or perhaps even structures set up to be shops or other types of services, and this could even be taken further by allowing players who meet certain criteria (or can afford it) to live in apartments or buildings IN-town, lending a certain prestige to them. Lord knows MMO players love their prestige. And be creative! Offer special houses on coastlines, or small fishing villages for players to take up residence in! This is a chance for developers to REALLY build the world their players live in beyond the empty facades of buildings in most towns. Imagine if Stormwind City (I know I gave WoW a pass on this, I'm just using it as an example) had people living in the spaces above shops, or in some of the unused buildings around town.

A system like this would certainly have to be scaled to meet demand, based on average server populations and the like, but the benefit is that if more housing is needed, the developer can simply "knock a few trees down" and expand the residential area as needed. Cities grow - that's part of what makes for a thriving economy. Which brings me to my third point, however...

Point 3: New houses would never open up, because players would buy a house and hold on to it.
Sure, in the days of Ultima Online, this is certainly what happened. Buying a house in UO generally meant finding one on Ebay, or paying someone a TON of in-game gold to buy their plot. Housing was pretty scarce, and part of the reason for it, as I see it, is that houses didn't really require too much upkeep - you logged in once every few days and that was that. Here's a novel idea, and I didn't even have to make this up... I just stole it from the real world: Taxes.

Think of it this way - you buy your house for whatever the going rate is. Ideally, this should be automatically controlled by the system to be in line with current supply and demand - if a ton of houses are sitting empty, it'd make sense that you'd be able to buy one for a song. If, on the other hand, a house is a hot commodity, the cost is going to go up pretty substantially. But there's more to owning a house than simply paying for it... you've gotta pay your taxes. This would be a cost, either fixed or on a sliding scale, that would be deducted from a player's stash of gold every fixed time period. If a player wanted to keep their house, they'd have to make sure to earn enough money to pay this tax, or they get the boot.

This ensures that house owners actively play the game, preventing a community of ghost houses from popping up, and it ensures that new houses will come on the market from time to time as players give up the house or are unable to pay for it. As I said earlier - housing should be a privilege, not a right. I'm not suggesting these fees be outrageous or unreasonable, requiring players to goldfarm for hours a day to pay for it... but there needs to be some kind of upkeep involved that requires the players to PLAY in order to sustain it. Really, it's just good business - you want players to play your game, and if they're dedicated to having a house in-game, they're going to be more likely to log in and spend some time playing.

If you've made it this far, I applaud you. This has been a veritable novel, but the reason I took so much time to write this (I've been poking at it off and on for a few days) is because I want to make one thing clear to any MMO developer who happens to read it: Housing IS important. If you sell your game as including player housing, it's going to excite me, and for a decade now, I've been extremely disappointed in the implementation of "housing" that has come on the market. I don't tend to stick with MMOs these days because I'm not really offered an incentive to do so. Once I hit max level, what's left for me to do? How can I become a part of the world you're offering me if all I can do is run around and kill things? I realize not every MMO player out there cares about housing... MMO games these days have spanned to non-roleplayers, and that's fine. But there is a large percentage of your audience that, like me, plays these games with more in mind than just getting the best loot or the highest level. We're still here, and we'd still like to be a part of your game. Spend a little extra time and give us a housing system that will make the difference between a player and a lifelong fan.

Feel free to send this around as you like, but remember one thing - I'm not saying any of this like some kind of know-it-all saying it's my way or the highway. The point of this is to prompt some discussion on the topic, and make people think seriously about it before dismissing it out of hand. If you disagree with me, hey - I get it. We can still be friends, I promise. :)

As a hopeful game designer, this sort of thing interests me.  I don't know how many of you play MMOs or whatever, but still...what do you think?

Secondary Note:  Vir, if this fits better in a different part of the forum, please move it.  I wasn't sure where it would fit best...

8

Role Play Theater / Possible Dark Heresy Map Tools Game

« on: December 12, 2010, 08:57:44 PM »

So...here's what I'm offering:

After the recent DnD thing Kenku ran, I've been considering running something of my own--also a one off type thing, that would run through one module, and then end.

I'm particularly fond of Dark Heresy, an RPG system set in the Warhammer 40K universe, where the PCs are part of the Imperial Inquisition.  I've got a DH module that I ran just recently (last friday, as a matter of fact) and I've located a Dark Heresy library for MapTools, and recreated it in there. 

The module is fairly combat light, but even so, Dark Heresy likes killing people off.  I know the group I ran it with on Friday had no problem with it, but I missed consistently, and they were rolling pretty well.  Dark Heresy expects player characters to die, and, to reduce the penalty for dying, a character with Fate Points (all characters start with at least one, unless they sacrifice them) can permanently burn a fate point to not die (and the GM has to explain why they aren't dead.)

Note that if you don't want to make a character of your own, there are 4 premade characters.  I even made them their (very intricate) character tokens already.  If you do want to try making your own character, I can get you a PDF of the Core Rulebook, and I'm always willing to answer questions.

So...I don't know that many (or any) of you have any experience with the system, but if anybody's interested, I'm willing to run it.  That said...any takers?

9

Art Gallery / I'll make you an offer...

« on: August 15, 2010, 04:03:58 PM »

So, I'm looking to get more sprites for my Shadow Wolf project.  So here's my offer:  if you make the sprites for it, I'll add your character to SW--likely as either an unlockable character (via New Game+ or cheat codes) or an enemy, but I'll add them.  I'll credit you in the credits, as well, especially for viable enemy unit sprites.  :)

The basics of what you'll need:

A bunch of sprites.  Characters probably shouldn't be more than 80 pixels tall.  Some doorways are likely to be as small as 100 pixels, and larger characters wouldn't fit through.  Characters should probably be around 70-80 tall.

Next--the closer to my style the sprites are, the better.  I'd prefer they all look pretty similar in style.  If they don't mesh well, they'll stand out.  I may reserve the right to make minor modifications to sprites to keep them closer in style.

Next:  Sprites need to be on a transparent background.  THIS IS IMPORTANT.  If it's not transparent, I can't use it.  Even if they're all in one image, the background needs to be transparent.  You'll need a lot of little sprites, comprising the following animations (and 1 version facing each way).:

Walk -- Probably about 4 frames, looping.  2 frame animations work, but will look sorta' choppy.

Jump -- At least 1 frame.  Most of my characters have a single jump frame.  Looping.

Peak -- This is a single frame used when your character reaches the top of his jump.  You can reuse a jump or walk frame if you want to be a bit lazier.  Doesn't loop.

Fall-- This is at least 1 frame, played while your character is falling.  Loops.

Attack  -- This is at least 1 set of frames comprising an attack.  You can have as many "attack" sets as you want, and they'll be played in sequence,  (or at random, if you prefer).  Melee attacks also require seperate "hitbox" graphics, and ranged characters also need "bullet" graphics.  Any ranged character not providing bullets will use my standard ones, even if that doesn't make sense.  Attacks play in sequence, then loop if needed.

Walking attack -- If you want to be able to attack while walking, you'll need to offer the graphics for it.  At least 1 animation will be needed.

idle  -- This is played when the player stands idle too long.  It can be 1 frame or many.  Loops.

Jump Attack -- Each character has 1 attack for while they're jumping.  It can be as long or short as you like.  Loops as needed.

Fall Attack  -- Like jump attack, but for while you're falling.

crouch -- So far, this is a single frame.  If you want more frames, I can do that, too.  Character can't move while crouched.  (I have my reasons for this.)   Loops.

Crouch attack -- If you attack while crouched, this is the attack that gets used.  It can be as many frames as you want.

Recoil/Hit  -- This plays when your character gets hit/knocked back.  Doesn't loop, plays through once.

Stunned -- This plays while your character is stunned, and unable to move.  Loops.

Death -- Plays through once when you die.  The last frame is your "dead" frame.  Plays backwards if you get revived, somehow.

Portrait -- This is the graphic shown in the HUD.  I'll also want a bigger version for use later, in the character select screen.  The HUD one should be 75 x 75, the other one I don't know what dimensions I'll need, so just leave me something fairly large to work with, I guess.

Other -- Any special abilities, custom graphics, aura effects, etc. need to also be given, else I can't implement them.

Special:
Aircraft -- Due to some preplanned in-game events, I'll also need some sort of aircraft for your character.  I don't really care what, but remember that odds are good your character will be using it as a platform at some point.  If you don't provide one, I'm giving you a generic one.

Character Specific Color -- You don't need to provide any sort of art for this, I just need a color.   Give me the Hexcode or RGB values, and that should be sufficient.

If I think of more, I'll also expect you to provide those.


EDIT:  Since it seems that being able to walk while attacking is a much-desired feature, I added it.  Of course, that means you also need to give me graphics for it.

EDIT:  Oh!  I'll need an aircraft too.  Not too spoilerific, here, since it'll be used in the opening cutscene.  Something like an airplane, or flying bike, or hoverboard would be best.

EDIT:  My brother pointed out to me that I should remind you all that I have to ensure that any graphics you give me are legal.  As such, I can't accept recolors, or anything that uses somebody else's graphics.  Modified character sheets are fine, as long as you can claim them as your own work.  Recolored sprites, however, would be a legal fiasco, so I can't use those.  Just clarifying.

EDIT:  Having finally gotten around to implementing stun, I realize I need "stunned" graphics, too.

10

Writer's Guild / Unnamed Story (WIP)

« on: April 29, 2010, 04:56:21 PM »

I was struck by either inspiration or madness, and so I have begun work on a new short story. 

No, I'm not abandoning BLotN or any of my other projects, but they're all at home, and I'm not.

So...here's the first part, in attachment form.

11

Writer's Guild / By Light of the Night (Revision)

« on: February 15, 2010, 11:51:05 PM »

This is a rewrite of an older piece, which can be seen Here.

The first one was 14,000 words.  I fully expect the new one to both be longer, and actually tell the whole story I set out to tell.  Several people seemed to think I was planning a sequel:  Not exactly the case, there was just supposed to be more to this one.  

Please give me honest reviews, advice, and suggestions.  Please don't just say "it sucks." and leave.

So, without further delay:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

12

Art Gallery / Things I have drawn because of the CF Chat

« on: November 22, 2009, 06:23:37 PM »

EDIT 11/20/2016:
I'm pretty sure there are some pieces of art I drew for this forum/chat that aren't on this list.  If you bump into them, remember them, or otherwise find yourself contemplating them, let me know and I'll update or add them to this list.

2017:
Commission: Aurora Bearialis: Commissioned by Kenku, also featuring Talcott.

2016:
American Otter

2011:

Sketches:
Mobster Fish VS Monster Cow!
Nessie vs. Lava Monster
Lake VS Lava (modified for Alias)
Cartwheeling Werewolf
A Cat in a Zero Gravity Bubble
Flamethrower Virmir
Alias
Cirrulean, Evil
DRAW A FOX!

Group Shot:
Medik Jackal

Group Shot (Larger version)

2010:

The Epic Hat Duel (animation)
Demon Fox
Kiba
Virmir (Art trade)
A fox...sorta'
A fox.  2nd attempt.
Samurai Fox (apparently shooting a wizard)
Skunk-Striped Fox
Fox Blademage
Harmless Kitten
Kyan Entierus (IoI RP Character)

DessertFox
Kai Adin
Yurodivy
Pontos
Fenrs
AlexShrub
Virmir
Tvorsk
Stormkit
Kenku
Geary
Dragynwulf
Donnie
LoCk
Kiba
Jonas
VirBot
Digital Vulpine
Alias Pseudonym
Fizzie
PastaMasta
CreatorUnreal
Traxer
Fireboy

13

Writer's Guild / Conversations

« on: July 30, 2009, 09:42:05 AM »

And, just for the heck of it, one more!

________________________________________________________
CONVERSATIONS:
A STORY IN CHATTER
________________________________________________________


Does this look like the place?

YES.

Alright.  Are we ready?

no.

You're never ready.  Is everybody else?

YES.

no.

Of course.

Good, good.  Let's move out.

I don't wanna' die!

You're not gonna' die, it's just a war.

Heh.  Just a war indeed.

You scare me.

Good.

NO FIGHTING.

You scare me, too.

SO BE IT.  COME.  LET US GO.

Let's go, everyone.


_________________________________________________________________


Ugh...is everyone all right?

I'm scared...

You're always scared, weakling.

NO BICKERING.

I guess we're all here, then. Anyone injured.

I'm short an arm, does that matter?

Well, you can regrow it.  Anyone else?

I'm bleeding...oh!  ...it hurts!

Just don't touch it, and you'll be fine.  Here, this'll make it hurt less.

It burns!

Only temporarily, wimp.

NO BICKERING,  I SAID.

Yeah, yeah...

Alright.  We have to go back.

Whyy...

Oh, stop it.

NO BICKERING.

It's a war, we have to win.

Can't we let someone else win for us?

NO.

Alright, guys, let's do this.

MOVE.


_______________________________________________________________________



That... could have gone better...did anyone else make it?

I...I'm here.

You ran away, didn't you!?

N...no.  No I didn't.  He said to-

Ya' coward.  Ya' ran away.

Stop.  We don't need this.  Where's the lich?

I haven't seen him...

Do ya' think he...

He's a lich.  He'll make it, I'm sure.  Let's go, we need to see if we can find him.

Alright.  I'm ready.

Hmph.  There's a first.


__________________________________________________________________

Anyone else here?

I'm here.

Are you the only one?

So far.  I'm sure the runt'll make it.

I hope you're right.  We need more than this.  We'd best hold up here.

Ugh.  I suppose we'd best.

_____________________________________________________________________

Hey?  Did...did anyone else get here?

Runt!  Never thought I'd be glad to see you.

You're not dead!  I...I found the lich.  Here.

Gyah!  I don't want his skull!

Just hold onto it.  He'll need it to come back.

I'LL BE BACK, SOON ENOUGH.     

     OUCH.

Er...sorry.  Sorta' surprised me, is all.

Hehe.  I did that, once, too.

BAH.

Well, I'm glad to see we're all here.  Runt, take the first watch, it should be calm.  Berserker, you'll relieve him.  I'll take third shift.

AND I?

Uh...you just work on getting a body, for now.

SO BE IT.


_____________________________________________________________________


Well, I'm glad to say that was an uneventful night.

THE WAR IS NEAR ITS END.

I hope you're right.

Yeah.

All good things, right?

Whatever.  Our orders came in during my shift.

AND?

It looks we'll be making a tactical strike at the back of their formation...

I don't know how I feel about that.

There'll be bloodshed aplenty, have no fear.

That's not what I meant.  I worry for the runt.

I'll be fine.  I'm small but fast--hard to hit.

Heh.  be careful, anyway.

I will.

AND AM I TO COME, THIS TIME?

Can you move?

I CAN FLOAT, AND I HAVE HANDS.

A remarkable improvement.

INDEED.

Let's move out, before the sun gets too high.


________________________________________________________________



Alright, how do we look.

The runt's out.  I think he'll make it, though...

YOU CARRIED HIM BACK?

No man left behind.

Right.  Good job.  I'll look after him, shortly.  How are you two?

I LOST MY RIGHT ARM.

Again?  It looks fine to me...

I GREW IT BACK.

You weird me out, Lich.

NO BICKERING.

Some things never change.

Did...did we win?

Yes.  We won.  You get some sleep.

Alright troops, we rest here.  We move out tomorrow--homeward!

14

Writer's Guild / The Light of Ar'Kandur

« on: July 30, 2009, 09:30:49 AM »

Well, while I'm putting things up to be torn to shreds...

http://beastling.xepher.net/canon/LightofArKandur.php

I know, outside links are harder to work with, so I'll copy/paste it below:

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The Light of Ar'Kandur
A 15 Minute Story
By Tim "Dragyn" Reed

    The sun shone darkly over the vast plains of the land of Ar'Kandur. Darian walked along the beaten path calmly, ignoring the fact that the sky made no sense whatsoever. He was used to it. Not much made sense, around here. Nothing ever had.

    Darian himself didn't make much sense. Looking at him, one might assume him to be a shapeshifted werewolf. One may instead assume him to be a werecat. Technically, he isn't either of these. He is both. It should come as no surprise that he doesn't expect things to make sense, these days.

    As he walked by the fields of farmer Jones, he waved to the old farmer, who waved back, taking a break from watering his crop of noisy children. Darian had once asked Jones why he raised children. Jones had answered simply, but quickly; "It keeps the crows away from the house."

    Not many things could stand the cacophony generated by a field of children.

    As Darian neared his home--little more than a hole in a natural brick cliff--the sun dropped abruptly below the horizon. In its stead, the moon appeared, reflecting the darkness of the sun brightly.

    The kittywolf pondered briefly the logic of sleeping through the one time of day wherein it was brightly lit, and turning on lights when you awoke. He didn't worry about it long, as he slid into a peaceful sleep shortly thereafter, nestled in his brick and mortar bed, hiding from the invading light of Ar'Kandur.

15

Writer's Guild / By Light of the Night (Old)

« on: July 30, 2009, 09:28:02 AM »

[EDIT]
This story is old, and a newer version exists Here.
[/EDIT]

*Ahem*

Since I haven't yet offered anything of my own for review, I offer the following: a 14,000+ word story, originally planned to be published, though I've never actually applied for any such thing.  

By all means, rip it to shreds, tell me my mistakes, and help me improve.

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http://beastling.xepher.net/canon/writings/ByLightOfTheNight.rtf

Alternatively, you can look at the PDF, which has a fancy cover image:

http://beastling.xepher.net/canon/writings/ByLightOfTheNight.pdf

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If ya'll really want, I could try using Word's "Save as Webpage" function, so you can have a text-only version viewable in your browser...though that never seems to get the formatting right, on these things...