I've said before that Eileen basically wrote herself and I had no idea how she'd act until she opened her mouth, and that she is one of the most entertaining characters for me to write so far (Maxwell, the other fan favorite, being the other contender for first). I've also said before that she's two people's favorite character. Which is why it was such a great idea to write her out of the script at the beginning of chapter one, never to be seen again!

Well, okay. She'll probably be seen again, but it's been awhile, hasn't it? I fully intended to have her and Roxanne be partners in this little side quest, but there was never a good time for Maxwell to go introduce himself. Didn't stop me from at least proposing the option a few times, but I didn't think it'd actually be taken. Maybe I'll do a break post after Chapter two about what Eileen and Roxanne have been up to...

( Anyway, here's a few tidbits about her that I find interesting that aren't spoilery. )

So there was no proper update today cause, well, there were no suggestions. So instead, here's some more lore.

The reasons goblin wear masks is because of Guin. No, seriously. See, Guin is secretly the goblin God and-

Okay, no. More seriously, I just decided to emulate Guin on this matter because I think it's pretty cool. Besides, he stole it from RO and Elf Life.

His rationale is that goblins feel that a naked face is offensive. This means, from their perspective, ALL OTHER RACES ARE FLASHERS. Yup. And that's more or less true for L&M as well. There were a couple hints about this (Lucy's inner monologue implying removing her mask would be rude, for example), but it's never been stated outright. It may never be.

The other thing about the masks is it allows people to easily identify the element a goblin is attuned to by the colour of the paintings on it. Red is for fire and blue is for water, of course, as we've seen. I won't say what other element/colour pairs are in case it's important later.

It's also traditional for the mask to show what the goblin draws her/his power from. But that's a topic for another day. Let's just say for now that the sun and moon aren't the only sources of fire and water magic for now. This may or may not show up in story.

So yeah. in case you didn't know about this before... now you do. Huzzah! Hopefully we'll have a proper update tomorrow.

And this is the last break update, woo! Sorry it would up going the full week, but better safe than burned out. I'll try and update 3 times tomorrow to make up for it.

Anyway, the Kir-ta. The least standard race in the NoF... since I made them up. Well, dreamed them up. Some of you may remember them for years and years ago when the Kir-ta first appeared to me in a dream (one of only 3 I can vivdly remember). Not to mention the fact that I've been seriously trying to get them into one of my settings... well, I've finally done it! We'll see how well that works out for me...

For those who don't know, or need a refresher, the Kir-ta are essentially anthropomorphic Kirins. Appearance wise, anyway. They're typically large and bulky and basically built for fighting. That's because they have a built in weapon in their horns. And I mean this a bit more literally than you might expect. The Kir-ta can actively remove their horns and, in doing so, they become bladed weapons. How? It's just a biological function for them, just as magic is for goblins and kobolds. It's nothing special... for them, anyway. You might call it magic, and maybe it is, but it isn't classified as such as far as the NoF is concerned.

Kir-ta are typically trained as warriors from childhood, with very few exceptions. Their horns don't grow out until they're teens or adults, so they can't be used as kids (not to mention it'd be super unsafe), and instead kids use training weapons. Kir-ta are trained to use multiple weapons, as they don't know what form their horn will take until it is mature enough to use. As such, some kir-ta carry weapons as well, but it's rare as most prefer simply using their horn. Some consider it a mark of shame to carry other weapons, in fact, but that stigma has mostly been erradicated in modern times.

Kir-ta horns are very resilliant, even in weapon form. They can be broken, but it's difficult. They also can't be removed from their heads by anyone other than themselves (well, without using a lot of force or tools or whatever). They can, though, get lost or stolen while in weapon form. So horns tend to stay on most kir-ta's heads unless using it as a weapon.

Now, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that these warriors would be blood thirsty conqurors, but they never really had any phase like that in their history. They have a strong sense of justice and protecting people, a trait they say they get from their God, Kirin, and typically prefer peaceful resolutions to violent ones. Kir-ta are very rarely aggressive as a race, though few will back down from a fight when provoked or when they see a wrong they believe they can right. This has given them a reputation as the bodyguard race.

Anyway, I can't think of anything else to say about them currently. Theoretically a lot of this will be revealed canonically, but if not here it is. It's kind of weird giving exposition in second person, after all. Hopefully this will do in the meantime.

Back to normal tomorrow!

So I was going to talk about Kir-ta today, but unusual circumstances cause me to go over 12 hours without eating. So I didn't post from work like I expected (hence why this is so late in the day) and I stayed up later than normal making me too tired to effectively write about the Kir-ta I think. So instead, I'm going to kind of cheat and pick a really easy topic. But hey, sitll sticking to the schedule of one update minimum a day (where day is defined by sleep cycle, not time)!

The decision to make Lucy and Maxwell different colours feels like a strong one to me. I think it allows you to easily tell who the PoV is, for one, and I've just always been a fan of colour coded text (or similar font sillyness) in comics. Plus, right away, it lets you know there's going to be another PoV. It also let me do the cool bit with the purple text for the transformation. I thought that worked well, and I'm curious to see if other people thought so as well.

Naturally, should other characters get PoVs, they'll get their own colours. Eileen would be Pink and Roxanne Orange, for example. Course, there's no guarantee they'll ever be PoV characters, but I've got it planned out at least.

Anyway, what do you guys think about the colour coding? Does it work or not? Or is it just something you don't even really realize anymore? And anything else you might want to add that I'm not thinking of.

As an aside, I do think it's amusing that Lucy is hexcode FF0000 while Maxwell is 0000FF. Nice opposite dealeo going on there.

So for my first break update, I figured it'd be fun to talk about one of the big choices in the quest so far. This probably won't be done every day of the break (but it might), but it's likely I'll at least do one a break. Anyway, this is being posted from my phone because I kind of got wrapped up in other things before having to leave for work, so forgive the spelling/grammar errors.

Anyway, there were a number of signifficant choices, even in just one chapter! But the one I'm going to look at today is actually from the prologue. Arguably the most important choice thus far.

( The Patrons of the Bar )

So hey, remember a couple years back where I tried those two quest things and they failed miserably because of nothing but my own insecurities?

...Oh, you didn't know that's why they failed? Well, that's why they failed. Basically, they both went in directions I didn't expect/anticipate, and I got frustrated, and put them down... and never picked them up again.

Well, shortly after the second one failed, I realized this was a problem I had. That I would get distraught and give up as soon as things didn't go how I wanted. It'd happened on other projects as well. And, well, I surmised (quite accurately, if I do say so myself) that this is kind of a bad thing. And I didn't want to try again until I thought I could handle it. Which, to me at the time, meant I'd practice at it and come back again.

The problem with that plan, of course, is that I really had no way to practice the thing I was avoiding until i practiced it if I was going to avoid it.

So I think I'm willing to try again. The major difference between then and now being, of course, that I'm aware I have this problem, and now I've told all of you as well. So maybe being aware of the problem will make it more manageable. Or not even present at all.

So yeah. I'd like to try again with the following rules:
1) I won't make a post more than once a day. Possibly twice on weekends if I feel up to it.
2) I won't spend more than an hour a day on a post. If I do, I'll delay the post until the next day. (Possible exception being the very first post)
3) You guys can do just about anything (within the obvious limitations of the situation). And I'm not allowed to get mad at you guys utilizing your free reign to the fullest.

And that's it.

Assuming you guys are willing to try this thing out again, and assuming at least three of you respond, I'll go ahead and try and do this thing again and hopefully it will be fun. I could stand to use the creative outlet as well.

So the next four days we'll be making a character, Race then Class then Gender then Name, followed by the start of the practice quest on Saturday. A start which I have no idea what it will be, and don't intend to even begin thinking up until Friday. Yeah, unlike the last two times, I'm not pre-preparing a story. I'd actually love to revisit some of the unused elements of the previous quest, but... not now. Not for this learning/practice quest thing. Heck, I don't even have a name for it yet! All I know right now is that it will be fantasy. And that's all I need to know

Anyway, let's get to it, shall we? Thanks for helping me improve my short comings by indulging me in this little questy thingy!

So, this is basically Livejournal without the suck or something? I dunno. Maybe monday or tuesday I'll actually modify the style or add icons or whatever, but for now it's just going to be used to continue my questy thing.

Chances are I'll import everything over here eventually, but for now… just the questy thing.

Man, the format is just like live journals… More or less EXACTLY like livejournal's...