Slann
Scalenex
Keeper of the Indexes
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I slowed down. I'm 13th on the leaderboard for total word count at 64,530. There are just shy of 30,000 authors on World Anvil but only 331 have hit 10,000 words. Most writers are trying to write 10,000 over the whole month and then resting their laurels. I'm betting by the end of the contest, there are at least 2000 people hitting the 10,000 word mark.
There is a special prize for the highest word count, but nothing for the runnersup. The top of the heap right now is 185,000 with 181,000 in #2. Almost triple what I have.
I am less than 1000 words behind the 12th place person but I am considerably behind the 11th place person. That's par for this course this month.
I am 9th place for number of articles with 183, at one point at I was in 5th place but I switched from writing short articles to writing long articles. I enjoy writing longer articles more, but I've been filling a lot of family trees and filling family trees means a lot of short articles. Of my 183 I bet about 90 of them are family tree bios.
Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end,
Of Solomon Grundy.
My first process is, by the standards of their species, did they live to a ripe old age, die young, or die in the middle. I roll a d10. 1 means they died in childhood. 2 as an adolescent or young adult. 3-6 in middle age, and 7-10 in old age, with 10 being very impressive.
These family trees are nobles, so I need to figure out if they were good at being nobles. Then I roll a d10 with 1 being terrible and 10 being amazing judging them on their managerial skills, diplomacy, piety, martial prowess, and popularity with the peasants. For Swynfaredians I sometimes skip piety because they weren't very pious in general. Since Swynfaredian nobles must be sorcerers or sorceresses, I also roll a d10 gaging their magical skill.
If they lived into their child bearing years, I roll a d10 to see if they had lots of children or few children, relatively speaking. Those who live longer tend to have more children. I also roll to see how well they liked their spouse. Couples that like each other more get a few extra children.
Last night I wrote profiles for the five "legitimate" and three proven bastard children of Lady Rhian Fremiss the Promiscuous. The dice said she had lots of children but hated her husband (who was an asshole anyway) and Fremiss in general are known to be hedonists so I decided to give her the nickname the Promiscuous.
Then I make up how this goes together. Her first born daughter, who I named Lady Celyn, rolled amazing stats but died as young adult. She was a great manager, great diplomat, neither beloved by the peasants or hated by them, a powerful sorceress, and a competent tactician.
So why would someone who is this awesome die young? Well she was too awesome, was viewed as a political obstacle to a schemer and ended up drinking from a poison cup.
Since Lady Rhian Fremiss the Promiscous did get along well with her husband Lord Troilus Numaness the Mask, I added the detail that Lord Troilus claimed the competent children were his trueborn heirs and the bad ones were the product of adultery though in truth, the more disappointing ones were the ones that looked most like him.
It is probably unnecessary for me to go this far back into the royal family of a 800 year extended family given that Rhian and Troillus died 600 years ago, but the family tree tool is kind of fun and I like being a completionist.
From a world building perspective It is easier to write a family tree starting in the past and going forward than it is to start in the present and work backwards.
As my friend Eron12 once said, for a royal family you really only need to be answer two questions. Who was the first king? Who is the king now?
It will probably quite a while before I can run an RPG again, but Eron12 said next session he would like his character Kormatin to reach out to try to ally with the Deorac family. So I've been fleshing them out.
Until about 100 years ago, the Deoracs were the royal family of a small nation called Talama. 100ish years ago, the Swynfaredians conquered Talama and killed as many Deoracs as they could find.
The surviving Deoracs have intermarried into other noble families but they haven't forgotten their heritage and they naturally hate Swynfaredians. Since Kormatin's enemies are Swynfaredian, this seemed like an obvious thing to do.
It's a lot easier to write family trees for 100 years than 890 years. Especially I only need to really focus on the ones who lived.
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end,
Of Solomon Grundy.
My first process is, by the standards of their species, did they live to a ripe old age, die young, or die in the middle. I roll a d10. 1 means they died in childhood. 2 as an adolescent or young adult. 3-6 in middle age, and 7-10 in old age, with 10 being very impressive.
These family trees are nobles, so I need to figure out if they were good at being nobles. Then I roll a d10 with 1 being terrible and 10 being amazing judging them on their managerial skills, diplomacy, piety, martial prowess, and popularity with the peasants. For Swynfaredians I sometimes skip piety because they weren't very pious in general. Since Swynfaredian nobles must be sorcerers or sorceresses, I also roll a d10 gaging their magical skill.
If they lived into their child bearing years, I roll a d10 to see if they had lots of children or few children, relatively speaking. Those who live longer tend to have more children. I also roll to see how well they liked their spouse. Couples that like each other more get a few extra children.
Last night I wrote profiles for the five "legitimate" and three proven bastard children of Lady Rhian Fremiss the Promiscuous. The dice said she had lots of children but hated her husband (who was an asshole anyway) and Fremiss in general are known to be hedonists so I decided to give her the nickname the Promiscuous.
Then I make up how this goes together. Her first born daughter, who I named Lady Celyn, rolled amazing stats but died as young adult. She was a great manager, great diplomat, neither beloved by the peasants or hated by them, a powerful sorceress, and a competent tactician.
So why would someone who is this awesome die young? Well she was too awesome, was viewed as a political obstacle to a schemer and ended up drinking from a poison cup.
Since Lady Rhian Fremiss the Promiscous did get along well with her husband Lord Troilus Numaness the Mask, I added the detail that Lord Troilus claimed the competent children were his trueborn heirs and the bad ones were the product of adultery though in truth, the more disappointing ones were the ones that looked most like him.
It is probably unnecessary for me to go this far back into the royal family of a 800 year extended family given that Rhian and Troillus died 600 years ago, but the family tree tool is kind of fun and I like being a completionist.
From a world building perspective It is easier to write a family tree starting in the past and going forward than it is to start in the present and work backwards.
As my friend Eron12 once said, for a royal family you really only need to be answer two questions. Who was the first king? Who is the king now?
It will probably quite a while before I can run an RPG again, but Eron12 said next session he would like his character Kormatin to reach out to try to ally with the Deorac family. So I've been fleshing them out.
Until about 100 years ago, the Deoracs were the royal family of a small nation called Talama. 100ish years ago, the Swynfaredians conquered Talama and killed as many Deoracs as they could find.
The surviving Deoracs have intermarried into other noble families but they haven't forgotten their heritage and they naturally hate Swynfaredians. Since Kormatin's enemies are Swynfaredian, this seemed like an obvious thing to do.
It's a lot easier to write family trees for 100 years than 890 years. Especially I only need to really focus on the ones who lived.
I am not on any of the leaderboards for likes. I am still entered in 11 or 12 special categories. I need to trim this down to 10 by the end of the month, or I will be disqualified from every category.
We get digital badges for 10k, 25k, or 50k words, but after 50,000 words, I have no real reason to fight to stay on the leaderboard other than bragging rights.
Anyone who gets 10,000 is put in for raffle drawings. I think 25k and 50k people get their name in the pot an extra time.
I am a writing a bit each day, but I'm not planning to write 10,000 words in a single day again. The Contest ends on January 1st. The last week or so, I've been chasing non-numerical goals. I'm trying to round out Scarterra's Food and Holiday categories.
After the Worldember challenge ends, I am going to try to put a pin in writing world gratuitous world building articles and see if I can force myself to write more my novel. A detailed setting is not much good without any stories.
Maybe make a few more maps. I am also going into RPG withdrawals. My friends are like brothers to me, but we cannot meet to play table top RPGs very often. it is difficult to get three or four adults with families to have a few hours off at the same time. I need to see if I can find a second group interested in playing a Scarterran campaign.
