Yes, I know it's been almost two weeks since this blog has gotten any love. Darryl and I have been working some behind the scenes, which is ironically what this blog was designed for, to get some more work done. He has some new maps, I am still not entirely satisfied with them, but they are way better than mine. He is still planning the globe and has a template for drawing real round world maps onto flat pieces of paper. I am still looking into learning how to use simple drawing programs for map making purposes, just so I can send him a better representation of what I actually am looking for.
On my end I am working on how Dragons fit into Garnia and the great multi-planar Good vs. Evil war. I have discussed it some with Darryl, I just haven't gotten around to writing it up yet; I have been fortunate to have a busy gaming schedule. The major thing going on there is that I am busy abandoning thirty plus years of TSR/WotC-isms that have accreted onto Dragon lore (and lore surrounding a bunch of other things too, like Dwarves and Elves).
I am also working with Darryl, slowly, on building a better timeline. The problem with the timeline is that certain things need developing before they can really be "dated", and that takes some time too. The Necromancer has been vexing for instance, his development, the war against him and his ultimate defeat, he is a villain of almost Sauron-like proportions for this world, he shaped an age; and like a reverse, evil cognate of King Arthur, it is prophesied that he will rise again. His adherents rule over a land in his name to this day, on the southern end of the Tirnakaur peninsula. Darryl also has asked that we work on a timeline that includes a number of events prior to the coming of man to this world, so that too is taking time to work through, and that's still mostly in my head. I have a lot of stuff on paper that was written when I was in 7th grade too, by both myself and Darryl, I'd like to see how much of it I can keep as an homage to Garnia's past.
Then there is the still unanswered Halfling question, do we keep them or eliminate them from the world? Although when I phrase it like that I feel like I must sound like a Nazi. Seriously though, Gnomes are already gone and the only reasons that Halflings are here are that I named the campaign world after my Halfling character Garn, Halflings were an AD&D (and Basic D&D) player character race, and I owned the official AD&D Halflings boxed set from Grenadier. Historically, I have had, over three decades of play in Garnia, two player character Halflings. One was my next door neighbor Scott who played a Halfling Thief named Thorik when I was in junior high and high school, he was a serious long term character. The second is my oldest daughter's Halfling Thief Ruby Cloverleaf, who is technically still alive, but the campaign went on hiatus and then I decided to reboot. I guess Scott's character Thorik is technically still alive too, but I would certainly label him "retired" since he hasn't played him since the 1980s and Scott doesn't live within 500 miles of me now.
