Tales of Northwood [webcomic: part #001]

(Click the picture for bigger/readable version.)

Welcome to the very first panel of the Tales of Northwood webcomic! My drawing/painting skills are mediocre. I have no previous experience of creating comics. I have no story line in mind. Honestly, I'm not qualified for running a webcomic. Yet, that is exactly what I'm planning to do! So, what is this all about? Well, I wanted to start writing a story using Rory's Story Cubes. I wanted to publish the story here, as prose. But when I gave it a deeper thought, I came up with the idea of making the story into a comic instead. I mean, I love reading comics, so why couldn't I make one myself?! Obviously, it won't be even close to any random professional comic in terms of graphical representation (eye-candy) and story, but hey, that's not the point here. The point is that I will be doing some kind of solitaire role-playing (RPGing), and instead of presenting the story in text, it will be presented as a comic. I will start using only the story cubes, but might incorporate a "real" RPG rule set later on. And who knows, maybe I even add the solitaire mechanics of the Mythic Game Master Emulator to really emulate a role playing session, with a fictitious GM (Game Master) and all that. To get the story telling a bit more structured, I have defined the following rules: The base setting is some kind of (European) medieval. I'm open for any kind of fantasy elements to make an appearance, if the dice bring the story in that direction. There will be one PC (Player Character). The story's protagonist. The story will be more on the humoristic side, rather than the serious. The simple reason is because I can't draw/paint anything looking serious enough to be convincing. For randomization of story events, Rory's Story Cubes will be used. However, any random element is allowed, it's just that I will start off with the story cubes and see how that goes. And as mentioned above, an RPG rule set might be added later, as well as e.g. the Mythic GME. A list will be kept with all the PCs threads/goals (things that pushes the PC/story forward). A list will be kept with significant world events. A list will be kept with all NPCs (Non-Player Character) so far encountered in the story. Some of them will most likely be marked as antagonists. A list will be kept with all locations discovered so far in the story. I'm allowed to break or re-write this set of rules at any time! Most important rule! :-) All Tales of Northwood related blog posts will be tagged with 'tales of northwood'. There is a separate page (reachable in the header of this blog) called 'Tales of Northwood' that contains useful information about the webcomic and its story (including the lists mentioned above). My goal is to release a new part of the webcomic once every week. I will comment on the background of every part released, e.g. what dice result that were rolled and how that affected the story. Part #001 (this post), part #002 and part #003 have not been produced using random elements. I have created those parts out of my head, just to set the foundation of the story. Starting from #004, the dice are introduced. That's it, let the story unfold!

I am back!

I have been away from blogging for almost a year. The reason is simple - I have been focusing on a year-long non-gaming project*. That project has finally come to an end, more or less, and I can from now on start playing games again! :-)

During this year, I have played very little (physical) tabletop games. I have played games on my iPad, but it's not the same, really. I have very much missed the feeling of physical components and real/live opponents.

So, what are my geek plans for the near future? Well, I have some projects and wishes/dreams that I would like to dig into, and they are (in no particular order):

• Play my (tabletop) solitaire games. I have several good ones that deserves much more play. I wrote about them here.
• Continue the Memoir '44 campaign that I'm running with a friend.
• Try the Fiasco role-playing game. Have bought the pdf, but not yet tried it out. Seems like a sweet game though.
• Complete my home cockpit**. I'm building a very simple cockpit for the X-Plane 10 flight simulation software.
• Complete my (musical) recording studio (a very simple one). Not much to complete really, just a matter of putting back the gear (guitars, computer, monitors, keyboard, microphones, digital drum-kit etc) into my newly painted/renovated studio/room.
• Start my own webcomic! I will cover this more in my next post, but basically, it will be a webcomic (drawn/painted by me) with a story driven by Rory's Story Cubes, or other random elements.
• Buy Ganesha Games' new fantasy skirmish game called BattleSworn. Read some good stuff about it around the blog world and would like to try it out. Will probably use Lego minifigs for that.
• And more... (but the above items are the top-prio things)

* Will probably cover that project with a post here a bit later. That project is also a bit geeky by its nature, although it has nothing to do with gaming.

** Okay, what is a "home cockpit"? I could be something like the below photos (which show my home cockpit under construction). So, it is, in this very simple form, a frame in which I will mount panels and a yoke. The panels are used for interacting with the flight simulation software, and to some extent also show data (like radio frequencies, auto-pilot settings etc).