I’ve undertaken the monumental task of transferring years of old notes from paper into digital form. Awhile back, I started writing a game called Chronicles of the Green. It’s long since spun out into a monstrously overwhelming project, living inside countless google docs, paper journals, sketch books, audio recordings, index cards and so on. The idea got way out of hand and before I could publish anything, I was completely overwhelmed.
Fast forward a few years later: I feel a fire to put out books of my own! Through the Xaxa River Valley session recaps, a creator named Marquis reached out to me. Turns out, Marquis is super local to me and publishes genre-adjacent games over at https://www.shardstone.net — how crazy is that?! When you make an effort to engage in the things you find meaningful, the Universe seems to have a way of responding. Check out their game SCAVENGER.
So, the first step in any giant project is compiling all your content in one place. My goal over the coming weeks will be to gather the scattered notes of COTG into a single, massive google doc. Once there, the monumental task of editing can commence, but for now, this is a huge first step. It’s been a ton of fun reading through crumpled scrolls & notebooks stained with unknown alchemicals.
With a plan in place, it’s much easier to make progress— you only have to take one step at a time.
Mine looks something like this:
- Compile content from all sources (notes, journals, docs, audio files) into one masterfile
- Edit everything with a fine tooth comb; apply your 2024 brain with all its experiences
- Break apart the masterfile into one-page adventures, small zines, social media content etc
Once caught up, I’ll be free to replicate the process with anything else I write moving forward. Still, there’s at least a year of material to get through between Chronicles & Xaxa. The COTG digital doc is well over 200 pages before any paper notes; I have plenty to keep me busy.
I keep name dropping Chronicles of the Green, so what is it? If Xaxa River Valley is science fantasy antediluvian biblical Middle East, Chronicles of the Green is science fantasy dark ages England & North America.
It’s set on a far-future Earth, all of which is covered in primeval techno-jungle, the results of a terraforming experiment gone awry. This forest is collectively referred to simply as “The Green”. Humanity’s last survivors cling to life on a satellite-starship anchored to the ground by a chain, delving down to the surface in search of quicksilver artefacts, super-science machines from the past.
Of course, the Green is overrun with all manner of mutant beast & twisted creature. Pallid, sickly, elfling (cyborg ghouls) scavenge old ruins for shards of quicksilver to perpetuate their unlife. Aberrant machines silently stalk the wood distorting reality around them. Serpentine cables writhe with sentience, hunting men and beast alike.
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So, Shadowdark’s physical kickstarter came in the mail recently. Back when the Kickstarter was running, there was a game jam with 116 awesome entries. At that time, I was trying to put out COTG as a Shadowdark point-crawl for that very Jam. Unfortunately, mental health got in the way and the ideas for “Silver Starchild” never moved from paper to a final, digital product.
And that’s OK! It was a monumental task trying to put out a whole 8 page adventure to showcase up all of what I want Chronicles of the Green to be. By following my process, I’ll be able to complete things and release them in little snippets through social media (Check out my Instagram and Youtube.) It’s a lot less pressure than putting together some 300+ page mega-tome as ol' Hankerin over at Runehammer would say. Shoutout to Drunkens & Dragons for teaching me how to be a DM. If you haven't seen his channel, go back and start from the beginning. It's all gold.
The rest will be some sketches of COTG dungeons that I’ll eventually be converting to digital. Speaking of which, the iPad + pencil combo is a very powerful RPG tool! Using Procreate, a super cheap program, I can draw all my maps in digital form quite easily. The iPad is also great for running games over discord without a VTT. I log it into a second account and screen share Procreate, drawing directly onto the map. Moving individual PC tokens is fiddly but once I get good with it, I think it’ll be a mighty fine solution to a VTT. Dead easy.
Anyways, here’s some cool sketch pages from COTG.
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