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Everyone, thanks for your patience. Something came up in life, plus I had a cough that took a while to go away. Anyway, here's a secret link to a secret thing that I totally sang at the bottom of an NDA hole.
So! On Yellowtooth-- *gets yanked back by Thamir and stabbed*
*Many stabbings and a raise dead later...* Upon reviewing what I can say, I have to gushed over Richard's article on Vyre in Dance of the Damned because it did so much heavy lifting on helping me connect dots as I was writing Book 3. I do encourage folks to give that backmatter a close read if you want to give Vyre a more prominent feature when starting the AP.
To avoid any potential confusion, I'm in my 30s now, though I did pick up Pathfinder in my 20s. Genetics and avoiding the sun does wonders on preserving age. IIRC, at some point during production, I think I realized I might be around the same age as Norgorber as a concept. Interestingly, it also means I was 33 for the majority of the production of the book. ...Folks who've read the book will understand the significance of that. :)
Okay, so here's how I've been pronouncing the Chinese-inspired names at my table. I know there are other mandarin speakers out there that have picked something different and ended up with some wonderfully appropriate interpretations, so this is still just a guide. I'm using the numbering system for clarity, as special letters don't always show up on people's operating systems. Heh2 Shan4 Bao3
Ou1 Ba1 Ming4
Here is a link to help people know how to pronounce the tones: https://www.thoughtco.com/four-tones-of-mandarin-2279480 If there are characters from book 2~4 that people would like to discuss, let me know! I'll give it my best educated guess.
Murder The Gods And Topple Their Thrones."If you should encounter the Buddha, kill him." And then afterwards be like "Nah, I'm done with this" and become a noodle seller. :3 Anyway, of the gods that are left, I would pick these for maximum chaos-- *Rush out of room being chased by homing tranquilizer darts.*
Name of PC: The entire party. Yes, I TPKed them. My sincerest apologies to Andakarlos, Qing Mu, and Mo Yan Lee.
Mo Douqiu's bleed plus AOO was definitely a toughy, but Mo Yan soaked that up quite well. Andakarlos actually took him out with a crit too. But then Fluffy Whiskers and Stingy were still alive. Stingy's poison was no threat but the hits still hurt. And Fluffy Whiskers just had to go for the jugular. Nothing is more humiliating than coming to consciousness, finding you are on your back, turn and see the weasel... Before it sinks its teeth into your neck. ...Luckily the other secret plots I had took TPKs and deaths into account. We're just tracking deaths now for reasons. :3 I should also give the party a weasel to take their anger out on at some point.
To hop in on addressing the anachronistic cultural content, I just want everyone to be aware of a thing... I'm the one who started it by mentioning there's an equivalent of K-pop boy bands and the entertainment management companies back during the Ruby Phoenix AP. *Starts slap-fighting Shao* I will not let anyone else take this credit and responsibility from me!
Congrats to Shao Han and Grady! And joining in on the art conversation, YES. The art of the AP has blown me away at how they nailed the horror down. My mental image of the area was simply "not your nicest forest and village because translucent ghosts" otherwise when I was writing the draft. Cue artists making me cry for poor Willowshore with each book...
Since it's been asked for a few times, I'll clarify the language roots and inspiration of the names. I can't, however, give you the characters/kanji/hanja for each right now, either because I've lost my notes, can't remember the tone, or because it might potentially spoil story elements. Probably best for us to return to that topic after all four books are out... Chinese
Korean
Japanese
Special Cases
On salon or saloon: I originally thought of it as a hair salon where the tea leshies go to prune their hair. That might have changed...?
On the duel, Granny Hu and Old Matsuki are both out of their physical prime and would definitely select champions. (Or rather, statistically, they will steamroll a PC in a duel, being level 5 and all...) There was more detail, but alas, the main plot is more important... *cries in writer* When I was drafting the adventure, the way I envisioned it was that in the week leading up to the duel, the PCs either go to or are called upon by either or both elders for tea/dinner. During the meeting, the PCs do their Influence encounter. That's pretty much the one time Influence statblocks come into use in my head. That said, it is entirely logical for scripted or spontaneous role-play moments to require the use of the statblocks before the flashpoint. Everyone in town is aware of the faction divide in town and it's logical to speculate the elders might act. Savvy players might want to start currying favors early, so that's being explicitly stated as being something PCs can pursue if they want. Also, Old Matsuki is turning 99-years-old soon, so... something to think about! As for the NPCs acting as champion, the duel needs to be flexible to accommodate either a martial duel or a spellcasting duel, depending on which PC(s) act as the champion(s). Finding out who the champion is might be a challenge in itself. As a suggestion, the NPC(s) opponent are most likely Creature level 2 or 3; this is indeed a severe or extreme encounter for 1 PC at level 3, so outside interference is sort of expected, unless you decide to drop the NPC to level 1. The opponent might also receive some secret assistance, perhaps, if only because someone might want to put the PCs in their place... You can find appropriate NPC statblocks in the Gamemastery Guide. The adventure might have even stated which to use! You may need to apply the elite or weak adjustment to make the NPC the right level. If the PCs don't intervene and you want NPCs that'll cause maximum drama, here's an idea...: Granny Hu picks her son-in-law, Zheng Peng, as Northridge's representative, because she knows Ba-ming will volunteer to be Southbank's champion due to the cleric's backstory. This duel will be ugly if no one intervenes. I think this is likely a Moderate 3 encounter for PCs at level 3...
As the author of the Willowshore Gazatteer (...and the AP), I can clarify on names specifically for the town. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names are almost all family name then given names. Given names are often two syllable with hyphens, particularly with Chinese and Korean, if that helps to identify them in case we slip up here and there or family name goes unmentioned. English-like and Filipino names (Elizeth and Doctor Dami specifically) are given name first, family name last. Some names are intentionally picked or designed so it might be from different languages, is a mixed, or truly fictitious. In such cases, usually the narrative text will refer to the NPC by given name, so use that to determine what part of a full name is a given name.
...This Taiwanese writer would like to balk and stare at what I just read above there, because wow, just... wow. Obviously, with the NDA, I can't say more, but I will say I'm glad our writing team is gonna bust that player-base expectation so hard, it's going to be an absolute delight to see the books in everyone's hands next year. But until then, we must wait in agony along with you all. Just pretend it's like a mini-NDA except you don't know what you can't talk about.... Edit: Dammit Grammerly stop deleting my verbs and making them generic.
I have to note, taxes is the part I'm the most worried about, because... back when I looked into it, some international publishers, depending on where they are based, should be getting a withholding tax because royalties count as "income on US soil". And...if you are unlucky like me and live in a place that does not have a trade treaty with the US, its a whooping 30%. I did contact OBS back in the day about this, and their answer was, surmised, "We're not tax lawyers, and it's your responsibility." ...I'm not making enough to justify filing taxes in the US, so most of the revenue I get on DTRPG are just sitting there as store credit for now. Anyhow, folks who would count as non-resident aliens, do your research! Also, just to double check, in terms of licensed languages, does Infinite have the same list of languages as the community/OGL license?
I restarted writing long form fiction after a really long break from it using fanfic as the gateway. Sadly, I never finished the long multi-chapter fanfics I planned, but it at least helped me get back into plotting. Moved onto Nanowrimo after, which I finished the novel of, but didn't get around to editing. Then I self-published a DnD adventure, aaand that opened a lot of opportunities into more writing for TTRPG. So many that I currently don't quite have enough spoons left for writing fanfics. :P Which is unfortunate, as that did distance me a bit from a fanfic writing group I got to know very well.
@Kittymaverick May I ask where you are located? I travel Asia continuously, and I've not found games outside of Singapore and Australia/New Zealand. @Nomadical I'm in Taiwan! There are local groups that play, most in Chinese though. HK, China, and Taiwan basically rely on fan translations, but they've been going since the beginning as far as I know. I'm actually a very new member around here.
Hi all, have a question about vertical maps, since they are allowed. How...Do I indicate the compass rose for north if it's a vertical map? Ah, so that's what they meant! Thank you for clearing it up. I interpreted the rule as saying that the map can display an area surface that is physically vertical, instead of the page alignment. Is there a discouragement of maps that display a vertical surface though (ie cliff face of a valley)? Edit: Just read Curaigh's reply. Thanks too for the clarification! So cliff face may be legal as long as I am clear about the orientation? |
