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Well I was going to try to work on a short story in my limited free time, but much like Will, I decided that with the current ban on anything WC related there is no point in working on anything feline related. So "Master Cats" is shut down for now. On one hand it was going to be my attempt to write something shorter again and have multiple types of protagonists, but eh, I'm not really concerned about not working on it. Still got what I've written, can always go back to it later. Plus it gave me a chance to go back to other older ideas.

First one was Guardian. The scifi story about being an AI controlling a space ark of humans. Haven't done a scifi story in awhile. Cool idea, cool intro, but the more I thought about how I set it up, it doesn't make any fucking sense. I realized I'd have to seriously rework the intro and concept. Also, due to it being scifi rather than fantasy, I have to at least do some bare minimum of "research" so some of it is at least plausible. After searching for our nearest habitable planets, how long to get there and such, I realized that this story was going to be far more work than I really have time for. Maybe another day.

So I went back to the idea of reworking Legend. Legend isn't over here because it's 1313 pages long and I don't feel like transferring all that mess over. Besides, it's more game anyway and if it going to stay that way, it probably would be better served by actually using the coding stuff here to do it.

Instead I was going to redo it with a more story based version and focus on just the rogue path. I probably would have used the other paths too, but just altered them to be more "rogue like". This would all take some time of course, but since the ground work is mostly all laid out already, I thought  that this shouldn't take excessively long and could work as a "short story"

Well that was until I decided on making a female protagonist to pick from as well. After a few passages written, I realized this wasn't working out the way I wanted it to. For one, I was trying to avoid "gender flipping" and instead I was pretty much doing that as I was working on it and I want the paths to be different from each other. Plus the Legend setting is a bit too lack luster and I wanted to incorporate this one into a pre made setting and the only one that currently exists that is plausible is Innkeeper which does have a little more history in it. (Towns, cities, some races, etc)

So from there, I started getting more ideas on how to set it up and background and the outline was coming along nicely until I came to the conclusion that this was all pretty great and all, but this was definitely NOT going to be a short story any longer. I definitely would like to work on it, but again, it'll have to be another day.

So with that plan put on the back burner, and most of the new story ideas in the concept stages, I went to the only other old idea I had. Primal. It's been sitting unfinished for years and I think that needs to change.

I'm going to rework this one too, which seems like defeating the purpose of creating a "short story" but a lot of it already has an outline in place even if I am going to go back redo a lot of the text, which can be shortened in most cases anyway.

Of course even now, I'm getting new ideas of how to enhance the story, but hopefully I can remain focused on writing a shorter piece again. If not, well I'm still not going to work on anything else until this one is done. (Whenever that is)

... would you give me a trophy to transfer Legend to CYS and do all the scripting instead of needing a pencil and paper?

Lol.

I'm not even thinking about Legend in any capacity right now. Really, I think it's the worst of my stories, I barely wanted to even bother finishing the priest path and demon possessed paths by the end of writing it.

The reworked idea (AKA Rogues) I have for it I think is a lot better anyway.

a story based in the world of InnKeeper would be awesome. Loved that game.

Whats primal again? 

Sounds like a Planet Of The Apes thing haha! XD

Primal takes place on a tropical island where three tribes live. Though I'm thinking about expanding it to four or maybe even five and making the island a little bigger. It's still a fantasy setting, but more primitive in nature and none of the tribes believe there is anything that exists beyond their island.

You start off as a little kid that belongs to the Kaimori tribe. The tribe lives by the ocean and tends to have an affinity for water since you're the only tribe that makes boats and travels short distances from the island. They worship a water goddess, regularly fish, and tend to be a little more peaceful than the other tribes in that they don't actively attack anyone except in defense.

The other two tribes are the Umlabo and the Zolopotec (Or just Zolos for short) are more aggressive.

The Umlabo are the biggest tribe and see the whole jungle area of the island as theirs though they make their main home in a more swampy area of the island. They're territorial and tend to have a more "preservationist" mindset since they don't even cut down trees to build huts and just live in the trees themselves. They're also mainly vegetarians and insectivores and view the entire island as something to be worshipped since it provides everything.

The Zolos are the most violent and live in a more barren area on the other side of the island near an inactive volcano that they toss sacrifices in every so often since they worship a fire deity they think lives there. They're also cannibals and often in direct conflict with the Umlabo since they're closer. 

Of course there is more but that's the basics. The fourth tribe I was thinking about was the Tanga which would be a beaten subject tribe who live out a pathetic existence of having to provide sacrifices (and meals) to the Zolos every so often.

Life on the island hasn't changed much in many decades, but naturally your protagonist is lucky enough to live during interesting times. So tribal warfare on a mass scale, hurricanes, tribe restructuring, belief questioning and possibly even a few foreign visitors to your isolated island are all going to play a part. 

While this all probably still sounds like it will lend itself to a story on the longish side, I'm hoping it won't since I still have the overall idea of this is a primitive island setting and people just don't tend to die of extreme old age. So no living to be over 100 years old, at best you might get to "year 60" and you start off at "year 10" at the beginning of the story anyway.

Sounds awesome, ha ha. Is it a short choose your story, or an actual short story?

No, it's a regular CYOA. It's actually a contest story I wrote over at IS, but it was far from being finished. I think I wrote like 40 or 50 passages for it and have a bunch of outlines and notes, but I ended up taking it down since I didn't want an unfinished story posted even if it did win the contest.

Was really looking forward to guardian, but eh, Primal sounds good.

Updated my journal…

Okay, so fuck working on Primal. Lol.

For some reason the focus for Primal just seems to be doomed to development hell. Dunno what it is, maybe it’s been too long since I had the idea or maybe I just have to work on something else first. (Still refuse to trash the story though, I got the all ideas/plots/event still, it’s just writing it all out)

So I’m back to working on Rogues at a snail’s pace. A fat crippled snail that gets winded every time it crawls half a nanometer. And with that sort of image, you can see just how slow this project is going.

I’m trying to give myself a break by not having as large of a timespan within the story though. I’m thinking maybe an average path of 20 years (give or take a few depending on the path). Should be enough time to get in a few good adventures/events for a couple of rogues that start out at the age of 16.

Current status of Rogues: Less than 1%

Nice! (That you started something ha ha)

Heh, thanks. I actually did start on Primal too like 4 months ago and some of the beginning paths are finished, but at some point last year I just lost focus with it.

I kept coming back to Rogues and getting more ideas for it so I figured I might as well just work on that one.

Right now I’m working on the male rogue path line and trying to finish all the main starting branches from it. (Done with 2 of them, 2 more to go)

Also I’m working in a whole prison path for one of the main branches which will be based on a Prison CYOA idea I had a long time ago. It was supposed to be set in the same world as Innkeeper anyway, so I might as well use the concept in this story instead of having it be on the back burner of ideas.

A prison path? I guess in that the protagonist gets captured really early on?

How long is each path?

Speaking of innkeeper, are we gonna get to rob the place/burn it all down?

Yeah, the prison path will involve getting caught pretty early on.

The length of each path is going to vary. As I said, in my mind each major “successful” path is to last around 20 years within the story, though how those years are divided is probably going to vary. So some paths are still probably going to be longer than others despite the “time limit.”

And as always it’s all subject to change!

As for the Inn from Innkeeper, I might as well mention this now. The male and female rogues in this story are the children of the protagonist from Innkeeper.

So there is already a direct reference to the inn which of course was sold a long time ago, and it will probably either be owned by someone else or it might still be abandoned.

Generally speaking the female rogue is more likely to re-open the place as a proper inn since she’s actually a bard with some skill in theft. Though her storyline is also more likely to involve more traveling since she’s a bit of a wanderer and is trying to collect experiences for her stories and songs.

The male rogue is more of a straight up thief with more possibility to delve deep into the underworld hierarchy. If he reopens it, it’s probably going to be a front for criminal activity.

Sweeeeeet! Which wife? The Doctor innkeeper or the actual innkeeper? 

Wait, so the story is Rogues? Does that mean that the two stories are mixed (like the male path would have references to the female path in the same time period)?

“Canon” ending is he married Eliza which means he ultimately became a doctor. In that one, his mom also ended up selling the inn and moved to Teckleville.

At some point the protagonist and Eliza also moved to Teckleville where he opened up his own practice and had his children (the rogue protagonists) with her.

The rogues are twins and despite having fairly upstanding parents they’re just destined to cause trouble in town. However by their sixteenth year, the sister wants to do a little more with her life than just stealing from merchants who happen to travel through the town.

So she takes off on her journey.

The brother sticks around in his home town for a few more months, but ultimately he ends up having to leave the town which then starts him on his journey.

To avoid too many overlapping references (And timeline headaches for me), neither of the siblings really knows where the other one went regardless of which path you end up taking.

For example: The sister tends to be even more of a wanderer if you choose to play as the brother, so you’re most likely not going to bump into her.

While if you choose the sister, you’ve already got a six month head start on the brother and he’s probably keeping a low profile wherever he’s at, so again less likely to bump into him.

I might make a couple of “key points” where its possible that they do bump into each other. The easiest place to do this of course is a story ending of some sort, since I can just make vague references to the various possible events that each character can experience in their respective path.

The harder way to do it, is to do it during the storyline proper which as I said means I have to figure out a good way to do it so its an event that can possibly occur in both paths and they both can logically be in that particular location.

Awesome. 

Yeah woulda been surprised if theyd have major interactions, still cool that there might be references to each (kinda like suzy in that regard I guess). 

Aww, I still had hopes you'd finish Primal one day, I really enjoyed the part you did have.

Innkeeper was great too though and so Rogues being in the same setting immediately has my interest, even if it sounds like it'll be a long wait. Hopefully something will kick your muse back in gear and you might be able move at the pace of a healthy snail, still in the prime of its life with no major disabilities. :)

Wow, that's pretty neat. Definitely looking forward to Rogues, maybe even more than Primal. Innkeeper was a really unique setting and I love this 'new'  idea. Was Innkeeper related to any of your other stories? (Like the Necromancer cameo in Eternal sort of thing).

Does the story immediately start out at age 16?

Nah, Innkeeper is a little more lighthearted and set in a more “peaceful” fantasy world (with some slight tech advances) which while still suffering the usual problems of one, it's not in any major danger of suddenly being overrun by a genetically altered Ubermensch tyrant or an ascending Death God.

Yeah, the story does start with them at age 16. I thought about starting it a little earlier, but I sort of wanted it to get right to the action outside their hometown a lot sooner.

Updated my journal...

Completed two epilogues for Rogues. It's amazing how much writing one can get done when not being distracted by the Internet!

Great to hear!

I'm considering pulling the plug this weekend so I can wrap up this one project I've been dragging my feet on. Got the finish line in sight so of course I've been procrastinating more than ever recently.

How have things been with you otherwise?

Oh things are going well. Just still taking care of some family stuff (nothing serious anymore) and where I am currently I only got phone internet access so there's less inclination to go goofing off on the Internet. 

Looks like I missed a lot drama around here though, glad to see things stayed the same. Lol.

Thank god. Good to hear that End.