writing

Draft: The Deeds of the Dukes of Chariton, part I

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written 28th of February, AD 2015

Truman Still was born in the Year of Our Lord 2635, the second year of Franklin Greysnow’s reign as King of Iowa. Unfortunately, very little is known of his early life, and several possible tales are widely known. The most popular story begins with Truman’s birth in Independence (or St. Louis, Jefferson City, or Kirksville) and continues with his apprenticeship to either a merchant or the steward of a minor lord. The various tales tend to differ on his life between roughly the beginning of his apprenticeship and before his oath of fealty to King Franklin. Depending on the tale, in the early 2660s he either established himself as the independent ruler of the lands formerly known as northern Missouri or he spent some time at the court of King Franklin in Des Moines. Whatever the truth, it is known with some certainty that on the first of January in the Year of Our Lord 2664 Truman Still swore an oath of fealty to King Franklin of Iowa near the headwaters of the Chariton River in southern Iowa, and in return for his oath received the title Duke of Chariton and the counties of Nodaway and Paho. The source of Duke Truman’s standard of a red horseman on a black field is not recorded, but it is believed to date to a time before the Deluge. After his oath, Duke Truman is believed to have established his seat in Maryville, though most of the surviving records begin in 2666, the second year of his reign and the 33rd year of King Franklin’s rule.

Author’s note: I wrote about a page before going to bed this morning, and this is the result of my combining revision and editing with typing. More revision and compilation to come.

A Brief Introduction to CK2: After the End

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I’ve written here before about Crusader Kings II. The After the End mod, which I discovered a few months ago, is set in North America and begins in July 2666, approximately 600 years after an ambiguous Event which brought about the end of what we would recognize as “modern” society (and supposedly took place at some point between 1945 and 2077). The mod is still very much a work in progress, but for the most part it’s playable, provided you want to play somewhere between the Atlantic Ocean, California/Oregon/Washington State/Nevada, southern Canada, and Central America (Costa Rica, approximately).

In America of the mid-27th century, there are several major religions- Catholicism in the Midwest (the Pope resides in St. Louis), Protestantism in the South (based out of the Holy Columbian Confederacy which rules the Carolinas), the Rust Cult of the country between Chicago and Pittsburgh, the Occultists of Appalachia and New England, the Revelationists of the Midwest and South, Voodoo in Louisiana, and, if I remember correctly, Rastafarianism and Santeria in the Caribbean and various syncretic religions in Mexico and Central America. I just realized I had almost forgotten the Norse, which is followed by most of the “Northlanders” of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and northern Michigan. There’s also the Americanists, who exist in various places across the former United States and, if I remember correctly, worship Washington and various other figures from American history as gods. The Consumerists, who tend to rise some time in the 2660s or 2670s but don’t exist in 2666, believe that the Old World collapsed because they failed to properly venerate the Almighty Dollar, and seek to avert the apocalypse by spending as much as possible.

Sometime I’ll have to write a better introduction, and maybe even make a map, but I had started to type the rough draft of a “history” I started writing early this morning when I realized an introduction to the mod might be helpful.

A few recreational writing ideas

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Between getting up early for my counseling appointment on campus and working until midnight, Thursday was a long day. I slept for 9 hours yesterday morning, which meant I woke up around 11:15 and didn’t get out of bed until about noon. After making chili in a slow cooker and getting dressed to leave the apartment, I went to the grocery store in the early afternoon and bought, among other things, 3 bottles of wine (which is 2 more than I’d usually buy at one time, but there was a 2 bottles for $7 sale on some dessert wine that looked intriguing). At one point I was wondering about starting a wine review blog, and then I more or less immediately dismissed the idea because, among other things, I feel like I lack the proper equipment (proper serving glasses, proper storage facilities, etc.) and I either have a high alcohol tolerance (being of English/German/Welsh/Irish descent and a male human) or I rarely drink in large enough quantities to get drunk.

Anyway, I tried Space Engineers this afternoon (Minecraft IN SPACE! is fun, until you neglect to consider gravity/physics), and I re-visited Europa Universalis 4 (a game made by the same company that made Crusader Kings 2 covering the years 1444-1820). Specifically, a game I have going in a mod where the American and Mexican states, and Canadian and Australian provinces, somehow wound up in 1444. As of this writing I’ve reached 1465, and Missouri has lost Kansas City and St. Louis (and most of its former territory north of the Missouri River) to Iowa as result of a war in which Iowa invaded Nebraska and Missouri came to the aid of its ally Nebraska.

At some point, this reminded me of previous ideas I had for writing something involving this mod, and more generally something set in the timeframe covered by Europa Universalis (1444-1820) as opposed to Crusader Kings (769-1453). I’ve have yet to get very far in a game of Europa Universalis, but that time frame sees the cutting edge of European military technology go from pikes and crossbows (or longbows) to flintlock muskets and heavy artillery, to say nothing of advances in more peaceful areas (the printing press! the industrial revolution!).

Who knows if, or when, I’ll find time to write even a portion of these, but here’s what I’m thinking of for game-related writing ideas at the moment. In a way, my old computer dying and having to re-install everything was both a blessing and a curse.

  • EU4: California, either in narrative or “historical” format
  • EU4: closer to history, and not the same as California. Portugal, maybe?
  • telling about my current (or a future) CK2 game as the Dukes of Chariton in post-apocalyptic North America
  • something for another CK2 game – Celtic, Norse, Finnish?
  • another CK2 game different from the first two, in style as well as content

These, of course, don’t even include various other ideas I’ve had, or will have. I suppose what I should do is work on some of these, but organization and follow-through have never been my strong suit. I also feel like I should start reading for pleasure again, but at the same time I still have these college classes I’m currently taking, so I shouldn’t totally neglect those, and that whole “working to pay rent and bills” thing.

Well, this is interesting

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Input:

“Recently, I’ve been on a reading kick. I’ve always enjoyed reading, but the Internet and various other unfortunate facts of life (i.e., work) ensured that, for a time, I read less than I used to. This year, I’ve read in fits and spurts – reading voraciously for a time, and then not reading for a while due to being occupied by books, school work, moving, and various other petty and quotidian concerns.

In the past week or so, since my university’s winter break started nearly two weeks ago, I’ve been devouring science fiction via my Kindle – more specifically, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and Iain Banks’ novelsInversions and Look to Windward. Early this morning, after finishing Look to Windward, I began reading Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade. This is the story of an alien scouting ship landing near a medieval English village, which is promptly taken over by the local Baron after a brief skirmish. After loading his entire village aboard the alien craft and trickery by the sole surviving alien who had been taken captive, the ship’s autopilot takes the ship back to its home base. The Baron sets his sights above merely going to France and the Holy Land, and instead sets about taking on the alien empire- beams, cannon, and starships versus steel, longbowmen, and horse. This story is told by the monk who was initially tasked with learning the alien’s strange tongue, and, after some initial confusion when said alien lacks knowledge of Latin and fails to burst into flames when hearing the Paternoster (I paraphrase), eventually serves as his lord’s interpreter to the aliens. Hearing concepts familar to nearly any science fiction fan (faster-than-light travel, 20th century weaponry, and astronomy, among others) translated through a 14th century monk can be quite entertaining. Suffice it to say that metal detectors are ineffective against wooden trebuchets. ”

Output:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

Okay.jpg

I can’t remember for certain if I’ve read any Lovecraft, but if I have it’s been at least 5 years. Reading more Lovecraft is definitely on my to-do list, however.

Science fiction and writing ideas

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Recently, I’ve been on a reading kick. I’ve always enjoyed reading, but the Internet and various other unfortunate facts of life (i.e., work) ensured that, for a time, I read less than I used to. This year, I’ve read in fits and spurts – reading voraciously for a time, and then not reading for a while due to being occupied by books, school work, moving, and various other petty and quotidian concerns.

In the past week or so, since my university’s winter break started nearly two weeks ago, I’ve been devouring science fiction via my Kindle – more specifically, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and Iain Banks’ novels Inversions and Look to Windward. Early this morning, after finishing Look to Windward, I began reading Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade. This is the story of an alien scouting ship landing near a medieval English village, which is promptly taken over by the local Baron after a brief skirmish. After loading his entire village aboard the alien craft and trickery by the sole surviving alien who had been taken captive, the ship’s autopilot takes the ship back to its home base. The Baron sets his sights above merely going to France and the Holy Land, and instead sets about taking on the alien empire- beams, cannon, and starships versus steel, longbowmen, and horse. This story is told by the monk who was initially tasked with learning the alien’s strange tongue, and, after some initial confusion when said alien lacks knowledge of Latin and fails to burst into flames when hearing the Paternoster (I paraphrase), eventually serves as his lord’s interpreter to the aliens. Hearing concepts familar to nearly any science fiction fan (faster-than-light travel, 20th century weaponry, and astronomy, among others) translated through a 14th century monk can be quite entertaining. Suffice it to say that metal detectors are ineffective against wooden trebuchets. 

Anyway, this has given me more ideas for writing Crusader Kings II-inspired after-action reports. I’ve already begun work on a narrative that’s supposed to be similar to George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, and today’s idea is writing a chronicle from the viewpoint of a monk. This could prove exhaustive, now that I think about it, but I had already been thinking about slight modifications – claiming that it had been translated into more modern language, or something along those lines. Maybe a mere history would suffice without having to do extensive research on medieval monastic chronicles – “In this year the harvest was poor due to the depredations of the Norsemen, may their pagan souls be damned” and so on.