The Fell Gard Codices

The Aleatory Process IV

November 20th, 2012

Having written a bit yesterday about the process of rolling up the physical dimensions of the dungeon, today I’m going to write about the process of filling those spaces with events and encounters. The first thing to say is: these aren’t really two separate processes.

The Aleatory Process III

November 19th, 2012

So to get back to talking about process: once my blank maps are ready, it’s time to start filling them in. That means rolling dice. I begin by rolling on a set of charts to create a piece to add to the physical shape of the dungeon — a hallway, a room, a flight of […]

Post Recap

November 18th, 2012

A pause today in the posts about the Fell Gard process. I want to start putting up posts once a week collecting links to the previous week’s blog posts. So here’s an extra-long version, a recap of what’s been going on around here since the start of the month. I began by writing a bit […]

The Aleatory Process II

November 17th, 2012

‘Aleatory’ comes from the Latin for ‘die’ or ‘dice.’ It means, as Wikipedia sums it up, “the incorporation of chance into the process of creation, especially the creation of art or media.” That’s pretty much what I’m after with Fell Gard. I have my charts, and I roll dice, and generate the dungeon and its contents […]

The Aleatory Process I

November 16th, 2012

I was working on the dungeon earlier today, rolling dice and mapping things out, and it occurred to me that it might be worth writing a bit about how it is that I do what I do. I don’t randomly roll events and put together a chapter directly based on the results; I roll up […]

Level Names

November 15th, 2012

One of the things you’ll notice in the new, updated draft of Fell Gard is that a few names have been added. Things like “Silver Athrir” and “Twarid.” Level names. I generally feel that geography in Fell Gard is not terribly fixed. As we’ll see, there are forces that change the shape of the dungeon […]

Hawkmoon at Black Gate

November 14th, 2012

Just a quick note today to observe that I’ve got a new post up at Black Gate, in which I look at Michael Moorcock’s stories of Dorian Hawkmoon. I always have mixed feelings about Moorcock. He’s written some fine books, like Gloriana and Mother London, and some solid fantasy adventure books. But I always have […]

I was writing earlier about Angband, the video game in which one plays a fantasy hero (warrior, rogue, magic-user, priest, or other) who descends into a 100-level dungeon, each level randomly generated with monsters and treasures and traps,  in order to destroy the god of evil. It was a predecessor to Diablo, and I find […]

A Few Idle Thoughts on Angband

November 12th, 2012

When I was young, my father had an Osborne computer which seemed almost magical to me. He also had several floppy discs (the five-and-a-quarter-inch discs, thank you, truly floppy things) filled with games he’d got from one bulletin board or another. I want to write here about one game in particular, called Dungeon. In that […]

Heather Dale in Westmount

November 12th, 2012

Earlier tonight Grace and I had the chance to see Heather Dale perform at Westmount Park United Church. Dale’s a Canadian folk musician who’s drawn comparisons to Loreena McKennitt. You can find her website here, currently hosting a free album. Dale’s got a strong sense of the history of her music; she and her band […]

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