Archive for the ‘Occasional Columns’ Category

On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapter 74

This entry is part 29 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it publicly, I’ll never get it done in time! Only one chapter this time, but it’s a biggie… ************************************************************************************************* Clan Wars XIX: The Hidden Dragon Beneath the granite facade of one particular mountain range lies a heart pockmarked by limestone caverns. […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 71-73

This entry is part 27 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it in public, I’ll never get it done in time… This was supposed to be just two chapters, but at the last minute I broke the first into two smaller, more digestible, chunks. ************************************************************************************************* Clan Wars XVI: Faith & Politics “It […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 69-70

This entry is part 26 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it in public, I’ll never get it done in time! A number of interruptions today have left me with only two (rather longish) chapters complete. Since some future chapters have to follow each other very closely, this forces me into a […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 66-68

This entry is part 25 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… I’m trying a slight change in layout this week, formatting the text more closely to that of a book than the usual web format. Let me know if you think it’s an […]

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Ghosts Of Blogs Past: An Air Of Mystery – Using an RPG to write mystery fiction

This irregular column resurrects (relevant) lost blog posts from Mike’s 2006 personal blog on Yahoo 360 and updates them with new relevance and perspective. Mysteries are hard to write. Ones for Roleplaying are even harder – or maybe that should be the other way around. There are a lot of unique challenges that have to […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 63-65

This entry is part 24 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… For those who read the player-redacted version of The Ages Of Existence (presented in Inventing & Reinventing Races in D&D: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 3), it should […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 59-62

This entry is part 23 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… This is the material that in the original plan (as revised a couple of weeks ago), would have been posted last week. Chapter 59’s content would have appeared as Chapter 55. And […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 55-58

This entry is part 22 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… It’s a peculiar thing when you’re writing. You are continually reshaping and tweaking the content to be included to make the narrative as clear and valuable as possible, and sometimes what seemed […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 52-54

This entry is part 21 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve so much prep to get done for the Fumanor Campaign that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… With this post, the regular Orcs and Elves series resumes. This content didn’t exist in the original draft, but I felt it necessary to show the Orcish events during the […]

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Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Orcish Mythology

This entry is part 20 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

       While there is nothing graphic in the content below, it definitely warrants a PG-13 rating for    adult concepts. Children should obtain parental permission before reading.     We interrupt our regularly-scheduled programme for this late-breaking development: I spent so much time developing the infrastructure and notes apon which the next chapters of the […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 47-51

This entry is part 19 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… Chapters 47 to 51 were in outline note form when I started. Oh, and for those wondering how I’m tracking with my rough outline, and the estimates made at the start of […]

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On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 44-46

This entry is part 18 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* Chapter 44 was already in first-draft form, but Chapters 45 and 46 were only a very rough outline and needed considerable expansion to achieve first-draft status. I feel it necessary to […]

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