Visions Of The Near Future - An Arcane Past and A Distant Tomorrow

First, Welcome Back Jeff Rients to the land of the living bloggers. I was getting a little worried about his status after the notably prolific Mr. Rients went quiet for about two whole months but it seems he is alive, well and already has something to say. Most excellent!

Now on to today's post...

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Actually, today's post isn't so much geared toward talking about something but rather letting you know about two topics I will be addressing in some detail in the near future.

I have decided to dedicate the month of December (always a strange month for me as previous December posts will reveal) to my D&D-But-Not World/Universe AERTH.

No, you did not read that wrong. No, you have not ingested some bizarre alien substance or terrestrial hallucinogen (to my knowledge anyway). No, I have not gone insane. OK, this statement is unrelated to any possible insanity on my part.

I have long put off talking about my personal Dungeons & Dragons-esque milieu with the exception of a few brief posts here and there. I would be surprised if there were more than 10-15 posts on the specifics of this campaign universe over the last 3 years and roughly 570 blog entries.

Why? And why now do I feel like talking about it?

The short answer to the first question of 'Why?' is simple. I am not really much of a D&D/Popular Fantasy genre fan. I like folklore, fairy tales and mythology but 'Lord of The Rings' and Sword & Sorcery stories just don't do much for me. I have dedicated a good portion of my time and effort on this blog talking about games few people talk about. There are dozens and dozens of D&D blogs, all written by guys and gals who actually like the subject. More power to them. It means I can talk about other things.

So why do it now/in December? That is harder to answer. I am not sure. I just want to. I need to get it out of my system so I can focus on other ideas. It's a little like spring cleaning except in my head. And it's not spring.

The entries will talk about the world, it's people, monsters, magic and other elements you would expect to find in a D&D campaign. The differences between this milieu and other D&D settings will be addressed along with the simularities. Very few rules will go with it unless the nature of the material is directly tied to my homebrew mechanics (Magic, the Draconic Language and some Peoples/Races and Monsters come to mind). If anyone asks me to elaborate I will be happy to.

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The second thing I want to announce is that I will be working on a Traveller campaign to be run...eventually. I am hoping sometime early next year. Depending on how well things go with Ars Magica I suppose. Nonetheless, I will be doing a number of posts on the subject starting in Janurary. My plan is to have everything prepped and ready well in advance of the launch.

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That's that for now.

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