Tuesday 12 February 2019

State of the Yoonion

So, let's have some updates on some long-running projects that I have not talked about for a while.

  • Behind Gently Smiling Jaws is finally progressing well after about an interminable amount of thinking over how best to present the idea. I have a lot of good stuff in note form, stuff that I am pleased with and which I think (I hope) owes almost nothing to any pre-existing work of fantasy literature except at a very conceptual level - certainly not the the tropes which dominate the OSR. All relevant posts are tagged, but many are now out of date.
  • The Valleys of the Winter People, my samurai-in-Ainu-faerieland setting, is in a sense completed in draft form, but I am not very happy with it at all and think it needs extensive reworking. I am not sure when it will see the light of day. 
  • Another idea I have been playing with but which I don't think I have blogged about yet is called The Meeting of the Waters and is roughly based on an area of the world I do a lot of hiking; it is a kind of "Northumberland Yoon-Suin" (by which I mean, lots of random tables, but to create a setting which is loosely inspired by North East England, with gorse-bush people, pheasant people, an aristocracy of storm giants, and stuff like that).
  • I am also fiddling around with Orbis Immobilis: The Fixed World which I have quite a few posts about: it's my homage to the AD&D 2nd edition Monstrous Manual which uses all its obscurest monsters and tries to present a kind of deep Gygaxian-naturalist ecology for them all.
  • I, er, am also writing a Yoon-Suin novel which is currently about 30,000 words in length and going strong; announcing it here might jinx it, but we'll see. 

As is always the case I am keen to collaborate with interested illustrators and artists, but I am picky, very bad at responding to emails, and do not really play well with others. With those caveats in mind, contact me if you like. 

22 comments:

  1. I'm an illustrator and I like Yoon-Suin and the Fixed World. You can find my portfolio at www.tkillustration and contact me through there if you're interested.

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    1. Absolutely excellent. A Fixed World book illustrated by you would be sublime.

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    2. You definitely have the proper..."aura" to your art to work on these projects! Very nice work.

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  2. The Meeting of the Waters concept excites me greatly!

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  3. Northumberland Yoon-Suin? You're already sold a book.

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  5. Having lived my youth in Hexham and based games around the area**, I'm looking forward to The Meeting of the Waters.
    **I was a Chillingham cattle-man, more like Brian Aldiss' Phagor than a Minotaur.

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    1. Ooh, Helliconia reference, nice.

      I do most of my hiking in Northumberland National Park and up the coast but the last year or two have been branching out more into the Tyne Valley and South Tyne area. Around Haltwhistle you're about as remote as it gets in England. The last few summers we've hired a cottage in a tiny hamlet about 20 mins south of Haltwhistle - absolute bliss.

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    2. Years ago, I was told Haltwhistle was white witch country after braided effigies were found by the river.

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    3. Haltwhiste is a weird place but not quite as weird as Alston, just over the border. That is real boonies.

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  6. I like Yoon-Suin, love crocodiles, enjoy this blog, and occasionally illustrate indie rpg stuff. I'd love to draw something for Behind Gently Smiling Jaws. I don't maintain a portfolio, but here's an older one: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rpZKRkX7ezSDh4S19IVkJJeTA1VUlQTzd6TUxTUm1sQ1FR/view?usp=sharing
    Some drawings: https://www.deviantart.com/jaysumallah/gallery/

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    1. Email me if you like! jean DOT delumeau (AT) gmail.

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  7. Hey, uh, you know, uh, if you need critical test readers for any samurai-in-ainu-faerieland-type-projects, I'm sure you could find some willing volunteers.

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  8. As usual, I'm stoked to see more about all of these ideas. I used to think BGSJ was the coolest one, but that wild Northumberland setting is reallllly intriguing.

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  9. Meeting of the Waters sounds great. There's not nearly enough earthy folkloric fantasy around, and the specificity of inspiration derived from actual experience within a landscape is also underutilised.

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  10. I'm excited to hear about this progress!

    At one point you'd discussed a solar system project, with the moons of Jupiter as an island crawl. Did that idea have legs?

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    1. I did discuss it and one day, some day, it might have legs. I have so many ideas and have to pick and choose which ones to go with. That's one that I really liked but which I have not really done much with since.

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  11. Since you enjoy history, The Debatable Land by Graham Robb is perfect for The Meeting of the Waters. A history and walking tour of the borderlands. His previous works The Discovery of Middlearth (ancient celtic roads) and the Discovery of France are chalk full of gameable ideas.
    P.S. Particularly enjoyed piecing historical germs in the roots of Yoon-Suin and Eshnunna.

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  12. You mentioned a Nacaal trilogy of sorts, with BGSJ and the Mountain to the Moon. What might the third setting be, if you can say?

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    1. A post-apocalypse one with the Naacals reappearing in Victorian England.

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