We’re nearly at the point where we publish Cups now. According to my notes we threw around ideas for a while, and then started in January, with writing in individual files1I wrote in the layout file, because I’m special, but really I shouldn’t have. I just got lazy.. We talked over the relationships as we wrote people, and after a while we moved things over to layout and told Kris which art we wanted.
All of us had at least some writing, which meant that early on, we shared the research tasks. In general we then all wrote notes for our sections, and expanded the notes until they were people. Then we had a lot of people we could mash together, and we could work out how they reacted to each other. Why does Oric hate Engbran? Why does Oraninna like that foreign farmer who’s half her age? Why did Sagak get hired? We don’t have to work out all of the problems, because that way we leave plenty of plot hooks for gamemasters. We try to put in suggestions that will make interesting things happen, rather than fiating a solution to a problem that the players have no reason to care about when they first meet it. It’s important to us that every gamemaster can make the area their own.
As much as Dregs, Cups has an area with its own personality, in this case an affluent place with many crafters, but with a hint of what life is like for the poor as well; Tanomak and Sagak each live in a single tiny room, but they have no problems with finding food, and they do not have to share their space. Others live in larger houses, but space may still be hard to come by, as the families are larger. The area is called Elisanda’s Grove by officials, but there has not been a grove there since Clearwine was the old hill fort, Brondagal. Most people nowadays call it Sandy Corner.
We’re waiting for the art to be finished – we only have one Kris, despite our attempts to clone her, and she is doing the cover as well as the character art. The people are drawn, but there’s a layer of Runes to put onto them. The cover has a design, and she needs to create it from that design.
Then it’s final proof-reading, and we’re ready for launch.
