"An Elegy for Sivar" - WCRPG Campaign Discussion Thread

Began work on the bases on Firekka today - last system to go in the entire Sector. And naturally as close as I am to the end, I hit a snag.

For all the work I've done with the Kilrathi language of late, I've hardly got anything on the Firekkan language...

May just have to keep that one simple. Either that or just make stuff up. With lots and lots of unpronouncable consonant combinations and heavy use of the letter "i"......

Both of y'all will forgive me if I punt on this one, right?
 
Bases are done!

Next on the agenda for the Epsilon Sector campaign setting is encounter tables. First step there is to finalize the capabilities of the various factions in the Sector in terms of ships and fighters. For the tables themselves, I'm thinking that each one needs to include a set of possibilities on either a d10 or d% roll, with a different set of outcomes at each nav point in a given system. This will make things work like they did in Privateer; each nav point had a fixed set of possible outcomes (a set of ships and the skill levels of their pilots) and a percent-chance of a particular outcome (and therefore a particular encounter) occurring. Leaning towards using the d10; though the d% would give me a much larger set of possible outcomes, it'd mean more work for me. That's not set in stone yet.

I had the thought last night to add a series of tables for various time frames in Epsilon, specifically a time frame from 2680-2700. Given that I'd have to adjust the communities over that time for the massive influx of refugees they'd receive (and lose) and the new dilemmas they'd face (a little thing called the Nephilim War), that'd add a hell of a lot more work. I think what I'll do instead is add an "adjustment factor" rule for those who want to play the campaign setting during the Nephilim War years (which basically would override the encounter tables with an initial chance to have an encounter with the Nephilim) and come up with a set of adjustments for the bases (they'd all receive the "Plagued" complication for a time - I'm looking forward to coming up with a set of effects for the Green Plague - and I'm sure some of them would be quarantined for periods of time; some of them might get wiped off the map by the Nephilim - Decatur Station and Marcinko Station, the other two Halseys I've put in Epsilon, immediately come to mind).

I've come to realize that there's going to have to be a lot more to the Elegy campaign than just the Epsilon Sector data; I'm going to be re-organizing that part of the wiki site some time in the coming weeks. I imagine the Epsilon Sector data will move to a new page when that happens. It'll all still be accessible for y'all's perusing, but I wanted to give y'all a heads-up on that before I did it.
 
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Natural 1 again. Dammit.

Geez - has it only been three months? Seems longer than that. Anyway, I've finished setting the force dispositions for the various factions in Epsilon, and I'm finally ready to resume work on the encounter tables. I finalized my encounter table mechanism yesterday and I've pretty well dropped the notion of working with any year in Epsilon other than 2680 for the Elegy campaign, though I don't discount the notion of working with the map again in the future.

So, the work I'm focused on right now involves establishing trade routes throughout the Sector, the idea being that encounters would be more likely along them. I'm finding it difficult to establish a criteria upon which the trade routes will be based. What I've done so far is to determine the number of nav points in each system (including the number of out-sector jumps if possible), the total population of each system based on the work I did with bases a while ago, and the types of bases in each system. I'm also going to consider what factions have representation in each system - for governments, corporations and guilds, this will be easy. For paramilitary groups (militias, pirates, retros, etc.), this is going to be more difficult to establish. I also have the Landreich to consider; they hold no territory in Epsilon but I imagine they might do a fair amount of trade in the Sector.

So far I'm thinking that there will be trade routes going in and out of Firekka. Yes, I know that Firekka was "well off the trade routes" in 2654, before they joined the Confederation. But I imagined that changed shortly after Operation Crusade, with them gaining Confederation membership and having an established specialty trade good (namely Firekka's finest). I've been analyzing routes between the homeworlds (using Epsilon Prime as the capital of the UBW, something I establish in the campaign). The route between Firekka and Landreich appears to be particularly convoluted.

Speaking of which - maybe one of y'all knows this: how stringent are the quarantines on the Telemon and Trafalgar systems, respectively? Is it that no one is allowed into the system at all, or that they are just not allowed to land on the planets? I can see a big point of contention economically if the quarantines are absolute - namely in terms of trade between Firekka and Landreich as well isolating the "lower" Union of Border Worlds (the members of Enigma Sector and Antares Quadrant, including the capital) from the "upper" part (Deneb and Sa'Khan Quadrant, as well as Vega Sector).

Do y'all have any thoughts on the topic? Where would y'all establish trade routes within the Sector?
 
Hey, quick question for anyone who might happen to be in the know: regarding Privateer Online, was there ever any concept art released? I'm specifically looking for anything planned for the Firekkans. I've got a copy of the v0.1 design document, which of course is light on art (but not wholly devoid of it). I do have JasonRocZ's Valtar fighter but that's the only thing I've seen so far.
 
I did not; I was able to install FontForge on my box but never really have gotten around to playing with it much. Still on my to do list. I can probably knock out a word or two real quick if there's something any of y'all need in a hurry, but no such font just yet.
 
No particular need here - just thought it'd be a cool thing to share with everyone when you finish. :)
 
Hey y'all - I was having some fun with GIMP last night and thought I'd share...


kilrathi_title.png

This is the campaign's title translated into the Kilrathi language and written in burning Kilrathi letters (the Prophecy version anyways). Still not sure if Kilrathi is written left-to-right, right-to-left, or what; this is left-to-right and I'll have to check it again to see if that's right or not.

Incidentally, I've received word back from Denis Loubet in regards to the cover art; a Kickstarter is now being organized and I will let y'all know when it goes live.
 
I'm a little bit over 24 hours in now - and should I be concerned that I've raised almost exactly what I thought I'd have raised at this point?

Probably. Could definitely use y'all's help - if not with actual donations, at least in helping to spread the word..

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1683797791/an-elegy-for-sivar-wcrpg-campaign-art

Seriously, y'all - this is a chance for more WC art from the guy who was responsible for what you saw in the first two games...
 
I'm in a bit of a fight with my bank right now but that should be rectified by this week. It won't be anything large but I can throw in some dough soon.

Good luck Capi!
 
We are careful about what Kickstarters we mention in the news, but we can include this one in a post related to the RPG. Still, $1650 sounds like it could be a challenging goal. Given the tiers, you need either 16 people willing to kick in $100, which is a sizable commitment, or 66 people willing to give $25 for the primary benefit of seeing a picture. You and I and everyone who's ever posted in this thread might be on board, but I don't know if that adds up to enough.

It'll take quite a bit of campaiging to seal the deal. Good luck!
 
@capi3101
Just received this link http://crowdhunt.co/ as an answer to my Tweet about backing the project.
You might want to get your kickstarter listed there.

For me, personally, it's incredible how long you've already been working on this project without losing focus.
I'm glad to be able to show my appreciation for the project this way
 
Thanks for the tip, delMar; I went ahead and signed up with Crowdhunt just a little bit ago. And thanks for your pledge as well.
 
Awesome! Thanks for the links. Going to have to contact those guys for a) permission to include the designs and b) information on intended performance/defenses/weaponry if I get the go ahead.

Maps, maps and more maps. I've actually been able to use my nascent and growing skills with writing VASSAL mods to helping me translate that map data I generated into finalized maps. Slow process...the biggest issue has been generating the system names for the maps, but I can report that effort finished...

Built the suckers by hand; talk about a Byzantine way of doing things...going to see if I can figure out FontForge and actually turn that into something useable (somebody finally built a port for Windows). Looking forward to designing Greek and Hebrew glyphs in this same style...

Kabla Meth's the only map that has been finalized so far; I'm still considering changes to Jakal and Valgard.​
Did you ever get this font created? I'd love to get a copy if you don't mind.
 
No, I didn't. Though apparently the characters are accessible from the original games; there was a recent brief discussion on the topic. IIRC, that was inside Denis Loubet's thread.

I can still do individual names by hand if need be.
 
No, I didn't. Though apparently the characters are accessible from the original games; there was a recent brief discussion on the topic. IIRC, that was inside Denis Loubet's thread.

I can still do individual names by hand if need be.
I believe that is the simulator and terminal font from WC1 and WC2, I thought about creating a font for it too but I never got around to it. The text font from WC1 and WC2 was a lot easier to make.
 
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