Blended Jorune

I think I'm going to build on the idea of Blended Jorune from SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #6.

It would be a simple way to bring a team of players to Jorune for some world discovery. If you think the only purpose of gaming is to go through labyrinths to find treasure, you can do that on Jorune, too. I probably won't be publishing much on that. You could do it, though.

Advanced Isho, as I have seen it, Including Mashal on the left, under Gobey/Desti.

The biggest issue is the use of Isho in other game systems. Isho is not magic, but a system with an existing magic system could be tweaked for replacing cantrips, chants, readings, and potions with "weaving" to create the dyshas. Dyshas are not spells and have very specific, even limited, effect.

Just a random piece of art I found on the
web. Don't know who. Isho naull?

But it could be done.

I had such a horrible experience doing conversions for release as a free web document, that I am loathe to step back into. But I think I could take the existing conversions and extract their Isho systems, plus my own notes.

As a side note, GOMO GUIDE; TAN IRICID, may be getting a new boost from someone who is at least willing to edit/proof the issue. That would be nice.

One or two other projects may get out of the box. but I'll deal with those later.

Isho systems seem to be the demand of the moment.

Oh, SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL will have a couple of other bits intended for RED GATE with SHOLARI v2n2. If that magazine is to come out, I will have to debate reworking the clips I've published in SSC for representation, but so few people see the newsletter, it might be doable. it requires that I do the wrong thing - art. My art. Not happy about my art, but... I seem to be available to do it. :(

I cruise the web to find inspiration, and I like this mapping technique.
Will steal it, I'm sure. And it will most likely be Jorune.

I'm having a series of projects and I need to pick one that will produce an income - a trickle at least. My freelance jobs have dried up - my favorite client has had to close down his business, and another who paid me up front has yet to say what he wants me to do with his logo and website. But I'm continuing to search. If you don't look, you are unlikely to find.

I am also looking at some non-Jorune projects. There is my own Lost Colony setting, started as a novel several years before Jorune, but adapts well to the whole mythos of the forgotten settlement.

KOHLNE is a corruption of "Colony" with multiple races against established aleins, but also a fight between factions of the human population, driving a purity-bent against those who have been genetically modified to better suit the world in various environments. It is the most Jorune-like, but I have a far future narrative on the resurrection of a human culture under the benign guidance of two entities who pronounce themselves to not be gods, lest the be confusion. There are three books for that, with the working title MORE THAN THIS. Maybe some novellas to follow on character through adolescence, late teens, and full adulthood, exploring the options of the church culture, with an eye to how people behave in the here and now.

As much as I love Jorune, it is the here and now where I live and things must associate with the here and now to be worth my time. Even Isho.

But from the here and now - Forward into 3517. That is the current year in Burdoth, but there are other calendars. 2018 here. 1439 dating from the Haj, 5210 Kali Yuga, 5779 Hebrew, 4713 (or 4653) Cock Chinese (until February 2, when it becomes Dog), 174 Baha'i, 2561 Buddhist, 1734 Coptic, 3183 Discordian, 1938 Shaka Samvat Indian (I like living in 1938 again), 2144 Tibetan, 4350 Korean...  and so on. The sun comes up, the sun goes down - we make up the rest of that shit.

But My take is different. Have a Happy NOW! It's where you live.

Just discovered a page on Facebook

Another page but with great reproductions of the fanzines that made me want to do a modern version of zines for Skyrealms of Jorune.

Fanzine Appreciation and History

Beautiful scans of the amateur magazines that were my source and inspiration.

The Corrected CYMK cover.

As part of my personal fanzine karma, I finally connected with someone to get a clean 300dpi scan of STAR STUDDED COMICS #7, published by the Texas Trio (Howard Keltner, Buddy Saunders, and my old fan friend Larry Herndon). It went off to the printer for the wonder of 4-Color Lithographic (Offset, actually) printing for a litho fanzine, the creme-de-la-creme of zine publishing.

But the printer reversed the Cyan and Magenta plates. I have previously tried to correct that error but was limited to the 72 dpi scans I could find online. Which were insufficient.

300dpi allowed me to go into the graphic, convert to CYMK, copy the four plates (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) into a new Photoshop file, make each level "Multiply" for overlay viewing, and then "colorize" the black copies of the plate to the appropriate key color.

As it appeared in 1965 (1966?)

I'm pleased with the result, even if it is "too green" for me. I would have colored it differently - but as an effort to clean up the original ...

I must confess. I tweaked the Defender, whose costume was Red White and Blue, but Howard's color assignments made it brown white and green. I also made the fog blue, as Biljo White said it should be. But the rest - witness the burning of 50-year-old karma, which started the first time I saw STAR STUDDED COMICS #6 and #7 on Wayne Baldaro's kitchen table, on my first visit to him after having my letter published in TALES OF SUSPENSE #63 (the Origin of Captain America).

Yeah, I'm old.

Burning karma for the new year. Free at last.

Alien Skyrealms

Jorune is not the only source of skyrealms and art about flying mountains. Just a few I've found along the years. I'd like to find other examples.

This last one is a scene I like. I would take it as a scene beneath a skyrealm as it is freed from the ground by whatever force of levitation raise it.

There might be a story in that.

Regifts for the Holiday

A young Joruni from Idaho showed up to fill the vacuum from the other editors I don't have. He's young. He doesn't know any better. But as a result, SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #6 is out. Again. Without the debilitating sadness that is Joe's Brain, in all its buttery goodness. The horrendous error, that hideous truth, has been removed so some day in the distant future people will not know it was even there. Back to 16 pages, but i don't feel bad about it. It's my commitment.

I went to siphon material out from the doubtful SHOLARI v2n2 and put the nuggets into SSC at the measured flow. A steady Jorune drip. Go ahead, you can call me that - I won't get offended.

INTRODUCTION TO WARP MECHANICS - A revision from the article that originally appeared in ANNALS OF THE TAN SOOR HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

BLENDED JORUNE - and idea to bring your near future sci-fi team to Jorune as it exists close-to-now- with an option to move them forward in time to enjoy the Jorune we know. After if breaks their brains. We are assuming most of your players only know Jorune as a cool game they bought, oooh'd and aahhhh'd over the art, and never played. Your group, your system, you need to spend some time working a way of Isho into the game, but ... not much of a problem since Human's can't play with isho.

THE MES DIG, a location from the planned RED GATE from v2n2, but available for your own adventures in Sydra. Including over 60 items that you might want to use to pay, bribe, or have the horror of watching them steal them. A good deal of information on Keeper Rods, too. Why they don't make them much these days, what to find in them, and some Earth-tec or Trade goods, too. More of THE RED GATE will be extracted for future SSC.

YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN WESTERN DRAIL - Something is up and the people who would know about don't come back to tell us what's going on aren't coming back to tell us what's going. We don't know what' going on, but we thought a warning would be a good idea. Trarch can get ugly. And angry, too. Ow.

There will also be a new freebie on the website - the Blended Jorune article, plus some information on the whole Return to Jorune Line with links to over 800 pages of free downloads. Give me a day or so.

A recent letter called my charging for Jorune material "Offensive." Really. Oh, I am wracked with grief. Seriously. There could be tears.

That Hideous Truth

At least one person actually read the copy of SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #6 and discovered that I had published the same articles twice in 18 pages.

Sigh.

And I put the wrong number in the header.

It looked good. I did some careful typing, watched my widows and orphans, did 18 pages on the hidden aspects of Jorune. one page at a time. And did not notice that three pages happened twice. With different layout, but the same article. One page at a time does not give a good result for a whole issue.

Corrected. But now I need one more page to meet my 16-page commitment.

Sigh.

After 25 years of typos, I'm starting to think my overnight success will not happen.

Oh, yeah.

I forgot to mention here, SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL 5 was released a couple of weeeks ago. I should have #6 ready to go shortly. Bits that I had hoped to publish in later issues of SHOLARI, which are in question now.

A thriddle flying machine. Well, not reall a machine...

An archeological dig. A place where espionage and querrid study (science) come in conflict, and an adventure or two could be had.

These two are parts of THE RED GATE, which was planned for SHOLARI v2n2. The rest of that story will be in future SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL. BLUE GATE. BLACK GATE.

For the cover - a picture of a Corondon from the old days - original lost be recreatioin from the T-shirt.

Why not?

Dizzy

I have been working on an article of Recos and Genons, but it has turned into 70 pages and needs serious work, so... not for SSC #6.

But i have material intended for some modules and can break it down into approprit earticles. A Thriddle flying machine. The Mes dig in the Sularvan swamp. Maybe some material on the underworld Death Pits of Auklin - illegal, of course.

But at least I know what #6 will be about.

The Stream

This is not a Woffen. Just found on the web.

I do not know what will get published at this point. My editors have stopped talking to me. Only one artist stays in touch and we may move to a different project. Submissions are non-existant. I admit it does feel like a serious waste of time to ask them to do more. Response has been very low - lower than any time in the past 22 years.

I have three colelctions of materail I want to put out under the "Collected" series. Those are done and look to be about 200 pages of materail. My original stuff ... maybe I will get the GOMO GUIDE; TAN IRICID out sometime in 2018 (which is onloy a month away). Maybe. SHOLARI and additional GOMO GUIDES are completely under the market showing iself.

I have a list of things I wanted to write, so I will take those, with their various levels of completion, and get them into shape to feed SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL  I have made the commitment to get them out up to #14.

So the first will be the warp series, RED DOOR, BLUE DOOR, and BLACK DOOR, with the revision of the Introduction to Warp Mechanics from the old ANNALS OF THE TAN SOOR HISTORICAL SOCIETY. That will take up two issues of SSC, The underworld of Auklin Thike Fighres - yeah, another issue for that.

So, something will be done. I'm trying to focus on doing some art, which may or may not be Jorune oriented.

Something is better than nothing, I think. At lest one online comment has confused me me. "Don't Do that!" "Don't do what?" "Don't do that, but keep up the great work." ?????? I learned not to argue with a drunk but I don't know if that respondent had had anything to drink. But I don't have the need or interest to push for more clarification.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

???

I don't undestand.

Someone posted a real crazymaking message on Jorune, I asked for specifics and they repeated the same statement.

Not to give away all the secrets.

Like that would even be possible. It is an entire planet and to this point I have detailed one neighborhood of one city, one prevously undiscussed part of history (Lamorri Invasion), and a new bit of history unknown - the end of the Mashalta-Ca in the tragedy of the Gift. On continental masses equal to the New World, approximately.

And after that was "keep up the good work." So - pixies will come in the night to tell me what "All" meants, or an example fo where I did it.

Stop, do more, don't do what your doing but good work.

I'd be in a realtionship if I wanted that kidn of passive agreesivnes. At least there I might get laid.

Viewpoints

First, it has taken me several chapters into ANGEL OF DRAIL to realize how saturated someone would have to be to read a Jorune novel that is 'just' a Jorune novel. So much background and a real need to introduce without explaining.

I am really not happy with the three chapters about to appear in SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #5, but that's what is there. I think it needs to be told from the viewpoint of - the new arrival. Too much plot given away even to say who that is. The discovery of the world through the eyes of a newcomer seems to be the right way to go.

One of the strengths of STAR TREK was it did not explain everything, it just USED the technology, WENT to the places, and MET strange people with seafood on their heads. I tried that approach with the draft I'm about to release... and it does not feel right.

I know my story, I know the scenes, I know where it is going, and longtime Jorunis will enjoy it. But my worry is that ONLY longtime Jorunis will enjoy it.

And that's not a way to improve the access to Jorune.

Oh well. #5 coming up. I grumble.

Back to Drail

Corondon extracted from an old
tee shirt by Miles Teves. Dhar?

The beginning of the Holidays has seen a lot of drama with my little circle of humans. Hospitals, funerals, births, emotions, finances... lots. Just like other real people.

I'm finishing the rewrite of Chapter 3 for the ANGEL OF DRAIL for SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL, and working on other things in the background for pre-Christmas release.

I've also been working on a little web video to introduce people to Jorune. I could even put a copy of it into a coming issue of SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL since PDFs also support media. That would be kind of interesting.

I have a list of topics for essays and am getting interested in Recos and the Storm Wall.

But a lot of my energy has had to be redirected to earn money, which is useful on this planet. And necessary since I have my own human dramas boiling in the background.

I think I am a little disheartened. No one else seems to be interested in talking about Jorune on the web - not through the Yahoo group, the Facebook Pages, this blog, or anywhere else. So I will keep up my monologue for a while longer, then take the hint.

Review

I really hoped to get more feedback on the project, but I am not unfamiliar with providing my own. I just suspect the source.

In review, we have put out the original, and the reboot version of GOMO GUIDE: THONEPORT. I see things that I would like to do differently, but I'm not going to keep tweaking. Learn the lessons, move on. Later, if I get the two planned GOMO GUIDES out (Tan Iricid and The Great Lake District) in the new format, I will do a layout for Thoneport to fit with the others. It has been out for a while and I will leave it alone. For a while.

SHOLARI v2n1 is finally real, PDF and Print versions. That was like giving birth, with a demon trying to force it back in. The print maze with DriveThruRPG almost made me drop the whole thing for something with fewer headaches and frustrations. But, months behind the intended release, the arcane system was bested and both editions are out.

Out of the frustration with DriveThruRPG came something I could control — and it's always about control, isn't it? SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL has been the most satisfying, most organic, most spontaneous, and I knew that the whatever I decided to do would get into people's hands. My goal was 100 subscribers, and I have 9 subscribers, had 6 up-front, and another five single-copy buyers. Nowhere near the go and I've had to drop things to find some sources of money to cover the problems of new surgery, hiked medical costs, standard inflation (which the authorities say we aren't having, but they don't include food in their inflation calculation), and non-standard gouging from taxes, fees, services and the like. If I had the support from Jorune, I could focus on Jorune.

I've been a one-man band and my experience is people just stop responding. I cannot help but take that personally. I am the only thing they all have in common, but they just stop. I don't know why, I don't get a warning, or an explanation, just wind blowing across the prairie and a tumbleweed rolling across the street.

That means six things have been published in the last year, despite the problems with hardware, software and Joe's brain. Thoneport, Sholari, and four issues of Segment: Sho-Caudal. Six is good. I had been hoping for twelve, but six is good.

If you know someone who loved Jorune, I hope this is faithful to the spirit and make the world richer and more textured. I love going to Jorune for some time out, and I would like other people to find something interesting. But aside from three people who wrote a couple of emails, I have not heard or seen any response, good or bad.

I was invited.

I'll continue. The computer problems seem to be over (thought Adobe CC 2018 has serious problems for Photoshop and InDesign that may cause me to drop both of them), a friend has let me use his Adobe CC account and that will need to stop. I had hoped the trickle of money from subscriptions would cover that. But - doesn't look like. And the energy spent doing other things does not just take away that amount of time, it wears me out so that I don't have the energy or ability to do what it takes to do Jorune.

Finishing up SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #5 in the next two weeks, got back into ORFA for release (it will be a free product so I don't worry if people don't like how long it takes). I will get them edited and then release that one to begin on #6. I can do 16 pages in my sleep. I have to be awake for Tan Iricid and the next Sholari, but I can probably get those done. They may be full of typos, but I can do them.

Trudge

I'm writing for about 15 people, excluding the people who did the "Sample Copy" thing.

I'm going to polish the three chapters of THE ANGEL OF DRAIL and start focusing on some art, for my own satisfaction. I have a list of articles for future issues of SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL.

My target was 100 subscribers. My reason was to get some extra money so I could meet the growing co-pays and extra charges for everything in my life.  That has not worked out.

15 people expect some Jorune in their email, and I will work to fulfill that commitment. But I need to find other channels.

If anyone would like to supply an anonymous check for $2,000 a month, that would be really nice. But I'm not expecting it.

I think I will finish my book on propaganda, a consumers guide to manipulation and defense manual. Or some such title. Or finish my commentary on modern Christianity – but I'm not quite ready to be assassinated.

So - Propaganda. Maybe I can use some to promote sales. Sales are still a big mystery to me. Apparently.