Distraction

It was part of SSC #13, but it has acquired a life of its own.

For several years I wanted to do Jorunigraphica, but a simple article for the last issue of SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL has grown beyond all reason.

This is Jorune. You didn't know that? Really? After all this time?

Jorunigraphica was to be. reference to the geographic locations of Jorune, where a Sholari might be expected to run a team through some kind of romp and circumstance. And I thought it would be nice to do a one-page map as a programmed PDF. Roll. your little mouse over the map and a pop-up would give you where, in the body of Jorune matrial, you would find information about that spot on the map.

So I started doing that. Programming buttons with pop-up messages isn't all that difficult and I've done that before.

But restricting it to fanzines means I'm looking at about 600 pages of material to wade through.

So it may spin off, wildly threatening to this planet and there could be no survivors.

Sigh.

I think it's because I had a good response to my "Next Three or Next Five" posting. That encouraged me and while working on SSC #13 I thought I needed a break. And gave birth to this monstrosity.

I blame support.

Topsy

In UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, the slave Topsy was asked how she was raised. "I wasn't raised - I just growed," she said. I won't get going on the paternalistic, racist nature of the characters presented, particularly out of historical context, but the quote applies.

And so it is my Jorune.

I was thinking I had SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #13, CHILDREN OF BOMOVERIS, and GOMO GUIDE; TAN IRICID, was all I had left to be done.

Oh, there is ORFA (One Role Fits All) for Jorune. Well, that, of course.

And the promised JORUNE BASHING article I casually mentioned I would do back in the first issues of SSC. Of course, finish that.

But the COLLECTED series. That is COLLECTED BORKELBY'S FOLLY and COLLECTED DANSTEAD TRAVELLER. But I lost communication with those editors, but long time Joruni ___ put me back in touch with Ray Gillham. So, Borkelby's back on the boards. I have not had a response from Kym Paugh since she went into hospital two years ago, but I'm hopeful.

And I finally decided to with the COLLECTED SHO COPRA JOE*. Yeah. My stuff. Properly edited in one volume from Sholari v1n1, v1n2, v1n3, Annals of the Tansoor Historical Society, and my articles from SSC, all gathered up into one volume. (But not my stuff from the Gomo Guides or Sholari v2n1). Hard copy.

Okay, Those. But...

Oh. The novel. ANGEL OF DRAIL. Yeah. I already know the full story, it has been outlined, so its just the petty matter of writing the whole... yeah. That. Okay. Put that on the list.

Stop it!

One thing I've done with the past few print projects - I set up my recent DriveThruRPG titles to make the PDF the big purchase, like $12, and the hard copy is $14, with a free PDF included. I do pay some royalties to folks who have been working with me - others have been kind enough to refuse royalties.

I feel like a mobster from the old Hollywood gangster movies. "They pull me back in..."

The problem is I'm leaving Jorune because of energy and finances. Energy in the sense of my available time on keyboard or online, and finances because - I don't have them. I need finances. I'll take filthy lucre in almost any form. Dollars, Pounds, Euros, Zloties, Rial, Yen, Rupees, Bhat, Pesos, Bolivars... really. Collect them all. My medical stuff, which I'm told put people off, requires I have finances to do things - particularly in this country with its criminal medicine for profit system.

Ahem.

So I've decided to revive the old "Advance" schema used previously. in the past four years I've averaged one release every three and a half months, so I think I have the track record to put out the offer for the Next Three, or the Next Five, Jorune releases in PDF format, in advance of public release. Whichever titles they may be. Or you can choose the option where people, who might feel so inclined, to just make a general contribution to keep me, and my projects, moving forward.

The "Next Three, or Next Five", link is here.

And I have to get back to work.

____
* I may have already mentioned that I chose Sho Copra Joe as my nom d'Jorune to reflect my feeling about my relation to the world. I don't consider myself to be a master, but a student of Jorune learning as much of the world as I can. And I might be the Most Elevated (Sho) Student (Copra) on this planet. I can accept that, with its ego. I'm not a Sholari, the most elevated teacher, but content to always be in a position to learn more. Which can only be shown to me by other people revealing their vision of that world. 

Winding Down

My naull is rich in Cie-Ebba.

The torch of Jorune will pass and I am about to make an offer to people who supported the Return to Jorune project over the past several years. I think I have enough of a good reputation of completing my commitments in the past that people will be open to what I offer.

I made contact with Ray Gilham (thanks to Matthew Pook) and his Collected Borkelby's Folly project moving again.

Efforts continue to find Kym Paugh (of Danstead Traveller fame) to get her collection going again.

And I am chewing Segment: Sho-Caudal #13. Bakers Dozen. What is the Joruni word for "Baker"? Maybe Baker's can't count.

A while back someone suggested I gather all my material, give it a proper editing, and release that, too. That means Sholari #1-#3, Annals of the Tan Soor* Historical Society, and all 13 issues of Segment: Sho-Caudal under one cover. Edited.

I'm warming to that.

The finale will be the campaign that fueled my California group from 1992 to 2001, The Children of Bomoveris.

I am looking forward to seeing what other people bring to Jorune.

* A couple of people complained that it is "Tan Sor." No, two different words. Tan Sor is the low gate of Tan Iricid - the security gate non-servents of the Mountain Crown must use to enter. It is Corastin controlled gate where a visitor presents a giddyne for admission. The Tan Soor is the high gate, for the students, the servants of the Mountain Crown, enter. Attempting to pass through the Tan Sor without permission of the Corastin guard will get you flattened. Entry through the Tan Soor without proper credential may lead to prolong imprisonment, interrogation, and flattening. That will be explained in the Gomo Guide: Tan Iricid. And has been hinted at repeatedly.

Groovy

I completed SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #12 and got it out. Nice.

I posted notices on the Yahoo Jorune Group, which seems to be completely dead, and the Shambo in the Shenter page on Facebook, which is mostly dead.

But I got a request for information and that let me review the state of the Previews. Too old. So I did a new preview - 55 pages, including all twelve covers. Too big for most email gateways - over 20 Megs. But I don't want to cut it down. Maybe I can improve the compression, but until I do there are a couple of options.

• A link. You can download the sample through this here link. Share it with anyone you want to share it with.
• A Google Disk option in emails, but some people have trouble with the Google Disk.

But my tiny brain got hooked on it and I did a different introduction to Jorune. There are already three introductions through the links to archive.org. But I decided to do a document/PDF in the "new" format - 8.5 x 8.5. This introduces the game, the editions, the supplements, and the fanzines, including GOMO GUIDE: THONEPORT and SHOLARI v2 n1. With links to sales on those two with DriveThruRPG.com. And, of course, a link to the SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL page.

Which resulted in one sale in the first 12 hours it was up, and the inquiry that prodded new sampler.

The Sampler #3 and the GETTING INTO JORUNE PDF are intended to be shareable. Send them to anyone you think might be interested. Post the link where-ever you think someone might get the Jorune infection started.

If it is just me posting, people are annoyed. If three or four people were to comment on such posts or make their own posts (gasp), it could be taken as more than one crazy guy.

Very few people view this blog so it could be taken as a conspiracy.

---

The final version of the file has been uploaded to archive.org. Share with anybody you think might be interested. https://archive.org/details/GettingIntoJorune2019Final_201905

Finally

New Field Adminstration Center
Under Construction

SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #12 has been mailed out.

What was the world the Colonials left? What were they hoping to find?

This issue is all about the Colonials, Flights One through Three. Including your application for Flight Three.

And a photograph of Katija Jorune arriving on the world she had predicted.

Other bits that may be of interest.

I'm tired.

And Blogger will not let me post as Return2Jorune. Oh well. 

Contact if you are interested in getting the whole set of 1-12, or cherry picking form the series. 

Moving into SSC #12

I'm waiting for the editor who has the text for SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #12 to send me the final and then the issue will be laid out and sent to subscribers.

This issue has the theme of THE BLOOD OF EARTH. It gives the magic pixie-dust required for any star colonial project - FTL transportation. Jorune becomes the first world to benefit with a new way of analyzing the composition of extra-solar worlds resulting in a target for the first attempt at colonization.

There is consideration that life probably already exists so the spectrum of possiblities enteres the mix. Robotic probes show indication there is high level life - probably cities. There are seven moons and a complex model of energies flowing between the world and satellites. What is Isho?

That information becomes part of the mix for the first military-diplomatic expedition to identify the realities of the new world and, if it can be done safely, establishing the first bases on the planet. They report back that there are at least three separate biologies actively sharing the planet and at least seven intelligent species (and a couple of semi-intelligent species), only one of which can be declared "Native."

It was dubbed "Jorune's World," which was shortened to "Jorune," but the races who call this world home share the name given by those natived - "Sho-Caudal." It is not a name, it is a description. Sho implying the highest, Caudal is the mix of air, water, life, and this strange energy saturting the world and its inhabitants, contemplated with the subtleties the arriving humans, or "hoomanzi," struggled to comprehend.

Why would anyone come to Jorune's World? What were they hoping to find? What were they running from?

This is an imperfect collection of the documents circulated to create the Colonial population, the models of the intial settlements of less than 100,000 individuals and their ideas of what the "new world" should be.

Jorune was a world of hope for the hoomanzi. It was salvation for the Thriddle. It was betrayal for the Cleash and an unstructured open place to work the savage ways the Ramian were given as the warrior race for the vanished Lamorri.

And behind it all the quite Shantha move through their underground tunnels, to their underground cities, to live in harmony with their beloved Sho-Caudal, in life and in death. Their thoughts remain their own, speaking through their Thriddle archivists and diplomats.

There were no Iscin races, there were no Thivin, there were no human mutations to compete for the new lands. There were thousands of years of history across the disconnected parts of the planet readers discovered with first edition Jorune and the wonder of the Second Edition Skyrealms of Jorune boxed set.

SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #12 will explore that beginning, with an application to become a Colonial.

It is also the fulfillment of the 12-issue promise made more than a year ago. I delivered much more than I promised, and I feel good about that.

Issue #13 is being pulled together because some people bought one issue and subscribed to twelve, others subscribed to twelve and were extended because of some foul up on my part. Thirteen will contain the last of my 25-years of notes. Descriptions, cultures, histories, maps and more. I will publish that to close this chapter of my Jorune-life and so that some new Sholari can take the ideas and build them for a Jorune of their own. Maybe their Jorune be run with their live group. Or maybe it will be shared online, as I have done.

But we will talk about #13 after #12 if is the hands of subscribers.

Classic French Jorune

I don't think it is the source of skyrealms, but I love French painters. Who knows of a flying mountain before Magritte? I know of the Land of Green Ginger, but ...

Hey. Exposure.

How nice. A couple of months ago I was asked to participate in a video podcast with Steven Devaney (editor of the next big move for Jorune) and the show host, Matt Finch. Took us a while to get our schedules to mesh, but we finally succeeded. I was told the show would be ready in about three weeks, but it's barely been two and ... here it is.

https://youtu.be/lEKs-hlNZ74

It was a lot of fun, even if I found like someone was squeezing my trid-nodes in the first few minutes (maybe I need to do these awake).  But Steve and Matt were fun to do this kind of nostalgic run with.

I feel okay about it. Maybe someone will get interested in Jorune.

It is still worth the exploration.

Groovy.

A Boost

Stephen Devaney and I were asked by a the host to participate in a video blog for a YouTube channel. We've been dancing, trying to get all three of us in line for a recording session. Tonight, everything came together and we had the chance.

It was talk of things Jorune, with a particular focus on aliens, the art of gaming, and all of the incredible people who came together to create the original game, including the art, the iterations of the editions, including the computer game. We spoke about the fanzines and a new breath into the old Jorune body for the current generation of gamers - a D20 version of the world for gamers.

Most of this will be familiar to readers of this blog, but if you've wanted to expose your friends to Jorune, this may be the way to do it. Who knows. It may mean Jorune will get a chance to find a wider audience.

I'll post the details as soon as we're told the blog is ready to post on it's YouTube channel.

Zombie Jorune

I have been seriously out of touch with profound problems with Apple and how they handle my access to my Macs, with the rejoinder "We don't support that anymore." But I've been able to get things up to the point where I can start working with a word processor again.

I've had other Earth drama related to health and cash flow, but what else is new?

But tonight I got a very interesting note from a guy who wants to interview me for his old school D&D blog - about Jorune.

So, if something happens there, I'll post the information here.

If you post to other Jorunis, please carry that word. When I'm the only one posting, I'm the only one posting. When other people post, people start a conversation.

The Colonial Ballot piece threatened to blow up, so I'm trying to keep it down to <20 pages and will release it as Segment: Sho Caudal #12.1, and the Game-Bashing with ORFA as #12.2. I can't really give a date on either of them, yet. But it continues to boil on the back burner.

And I think the thirteenth will have the collection the original blurbs for SSC was supposed to be - pages from my notebooks. There are a lot of things I had hoped to write but the combination of advancing neuropathy (robbing my fingers), and the retinopathy/macular edema robbing my vision, those will have to be released. Maybe some of it will give another Joruni some ideas - for their own games, or maybe in a more public forum.

But I'm trudging along, so far.

Dare I Hope?

I have really bad computer karma. Really bad. And it may have an explanation (later for that).

But I just wanted to do a teeny little post to say I seem to have a working system which will allow me to work. I have said that at least three times in the past three months. And I have been wrong.

So I will try to assemble the scraps from three semi-working computer systems into Segment: Sho-Caudal #12. And then send them out.

Maybe.

If the system stays up.

We think we may know why I have so much problem with my computer systems. And it hasn't mattered which computer system it has been. It has been an iMac, which I really was quite comfortable using - despite Apple marketing and legal shenanigans. Then a Windows 10 box which may have been damaged in shipping and was returned. Then a MacMini which I used for about 18 months with Apple degenerating further. Then a Linux Ubuntu Studio, followed by a Windows 10 laptop.

All of them have suddenly zapped. And we think it may be ... (drum roll) ... the wiring in my mobile home. We were in the process of moving my whole room around, putting my computer (or hopefully computer-to-be) station across the room and onto a different power circuit. While plugging in the nifty surge protector and battery backup box, before anything was plugged in, my friend plugging the box into the wall got a surprise. A shock. And cry out loud and take hit point wounds.

So... that might explain why I have been having problems other people don't have.* And makes me wonder what can be done to prevent it from happening again. And the easy answer is "move."

I don't wanna move. I'm ensconced. I have lived here for 13 years - the longest I have ever lived anywhere. And then there is the question of where else I could live - or afford to live.

But in the short-term I will try to complete the bits of SSC #12. And mail them out.

Fingers crossed.

The computer nightmare has taken a bigger toll than I have experienced before. I am four weeks out of being able to write or have a reliable computer system. I was finally able to install the CC Adobe package and I can open Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat, but the InDesign WILL NOT open, no matter how I try to configure the system, download installer, installed, uninstall and repeat.

I cannot boot Linux, although I was able to install it on an external USB disk. But it is unable to connect to the Internet by Ethernet or WiFi. Why? I dunno. I've done Ubuntu Studio (that installed but I cannot download the components for the programs that make it "Studio"). I got the installer stick for Elementary OS, but it will not let me install because the disks do not have a "Root."

I don't know what that means and no one has been able to tell me or give instructions or how to put a Root in place.

Windows 10 is the system that accepted the Adobe CC installs, but WILL NOT open InDesign for me to either layout the new material, or open previous documents to get material. Or finish the layout of the DANSTEAD TRAVELLER compilation, which is done, but I cannot open.

I am thinking of taking the material from SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #12 and sending out a clean word processing version with the promise to send them the full layout when I can do the full layout. With art and stuff.

Did I mention InDesign refuses to open? It WILL NOT open.

I do not have a working Mac box in the house except for an old laptop with OSX 10.4, and I just was able to install 10.5.5 onto it. But it won't run the programs I need to open the documents I need to work on. A friend says he will send me a newer MacBook with 10.10, which would be a great move up. And I'm seriously looking at entering the world of Hackintosh to put OSX on my Windows 10 box. Apple will not support it, but if I can run the damn programs it might get me through the period while I do the adjustments for Linux, of whatever distro I wind up in.

Tonight was the first time I was able to get onto my Jorune account and access the blog in a few weeks. And I found one letter from someone who was just encouraging me.

It helps. It really does.

What I am working on - many short bits on the mindset of Colonials.

Why they were leaving Earth?

What if the mindset for immigration to Jorune's World
was not based on English, Western European concepts?

Who thought it was a good idea?

Who thought it was a terrible idea? What did they think they were coming to?

What did they know about the aliens they would encounter?

Economic, social, political, religious schools of thought - in conflict.

That might be the word processing document I send out (I can do fairly nice layou8ts in Word Processing.

And I think I know what I will do with #13. It will be my notes for projects I will not get to do. It will be a Message in a Bottle for some solo Joruni somewhere to get the idea from the list and run with it. It would be nice to see some of the ideas that I thought would happen to get some completion through other minds. Maybe.

We shall see.

I'll have to get this one done first, and that's not an easy dance.

Back in the Waiting Line

I'm finally able to get back to writing, or re-writing, SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL 12.1. The Colonial Ballot and supporting documents. I'm working in Libre-Office, which is not my first choice, but at this point I don't know what my first choice would be.

The goal is to move into full-time Linux operations as soon as possible, but I've not been able to get the hard disk partitions to hold a new boot section.

But the colonial papers are in movement again. I hope to get this part out by the end of the month. Hope. We shall see.