Map of the RK

Just to give you an idea of the scale of the RK world, here's a map of it (albeit, there's now another county in Ireland with 4 towns in it that has just been added, and a few connecting roads in the balkans that aren't shown here). As you can see it is a huge place. The only english speaking parts are Ireland, England and Scotland.

Into the Zone

Note: another province has opened up to the west of this map, but it doesn't affect our present travels. I'll update as appropriate in future...

Me and my mate are now in our hunting zone where we intend to pursue good deeds on the roads. We have stayed in Tzilacaapan for 3 days, will probably then go to Cuauhtinchan for one more day of fishing. Then we will hop onto the 'nodes' and head south to the sacrificial area. All this time we have been eating meat which we bought up in Tecalco. With five days of travel to the first roadside shrine, my mate will have increased his fighting coefficient to 3 (on a scale of 1 to 5). I will have joined him at that strength level within the week.

Travel in RK and in TN occurs at the rate of two nodes a day unless one has purchased 'tokens' (with real money) in which case one can travel three nodes. If a town is on the node one stops on, one will be in the town for the following day. If one stops on a node without a town, one will be 'on the road' the following day. If one is in a town, one can visit its taverns and markets (and one's own home property if the town is one's home town). If one is on the road, you just camp out. The disadvantage of stopping at a town is that a lot of people notice you. If one slinks around 'on the nodes' and don't stop in at the towns one has a good chance of passing undetected through the countryside.

PS: I am updating this map as we go, tracing our path through time.
3/2/09 - travelling on the nodes south of Cuauhtinchan. Between the town and the intersection to the south is actually another node, so it is a full day to the intersection, another day to the mine site node.
7/2/09 - Successful sacrifice south of Huehuehtlan.
9/2/09 - Sacrifice west of Tecamachalco
12/2/09 - Sacrifice on the five way intersection (shown as 3 way on map above) by far and away our most successful sacrifice yet.

Blog on blog

Came across 6D6 Fireball on the comments to another gaming blog. It seems to act as a digest of gaming blog articles, concentrating on traditional Fantasy RPG and Wargame miniatures sites. Worth the odd look for a taste of what else is happening on the gaming blogosphere.

Fishing in Tzilicaapan, Church in Dumfries

My Aztec character is presently fishing in Tzilicaapan with his friend while we both eat meat before heading further south to do good deeds. Our apprenticeship in the dark arts has already commenced with our studying the rather idiosyncratic laws of the various provinces of the Empire. For example, one province encourages roadside sacrifices on Wednesdays and Saturdays, another sets aside one week a month for the purpose. It is all academic as we consume our meat diets in honour of the war gods (to raise our combat proficiency) but we will soon venture forth to do good so is handy to know.

My Scottish self has spent about a month in the rather unfriendly town of Dumfries. For the first few weeks I tended to defend the walls of the castle, but have of late been spending my days contemplating life in the church. From being an extremely tense situation when I first arrived (to the point that suffered an assassination attempt on first attempt at entry) the town has calmed down such that there are no longer any mobilised armies here. I would call this "mission accomplished." With any luck, will close the pub and start the return journey to Whithorn tomorrow. Have a mountain of paperwork to deal with.

I've been away from home IRL over the past five days. Managed to keep an internet connection, despite being 500 miles from home and having the use of a borrowed laptop. I'm not generally a fan of pay-as-you-go intenet, but sure is handy when travelling. I did enjoy the 'rest' of having only to deal with the basic ingame functions of my Tribal Nations and Renaissance Kingdoms MMORPGs, giving the multimedia aspects (chat, forms, etc) a break.

Monster Camp

Last night I watched a TV show called Monster Camp. It is about a fantasy Live Action Role Play group near Seattle. Very interesting. Basically, used a weekend meeting of these keen 'live FANTASY role play gamers to document what they do and who they are that do this strange thing. Well made as a reality mode film, with lots of little subplots between the characters on the way. Not to mention the intrinsic interest of seeing the sea elves, vampires, lizardmen, goblins and all sorts of assorted heros and heroines which these people turn themselves into for the weekend.

Basically, for seven years, some keen fanatics have run similar weekend gatherings for groups of gamers in the woods in a nearby national park. College age and above, there are about 50 odd folk that turn up for the show. Perhaps a dozen are involved in the running of it all ('plot keeper', logistics, on the 'plot team', costumery, admin, etc), about twenty play Non Player Characters at the orders of the plot master, the rest are Player Characters.

I won't describe their weekend or how they do what they do except to say that it looks tiring, fatiguing and fun.

I nearly switched off several times, some of the subtexts to the documentary were striking close to home I suppose. Other times, my heart went out to certain of the characters, or I found myself nodding in understanding at the various existential problems (!) which they were revealing to the camera (ie. the crossover between Real Life and In Game, personal growth through gaming, the bonds one forges with other players, the importance of the social, the stress of playing against people with different ethics, etc etc etc).

I don't think that I'd go and do the Live Action Role Play gaming myself, but I can understand why those who do, do so.

The film was certainly a good show when taken as a whole. If you are into any type of role play gaming, see it if you can.

Aztec Odyssey

Above is a map taken from the Tribal Nations forums, showing the extent of that world at the moment. My home town is Tecalco. I have just been on a journey to Quecholac, Xochimicatzinco, Cuauhtlan and Epatlan. I'll soon be heading off with a friend via Ehuacalco to the Southern province to do good deeds.

Sure.

I am going to be spending a few days away from home and have access to web only via someone else's computer. So I needed to store my map somewhere where i can access it. Might as well be here as anywhere else...

Another Roman gamer blog

I came across Bigredbat recently, a newish blog with a pretty serious miniatures ancients gamer behind it, judging by the armies to be seen on it.

Happy Hogmonay 2009!

May your dice roll true!

(My new banner in Tribal Nations)