Just a quick note I had a busy time at work, a convention speaking engagement, and THEN I got “con crud.”  So the new generator is a bit behind.  Fortunately “Way With Worlds” is queued up ahead.

But a few more samples from the Magic Guild Generator.  I’m partial to “The Adamantine Federation,” “Totem Heart Twenty,” and of course “Unicorn Doctor Guild.”

• Angelic Locust Guild
• Codex Tooth Cartel
• Crimson Satyr Guild
• Dashing Sandman Posse
• Demonic Tooth Conspiracy
• Divine Tooth Eight
• Duke Altar Guild
• Faun Dutchess Guild
• Green Chapel Guild
• Iron Lamia Guild
• Joke Wraith Guild
• Potion Tail Federation
• The Adamantine Federation
• The Coffin Troupe
• The Demonic Posse
• The Void Union
• Totem Heart Twenty
• Unicorn Doctor Guild
• Variable Banshee Guild
• White Hippocampus Guild

– Steve

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum at at MuseHack]

We’ve all heard the saying that goes “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” made by the incomparable Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

I would ad a corollary, especially in the worlds of world building (and perhaps in an age of mind hacking and psychological techniques, our own).  “Any sufficiently organized magic is indistinguishable from technology.”

Because when you world build, you’re getting things organized in your head to explain how they work.  In the case of Magic and Technology, they’re really the same thing most of the time. Not entirely, but mostly.

Now you may wish to argue with this, but for the sake of building a setting, magic and technology are no different.  I would state that magic and technology are the ways characters manipulate themselves and the elements of their settings to achieve results fitting a specific goal – and thus really no different.

Vaccum tubes and potions, ethereal forces and electrical energy, it’s all about Making Stuff Happen.  So for the rest of this essay, I’ll just call it MaT since I can’t figure any other word to encompass the two of them, and I won’t call it MT as it invites innumerable jokes.

As a world builder, you just have to figure out what it all means.  That’s when it gets complicated. (more…)

Dinosaurs have long been a source of fascination.  For many people, their first foray into science was as a young child pouring over anything about dinosaurs, leading some into careers in paleontology.  Only fossils remain from the reign of the dinosaurs, but that keeps scientists and the curious intrigued enough to try to discover much about Earth’s prehistoric past.

In late 1990, Michael Crichton released his science fiction novel, Jurassic Park.  At the heart of the story was the idea, “What if someone recreated dinosaurs?”  He worked out the details, who could afford the cloning equipment, why would dinosaurs be cloned and brought back, the legal issues in opening a theme park featuring wild animals.

In the novel, the CEO of the fictional InGen, John Hammond, created the titular park on the fictional Isla Nublar as a theme park where people could visit and see the returned dinosaurs in a somewhat natural habitat.  The park’s investors, through their lawyer, needed assurances by academics that the park was accurate and safe.  Hammond brings on board Doctor Alan Grant, a paleontologist, while the investors’ lawyer brings in Doctor Ian Malcolm, a chaos therorist.  Dr. Grant brings along grad student Ellie Sattler, a paleobotantist, along.

During the tour of the main facilities, Hammond shows how the dinosaurs were recreated, replacing damaged genetic code with DNA from reptiles, birds, and amphibians.  The new DNA was then modified so that only females were viable and that the creatures required regular doses of lysine to survive.  However, among the more benign species like Triceratops were carnivores like Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

For the tour of Jurassic Park, Hammond sends along his grandchildren, Lex and Tim.  Tim, like many boys his age, is dino-crazy and is looking forward to the tour.  During the tour, Velociraptor eggs are found, something that shouldn’t occur in an all female population.  Dr. Malcolm also points out that a flock of Procompsognathi have a normal distribution of heights instead of the expected uniform height he’d expected from cloned creatures.

Elsewhere, a tropical storm forms and moves in on Isla Nublar.  Dennis Nedry, a subcontractor with financial problems, takes advantage of the storm to steal genetic samples for InGen’s competitor, and sabotages the park’s computer systems to help in his escape.  The sabotage disrupts all security, including the electric fences keeping the dinosaurs apart from not just each other but from the tours.  For the herbivores, this isn’t a problem.  For T. rex, it now has a larger range to hunt, and the tour group, in two electric trucks that are also out of power, had stopped near the dinosaur’s paddock.

Things get worse.  Grant and the children get separated as the T. rex and its child attack.  Malcolm is critically injured.  The park’s power returns, but is soon again lost as only the auxiliary power was restored.  With the loss of auxiliary power, the Velociraptors, quarentined due to intelligence and visciousness, escape.  The ship that had left Isla Nublar for the mainland has Velociraptor stowaways, not the formerly quarentined ones, but wild ones.

The movie adaptation of Jurassic Park follows the plot for the most part.  Given the length of the novel, some scenes in it had to go to keep the movie’s running time under ten hours, let alone the two hours, seven minutes it did have  There were changes made, though.  In the novel, Lex’s role is to be The Load, screaming anytime a dinosaur appeared.  Her brother, Tim, not only was well-read on dinosaurs but also was a hacker.  The hacking ability was transfered over to Lex for the movie.  The fate of Hammond is different as well; he gets to escape the island in the adaptation.  Helping to ease the transition from book to movie was having Michael Crichton on board as a scriptwriter.  He was able to remove elements from the novel that let the movie still hold together without dragging out the film.  Some elements removed, such as the Pteranodon aviary, returned in Jurassic Park III.  Other elements, such as what happened to Malcolm, were added.  The novel never went into details on whether he survived his injuries or died from them.  The movie, Malcolm is seen in the helicopter, awake and alert, allowing him to return for The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

The core of the novel, the warning about hubris, the dangers of reintroducing an extinct species, the folly of trying to control nature, remains intact.  The movie did not back away from showing the consequences of trying to play God.  Even with precautions in place – the lysine requirement, the electric fences, the all-female population – dinosaurs ran amok and multiplied.  People died from one man’s folly.

Some time back, I mentioned that there would be times when I would run into the adaptation before the original.  This in one of those cases; I saw the movie when it first came out, but only read the book recently.  The differences were startling, not only in the scenes that weren’t filmed or were used for Jurassic Park III, but the roles.  As mentioned, Lex’s role expanded in the movie, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  In the book, Lex was very much the damsel in distress, needing Dr. Grant’s assistance.  In the movie, she took on dimensions, and the interplay with her brother felt more natural.  Once she adjusted to the events, she took charge of her brother, particularly in the park’s kitchen.

Overall, the movie is faithful to the original work.  Not all of Jurassic Park was adapted, but what was came through.  The core of the story remained in one piece, keeping the thriller aspect of the novel front and centre without losing the message.

Next week, the problem with movies.

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum at at MuseHack.  It focuses on worldbuilding as a writer or setting designer and is included here to help our readers who craft fictional settings]

We’ve talked origins, ecologies, and sentient life in your settings  We’ve discussed the culture that your intelligent life will have (again, if your story has intelligent life).  Now it’s time to get to economics which, much like real life has a lot of impact, but isn’t something we often think of (or think of fondly).

My guess is that upon hearing that “it’s economics time”, you’re probably not filled with enthusiasm.  If you are, great, but in general I find that, when he subject of world building and economics comes up, most people’s reactions are less than positive.  Sometimes they’re pretty negative.

Most people’s reactions to anything involving economics is usually not positive, often a mix of regret, ignorance, and understandable rage.  I could go on about the why of that for awhile, but that’s best for another time.  Let’s go forward with the assumption that, in general, you need a bit of a boost and guidance on writing economics in your world.

If you do enjoy this (like me), then read on anyway just in case, and welcome to the club.

Now let me say off the bat that if you don’t get into the economics of world building that with the right perspective it’s interesting, informative, and even fun.  I also would note that it can’t be avoided at all because, like real life, economics is everywhere.  But I’ll focus on the fun part. (more…)

Whew, last update on Crossroads Alpha here.  Busy week.

So I’ve been explaining how the different members of the Crossroads Alpha site alliance work together.  The final one in our list is another one I run, MuseHack.

MuseHack has a long and slightly weird history.  It was originally an idea for a book on people going fan to pro.  Then it became a site called Fan To Pro, which inspired my book Fan To Pro.  Then we realized we should broaden it out to cover more applied geekery – with a big focus on jobs and such but also community building, skill development, and so on.  So then it became MuseHack.

MuseHack focuses on using your hobbies, obsessions, and geekdom.  There’s a career column, a column on geek citizenship, a weekly examination of media adaptions and remakes, interviews, and more.  We’ve also got about five years of content from news, to writing columns, to predictions.  I even rerun Way With Worlds there.

With the Alliance, MuseHack provides our “applied” pillar, especially for careers.  For Sanctumites it’s a place to go and get – or contribute – professional advice or advice on ways to use hobbies.  For MuseHack it provides readers a place to go that’s fun and creative – Seventh Sanctum.  A pretty good pairing.

So that’s the roundup of Crossroads Alpha.  Well, until we add more sites . . .

– Steven Savage

So what’s currently in the works generator-wise?  Well one of the requests was for a Magic Guild generator, specifically a request for guilds like the anime Fairy Tail (which is a show best summed up as “World Wrestling Federation writes Harry Potter”).  The guilds have some pretty colorful names like Grimoire Heart and Blue Pegasus, so a little tweaking of the core patterns let me great a good Magic Guild generator with plenty of detail.  here’s a beta run:

• Ape Rune Sect
• Ascended Satyr Crew
• Conjuring Blade Unit
• Cyclops Tooth Two-hundred
• Dog Codex Guild
• Dragon Light Guild
• Elemental Vault Guild
• Forgotten Ghost Guild
• Medic Harpy Guild
• Necromantic Hand Gang
• Nymph Staff Guild
• Platinum Djinn Family
• Purple Grave Cult
• Rune Mouth Guild
• Scholar Totem Band
• Smith Ogre Assembly
• Sorcerous Eye Eight
• Staff Hand Guild
• The Banshee League
• The Potion Cult

So, in the future we could see the Purple Grave Cult take on the Dragon Light Guild in a smackdown of epic proportions!

– Steven Savage

The new year brings new news.

Death Note: The Musical, coming to South Korea in 2015.
The anime /Death Note/ is being turned into a musical with music by Frank Wildhorn (Broadway play Jekyll and Hyde, Whitney Houston’s “Where Do Broken Hearts Go?”) and Jack Murphy.  This isn’t the first musical about a serial killer.  Sweeney Todd was at one point a ballet.

Warner Bros, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in negotiations for Sandman.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt may star and co-produce the adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.  Gordon-Levitt may even direct the feature.  David S. Goyer will also be on board as co-producer.

Sweetpea Entertainment moves for partial dismissal of D&D rights case.
Hasbro has been trying to regain the movie rights to Dungeons & Dragons from Sweetpea Entertainment.  Sweetpea was responsible for the 2000 movie plus the far better direct-to-DVD sequel and was working on a script based on Chainmail, D&D‘s progenitor game.  At issue is who currently holds the movie rights.  The original contract required Sweetpea to release a sequel within five years of the original movie, but Hasbro does not count the direct-to-DVD works while Sweetpea does.

Ghost writing and spin-offs; what happens after an author has died.
It’s not a new phenomenon.  Now, though, with best sellers and adaptation rights bringing in money to publishers, the desire to continue an author’s series is growing.

Star Wars comic license being given to Marvel
Not that unexpected, considering that Disney owns both Marvel and Lucasfilm.  Dark Horse had a great twenty-year run, though, and set a standard that will be difficult to match.

With the changeover, comes the fun of working out continuity.
Lucasfilm’s Leland Chee (@HolocronKeeper on Twitter) heads the group tasked with getting the canon straight.  The story group will have to work out how the movies, TV series, comics, books, role-playing games, video games, and toys all work together.  Interestingly, West End Games’ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game is still an influence on Star Wars despite WEG’s bankruptcy in 1998.

Magic: The Gathering being adapted as a movie.
This isn’t as dire as it sounds.  As a collectable card game, Magic: The Gathering has a setting that has been developed since 1993, and storylines in each expansion set.  As long as Fox, the studio making the movie, can keep the familiar elements and introduce them to people who haven’t played while still keeping fans of the game not-annoyed, the adaptation stands a chance.

Amazon scrapped.
The Wonder Woman prequel TV series has been cancelled by the CW.  The network left the possibility of a future Wonder Woman series open.  It looks more that the CW doesn’t want to botch the series and is being cautious.

Batman finally to be released on DVD.
The Adam West TV series will, at long last, see a DVD release.  Warner and Fox have worked out the legal differences over rights.  No specific date has been set.

Batman/Superman movie delayed until 2016.
Warner delayed the release of the movie, still untitled, until May 2016.  Start of production won’t start until second quarter of this year.

OK, the roundup continues of the members of Crossroads Alpha, the Site Alliance.  In this case, let’s meet IndieHaven!

IndieHaven is a site managed by my friend Jose, who I met as part of a geek networking group that spawned out of a con meetup (I should revive that).  This guy is a professional journalist – paid to do this in an age where journalism is tight – and he does it as his hobby on games.  Guy is seriously hardcore.

IndieHaven is a great place as its an independent site on, of course, Indie Games.  For many members it’s even a kind of training ground, and Jose really knows what he’s doing.  I figure it’s a good pairing here as Sanctumites into games can access a unique site that also includes professional advice (and is always looking for writers), and IndieHaven’s creative types can come here.

Besides, procedural content is big these days, and I am ALL about procedural content.

So, go over, say hello, and enjoy!

– Steven Savage

Carleton University’s radio station, CKCU, will have a half-hour dedicated to discussing fanfiction tomorrow, Thursday, January 16, starting at 6:30pm Eastern Time.  Kate Hunt, the host of Literary Landscape, will interview Mary Pletsch and me during the half hour.  CKCU has a live stream if you prefer to listen over the Internet.

OK gang, I went through the recent poll and got an idea of what people want. Thanks for participating!

Now where do we stand:

What do people want in the codex:

The first thing people wanted was crazy, funny, and weird stuff to inspire them. That I didn’t expect (I expected more practical column requests), but then I realized hey, generator site. Maybe someone out there wants to regularly collect and share crazy links since I’m busy.

Yes, that’s a hint.

Columns on writing came in next, which makes sense.  A lot of you are writers.

Things got a little less focused after that, though folks did like Worldbuilding and useful resources. I was surprised there was less interest in artistic advice, but I think our response demographic was writing heavy (see below)

So now when I go to those people who volunteered to write, I have some idea of what to look for. Speaking of . . .

What can people write in the codex?

We had plenty of people wanting to give advice on writing – but then it kind of split up among various categories, from games to art to resource gathering. I’ll be contacting these brave volunteers to see what they’d like to do.

By the way, we had EIGHTEEN of you respond that they might be interested in contributing! I’ll be in touch with you this week!

One warning – TWO of you gave me the wrong emails.  So if you didn’t hear from me yet . . . write me.

What do people want in generators.

Well the short answer, is “most everything” but it seems that settings, names, and characters stand out, along with beings and writing advice. In short people, where they are, and how to write about them.

Now among the specifics people had:

• Alcoholic Beverages
• Alien Worlds
• Animals
• Biomes
• Cities
• Civilizations
• Clothing/Fashions (which came more than once)
• Combo generators to tie my other generators together (something I can do but I’m not up for it yet)
• Detailed magic artifacts
• Disease Cures
• Gangster groups
• Lots of name generators
• Magic Guilds
• More descriptors
• Planets
• Plot Twists
• Prophecies and/or quests.
• Secret projects
• Specific plot generators
• Story Arcs (that’s intriguing)
• Themed names
• Trope mixers
• Writing prompts

So yeah, plenty of ideas. I addition I have one generator in the works (from that list, actually) and one possible on that’s related. More to come – and no I’m not telling you!

However one thing I took away is that when it comes to writers, more is better and there’s more I can do. I always figured it was best to do setting stuff and some basic plots, but maybe I can do more.

The only issue is that I have to get “inspired” to do a generator, so I’ll need to see what mojo gets fired up by the list. But now I have a list to get fired up with . . .

Closing

OK gang, thanks for the feedback. Now that the site is rewritten, has a content section, is part of an alliance, and is on the new host maybe I can do more generators. They’re fun so I can really build them as a way to relax as well . . .

– Steven Savage