Patrons

Coming up with Jogūchya card names (2 of 2)

2018-11-26T06:00:00Z

Well, I haven't done too well on the weekly thing but I need to finish the posts so I can participate in Lexember this year. So, here are the last thirty-two cards named using Miwāfu for the upcoming month.

The Cards

Suit	Rank	Title	Miwāfu
Reptiles	1	Feathered Snake	chyòre
2	Iguana	rukán
3	Winged Lizard	mitóki
4	Toad/Frog	farūku
5	Lizard	pachyún
6	Cobra	finigóre
7	Tortoise	hyudóshi
8	Geckos	rímu
Packs	1	Coyote	gatīru
2	Mountain Lions	hamàni
3	Hairless Hounds	figaki tòra
4	Chipmunks/Squirrels	agúfi
5	Hyenas	mimùro
6	Rabbits	ikífu
7	Desert Cats	chigano tōmo
8	Mice/Rats	kúfo
Insects	1	Spider	otéza
2	Beetle	niágyo
3	Ladybug	gupa gúno
4	Walking Sticks	kugagína
5	Sand Flies	mushi nági
6	Horned Beetle	ron ágyo
7	Cockroach	ikugāfu
8	Fleas	ogápi
Flowers	1	Chrysanthemum	ashyobyūpa
2	Ivy	wiyōtsu
3	Pine Cones	opichyo fēe
4	Resin Tree	zushīchya
5	Rose	kanēko
6	Vines	wuyāto
7	Grass	wōi
8	Morning Breath	misa bōpi

Next Steps

Now that the cards are named, I need to start focusing on getting them drawn out. This will probably take longer, drawing is not quite as easy as writing plus I have a number of writing obligations (three at this point) that are going to suck up my time.

Doubts

I'm still having doubts of doing this as patron-only. While I love that you are supporting me, I like sharing my work because I'm so erratic and I don't have any hopes of getting more patrons in the near future.

Coming up with Jogūchya card names (1 of 2)

2018-11-05T06:00:00Z

This week is a bit of a grind week since I need to come up with a number of Miwāfu names for the various cards.

The Cards

Suit	Rank	Title	Miwāfu
Stones	1	Mountain	kodòshyo
2	Valley	gupíji
3	Cliff	rogumàgi
4	Cave	ryakochyāni
5	Wind's Teeth	guni fígi
6	Boulder	tejòki
7	Pebbles	tidóna
8	Sand Storm	mushyobīho
Waters	1	Ocean	ragofuchìno
2	Clouds	yarimùfu
3	River	rīmyo
4	Waterfall	jyaróki
5	Oasis	ryúma
6	Well	ruráfu
7	Bucket	dodēra
8	Glasses	rāka
Birds	1	Eagle	akachìno
2	Hawk	hofùma
3	Roadrunner	shimusōgo
4	Ostrich	jyanogūo
5	Crows	mobìpo
6	Sparrows	wufábi
7	Nest	danīchyo
8	Eggs	aēno
Herds	1	Tachira's	tachira hèru
2	Horse (Mares)	héru
3	Bighorn	hanàko
4	Camel	ogìmo
5	Deer	worōchi
6	Goat	keígu
7	Sheep	funámi
8	Hoof Prints	hiropàdu

Next Steps

When working with constructed languages, coming up with new words can be difficult. Breaking it up a little will help them from getting too “close” to each other and help with the building process. I plan on finishing the words (including various ones for decks) next week and then maybe start drawing them out.

Jogūchya Card Names

2018-10-29T05:00:00Z

Expanding on last week, I'm expanding out the sixty-four cards that make up the Jogūchya deck.

Last Week's Bad Links

I had bad links in last week's email, so here are the various suits and color schemes I was talking about. The other image was just a close-up of the card so there isn't anything new.

I tweaked the red slightly due to feedback from one patron, mainly to desaturate it slightly.

Preexisting References

The second chapter of Sand and Ash is the only reference of published material referencing a card. That means I only have to make sure that deck works.

Three of Snakes
Six of Snakes
Three of Scorpions (Insects)
Two of Rocks
Five of Birds
Eight of Birds
Three of Horses
Four of Scorpions (Insects)

The biggest disconnect between last week's post and the one in the novel is scorpions verses insects and snakes verses reptiles. Since I always imagined there are thousands of different sets of cards in the world, no doubt different people will have different styles. This means there are artistic ones, watercolors, and even nudes.

The cards I'm planning on creating fit the style of my book covers but there is nothing wrong with the Shimusògo have a deck with scorpions and snakes instead of insects and reptiles.

Naming Cards

In addition to the suits and cards, my plan is to have a specific name for each card, much like the major arcana of the tarot deck. This will tie into December's Lexember where creators of conlangs come up with a word a day, this year's theme is going to be these cards.

This means that cards will have a name, a suit, rank, and a specific type (insects, reptiles, flowers). I think with these components, we have a relatively full-featured deck that can cover most of the needs of a traveling clan member in the middle of the desert.

The Cards

Suit	Rank	Title	Miwāfu
Stones	1	Mountain	kodòshyo
2	Valley
3	Cliff
4	Cave
5	Wind's Teeth
6	Boulder
7	Pebbles
8	Sand Storm
Waters	1	Ocean
2	Clouds	yarimùfu
3	River
4	Waterfall
5	Oasis
6	Well
7	Bucket
8	Glasses
Birds	1	Eagle
2	Hawk
3	Roadrunner	shimusōgo
4	Ostrich
5	Crows
6	Sparrows
7	Nest
8	Eggs
Herds	1	Tachira's
2	Horse
3	Bighorn
4	Camel
5	Deer
6	Goat
7	Sheep
8	Hoof Prints
Reptiles	1	Feathered Snake	chyòre
2	Iguana
3	Winged Lizard
4	Toad/Frog
5	Lizard
6	Cobra
7	Tortoise
8	Geckos
Packs	1	Coyote
2	Mountain Lions
3	Hairless Hounds	figaki tòra
4	Chipmunks/Squirrels
5	Hyenas
6	Rabbits
7	Desert Cats
8	Mice/Rats
Insects	1	Spider
2	Beetle
3	Ladybug
4	Walking Sticks
5	Sand Flies
6	Horned Beetle
7	Cockroach
8	Fleas
Flowers	1	Chrysanthemum
2	Ivy
3	Pine Cones
4	Resin Tree
5	Rose	kanēko
6	Vines
7	Grass
8	Morning Breath

Next Steps

At this point, I think I have the basic cards named. The next step is coming up with Miwāfu names for the remaining fifty-eight cards. That will probably be next week, it takes a while to come up with things that don't sound similar.

If you have any suggestions for card changes, feel free to suggest them.

Jogūchya Cards

2018-10-22T05:00:00Z

One of the secondary projects I've been thinking about over the years is writing up the cards and games inspired by the second chapter of Sand and Ash:

“Three of snakes in the north, one point.” Rutejìmo tapped his card against one of the four piles before picking up the top card from the other three piles on the table.

“Damn, that was my three of scorpions.” Gemènyo sat with one leg in a crook and his pipe balanced on his knee. He groaned and pulled out a six of snakes and set it on the east pile. “Your turn.”

Rutejìmo glanced down at his cards. He only had two left, but neither would help him get another trick out of the cards on the table. Hissing through his teeth, he plucked out the card with an illustration of two rocks sticking out of a sand dune.

Gemènyo grinned.

Rutejìmo placed it on the south pile. He shuffled through the stack looking for another snake. He got through the pile before he realized he picked the wrong one. “Damn.” He grabbed a random card, the five of birds, and set it down on top of the rocks. “Your turn.”

“So,” Gemènyo said, “you think Mapábyo is going to have her rites soon?”

Rutejìmo glanced up. “Probably. Why?”

“Oh, just curious.” Gemènyo set down a three of horses on the north pile. “I heard her asking you about it.”

Rutejìmo had only one card left. He set it down on a eight of birds. “I’m out. She was just curious. Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything to ruin the surprise. Not like there is anything I could do to ruin the joy of being abandoned in the middle of the desert to die.”

“Ha!” Gemènyo slapped down his card on top of Rutejìmo. It was a four of scorpions.

Rutejìmo looked at the cards and groaned.

“A broken chain!” Gemènyo plucked the sequential cards from the four piles. “That gets me eight points. I win!”

Since I wrote that, I've been figuring out how this specific culture, the sun clans of the desert, would frame their card games. I didn't want to use our own deck but wanted to come up with something specific to them from the ground up.

Suits

When I was working on the calendar, I started building up the culture's foundation. In specific, the whole idea of the eight original spirits that myth say sided with Tachìra in his fight to win the affections of Mifúno. Because of that, the calendar started with eight months and I thought the cards should also have eight suits (instead of five of our own cards if you call jokers a “suit”).

Stones
Waters
Birds
Horses
Reptiles
Packs
Insects
Flowers

Of course, the excerpt above refers to scorpions and snakes, but I figured that could be a deck- or card-specific label. (Ah, the joys of making up a world while still writing it.) Mostly I was looking for suit names that start with different letters (SWBHRPIF) and this seems like a good start.

In the chapter, I had rocks used as a form of jokers. At first, I thought about only having 2-4 of them but a full suit would be a lot easier. It also ties into the “jacks are wild” that I used when playing poker.

Ranks

Having the suits meant the cards. The standard poker deck is fifty-two cards, so I figured I would go with something about the same size. That mean having five, six, seven, or eight ranks per suit which would be 40, 48, 56, or 64 cards in total.

There is something about the symmetry of having eight suits and eight ranks. It would also fit well with the semi-nomadic nature of the desert clans; having a deck of cards that if you lost half of them would let you “rotate” and keep playing.

Orientation

In essence of only having one deck of cards, I wanted to also include my favorite: tarot cards. When I was taught how to do readings, I went with reverse meanings which meant you needed to have a deck where you can tell if the card is reversed or not.

Partial Decks

That led into the overall design of the deck and the games. These are cards that someone saves up months or even years for, and then plays until they cannot be played again. Games should handle cards missing, maybe even quarter or even half of them. Likewise, there should be variants to run with games where half or quarter of the ranks are gone.

So, that works with the symmetry of having eight suits and eight ranks. If you want to play a game that only requires half suits and quarter ranks, you can “rotate” the game to play with half ranks and quarter suits and still have an enjoyable game.

For the most part, I would see someone only having a full set of ranks and a half or quarter set of suits, so the games will be described as:

Full (8 suits)
Half (4 suits)
Quarter (2 suits)
Half/Half (4 suits, 4 ranks)
Half/Quarter
Quarter/Quarter

Drawing Cards

Creating the cards is going to take me the longest. For the first iteration, I'm going to use the same framework I wrote to do my covers with roughly the same design.

Actually, I'm stealing the Sand and Blood cover until I can illustrate them.

One of the big differences is that this deck has a white border. As much as I love full bleed cards, using so many colors makes it easier to identify the card from the edges. The white makes it harder to do so.

Next Steps

Obviously, I'm using placeholders for images on the cards. One of the biggest and longest steps is to come up with the individual card images and the back.

Another tasks coming off this is to finish my conscript for Miwāfu. I want those for the titles, suits, and ranks on the card.

As usual, opinions, feedback, and comments are always appreciated.

Introducing Patron-Only Content

2018-10-15T05:00:00Z

So, you are probably wondering where this email came from. It is a private mailing list only for patrons (either through Patreon, conventions, or direct).

Over the last few months, I've been thinking patrons a lot. Mainly you have all been supporting me for so long and I really appreciate it, but I feel that I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain as much as I hoped. However, I've struggled with the idea of not giving away everything for free… which is probably why I managed to have less than five patrons for a few years running.

So to that end, I'm going to try a few different things. One is that I'm going to push to produce something for patrons that is private. It may be small but I want to aim for a weekly posting of stuff only for you.

At the moment, these are things I'm considering:

The desert card deck and related games, 64 Games for 64 Cards. This will easily take me more than a year to finish even with a handful of cards in a week. The first game is the one from the second chapter of Sand and Ash. Coming up with the card images and game rules was my first idea.
Related to that, I need to create the custom font for the card which will take me a while. I like creating fonts but I need to finish enough to do the cover for Journals of Fedran.
RPG rules for characters, specifically Fate but maybe HERO or other systems. Since these might be licensed, I can't give them away.
Future cover ideas, novels, ideas. Maybe a few spoilers.
Book covers, because they are fun.
Maybe a web comic or two.
Definitely a short story here and there.

I'm not really sure how this is going to work out, but I want to make you all happy (and maybe get a few more patrons while I'm at it). Those who are at the $4/month or higher donations will get a vote on what I'm working on. If they don't say anything, then I'll just do whatever fits my fancy.

The reason I'm doing this as a mailing list and not Patreon is because Patreon doesn't really work for me and I have subscribers who come from other sources (convention sales, direct from the Typewriter website). I end up copy/paste/fixing and it takes a while. A mailing list is a bit easier, I hope it works out for everyone. I tried to make it as easy as possible to filter into a sub folder or set aside.

I'm aiming for Monday postings (and therefore emails sometime Monday or Tuesday).

If you have opinions, feedback, or votes, please don't hesitate to email d.moonfire@moonfire.us.