Tuesday 29 October 2013

Tales of Northwood [webcomic: part #001]

(Click the picture for bigger/readable version.)


Welcome to the very first panel of the Tales of Northwood webcomic!

My drawing/painting skills are mediocre. I have no previous experience of creating comics. I have no story line in mind. Honestly, I'm not qualified for running a webcomic. Yet, that is exactly what I'm planning to do!

So, what is this all about?

Well, I wanted to start writing a story using Rory's Story Cubes. I wanted to publish the story here, as prose. But when I gave it a deeper thought, I came up with the idea of making the story into a comic instead. I mean, I love reading comics, so why couldn't I make one myself?! Obviously, it won't be even close to any random professional comic in terms of graphical representation (eye-candy) and story, but hey, that's not the point here. The point is that I will be doing some kind of solitaire role-playing (RPGing), and instead of presenting the story in text, it will be presented as a comic.

I will start using only the story cubes, but might incorporate a "real" RPG rule set later on. And who knows, maybe I even add the solitaire mechanics of the Mythic Game Master Emulator to really emulate a role playing session, with a fictitious GM (Game Master) and all that.

To get the story telling a bit more structured, I have defined the following rules:
  • The base setting is some kind of (European) medieval. I'm open for any kind of fantasy elements to make an appearance, if the dice bring the story in that direction.
  • There will be one PC (Player Character). The story's protagonist.
  • The story will be more on the humoristic side, rather than the serious. The simple reason is because I can't draw/paint anything looking serious enough to be convincing.
  • For randomization of story events, Rory's Story Cubes will be used. However, any random element is allowed, it's just that I will start off with the story cubes and see how that goes. And as mentioned above, an RPG rule set might be added later, as well as e.g. the Mythic GME.
  • A list will be kept with all the PCs threads/goals (things that pushes the PC/story forward).
  • A list will be kept with significant world events.
  • A list will be kept with all NPCs (Non-Player Character) so far encountered in the story. Some of them will most likely be marked as antagonists.
  • A list will be kept with all locations discovered so far in the story.
  • I'm allowed to break or re-write this set of rules at any time! Most important rule! :-)

All Tales of Northwood related blog posts will be tagged with 'tales of northwood'.

There is a separate page (reachable in the header of this blog) called 'Tales of Northwood' that contains useful information about the webcomic and its story (including the lists mentioned above).

My goal is to release a new part of the webcomic once every week.

I will comment on the background of every part released, e.g. what dice result that were rolled and how that affected the story.

Part #001 (this post), part #002 and part #003 have not been produced using random elements. I have created those parts out of my head, just to set the foundation of the story. Starting from #004, the dice are introduced.

That's it, let the story unfold!

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