Throughout Rashemen, storytelling has been the backbone of tradition. Tales varying from the soul eater to the man that lost touch with the spirits. Each tale tells a story and teaches a moral to all that would listen. Through Krahz'gorr, you can hear many of these kinds of stories, but one in particular is that of the Skadu. The Skadu, or quite literally the creature of shadow, is a mythological creature that is said to emerge from the sins of the world and swallow it into a world of complete darkness for all eternity until. There are many variations to this, especially in different cultures. There are arcane scholars who claim a creature from the sky will fall to the earth and feed off the life energy of the world (this creature was featured on Wizards a few years back), while others would refuse to believe in apocalyptic theory.
Whatever the case may be for you, you'll find several Red Wizards looking for this creature to harness its powers and bring the nations around them to ruin. Is the creature real and/or as powerful as it is made out to be? Or is it simply another tale?
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On another note, according to the poll currently, more of you would like to see more on creating skies and understanding the settings more than the rest. Which is a little bit surprising I should say. As far as that goes, I want to give those of you looking forward to it a warning in advance as to what to expect. Learning the settings for bloom and the perfect sky varies from personal taste and the type of colors you're working with. With that said, there isn't really one setting that works with every theme, so a little creativity and ingenuity might be involved. What I'll end up doing is providing scenarios and hopefully a thinking process that'll help guide you to the settings you're looking for.
I won't be doing Ayrin's bloom settings, because frankly, they cause more work than most of you want to get into. Ayrin had to create his own textures, paint the whole thing grey (which I sometimes do anyways) and even modify the SpeedTrees.
If you guys have any specific type of skies you want me to work with, speak now or forever hold you peace.
Tale of the Skadu
No real update today
I haven't been able to work on the module that much this week. I've been having to work on that infernal Media Player programming project of mine, taking intermittent breaks here and there.
I've mentioned before that I've been highly displeased with Krah'zgorr's physical appearance in game. Well, Krah'zgorr was based off this very image below, and its what I envision Krah to appear like. 
Looking at that image and then this one: 
Not even remotely close. You'll just have to use your imagination I reckon. I also made a post on bouncyrock's forums detailing some things in Thayvian Nights. I wont repeat it here, but you can find it there: http://forum.bouncyrock.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&p=103#p103
And that's all I really have to say. Other than that, good luck to all participants of the OEI contest. Alot of the entries are unique, interesting and well-done. If I had to pick which ones to choose, I probably would pick
1) SnowPrefab XXL - Overall, this is a well done area. Some things I didnt like about it, but they're relatively easy to fix, so its not a big deal.
2) Post-Eden - This area has some flaws in it and texturing could be improved, but the overall concept here is very original and intriguing.
And runner up would probably be Yamato's area and then SGK. SGK's area is better designed and textured, but its less original than the other works I think. Not to mention he's a Hall of Famer. Need to give some other guys some love, right ;)
And the last thing I would like to talk about is Jonny Ree and Ayrin's recent works. If you've seen their stuff lately, you'd just drop your jaw and have difficulties getting it back on.
Jonny Ree's Beholder:
Ayrin's Island (my favorite shot of many he has):
With all this amazing work coming out all at once, makes me wish I knew how use Photoshop or 3DS Max. But don't forget to give these guys your undying support. They're doing a phenomenal amount of work for the community. So give em a big grizzly bear hug!
Krahzgorr's Stories
If you recall, Krahzgorr (or Krah as he refers to himself), is a Spirit Shaman hailing from Rashemen. He was one of the few elder shamans of his tribe, communicating with the spirits and providing guidance to his people. They are second only to the chieftan, but the shamans were often the ones telling the chieftan what to do. There have been cases where the chieftan strives for more dominance and power over his people, attempting to rid the place of the shamans. But that is a story for another time.
Along your journey, Krah will often tell you tales that has been passed down from generation to generation. Such tales usually relate to an idea of some sort or detailing a piece of important history. I have a few in my mind already that will relate to the PC and his struggles against the inner evils from within, but I would to hear what you guys can come up in terms of ideas. To clarify that, things like the concept of fear being told about in a story of an orc travelling into a wolves den with no weapon as a test of his faith to Gruumsh. Things like that would work. It might even be easier to thing of what stories an Indian tribe would share with their people.
I should also add that these stories are completely oral. Krah doesn't know how to read or write.
Hope that made enough sense. I'm just looking for ideas at the moment, and could use some help :) . Thanks, guys.
New Blog
So, I actually got around to making a new blog, which is always a plus, but life is just as busy as ever. This week happens to be the week where all the exams and assignments fell, so I haven't had much time for anything else - including TN. I've been wanting to work on it, but some of you know how life goes - very hectic.
6 courses... dunno what I was thinking, but this is the last I'll have to do that. We just had an exam on Thermodynamics, which the subject wasn't too bad I suppose, but this guy's exams are crazy hard. He chooses the hardest ambiguous problems out of that test generator for his book. Such a lousy teacher, I tell ya. Never in his office when he's supposed to be - doesn't go over homework ever (defeats the purpose of giving it out), he's anti-social and the list goes on and on. Differential Equations is starting to give me some problems, finally. It's starting to be come significantly more difficult. Second Order Linear Equations and Substitution. But I think got the hang of that stuff now.
I also have a Macroeconomics exam tonight, but it's not all that difficult I dont think. I just have to watch out for tricky wording and ambiguous questions (which the book is notorious for doing).
But to celebrate the new blog, I thought I would shower you with screenshots from Chapters I and II:
And that's all I got time for now. Hopefully, I'll have more time later to finally get some work done!
