Holy Moon Update

With everything else that I'm working on I felt I need to discuss the reasons why my Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights series hasn't started yet. First and foremost when I decided to do Holy Moon I had very little planned out. I figured that since many of the plot points were going to be decided by the results of game battles, I could just make up the story as I went along. The only things I had worked out was the meaning of the name and concepts of a few main characters that I later work to flesh out. I figure I could just wing it since the result of games would have an affect on the story. I saw myself similar to being a comic book/manga writers that release a new chapter weekly or monthly. But then I realize I was mistaken. Most manga artist probably don't write their stories on the fly. They spend a lot of time developing their story before its starts being release. Sure in many cases the story develops in ways that is either different or in new ways the author didn't initially plan but overall professional writers knows the high points of their story. I know of examples of manga artist putting their work on hiatus so they focus working on their story.

Realizing this, I knew I was unprepared to start writing a serial. Of course I can't have a hard outline of the plot since I want game results to have an impact on the story. However I do need to have a better understanding of my plot elements. In advance I need to know who are the major players in the world that have the potential of appearing in the story and I need to know what are their goals. That way I will have a firm understanding of what the stakes are in each battle as well as know what each side will do next if they win/lose. So on this front I need to do a lot of prep work to make the vision I have for my series work. Prep work I will enjoy doing and now have more time for.

For most of this year Team Yankee has crowded out my other miniature hobbies, which is another reason I haven't done anything with Holy Moon. But now that my podcasting partner is focusing his time on a different project, it doesn't make as much since for me to all my hobby time into Team Yankee at the moment. Which is a little sad with so much movement with Team Yankee as West Germans were just release and British is coming out next month! I didn't expect British to be coming so soon. I'm not completely abandoning Team Yankee as I still have a lot of work to do on my models but since it is unlikely I will be able to play a game of it anytime soon, it is now no longer a focus of me.

Speaking of models that need work, there is one last point I want to make on the Holy Moon delay. I don't limit my imagination to the games I'm playing. Instead I let it run wild and then later try to conform those ideas into a game system. As a result many of the story concepts I want to write about are models that I do not own yet. And the ones that I do are unassembled and/or are not painted. Painting has always been my bane in this hobby. Getting something on the table so I can play has always been my one number priority. Painting has been an important but distance second. But that is not going to work for essentially a miniature comic so I need to overcome my personal insecurities with painting. Getting my sizeable collection fully assembled and painted is not only a must but a start for something new for me as well. Up to this point I never had to consider buying or building terrain. I have always join communities that already had plenty of terrain so their was no need for me to add to it. With the Holy Moon project I now have great need for not only my own terrain but also miniature set pieces you would find in a board game. I can still use the terrain at my local gaming store when I'm playing out the game battles. What I need terrain for is the fiction sections of Holy Moon. Much like a light novel, I want to have a few images to go with my story parts. That means I need appropriate terrain to take pictures of. I'm thinking I will be reusing a handful of locations for these images. Throne room, meeting hall, camp fire and the like. So I don't have to pick up a lot of terrain (at least not immediately) but considering I currently have none this will take some time. And the exact terrain I will need will be depended on where my prep work discuss above will take me. Since this all will take a while, in the mean time I will post pictures of finished Holy Moon models. This will gives myself and anyone interested a sense of progression until Holy Moon is ready to start. Thanks for your interest.

Shieldmaiden Knights

It is not often that I can track an idea from initial concept to the point where I'm willing to put money into it. But this is exactly what happen with my latest multi-game project. Since it is still fresh in my mind I thought it would be interesting to write about the entire process here.

The idea started with me playing the game Bravely Default. One of the characters, Agnès the vestal of wind was raised by a coven female acolytes. As vestal, it is Agnès mission to tend to the crystal of wind, one of the four artifacts that are the life force of the planet. Since this was a job the require her entire waking moments, Agnès had almost no contact with the outside world. The coven did all of Agnès' necessities for her. This includes going to the city for supplies, cooking, cleaning as well as being Agnès' bodyguards. I know I've seen this trope in other media, though the only one I can think of is the movie Red Sonja. In that movie an order of all female priestess were guarding a world changing artifact. Of course in both these examples something bad happen to the coven. In Bravely Default's case, it force Agnès to face the outside world by herself for the first time in her life.

I took this concept and started playing with it in my mind. I toy around with some variables but at its core its a coven of all female warrior/priestess dedicating their lives to protecting something or someone. One of the things I thought about was if the coven was lead by someone like Lilith from the high fantasy setting of Anima. Lilith is one of the 4 Knights of the Seventh Heaven, each one said to have the strength to fight an army alone and win. To have someone of that caliber as leader would probably mean the rest of the coven strength would be much higher than the average small army. Going with this line of thinking, if the coven is protecting someone that is cloistered, like in Bravely Default, then that person wouldn't be aware of the power of the coven compared with other military forces. Now if an overwhelming force attacks and the person being protected escapes by herself, it would make sense for her to believe everyone in the coven had died.

This scenario can continue to play out in different ways. Where the protected will go, who she will allied with and how she learn about the survivors of the coven? I played out these scenes to figure out what would be the best way to tell a story. I soon realize my interest in this story idea is more than just a storytelling exercise. This seed of a story was now something I want to work on for as a long term permanent project. For that I need to decide whether to incorporate the seed into the series of novels I'm currently working on or make up a new short story/novel that is centered around the seed. At this point it still never occurred to me that any of this would be in miniatures. I took my time thinking about which way I wanted to go as both options had their positives and negatives. While I was thinking it over, I continue to play out various scenario in my mind. One of the variables I was constantly changing up were the side characters. Sometimes I used characters from my novel series to see how well the seed would work in them. Other times I use characters from other media to use as a blueprint for a new character if I went with the original story route. Eventually one of the characters I used was from my Chaos Magic mythology and that was when my prospective on this project completely change.

As soon as models entered the equation I knew the best fit for this story seed was in Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights. The focus of my thinking now shifted to rules and models. What game system can I use a coven of female warriors? I thought I would have more options but really Age of Sigmar is the only thing I'm interested in that fits. Since the coven is not a full size army, it doesn't fit into classic Warhammer fantasy. It probably could fit well into Kings of War but I'm not that familiar with the setting and I don't see myself playing it in the near future. Private Press's Hordes is a game I've been thinking about for a while. But that game is really more about monsters with very few (usually one) humanoid. Not how I envision the coven. Now that I'm thinking about it, there is one more game I'm interested in that I think might be a good fit. BattleLore! I still haven't gotten around to picking up the second edition box, or even playing it but from the reviews I've seen (and I enjoyed the first edition game) BattleLore is still something I really want to have. Unfortunately I will probably be unable to get the game any time soon. And with every other game I'm into being the wrong genre, Age of Sigmar is the system I need to plan for. I will be using both round and square bases so I would have the option to use the models in different game (since it really doesn't matter in AoS). I still haven't decided what warscrolls to use. Due to their background they should be from the forces of Order. Stormcast Eternals is close to what I'm envisioning but at the same time they are still off. To use a 40k reference, they are too much like Space Marines when I need Sisters of Battle. (On a side note, it didn't occurred to me how close the coven idea was to Sisters of Battle until after I started writing this post.) On second thought, if I can find large armored female models, I might have a couple coven members use the Stormcast Eternals rules. But for the majority of the coven I need to look at Bretonnian and Empire rules. Or maybe just wait for more human Order releases. That will probably be my best bet as I also envision the coven being mostly if not entirely on foot. As for models I will be starting with a couple of Reaper Minis that I like to use for commanders and a box or two of Mantic Games Basilean Sisterhood miniatures.

And that is as far as I've gotten on this idea. Initially I thought I would start on the Shieldmaiden models after I get 100 points of US in Team Yankee done and have assembly all the models in the Bretonnian Battalion box. But it has just been announce that West Germany will be in release for Team Yankee in July. So I guess after I get the West German book and Tornadoes (if they are in initial release) I will then start on this Shieldmaiden Knight project. At least that is the plan for now. I have a lot going on right now. In my next post I will discuss my Summer plans, some of which has already started, like being apart of a Team Yankee campaign. Until next time...

Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights Intro

The land of Thylalon is protected by the guardian Lady Vivianna. She is beloved by Thylalon's people and in return she empowers Thylalon's defenders. Lady Vivianna's powers of precognition foresees dark days ahead and the Thylalon kingdom is not ready to deal with the upcoming threats. She tells King Dylan and his knights that they must undertake a dangerous quest that will end with the deaths of many beloved knights. If they refuses or fail in this quest, then everything they hold dear will be no more!

Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights is my serial fantasy fiction series. Key elements of the story will be decide by the results of various games such as Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer Age of Sigmar. Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights will be release as chapters and episodes. Chapters are entire story arcs made up of multiple episodes. Episodes are the individual story post. Episode titles will be based on the chapter it is from. For example the third episode of the first chapter will be entitled "1.3" while the fifth episode of chapter seven would be "7.5". The story will be told in two ways. Text post which will tell the story just like any other piece of fiction and with battle reports which is a description of what happen during a game that is apart of the story. I will be using two types of battle reports. Summary reports will give an overall description of what happen and will treat the event like a game. That means it will include game concepts such as army list, dice rolls and custom rules if any that were used in the game. Dramatic reports will summarize events in a narrative style. Any concepts that are game system specific will not be included in dramatic reports. Battle report titles will be named after the episode that sets up its events. So the battle report based on episode 3.6 will be entitled either "Summary Report 3.6" or "Dramatic Report 3.6". If a single episode sets up the events of multiple games then the corresponding titles would include a letter ie "3.6 A", "3.6 B" and so on.

The story centers around King Dylan and his knights which will be represented as Bretonnia in Warhammer Fantasy. As the story progresses other actors will take stage in the narrative represented by different Warhammer armies. Age of Sigmar will probably be used when the battles are either smaller or one of the forces don't neatly fit into one of Warhammer Fantasy armies. My personal collection is not as big as I would like and a lot of it still needs to be painted. My friend's collections is probably about half fully painted, half only assembled. I don't actually own a Bretonnia army yet. I will be putting together one as I am writing this series. Many of the early games will be done with my friend's Bretonnia army along with a lot of proxying. Hopefully by the end of the year the battle reports will be done with my own fully painted models.

In addition to the above I will be doing Author's Notes post as needed to keep readers inform on my current progress. These will be for discussing scheduling delays, answering fan questions or behind the scene elements I want to share. The Author's Notes are separate from my general Chaos Updates for the blog which I try to do every 3 to 5 months. I am a little behind where I wanted to be at this point so I will probably won't get to a battle report this month. Chapter 1, Episode 1 should still be out before the end of the month. I've never done a serial series before so it might take me a while to find my rhythm. I hope you will follow me along this journey and enjoy the ride. Until next time.