Alright... several ideas of mine on here are generating much more interest than I expected.
I definitely appreciate the upvotes and re-blogs, they give me something to shoot for as a writer. But I do want to mention, more important than upvotes or any of that are the comments.
Throw some theories down in those comments. Get mad at my choices in writing. Show me what you think of the story and help make it better by getting involved. Nothing makes me happier than comments with great ideas and interesting viewpoints.
So before anything else, a big thank you to all of you. Let's keep making these stories together and explore the world of the Splinterlands and the fantastic stories and lore found .
Time to get serious, just a little though don't worry. Here's my plan:
Part 1 - The Mortis Gazette
Every Wednesday and Saturday I will try to release an Issue of the Gazette.
I have kids and family and the world is shit in 2020, but I'm going to do my best to keep up that schedule.
What I'd really like for the Gazette is to have all of you become reporters. No need to write the article, instead just send me an idea or a bit of lore from Splinterlore.com that you would like me to explore or have fun with. And once you select something and send it my way, I will bother those in power to make sure it is canonized (as long as they have time, lots of busy times for those humans right now) and as official as can be allowed.
Splinterlands is a competition, but we all need a break and a laugh sometimes. So if you know someone well, and you think they'd get a kick out of it, let me know and I'll work their name into a news article.
NOTE -> I will NOT do anything crass, harmful or negative about anyone, so DO NOT ASK for that. I will be double checking with the subject before publishing anything about them, even if it will only be a silly fun thing. I think it could be fun, but I'm not budging on those rules.
I do have ideas for other newspapers from different parts of the world, but none fleshed out yet.
More on that eventually, no holding your breath though.
Also there was a suggestion at one point of placing ads in the paper, I love this idea. With one caveat: the price per line will be 10 DECs worth of card(s) given away to new players in the Discord chat. Exceptions would include if I see you being helpful all the time in chat anyway... but for the most part that will be the price.
Part 2 - Choose The Path
Recently, our protagonist Derian Kell ran afoul of a gelatinous cube in the sewers beneath Daera, the town near Port Mox on Praetoria. When last we left him, the world had faded to blackness and his fate was in the hands of all of you, the readers.
No one has yet chosen option A, which I am happy about. I don't want him to die either.
But I have an idea for a new character, and this character will be in the same timeline as Derian and there will be a possibility for their paths to cross. Depending on your choices, it could be as friends. Or it could be as enemies. They may never even know the other exists but their actions will influence each other's stories.
I won't reveal too much just yet, so stay tuned for next week, I'm hoping to have her first story ready by Monday.
Mondays, by the way, will be the day the new story comes out. Once we decide what happened to Derian, it will be possible to switch back and forth depending on the narrative as it presents itself.
Thursdays I will post the choice options from the Monday story. This is also when giveaway results or challenges will be posted. I was finding that when I try to pack everything in one post, it is harder to get the audience engagement that I'd like. I really don't want to make any big decisions with these characters... ties are the bane of my writing existence.
The above parts of my plan involve the creative works with a Splinterlands angle. Below will be other stuff. If you are here for Splinterlands content only, feel free to skip out here. If you want to keep reading, well hey, I can't stop you.
Part 3 - Giveaways
I want to make sure I'm giving back as well. To that end, here is what I promise:
I will give away a random card after every post... but all of you will get to decide how high quality the card will be. The more upvotes and comments, the higher the value of the card. And because I'm a mathy guy sometimes, here's how you guys score Community Points:
An upvote is 2 points
A comment is 1 point
and
A reblog is 5 points
01-60 points will be a Common Card
61-12 will be a Rare Card
121-200 will be an Epic Card
201+ will be a Legendary Card
As a challenge to myself... I will make the card chosen become a part of the story as well. So if you want some high-powered epic adventures, you better get going on those comments and reblogs.
#3 - the Gazette will occasionally be giving away cards as well... these will be linked in some way to the articles and will be more trivia and/or puzzle related. There are some meta storylines from issues of the Mortis Gazette that have already begun. As you all sort them out and theorize, I will release more info. The first card I plan to give away in this way is a Legendary. And that phrase is also a hint so... start taking notes.
NOTE -> in fact some hints for future puzzles have already been dropped. I will say no more so don't @me but I think it will be a lot of fun.
Part 4 - Challenges
As I was reading some comments on the most recent Choose The Path, there were some great ideas about what could happen next. Some of which I would love to write about, but could never be canonized in the narrative.
I don't know about the rest of you but I really loved the "What If" comics from years ago. What I would like to do is take these ideas and release them as I write them, no schedule, just for fun. This gives me practice writing stories I never saw coming and you all get to see some potentially wacky stuff.
In any case, feel free to send me story seeds you'd love to read and I promise to give them a shot. No promises on quality or deadlines of course, this is just for fun.
I think this is enough rambling for one day, so let me end it here.
What are all of your thoughts? Questions? Concerns?
Sincerely, Tanzo
P.S. I will let you all know when this schedule becomes official, right now this is only a plan. That's why I'd love to hear from you guys down below.