The Next Game

First of all, I apologize for the long break between Myriad content.  I paused the Patreon in the last month so that members would not be charged while not much work was being done. Truthfully, I am heavily conflicted about the future of Myriad and how strongly I can actually follow through. This is amongst mental health issues I wish I could elaborate on to give a better picture, but I wouldn't want to do so without fully clear details and answers I don't yet have myself. Dealing with that is underway and some time away from Myriad has me wanting to dip my toes back in with a smaller scale campaign. This will help test many of the adjustments I've made since the last game, remember what they even were, and not make a long standing commitment to in a time where I'm unsure if I am able to.

The Players

Surefour, Dyrus, OhNocturnal, Selen Tatsuki, and Gulliblez. I do not know everyone in this group and hope to see that the onboarding process to a Myriad game is easy for them - particularly SelenTatsuki who has never played D&D at all before.

The current expectations is for 5-6 sessions, but I have not yet planned out their campaign. I would like to keep it fairly short and straight forward to get a firm handle on everything.

Date: Sometime after July 16th - OhNocturnal is not available until after this date. I plan to be ready by this date, but have not talked to the group about scheduling.

All subject to change, there is still a lot to be done and confirmed with the players.

New Location - The Evershore

This campaign will not take place in Highsword. I wanted all campaigns to occur here, but in practice using the detailed map of the Island generated a lot of stress around the simple idea of 'what if the players all decide to go toward the gigantic snake in the distance'. Genuinely, I'm surprised nobody ever really brought that up. Having multiple locations that were so clearly defined on the map and all necessitated lots of different artwork I did not have created this perpetual feeling of being unprepared -- and that it would take an excessive amount of time to create maps and art to validate the vision of these locations. Not great for 1 week between sessions. I did try and get ahead of a fair amount of this, top down map assets for creating a gigantic blood dripping snake were made, but they are small amounts of progress being made against a very large island of clearly defined visual identity and lore.

Going forward I am liking the idea of all campaigns existing in a location known as The Evershore, appropriately given this name because no sailor has ever seen the end of it. The shoreline is more consistent, but going inland enters an area many would describe as the unfinished world. It becomes easy to be lost within thick fogs that seemingly scramble the lay of the land, making all travel incredibly inconsistent. Many sailors who travel the Evershore never return, and most who wander through the dimensional fog end up in entirely unexpected locations with no way home. Gigantic bottomless pits can often be encountered where it feels like it is where something was supposed to or used to be.

This will introduce the world map as a major mechanic -- players being able to add, remove, and modify the existing landscape so that they can explore the depths of the Evershore.  If multiple groups play here, you can see how eventually the map could grow in quite interesting ways and directly impact all campaigns moving forward. Ironically, preparing for this chaos feels much easier than the definitive nature of Highsword. It sort of frees me from the deliberately planned ecosystem of a singular place and allows for things to explore that fade in and out of the world without the level of endless scrutiny I'd normally give them. I've actually been excited to try and run a campaign in this area for a while -- large parts of The Myriad are based on a Pathfinder game I ran off stream where the whole world was very similar to this concept.

These tiles placeable by player groups are basically consumable items which declare what type of tiles they generate and any additional modifiers. These outlines are referred to as 'Dreams'. In setting, the world may only be 'modified' by players when they rest, explained as precognitions of the future. The land was always going to shift this way, but it provides a clarity to the group trying to traverse them without being lost for eternity. Surprises may still pop up along the way, but at least you can guarantee a path to your objective, a rest site, or the main town which will be a consistent landmark on the map which helps stabilize the immediate surrounding area.

The map will have some pre-defined locations in the distance which players can decide to create place underneath to travel to. I'd like it to be dynamic where possible. For example; a Shrine event may create a different type of shrine if the players place grass, snow, or water tiles underneath it. At some point I'd like to introduce a card system that contains much more specific and unique modifications, but lets not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Highsword may show up again in the future -- the unique properties of The Evershore doesn't rule out any part of the world from being visited from time to time. I hope you like the sound of things and I really appreciate your continued patience and understanding