I’m pretty happy with what I’ve gotten done on Aorlis so far this year.
A few months back my site was reviewed by Dmitri and Janet, and they gave me a ton of great advice. It’s taken some time, but I’m about half way through implementing it. There’s still some to go, but I plan to have it done by the end of the year.
I rearranged elements, figured out CSS to increase font size, and quite a bit more. I still have to re-do my advertss for my books, because right now they present themselves as having false columns. I had never heard of that either, but once it was suggested to me I couldn’t un-hear it.
I have not successfully changed fonts. I have tried to use CSS to use more medieval looking fonts, but so far that’s a hill I have not crested. I’m not giving up, and I’m sure there is something important I am overlooking. Time will tell.
I’ve added around 80,000 words of new content, and this has included lots of new actionable game material that I’ve shared with everyone. This includes a new way to handle non-human ancestry, random campaign flashpoints, rewards for players other than money and magic items, social class and backgrounds, and so much more! I’m not done, because more is coming before the year is out.
My personal favorite is a chapter on Magic under the World Encyclopedia, and a massive influx of searchable content under Historical Resources (formerly called the Book of Lists). Make good use of the Historical resources there, because once I publish that as a book I’ll be pulling it from the site, or at least I’m making it private.
I am also proud of the Galleries chapter, where you can page through all the illustrations I’ve used for Aorlis. There’s a lot, I promise. And I’ve probably added about 30-40 new pictures this year alone.
I have also added a Read Stories section. So far, it contains chapter one of Name of the Shadow, and soon it will also have a preview chapter of my next book, and an exclusive novelette just for this site. Aorlis has spent much of its time as a setting for some of my novels, almost as long as it’s been a game setting. (Side note–the Aorlis Campaign is over 42 years old this year.)
All-in-all, this has been a great year for Aorlis.
Next January, all the development comes to full stop for a while, because that’s when I’m going in to finish my long delayed novel, the Brotherhood of Broken Men. It’s an Aorlis book, of course.
Scott