1600 Page Views in 24 Hours!! - The Chronicler's Notes - Monday, February 4th

Wow!  I'm speechless.  Last week was our biggest week yet.  1600 page views in 24 hours, nearly 2500 page views last week and nearly 1500 unique visits in one week!

Apparently, people really like the Character Codex idea!  I've got some other ideas in the works so please stick around!  There's SO much more to come from Chronicle.  In the meantime, please check out the comic!  It's still the main focus of the site and I'm proud of the five strips that have come out so far. 

There's also new content every day.  Some artwork, some writing, some game design.  There's something for everyone!

I'm already getting new ideas and hope to be able to share those with you soon.

Finally, as a celebration, I'm running a SALE on sketches.  FIVE DOLLARS gets you a black and white character drawing of your choice/design.  Even better, for a limited time, two extra dollars gets that drawing in color!  7 bucks and I'll draw your RPG character or your favorite fictional (or non-fictional even) character in color!  So head to the Shop and tell me what to draw!

Thanks again!

Than 

Character Codex Round One!

DWARF BARBARIAN

Today, I'm kicking off a new weekly update called Character Codex.  The goal here is to go through the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and draw every race/class combination (77 of those, by the way!)  I'll be alternating between male and female and may go back to complete the pairs in the future.

DWARF BARD

My personal goal with this is to use the opportunity to play around with character design.  So, I plan on having fun with them and I hope you'll enjoy seeing the progress.  I also hope that some of you RPG players will want to use these as character portraits.

If you have any ideas for what some of the upcoming combinations should look like, let me know!  I might just use your concept and give you credit!

Also, don't forget to hit up the other Pathfinder content on the site and especially take a look at the comic!

The Chronicler's Notes - Monday, February 17th - Welcome New Readers and Daily Update Breakdown

Hello Everyone and welcome to another week at Chronicle!

First off, I'd like to welcome all of the new readers who've found their way here!  I added Chronicle to Comic Rocket, Belfry, and several other comics listing sites and already I'm seeing more hits than before.  So, welcome!  Pull up a chair, take in what we've got so far, and let me know what you'd like to see.  We're going to have a lot more than just the comic as you may have seen already.  That brings me to my next point.

I want to put up a rough schedule so you know what to expect to update on each day and tell you a bit about each section.

Monday - The Chronicler's Notes - What you're reading now!  This is going to be where I let you know what's going on with Chronicle.  You'll find news about updates, merch, appearances, and so forth here first.  Also, I will be using this space to promote other comics, games, or anything else that I feel people should know about.  So make sure to stop by here each week.

Tuesday - RPG Resource - If you are a tabletop gamer, make sure to check this section out.  Chronicle started out as a D&D campaign! I have a long term goal to gather up all of the Chronicle D&D and Pathfinder material I've written over the years and publish as a d20 Campaign Setting.  Until then, I'm going to be posting it up here.  You'll find NPCs, Magic Items, Races, Classes, Adventure Hooks, and more things from the Chronicle-verse to add to your own campaigns.

Wednesday - Gallery Work - I love to draw things other than just the main strip.  Wednesday is going to be my day for updating work in the Galleries. One new gallery feature that I'm going to be debuting soon is my own Chronicle Character Codex.  The goal here is to go through the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and draw a character for each race/class combination.  From Dwarf Barbarian to Human Wizard, I plan to draw them all with a Chronicle twist.

Thursday - Comic Update! - Need we say more.  I hope to bump this up to twice a week eventually, but for now I'm cruising at once a week.

Friday - World-Building - This is where you'll find out more about the stories and world behind the main strip.  You may have seen the recent short story, The Slumripper's Tale, about the murderous street thug seen in the first few strips. If you haven't, go check it out. I had a lot of fun writing it.  Each World-Building update will be similar, though sometimes it may be shorter or longer.

So, there you go! Five days of content each week. I hope you can find something you like.  If you do, then please leave a Tip in the Jar, buy a sketch, click an ad, or at least Share Chronicle on social media.

Have a great week!

THAN 

The Chronicler's Notes - Monday, February 10th - Ways to Support and Youtube Shows

Welcome to a new week here at Chronicle!  Thanks to everyone who's tuned in for the first couple of weeks.  Please continue to tell your friends about Chronicle.  We're up and not going anywhere.  Also, make sure to Share or ReTweet anything you like on social media.  We've gotten lots of favorites and likes, but the better way to show your support is to spread the word, so please click Share or ReTweet instead.

An even better way to show your support is to click an ad at the bottom or leave a tip in the Tip Jar.  I was alerted that the pre-selected amounts in the tip jar were less tips and more "tax-free deductions."  Those choices have been fixed to more reasonable amounts.  However, if you would indeed like to use Chronicle as your tax shelter just click on the TIP JAR button on any page and enter any generous amount by choosing Other!

For today's notes, we're going to take a look at some fantasy Youtube shows that you should be watching.  These are all ongoing series with seasons of episodes.  They all center around a group of adventurers, but each has its own take on the concept.  Keep in mind that most of these are fairly low budget. You have to suspend your disbelief, ignore cheap props, turn a blind eye to obvious makeup, and imagine the forests of Washington state are actually a distant land of adventure.  It's worth it for the stories and the comedy and a much better alternative to any reality program.

Have a fantasy web series that you think everyone should be watching?  Leave a comment either below or on one of the social media sites!

• Journeyquest - A fantasy series from Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE) produced by the Dead Gentlemen, the folks who make the legendary Gamers movies.  This one is one of the best; good acting, good scripts, fun dialog.  It's got great adventure, but lots of comedy as well.  I think the most enjoyable bit is how they turn several of the common fantasy tropes on their head in a humorous way.  Also, I've got a soft spot for bards and I love the idea of bards secretly following adventurers looking for epics.  Two seasons are out now and they are producing the third now.  Go check it out.
   

• Standard Action - Produced by Critical Success under the ZOE umbrella, Standard Action follows another ragtag band of adventurers, this group however are all the "other" D&D classes: a barbarian, a bard, a druid, and a sorcerer.  It's slowly building towards an epic storyline.  There's a good mix of drama and comedy and it seems to have some staying power.  Two seasons are out and a third is on the way.
   

• Fang and Talon -  This show takes the fantasy genre in a fresh direction.  Fang & Talon are just mercenaries.  These are adventurers just looking to survive.  The setting feels like the isolationist landscape of the Dark Ages.  The guys are almost always on the road and camping where they can.  There is some mystery to their back stories, but there's no ramp up towards epic glory.    The episodes are short and easy to devour.  The dialog can be a bit quiet at times due to editing, but the scripts are witty and the characters grow on you.

My Journey With Dungeons & Dragons

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons.  It's a game that has had its share of successes and failures.  It has overcome controversy to become almost mainstream.  In fact, in some ways it has become trendy to play D&D.  It's a worldwide phenomenon and as long as people are willing to use their imaginations it will exist in some form.  So, for the anniversary I want to talk about my journey with Dungeons & Dragons, what D&D means to me, and why I will always be a D&D player.

First off, yes I am a D&D player.  I think most people who read this won't be surprised, but I'm sure someone will be.  I was once told by a friend that she had mentioned to a mutual friend of ours that I played D&D.  To which the other friend asked, "Does he light candles and wear a cape?"  The answer of course, is that the candles are optional and it's a cloak, not a cape.  Cloaks have hoods.  Just kidding!  I've never worn a cloak to play D&D (now, RenFest is another story!) and I think the only time candles were involved was during a power outage.  Let's get past the stereotypes here.  D&D is not of the occult, nor is it the domain of the hopeless loser (at least I don't think I am).  

The "Red Box"

I started playing in the 5th grade, this would have been 1988.  This was a big year for me, new school, new baby brother, and a new best friend.  Kevin was the big kid in class and I was the pipsqueak.  We both didn't quite fit in and were quiet types.  But, we seemed to read the same kinds of books (Choose Your Own Adventures!) when our teacher let us pick out books from the class library.  We soon found that we liked the same kinds of TV shows and movies, and we both had a Nintendo.  It also helped that we lived about 5 minutes apart.  Soon, we were over at each other's houses playing Nintendo every weekend.  Then one day, a kid in our class brought an infamous red box to school and showed it to us in free time:  The Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules.    I had heard hushed whispers about this game before from grown-ups and older kids.  It was up there with a Ouija board on things you don't mess with and here it was in this kid's duffle bag like it was the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I was sure if he opened it, spirits were going to come out and melt our faces right there in Mrs. Lawson's class!  Then he did and it was horrible... it was... it was... wait, it was just a game with dice?  Granted they were weird dice (20 sides, that's insane!), but just dice.  We started flipping through it and the basic game was set up like the Choose Your Own Adventure books we loved. So, we played with it a little and it looked neat.  

Kevin asked if we could borrow it and we played our first game that weekend.  We used pre-made characters from the book and just ran through the choose your own adventure style game in the back of the book.  You had health and had to roll a certain number to hit and then rolled for damage.  This was like a video game without a TV!  We were hooked.  We made photocopies of the book on the xerox in my grandparents' print shop (sorry about all that toner, Grandma!) and then started making up our own games.  We played during free time at school and on the weekends.  Soon, we had a third player, another boy who lived nearby named Jeff.  Jeff was a year older and always played fighters.  I immediately took to rogues.  Kevin was the resident wizard.  We took turns at DMing.  My favorite part about those early days was making the dungeon maps on graph paper.  I would spend whole bus trips to and from school filling in every little box on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.

The stats made the acronym FASERIP, what Seventh Grader wouldn't love that!

I played a mutant ferret.

As we got older, we found other role-playing games to play.  Sixth grade was the year of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and sure enough, there's an RPG for that.  Seventh grade we got into comic books and especially Marvel comics.  Yep, there's an RPG for that.  (Incidentally, my box looked exactly like that picture with the corners split.  Must have been a design flaw.)  Eighth grade we tried Shadowrun.  Ninth grade we dabbled with RIFTS.  But, we always came back to D&D.   

Jeff went to high school a year before us and met new friends; friends who also played D&D. He started hanging out with them more.  Kevin and I found a couple of more friends our age who played D&D and the group split for a bit, but once we were in high school, we all merged into a D&D supergroup.  There was Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, Dave, Matt, John, Jeff, Kevin, and Than (yep, I got my nickname from my D&D group.  Shocker, I know.)  We had other friends who would come by and we didn't always get together as a pack, but we were over at each other's houses most every weekend in high school and pretty much always playing D&D. We even got our girlfriends to play!  (Wha... D&D nerds with girlfriends?!  We were the OG Geek Chic!)

How do they not see that dragon?!

We got snowed in one time at Jeremy's house and played a game all weekend long with breaks for food and sleep.  One time, Kevin's wizard got trapped inside of his own staff and only the person that held the staff could talk to him.  That person was my extremely hyper, talkative, rogue.  I'm pretty sure I broke his brain that night.  Dave liked to mess with people's dice (*gasp*) and would put them in his mouth.  He stopped that when he swallowed one of the Jeremys (Jeremies?) d20s (we all kinda wished it was a d4.)  We devoured the Dragonlance books and adopted it as our default campaign setting.  This sowed the seeds for a fictional world backed by RPG elements into my brain.

High school was soon over and the group parted ways.  We had a lot of good times and lots of fun adventures, but time moves on.  Yet, I soon learned that we were not the only geeks in the world.

I found a whole new set of friends in college!  Marcus, Jackson, Brett, Nate, Thomas, Jeremy, Adam, Zach and Julie.  Sure enough, D&D games started up again and, as you may have read before, Chronicle was born!  I was the DM and Chronicle was my campaign setting.  The players became my characters and their adventures my stories.  Maybe someday, they'll make an appearance again.

After college, things sped up.  I worked in a comic shop and ran my own Chronicle D&D game there with a whole new set of friends (Ben, Noah, Jason, William).  Later, I opened my own shop in Savannah, GA and ran another Chronicle game with a whole new set of friends there (Jamie, Zach, Megan, Tiana)!  After that shop closed, I moved back home and found my old college friends (Shanon, Anna, Marcus, Sarah, Thomas, Jackson) and we ran another Chronicle game.  After I got married, I started up a game with a whole new set of friends (Bob, Rick, Matt, Brian, Lacey, Amy, Thomas), who were mostly from my church (again, breaking stereotypes here!), and even got my wife, Rachel, to play!

Have you figured out the pattern yet?  Have you seen the common theme?  To me, D&D is about one thing.  It's not about dragons and elves and magic.  It's not about a particular rule set or brand names or genres.  It's not about being a geek or being cool or being normal.

Dungeons & Dragons is a game about friends.

That's it.  

For an introverted, shy little geekling in the 5th grade it was a way I could finally make friends who were true.  I could trust these friends.  I could hang out with these friends.  I could go on adventures with these friends.  

Look at a gaming convention like Gen Con or PAX.  There are thousands of people there to play games, but all of them will tell you, year after year after year, the reason why they come back is because of one thing - the friends they meet.  You make a deeper bond with someone when you play games together.  You cheer at success, you laugh at mistakes, and you groan at failure.  What better way to get to know people, than to experience those things together?

Everyone that I have ever sat around a table with, I consider a lifelong friend.  No matter where our lives have taken us, no matter how close we are now, every one of them YOU is a friend for life.  

If you haven't had the chance to sit down to a game with me, then what are you waiting for?  There will always be a seat open.

Happy Anniversary, Dungeons & Dragons!  

Thank you, Gary and Dave, for introducing me to my friends.