> As someone who has devoted a lot of time in the past to developing
> the Whitewall story, both in game background, scenario seeds and
> fiction (Kallyrkala), I will make an effort to have this information
> available to the tribe in a convenient format concurrent with or
> before the publication of any Whitewall supplement. Obviously, many
> people here have made similar investments, and I invite anyone
> interested to think about articles for publication. If there is
> interest and energy, we can move more quickly. An enormous amount has
> already been done. I would be looking at either a series of free PDFs
> in magazine format or, if there is interest, perhaps a special issue
> of one of the fanzines.
OK, from my memories of the WIKI and various people's work, this is what we've got, and what we'd like to have but haven't got. The Wiki's had problems in the last year or so: Charles has been busy with other things, and I haven't ben able to edit it for ages: don't know about other people? I did consider starting up a new Wiki and transferring and tidying both at the same time, but then went back to writing fiction instead.
Physical layout of the general area and of the City itself: got, mostly. We never detailed the various underground parts and tunnels, but probably best not to tie those down anyway. We have maps, we have locations of important sites, we have descriptions of many of them (I have a few to transfer from works of fiction).
Overall timeline, general trends, major events: got.
Detailed timeline: spotty, and probably best left that way. Tying things down tightly makes it less useable.
NPCs on the Orlanthi side:
Got some, but some gaping holes.
In particular, we have no real idea of most of Broyan's Ring: the non-Sartarite part of it. I seem to remember Jeff
coming up with a list of names - but that's all it was, just a list of names that might as well have come off the
Random Heortling Name Generator for all the good it did. The "locals" should outnumber our Sartarites, so we need
to do some development there.
Donald and I know about one or two minor Volsaxi clans, though haven't named them, and one Volsaxi warband (but it gets wiped out in 1619, so doesn't help much).
Then again, we're not trying to produce a complete WW Book (are we? are you?) and perhaps the reason we haven't produced anything about the Volsaxi is the same reason they probably aren't needed: no-one's interested, because we all start our campaigns in Sartar!
Sartarites: yes, we know about them, in exhaustive detail. Rob did a lot of work on how they interact, in particular.
The Aeolians have been mentioned recently: do we have any? Would any of the herobands from existing publications be likely to show up here?
NPCs on the Lunar side:
At least here we're balanced. We know things about the commanders, we have a fair idea of the units present at any given time.
An overview of logistics: supplies needed, stores held, what has to be imported. This is where the "sneaking supplies into Whitewall" scenario will come in, so we do need to get the background consistent. An area where we seem to have produced a lot of the wacky ideas on the fringes as one-off things to try, but not the basic everyday essentials. Also, Donald and I had to look at supply routes when trying to get Penny's work to fit, and we need to integrate that.
Mythic history, magical strong points and weaknesses: we've had some good ideas there, but they need tidying up and making sure they're consistent. What temples are where, how the basic magical defences work, what changes when Orlanth becomes more and more tied to WW. The idea, which I love, that the Orlanthi did a "double-dare", accepted that Orlanth was going to die, and made sure that it would be on their terms, escalating the whole thing as a result. Broyan's tie-in with Vingkot - make sure we know how this works, and what long-term quests he and his ring are doing when.
Big events in detail:
Shargashi in the basement - depends on that mythic history to have the resulting floods of undead, but the basic
incident is good, and gives plenty of scope for PC involvement.
We have detail: far too much detail! about the Bat. What we actually need is enough freedom that the real answer is "your players did it". Give some options, and enough basic facts that the GM can invent what they need, perhaps. A collection of ways in which the Bat has been dealt with so far?
The final fall: again, we can come up with plenty of ideas, but how the players can get involved will vary enormously from one group to another, and what really happens will have to be variable to let it work for them.
We also have assorted works of fiction by many people, set in and around WW and the plots mentioned above. Quite what we do with them, I'm not sure. The various complete short stories can be sorted out: either publish as-is, or ransack them for scenario potential, or both.
I'm slightly frustrated by having half a novel (well, about 50K words so far) that isn't likely to be completed in any reasonable time. It includes some interesting incidents that might well form the basis of scenarios, and some background that might be of general use. Donald? I think the bit where Tarkalor's Gate falls, is retaken, and needs guarding during a ritual might be useful? Also what I found out about who "mans" the entrances and greets you on your return to the city, that can be important when the Heroes return from whatever quest they were on.
OK, that was from memory. What did I miss?
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