it has begun!

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Why this thread? Because I can! Is it a blog then? Maybe but not really. I will just ramble about horizon's 40k universe. About how my projects flow and go. Yes, projects. My mind spins with ideas. Time to execute is much too few but I need to go on and on and on. I also must thread carefully as I don't want to have secrets spilled to soon. Some things should be only revealed in a final reading.

Maybe you've been to black library forums lately, fan-fiction subforum. A very great place to read some grand fanfic. Some of them, the battlefleet gothic ones, of course used in Warp Rift, a 2 monthly ezine.... heh. Project Distant Darkness had story wise been the largest effort I done yet. And together with Zhai Morenn two supplements the Art of Command and Distant Sun are ready for finishing once all art is collected, but alas back to bl. This thread:
http://forum.blpublishing.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=12292 a result of years!

Yeah, truth. In the link you'll find the current finished format of my long term project the Starblade Chronicles (this after going to many titles before). Now let me tell you. I created the Eldar character of Akaeris Starblade in 2005. My Eldar admiral to my Eldar fleet. The Flame of Asuryan model his flagship, named Cerulean Dream for a lenght of time, renamed to Spirit of Arina just in 2008:

and the inspiration for its current name.





As with all my admiral and commanders he needed background. I scribbled and wrote creating a setting. For gaming sake I wanted to pour it into a narrative scenario set. Remember, started this in 2005! My writing style was poor and bad. And the scenarios, written on paper, never made it past part seven in word.Stuck. Why? Dunno. Felt inadequate. To keep the character alive I've written fluff boxes in the Eldar mms ruleset. Poor, but with each edition they improved but then because they where still bad faded out. Most.

Through time Eriel Erychien, a farseer, was added. I rewrote the beginning and development several times. But speech remained Imperial, not Eldar. That I tried to fix and it worked. In a future work you will see how it has become. But the Akaeris story just didn't grow. Then, just recently in fact. I started it as a poem. Trying to sound eldar- ish, riddle like, metaphor grounded. And it worked, it flowed and sprankled. And in fact, I reached the end. Nine parts. Only two scenarios to create. An ending in sight. Blossom. The current incarnation. I love it for I managed to create characters within only few words. It turned from Akaeris into Akaeris & Eriel.

And then the details which reveal and connect but I'll tell that another time!

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Current projects in progress:

* the Art of Command (InDesign phase, with Zhai Morenn)
* Distant Sun (text and scenarios written, with Zhai Morenn)
*
* Helping a TacCom member (setup phase)
* Rogue Traders (Warp Rift article to be turned into standalone pdf with extras, 0%)
* Jeremiah Crowe in pursuit of Tau infiltrating Imperial Command (early scribblings)
* Pirates of the Khareshi Expanse (background story written, fleet/ships 90% complete)
* The Starblade Chronicles (poem written, art collection started)
* Adding to a Zhai Morenn project (development phase)

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Now back to the Starblade Chronicles and a little connection. When you read the seventh piece it'll has Eriel finding a 'young one'. With young
race I imagine the Eldar adressing the race of the Tau. She delivers this young one, tortured by dark bethren, to a stout one waiting in the sun. Thus a Tau tortured by Dark Eldar. And she brings him to a Demiurg (their ships go close to the sun.
Now we go to Project Distant Darkness, here: http://www.epic40k.co.uk/rules/gothic/ddarkness.html and proceed to Nua'ta his profile section. What do we see? He is being brought back by a Demiurg trader! Aha! The profile also has a link to the original mission in which Nua'ta was captured by the Dark Eldar. So a story cycle completed.

Now the question arises: what was first!

From the beginning I incorporated a scenario in Starblade where Eldar would race/fight Dark Eldar. Seventh part all the time. But no Nua'ta.

Project Distant Darkness started in 2008 and Nua'ta is completely designed by Zhai Morenn, all his character and background. Zhai developed Nua'tas abduction by the Dark Eldar, the Demiurg etc.
With these facts I could give my Eldar-Dark Eldar part more context for my (our?) universe. It all fitted. My original concept of Dark Eldar and Eldar and Tau involved together with Zhai's story for Nua'ta.
And it all gave room for character development regarding Nua'ta (Distant Sun).

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

another day
(good old computer game by the way)


Soon I'll attach the scribblings surrounding Pirates of the Khareshi Expanse. My art provider for Art of Command contacted me to mention he got a new job which meant some delay. Pity, but good for him.

A notewhorty character in horizon-40k-universe is the Inquisitor Horatio Luvern. I created him in the novel (wip) I'm writing called Divine Destiny, pretty amateuristic but a great anchor point for some of my characters (artelus grey, maros grey, Khareshi Expanse, etc). We've used him in Project Distant Darkness and Pirates of the KE (oops spoiler!). so he is quit influential and will grow in that role. But to oppose this rather xenos friendly person I created a new Inquisitor Jeremiah Crowe. More about him later, he's fresh and in design. But he'll be mysterious, much much darker then Horatio ever will be.
In the legendary trader article in Warp Rift I mentioned the Angelic, Grey, Luvern and the Khareshi Expanse. Basically the main focus points of Divine Destiny. Which, is, 100 pages long. Yeah...

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

During the Project Distant Darkness development process Zhai and I had a grand working file with discussions, ideas, and such back and forth. In the background of creating the pdf as is available we created a more complete background. Some bits where left out intentionally to create more mystery and questions to the pdd pdf. In the upcoming Art of Command the background will be laid out. It'll definatelly have some answers and conclusions. Plus some points of oppurtunities. Distant Sun takes on the main story line created in Art of Command and will conclude that 'oppurtunity'. Yes, we finish storylines.

Through some cool circumstances we gotten the option to explore one 'oppurtunity' we didn't really had on a high priority list. But someone else had a project and project distant darkness just fitted nicely into it. Convenient, conclusive and cool.

On another note: did everyone find the secret links in the pdf Project Distant Darkness? If not.... read closely and use that mouse pointer. In the last Warp Rift the scenario was already linked in the pdd pdf.
Art of Command won't have any of those links. A total different format and as such links would not be appropriate. A cool thing about AoC is the special drawn art for it. And now, last weekend, I got a mail from another freelance artist. A fresh style I must say, you'll see soon, probably Warp Rift 25.

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Khareshi Expanse

Log of Kales Duul, Rogue Trader


This system scares me, I am not afraid to admit it. Every cubic kilometre of it shows the signs of Xeno engineering. The system is ringed by exactly 2500 equidistantly spaced spheres of rock. Two gas giants, one the size of Holy Jupiter, the other larger, orbit swiftly around a small body between them. Two more gas giants exist in normal orbital paths, both emitting excessive radiation and light, one bearing titanic rings with an albedo of near one, reflecting the star's, and planet's, light. The Asteroid Belt of the system is congregated into 5 dense asteroid fields, none of the asteroids appear to have been naturally formed. The first rocky world has three rings about it, each of them intersecting the other two at 90 degree angles. Ruins appear to cover its surface. The next world is covered in jungle, its green sphere orbited by one red and one blue, two identical moons save for their surfaces, on opposite sides of the same orbit. Another world further inward is wracked with storms that rage across its entire face, its sole moon orbiting well inside the planets Roche limit. The final world is a perfect sphere as far as we can measure. More significantly, a massive stream of plasma flows to a point on its surface from the nearby star. I know not what purpose these alterations may have served, but the amount of energy it must have taken is immense...


********************************************************************
Divine Destiny
This space was known as the Caredlio Portal. It was a lifeless and empty area. Most would dismiss this sector as a tertiary or even a lower rated sector. It has no resources, no riches, there is absolutely no strategically importance to this area. But aeons ago an ancient race build something huge in this sector. But now the structure resembled a lifeless signpost. A signpost, the Caredlio Portal itself, which local or not so local space farers, merchantman, rogue traders and other space travelling species came to know as the only entrance to something strange, an anomaly, something which should not exist in space. The Caredlio Portal hangs motionless in space just outside the only entrance to the Khareshi Expanse.

************************************************************************


From the entrance point the closest celestial phenomena was an asteroid belt. The asteroids formed a perfect spiral. The surface of the asteroids, although sensors labelled them as being made from stone, was smooth. Too Artelus it was very unlikely the asteroids where naturally shaped and placed in the way they where. At the end of the sensor range another asteroid belt showed but it was still too far away for further analysis.
A few parsecs away a very large gas giant hang motionless in space, against all human known physical laws the planet didn’t rotate around its axis. The planet emitted excessive peaks of radiation. Nearby the gas giant, too close for normal perceptions, a small and old dwarf star rotated around the planet. Already from this distance sensors picked out several structures surrounding the planet. What they where was only a guess at this moment.
On the edge of sensor range various other planets where located, accompanied by a couple of stars.
Artelus referred a couple of times to the log of Kales Duul. It baffled him a bit that although the Khareshi Expanse was different as written in the log, yet it resembled a lot too each other. The changes almost appeared as if somebody moved the celestial phenomena around like a game of chess. The phrase “xenos engineeringâ€Â

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

With Divine Destiny I also introduced the Angelic, a Merchantmen. For BFG I kitbashed this ship first. It turned so cool (in my opinion) I created a background for it. Artelus Grey as it captain during the Divine Destiny era.
Then on TacCom a joint effort by Yuber Okami, Yannic and I started a Rogue Traders article, featured in Warp Rift 17 (with legendary traders including the Angelic in Warp Rift 18). For legendary traders the Angelic had been transferred to Artelus Grey his grandson Maros Grey (who is also in divine destiny as a kid).
But back to Rogue Traders. The team started to throw back and forth ideas for a campaign or trade system as an add on. But it has been grounded due, time? Doesn't matter really. Personally I would love to see someone creating a system for Battlefleet Gothic like the old amiga/pc game Pirates (Gold). Where you start commanding a single ship and expand this. etc etc. Great potential I think. A cool trade/merchant system for BFG. lot of ideas. Talking about it, why not a pirate adventure game in BFG? I'm drifting.

Merchants and transports will also feature in Pirates of the Khareshi Expanse. Quite logical I guess.

Monkey Island II, classic excellence, nowaday games cannot live up to these kinda games:

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

At the moment I'm collecting/putting together the Warp Rift 25 articles. Neat. And soon after (or later depending on holidays) there'll be a Warp Rift promoted seperate issue with a very cool article by Ray Bell.

On project notes I've been looking for art and such. Starblade has been tweaked and fixed. So that's also a complete thing. Almost. It'll be a personal win if I finish this one.

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Let me introduce....

The rigid ticking from a cane echoed through the dark hallway. The fires from the few candle lights caused shadows on ornate decorations hanging from the ceiling and walls. Causing a grim and macabre dance of dark images through the passage.

A brown, made of expensive leather, glove held a firm grip on the cane. Decorated with a large brazen skull on top and arcane symbols running down the pole the cane had an fearing aura. With each step they neared a large oval door at the end of the hallway the tick from the cane became more menacing.

As he reached the door he straightened himself, leaning on his good leg. Using the skull side from his cane he knocked on the wooden door. One knock. But with an intention that could lay down brave hearted men. The sound of the knock still echoed down the hallway as a voice from the other side responded to the knock.

‘In.’

With his left hand, also covered in a glove of the same material he pushed open the door, as he stretched his hand light reflected of from a metallic implant.

***

Solar Admiral Archibald von Braunn sat in a large chair near the end of the room. Facing the door. A lamp on a side table lit the room sparsely.

In his position he had already witnessed many men of various rank and origin, he had been in many dangerous meetings, times in which his title, even though rightly earned through his heritage, was at stake. But now he felt threatened. Yes, he had to admit he even felt somewhat scared. As he heard who wanted a secret meeting with him his heart missed a beat. And now he knocked at the door.

‘In.’ he said, trying to strengthen his voice.

The wooden door swung open.

In the door opening he stood. Silhouetted against the flickering candle lights behind him.  The light from inside the room revealed a dark and devilish grin on his face.

Archibald felt the hair on his arms raise. The image in the door opening looked like a menacing minion sent from hell. And the he talked, a voice loaded with determination and authority.

‘Jeremiah Crowe, Lord Inquisitor.’

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Pirates of the Khareshi Expanse notes/writings

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Painted by my daughter ~1 year ago. (Cleaned edges by me)


my WIP 1


my WIP 2

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Not a bad paint job for your daughter considering her age. How old is she now?  I don't have kids yet, but when I do, I'd love to introduce them to this hobby.  Kudos to you for doing so as you have.

Wouldn't mind seeing some closer up pics of the grand cruiser/BB.  Is this the one you started as little while ago for your novamarines chapter?

CF.

She is now five. And wants to paint a real ship, not a kitbashed thing!  

...close ups. I'm gonna repaint it, yet it has never been finished. Too dull, too uninspiring, never a GothiComp winner!

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176

Hello again! I've been out of the loop for a while but thought I'd say hi. Just seen Epic Raiders, its pretty cool. I like the cover art  

On BFG, I may have something you might be interested in for Warp Rift. I'll PM you.

Mitch

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L'enfer c'est les autres