"How was your Turkey Day, Jessi?"

Great; thank you for asking.

"Let us skip the pleasantries: it's 28 Nov; what have you accomplished for NaNoWriMo?"

As usual, much less than for that which I was aiming.

Aside from Cori's much-needed stay-cation, the month has been one of stress, grief, and darkness. Let me reel back the hyperbolic melodrama. I *have* been productive, just not on the original goals I had set for myself.

But I write this Announcement to discuss, as the Subject states, an underappreciated advantage to Independent Publishing: discarding a concept completely and starting a new one from scratch. I've been "working" on MMPR02 since mid-October. And while the original concept was--is--fantastic, it wasn't gripping my attention like Infiniti Eternia did.

"But Jessi! The Parallel Reality books are stand-alone novels, unrelated to one another! Besides: IE was your masterpiece! You mustn't pressure yourself to repeat such 'an inventive, non-easily replicated' book!" [Real quote!]

I agree. But the original concept for MMPR02 just wasn't 'sci-fi' enough for me. The Mercedes Mace series is really a detective mystery first, sci-fi/dystopian/alt-history second. I am a sci-fi-natic (If that isn't someone's intellectual property, I'm claiming it.), and I must satiate my need to consume and create sci-fi!

My new concept for MMPR02 may just be the shot of core-personality motivation that I need to work consistently through the winter months to come! It will definitely be out in 2017, but it may be more summer-months Q3 than the first-half/Q2 for which I was originally shooting.

The other publishing dates still stand:
MM04: "Happening to Me" Dec 2016.
YMM02: "Steps of a Ghost" Jan 2017.
MMPR02 (Untitled): Q3 2017.
MM05 (Untitled): Q3 2017.
YMM03 (Untitled): Q4 2017.
DMCD (Any): TBA.

Given the results of last week's election, the title of this post is a double entendre. Yes, I would've posted earlier had the outcome been different. Dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder has been particularly difficult during the past two weeks.

"So, what have you done, Jessi?" Not much. I did a game review, and two massive posts about a fifteen-year-old RPG. I've written about 3k words for MMPR02, and taken half a dozen pictures for DMCD01.

Why has my progress been so slow these past two weeks? The election really shook me; I was practically useless for the rest of last week. My SAD has not been kind, but the election basically countered the warm spell that we've been experiencing here in the central valley.

I've also had a shit time trying to find more awesome j/k-pop! ...Which is a hysterical, and now my favorite, way to shorten Japanese and Korean popular music.

To quote History's most robbed loser: "...[L]et us not grow weary, let us not lose heart, for there are more seasons to come. And there is more work to do." If you suffer SAD as I do, consider two shorter work sessions rather than one long one--the break of lunch or a movie, or a motorcycle drive around town, can help re-energize us. Get as much light as you can, and force yourself to sit in your writing space with your music and your tea--the effort that you made to create your writing space in the spring and summer is now rewarded by greater productivity in the winter.

Jessi’s Mega-Late Game Reviews
161105
(#JessisMegaLateGameReviews #JMLGR)
 
“Civilization: Beyond Earth w/ Rising Tide” Review

I’ve mentioned this earlier: I never thought I’d have to write a review for Civ BE. As a hard-core sci-fi fan—to the point that I only agreed to play a fantasy RPG with my recent gaming group if they agreed that we’d also have a sci-fi RPG in the rotation—I’ve only liked the Civilization series to a point, which has everything to do with the fact that it’s a 4X game.
 
For the record, I’ve played several non-sci-fi 4X games (e.g. Endless Legends, Sorcerer King). I really liked EL (though it ran slowly on my five year old gaming laptop), and while I didn’t think SK actually followed its premise (Tim Gunn would warn it that it’s not following the challenge!), I also liked Sorcerer King.
 
But Civ has always declared itself a historical simulator. So it’s not sci-fi and it’s not fantasy? Gee: where do I sign…? Even in the wake of my newfound appreciation for the importance of history education, Civ does nothing for me. If I may quote TotalBiscuit: “I invented Computers in [the year 14kerfluffle], before I invented sailing ships!” Not only does Civ fail to hit the sci-fi/fantasy mark, it’s not even a great historical simulator.
 
My favorite “Civ game” up until the release of Civ BE:RT was Pandora: First Contact. It was everything that I’d wanted from Civ: sci-fi, aliens, robots, and black hole generators.
 
I wouldn’t say that Civ BE:RT is my favorite 4X game; Star Ruler 2 – Wake of the Heralds claims that honor, followed closely by Sins of a Solar Empire, Endless Space, and Gal Civ 2—which is not a 2K/Sid Meier production). I’d say Civ BE:RT is my 4th favorite 4X game.
 
Another of my favorite content creators admitted to peer dissonance re: movies—a phenomenon in which one’s opinion of a particular content experience changes after subsuming the opposing opinions of one’s peers. It’s related to ‘cognitive dissonance’, in which a person changes her/his thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors to resolve psychological dissonance. In the case of Civ BE:RT, a lot of gaming critics and content creators didn’t particularly care for the game in comparison to Civ V (which, at the release of Civ BE, had already released all of its DLC/expansions).
 
So now I have to write a mega-late review for CIV BE:RT. My pleasure.
 
Civilization: Beyond Earth: Rising Tide is a sci-fi 4X game from the developers of the Civ series of games (including Civ 6). And it’s better than all of those games. I will skip the usual delineation of the 4X aspects, since Civ is basically the Ascendant of the entire genre (from my perspective). What does Civ BE:RT have that makes it better than the other Civ games?
 
* Sci-fi aliens, robots, and planets! To paraphrase Barney from HIMYM: “Sci-Fi is always better.” Civ BE:RT is a game like any other Civ game: hex-based, turn-based strategy on the face of an entire world, facing off against other players/AI, minor players (i.e. city-states/trade stations), and creeps (i.e. barbarians/aliens). But it’s sci-fi, so it’s better.
 
* Health vs. Happiness. I understand the happiness mechanic in Civ games, though I’ve never thought it was particularly well-handled. (See better implementations in SoSE, ES.) It’s been replaced with a Health mechanic (a la Pandora) that basically accomplishes the same thing. But it fits the theme: like many of the research options, the ‘story’ of Civ BE:RT is one about trying to colonize an alien world. Yes, let’s assume that everyone wants to be here. And don’t eat the damn fungus without testing it for alien parasites!
 
* Organizations/Corporations vs. Historical Rulers. It won’t be the First Terran Empire that colonizes a distant planet, but a series of competing organizations. Many people who didn’t enjoy Civ BE:RT cited this part of the game—that they couldn’t fully engage with the game by assuming the leadership of one of these organizations. Poppycock. Each of these ‘Sponsors’ have their own interesting, futuristic histories and philosophies. And the Civ theme of having a broad variety of cultures holds true for Civ BE:RT as well! The Pan-Asian Cooperative! The People’s African Union! Franco-Iberia and Polystralia! They didn’t substitute for the right word part (Austral = ‘south’, -ia = ‘state/land of’; should’ve been ‘Polyaustralia’), but the story of these Sponsors is great! I feel that I relate to them just fine, and really identify with some of them!
 
* Pan-directional research. A la Star Ruler 2, a la Endless Space, the research tree in Civ BE:RT starts in the middle, and branches out in all directions. The DLC Rising Tide reformatted it to have six cardinal directions instead of three. And, since your unit upgrades depend on your Affinity, and your Affinity level depends on your research progress, you must make the strategic decision of whether to focus solely on technologies that enhance your dominant Affinity, or to branch into techs that are useful in other ways.
 
* Affinity. This is the most enmeshing mechanic a 2K/Sid Meier Civ game has ever introduced. Essentially, there are three possible ‘philosophies’ a Sponsoring organization can profess while competing to colonize this planet:
- Harmony: Humanity’s dominance on Terra’s ecosystem destroyed our old home. To survive and thrive among the stars, we must co-exist in harmony with the flora and fauna of this new planet.
- Purity: We are the last hope of sustaining Humanity’s genetic legacy. We must force the landscape to cater to our biology to continue the Humanity of Old Terra.
- Supremacy: Screw biology: we should’ve hybridized with cybernetics long before life on Terra became unsustainable!
Everyone with whom I’ve discussed Civ BE:RT identifies quite clearly with one of these Affinities. And early in your very first game, it’s pretty obvious which way you’ll go! Affinities provide certain bonuses as your level in them increases, and unit upgrades are, in part, directly tied to your Affinity level/type.
 
Rising Tide benefits:
 
* Exploring Better…ish. Explorers can get a late-early-game or early-mid-game research that allows them to take control of aliens at the cost of Explorer health. Keep in mind that this can kill your Explorer, so be careful if your Explorer has less than 50% health. You still get the alien if the Explorer dies in the Leashing action. RT also increases the variety of expeditions Explorers can perform, and introduced the Artifact system. A single artifact will provide small/medium food, production, or research points. However, combining three artifacts (at least one of which must be of green quality) will reward your civ with a unique benefit (e.g. double worker speed, double expedition speed, +1 distance to air units). And, using different combinations of certain artifacts will award different benefits! I’m sure there’s a guide out there that tells everyone the benefits of all possible combinations.
 
* More options in research (primarily because of water-based techs)! …Enough said.
 
* Water cities! Different…kind of. So you can have cities in water now! And the center of the city can move around the water, spreading its territory to every adjacent hex that it has touched! …It’s not as cool as they made it sound. The downside is that each city is still limited to working the tiles within three hexes of it; your citizens don’t have the option of working every hex your city has touched on its fourteen-hex swim along a coastline. However, in RT the amount of resources (strategic, bonus, etc.) found all over the map is now massive! Special resources are everywhere! And, of the six strategic resources (geothermal, titanium, petroleum, firaxite, xenomas, and floatstone), as long as a worker builds the appropriate tile improvement within the boundary of your floating cities, you still get to collect and use them for as long as you possess that city. A citizen can’t work the tile, but your civ still gets the resources.
 
Personally, I try to make my floating cities float around to map out the same 7-hex diameter area that a land-based city can claim, so I can predict which tiles my citizens will be able to work. But, if a water city would be just one tile away from a strategic resource, it’s now possible to claim it.
 
Note that water-based cities do not automatically grow their borders using culture. Water-based cities still produce global culture (for acquiring Virtues), but you have to move the cities to increase their territory. “But Jessi! Water tiles aren’t great!” Good news! All of your land units can embark onto water without any kind of research, and your workers can build ANY tile improvement on a water tile as a land tile (one exception: no water-based Terrascapes)!
 
* Diplomacy now based upon Diplomatic Traits and Affinity! No one likes the diplomacy systems in Civ. No one. Civ 4, Civ 5, Civ BE, Civ 6: all terrible and highly unpredictable diplomatic systems. The RT expansion actually handles it in a pretty decent way. Now, one’s diplomatic standing with another Sponsor is based on affinities, diplomatic agreements, and Civ traits. These influences affect two scales: Friendship and Fear.
 
On the lower end of the impact spectrum, if you share a dominant affinity (or hybrid, see below) with another Sponsor, you get a bonus to your diplomatic standing with them.
 
Making diplomatic agreements with other civs will increase your standing with them, while canceling an agreement, or making an agreement with an organization they don’t like, decreases your standing. These diplomatic agreements range from ‘okay’ to ‘pretty kinda broken’! In one of my recent games, I had an agreement with the People’s African Union that gave me +2 Health per strategic resource. I lost it when we went to war—apparently, I had improved *70* strategic resource tiles, because my Health tanked after the war began!
 
Which agreements are available to you? That’s where your Traits come into play. Each Sponsor has a unique trait which they cannot abandon. But the other three Traits can be selected (and changed!) as you see fit. Now, for the AI sponsors, each Trait gives them a personal preference. Example: when you choose to take the Commercial (+% bonus Energy/turn) trait for your civ, you make the ‘Estate Tax’ Agreement (each tile provides +1 Energy if worked) available to other civs. If no civ adopts the Commercial trait, there won’t be an Estate Tax Agreement available to anyone. In multiplayer, this would allow you to ask another player to adopt a particular Civ Trait to make a particular Agreement available to you. In single player, or playing with AI, each trait an AI player takes creates a certain diplomatic influence weight. Ex: If an AI civ takes the Commercial trait, then they look favorably on you if your civ produces positive energy yield, and poorly upon you if your budget is negative.
 
As the mid game develops, and the AI players take a trait in each of the four categories (personal, domestic, political, and military), each AI player now has four criteria by which they judge you. If you want to be allied with Al Falah, then you can see which Traits they’ve taken, and make sure you land on the positive side of them.
 
Many buildings, all Wonders, some spy actions, and some artifacts/expeditions provide another type of currency: Diplomatic Capital. Buying agreements from other players costs you a set amount of DC up front, and some small amount of DC per turn. Having other civs buy your available agreements gives you Capital. You also use DC to buy, upgrade, and/or change your Traits, and you can use DC to buy units (kind of like using Faith to buy units in Civ 5/6) and buildings. It’s a very cool, predictable—and therefore strategic—system.
 
* More Affinity options! Now you can adopt hybrid Affinities! Some abilities, bonuses, and upgrades requires you to have one affinity at one level, and another at another, lower or equal level. Ex: at lvl 5 Harmony, lvl 5 Purity, unhealthiness caused by the number of cities you possess is decreased by 25%. While there are other ways to decrease unhealthiness, this particular bonus is only available at 5 Harmony/5 Purity. If you’re settling a lot of colonies, you might want part of your research strategy to include reaching 5 H/5 P ASAP.
 
* More world options! Other than the frequency of special resources spiraling out of control, they added lots of new planet stuff! (Some of this also came with the ‘Exoplanets’ DLC.) It really expands the variety of maps.
 
The “Rising Tide” expansion does everything that an expansion is supposed to do: fixed systems that were broken, expanded systems that were limited, and provided more variety to systems that were already good.
 
Look: in the wake of the Civ 6 release, there are lots of reasons to jump on it. If you enjoy 4X at all, and have no particular dislike for historical-themed games, then you should definitely play Civ 6. Everyone seems to love it. I will definitely break down and buy it with my holiday money.
 
But when “Civ: Beyond Centauri: Falling Stars” gets released, I will never play Civ 6 again! 2K! Heed my words! Make the sci-fi companion of Civ 6! Add both the orbital layer and a space layer! Do it! Distant Space Station Districts!
 
Doooooooo iiiiiiiiiiiit!

​How I Would Fix/Jury-rig
Sidereal Astrology
In Exalted, 1st ed.
161103

Part 1: Plea for aid from fellow Exalted players.
 
This part will be shorter than Part 1, if only because my proposed changes are simply described and exemplified.
 
We have three issues that we’d need to overcome to make Astrology (1) usable, and (2) balanced out of the MAD scenario described at the bottom of Sidereals, 1st ed., pg 212: “…[T]he Sidereal [Astrology] must have always been behind both sides all along, or your game will veer wildly out of kilter…”:
 
(I) If the Sidereals are the Age of Sorrows equivalent of “Mage: The Ascension” (or “:The Awakening”), and Astrology is meant to represent the ability of the Mage to interact directly with the Weave/Loom of Fate, then Sidereals lose something if Astrology is simply deemed ‘unusable’.
 
(II) But if the Sidereal PCs can, perhaps in the span of decades, basically award an effectively permanent +1 die/success, +1 willpower generator, +1 Virtue bonus to all PC actions, how do we balance it against the major NPC antagonists? Assume that all major antagonists with any possible connection to Yu-shan and/or the Sidereals also have this bonus (e.g. Mutally Assured Dice-truction).
 
(III) It is effectively impossible* for a novice Sidereal to create any kind of Astrological effect that matters over the course of a short story. But it is essentially easy/free for elder Sidereals to create powerful, effectively permanent Astrological bonuses to themselves, and penalties to their enemies.
 
*: (Covered in Part 1)
 
The poetic irony is that the game already categorizes attributes, abilities, colleges—every mechanic that might be useful to Astrology. I would propose the following mechanical changes:
 
* Have Frequency and Duration be counter-related to one another. A Fate Effect could manifest every time the dice are rolled for a month, or once every week or so for a millennium.
 
* Have Functions apply a simple +/-1 modifier. It can be -/+ to the difficulty (DC) in dicepools of 8 or fewer dice, +/- a die in dicepools of 8 or fewer dice for opposed actions, or +/- to the target number (TN) in dicepools of 9 or greater dice.
 
* Have Effects target specific Abilities. Each Ability is related to a College anyway, so just have that part of the declaration apply to the College’s related ability. This may make more sense anyway: currently, the colleges refer to types of people, and the applied fate may be anything. Instead, force the fate to be related to the college, and allow the Sidereal to target anybody. If one is sitting in a physics class, one is studying the what of physics; the who of the student is inconsequential.
 
* Allow a singular Sidereal to create a small Effect on her own; save all of the cooperation and supplication to the various idiot spirits of Yu-shan for more powerful Destinies. Make these provide +/-2 or +/-3, to demonstrate the true power of the Loom of Fate on a fated subject. In context, the +/-1 that an individual Sidereal can manipulate is a relatively small manipulation of the Weave.
 
* I understand why the Prayer roll is Charisma + Performance, but I don’t like it. “Oh please, dear sweet Pattern Icky, please hear my pathetic plea to a low-functioning automaton and kindly nudge Fate a bit this way and that. Thank you. Love, a Sidereal who is supposed to fucking control fate.”
 
Instead, allow each Sidereal caste to use, oh, I don’t know, some Ability that they would actually use and develop. I propose for the Fatalistic Meditation roll:
Of Mercury: Perception + Endurance
Of Venus: Charisma + Performance
Of Mars: Wits + Presence
Of Jupiter: Intelligence + Lore
Of Saturn: Manipulation + Awareness
 
**Jessi’s Procedure for Sidereal Astrology
 
Optional, pre-Meditation:
 
- Plan Destiny: Intelligence + Craft (Fate), DC the highest Essence of the target Scope. Every two surplus successes adds +1 Effect die. Still requires a day of work. Modify DC according to materials available (e.g. library in Yu-shan -2 DC, camping in a random field in the South +2 DC).
 
- Chart Horoscope: Perception + Occult, DC 1. Every two surplus successes adds +1 Effect die. Still requires a day of work. Modify DC according to ability to watch stars (e.g. -1 DC at observatory or can work all night, +1 DC if weather poor or forced to work during day).
 
- Ritual Behavior: Roll any applicable Stunts up into this. Bear 3 Trappings of the College, +1 die. Bear all five, +3 dice. Don the resplendent destiny of the college, +2 dice. “I don’t bother with any ritual crap.” “Okay, no stunt dice.” “To bear the Trappings of the Gauntlet, I subsume myself in the resplendent destiny of a Legion officer, Sergeant Kara Keerkourt. My uniform is perfectly pressed, but retains the bloodstains from previous battles. I train the soldiers of my platoon fairly, but taxingly, brutally pushing them to their limits with my meaningless demands of push-ups and wall-sits.” “Cool, cool: all five trappings of the Gauntlet, donned the destiny of Kara Keerkourt, +5 dice to Effect roll.”
 
* Fatalistic Meditation:
 
- ‘The Pattern Ickies are fickle about one’s hand-writing.’ Horseshit. To work the Loom of Fate, a Sidereal first engages in a period of Fatalistic Meditation. (Use the attribute + ability mentioned above.) Each caste of Sidereal engages in this differently; e.g. a Chosen of the Maiden of Journeys relies upon her perception of the strings of fate all around her while she endures the process of meditation. The DC of Meditation is based upon the extent of the Fate to be designed:
DC 3 for a +/-1 Effect
DC 7 for a +/-2 Effect
DC 12 for a +/-3 Effect
+1 DC if the target of the Effect can be seen, but not touched
+3 DC if the target of the Effect cannot be seen or touched
 
The Meditation roll may be modified by:
 
- Lengthy Meditation: +1 die for every eight (consecutive) hours of meditation, max +5 dice. Note that each day can tolerate but a single eight-hour period of meditation.
 
- Cooperative Meditators: +N dice, N2 = the sum of the permanent Essences of the cooperating Meditators. (Terrible decision, by the way, of forcing WoD gamers to discuss traits in both ‘permanent’ and ‘temporary’ terms.) I’d probably set the max at +10 dice for 100 (102 = 100) Essence worth of cooperators. That’s a decent sized cult of 100 normal humans, or a conclave of twenty Essence 5 exalts. And I’d double the effective Essence of any participating Sidereal—so, ten Essence 5 Chosen of the Maidens. I would also require that any cooperative meditators be excluded from any Effect created by this Fatalistic Meditation (except for the Sidereal who initiated it)—this would serve to limit large Meditation bonuses to those Sidereals who have performed their work in Yu-shan to the extent that they can marshal the cooperation of their peers. Or, Sidereals of either faction could gather a relatively large number of Exalted (Dragon-Blooded for Bronze Faction, Solars and Lunars for Gold Faction) to aid them in manipulating Fate.
 
- Heavenly Favor: I’d change this Background (pg. 241) to represent rewards for steady work within Yu-shan with the spirits and gods therein. +1 point in the Background for every (time period; season, perhaps?) spent performing one’s inane duties in Yu-shan. These coalesce in heavenly benefits when the Sidereal actually needs to manipulate Fate. +N2, where N is the number of points in this Background that the Sidereal is willing to ‘spend’. I might cap it at 3 points, for +9 dice.
 
These represent specific time that the Sidereal must give up to Meditating on the Fate she intends to craft, as well as the ‘good-will’ she has built up in both her exalted contacts and her duties in Yu-shan. However, merely having 7 Meditation dice (and thus no bonus dice) has an expectation value of 3 successes, which means a relatively young Sidereal can comfortably rely on achieving the +/-1 change in fate. But it takes about 16 Meditation dice to achieve a +/-2 fate, which either requires the use of Charms (and, since Sidereal Charms are limited to their Essence in maximum bonus dice, an Essence of 6-ish) or assistance (or assistants).
 
I would not allow excess Meditation successes to roll over to the Effect roll, except perhaps +dice up to the Meditating Sidereal’s Essence in surplus.
 
Example 1: The young Sidereal, staring up at the stars while her Circle camps at the edge of a cliff.
 
Iniyari looks fondly over the sleeping forms of the other exalts of her Circle, then back to the night sky. Meditation is a form of rest, so she stares up at the night sky to divine a Fate useful to her the following day. She finds an Ascendant destiny in the College of the Mask—someone near to her can be proclaimed Ascendant in Stealth. Her proclamation: “I pronounce that the Lunar known as Windwalker be taken into the College of the Mask, there to perform Ascendantly once per scene for the next week.”
 
This proclamation, if successfully Meditated upon, would give Windwalker +1 auto success to Stealth checks (or -1 TN, or -1 DC) once a scene for the coming week—an immediate, if small effect that matters to the members of the Circle. I would allow Windwalker to determine when she would like to use her 1/scene ability, and I would let her see the result of her roll first, and then determine if she’d like to use her Ascendant Fate of the Mask.
 
Iniyari rolls Intelligence 4 + Lore 3 to Meditate on this Fate. Give her +1 for Lengthy Meditation, but no Cooperation or Favor. With 8 dice, she’d pass this roll ~68% of the time (not counting 10’s). 1 pt willpower, 1 Paradox die.
 
Example 2: A group of Gold Faction Sidereals have information that several Wyld Hunts are to occur simultaneously.
 
“Some five or so young Solars will be targeted in the same 24 hour period!”
 
“Where?”
 
“Here, in Lookshy; here, in Nexus; here, just south of Sijan; and another two within this triangle.”
 
“That’s 15,000 square miles of territory! There are but three of us!”
 
“A Destiny, then? To help protect them?”
 
“But an Ascendant Fate of the Ewer for the Solars? Or a Descendant Fate for their hunters?”
 
“We don’t know enough about the latter. An Ascendant Fate of the Ewer then.”
 
The three Sidereals sit to Meditate. Because the Chosen of Venus has studied in the College of the Ewer, she will lead the craft of the Destiny; the other two will cooperate. The Chosen of Venus has Charisma 4 + Performance 5. They have three days before the attacks are to occur, so they will meditate in three 8-hour periods (+3 dice). All three exalts have Essence 5, so the Cooperators provide +3 dice (10, rounds down to 9, which is the square of 3). The Chosen of Venus uses a Charm each of the three days to increase her Cha + Performance roll by her Essence.
 
The final Fatalistic Meditation roll has a pool of (Charisma 4, Performance 5, Charms 5, 6 bonus) 20 dice, expectation value 8 successes—not enough to get the +/-2 level with the +3 DC for neither seeing nor touching their targets. So the Chosen of Venus will have to travel to Creation and find a vantage point which will allow her to overlook much of the eastern Threshold. Optionally, she could task five spirits with delivering the Destinies for her. Given the 3 days of effort, she doesn’t want to risk the spirits failing to find the Solars, so she’ll travel to the real world. Cost: 1 willpower,
 
Her proclamation: “I pronounce that the Solars of the Eastern Threshold, from Lookshy to Nexus be taken into the College of the Ewer, there to perform doubly Ascendantly as often as needed for the next month.”
 
* Effect Determination
 
Now that the Meditation is passed, roll the bonus effect dice determined in the Pre-Med: Plan Destiny, Chart Horoscope, Ritual Behavior. Possibly, add any extra successes from the Med roll (up to the Sidereal’s Essence) as well. There are two ways that I would think about using these for the Effect:
 
(A) Add a number of dice to these bonus effect dice equal to the Sidereal’s Essence + College. Roll them, and distribute the successes on Scope, Duration, and Effect, with the understanding that Duration + Effect cannot exceed the Sidereal’s Essence + College. This approach represents all of the Sidereal’s hard work, and her expertise in her college and the raw power of her Essence.
 
In Example 1, Iniyari has an Essence of 3 and College of the Mask 3. Her bonuses pre-Med are simply +1 from bearing three trappings of the Mask (quiet, soft fabric, mask). I would probably not allow her to use the same eight-hour meditation period to work on the Planning or Horoscopes; if Meditation basically counts as sleep, then her brain cannot be active enough to perform either of those actions. Using (A), Iniyari rolls Essence 3, College 3, +1 bonus: 7 dice, EV 3 successes (not counting 10’s). But the 1/scene Effect requires 3 EP, and the week Duration 0 EP, which would leave 0 EP for the Scope—not great, since Windwalker’s Essence is 2. However, technically 2 is closer to 1 (requiring 0 EP because log10(1) = 0) than 10 (requiring 1 EP). I’ve never really liked games that always round just one way; I’d give it to her, but I could also see the argument for hoping for a slightly higher roll (29% to hit 4+ successes on 7 dice, not including 10’s). Perhaps, if a Sidereal is just a single EP away from a desired Effect, the Storyteller could give her five Paradox dice in exchange. Such an act would definitely fit the theme of the Sidereals: trading their own health and sanity to ensure appropriate Destinies could be meted out.
 
(B) Just use the Sidereal’s Essence to determine Duration + Effect. Roll the Sidereal’s College plus bonus dice from the pre-Meditation, and apply them to the Scope. This represents the Sidereal’s base control over Fate (i.e. from her Essence), and the Scope of the Destiny that she creates is based upon all of her pre-Meditation work.
 
In Example 2, the Chosen of Venus has an Essence of 5. Using (B), she spends 4 EP on Frequency, 1 on Duration. She has an Ewer College rating of 5. In the three days of Meditation and planning, she estimates that the highest Essence a Solar in this region would have is 4. She rolls Int 3 + Craft (Fate) 4 vs DC 2 (she and her fellow Sidereal are working from a library in Yu-shan). Expected value of 7 dice is 3, so no bonus there. She rolls for the Horoscope: Per 3 + Occult 4. EV = 3, but the DC is reduced to -1 because they can work at night and can observe the motion of the stars on the dome of Yu-shan. Four surplus successes equates to +2 bonus dice. Finally, she pulls out her resplendent destiny of the good Monk Asha, bearing all five of the trappings of the College of the Ewer, for +5 bonus dice. Total Effect dice: 12, EV 5. This is enough to affect a regional Essence of 100,000. If she could touch or see the Solars individually, this would be more than enough. Since she cannot, reducing this value by 1/N allows her to affect a “prefecture or principality”, total population ~20k. At 750,000 people, Nexus proper is out (“Exalted”, 1st ed., pg 56). But the Fate can affect Lookshy and Sijan, each with population ~10k.
 
If, as the Chosen of Venus loops around the near eastern Threshold, the Solar near Nexus happens to be outside of that city, then s/he can be included. And it turns out that one of the five Solar targets has Essence 5, so s/he’s out because the Meditation only hit Essence 4 or lower targets. Of course, if a Solar has Essence 5, s/he can probably handle a Wyld Hunt.
 
If you limit the Essence of Sidereals to 6 in your Exalted game, then option A is probably better. But if Sidereals can achieve Essence 8 or even higher, then option B would better represent the raw power such a being would have over the Loom of Fate.
 
- Scope:
N EP, wherein 10N = the population’s collective Essence, or N = log10(collective Essence).
 
N = 1 is 10 points of Essence, N = 2 is 100 points, N = 3 is a thousand, etc. At some point (about N ≥ 3), Fate doesn’t affect a specific group of people so much as all of the living things within a specific geographical location. At this point, I’d cut the fraction of ‘humans’ targeted by 1/N. For example: if a Sidereal wants to target a town of about 1,000 residents, she’d need to spend 4 EP (which would normally target 10,000 Essence) to account for all of the Essence ≥ 2 humans, exalts, and spirits within the town, as well as all of the creatures and spirits with significant (i.e. ≠ 0) Essences.
 
- Duration:
EP       Duration of Fate Effect
0          1 week
1          1 month
2          1 season (rem: 3 months/season)
3          1 year (rem: 5 seasons/year)
4          10 years
5          20 years (defined as one generation)
6          3 generations
7          7 generations
8          15 generations (300 years)
 
Note: Duration and Frequency are related:
Sidereal’s Essence = Duration EP (above) + Frequency EP (below)
 
- Frequency:
EP       Frequency of Fate Effect
0          1/month
1          1/week
2          1/day
3          1/scene or hour
4          Every Ability roll
 
In your Exalted game, the power of these Effects would be balanced by the Sidereal’s Essence, depending on which of the options A or B you’d prefer. A starter Sidereal with Essence 2 could make an Effect pop 1/month for three months (e.g. researches, long-term crafts (Manses), long-term bureaucratic efforts), 1/week for a month (e.g. short-term crafts (weapons, objects), long-distance travel, long-term treatment), or 1/day for a week. Yes, adding one die or lowering the TN by 1 for just a few rolls is pretty minor. But it’s an Effect that a young Sidereal can create with little difficulty, and has an immediate impact on the PCs’ goals.
 
By the time your Sidereal has Essence 6, she can work some serious Fates: +1 Dodge every time one dodges for a season, +1 Martial Arts once a scene for a year, etc. It’s still balanced by the fact that the Sidereal could only Meditate for a +/-1 modifier; but if you think of Essence 6 as ≈ Level 20, then this is the sort of Effect you’d anticipate such a character to command. If the Sidereal opted to Charm up the Meditation roll, then the modifier could be +/-2, which is also something one might expect from the equivalent of a 20th level character.
 
* Paradox: Fuck do I hate Paradox. “Careful of using your class abilities too much, kids, or you’ll get bitten by a Pattern Icky!” Ridiculous. Paradox in “Mage: The Ascension” was far better implemented. I would propose something similar for the Sidereals. Furthermore, it would be interesting if Paradox effects were unique to each of the Colleges. “Oh, gee, I’d love to write you a Destiny for Martial Arts, but I’m nearing my Paradox Limit and really don’t want to risk coming down with a case of White Sun Sickness (pg 197)!”
 
I’m not going to say too much more about Paradox here; maybe next month I’ll write up a chart of the Colleges and their associated Paradox Risks. I would add that I’d make it easier to bleed off Paradox. Treat them like health levels: a Sidereal who avoids tampering with Fate can burn off a point of Paradox per day at the 1-3 Paradox levels, per week at the 4-6 levels, and per month at the 7-9 levels. Ex: if a Chosen builds up 9 Paradox points, s/he could bleed it all off in 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days (11 weeks, 3 days, or 80 days). Altering Fate is a Sidreal’s job. It’s not just a cool class perk—the entire book describes Sidereals’ command of Fate as their duty. And we’re going to punish you for doing your job??
 
* Resplendent Destinies
 
I don’t have too much to say about Resplendent Destinies, except for: (I) they’re pretty cool; (II) they’re pretty useless in a game, unless the entire Circle can assume similar Destinies, or they’re handled in the off-time between games; (III) from Part 1, it’s obviously impossible to generate enough Effect Points to sustain the use of Resplendency for very long; (IV) Many of the Resplendent Effects are just garbage.
 
I would give each Resplendent Destiny the same five basic Effects. And because a Sidereal only needs Duration to maintain a Destiny, I would let them store excess EP (from either option A or B) to use for the Destiny.
 
Effect 1: Supplement Ability. Cost: 1 EP: You may add your Essence to an Ability roll for the College’s related Ability.
 
Effect 2: Blend into Reality. Cost: 1 EP, 1 Paradox die: You may hide yourself among those in the Precincts of the College. You avoid all legal, bureaucratic, and official scrutiny, and supernatural trackers must beat your Attribute (usually Dex, Manip, or Wits) + College’s Ability, with Essence added as auto successes.
 
Effect 3: Excel at Profession. Cost 1 EP/week: You are a paragon example of this Destiny. As a commander, your troops can march farther, face down more terrifying circumstances. As a captain, your ship can sail faster, your men’s loyalty is higher. As a teacher, your students learn quickly. As a musician, you sell out crowds. As an orator, you move the peoples’ hearts and minds.
 
Effect 4: Paragon Manifestation, Literal. Cost: 3 EP, 1 Paradox die: A giant shield springs up to protect you from attacks this round/scene. You transform yourself/someone into a crow for a day/week. You manifest a magnificent Peacock or other highly valuable/rare animal into existence. Your target falls in love with you instantly. From a ship’s wheel, you manifest a sailing vessel large enough for your retinue.
 
Effect 5: Paragon Manifestation, Metaphorical. Cost: 3 EP, 3 Paradox dice/week or month: Examples:
- The Messenger: You can travel via the spirit realms 100 or more miles a day, allowing you to single-handedly handle the routing of important messages in a geographical locale. OR: You stand in the space between Creation and a Death Land, safely ferrying anyone who wishes it across the boundary regardless of time of day. You can allow spirits to Manifest for free by touch.
- The Pillar: For a month, you can reduce the local crime rate to zero as you facilitate bonds of friendship and community in a village or large neighborhood w/in a city. Marriages, dedications, and other social rituals happen with high frequency and local participation. OR: Within a week, you can find the ‘one true love’ for a Dynast. They will be ready to wed by the end of the week, and their bond will last a lifetime.
- The Banner: During a week, your presence among the soldiers makes the Legion completely fearless—they pass all Valor and Willpower checks. OR: For every month in which you decry the local rulership or the leadership of the Realm, you turn a cumulative 25% of the populace against it. Protests and riots are followed by new elections, the overturn of the government, open revolt, and armed conflict of the peasantry vs the Junta.
- The Treasure Trove: Scouring the face of Creation for a month will find you that which you seek, no matter how valuable or rare. OR: Your influence leads directly to new discoveries, philosophies, and epiphanies. Research is completed on a timetable one magnitude less than usual (e.g. months to weeks, weeks to days). A technophobic village comes to fully embrace technology. A town without a university suddenly constructs one before the month is out.
- The Rising Smoke: (Similar to the second example under ‘The Banner’; some of the colleges overlap, which is fine—this way Sidereals do not necessarily have to spread their Colleges so thin as to attempt to cover all possible Fates/Destinies.) OR: The curse of death has been called upon the target, who will die within the week if s/he cannot fight off supernatural creatures (e.g. Circle 2 Demons).
 
* Discussion:
 
See? Simple. Or, perhaps not. I didn’t think of this 13 years ago when I first bought the game. Of course, I haven’t been a professional game designer for 13 years. Just like I published my first book in 2012, my first game won’t be published until first half 2017. I’ve learned a lot about game mechanics in 13 years. I have a philosophy on crime that I can paraphrase here: the onus, the burden of the game rests solely upon the shoulders of the game developer. The public has an eternal amount of time to pick it apart, beginning immediately after publishing.
 
I’d say something about hindsight, but my glasses prescription is pretty high.

Part 2: My Version

I do not recall the last time I had this much difficulty and failure trying to Google a query. It’s easier to find full copies of scholarly journal articles than it is to find answers to this query:
 
“May I please have an example of how Sidereal Astrology is supposed to work?”
 
Context: I was young in college when the very first Exalted book came out (published by White Wolf), and bought it and the other four Exalted books, and a couple of the other supplements in 2002 and 2003. So we’re talking 1st edition Exalted here. My favorite type of Exalted are the Sidereals—because my favorite White Wolf product was Mage: The Ascension. Criticisms, real and imagined, aside, I’ve always enjoyed my time with White Wolf products. During the late 90’s and early 00’s, I collected every “World of Darkness” main product line (e.g. Werewolf, Vampire, Hunter, Changeling…now I’m just reading spines off my bookshelf), every Exalted 1st edition exalt book, and several of the new “Chronicles of Darkness” books…which did not go by that series name when I bought them.
 
Point: I have never found myself at a loss in a White Wolf product. Until Sidereal Astrology.
 
I remember thinking in 2003: ‘I have no fucking idea how this is supposed to work.’ Fast forward to yet another move this past summer, yet another opportunity to find old stuff to put in the annual White Family Yardsale. I put all of my gaming books on the shelf. Then I start reading through Exalted again, just like I did 13 years ago.
 
And I still have little idea how 1st ed. Sidereal Astrology is supposed to work. I feel less bad about it, though. My Google searches engendered the following conclusion: no one knows how it was supposed to work. Everyone can recite the instructions for how to make an Astrological effect, but I have yet to find a single example of implementing an Ascending or Descending Astrological Fate. Resplendency seems to be understandable enough.
 
Hence, I present here my guess as to how these Effects are implemented in-game (again, 1st ed.), and how I’d prefer Resplendency would function. “Jessi: this has nothing to do with your books, nor the games you are designing and/or playing.” You are correct. Thank you, slightly stalker-ish reader, for knowing my habits and projects so well.
 
* A single, very powerful Effect on a group of Exalts by an Essence 3 Sidereal *
Reading from Sidereals, 1st Ed, pg 208: “I pronounce that the subjects be taken into the College of the constellation invoked and there be subjected to the destiny you plan for them with effect frequency until the duration elapses.”
 
Ana’e, my Sidereal, Chosen of the Maiden of Secrets, therefore declares: “I pronounce that the members of my circle—five, including myself—be taken into the College of the Sorcerer and there be subjected to the Hound-Chases-Rabbit Blessing while expending motes of Essence to power Charms, Combos, Sorcery, or Anima effects with Overpowering frequency until one season elapses.”
 
For reference:
~ College of Sorcerer correlations: Humanity, geomancy, artifice, demon summoning, infernalism, talismans, Essence Use, egotism, Yozi-slaves.
~ Hound Chases Rabbit Blessing: target regains 1 pt Willpower for accomplishing a task related to the blessing.
~ “Overpowering” frequency: “The effect is overpowering. It manifests every chance it gets.”
 
The gameplay mechanics of this Astrology: every time Ana’e or another member of her Circle (i.e. “party” or “group”) expends essence to power their Lesser/Greater Anima Signs, to power Charms and Combos of Charms, or to power Sorcery of any circle, s/he gains a point of temporary willpower. (“Totally broken, Jessi!” Sidereals, pg 212: ‘This Breaks the Game!’ “No Storyteller would allow this, Jessi!” Hush. Storytellers are no more the end-all-be-all of RPGs any more than DMs, GMs, etc. Poor Gary is dead, and with his passing, that attitude is likewise.)
 
Costs:
- For Effect Scope, my Circle comprises five exalts with Essence 2+, let’s say 12 total, so Ana’e would need 12 Effect Points/Successes
- For Effect Duration: 1 EP
- For Effect Power: 4 EP (Invites Censure and 3 Paradox dice)
Total: 17 EP. Not something to take lightly.
 
Procedure:
- Prayer roll, which I’d rather consider a “Fatalistic Meditation”: Charisma + Performance, DC 5. Let’s say that gives me 7 dice so far. Probability of hitting DC 5 with 7 dice ≈ 9.6%. (This does not include that 10’s are worth two successes.)
- Create Petition: Wits + Linguistics. Let’s say 8 dice. Expectation value = np = 8*0.4 = 3.2 successes. If one of those is a 10, the expectation value becomes 4.2, which subtracts 2 from the DC of the Prayer roll:
- Petitioned Meditation: DC 3 with 7 dice: 7C3p3q4 ≈ 58%. Getting better.
- Cosigners: our circle has one solar and one lunar, who can cosign the petition with Wits + Linguistics, DC 1. Let’s say they both succeed, for two more dice on the Prayer roll.
- Lengthy Prayers: a small sacrifice of nine hours to give our Circle endless supplies of temporary willpower for a month. +3 Prayer dice
- And…Stunts! For the sake of argument, let’s say Ana’e gets +3 dice as well. (I understand that I can’t always get a 3-die stunt.)
- Fully enhanced Fate Meditation roll: DC 3 with 15 dice: 15C3p3q12 ≈ 97.3%. Fantastic.
- Base Effect roll: 1 temp willpower, Essence + College (let’s say 7 dice). But bonuses:
- Petition: +1 die / additional successes. The expectation value of 15 dice (again, no 10’s) is 6. The DC of the Meditation roll was 3, so 3 extra successes = +1 Effect die
- Preplanned Fate: 1 day of planning, Int + Craft (Fate) roll, DC = highest Essence. Let’s call that 3. Let’s say Ana’e has 7 dice: expectation value is 3 successes, which hits the DC. Succeeding at this roll gives +1 Effect die / 3 successes, so +1 Effect die
- Precomputed Horoscopes: As Preplanned Fate above, but uses another day and rolls Int + Occult. Let’s keep it easy: 7 dice, 3 successes = +1 Effect die.
- Ritual Behavior: 3 days wearing three Trappings of the College (let’s go with caste mark, armor, and regal bearing—Ana will wear a tiara and a big, violet cloak while sitting in a fancy chair for 3 days) = +1 Effect die. Because this Effect targets five Exalts, and Exalts are in the precinct of the College of the Sorcerer, +1 Effect die.
- Modified Effect roll: 12 dice. Expectation value: 5 successes. The probability of rolling 17 successes on 12 dice is virtually impossible.
 
Okay, so that was a bust. Obviously, Ana has to target each exalt of the circle individually. However, the expectation value is only 5 successes, which are all spent on the Overpowering frequency and the Seasonal duration.
 
-- Conclusion: It is statistically unlikely for an Essence 3 Sidereal to craft an overpowering effect targeting an exalt that lasts for a season.
 
* What can a new Sidereal character accomplish with Astrology? *
 
Let us stipulate this Sidereal has:
= Essence 3, and 4’s in all relevant Attributes and Abilities.
= All necessary time
 
Procedure:
- Petition makes Meditation roll DC 3, two cosigners +2 Meditation, lengthy (9 hrs) +3 Meditation, no stunts
- Modified Fate Meditation roll: Charisma + Performance + 5 dice vs. DC 3: 94%. Awesome.
- Petition = +1 Effect (EV is only 5 successes, so this doesn’t happen 1/3 of the time); Preplanned Fate 8 dice DC 3, EV = 3 successes = +1 Effect; Precomputed Horoscopes = +1 Effect; Ritual Behavior = +2 Effect => +5 Effect dice
- Modified Effect roll: 12 dice, EV = 5 Effect points. 3 come off the top for targeting the Sidereal, which leaves 2 Effect points. The effect can either be 1/week for 3 months, or 1/day for 1 month.
 
The possible proclamation: “I pronounce that I be taken into the College of the Sorcerer and there be subjected to the Hound-Chases-Rabbit Blessing while expending motes of Essence to power Charms, Combos, Sorcery, or Anima effects with Moderate frequency (~1/week) until one season elapses.”
-OR-
“…with Strong frequency (~1/day) until one month elapses.”
 
- Cost: 3 days (bearing the Trappings; 1st, 9 hours for Lengthy Prayers on Petition; 2nd, Preplanned Fate; 3rd, Precomputed Horoscopes), 1 pt willpower, 1 Paradox die (EV = no Paradox result).
-OR-
…2 Paradox dice (EV = 1 Paradox point).
 
- Were I the Storyteller for this group, I would make this an effect that the Sidereal’s player (or, at her discretion, the target of the Effect) can activate at will, up to once per week (or day). Given that the Frequency table actually says: “…It manifests about once per week (or day)” [emphasis added], I’d let her do it twice in a week/day if she’d had no reason to trigger the effect in the previous week/day. Actually, if the frequency were 1/day, I’d let her manifest twice in a day with the limit that she couldn’t use it the next day.
 
-- Conclusion: It is likely that a novice Sidereal can maintain a Fate effect that returns a point of temporary willpower upon the use of Essence 1/day or week, for up to a month/season. Is that important? Not necessarily, but it can be replaced with -1 DC (or +1 auto success in opposed rolls) if Ana’s dice pool is less than 9 dice, or -1 target number (TN) if Ana’s dice pool is 9 dice or greater. Such as…
 
“I pronounce that I be taken into the College of the Treasure Trove and there be subjected to the Blissful Idiot Blessing while making Lore checks with Strong frequency (~1/day) until one month elapses.”
 
…Which seems…dumb. Even if it were +1 success to all parry checks, all Martial Arts checks, all Craft (Fate) rolls…just, why?
 
* What is the best a circle of elder Sidereals can accomplish in Astrology? *
 
Postulates:
- Essence 6, 5’s in all relevant attributes/abilities.
- Access to 4 other cooperative Sidereals, each Chosen of a different Maiden. AND a Solar, and a Lunar, and six other Sidereals who are members of the applicable college.
- The head of the appropriate Division in the Bureau of Destiny owes Ana a favor.
- Unlimited time.
 
Procedure:
- Petition makes Meditation roll DC 1, 12 cosigners (4 Sidereals of different Maidens, 6 Sidereals of the appropriate college, a Solar, a Lunar) +12 Meditation, lengthy (9 hrs) +3 Meditation, stunts +3 Meditation, Countersignature +3 Meditiation.
- Modified Fate Meditation roll: Charisma + Performance + 21 dice vs. DC 1. Expectation value for 31 dice: 12 successes. Let’s round up to 13 b/c we’re not counting 10’s and it makes the surplus on the Meditation roll 12 successes => +4 Effect.
- Petition = +4 Effect; Preplanned Fate 10 dice DC 6, EV = 4 successes = +1 Effect; Precomputed Horoscopes = +1 Effect; Ritual Behavior = +2 Effect; the Essence of all other Sidereals who signed the petition = +60 Effect (if each is Essence 6) => +64 Effect dice
- Modified Effect roll: 11 + 64 dice, EV = 30 Effect points. 6 come off the top for targeting the Sidereal, which leaves 24 Effect points. The effect can last 2,000 years, manifests constantly—basically, it’s a permanent upgrade. This only requires 14 Effect points, which means the effect could apply to two other Exalts or beings of Essence 5 each.
 
- Cost: 1 point willpower, 7 Paradox dice (EV 3 points Paradox), and two invitations of censure.
 
-- Conclusion: Basically, all very powerful or Fatefully important beings in a game of Exalted could be expected to have permanent +1 dice, -1 target number, recover 1 point of willpower for any action, +1 on all Virtue rolls. Let the effects last 2,000 years each, and it wouldn’t matter how long it took to finish all of these Astrological effects. The aforementioned sidebar on pg 212 titled “This Breaks the Game!” mentions this very concept in the last paragraph: “…the Sidereal hand must have always been behind both sides all along…”. There are only ~100 Sidereals in all of Existence (though in my games, I upped that number to ~500, just to avoid the obvious fact that all Sidereals would know each other if there were only 100 of them), so why wouldn’t all of them possess these benefits?
 
“Because it would take years—decades!—to create these Effects for every possible action, and safely bleed off Paradox!”
 
So…?
 
 “Well, what about all of the Censure?”
 
Pg. 219: “…invites the censure of his peers.” So, either all of the Sidereals are in on it, and they all benefit; or, both factions tend to their own, each ignoring the effects of the other; or, either faction censures the other constantly, and no one gets the benefits of Astrology. (The US Senate and House, 2010-2016, anyone?)
 
-- Discussion
 
It was obvious to me even 13 years ago that the Sidereals were meant to be the equivalent of Mage in the Exalted Age of Sorrows. (FYI: Lunars = Werewolves, Dragon-Blooded = Hunters, Abyssal = Vampires, and fuck if I know who the Solars were supposed to be.) Because of extended actions, even low-level mages could create pretty powerful magical effects, despite the threat of the Ban-…I mean Paradox Hammer.
 
Yet, in Sidereals, the book itself suggests that your game doesn’t use Astrology—one full chapter in the book! “But what if the PCs have access to all of this Fate shit that stacks with other bonuses?? They’ll be monstrous powerhouses!” Why? Because they’ll apply it to all of their combat abilities?
 
This is another clear point of dissociation between the lore and mechanics of White Wolf games. Adam Koebel has made this point time and again: [White Wolf games] claim to be about diplomacy and seduction and investigation, but they focus so much on combat and how fast a tank moves during a round and how much damage claws can do to concrete. Adam Koebel, and many other fellow game designers, have taken this philosophy to heart in the last decade: make your lore fit your mechanics, and vice versa. If 1/3 of your rulebook is about combat, and another third is about spells, then you can’t be surprised when your game focuses mostly on casting spells during combat.
 
Given the authors’ explicit advice to ignore Astrology, why did they bother making mechanics for it? I now understand why there is not a single post on the internet regarding actual examples of Sidereal Astrology—no one uses it!
 
“Well, how would you do it, Jessi?” Good query. My spouse and I observe this philosophy: ‘Don’t bring up problems without proposing solutions.’
 
Stay tuned for later this week (161103).

Welp: October is over, and with it, Amazon's first Indie Month. I hope that it went well for all of my indie author friends! As for me, I will plan for greater participation in next year's event. SAD hit me early this year; the seasonal cycle is more regular in Sacramento than it was in the Bay Area. October was mostly a wash for me. I'll be commenting more on SAD later this month.

Fact: we have just 1/6 of 2016 left!

And the first of November marks (A) the anniversary of two very good friends of my spouse, and (B) the beginning of NaNoWriMo ("Na-No-Ri-Moe"). For the uninitiated: Na(tional) No(vel) Wri(ting) Mo(nth) is a tradition especially among indie authors, in which we challenge ourselves and each other to commit to writing a novel in the month of November. Or a book of poems, a collection of short stories, a stage/screenplay, etc.

What is the etiology of NaNoWriMo? www.NaNoWriMo.org launched in 1999 (and became a non-profit 501(c)(3) in 2005). Its mission statement declares that "your story matters", and people obviously believe in it--over 200,000 participants wrote over 2.8 billion words in 2010. Each participant is encouraged to register with the website for the challenge of writing 50k words during the month of November (which is just under my monthly average during spring and summer months). Not only does #NaNoWriMo provide a community space to support authors during the month, but it has created a sense of social community among writers of all genres--important, given the act of writing is usually a solitary one.

And until researching for this announcement, I had no idea it was backed by an organization. See, kids: advertising is hard.

Why is NaNoWriMo important? A sense of community, peer-support, etc. As someone prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder, October and November tend to mark the downward spiral--winter, holidays, a lot of social functions for a group of people who tend toward introversion. Ex: In July and August, I wrote ~60k words per month. In October, about half that.

I just finished an alpha draft, Sun, Oct 30, for YMM02. As per my ritual, I did not write yesterday. Through the entire month, I've been plagued with the lethargy and dysthymia that accompanies the onset of fall, and therefore, SAD. For those like me, it is especially important to cling to our community, our supports, and our rituals to keep our writing moving forward. To reiterate my traditional advice for NaNoWriMo:

(I) State your NaNoWriMo goals clearly and explicitly. Make them quantitative if at all possible, and be realistic. "I will write my fantasy epic" is not a realistic goal if your best monthly average is only 60k words/month. "I will work on my self-promotion" is not quantitative, nor clear. Consider instead: "I will enroll in the free Google Ads program to get 250 free click ads;" or "I will create a social media post about my works every day this month."

(II) Expose yourself to bright lights, fresh air, and people. All of these activities are good for the health and the spirit. Drink tea (as the Japanese do, for your health) or your favorite winter-time beverage, but avoid alcohol and other depressants (e.g. massive turkey legs) in the time before you write. Continue exercising, and keep your body and mind sharp.

(III) If you're the kind of person who *needs* to have results to show to someone else by the end of the challenge, knock 20% off the top of your goals (I). Realize that NaNoWriMo is not meant to be a "fly or fail" challenge; it's to help us stay on top of our writing goals through the brutality of winter.

(IV) Realize that you will get practically nothing done in December. Plan accordingly for Nov and Jan.

My goals:
* DMCD01 Alpha draft
* Three game reviews for "Jessi's Mega Late Game Reviews"
* Edit YMM01 so I can send the Beta 01 draft to my editors