Archery and Squid (2010)

Submitted by Claudia on Wed, 11/08/2010 – 18:32

I’m back from my archery competition and – more important – we have finally (since yesterday evening) our proper internet connection back! A good reason to write something new!

Jeff and his work suffered a lot over the last three weeks due to the lack of our internet connection. And I suffered because he always stole my iPhone to answer his emails. We have now a new provider (the other really needed three weeks to send somebody over to fix the problem) and I have a new iPhone (and Jeff got my old one – only in case….). However – even without internet Jeff was very busy. He accompanied me to my archery world championship in Dahn (in the Pfalz-area in Germany, close to the border to France). He, my mom and Finn explored all the old castles and ruins there – there is one on nearly every hill/mountain. He visited museums, took many notes, bought books and so on. Translated this means a lot of input for his writings. [Jeff says that the Pfalz area of Germany is his model for Sylila, with the urbane and settled Rhineland valley serving as the Oslir and the rugged hills serving as upland Sylila. I guess that means there is plenty of wine in that part of the Lunar Empire!]

BTW – on one of our five archery parcours we had five targets in an old castle ruin. Only to let you know – it is impossible to defend a castle with a longbow. You have to stand very high up to be able to shoot over the walls which means you would be exposed and very likely shot. Keep this in mind for your next adventure (we had a very cool shot 50 meter down from one of the towers). And maximum range to hit a target with a more or less good chance with a longbow or composite bow is something around 40 meters (if the target stands still). Everything further away is difficult… I’m doing string walking with a composite bow and we had targets up to 73 meter – to hit something over 60 meter constantly was very difficult and I do this sport for a long time… I hate role-playing game rules concerning archery because usually they are very unrealistic. Sorry – I got carried away.

What is the Moon Design news? We came back from the archery tournament last Saturday which gave us the chance to visit The Kraken (Fabian’s fun new convention) on Sunday. This was a business trip for Jeff. One of the guests of honour there was Greg Stafford and the two discussed a lot of content, maps and future plans for publications (I played a card game killing many monsters). Jeff also used the opportunity to throw ideas at Alex Fergusen, Ian Cooper, Eric Vanel, Henk Langeveld and a few other people. And got a lot of useful feedback. It was also a good opportunity to discuss the supplement “Coming Storm” Ian Cooper is writing (adventures and background for Sartar). Ian stayed at our placed over night and Jeff and he worked until late at night and the next day until Ian’s flight left. Because we are talking of publications – due to our internet problem the release of the Sartar Companion book is delayed a bit. Jeff is sorry for this (and cursed our internet provider a lot) but for him it’s more important to publish quality than publish fast. His expected release is now early September. More soon!

PS: Jeff wanted to throw in some images of the sacred regalia of the Hohenstauffen Emperors of Germany. A few ideas perhaps for Glorantha?