TheAstralBackstage

 Hello. C J here. I've been trying for a while to find some way of liking prosciutto. It's just too smoky for me. Then I found a three pack of meat with it, coppa di parma and Genoa salami. I figured out that if I toasted some of my family's homemade sourdough bread and used a ton of yellow mustard it made a great sandwich. It worked. Finally. I can feel sophisticated while eating fine lunch meat. Here's a picture. Enjoy! C J Mcpherson 

 Hello. C J here. I’ haven’t named my steampunk themed video game line yet but I have figured out a lot about the characters, their world and the way they look. See my previous post in this series for some lists of the clothing colours I’m using for the different nations. Once built these colours and their digital versions will be used in most of my games, physical or digital. This got fun when I realized that all my research playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team is applicable here. That was not anticipated. I’m intending on using the video game to plan out names, stories and environment for my setting. I looked at my lists I have of ideas and every one of them works in Eternity word for word as is. Okay. That got a bit weird. I ran my main characters through the Eternity setting and they just fit. Cool. That was not expected. So here’s our main characters, according to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team. Jaran Evermist The Wandering Prince Jaran was a blue noble lin...

 Hello. C J here. New project time. I have been working on Glaive, which was supposed to be my first video game project that sees full release. Glaive is running into some issues. Not technical or software ones, but I’m having no luck finding inspiration for it. I was hoping to use retro video games as the basis for the plot and genre. I can’t for the life of me find one that I like. Old MMOs have virtually no plot and RTS games reliably aren’t compatible with my setting or genre. I’m going to have to work building the setting more without inspiration. Most of what I do involves some element of parody. In this case I have nothing to parody to give me a starting point. Glaive will happen, just not first. Glaive is set in the Arcane setting region. That region was scheduled to see a full book line as well to go with the game. Arcane will be worked on later once I figure out what direction to take it in. So time for something new. Eternity. Eternity is in the modern day time period an...

 Hello. C J here. I finally typed up some of one of my story ideas I have from taking time to play video games. Here's the first scene of my new short story, Forest Mouse. It stars two of the Astral Ten as featured in the sample cards I have for Quantum. One of them is based on pikachu visually. I haven't drawn either of them yet. I probably should. Here's the sample. The final story will be free when it's done.      Leaf was trying to think of a word.     “It’s not endearing,” he said. The dark, wolf like being known as Leaf was ancient beyond all reckoning but still knew the importance of friendship. His friend, Bathaa, was trying on a scarf. “It’s not important, the word I’m looking for. The word important isn’t it.”     “Are you certain the word is in our language and not Khamet?”     “Oh, I’m quite sure. It’s in Ascalan too.”     They were in a clothing store in Ascala trying on outfits. Leaf, the ...

 Hello. C J here. Time for more Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team. And also time for more Heart and Fur. More on that later in this post. So far I’ve beaten the first three dungeons at least once. The first dungeon is a small woodland with plants and rocky walls. I wonder though, what is life like for the Pokemon that live here? They have food that you can gather there and are often willing to join your team. What do these wurmple, eggecute, pidgey and sunkirn get up to? Do they go on dates? Do they have families? My setting is often built out of these kind of questions. What is life like for the monsters in a dungeon when all of those monsters like apples and can meet you and become your friend? Friendship monsters. I wonder if that’s what Pokemon means in Japanese. What do these Pokemon use their moves for when not fighting? What does an absorb or a tackle do when out having lunch? Do they hang out with the higher level ones? What would a story about a sunkirn and a wurmple...

 Hello. C J here. It’s time for more Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team. This has got to be one of the best games Nintendo has ever made. Nintendo clearly worked hard on this one as a team. Writing stories requires research and that is what this post series will be about. Research needs to be fun or the final product will be boring. I named my machop player character Jaran because that sounds like a name my setting could have in it and my pikachu friend Pikae. So Jaran and Pikae might need some fan art. All of the Pokemon I recruit will be given names I can use in my setting. I’m reliably getting really nice story ideas out of all this. My rule is each run through a dungeon is a separate story with a separate team. I already have dozens of story ideas on file. The first dungeon in the game is Tiny Woods. It’s small at only three floors. What would happen if I had a similar magical forest full of insect and plant monsters somewhere in Quantum? The biome system in Quantum is set...

 Hello. C J here. I promised more Pokemon themed content so here's some of that. The first Pokemon you recruit in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team is a magnemite so I thought I'd draw a humanoid magnemite. This is out new team member, Maran Steelsoul.   C J Mcpherson

 Hello. C J here. I’m just going to continue discussing the video games I’m playing for a while. I’m planning out another batch of Minecraft builds while I play Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team. It’s kind of weird that these are job activities for me but they are. The Minecraft builds need to be done so I can learn some more things about level design. The Pokemon game is what I’m doing for fun. At least it was. Pokemon make great inspiration for the work I do and the stories I write. I’m now having to make more time for it. Most of the characters in my setting are inspired by the Pokemon games. Our main characters Ivy, Blue, William and Benjamin are all based on some of the Pokemon in the first three generations. Ivy is specifically a fictitious all black Pokemon. Blue is an all blue togepi, William is a persian and Benjamin is a tauros without the horns. I’m going to get back to drawing humanoid versions of the first three generations eventually. These to my knowledge count...

 Hello. C J here. I've been busy recently. Really busy. Like, full time busy. Doing what? Playing Pokémon. Like hours of Pokémon. Specifically I'm not playing Go or any of the new more modern generation of games. I'm back to the classics. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team. The best game ever made in my opinion. No, really, the best one. You wake up one day in the body of a Pokémon in a world full of just them. Unlike the sequels the original Red and Blue Rescue Team are heroic and full of classic old pixil charm. No, I'm not payed to say this. I haven't suddenly joined forces with Nintendo. Nintendo is back in my good books now that this specific game is available on our family online plan on the Switch. The Switch is now my new favorite gadget. Okay, back to the point. I'm playing kind of an excessive amount of this game now that I'm done learning to code and I've got my next ten card game sets planned out. It's fun. It's also probably hea...

 Hello. C J here. I went on a family trip yesterday. I rode passenger with my family to Bancroft Ontario for the three hour trip there and back from Kingston Ontario where I live. I don't drive so I normally help navigate on these trips. This was one day after a severe snowstorm and while the roads were clear the snow in the trees and piled up on the Canadian Shield landscape was stunning. I realized that all of these forests, hills and rocky cliffs are things I could make in my video game project and also draw on cards. Imagine a typical fantasy setting with little towns and prosperous cities amid deep forest full of wild creatures. In real life those forests would be beautiful in the snow, would grow blackberries wild and have seasonal salmon and deer for hunting. These wild creatures are presumed to eat these normal food items and are capable of reproducing. So the horrible bestial things in the wilderness eat salmon and have genders and families. This is my setting in a nutshel...

 Hello. C J here. I’ve thoroughly checked my list of projects for the time being. I’ve published Heart and Fur. I’ve finished the core rules of Legend – Quantum the card game. I have the full text of the first several Quantum card packs out. I can print and sell it and Heart and Fur in person. I own the technology to do this. The Partnership deal is typed up and I have the Patreon mostly set up. My only actual project is to plan out the setting for my first video game in the setting, Glaive. Glaive is set in the card game and both are within my setting as a whole. I want something to read. This is related, I promise. A lot of game companies have done marketing by paying people to write novels, short story anthologies, or even entire sourcebooks in their setting and with their characters and then releasing them as free downloads. The job I do doesn’t cost money in any meaningful amount. I have money to spend on the job. I want more books that I like including RPG games. I think it’s...

 Hello. C J here. I posted here a while ago that I’m going to look into running small conventions out of my house. This is probably going to be my main goal for the year. I have games. I need people to play them with. The problem I keep running into with hosting a house party convention is what people eat. I’ve run events similar to these and always I have to plan ahead for weeks or months about food and then provide all of it. And a potluck is strongly not a convention. Then it occurred to me about a week ago. Do the same thing. Just charge money for it. Right, a convention has an entrance fee. So I charge money to people for all-day games, fursuit time, a sales floor in my living room, unlimited coffee or tea and also pizza for dinner. I can manufacture this list of things really easily and cheaply and so it will be vastly cheaper than an actual convention. Maybe $15 at the door and people need to RSVP. I could do these weekly if there’s that much demand. And then I get to make m...

 Hello. C J here. I’ve just uploaded a sample chapter from one of the Legend series books I’m working on for fun. Yes, finally I get to write whatever I feel like. This is good. This free sample is of the Legend series of books I’m working on about the setting’s afterlife, normally just called Heaven. Heaven is governed and protected by mortals chosen by the gods to bear a spark of their power and immortality, the Champion. The series uses the name Champion as a whole. This may seem like complete fiction, probably really innovative fiction. It’s not. Really very little of what I do is. I’ve spent years tracking down every record and account I can of real life Earth’s afterlife. This place is described as always sunny, bright, shimmering or shining, peaceful and warm. From every account I’ve ever read it’s called the Astral Plane and gravity works differently there to the point that flight is a common memory for people who remember it. There is a before just like there is an after. ...

 Hello. C J here. The card game Quantum is planned for the next ten years or so and it’s just a matter of typing and art from now on. My chocolate recipe works and I know what I’m doing with it next. Heart and Fur is out and that’s the last product I have done that needs to be released. This means I can start something new. Or, rather, I can return to something old. I still haven’t finished either of my two current video game projects. To catch everyone up, I’m an author and also a video game coder, script writer, level designer, character modeller and voice actor. I use only Blueprints and the Unreal Engine but I’m good at both thanks to three straight years of research. I’m working on a massive video game project still that predates the Astral setting and all of my other games. The trilogy I’m still planning out is composed of three games, Allegro, Absolute and Ancestral. These will require the entire Astral setting and most of the crafting recipes being done in card format first...

 Hello. C J here. I got thinking the other day, dark chocolate is really good for you especially when made with organic cocoa butter. Could I eat more of it, like for breakfast? Could I do breakfast chocolate? Most breakfast foods have a lot of vitamins in them. Then I thought, could I make the chocolate look like the breakfast items? Could I make scrambled eggs out of white chocolate, have them be yellow and also have them contain the same vitamins? I know there are cream centre candy chocolate eggs. I might even have make my own marzipan and color it. I am sure I could find almond flour and I can make glucose syrup. Sweetened condensed milk is full of sugar, vitamins and protein. Could I make a little coffee cup that is edible, made out of white chocolate and also contains the same nutrients as a latte? I will be strongly thinking about this. More soon. C J Mcpherson 

 Hello. C J here. Welcome to Heart and Fur. I've just uploaded my first ever game product Heart and Fur to the free downloads section. This is a modern day slice of life game featuring no violence and rules for social combat and consensual intimacy instead of a combat engine. This book will be in print with priority over my other books. Enjoy! And, as I like to say, happy hunting.  C J Mcpherson 

 Hello. C J here. With the dark chocolate shell recipe done I have a year or two ahead of me figuring out every possible filling and topping for it. I’m writing all of this down and it will be in a book, Chocolatier Like a Dragon. This will be in print and for sale. Chocolatier Like a Dragon will have at least 50-75 recipes for truffles, 10-20 for chocolate bars and maybe some chocolate themed cookies. I might do some nut and fruit bark and candied or praline nut mixes as well. I’ve got a couple years of making and eating chocolate full time hard of me. Compared to the previous jobs I’ve done to make books this one is remarkably pleasant. I’ve had to do calculus by hand for 10 years nonstop to make Dominion. I’ve had to learn Blueprints to make Absolute, my upcoming open world fantasy RPG video game. I’ve had to drink a shot of zero alcohol tequila on a work day to make a recipe for virgin margarita. Now for a job that I can name, describe in a sentence and actually do without inve...

 Hello. C J here. I've got two new recipes for everyone today. I meant to type up a third but for the life of me I can't find the paper index card I wrote it down on. I will have to make it again and post it later once I double check I have the right proportions. I know what's in it but the proportions are done by taste. It's for Asian style ginger baked beans as part of my Asian-barbecue book I'm working on. The book might actually end up being cards for the card game because the recipes are so simple they fit in that format. That makes my job easier. Here's our two recipes for today. The first is a new Asian style barbecue sauce I invented from scratch. This isn't based on an existing sauce. It's the product of a lot of planning and research. It's great. The second recipe is for my final draft scratch made dark chocolate. This stuff is good. I still have some of the batch I made three days ago on hand. It's too tasty to eat. There will be a mil...