Hello. C J here. Finally my job here settled into a normal pattern. I have books. I write books. Sometimes I read books for ideas. Then I draw something when I have an idea for a picture. Patterns. Good. Also my Pride Story post has got a lot of views in the few days. This is good to see. I’m glad for the community and teamwork that the Pride event brings out in people.
I have some updates about my current Heart and Fur projects. I’m also working slowly in the background on the Quantum Starter Set. The Quantum Starter Set needs art for all ten playable characters, all of the secondary characters and all of the item and food cards. The text for them all is mostly done. I might actually get the game ready to play test within half a year. My other priority is editing Impossible Skyline for sale at next year’s Pride.
Impossible Skyline has a diverse cast and the two main characters are a study in new ways of depicting teamwork. Their lives collide and intersect in ways that neither of them predicted. In the end they win. It is one of my novels and that’s how I do them. I think it will go great at Pride because everyone at this year’s event told me to finish and sell it. So, back to Heart and Fur.
It may surprise you all but this series, despite involving things like rules for centaur characters and strength potions, is rooted very heavily in research. Everything in it is either a normal furry fandom concept that I wanted to include or is something absolutely real and possible in real life. I’ve studied anatomy and also sexual health in order to make this and the book contains nothing you can’t do. Well, except for the centaur thing.
The next few of these research topics have been picked out by me. The goal of the upcoming Heart and Fur Modern book is to make modern life more exciting by presenting lifestyle and recreation ideas. These are game mechanics but, with the help of the core game, they should be useful in person as well. I’ll give a few examples here. I’ve planned a section about running a cafe as a mini game. This is actually drawn from the catering company me and my family cooperate on running.
This chapter is also the instructions to have friends over for afternoon tea. I did some of the early work setting up the company at a number of local Kingston and the Islands cafe. I still do this sometimes. My thought though is that the arts community could easily run small cafe or cafe days out of their houses for other arts community members. Have friends over for coffee, tea and cookies and have the option of them tipping you for it and you might just have yourself a very nice part time small business. The chapter is a guide to hosting this kind of event.
One of my other questions is what to do on weekends if you work a home office job. A number of my characters work these kinds of jobs, as do I. So I’m presenting my home office weekend survival tips as a chapter. Then we get into the more fantasy themed stuff. The magic system in the games I write is based on several real life mystic and spiritual traditions including the Norse runes, Wicca and Paganism. A lot of the roots the system has are still there in the gameplay.
My next lifestyle research project is seeing if a bit of magic can make everyday activities like reading a book, doing laundry, or planning outfits more enjoyable. The goal is to make these activities more stimulating by throwing something from witchcraft into the mix. I’m also looking into healthy physical exercise options for people who do home office jobs. After that I’m looking into applying some of these ideas to food service and retail jobs. These are abstract now but I’ll have game mechanics to back them up later.
I’m concluding this post here with some images of my current art projects. The line art is an under drawing for the front cover of Heart and Fur Modern. The tallship is a practice piece I did a few years ago in acrylic. If you’d like to support development of these games and art then check out my Patreon in the pages menu. Enjoy!
C J Mcpherson
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