Ascala Spotlight - Everyday Arcana

Hello. C J here. I think I’ve figured out the math puzzle I was working on about social themed stories in my card game. I had an idea a while ago about a card game where the player plays story based events contained as a single deck each. Each deck has 20 numbered cards including reprints of the characters who are in the story and they can be played in order or shuffled. This sounds like the best approach to narrative social events in the game. One problem down.

Also I’ve been thinking about the mechanics for the Five Million Strong Quantum Expansion, the Quantum Expansion set in Ascala. I wanted to try to find ways of making everyday tasks and tools into cards with spells, relying on the city Ascala and its theme of industrial magic use to guide the process. Five Million Strong looks to put some of the arcane and the mystic into modern life and its normal actions.

I’ve divided these into five categories and paired them with one of the smaller nations within the continent as a whole and the nation’s gem colour. We have school and job training for Ascala itself (Sapphire), computer use and software for the corporations (Silver), food service and retail for the Interior where they grow crops (Emerald), household economics and chores for the Vantaran Empire (Quartz) and finally online social media and networking for Oiwan (Shadowed).

I thought about dividing the steps of doing retail into individual sets of phrases and ideas. I arrived at four. These are greeting, sales, payment and departure. My other thought was to make one card for the overall tempo of the job, relying on the gem colour and its association with music to put these four ideas into song metre as a spell idea. This is where I am with these but the idea should work well. There are two sets of cards between the Starter Set and there but the planning for them is mostly done and just needs typing up.

C J Mcpherson

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Four New Recipes for January

Hello. C J here. I've got four new recipes for everyone here. We have everything from Chinese chicken to homemade hot apple cider. Enjoy. The Emperor’s Potatoes Here we have the first food item I ever finished designing for Food of the World – Carthia. I tried three combinations of traditional Asian ingredients and pasta under the assumption that I was doing Italian-Chinese food for the book. I could not for the life of me get any of them to be exciting. They were fine. I don’t eat fine. I got bored of the pasta thing and then thought to myself, ‘what happens if I swap the pasta for another starch? What about a potato?’ It worked. Really well. It worked so well I named them The Emperor’s Potatoes. They’re mashed potatoes and I left the skins on because I like vitamins and then that got me thinking about the traditional medicinal food of Ancient China, ginger. Could I put ginger in a potato dish and have it work? Yes. I can. That surprised me. Be warned, these are almost dangerousl...

Recipe - Lemon-Lime Soda

Hello. C J here. I have here a recipe for homemade lemon-lime soda. This beverage is just as sweet as the original brand it’s based on but has actual lemon juice and lime juice in it. It tastes similar but not as acidic. Strangely this recipe worked the first time I made it. It’s mostly glucose syrup, which any chemist with my knowledge of food could make in a home kitchen. The recipe makes four cups, each one to be served over ice. One cup is mostly enough for one person. Ingredients One Cup Sugar One Half Cup Water One Tablespoon Lemon Juice Three Tablespoons Lime Juice Two and a Half Cups Soda Water For the Glucose Syrup Mix the sugar and the water in a medium saucepan. Put over medium heat and stir frequently until the sugar is dissolved and the liquid is clear. It should still be thicker than water. For the Soda Measure out two and a half cups of soda water. Pour into this the glucose syrup in a heat proof one quart measuring cup or other heat proof vessel. Add the lemon juic...

Chocolate and Barbecue Sauce and Truffles Oh My

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...

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