updates from ashe

A Few Updates

Ashe News , , ,

Hey all. Got a few things to share real fast.

First up, I added a D&D page to my Works section for any homebrew stuff I make as well as Amazon Affiliate links to the 5e books as well as some dice and accessories. Affiliate links also don’t mean you have to buy that stuff. If you click one of my affiliate links and make ANY purchase without closing the tab, it works. I also updated my Amazon book links with affiliate links. I may occasionally post stuff I’ve bought and found useful as well.

Next, Patreon. Actually, this is connected with another issue. On Wednesday, I received a letter about my SNAP renewal letting me know my benefits were being lowered due to a household size change. I have no idea how that happened, if I messed something up or what, but my benefits are being cut until I can get them appealed. In the mean time, I’m asking folks to become patrons on Patreon as it’s the most direct way I can get cash each month (book sales are staggered).

Now with that, I’m also expanding what I offer on Patreon. You can find more in-depth detail about this on Patreon but the TL;DR is there’s a new Gwen story coming in May, I’ll be letting patrons get way more of a look behind the curtain of my books, which may involve spoilers sometimes but I’ll tag them when it happens. I’ll be adding game design and development stuff as well, and, provided I can afford it, cooking videos, especially for diabetic recipe experiments now that I’ll have an actual kitchen of my own again when we move next week.

I’m also planning on sprucing up the way my Patreon looks, make it a little more interesting, update the information, etc..With The Demons Within set for release in October, I really want to make 2018 a big year for me and grow my little empire as best I can. I hope you’ll join me.

New Story And New Projects

Ashe News ,

First up, there’s a new story up on Patreon starring Gwen from the Grimluk series. It’s set a few weeks after the end of Demon Haunted.

Secondly, I’ve completed my plot summary for Grimluk 4 and will either be starting it soon or working on the second draft for Grimluk 3, The Demons Within. I haven’t decided yet. I’m still inclined to draft book 4 but I worry about having enough time to do the second draft of The Demons Within if the kickstarter is successful come November. I’ll figure it out soon.

I’ve also done a summary for a D&D module to work on along with basic ideas for a three-part module later on. This first one was me thinking a proper session 0 adventure would be good for newbies and would be a good way to introduce folks to the mechanics. The second will be a Curse of Strahd like campaign. I know Ravenloft stuff is generally pretty dark from what I’ve heard, but I love a good horror adventure so I thought maybe I’d do up a big story arc. Leaning towards doing it in three parts for all 20 levels of gameplay but we’ll see. I know planning for gameplay past like level 10 can get tricky because players are getting to be so powerful (especially magic-users).

Finally, as a side thing, I’ve started learning how to use the Unreal Engine and planning a video game project. Unreal is free to use and has a surprisingly simple UI. You don’t even have to know how to do any coding because it uses a visual system with nodes in place of handwriting C++ code. The ultimate goal will be to build either a 2D or 2.5D Metroidvania style game that’s heavier on the Vania. I’ve been wanting to try my hand at designing one for a year now and once I looked into what it would take to build one, I discovered a huge list of free programs to use and a huge community with tons of tutorials (especially for Unity). With Unreal, you only pay a fee for the program on release of your game and that’s that.

Who knows, maybe down the line I’ll make a Grimluk game. In any case, I’m picking at learning Unreal slowly. It’ll be a weekend thing. Making a game is a year’s long process, especially when you’re by yourself. We’ll see what happens.

And in other news, still getting things planned for Orctober but one item of note: Five of us will be playing a one-shot D&D game centered around orc protagonists (duh) and I’ll be recording it. Should be a fun time.

That’s all for now. Stay weird and be excellent to each other.