Bad news

[xiombarg]

Valamir's suggestion was to use a progression from black to white.

M.J.'s clock suggestion is good as well, as far as simplicity of the progression goes.

[greyorm]

You're right. I completely zoned MJ's suggestion out. Sorry about that! I agree that would be exactly what I would be looking for.

Ralph's suggestion about the colored circles left me thinking, "Well, then why not just stick with moons?" It's just calling the current icons "circles" instead, which might put everything back into the same problem area for Seth (I don't know...Seth?).

[xiombarg]

Ralph's suggestion about the colored circles left me thinking, "Well, then why not just stick with moons?" It's just calling the current icons "circles" instead, which might put everything back into the same problem area for Seth (I don't know...Seth?).

Frankly, I was going to suggest the same thing. Instead of "waxing" or "waning" or whatnot, it could be "growing" or "shrinking" so it sounds less moonlike. (Does the system even have that? It's been a while since I looked at it...)

[Lxndr]

And if you don't want it to look like moon bits, you could segment off the circle more like a pie (which would make it look rather clock-like).

[Mike Holmes]

The mists are also iconic for the game. You could go from No Mist for good as the unicorns come from above, to All Mist representing evil in that it's where the dragons come from.

Mike

[GreatWolf]

Lots of good suggestions.  Please keep them coming.

Raven is right when he notes that the original moon phases allow for quantification and obvious progression.  This is something that is important in the replacement system.

I honestly hadn't considered simply shifting to a pie chart concept, but it could work.  And I don't think that it violates the agreement with Jester.  It doesn't have the Color factor, but it does have the intuitive progression that is important....

Have to think about it.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[GreatWolf]

And finally the rest of the thread clicks.

Clock faces....

And replace the Blood Moon with the Devil's Hour....

It has legs.  Maybe it'll walk....

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[M. J. Young]

I was trying to envision how the clock faces would work, and I came up with a second idea.

The first idea, of course, is merely the lines of the hands:

[*]twelve and two replaces full[*]twelve and four replaces gibbous[*]twelve and six replaces half[*]twelve and eight replaces crescent[*]twelve and ten replaces new[*]twelve alone replaces blood[/list:u]
However, thinking a bit more about it I came up with a second approach which I think appeals to me on several levels--

[*]it would be easier to read on the dice (which was what bothered me about the other)[*]It would be a bit more intuitive, I think[*]It captures the light/darkness aspect mentioned (which is something I noticed after the fact)[/list:u]
Go with quarter hours, and have the sweep of the hour hand blacken the face of the clock.

[*]Replace full with Noon, a single black line at the top of a white circle[*]Replace gibbous with three, one quarter of the circle blackened[*]Replace half with six, one half the circle blackened[*]Replace crescent with nine, three quarters blackened.[*]Replace new with midnight, a single white stripe at the top of a black circle.[*]Use a full red circle for the Devil's Hour, or else use a black circle with a white hourglass over it.[/list:u]
In the book, these would be displayed as clock faces having numbers on them, maybe even with detailed hands. On the character papers and dice they would need only be circles with the appropriate sections colored. The current character papers could be made more convenient by scoring the circles with crosshairs, so that players could darken the appropriate sections easily.

This makes Noon all white and Midnight all black, preserving the black/white dichotomy, while the clock face idea is in the image even when it's simplified. You would then say I have force at noon, or insight at nine.

Is it crawling yet?

--M. J. Young

[Valamir]

I like it alot, MJ.

It takes my white to black progression and instead of using a generic circle or square motif to portray it, combines it with the clock face idea.

I like how it makes the results very easy to read.  The "more white" vs "more black" aspect that I was going for is much more visibly clear, done in quarters like this.


I would, however, likely use just a plain old blank face as the Devils Hour...symbolic of the time in which the Clock is stopped completely (i.e. not there)...although this might be difficult if converting a standard die.


I would also encourage, if going with the clock motif like this, featuring the citadel more prominently in the book.  Perhaps as the first/largest block of setting location material.

[Mike Holmes]

Well, see, that's the problem that I have with the clock motif. It's too local to just one portion of Alyria. It's not one of the elements that are important to the setting as a whole.

How about a dragon's mouth open wider and wider? Eh, just trying to riff.

How about a bag that gets more and more open, it's black mouth threatening more and more to swallow things up? ;-)

See what I mean about too local?

What about the blood rain filling the side of the die more and more? Like a sphere filling up? Empty, quarter, half, three quarters, full - that sort of thing. Too doom-laden?

Mike

[M. J. Young]

I'll certainly agree that the clock has that "local" aspect that makes it difficult; on the other hand, apart from the diverse lunacy mechanics, how significant was the moon to the setting?

Stop and think about this for a moment. For several years now we've had this close connection in our minds between the diverse lunacy mechanic and Legends of Alyria. However, the only moon about which I recall reading in the text is the blood moon--if there's another moon in Alyria that is not weeping as it passes overhead, I don't remember it. The entire relationship of Alyria to the moon phases has been because of the mechanics. They have nothing to do with any moons in the sky, other than that one.

How often does the blood moon come into play? I'm not sure. Apart from its place in the mechanics, I think it only comes up when someone wants it to be part of the story, and otherwise no one pays it any attention at all. There's no lunar calendar, no recognition that the moon crosses the sky every night, no mention of phases thereof. If you don't choose to involve it, it is not involved. Despite the fact that it is in theory overhead every night, it is no less "localized" than any other feature of Alyria.

The chief arguments for the clock faces are that they provide clear, readable, intuitive steps which are easy to draw on dice and papers, while they have some connection to some aspect of setting and so fit with the color of the game world. Sure, it's one feature of one place. The citadel, though, is the single largest place descriptively in Alyria--it is itself, plus the web, plus the clock, home of lightning jacks and the five hundred. Pheric may be more important; the Ark is certainly a huge piece of the whole; it is certainly quite possible to play years of games in Alyria and never bother with the Citadel. Yet it seems to be a huge piece of the history and a huge piece of the present.

And the clock seems to be right in the center of it, perhaps the one part of all of the Citadel that is inescapable to everyone who lives within it.

The clock is at least as important within the setting as the blood moon--which is to say, it is as important as the players want it to be, but always exists in the backs of their minds when it is not seen.

Ralph, I like the blank face for the Devil's Hour; but with the quarters notion that means noon will be all white and midnight all black. I suggested a red clock face for the devil's hour, which would on the die be the same as the blood moon, but if we're working black and white (as we will probably be in the book?) a red face is going to be difficult. I suppose a gray face works. In any event, my concern is primarily that it be something that can easily be put on the dice and easily read from them.

(And now that I look back, it occurs to me that you don't mean a blank clock face, but a blank die face--my error. I guess sticking a blank sticker on it would work.)

Oh, Seth--no charge for the idea, and no rights reserved at this end. I hope it helps.

--M. J. Young

[Marhault]

Go with quarter hours, and have the sweep of the hour hand blacken the face of the clock.

[*]Replace full with Noon, a single black line at the top of a white circle[*]Replace gibbous with three, one quarter of the circle blackened[*]Replace half with six, one half the circle blackened[*]Replace crescent with nine, three quarters blackened.[*]Replace new with midnight, a single white stripe at the top of a black circle.[*]Use a full red circle for the Devil's Hour, or else use a black circle with a white hourglass over it.[/list:u]

I think this is just about perfect.  The moon is no more omnipresent in Alyria stories than Kron is.

The clock as die face is easy to read, and injects some cool color.  The Devil's Hour the icon should feature the hourglass.  Maybe even remove the clock face entirely, and replace it with one?

[Mike Holmes]

Good points. In any case I think that a clock is about as doom-laden an icon as you can get, so it's very good from that perspective.

Mike

[Paul Czege]

Ah...poop...I like the moon phases. Okay, just brainstorming:

foal --> colt --> unicorn --> hatchling --> drake --> dragon

Paul

[Blake Hutchins]

Clock idea is cool.

Rather than going for progressive iconography, I prefer the idea of numerical pips, colored white or black to suggest the moral polarity, for the transitional levels, with a Dragon, Blood Moon, and Unicorn as the strong icons.

Best,

Blake