One of the ways I use randomization in the #Hammondal #WorldBuilding process:
My master "to do" list has hundreds of items left on it. I use a randomizer to pick, much of the time, which "to do" I'll tackle at the beginning of each workday.
This sounds trivial, but, the order of jobs tackled has proven very impactful, in a fun way. π
I know I'm slightly over-excited about #Hammondal because I'm having a LOT of thoughts that belong in a file labeled "Really Getting Ahead Of Ourselves, Here."
Tonight's #Hammondal writing was particularly scatterbrained: Secrets hidden in public mosaics, cultures joining to battle plague, a Wolf King in exile pretending to be a pet, a dangerous drug beloved by foppish duelists, the spiritual needs of aquaculture specialists, places where mad queer inventors room together, pirate politics intersecting with the CΓΊndan Duille, and the social stomping grounds of the city's candlemaking vampires. π
But that's also why I like city books so much.
As #Hammondal develops it becomes increasingly asymmetrical in design. Same thing happens to all my books yet it surprises me a little each time. π
Like, each neighborhood is still a chapter. But the shape of each chapter is increasingly unrelated to how other chapters are structured.
A good sign. Symmetry is never my friend.
A bit of #Hammondal going from doodly to less-doodly.
Just playing with subtle changes to how I tone and texture the water.
(Plates like this one are the most that fit on a single page, so there will be three such plates in Hammondal's book, plus up to 23 neighborhood maps, zoomed and text-encrusted, plus a few others)
Many fantasy cities have been presented as campaign worlds, but they're usually _big deal_ cities, fantasy equivalents of New York, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, London, Cairo.
#Hammondal is a campaign world that's the fantasy equivalent of Livonia, Michigan or Parma, Ohio. Cities for which most people never spare a single thought.
And if that strikes you as intriguing, or even a little audacious ... I agree. π
S. John Ross