River’s Rest and Dust

I was wondering why there was so much dust in River’s Rest. It turns out that River’s Rest is modeled on Andalusia in Spain.

Andalusia is a Mediterranean climate and experiences both torrential rains and cool dry spells. This was revealed by Scribes on the forum.

Perhaps the image on the left is the hills where the Kakore was harvested for my runestaff.

I think it is wonderful.

The current descriptions go back to Bradach and Jineer. They gave the town a dry and dusty flavor, with vague hints of Middle Eastern Culture. I would describe it as Moorish, but Middle Eastern fits, too.

Another possible Easter egg in the town is the inexplicable model ship available at Bertha’s. It might have been modeled on the ship in MYST, however no clear evidence of this exists. There is a couple of ships in the River’s Rest environ’s, so this could be completely independent of the MYST ship.

Gemstone IV help doc

This is a level and creature tracker. The key at the shows experience points for levels. Write you level number in the box with 100. In the boxes to the left add one to your level, to the right subtract one.

The two squares are for ticking of 25 or 100 creatures. You can use the experience key to determine how many critters you need to kill per level.

When I get around to scanning, I will added it to the Artwork and Maps page. 

File under funny - Between the Sheets

When the children were old enough, I decided they could earn an allowance by doing chores. My daughter immediately claimed making the bed was a chore. I decided to run with that one and handed out fresh bedding to all of the children. They were to strip the bedding, toss it down the laundry chute and make their beds.

My daughter finished in record time. My boys on the other hand had some trouble. I found them sitting on the top bunk scratching their heads over the sheets.

Thoughtful head-scratching.

I explained the fitted sheet went on the bottom, the top sheet of course went on the top. They didn't look too impressed with my explanation, but climbed off the top bunk and went back to work.

I checked back a little while later and found two happy boys, sitting on freshly made beds. Ah... if only everything was so simple.

At bedtime, I noticed two sheets neatly folded on the desk. The boys were already falling asleep so I did a cursory check. Yes, both boys had fresh bedding that matched what I gave them. Perhaps we had 3 sets of the same sheets. Stranger things happen around here.

The next morning, my wife watched as the boys made their beds and discovered the extra sheets.

She called me in and asked, "What did you do?"

Flummoxed, I shrugged.

She explained to the boys: "That's ok, but when you make a bed, you put two sheets on each bed."

The boys protested. "Dad told us to put the top sheet on top and the fitted sheet on the bottom. So we did."

My wife replied "Yes..." and cracked up. They put the top sheet on the top bunk and the fitted sheet on the bottom bunk.

Topophilia... Sounds strange, feels about right.

I'm hitting the books this weekend, so no documents or sketches tonight. One quote from a book:

"Tuan coined the term topophilia, which is the love of the land and the title of one of geography’s best-selling books." Urban Geography, Kaplan, p. 12

All of my little doodles and plans shows that I have "topophilia". It's interesting to learn new terms and words for things you have already experienced but didn't have a name for. Cool.

Map Inspiration at the Burchfield Penney

I found the greatest art installation at the Burchfield Penney. It is a giant iron book, engraved with images and maps.

Click the images to enlarge.