Welcome back to the world of Rainfall! Today we’re going to be looking at what content is already made for Rainfall as well as how things will progress from here.
First things first, what is already done? Well, if you mean completely done and ready to be put in print, then the answer is nothing. But, if you mean it’s been written and there’s at least a rough draft, then the answer is actually a good chunk.
But before I get into some specifics, I’d like to talk a little bit about my process for working on Rainfall.
To start, it’s important to say that Rainfall isn’t my job. I do actually work for a living. I work construction, most of the time that means I’m driving a dump truck. While I drive, I usually have an audio book going. It lets me get through a lot of books very quickly. Currently, I’m finishing up The Malloreon and The Dark Tower is next up on my list.
So Why am I telling you this? What exactly do my work habits have to do with Rainfall? Well getting to read so many books lets be get a lot of inspiration. As you can probably expect from the themes here in Rainfall, I tend to focus on fantasy and horror books.
The other reason is because I’m working all day, Rainfall takes a back seat. I have my day at work, then I get home and can put a few hours into Rainfall before I have to start getting things ready for my next day. Weekends get to see a little more time invested, especially since my partner has school on the weekends, but otherwise, Rainfall doesn’t see as much work every day as I’d want it to.
With all that in mind, what does development of Rainfall look like from here? To talk a bit about that, here is the draft table of contents I use to organize my internal documents. Each of the entries here on this list are separate google docs I have laying around and this helps me keep straight where each one fits and what still needs to be done.
Let’s walk through this one chapter at a time then.
First off, Chapter 1 is pretty much done. All the races and all the classes have stats and everything at least in a draft form. They obviously still need some editing and playtesting is still ongoing with them, but they’re at least in a state where they can be played at the moment.
Chapter 2 is a major undertaking. It covers the bulk of the world and that’s a lot to talk about. However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t done anything in this chapter yet. All of the generic worldbuilding articles are complete with the exception of “Everyday Life.” Many of the areas that are outside the ruins have at least some description to the general region, if not any locations within them. The ruins themselves have pretty sparse descriptions so far with really only “The Park” having anything substantial. Areas outside Rainfall have the least descriptions of all so far. Only “The World Beyond Rainfall” has much of anything written on it with the rest being something I still have to get to.
Like Chapter 1, Chapter 3 has much of its articles finished. Only “Threats in Rainfall” and “Adventure Threads” still have to be written. There isn’t a lot to say about this chapter, really.
Chapter 4 is another big one. We’ll break this one down a little bit. First off, “World Before Monsters” has seen a few articles. Mostly, these are “Beasts” and a few “Magical Creatures.” “World After Monsters” has seen a good deal of articles. “Beasts” in this section are almost all complete and the “Humanoids” section is about half done. As for “Aberrations”, most of the work in that section has been on “Unintelligent Aberrations.” The “Eldritch Lords” section has seen almost no articles with “Intelligent Aberrations” seeing only slightly more. Finally, “Outsiders” has seen the most work of any of the sections. Almost all the articles in this section have draft articles for them. Overall, Chapter 4 is a bit sporadic on what is done in it and what still needs to be done.
And here’s the one that’s going to take the most work and also the one that has had the least work done on it. Chapter 5 details the campaign that will be included with the Rainfall setting. I have a general outline of how the adventure will flow and some major plot points, but other than that there isn’t much done for this chapter.
Finally, we have the Appendices. I have a rough sketch for the map of the Rainfall region, but the other map listed doesn’t have much done on it. I’m still trying to nail down what other Appendices might be needed. One I’m currently considering is rules for common games played by people in Rainfall. This would include stuff like card or dice games, stuff people might gamble on.
I’m still working on building out what the roadmap of what order to get through the rest of the articles for the setting. The main other thing I need to figure out is art. I’m no artist, so I’m looking for someone to work with on all this to really bring the setting to life. All the concept are so far has been commissioned out, but I’m trying to figure out a more permanent solution.
But that’s something for another day. For now, there’s a fairly clear image of what has already been drafted and what still needs to be worked on for Rainfall.
City of Rainfall 