September Devlog + Map of Arvanand!

Hi everyone, I hope you've been doing well!

I hate to admit it, but September has not been a kind month for AMR, on account of an unexpectedly intense coursework schedule and multiple, significant bouts of writer's block throughout the duration of the month. Most of my effort went towards writing the overdue August short story, Drift, which had to be rewritten some four or five times over the course of September. I also spent a large amount of time doing revisions and bug hunts for the release version of Book One, as more reports began to came in just when I thought I'd be done with them...

It's not all bad news, though. I've made significant headway into squashing bugs in earlier parts of the Book Two demo, though I've still got quite a long way to go before achieving complete success in that regard. In an attempt to skirt around my Drift writing blocks, I've also made around 10k words' worth of progress on the October update, which means I'm able to set the monthly goal at a meatier-than-usual 25-30k words. I'll do my best so that the end result will be worth the wait!

This does mean that Patreon charging will be turned on for the month of October. All the standard Patreon art rewards will also be making a comeback this month, and I'll be tossing up a couple of polls for the relevant tiers to determine what will be next on the commissioning table. I will not, however, be continuing AMR's series of side stories for the foreseeable future. It is the case that they currently cut significantly into the capacity I have for writing the main game, and given the choice between the two, I'd much rather prioritize that the main update is a satisfying one for all readers.

In exchange, I will be publishing worldbuilding posts and art assets from my next IF project after AMR, tentatively titled A Murder of Gods. I have not begun working on the project in earnest--I've sworn to not write a single word until I've completed at least Book 2 of AMR--but I have done a lot of worldbuilding and outlining for the book, as well as commissioning a number of art pieces on the side. The book's genre will be somewhere between dark fantasy and high fantasy, and it shares quite a bit of DNA with AMR. I'm personally of the opinion, however, that it's got much more ambitious and well-refined worldbuilding vs. AMR, and I can't wait to begin to share it with you as I continue to write Book 2!

Lastly, I've also commissioned the single most popularly demanded art piece of AMR--namely, a map of Arvanand! In due time, this map will make its way to the release version of Book 1, the demo for Book 2, as well as Tumblr and CoG Forums--but you saw it here first, folks!

And here are zoomed-in versions of each of the major countries:

(Hopefully Patreon doesn't butcher the images' quality TT)

This map is commissioned from the mega-talented Edwin, of fantasymapshop.com!

This is everything I have for you today. As always, thank you for supporting the development of A Mage Reborn!