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Thursday, May. 13, 2021

8:52pm EDT

Members: 1,292

Guests: 211

Total Online: 1,503

The Book of Masks Homepage

by Seuzz

Rated: 18+ · Book · Other · #2156493

A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe.

The Interactives
"The Book of Masks"

: A high school student discovers a grimoire that can make magical disguises.
"The Wandering Stars"

: Sequel to "The Book of Masks."
"Student Bodies"

: A high school student is turned into a blue goo that can possess people.

For non-WdC Members
"The Book of Masks: Archives"

: Dodges the "Servers Busy" barrier!
"The Book of Masks (Abridged)"

: Introductory storylines for new readers.

Community
"BoM/TWS Message Forum"

: Community for readers of the interactives.
"BoM/TWS/SB Wiki"

: Notes and documentation for authors. Spoilers!

Current Polls
None

The Latest
4/8 Interactive: "The Inside, Looking Out"

4/8 Public: "The Inside, Looking Out"

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Seuzz

May 2, 2021 at 10:28pm
In response to "Back and Ready to Get to Work Again"

Civ IV seems to have been the high point for mods. For whatever reason, the game seems to have much less flexibility at the V and VI iterations for making thorough-going changes. Civ IV had what I thought was the best mod, Rhyes and Fall of Civilization. It was set on a Huge Earth (TSL) map and introduced all kinds of interesting mechanics:

1. Historical starts: Civilizations appeared not at the start of the game but at an appropriate date, with appropriate techs and a battery of era-specific units. If there were cities already in the area belonging to other civs, will tough shit for them, the cities and units would flip to the new civilization.

2. Collapse mechanices: Expand too far too quickly out of your historical starting area, or mismanage you r economy, wars, and happiness too badly, and cities would start seceding (kind of like loss of loyalty in Civ VI). Do badly enough, and your civilization would collapse and you'd lose. AI civs could (and usually did) collapse as well, turning cities into the equivalent of Free States in Civ VI.

2. Best of all: Historical Victory, which was a new, game-ending kind of victory. Meet three conditions historically linked to your civilization, and you win. For Egypt for instance, it was to attain 500 Cultural Points by a certain date; attain another 4500 Culture Points by a later date; and build (not conquer) the Lighthouse, Pyramid, and Great Library wonders. You basically had until AD 500 to do these, and other civs had similar time limits. This meant you could play a very short game of civ, instead of a 500-turn game, if you wanted to.

Nostrum

May 2, 2021 at 9:27pm
In response to "Back and Ready to Get to Work Again"

Only victory I achieved was with Prince Philip (Spain), as a Religious victory, if only because that's their forte. Though, for a Religious victory, I was pretty advanced, scientifically speaking. That said, I had to play more than once, trying to get a feel for the rules as well. Sadly, can't play it with expansions since it's not on PC; IIRC, there's a mod that makes it feel like a high fantasy, D&D-esque setting.

Seuzz

May 2, 2021 at 8:06am
In response to "Back and Ready to Get to Work Again"

I don't like busting my head against skilled AI rivals while learning new mechanics -- especially when the mechanics are as radical as the new district feature -- so I started with half a dozen games at the baby level (Settler). After that, I moved to Chieftain and won two Science victories on Large/Huge worlds (TSL Earth) as Poundmaker (Cree) and Qin Shi Huang (China), then won another Science victory as Amanitore (Nubia) on a modded map (TSL Middle East) at the Warlord level. I am by temperament a builder anyway and dislike warmongering, especially with the 1-upt rule, which since CiV has made warmongering pretty tedious. So Science victories would be my normal strategy anyway. I'd incline even more strongly to Diplomatic victories, except I hate the World Congresses, so much so that I edited the game rules so that they start in the Atomic Era, not the Medieval.

Speaking of rule changes, I played all these games with the most recent updates and Expansion packs, under the Gathering Storm rules. I am also using a number of mods, most of them UI changes. The only rule-changing mods are Wondrous Goody Huts, which add more 10 more types of goody hut rewards; Configurable Goody Huts, which I use to turn off certain of the rewards (no Eurekas or Inspirations); and two Watchtower mods, which allow recon units to build watchtower improvements to increase line of sight and to convert destroyed barb camps into watchtowers. I've also recently been playing with the Monopolies & Corporations and the Heroes & Legends modes.

After I get comfortable at the Prince level on a normal-ish map I will probably do a deeper dive into the various mods on Steam, most of which seem to be have been broken anyway by the April update to the game.

Nostrum

May 2, 2021 at 3:45am
In response to "Back and Ready to Get to Work Again"

As I said previously, I got Civ VI for the Switch. I know what "just one more turn" implies - experienced it in college with the SNES version of the first Civ, played on an emulator. Fascination is little compared to the desire to see whether you can reach the next invaluable tech, or if you'll be able to construct the Wonder before a rival Civ does. (Blessed be the Caravans, that make Wonders go faster!)

So, well aware that you might be still undergoing a withdrawal effect.. Which Civ, which difficulty, and what kind of victory?

Zuul

Apr 22, 2021 at 6:45pm
In response to "Taking Some Time Off"

If anyone deserves time off from writing , it's you. I don't know of another writer who is so prolific.

ThePrussian55

Apr 16, 2021 at 12:03pm
In response to "Taking Some Time Off"

Never really got into the civilization games myself. Always been more of a Paradox Games fan.

Nostrum

Apr 14, 2021 at 2:06am
In response to "Taking Some Time Off"

Civ VI? I bought it for the Nintendo Switch, only played it once in order to get used to the mechanics. It's such a big change from early games, but it's pretty nice. Went on until I won with the Spanish (Religious victory, BTW; not on the hardest difficulty, though), but I had to play other games, so I have it in the odd case that I might find someone who also has the game for Switch.

That said...I haven't touched my Switch in months. Reason? ...Writing.

Seuzz

Apr 9, 2021 at 5:46pm
In response to "Taking Some Time Off"

I am trying to get back into Civilization VI. I bought it a long time ago, tried it, got bored and frustrated with it, put it away. But I'm a long-time Civ player and can't shake the franchise off. So I'm giving it another shot, doing a much deeper dive into the new mechanics.

ThePrussian55

Apr 8, 2021 at 1:05pm
In response to "Taking Some Time Off"

Always good to take some time off once and a while. Idle curiosity, but what games are you gonna be playing?

ThePrussian55

Feb 2, 2021 at 2:15pm
In response to "Commission Completed"

I’m happy to hear that things are gonna start picking up,especially with this commission, which seems to me the most interesting of the 3 commissions you’ve been working on.

April 5, 2021 at 12:02pm

#1007801

Four-Part Set-Up

I've got four new chapters written that I can publish without embarrassing myself, so I'm going to go ahead and post them, even though they are less of a "story start" and more of a "transitional section" to set up some possible stories. Anyway—

Interactive: "The Whole New You"

Public: "The Mash-Up"

+ "The Offspring of Two Cousins"

+ "The Whole New You"

—picks up in a place that hasn't been visited in a long time, and it is preceded by two bonus, new-to-the-Archives chapters. The story so far:

Will has discovered a book that can make magic disguises, and he has succeeded in making mask. He has used it on himself, putting a copy of himself into it, but he is intrigued by the book's caution that he can add other faces to the mask before sealing it up to wear. He decides to experiment by adding his cousin Umeko's face to the mask. And what will he do with this hybrid mask? Find out tomorrow!

6 Like • Comment

Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2156493-The-Book-of-Masks-Homepage/day/4-5-2021