The Ravens Nest

Updates!

I have been dying to do that little nod to one of my favorite sci-fi series. Hell yeah.

Okay with that out of the way, It’s all Updated, Baby! Any references to gaming have been ripped smooth out. got ahead of the curve on this one and I kinda agonized. It literally took me just coming across a cheap little A5 composition book that I really had no idea what I was gonna use it for and I ended up using it to just make notes nearly at random.

First, we need to talk about what changed.

This was a couple of chuckleheads rolling dice because, to us, we just kinda thought “Why wait for a movie when we can just play a game?” and, in prepping the character, and talking it over with RK, ideas began just rolling around and one scene repeated and Nothing Lasts Forever was born. Initially, TYOV was supposed to be it’s own thing but, over time, those emergent stories too became set in the same universe. The clues were there before I even noticed them. I thought, why not tie them together and see what happens? Dangerous position to take when you’re going to merge characters from different games like that.

TYOV roots and folklore stuff? 100% public domain from the jump, no issues, all clear.

Modern-day entries? Mostly light cleanup: wording tweaks, verbiage swaps. …mostly.

The murky spots (homages, real-world nods)? Gone. Replaced with originals that hit harder. Example: In By The Light of The Moon Pt. 2, Draven no longer brushes fame with real icons. Instead, he crosses paths with fictional gothic rock legend Damien Black of Black Sacrament—a ‘70s early gothic rock progenitor that was equal parts volatile, poetic, deep and philosophical in the most erratic of ways. Adds gravitas, depth, and weight without borrowing. (Any resemblance to real people/events? Pure coincidence.) I love this version way more—you might too.

Bonus: One more revision incoming (New Orleans show closer, I swear to Crom, gonna nail those Nocturnal Shadows vibes in text). Look for it to be a sort of early display.

Now that it’s all firmly based in folklore, guess what, baby? It’s an open world. I mean truly open. If your vampire is different because it comes from a different cultural mythos, fair game, jump in and write a tale of what your character is like in The Nocturneverse. Let’s see it.

We’re working on some new stories. One of them is a collab between me and RK, like we haven’t done that before, right? But, wait til you see it, it’s gonna be fuckin’ lit, as the kids would say.

How did it start? Two chuckleheads rolling dice and doing math. Wild stuff, man.

Now, let me tell you what we’re kicking around

As of right now, nothing else is changing. We’re still doing the text, the lyrics, the concepts, discussions over character arcs, so on and so forth.

This is why this is so cool, it’s almost like you’re gaming 24/7 without interrupting your day. Pen and Paper, people. For the love of Crom, start packing a notebook and pen, a small one. Write down your thoughts rather than tweeting them. Seriously. Do that for several days and then go back and read what you wrote down. Write down thoughts that belong to another character in your mind. Be someone else for awhile.

AI Illustrations and Song Approximations will still be used for the time being.

Vision: Print/ebook (text-only, self-bought ISBNs, maybe self-hosted site). Punk ethos: We work with what works.

The Dream: Replace illustrations with human-made art. Commission bands for real songs from our lyrics. Go multi-media: Give vampires/werewolves that lost cool factor back like soundtracks, visuals, raw edge. (Where was the music in those big adaptations? We’re fixing that.)

Here’s the coolest thing, we can fix all of that with your help. Much of this is simple and free and takes maybe a second or two, maybe even just a few minutes of your time and, it’s no pressure.

We’re broke chuckleheads building this from scratch. Ownership means out-of-pocket costs, but we’re open to ideas.

Free & Easy: Share with followers. Word-of-mouth grows it.

Suggestions: Tipping/crypto/crowdfunding/RippaSend options? Site hosts? Hit us.

Art/Music Swaps: Hate an illustration? We’ll swap for human-made (attribution given). Got skills? Donate a piece or song. Let’s talk.

Feedback: Ideas to improve? Always welcome.

We don’t take away without giving better. That’s the deal. These rewrites prove it.

For such a dark world, it only seems to be getting brighter from here.

Ten XRP says someone’s gonna call us “lucky.”

“I do battle with the prince of darkness
i steal away his heart through sixteen foot square;
and when they told me I’d lose
I’d tell them “aye, sure”
but they never had to teach me how to dream”

Prince of Darkness (Ed Miller Cover)