Writer's Guide

All about writing for Wildermyth!

Lore

The Yondering Lands

The world goes through cycles. Civilizations rise and fall, and threats to humanity wax and wane. Building ruins, powerful artifacts, the memories of great deeds all fade into myth or are lost to memory and are rediscovered time and again. The history of the lands are repeated patterns that are still never quite the same.

The Yondering Lands are sortof vaguely American. Or at least, if you have a choice between American and European, lean American. This applies mainly to flora and fauna, but also to little things like, we don't talk a lot about nobility, kings and queens, and we don't use a lot of the strongly-flavored medieval-fantasy words. No British accents or isms, unless it's a particularly foreign character. (People have been known to fall into the lands from time to time from other places, so.) But then also, we don't quite do banjos and cowboy hats. Guitars are maybe right on the edge. Fiddles are probably cool, right? I don't know.

Monsters!

Deepists are a cult that likes rocks, minotaurs, and fungi. Read some in-fiction lore here.

Drauven are lizardy folks who like dragons. Read some in-ficiton lore here.

Gorgons are corrupted tentacular beasties. Read some in-fiction lore here.

Morthagi are clockwork undead. Read some in-fiction lore here.

Thrixls are dreamlike and insectiod. Read some in-fiction lore here.

All monsters are indeed monstrous. There may be shades of gray, but in aggregate monstrous life is incompatible with human life. Humans fight monsters to survive.

There are no demi-humanish creatures in the Yondering Lands: no elves, dwarves, orcs, or their kin. But I mean, we COULD have some badger-people or some other weird stuff. I mean, Drauven are kindof on the line, aren't they? But certainly none of the "stock fantasy races."

Magic!

Human magic is performed by mystics who interfuse with objects to manipulate them.

But also, some monsters can perform magic and/or ARE magic.

Equipment!

There's lots of equipment in the game. Generally procedurally generated, but its history grows over time. Every piece of equipment has a description, some narrative insight that follows some general rules.

How the Game Works

This is a quick overview of how the game functions. It's good to have a handle on this so you know what you can do.

Heroes

Heroes are generated with History, which drives Aspects, which drive Stats.

History lines leave behind a number of Hooks (usually 3 per hero), which are more specific character aspects and often take the form of a personality flaw or quirk. Hooks are great things to hang quests off of! They're also useful for letting a hero have a moment of badassery or weakness that's totally in theme for them. You can call out hooks when adding story roles, if you want to tell a whole story that hinges on one, or if you want to call out an optional character to provide an alternative path, that sort of thing.

Effects: Triggers, Targets and Outcomes

Most things that happen in the game are modeled with Effects. Effects each have a trigger, a set of targets, and a set of branching outcomes. This same system is used for combat abilities and storytelling.

Stories use this system to specify when they can be told, and how they change the game world.

See Main Article: Story Inputs and Outputs

Tools

Set up your work space

How to use Source Control, how to run Scratchpad, how to submit files.

Using The Editors

See main article: Comic Editor Reference

Tone, Style, Voice, Visuals

hey what's a good story?

What's our "bar" for comic panels?

How many personality-specific lines should there be?

Each character in an event can fulfill a particular Story role.

An example event and the thinking behind it can be found here.

Stretching and Establishing new Content

How far can stories range from the existing material and game assets? Spoiler: quite far!

Because we are using 2D art and no animation, certain things are incredibly cheap for us to do, which would be prohibitively expensive for other games. Here are some examples which should give you an idea. In general, we are looking for writing to stretch and grow our content range as much as possible.

Here are few but if you have a particular idea, run it past!

Comic Art is very cheap. If you need a prop or a background to tell a story properly, ask for it!

Special Gear Weapons are maybe the second-cheapest asset class in the game, specify as many as you like. Augments are also pretty cheap. Armor is fairly expensive, but we can do it if it feels really special.

One-Off Monsters if none of the existing monsters make sense, you can call for a one-off monster to appear in a story or a fight. Most stories probably won't need this, but it's relatively inexpensive, so let's do it when it makes sense.

Body Modifications are where our character rig really shines. Any limb, or the head, can be swapped out for something monstrous or more awesome. Hair styles, skin patterns, scars, tattoos, bring it! It gets a little tricky if it modifies the face, because the different facial expressions

Playable Characters might be monsters or weirdthings that you can recruit or get transformed into. Fairly cheap, and we really want these. One thing to consider is whether they will be able to use weapons or armor. The default approach is that non-humans don't use gear, but we could possibly make an exception for weapon-wielding, since that is relatively easy to rig up.

In-game Scenery is cheap, and could double as comic props?

Map icons are very cheap if you need something specific.

In-Game Environments are expensive, since they require a lot of art to work together, and a deal of programming too. But, bring your ideas. We might be able to make something work.

Combat Abilities Do you need special abilities, as rewards, for one-off enemies, playable characters, or whatever? They are pretty easy to make! Say what you want and we can talk it over.

Buffs/Debuffs are relatively cheap, particularly if they are similar to an existing effect.

Combat Avantages/Disadvantages are not totally implemented, so let us know what you want to see.

Event Types

For a list of Event Types that we need, see Main Article: Event Types.