One of the elements of my Tales from the Bird Islands gamebook is that the Baron of BlackFort can declare a bounty on your head. So if anyone wants to include the possibility of bounty hunters in their gamebook who are hunting the main character, you are welcome to.
Blackfort Island is a major trading port, so the market there should be big. I was thinking therefore that all common items should be able to be bought and sold there. So I'll try to include any common items that others use, or would like to be available from somewhere (just let me know what it is and I'll put it in).
Blackfort can be a place that valuable cargo can be brought to be sold. My story involves the spice trade, so if authors would like to scatter boxes of spices or pearls about in their stories, these can be brought to Blackfort and sold (it will be possible to come to Blackfort for the market, then leave again).
I am giving the player the chance to visit different taverns and talk to different people. In these I would like to include news and stories of happenings elsewhere, so if anyone would like a reference to anything that's going on their their own gamebook, please let me know.
You can do that here, or use my email: ff_stories(at)hotmail.com

Ulysses
Mon Dec 9 01:00:50 2013

BTW as my gamebook includes ship-to-ship combat it is possible to have your ship destroyed. Originally I was going to have you go down with your ship but instead I'll make it so you can be cast adrift on some wreckage to drift ashore on another island. So that can be used as an entry point to other gamebooks.

pi4t
Mon Dec 9 12:51:49 2013

Ulysses: A couple of boxes of pearls would be great to include as part of the final treasure on my island. For reference, how much will they (and boxes of spices) sell for, do you think? I'd like to be able to give the player the amount of reward I intend.

Admin: I was thinking, in the 'demo' book, that it might be useful to be able to choose to obtain the 'items to be used in other books' from unwritten books. Then we can test out those parts of our own, and others', books without having to wait for the new book to come out.

As I make the online versions, I will make sure that all necessary objects are available to make the whole thing playable at any point. For example, if I do Yaztromo's first, some means of acquiring a trunk will be inserted temporarily into Isle Of The Cyclops.

Yaztromo
Mon Dec 9 15:35:19 2013

I sent my draft.

Ulysses
Mon Dec 9 22:22:34 2013

@pi4t

For the prices of anything I am using what is in IotC as a guide.
Based on that I roughly estimate a single pearl might be worth as much as a hyena pelt (which was 15 Talons to buy, or 10 to sell). But perhaps it should be less since we could say the Bird Islands are a pearl producing region, making pearls relatively inexpensive there. Therefore, I suggest a single pearl is 10 Talons to buy or 7 to sell.
I would think that boxes of pearls amount to hundreds of Talons.
Boxes of spices I was thinking would approach 100 talons.
These may make it sound like you can get very rich very quickly, but Platemail on Goi Han cost 180 talons, and in my adventure ship repairs and fees and taxes are high.

ffproject
Tue Dec 10 18:23:40 2013

Hummingbirds Island

And, as it turned out, Yaztromo aka Alessandro Viola did indeed get his gamebook finished first and I've converted it for online play. You can now sail to the new island once you get a boat. If you want a trunk, then for now you can get it

SPOILER

END SPOILER

As far as connections with other books go, it contains one thing not previously mentioned, which is

SPOILER

END SPOILER

After the next gamebook in this collection, I think I'll remove the 'only a demo' warnings.

Ulysses Wed Dec 11 00:26:49 2013	On my island I have an apothecary who sells potions, ointments and the like. I can include for sale there some SPOILER insect repellant. END SPOILER Any other suggestions for items here are welcome.
	I probably didn't put it very clearly, Hummingbirds island contains SPOILER the equivalent of insect repellent, not the insects. END SPOILER

Yaztromo
Wed Dec 11 03:34:39 2013

The insects hat can steal your soul are an homage to a gamebook that I really love.

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Having an insect repellent is perfect, but the final reference should be to a dedicated island swarming of soul-stealing insects.
If you want more info / discussion about this, just contact me through FFProject and I'll be happy to give my ideas.
However, don't forget that I did my island, so you can be as creative as you want with your, so you can freely accept or reject my suggestions.

Ulysses
Thu Dec 12 03:00:27 2013

@Admin

Ah, now the convo thread makes more sense.
Thanks.

pi4t Fri Dec 13 11:23:31 2013	Incidentally, should we record information using 'codewords', as in Fabled Lands and some FF books? That would avoid spoilers, but we should probably be consistent. Presumably either way the spoilers - and codewords - would be hidden in the online version.
	Seems reasonable, and the codeword mechanism is used in Isle Of The Cyclops, so it would be maintaining consistency. You are right about the online version: codewords are handled behind the scenes without the player seeing anything, and generally any spoilers are filtered out of the text as well.

Andrew Wright
Mon Dec 16 18:22:31 2013

Currently I'm doing the final editing for Beyond the Pit, Arion Games' follow-up to the original Out of the Pit by Marc Gascoigne (for their second edition Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG line), so it's all a bit busy.

I'm greatly flattered by the interest in the non-linear potential of Isle of the Cyclops and the subsequent adventures I hinted at but never wrote. Unfortunately, for the last year and a half I've been working in Saudi Arabia, north of Jeddah on the shores of the Red Sea, whereas the notes for my Isle of the Cyclops follow-up adventures are still at my house in the middle of a swamp in the outer Bangkok suburbs in Thailand.

As a result, I am totally at ease with whatever anybody else wants to contribute to the setting. I'm not sure I'd ever get around to writing any follow-ups and so welcome any and all contributors who want to extend beyond Isle of the Cyclops. From hazy recollection, The Valley of Bones was set on the neighbouring isle of Sempura, and involved dusty hills, pirates, smugglers, a hidden Cyclops village and a valley full of undead bone monsters. Sea Lords of the Archipelago was my equivalent of the Fabled Lands book "Over the Blood-Dark Sea", a bridging gamebook that provided a nautical overlay and connection to all the intended island gamebooks such as Isle of the Cyclops and Valley of Bones.

My only other recollections was that the northern Bird Islands were more desert-like and subtropical with undead-haunted tombs and Cyclops, and the southern islands were more tropical with jungles, swamps, frogmen (Slykk) tribes, pirates, and zombies. Have fun!

The above is the email I received from Andrew Wright.

Tammy
Mon Dec 16 18:25:19 2013

Ahh, zombies. :))

ffproject
Mon Dec 16 18:30:58 2013

So how about this for a provisional rough map of the Bird Islands :

I've tried to take everything into account : Andrew Wright's information, the descriptions of the gamebooks being written and Mr Nibbs' map that I linked to previously. It's completely up for discussion, but I do have some reason for each island being where it is. Here's the thinking behind it :

- Sempura must be fairly large, and it is dry, so it can be the large northern island - which, according to the scale in Mr Nibbs' map is about 80 miles long from north to south.

- Goi-Han has only one ferry route: west to Sempura, so that must be its only significant neighbour.

- The large island is too big for our purposes so let's assume that it is 'really' several islands and Titan's cartographers haven't realised it yet.

- Blackfort Island seems big, so it can be a large part of the split up island.

- Papagayo and Hummingbirds Island have jungles, so they go in the south.

- pi4t's unnamed island should be remote as it is a hiding place.

- D-L-T's unnamed island is in the 'Blackfort cluster' with Blackfort Island and Papagayo, so it can go in between them.

- Hummingbirds Island is about the same size as Goi-Han. The unnamed islands should probably be smaller still, although my drawing doesn't really reflect that.

- Tangata Nui could easily be located pretty much anywhere, but as it has elements of north and south, and seems to be bigger than the likes of Goi-Han, the western island from the map could be it.

Please feel free to challenge any of this - it's just a starting point. If you're working on a gamebook and think your island should be bigger/smaller/different/elsewhere then say so and we can change things around. And obviously anyone else is welcome to join in - we can always add more islands.

Tammy
Mon Dec 16 19:13:11 2013

Ahh, zombies. :))

Tammy Mon Dec 16 20:24:13 2013	An island of pirate zombies :))
	Only if someone writes one. It does seem that we'll definitely be quite pirate-heavy though.

Robert Douglas
Mon Dec 16 21:39:07 2013

A supermarket of zombies :))) Oh, wait....that's already been done.

Tammy
Mon Dec 16 23:48:37 2013

An island which has a supermarket WITH pirate zombies in the pet food and cleaning aisle.

Can someone write this?

Robert Douglas
Tue Dec 17 03:03:23 2013

Zombie resistance fighters at war with tyrannical mortals. Can somebody write this?

Yaztromo
Tue Dec 17 04:47:26 2013

I'm really really looking forward to see this initiative spreading its wings and starting its flight...

Tammy Boo
Tue Dec 17 19:59:17 2013

We'll all be sitting around in our underwear reading the Bird Islands when it's done. Can't wait. :)

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