Nyra Eternal Development Cycle

Nyra is a game that has been in development for a very long time at this point, although I think that's a good thing because it has seen so much innovation, improvement, and polish during that time, really making some of its mechanics and implementations unique and fun to play! That being said, sometimes I forget that I should update people on here about its development, because the last few months have seen a series of really huge changes that I think improve the game an enormous amount.

First, we have redrafted the map of the world. Below are several pictures of the work we did. Don't worry, if it looks ugly in the first layers, it gets much nicer as it goes.

1) First we erased out all of the cities and roads from the old map. We decided we were going to create the entire organization and logic of the map of Nyra by starting with tectonic plates. After all, tectonic plates determine where mountain ranges and deep river basins are!

2) Then we drew out the latitude lines for the planet so we could determine proximity to the equator. Something we would need later as we paint in the biomes.

3)  Then we drew in where we wanted the plates to be colliding (mountain ranges) and where we wanted them to be separating (deep river basins). 

4) Then came the most fun part! Using a combination of the equatorial line and the tectonic plates, we were able to roughly determine where all of the biomes would be. Starting to look nicer now, eh? (I know, still pretty ugly. This is our working copy) Note: I know colors are looking weird on some screens. That will probably be tweaked at a later date.

5) After that we re-arranged the entire road infrastructure and city placement, given that the biomes have now shifted significantly from the old map. This part was a blast and we got a good leg up on determining the economies and ecologies of various cities in the process.

6) Now, perhaps most importantly we labeled a list of regions, using a numbering system. Why is that? Well, because of the next huge update.

We created a random encounter system for Nyra. By having all of the biomes in place, we were able to begin robustly planning and forming the foodchains of various areas, according to which region number we gave it. We decided we would do a system where, every time the players go into the wilderness, if the GM wants them to have a chance of encountering something, he rolls a d20. Depending on the outcome of that d20 roll, there are a list of encounters in the guide. The different regions can all be found in the document 99. Regions, Encounters, and Ecosystems.

This represents a huge shift for the game, because it gives us a very convenient place to centralize a lot of data both for ease of use for the GM, but also for a feeling of consistency in the mind of the players. It creates a scenario where even poor or beginner GMs can use this encounter system in order to drive conflict in the short term and frees the GM from the burden of creating scenarios off the cuff. We have also integrated this encounter system with the skill Navigation and Tracking. 

Also, we developed the mechanics and lore for Lycanthropy and Vampirism (Porphyric Hemophilia) in the world of Nyra. They are now listed out in the section 18. Status Effects and Diseases. I think they both add some really cool flexibility to the world.

Anyway, all of this is in the link you see in the main body of the Patreon. As always, I would love to have more playtesters if you want to GM your own game. Me and the group will be playing our next game in the campaign tomorrow!