Kaizen File 01
The philosophy of Kaizen continues...
Kaizen File 01
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Introduction to Kaizen documents
As explained previously, Tales of Penumaria make heavy use of the Kaizen principle. I apply this philosophy, based on the Japanese word for improvement, and constant improvement at that, to the worldbuilding material, the campaigns, and to a lesser degree the stories and campaigns. As I mentioned, they go through a ton of revisions and proofreading even before they appear here. And even when they do appear in the Substack, it doesn’t mean it’s finalized. In fact, it’s more or less halfway finished. There are going to be more corrections and revisions in the future as I work on other documents, continually improving them until they come to a published state. Of course, due to all these revisions, I need to gather all of these revised materials in one place, especially when I have new material that is in play or about to become in play. In time, I’ll have everything in a Microsoft OneNote book. But for now, I need something more publishable here in Substack.
Enter the Kaizen documents. A Kaizen document will appear every now and again, compiling all the updated material from all the previous articles. When I publish them, I’ll go over the previous documents and run a highlighter over the revised material with a link to the Kaizen file. That way I’ll know when I see this document again that this material has been updated and where to find the current version.
And as I said, a lot of smaller bits of material will be added here, the tiny pieces of material that float around my hard drive and needed a place for it for now. This could be a new character or item that popped up somewhere. Or maybe even a listing of all the previous Witches of the Woods up to Nalladrie and Amber; this first Kaizen file has that last part.
Here is the first such Kaizen Document: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AjNYReLtj6OIoEIh7ME6nb5NlKDz
Branching out from Chronicla
By now some people were saying that I’ve been focusing too much on Amaunator Izayoi, and at times using him as a Deus ex Machina. I’ll admit it, I’m guilty as sin at this point, especially when some people find him a bit too two-dimensional, overpowered, and tends to be a skirt-chaser.
This holds especially true when you see the first parts of Tablelake Arisen, however, keep in mind that this is a small snippet of this gentleman’s long life as a Celestial and a person. He’s become an established Celestial for a century now, and he’s recently liberated Chronicla from Ravenloft. He had transitioned into a semi-retired form by the start of the story. He has recently become a baron, he’s in charge of running a country, and he’s collecting stray folk and turning his castle into an orphanage. And in Amber of the Woods, he has completely retired. He’d walk with a cane now because his last battle left him injured. (“I had a choice, my leg or my wings.”) Because of this, he allowed his two twin children, Christopher and Calliope, to pick up the slack he’ll leave behind. Granted, he clocks in as an archangel and could regenerate his body like a Time Lord, but he’s got too much responsibility now and he’s enjoying the retired life too much. He has also stopped skirt-chasing by now since he’s happily married. He’s happily married, got kids, has a home, he’d made, and now he’s passing the torch to his kids.
If you want to see him in a more three-dimensional version of him, you’re doing to need to see his previous incarnation, Matthew Christopher, in Ashes of the Dawn. But that’s a story for another time.
I will be moving away from Amaunator Izayoi and Chronicla, but since there’s still some more material to work with now, it’s going to be a transition. The first campaign, the Sunken Fortress, is Chronicla adjacent, and so is Amber of the Woods, even though Amber will be running into Callie Izayoi. And of course, it’s me wanting to rebuild the maps of Castle Chronicla, but that would be the end of the material I need to work into, and hopefully, by the time I get to the Castle, I’ve phased into other areas and people.
Bear with me here. I have so much material and one little funnel, and until I can use telepathy to think my words into a Word Document, it’s going to take time and effort to key in all the thoughts and material in my head, through the keyboard, into Word, and then revise it through various drafts and proofreads until they’re posted, and then through several updates and improvements until they are publishable. Talk about seeing how the sausage is made, in all its seductive glory.
Next Article
I’ll be taking a week off next week, after which I have three articles in the first. There is the first parts of The Sunken Fortress get constructed. There is the next part of Tablelake Arisen that’s been working on for some time which would now be ready to publish. And then there’s a new article I have inspired on a more recent development from Wizards of the Coast. While Planescape could have a more integral construction and meshes well with the Dungeon Master’s Guide…Spelljammer fits Penumaria’s lore better. And it has space-fearing ships. And in my version of Spelljammer…trains that can beat Spaceball One in a drag race!
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