Hey Folks! It is almost Blaugust time. No this is not the new logo but it was the only one I could grab on the fly from my archives that did not have an implicit year associated with it. The new logo is still a work in progress, as is most of the stuff that would go into the big rules and sign-up posts. However, I thought I would do things a little differently this year. I more or less cobbled together Blaugust each year as a “thing I do” that the community also does with me, but this time around I am asking for some feedback.
What Do You Want From Blaugust?
It is a simple enough question. What are you expecting from the Blaugust experience, and what sorts of things do you hope to participate in? Each year I follow a pretty similar script, and each year I have folks who are confused by the rules or expect them to be way more strict than they actually are. I have some ideas on how to resolve that confusion or attempt to resolve it. However, I thought I would start this whole pre-Blaugust discussion out by just asking what you as a participant are expecting to get from the experience.
What Worked Well in Past Blaugusts?
If you have participated in Blaugust before, or merely lurked… what seemed to work well? What aspects of it did you enjoy? What aspects of the proceedings did you want to see more of? I get that this is a bit weird as far as blog posts go, but essentially I am soliciting feedback before I lock this year’s rules in stone.
What Did Not Work Well?
Now we have the opposite side of that coin. What did not work well, and what do you feel could have been improved upon? I can’t guarantee that your feedback is going to change the course of the past year’s proceedings, but I am curious what aspects did not go as well as they could have. Essentially I want to know what did not land as well as it could have, so that maybe with some tweaking I can prevent that from happening again. Blaugust is very much a free-form experience, and I don’t think I will be playing more of a camp director role going forward, but if there are things that we can change to make things work more smoothly in this self-directed manner then I am all about that.
As it stands right now I do not expect to be posting my “launch” topic until at least next week, but I am in the process of firming up material for the coming run of Blaugust. You can of course post your feedback in the comment section below. Also, I am pretty widely reachable through various direct message platforms if what you want to say is in a more sensitive manner. Lastly, if you crave more real-time interaction for this discussion and feedback from other voices there is always the Post Discussion channel in the Blaugust Discord. This is the first time I have really asked for feedback during the entire process of running Blaugust so we will see how this goes.
Thanks and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and also to the upcoming Blaugust 2022.
The post A Blaugust Solicitation appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
This might be kind of obvious because my progress on these ran to a screeching halt, but I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to write for Ashgar, who is the 4th member of the “adventuring group”.
Ashgar is me, in a lot of senses, so figuring out what to write feels like I’m trying to decide what my own character traits are, what faults I’m okay with a fictional version of myself having, and bragging about the things I’m good at. Introspection is hard, and also it runs into how private I am about my own life.
That said, I do still want to get this project advanced a bit, so I’ll be working on character profiles for my other characters. I’ll get to myself eventually, and hopefully that will also let me address some spots where I have personality type gaps. Fiction doesn’t have to perfectly mirror reality, after all.
Hey Friends! We did it! We made it through another August and with that another Blaugust. We had a pretty solid turnout this year with forty-five participants making at least one new blog post during the month. During this one month, we introduced the world to nine hundred and eighty-one new blog posts, which seems like a pretty big success to me. More interesting though is that this seems to have rekindled the fires in a few latent bloggers that I am happy to see back in the fold. Ultimately that is the part of Blaugust that gets lost in the mix, that it is a festival of blogging and that maybe just maybe it will prove to people that they can post on a schedule… then figure out whatever schedule actually works for them. While Nait somewhat disagrees with me about it, I personally do think that setting a schedule helped me to keep this blog active over the years.
However, you are likely not here this morning to listen to me wax on about blogging to a schedule but are instead here for the unveiling of the awards. As always I give the disclaimer that I am sometimes bad at math, and if I somehow missed a post here or there, let me know and I will correct the record. First let’s take a moment to review the definition of each award.
Newbie Blogger Award – You did it! You created a new blog and we are extremely happy to welcome you into this raucous community. As a result we are going to recognize your efforts just for signing up.
Bronze Award – You made at least 5 posts during the Month of August 2021.
Silver Award – You made at least 15 posts during the Month of August 2021.
Gold Award – You made at least 25 posts during the Month of August 2021.
Rainbow Diamond Award – You did it, you posted 31 or more posts during the month of August 2021.
Newbie Class of 2021
This year we had four folks start the challenge as newbies, but two of them didn’t leave the starting gate. However, the two newbies that did manage to complete the challenge, did so at a rainbow level which is pretty freaking spectacular.
This year we had nine bloggers that got started on the challenge and made at least five blog posts during the month. Often times we set ourselves to a goal but fall short, however, if you think about it this way that is an average of one post a week!
This year we had seven bloggers that made at least fifteen posts during the month of August. One of these is a little different given that it is scattered between three sites, but the count is tabulated for them combined.
This year we had two bloggers, myself included… that got really close to thirty-one posts but didn’t quite make it across the finish line. However, they did have at least twenty-five posts qualifying them for the gold award.
We had a phenomenal twenty bloggers finish the month with at least thirty-one posts. We had several overachievers in the group with probably the most staggering being Aywren who came in at forty nine posts.
We had a number of bloggers who for one reason or another didn’t make those five posts in order to qualify for bronze, but I feel like it is important to give them some recognition for putting themselves out there in the first place.
One of the things I have done in past years is to post some statistics, so let’s begin this section by mirroring the items tracked during 2019, which was effectively the last “normal” Blaugust. In 2020 we had Blapril instead and a much shorter and more low-key Blagust.
981 posts were made by Blaugust 2021 Participants
45 Individuals Participated in the event and made at least one post
2 Newbie Bloggers Participated and both made 31 posts
40 out of the 45 participating made at least 5 posts qualifying for Bronze
31 out of the 45 participating made at elast 15 posts qualifying for Silver
22 out of the 45 participating made at least 25 posts qualifying for Gold
20 blogers made at least 31 posts qualifying for Rainbow Diamond
It is a smaller year than some of those in the past, but it is also a year where the community is recovering from the state of the world right now. I talked about it yesterday, but we no longer have Stropp and Psychochild with us and both participated in Blagusts past. I am extremely proud of those who participated or even thought about participating. It takes a lot to put yourselves out there, and I am hoping as we keep this institution rolling that it will gain traction with entirely new audiences. My wife runs her own Blaugust mirrored after ours, and it did not happen this year because it was just too much stress on their community. So the fact that we managed to make it happen and be extremely successful is a testament to you all.
As always if I have made some errors in my calculations, please get with me and I will sort it out. Additionally, if you want the full-sized version of the awards to use on your blog, you can find them on the Blaugust Media Kit page. Thanks so much for participating, and I will as always see you for Blaugust 2022.
The post Blaugust 2021 Wrap Up appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
This one was one of the wild cards. This is the first one where the character design was done by someone else, as I was trying to find a character to fill a “mostly dragon, size large” role in the party.
Kori is another one who is not based on a previous RPG character of mine directly, but is very related to one. My sorcerer-turned-dragon (it’s a long story) from a previous D&D Campaign is her patron and also probably her dad. Neither of these is public knowledge in-setting.
The third member of the Order of the Silver Scale, Kori is the largest and most-imposing of the party members. She’s posing as a Dragonborn (she’s a dragon) and a Sorcerer (she’s a warlock, mostly). An extremely gifted ice mage, she mostly fights with things made from her own breath (daggers, etc) and a sword that seems to be made from non-melting ice. She’s also handy with improvised tools.
As for her personality, she has a good sense of humor; her dragon-like nature means that Tizak treats her with great respect. She is fond of straight-forward solutions to problems, and believes that dragons are better than everyone else.
It’s probably this belief that explains why she’s stuck walking around with an adventuring party. Her patron has sealed away her true form, and encouraged her to “learn more about the world”. Perhaps if she figures out that the “lesser races” aren’t, then she’ll be able to take to the sky with her real wings.
