'Cast of Characters' list

ethical morality · Post by **ethical morality** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:18 pm

Just wondering if anyone had the time to draw up and post a family tree of the recluce characters?

DocKurtz · Post by **DocKurtz** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 9:02 am

ethical morality wrote:Just wondering if anyone had the time to draw up and post a family tree of the recluce characters?

THAT would be cool.

Post by **gollum** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:14 pm

I did start work on compiling a 'Cast of Characters' for all of LEM's work [at least those I've read! - or I should say, those I've read at least 3 times!!] So far, have very few actually typed up (scribbled crib notes only!), and some I haven't started work on yet - but am getting there, slowly!

I've tried to be complete - right down to minor characters [including those mentioned in passing]
One of these days - soon? - I'll finally get them all together and stick them on a web page. If anyone else has done (or started) something similar, let me know and we can compare notes - or avoid duplication by attempting to work on different novels.

While these notes don't attempt to depict a 'family tree', they do mention (where appropriate) that persons parents/children/siblings/etc.

P.S. Kvetch and I did discuss - some time ago - something along these lines, and I recall something about a 'Cast of Characters' WIKI being proposed, but it's all a bit hazy now

Post by **Kvetch** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:29 pm

Sounds cool! When you have it all typed up, send me a copy!

My imagined plan was to have a searchable database of characters, with lots of cool and crazy stuff - but I got distracted by real life...

CodeBlower · Post by **CodeBlower** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:49 pm

Kvetch wrote:My imagined plan was to have a searchable database of characters, with lots of cool and crazy stuff - but I got distracted by real life...

I had thought about such for another book series -- but a searchable one for Recluce would be excellent! Should we start a separate thread for this and maybe split the task up to make it more easily achievable?

Post by **Kvetch** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:55 pm

I can do one better than that...

Mod Note: Topic Split

Post by **Kvetch** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 8:01 pm

I'd be interesting in helping, even if I don't have time to do much.

If it seriously takes off as a project, I can offer webspace and (if wanted) a database to house it.

Post by **gollum** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 8:44 pm

Sounds like I'd better dig those notes out and try and assemble them into some sort of cohesive format.

Oh, and type them up!

Have done little in the Recluce world so far:
Wellspring of Chaos
Ordermaster
The Order War
and some other partials (I think?)

As soon as I locate them (we're in different residences at the moment) I'll post a list of what other novels I have done.
So far as I can recall, I have - hopefully, complete - lists for:
Gravity Dreams
The Parafaith War
The Ethos Effect
The Corean Chronicles (5 of 6)
The Spellsong Cycle (5 of 5)
Flash (maybe??)

It can be tedious/annoying at times - keep forgetting to make notes and STOP enjoying the story - again!!

CodeBlower · Post by **CodeBlower** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:15 pm

gollum wrote:It can be tedious/annoying at times - keep forgetting to make notes and STOP enjoying the story - again!!

That's how my project on the other series kinda died ... I decided it'd been long enough since I'd read them that I really wasn't all *that* interested in working on the project.

(Which is sort of the reason that I suggested dividing the task -- I think I could manage a book or two and submit them -- then the whole thing could be accomplished in relatively short order. At least in theory ...)

Jeepers, gollum, you've already got a heck of a start!!

Like Kvetch, I have webspace/data resources to offer. I don't know if something like this fits well into something like Wikki, or if it's better to build our own -- anybody else know?

Post by **KiltanneN** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:29 pm

There is a wikki already available:
wikka/IBDoFWikka

It did have some stuff going on - mostly in LOTR - but it could be used as a container for work on Recluce with almost NO effort.

CodeBlower · Post by **CodeBlower** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 10:06 am

KiltanneN, that looks exactly like I was thinking about putting together -- very cool!

If the concensus is to add a "world" to your Wiki, do we just PM you for access to be an editor?

(side-note: looks like the robots are really nailing your comments-section .. I'd either add a bot-killer gadget to the form or disable it)

Looks great to me ...

binghamjf · Post by **binghamjf** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:11 pm

Is this biographical index going to be spoiler free or contain the full breadth of information? For example, will it describe the character physically and where they're from (world, city, book, and so forth) or will it provide information about who they end up marrying and their final position in society rather than only the starting? I'm of the opinion that it should be a full biography - as much as we know from all works published at the present time. I'd hate to see people disgruntled though because they hadn't had time to read through book 4 or whatever and they consult the character index while reading book 1 and find to their dismay that they just read who the character marries in book 2 and how he defeated the arch-nemesis in book 4. Ya know what I'm sayin'? How can this problem be resolved?

Post by **Kvetch** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:13 pm

wikka/Recluce

I think you can just register (please, however, use your forum name character for character)

RE: Format.

My plan for the had been to have a fairly complex structure, with a number of different fields. A structure that ignores most of the high level stuff (since we are only working on a single author) is to have the following headings:

*Character Name (e.g. Lerris)
*World Setting (e.g. Saga of Recluce)
*Books (e.g. Magic of Recuce, Death of Chaos)
*Non spoiler, summary text (e.g. Young black mage, raised on Recluce before being exiled for boredom)
*Spoiler text (i.e. plot summary, eventual fate, relatives, etc. etc.)

There are other optional headings you could do - place of origin, status as major/minor character, etc. etc.

My suggestion would be to agree a format, and start using the wiki to record this. Once we had critical data mass, to convert it to a database table (which ought to be fairly easy if you adhered to a decently strict format). Only problem with the wiki is that the spoiler text can't be 'hidden'.

Thoughts?

RecluceMage · Post by **RecluceMage** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:25 pm

This looks pretty good Kvetch. How about an "image" feature, so if the character has been portrayed in coverart, etc., we can put that in there.

Also, I tried to register but when I hit the register button it just redirects me back to the login page.

Post by **Kvetch** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:39 pm

RecluceMage wrote:This looks pretty good Kvetch. How about an "image" feature, so if the character has been portrayed in coverart, etc., we can put that in there.

Not un reasonable.

Also, I tried to register but when I hit the register button it just redirects me back to the login page.

I'll try and find the instructions to get it to work. They are around somewhere.
EDIT: Try your ordinary forum login.

RecluceMage · Post by **RecluceMage** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:54 pm

Kvetch wrote:EDIT: Try your ordinary forum login.

That worked! Now... down to business?

Post by **Kvetch** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 4:15 pm

Warning: It might be that only IBDoF Data Editors can login. If someone would check that please...

If you (you genrally) are happy with that data format, I'd suggest this:

A long page for the Saga of Recluce, another for Spellsong, a third for the Corean Chronicles and a fourth for 'Everything Else'. That way people can to an extent avoid spoilers, and the pages don't get obscenely long.

wikka/RecluceCharacters/
wikka/SpellsongCharacters/
wikka/CoreanCharacters/
wikka/OtherCharacters/

I've done a test person or two for the Recluce page, just to look at. The format is given at the top.

Post by **wolfspirit** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:41 pm

Kvetch wrote:Warning: It might be that only IBDoF Data Editors can login. If someone would check that please...

If you (you genrally) are happy with that data format, I'd suggest this:

A long page for the Saga of Recluce, another for Spellsong, a third for the Corean Chronicles and a fourth for 'Everything Else'. That way people can to an extent avoid spoilers, and the pages don't get obscenely long.

wikka/RecluceCharacters/
wikka/SpellsongCharacters/
wikka/CoreanCharacters/
wikka/OtherCharacters/

I've done a test person or two for the Recluce page, just to look at. The format is given at the top.

The way I was planning on doing this same concept for LOTR was to have the characters be a catagory in andof themselves, and then have each character be a seperate page.

That really cuts down on the size of the page, and allows much more information to be posted on each character.

See wikka/CategoryLOTRCharacters for the starting of my plan.

You may want to look at how I set up the entire LOTR area. I tried to make it easily expandable, and you may want to at some point include some of the other things (locations, types of magic, timelines).

Mind you, I never really got very far with this, but I may have time now with college to play with this a little more.

Scott

CodeBlower · Post by **CodeBlower** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:12 am

Kvetch wrote:Warning: It might be that only IBDoF Data Editors can login. If someone would check that please...

I used my forum-ID and it seemed to let me login ... can't update/add anything though ... unless I'm missing something.

Kvetch wrote:I've done a test person or two for the Recluce page, just to look at. The format is given at the top.

Looks good to me!

I was gonna give you a hard time about using "X", "Y", and "Z" for Lorn's siblings but, for the life of me (at least at this moment), I can't think of any of their names. Crap! I just read this a month ago!!

Spoilers: Is the background of the page always white? Maybe we could just do spoiler-text in white-on-white ...

wolfspirit wrote:See wikka/CategoryLOTRCharacters for the starting of my plan.

Very cool! I think this would be perfect.

Post by **Kvetch** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:34 am

Myran (sp?) was one of the sisters. I keep thinking the brother was Gerrat. Posting this, Vernt has come too mind...

I used my forum-ID and it seemed to let me login ... can't update/add anything though ... unless I'm missing something.

The 'edit page' button is at the very bottom left of each page (next to 'Page History') - if you still can't see that while logged in, I'll get the login issue sorted for you.

The problem with formatting is that editing a page alows give you it's whole context in plain text, so you *can't* spoilerise anything for editors.

You have a choice to make about what you see the final product being like.

If you agree with my idea of a searchable database, the very structured format I've given will allow easy conversion at a later date (and, by the way, I'll undertake to do that conversion, and to write (well, steal) a handler so that the data can be fairly easily edited/viewed).

however, if you are happy with just having a (less searchable) RecluceWiki, Wolfspirit's suggestion, of having categories, makes it fairly easy to avoide spoilers. You'd do something like this: wikka/LerriS (actually, you'd do something a little more polished and in the way of what Wolfspirit did for LotR, but that is an example...)

Post by **gollum** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:02 am

As I'm on a time limited dial-up connection, filling out x number of wiki forms online is - for me - not going to happen.
So I'll ignore the temptation

to offer unsolicited (and uninformed) opinions on the pros or cons of various formats.

Provided I can get my act together and get my list typed up, I'll happily send what I have to whoever wants it. Just be aware that my list contains very little biography info (if any). Though I suppose someone (other wiki users?) could make it a starting point.

P.S. Kvetch & CodeBlower, was the other sister Jerial (sp?)

CodeBlower · Post by **CodeBlower** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:48 pm

Myran and Jerial are right, I think. Vernt was, I believe, Myran's consort. Don't know about Gerrat -- doesn't sound quite right. You guys have 2 out of 3 so far -- way better'n me.

Kvetch, are you suggesting something like "LerrisBio" and "LerrisSpoiler" as separate pages? I could go for something like that. Although, *I* see this is being a resource for those who have already finished the series -- but that's cool -- I'm willing to embrace non-believers as well.

gollum, I could be convinced to convert whatever you've got to the pages that Kvetch and wolfspirit are suggesting. (Actually, I think what wolfspirit suggested would be very dialup-friendly anyway -- but I'll help out if I can.)

Post by **Kvetch** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:42 pm

Yes, separate pages (well, actually, I advocate a single page with headings, because I'm in favour of a proper database structure, but that is me).

Gerrat is the brother of Daryn Aldwyn in Octagonal Raven - so that definately isn't right!

Post by **Kvetch** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 2:29 am

Right. It gets complicated from here on in.

But with the helped of the esteemed CodeBlower, I've got the two options available to you.

Firstly, the Wikka is here. The following users have ther acounts enabled to edit the wiki: DocKurtz, gollum, CodeBlower, binghamjf - but if others want acess, please pm me, and I'll set it up.

Secondly, I've put together a database approach based on the IBDoF code:
http://www.kvetch.silentflame.com/phpBB ... a_view.php
To edit it, you need to register on that forum and give me a chance to add you to the correct usergroup. There are usage instructions in the forum there. I can adjust the format of a 'detailed view' fairly easily - that is just what I put together initially.

It is up to you guys to decide which method to use.

CodeBlower · Post by **CodeBlower** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 10:14 am

I've "fleshed out" a few people in both locations to give an idea of what's possible (or, at least, what I've figured out so far).

Cerryl is a good starting point, but a couple others have been done as well.