http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/ Out of the Park Developments is the creator of the baseball management simulation Out of the Park Baseball for PC and Mac and the PC boxing game Title Bout Championship Boxing. en Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:17:30 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/ http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/102-skelphland-insight.html Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:39:21 GMT Below are a couple of pieces taken from my upcoming dynasty, it may turn you off the dynasty or leave you wanting more who is to say :D The first part is from the story of the main character who is yet to be named, this part he will be reading in class just before his school breaks up for the... Below are a couple of pieces taken from my upcoming dynasty, it may turn you off the dynasty or leave you wanting more who is to say :D

The first part is from the story of the main character who is yet to be named, this part he will be reading in class just before his school breaks up for the Summer holidays and most importantly days free to play baseball. I wanted to throw parts like this in to give people an insight into the history of the country.

Where once the green fields covered the Skelphian landscape now the blades of grass were tinged red, red with the blood of many a warrior who died in battle on that warm July day in 1572. The hordes of Borovian hashshashin had cut through Estibias like a scythe through a field of wheat as they came upon the border of Skelphland, the prize they sought in trying to conquer Skelphland were the tin and silver mines of Arundale and Stoneshire. Although the Borovian army outnumbered the Skelphians 5 to 1 on that day, it was the foresight of King Helfeg over 100 years ago that had installed confidence within the Skelphian army that they could be victorious.

Helfeg had realised what the mines in Northern Skelphland meant to his country and had ordered the forming of the Knights of the Highlands, men who through generations had been hand picked from the villages and towns of Arundale simply because of their prowess at fighting specially in the rough terrain of North Skelphland. When the battle had finished 50,000 Borovian bodies lay on the soil of Skelphland and thousands more would join them in the here after on the road back to Borovia through their injuries.

The second part is from how baseball became the game it is in Skelphland.

Until 1856 there were many variations of what we know today as baseball being played around Skelphland, in Arundale and the northern parts of Stoneshire and Hoptonshire they played a game called “Miners Ball” named so because of it mostly being played by the miners from the many mines that were dotted around the north. In Kibworth they played a game called “Long Ball” and in Stowell they still played “Coi” a game brought to the shores of Skelphland by famous explorer Alexander Thirwell after one of his voyages in 1820.

It wasn’t until Kern Eckard a young man from Kibworth went to seek his fortune in the mines of Arundale in early 1856 that the foundations of baseball would be set forever, Eckard had been one of the most famous exponents of long ball in Kibworth and was given a rousing send off from the people of the county as they expected him to be just as famous in the north playing miners ball as he had been playing long ball in Kibworth. ]]> ukhotstove http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/102-skelphland-insight.html http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/15-counties-skelphland.html Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:18:59 GMT Arundale.

Arundale maybe one of the smallest counties in Skelphland but it's positioning at the northern tip of the country makes it one of the most important, the reasoning behind this being it covers the Northern Gateway a valley that was carved out by a glacier millions of years ago which divides the vast mountain ranges of the Souldrop mountains in the north west and the Three Sisters mountains in the north east. It's size also hides the fact that it is one of the richest counties and provides the country with a vast wealth through it's mining of diamonds, gold, tin, copper, iron and coal.

Stoneshire.

The county lies on the western side of Skelphland and faces onto the Red Ocean, Stoneshire is not only home to most of the fishing fleets of the country but is also home to the Skelphian navy. Also like Arundale it as a mining community but most of the mining in Stoneshire involves iron mining with just a few coal mines dotted around the county. ]]> ukhotstove http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/15-counties-skelphland.html http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/14-about-skelphland.html Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:34:48 GMT Skelphland is a small country in the Northern Territory continent of Garonor which is bordered by Estibias in the north and east, Romaga in the south and by Cyrania and the Red Ocean on it's western border. The country is split up into ten counties those being Arundale, Stoneshire, Hoptonshire, Greenshire, Wharfshire, Oakshire, Kibworth, Caldershire, Burtonshire and Stowell. Each county is governed by a Lord Justice who is appointed by the countries leader the Chief Justice, the Chief Justice is voted in every six years by the people of Skelphland from a shortlist of four people put forward by the ruling monarch of the time.

There is no religion as such within the country but people do give offerings and prayers to the Kings and Queens of old, also in the northern counties of Arundale and Stoneshire people give offerings to Hegorg the chief of the Barbein clan that lived around the northern part of the country. It's written around in Skelphian mythology that around the year 136 a large tribe called the Perianns tried to take over the Barbein lands in the north, legend as it the heavily outnumbered Barbeins were about to flee the battle field but when seeing this Hegorg picked up his axe and charged the Perianns on his own and when seeing this the Barbein warriors joined their leader and gained the victory that day.

How much of this is true is not known as Moreth whose writings are the ones that describe what happened that day wasn't even born until around 216, as he gained the knowledge of the battle from his father who had in turn heard stories of the battle from Moreth's great grandfather who said he was at the battle and fought with Hegorg.

We do know the geography of Skelphland as it is today dates back to 1458 when the Estibians and Romagans invaded Skelphland and were defeated by King Buryan and the clans of the country, to show his gratitude the King gave lands to the chiefs of the clans which through history have become the ten counties of Skelphland. ]]> ukhotstove http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/14-about-skelphland.html http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/13-skelphland.html Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:20:12 GMT Because I wanted to give the dynasty I'm working on more depth than usuall I've decided to split it into two, reason being is I didn't want to bore people who just wanted to read about the baseball aspect of the story so what I intend on doing is posting the baseball part in the dynasty thread and the non baseball part of the dynasty within my blog. Hopefully it will work but I'll just have to see and play it by ear. ]]> ukhotstove http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/13-skelphland.html http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/12-journey-dynasty.html Sun, 30 Aug 2009 09:20:13 GMT As some may have seen in my signature I'm in the process of putting together a dynasty to eventually replace the Sights and Sounds one that I have going at the moment, the dynasty (title unknown as of yet) will be about a fictional country called "Skelphland". Anyway when I've done a dynasty in the past I've always wanted to explain the reasons behind the dynasty and how I go about creating it hence the journey of a dynasty, reason I've never done this before is that I thought it would bore people and turn them away from reading my dynasty but with the blog option it gives people the choice of reading about the creation of the dynasty or choosing not to.

It not only gives people an insight into how I've gone about creating the dynasty but also gives me something to look back on and even let me understand how I went about it, so firstly onto the insperation behind the story. I've always wanted to create a world or nation and on reading Eugene Church's excellent dynasty combined with the love of Tolkien's work this is how the insperation came about although there are no hobbit's, dragons or giant eagles I'm sorry to say.

One thing it does have though is plenty of cities, towns and villages and I mean PLENTY, when I did a rough draft of the nation it contained over 3,500 cities, towns and villages but I didn't feel it was big enough for the story to build with age so I scrapped that first draft and came up with another draft or at the moment just an idea as I've just started to build the city, town and village text file with at a rough count will take in around 15,000 cities, towns and villages.

Anyway for those interested I'll be updating this every other day or so dependant on the time I can open up to working on the dynasty, thanks for taking time out to read this and the upcoming story. ]]> ukhotstove http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/blogs/ukhotstove/12-journey-dynasty.html