Welcome to the first Ssilir Saturday! This blog series is meant to provide a bit of background for the world Qul comes from. You can expect a Ssilir Saturday post about every week and each one will delve deeper and deeper into the world called Ssilir.

Today I’ll give you bashers a basic overview of Ssilir so you can get a basic idea of what kind of world Qul’s used to.  This one’s short, but if there’s anything in particular you want to know about Ssilir or its people, let me know and I’ll make a list of things that you, my fans, want to hear about.

Physical Characteristics

Ssilir is a roughly Earth-sized world located in a distant and as-yet undiscovered crystal sphere. The planet is third in its solar system and has an axial position such that its southern hemisphere gets far more sun time than the northern. About 90% of Ssilir’s surface is covered in water and 90% of the planet’s land masses are located in the southern hemisphere. Of those landmasses, most form a ring of three small continents and dozens of large islands and archipelagos around the southern pole. The land masses are all riddled with lakes and rivers. Ssilir has four moons, each one named for one of their six gods. The remaining two gods are linked to the sky and the planet itself.

Climate & Terrain

Because of all the water, Ssilir maintains very mild temperatures across the globe. The temperatures gradually cool the further north a body travels, and the northern pole is surrounded by an island of ice. However, temperatures rarely shift suddenly in any part of the world. The amount of water on the planet does cause dramatic weather patterns. Large storms and hurricanes occur frequently, though since most of the land is concentrated in one quarter of the planet, most Ssilirians are unaware of the extent of storm patterns across Ssilir.

Temperatures on the land masses generally stay around 80F (26C). Because of the axial tilt, days are long. Temperatures do not drop much overnight because the nights are so short. Time from sunrise to sunset is roughly 18 hours of a 24-hour day, depending on where a body is on Ssilir’s land.

The land masses are mostly covered in thick jungles and lush plains that teem with all kinds of life. The land has thousands of different species, many that have yet to be discovered by the Ssilirians. Continents have rivers, lakes, and mountains running across them that separate the land into natural boundaries.

People

The sentient race on Ssilir, the Ssilirians, are a warm-blooded saurian race with scales instead of skin. They are fully amphibious and well-adapted to their aquatic planet. The race has a more pronounced sexual dimorphism than most humanoid races. Males tend to be taller and slimmer, and are colored more brightly green than women. Females are usually shorter and broader and carry a marsupial-like pouch for holding young. They tend to be browner in color and less visually striking. Many Ssilirians believe that they are descended from birds and Ssilirian religion holds birds in high esteem.

Ssilirian people are divided into city-states scattered across the land masses. The city-state boundaries usually fall within the natural borders formed by mountains, though some large valleys are shared by two or three city-states. Though an overarching Ssilirian culture exists among across the planet, each city-state also has its own subculture. City-states engage in politics, warring, and trade much like separate nations on earth. Six city-states are held sacrosanct. Positioned roughly equidistant from each other, they each have a major temple devoted to each of the gods. They are officially neutral territories in all squabbles, though unofficially these city-states engage as much politics as the others. Priests of the six main gods are expected to make pilgrimages to at least one of these temple cities during their lives. Qul himself is from Relirasc, the city of the Storm God.

The abundant water on the planet combined with the Ssilirians’ amphibious natures has made the Ssilirians skilled masters of hydraulic power and water use. Waterways serve as major travel paths and many towns and cities are built at least partially on the water itself. Water power is harnessed to provide power to all sorts of Ssilirian works. Ssilirian cities have fountains on every block and water runs through the workings of every part of the cities to provide energy for industry and art. Hydraulic energy has become a symbol of the Ssilirian people.

All right.

• Anti-bot plugin.  Check.
• LJ Crosspost plugin.  Check.
• Bookmark/Social networking plugin.  Check.
• Cast Page updated to include Lasc’s profile? Check.

Still to do:

• Work with my SEO.  Gotta make sure I’m getting the most out of that.
• Finish the layout.  This will probably have to wait until Wednesday or so.
• Look into advertising/spreading the word so I can get my name out there more.
• Look at Twitter as a means of the above.

Long-Term Projects:

• Forum plugin or phpBB3 bridge.
• Ssilir as a fantasy world.
• Browse WordPress plugins, see what’s what.

Ideas for the far future:

• Make Metamorphosis avatars for use on this site.
• Look at ways to enhance the theme.
• See how I can bring a more general audience on-board.

That’s all for today!  Time to get back to work on pages!

- Kage

All right, the semester is over and I have a whole summer ahead of me!  That means it’s time to work on the site and the comic! 

Here are some of the immediate changes in my plans:

• Add a CAPTCHA or anti-bot plugin so I can open registration and commenting without worrying about spammers.
• Finish the overall layout.  I’ll be switching to the “Graphic Novel” ComicPress setup.  This setup was just so I could find my way around the ComicPress and WordPress layouts.
• Look into a plugin that will allow me to cross-post to LJ.
• Research getting a Twitter feed.
• Add a bookmarking that’ll allow pages and posts to be linked to sites like Digg, et al.
• Look at sites and other places to advertise and spread the word.
• Work on my site SEO.

For the long term, here are some of the ideas that I’ve got.

• Look for a good forum plug-in or see if I can find a way to bridge my WordPress installation with my phpBB3 installation.
• Complete work on Ssilir: the World so people can read about the land Qul comes from
• Look at plug-ins in general, see what looks neat and could be useful what doesn’t.

I’ve decided my update schedule will be every Monday and Thursday.  These days are right after days that, even during most of the school semester, I’ll have ample time to put a page together.  I do expect occasional weeks where school will be too overwhelming for me to update the comic.  However, at least for the Fall term, this update schedule should work out.  So if you’re actually following these posts, you can expect the updates to start rolling in soon.

Finally, I will be crossposting this comic to a few other sites.  I’m looking at DrunkDuck as a possibility, and will probably also use PaperDemon.  I will also post pages to my deviantART gallery, but I will probably post them without text there.  My ultimate intent is to funnel people to this website so I can get a better estimate of how many visitors I have total, where they’re coming from, and how to better suit my site to them.  I do love Google Analytics!

That’s all for now.  I’ll hopefully be doing another site update later today, so keep an eye out.

- Kage

Excellent!  I can now crosspost from here to my LJ!  This will be handy in getting updates posted at LJ so my readers there can see.

You all can ignore this post.  I just wanted to celebrate my small victory   I’ll do a more substantial update later.

Welcome to the Planescape: Metamorphosis website! 

The webcomic is not up yet, but I plan to begin releasing it starting in late May or early June 2009!  Right now, I’m in the end of semester throes, so I’m too busy to actively work on pages.  In the meantime, I am updating the site with character information and pictures.   So while you’re here, why not take a look around, especially at the Cast List and the Gallery!

If you’re not sure what Planescape is or what to expect from an adventure story that takes place in the setting, I’m working on a page that helps explain it all.  In the meantime, you can hop on over Planewalker, the official Planescape website.  Their Planescape Campaign Setting files are a lot to read for a newcomer, but will help you better understand the myriad worlds that Qul and his companions travel through.  Don’t worry, though.  I am working on a shorter and more concise description of the Planescape setting for old fans and new visitors alike.

I’m still working a little bit on this site, so you can expect new parts to pop up and old parts to disappear.  I’ve never actively worked with WordPress before, so this has been a learning experience.  However, I’m pleased with how easy it is to set up and how straightforward most of the PHP and HTML templates are to edit.  I look forward to continuing work with this CMS for the comic.

I haven’t decided yet on an update schedule, but I’m probably going to run twice a week.  Tentatively, I’m considering Sunday/Wednesday or Monday/Thursday.  I might shift the schedule around during the summer until I find something that fits with both my work schedule and my real life.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for changes and updates!  I will try to post to this page when I make major changes, so if you subscribe using the link at the top, you should get notifications of when I update!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy what you see!