Sorry, for the hiatus from the forum for the last month or so, I've been a busy guy working on two publication settings and my other publishing project, naturally all three dragged their feet, and now all three are calling for my attention as forward movement to publication is close for all three.

My Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting is about to get its final written rendition by Jonathon McNulty of Open Design Project/Kobold Quarterly. While the 3 part mini campaign is already outlined or partially written, I have enough material to describe the entire adventure path. However, for the main setting handbook, I am still trying to get a handle on best presentation of that material. I keep having new ideas...

One stroke of luck, however (I seem to have lots of good luck these days), one of the sites I visit for Japanese folklore resource material is Obakemono.com - basically a wiki site containing all sorts of Japanese monsters, ghosts and odd stories. They have a forum there, and recently someone named Zach Davisson introduced himself as an expert on yokai and yurei.

It turns out that Zach went to college in Japan, where he was introduced to the concept of Yurei or Japanese Ghost, having lived in a 'haunted' apartment with his Japanese wife. The experience lead him to writing his Master's thesis on Yurei of Japan. He has since written many articles in both English and Japanese for various online and printed magazines, as well as some work for nWOD (the publishers of Vampire the Masquerade.)

At this time, Zach is my 'technical advisor' in all things, yokai (shape-changers), yurei (ghosts) and as a translator of Japanese language and literature. As an exchange of services I am currently reading his unpublished book, called Yurei - Japanese Ghosts.

Considering I've been on the hunt for a book on Japanese ghosts for over a year, and only finding books written in Japanese, giving feedback on an unpublished book on Yurei - what an opportunity, and finally a resource I can count on - what a break!

Anyway, that's what I've been doing, so still very busy. I hope to enter at least one map into the Sept/Oct NYC map challenge, but probably won't be able to start until sometime in October - I think I can finish in time, like I said busier than usual these days. Hopefully after a couple of these projects get published I will have more time... we'll see.

GP