The Magpie on 3/1/2008 at 07:06

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Oh my. I've been stalked. Yes, it's me being interviewed on DLU, and that's my old LJ. Good work.

First of all: I'm afraid I've not been aware of the attempt to contact me. Which is curious, because my records show I re-registered here at the TTLG forums the 12th of July last year. I don't recall exactly why. Regrettably, my e-mail client mistook the activation link for spam, and I saw this thread just now tonight, when I thought I'd check in on some other business. Jeremy, I have not been deliberately ignoring you! I'll go and re-check the remains of any mailboxes I used last summer.

And now, friends, scholars, and taffers, let me thank you for still reading that old HTML document I put together so many years ago. I'm aware that it says "author unknown" nowadays, but given the inaccuracies you've very kindly pointed out, it's possibly for the best. Still, it makes me proud. Especially as I sense something of a kindred spirit in Jason. ;)

A few clearing-uppers forthcoming.

My leaving TTLG had to do with RL, of course. Not any falling outs.

Of course the Lexicon is a fanfic. I'm a fan! And it was always merely my own interpretation of the Thief lore I presented. Still, although there are spellings present which I had to transliterate myself from the .wavs (and which perhaps have been corrected elsewhere since my last uploaded version), I felt I did take care to use, heh, canon material.

(
Two exceptions exist, both being in-jokes: The entries on (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#kutuluk) Kutuluk and (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#mushrooms) Mushrooms, glowing. The first because I didn't want the conventional spelling of Great C., but felt the statue merited an entry in the same cameo kind of way it was included in the game. The reference to glowing mushroom tea as a tip of the hat to the Thief forums of TTLG, where AFAIK the concept originated and was used at the time as a form of virtual social bonding ritual.

*sips cup*
)

Other than that, I did not include other fanfics or FMs as sources for entries, that I know of. (DromEd wasn't even released at the time I started working on it.) (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#barak) Barak might be a slip, maybe I thought at first that Aaron's treatise was based on original research - at least in that area, and forgot to delete the entry once I discovered otherwise. Certainly (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#tenel) Tenel is an obvious legacy typo. OTOH, I do feel more secure about Janco. I didn't make the name up myself, at any rate.

That said, I did try to piece together certain relations more or less on my own. The (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#wards) Wards, for instance. The tiers of (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#nobility) nobility. And what or who constitutes the (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#cityofficials) City Officials? And were really (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#fendon) Fendon and (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#sunnyfair) Sunnyfair gambling dens as well as respectively bar and brothel? Were (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#cyric) Cyric, (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#bohn) Bohn, and (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#blackbrook) Blackbrook even citystates themselves, or something else? The material available to me at the time didn't explicitly say so, IIRC.

Another case in point:
"Apparitions: Spirits of the Trickster thought to take the form of dead Hammerite priests."
This would be me trying to fit all kinds of magic into one of either the pagan or the Hammerite perspectives. Since it was a hostile undead, I figured it couldn't be the Hammer one. And it's noncanon, to be sure. I didn't know better. I just wanted things to make sense, and made the best of it. Also see the entries on (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#magic) magic and (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#alchemy) alchemy, where I really go out on a limb. (The novice angle saved me here - the novice might have misunderstood how all this metaphysical mumbojumbo worked.)

I recall using through not only the .str, .avi, and .wav files, but any image files included in a .crf. That's where the (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#thermotech) Thermotech entry comes from. And I remember seeing a lightning elemental .jpg at either an old eidos.co.uk or lglass.com promo site, but chose not to include it. I did include the two-headed (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#ogres) ogres from the shipped game files, however. I might have done so with more orphaned references not found in-game.

I believe (http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/lexicon/#janco) Janco could come from a sound file, but the entry leads me to believe I had read somewhere a letter from Bafford addressed to J. But if it wasn't the demo, and it's nowhere to be found in the other .crfs (you script-searchers: check for another possible typo!), then I don't remember anymore. Could it be something from the manual or other print media, perhaps?

Unfortunately, my notes from that time are probably lost now, too. Not that I think it would help much - I neglected to even note to myself which source file(s) a particular entry would be referenced from. Yes, I did curse myself for not doing so before I'd worked halfway through the project.

So I realize better than anyone how little the NKL should be trusted. Even if Master Nightfall (as we called him back then) edited- well, formatted it and provided valuable feedback, the responsibility for any errors is mine.

However, I did go out of my way to make a document suitable for reading by new players by going easy on the spoilers, and to serve as a kind of introduction to the Thief setting. Not any end-all resource of anything. (Dan renaming it from "a Keeper's log book" to the NKL might have confused a few.) But I still wanted it to be nice and accurate, to quote Gaiman&Pratchett - I mean, Agnes Nutter.

I really wished for a Thief RPG sourcebook, you know...

In other news: I acquired my first-ever copy of Thief Gold during the holidays. I've been playing not a few hours since then. That's why I wanted to come back to the TTLG forums around now.

And damn, if you haven't made me forget what I wanted to post about originally. :thumb:

--
Larris/The Magpie

jtr7 on 3/1/2008 at 07:24

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Excellent! Thanks for the wonderful response! I'm so glad you didn't delete your spam.:D

The Lexicon certainly has been very useful. I used it for years until I finally got my own copies of the games (about a year ago) and started filling in the gaps. It's been copied and pasted numerous times across the web. It's been used innumerable times for other taffers' fanfic and FMs. It definitely has a place in the Thief fans' experience, especially those who are fans of role-playing.

I've scoured all my Dark Project AND Gold files for any mention of a Lord Janco. I regretted having to remove it from the list for lack of evidence. I stalled and asked more than once for a clue. People here ARE rather fond of Barak.

Welcome back, you taffer.

jtr7 on 3/1/2008 at 07:53

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Hmmm... We'll see if we can come up with something. My collaborator, spix's circlet, and I could use some help, if only to speed things along. I'm currently working from the *.mis files in DromEd on multiple sub-projects. One project that keeps getting stalled is finishing the Metal Age transcriptions. We have all the conversations. We need to finish a few of the other AI's comments, and all need to be formatted to be consistent. Any *.wav that has at least one word is to be included. We also want to make the format consistent. That's one idea, if you have the Metal Age. Spix may have something, but he'll have to tell you himself.

Thank you, no matter what!

jtr7 on 3/1/2008 at 20:18

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Hey yeah! I'd be curious to know if any of the words deviate from the PC version. How could we go about this?:D

jtr7 on 4/1/2008 at 03:12

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Hey now, no pressure!:p

Sometimes I have to compose my posts in WordPad when it's complicated and I'm taking awhile.

And I've never heard of the Black Bull Inn. Hmmmm....

From a review at GameSpot:


Addendum: The Magpie, your account is not open to receiving PMs, yet.