#dreamroot

DreamRoot - Phases - soul & jazz from Durham, NC

DreamRoot is a quintet from Durham, North Carolina who met at their individual jazz performances, but who came together as artists as a collective seeking musical healing. Drawing from a vast number of influences, DreamRoot classifies themselves as Political Jazz and Neo-Soul, with elements drawn from the music-cultures of both Africa and Europe. DreamRoot is comprised of bassist Ittai Korman, drummer Theous Jones, saxophonist and poet Serena Wiley, keyboardist and producer Joe MacPhail, and GRAMMY nominated trumpeter Lynn Grissett.

Merle used to be a night manager for a convenience store near the Neverwinter Community College. He got fired from there because... well... because of this.

It was getting so late that it was nearly early. Mak’arune, working on her degree, prowled the aisles for any and all over-the-counter pick-me-ups. Coffee, Monster, some pep pills, anything with guarana in it, and anything with taurine in it.

“Late night hitting the books, huh?”

“Worse than that, said Mak’arune. “My laptop imploded and now I have to do my entire thesis from scratch.”

Merle whistled backwards. “Tell you what. I know a little something-something that can help you out. It’s pretty strong stuff, so you gotta go easy on it. But it’ll definitely give you energy to do all that thesis stuff.”

“Anything,” said Mak’arune, tears in her eyes. “I need this degree. I need it so bad.”

“Cool your jets,” Merle grumbled. “Just wait there.” He clambered down from his tall chair and waddled on all the way into the back room. Moxes rattled, curses uttered, and after a few minutes of this, he waddled back with a small bottle with no label and an eyedropper lid. “Here it is. One of my little extracts. It’d knock a Dwarf or a Humanman out so hard they could sleep through the apocalypse, but you Elven types? Wired to shit and back.”

The bottle, contents and all, couldn’t weigh more than two ounces. That such a small thing could be so important.

“Will it really?”

“Yup. Big-ass energy boost,” he said. “Now you gotta be careful with this shit. It’s distilled, so it’s extra potent. No more than one drop per drink per hour, even if you’re not mixing it with the rest of that noise. If your sternum starts to feel like it’s gonna shake apart, you fuckin’ quit, got it?”

Mak’arune nodded. “M’kay. And I can stay awake all night with this stuff?”

“Miss, you could probably stay awake through a sleep dust storm. One drop an hour. You’ll be fine.”

Mak’arune handed over her money and took the entire bag of legal uppers back to the residence where she was attempting to salvage the unsalvageable.

Two hours in, Mak’arune yawned and, in a complete panic about one yawn, sank the entire little brown bottle in one go.

On the plus side, she got her thesis reconstructed.

On the minus side, the campus security had to fish her out of the main Quad fountain, where she was (a) dressed only in her underwear, (b) yelling about things coming out of otherwise solid objects, (c ) sending misfiring magic all around the area, and (d) doing all of the above during a tour of potential donors of wealth and privilege.

It took some major league tranquillisers to get her to even chill. Even then, she was in something of a torpor for the majority of the next day.

Mak’arune would never touch anything stronger than a cola ever again.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 9]

The setting of Dreamroot is a fantasy world where spirits are common and the level of mana of the world flows through 100 year cycles, with 80 Awake years of higher mana and 20 Dormancy years of lower mana.

While this Awake phase is the world's standard with mana, that isn't to say that the Dormancy is completely bereft of mana. However the spirits and mana infused elements are much rare to spot during this time, and the personal use of mana is harder to develop or use from slower regeneration.

This game takes place at the end of the 20 year cycle of Dormancy, when the villagers are caught off guard with the Waking phase as it comes a few years earlier than expected and they have to smooth the transition and mana flares as the mana 'wakes up'. Which is both a well walked road historically, and new to this generation due to the length of the cycles as they try to catch up.

The settlement itself is set in a forested mountain reigon with a culture that blends europe and asia, nested in the ridges rather than in a valley, with an older settlement no longer in use farther up the mountain.

Now to nerd out a little:

I had a lot of fun choosing influences and researching the native flora and fauna, geography images, architecture, clothes, crops, common livestock, and recipies of the areas.

The core of the idea when I got started at properly looking into a setting as a map for the location was 'forested mountain', as I knew I wanted to try something away from the standard valley or coastal town.

I got hit with inspiriation for a game in the mid of December and actually decided to make it, so this blog is to help me keep track of my own progress and to share with anyone who is interested!

Since I am new to... everything involved about game design and devlopement, it will be an interesting journey for me and I expect to take a long time and learn a lot in the process to bring this game to life.

Dreamroot: Season of Waking is the cumilation of things I loved and wished to find in the cozy farm and life rpg genres, taking major inspiration from games such as the Rune Factory series, Fields of Mistra, Roots of Pacha, Coral Island, and the Story of Seasons series.