After many years in which the number of my geofictional projects steadily grew (I have several more outside OGF) and the available time I have for them slowly decreased, I decided that I needed to do some cleaning and rearranging, so 2020 is becoming the Year of the Broom.

For OGF this meant that I wanted to focus on one territory instead of two remote and unrelated ones, and perhaps having a smaller total of land would help too, so I proposed to the admins to swap places and abandon my SW Archantan country Xsegunis (formerly Řots) in exchange for the often unoccupied UL040 as an expansion of my other country Wyster in Eastern Uletha. This has happened thus.

As for Xsegunis/Řots: I have no idea what will happen to it but if you see it slowly disappearing, it doesn’t mean that I have left OGF myself. I made back-ups of the OGF Wiki pages of these countries btw, so if they need to be deleted, this is now possible.

In the meantime my focus is on expanding and developing Wyster. I already wrote the addition of a piece of land the size of Slovenia (I think) into its history and made a set-up of the new counties and infrastructure. I also decided to use the opportunity to review the grammar of Wystrian; so far nothing has changed but perhaps I will alter the verb system. For the rest I have no big plans.

Today my colleagues at work discovered my activities on OGF for the first time - which is odd when you think about it, because I have been working for my current employer since November 2017 and regularly add things on my OGF maps during lunch breaks using my work computer where everyone can see me, so I guess they weren’t really paying attention until now :)

They thought I was playing some computer game; they mentioned a name but I forgot it (I haven’t played any computer games since - I guess - Supaplex in the late ’90s so I’m not really familiar with computer games at all) but it turned out to be what they thought of as the ‘background’ of those games. I think they were kind of impressed by the possibilities of OGF; if one of them tries it out I will be pleased but I think it’s not “active” enough for them.

They did comment on my mapping though. I have been working on Wyster lately and they suggested that the international airport of Hreawirc (the capital of Wyster) isn’t very accessible at the moment, so I should create a highway towards it. They could be right, but I’m not sure that it should be a highway. Wyster being a tiny country, it has enough highways already, I think. But a more prominent connection to the city should be made; I’ll put it on my list.

Did you share your OGF activities with friends, family, colleagues? What was their reaction?

Some of you may have noticed it already, but Řots is rather empty at the moment. Apart from a few densely mapped areas that I will keep, I removed the basic mapping in the rest of the country in order to remake it. The country’s language will change as well: instead of Řotsnan (which I found increasingly annoying to use) there will be another conlang called Xseget. This means that the country’s name will change as well, into Xsegunis. And while I’m at it, the political/societal setup of Řots will be overhauled as well, so basically it will become a completely different country, but on the same location.

Regarding the mapping I made a setup this time (I never did for Řots), and there is this wonderful feature in JOSM that allows you to import your own map as a background so that you know where you are drawing. Unfortunately JOSM and I have been at odds basically since I started working with it (one day it works, the next it doesn’t, and to get to the point where I know if it will work or not in the first place usually takes me at least one hour), so I’ll have to figure out a solution for that.

I will put the diplomatic relations that Řots had on hold for the moment. Nekkar is not the capital anymore, so embassies will have to move; the new capital is Rwynuk Swxytsahocsunav (Rwynuk for short), which will be developed in due time.

Si caedhys moocstat sie hoostec peubh ygh paef ranael ug weas ceal sie hoostec, his ug vemefnu vicstat gu it no Wysthyr eglis ceal untensubh. Begher hirtyn, ug màh ca se hen se judhghen hiven sie Wysthyr po creelle. Er gesaerva menner ug paevàst po earre: ug daecena ecest oncun ghavenne ym pòbynnerthe ym sie hemys cehe. Ym meheven er pyh heanne sie hiven ceal egul, ug ivyrth oog po connostat menner paevist east weas meub.

A recent change in my free time priorities gave me some extra time, so I used the opportunity to work on Wyster a bit more intensively. As of today, three out of fourteen counties of Wyster have been completely covered with stuff. This doesn’t mean that I have finished with them: names and buildings and other things still have to be added. And since it concerns three of the smaller counties, I can tell with certainty that I won’t be finished any time soon.

Cartest de!

Happy Mapping!

As some of you may know, my country Řots in the southern part of Archanta (Astrasia) is a split society: the normal people live their own normal modern every day lives, whereas the country’s royal family and the (higher) nobility follow the more than 1200 year old Codex (a fixed set of protocols) which essentially keeps them in medieval times and in recent centuries has estranged them from the rest of the country. At first the people lived by their conservative rule, but when Řots lost a large part of their territory due to the arrival of colonial powers in the 17th century (e.g. Florescentians, Ingrish in what are now the South Astrasian Federation and Karvaland), some educated inhabitants of Řots saw that the country couldn’t develop they way they thought it should, and when it turned out to be impossible to convince the nobility to abandon or even modify the Codex, people started to just ignore the Codex, which proved to be okay for the royal family and the rest of the nobility. Since that moment, the royal household has remained located near the original ‘Royal Capital of Řots’, the city of Kotōlets, whereas the modern government operates from Nekkar. Nowadays only the prime minister has a more intimate knowledge of the King, his family, and their daily actions, but he or she knows only what the King wants him to know - which is not very much indeed, as not even the prime minister knows e.g. who is currently next in line to succeed the King when he dies.

… See full entry

A small update from Řots (Southern Archanta) and Wyster (Eastern Uletha). In the last couple of weeks I have been mainly preoccupied with both countries’ capitals; before that, I worked on an altitude map of Řots.

In Wyster’s capital Hreawirc I just worked on creating streets and stuff; in and around Nekkar I focused on the satellite town of Bastet, southeast of the capital, and today I started working on Nekkar’s subway system.

Nekkar’s subway

For now, there are a Red Line (Airport-Sikē Va-Kervirep) and a Blue Line (Osente-Main Railway Station-Bastet, which will eventually be extended to the new airport that will be constructed southeast of the city; I should probably put that part of the line ‘under construction’ for the time being). The two lines cross at Sureekkar station.

The Red Line makes a huge detour near the airport, which is probably due to either protesting land owners who didn’t want subway constructions going through their fields, or a city council with too much money and/or wrong priorities, or both. The exact moment that this line was constructed will decide whether its construction was a waste of money or not: if it was constructed many decades ago, it may have been sufficiently useful to get to and from the airport. If it was constructed in the last ten or twenty years, it will turn out to be less useful, as recently the decision was taken to construct the aforementioned new airport, which, once completed, will significantly reduce the number of passengers on that part of the Red Line.

A third line (that I haven’t mapped yet) will probably go from Sikē Va via the Main Railway Station eastwards, via Karkar to Korp.

Altitude map

… See full entry

Since my return to OGF I have been slowly expanding my countries (Řots and Wyster).

In Řots the most ‘developed’ areas are the capital (Nekkar) and the southwestern part of the Bořāzint province: adding nature, improving some infrastructural features, adding street names, etc. More often I look to the Open Streetmap for inspiration and comparison to get things the right size or to make them look more natural; there is still much that can be improved. In Nekkar I started mapping the city centre in more detail (adding restaurants etc.).

In Wyster the most mapped area is the county of Cervirc, which is now completely covered by mapping elements, although much more features can still be added. The city centre of the capital Hreawirc is slowly expanding as well; I developed the Wystrian zip code system, so embassies can now be added to the area (I hate it when embassy addresses are left incomplete). And there is Wystrian money now: the 100 Craem note has perhaps turned out slightly more flamboyantly pink than I intended, but I’m going to leave it like that for the time being, awaiting other bank notes with which it can be contrasted.

(And, less urgently, I’m looking for texts to translate into Řotsnan and/or Wystrian in order to keep developing these languages (the grammar descriptions are more or less finished, but vocabulary needs to be added and translating texts helps me to see if there should be features that I forgot or overlooked), so if you want you can send me something literary, funny, serious, short, long, financial, technical, poetical, gastronomical, intelligent, dumb, religious, vague, specific, scandalous, instructive, prohibitive, informative, etc. as long as it is OGF related (via PM) and I will try to provide a translation.)

Somewhere and somewhen I may have already written something about this: naming streets.

In my countries Řots and Wyster I of course complicated things by having introduced my own conlangs, which requires a lot of translation, e.g. Kermendegidu Vore in Nekkar (Řots) or the Bric sie Cepevard in Cervirc (Wyster) sound strange and unfamiliar, but they are merely the Stock Exchange Street resp. the Slaughterhouse Street.

In Wyster I added an English translation between brackets for the more important streets (e.g. Boolvar sie Eerbyc (Sunset Boulevard); maybe I will do so as well for similar streets in Řots.

Naming streets after objects and abstracts is one thing, but naming them after persons is another, especially when the enormous source of available famous persons that our earth has to offer, doesn’t - necessarily - exist on the OGF planet. I worked on naming streets in Cervirc and Searpeg in Wyster today: the city quarter of Erdhe Bliesse (“Green Houses”, I hope the names are visible yet; here it takes an awful lot of time until the map shows the changes I made) has streets named after scientists. I searched on the Wiki for names from all over the OGF world - btw I didn’t pay attention if the persons I used are still alive, or controversial, or otherwise unsuitable to name a street after - so I managed to fill this quarter.

For the southern part of Fooc I started with composers (of classical music), but didn’t get any farther than Toomas Pästoreiin, Franz Kleppenberg, Ernst Lumm, John Scoplin (I enjoyed reading about him btw), and Wystrian composer Peus Jinnyc (the street says ‘Pus’, but that’s genitive case). So I need some more composers for at least twelve streets (if possible from different countries)! If you have them, I will gladly accept them :)

~Rasmus Rasmusson

After a long absence I mapped a small area in the north of Řots last weekend. I was pleasently surprised to see that the iD mapping tools have improved to my liking and that there is now a mobile version for OGF!

Since the activity at my RL work and in other geofictional projects is rather unpredictable, I can’t guarantee that a new mapping spree is imminent, but I’ll do my best :)

~ Rasmus Rasmusson

Hi y’all,

Just a quick message about my (lack of) activity: the neighbours of my countries Řots and Wyster may have noticed that I haven’t been very present in the last couple of months. It’s just that I’m quite busy at the moment; responsabilities at work and in my private life, including geofictional projects elsewhere, sort of snew under my time for this project. I haven’t given up on my countries here however, so at some point I may come back and in the meantime I can be contacted if you have urgent questions about things that may concern my countries and I’ll try to reply asap :)

Regards,

~Rasmus

Since April I have been elaborating the landscapes of Řots (the southwestern part of the province of Bořāzint) and more recently also Wyster (County Cervirc); especially the latter had received only little attention in the past couple of months…

In the case of the latter, I noticed something strange in the editing programs I use (iD + potlatch): part of the coastline in the south seems to be inverse sometimes, with land and see occasionally swapping places. When I upload changes however, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary on the map. Is this just a bug or should I fix something?

• Rasmus

I just tried to upload some mappings, but iD says “Version mismatch: Provided 31, server had: 32 of Way 1953594”. What does it mean?

On the wiki a (so far small) discussion is going on about the creation of an international organisation called the Eastern Ulethan Organisation of Independent Allies (EUOIA; pronounce /youwoya/ or /eewoya/, although the name is still open for debate). So far the owners of Glaster (Yuanls), Mergany (Mstr), Wyster (me), and Østermark (Demuth) are involved, but since Eastern Ulethan is a vast area, more countries are welcome to participate.

Currently we are still discussing EUOIA’s goals and purposes, with the possibility of making EUOIA an umbrella organisation that facilitates several separate treaties; if this system is adopted, it will be the choice of each member state which treaty it will sign and - therefore - which parts of EUOIA it will join.

The wiki page of EUOIA

The wiki talk page of EUOIA

Based on deltanz’s elevation map of Neo Delta, I created a provisional one for Řots. Provisional, since I have four neighbours who may want to have a say in it - and this made me wonder if there is a way to contact several users all at once, or at least draw their attention all at once and then talk on e.g. the wiki talk pages?

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Something else I noticed (which hasn’t anything to do with the above), but some supermarkets were added to Řots’s capital Nekkar without my knowledge or consent, so I removed them. Adding/changing things to/in Řots is always negotiable, but I’d like to be involved.

Het is me opgevallen dat er een paar supermarkten waren toegevoegd aan Nekkar, de hoofdstad van Řots, zonder dat ik daarvan afwist of daarvoor toestemming heb gegeven, dus ik heb ze weggehaald. Er kan altijd onderhandeld worden over het toevoegen/veranderen van dingen aan/van Řots, maar ik word daar graag bij betrokken.

J’ai remarqué que des supermarchés avaient été ajoutés à Nekkar, la capitale du Řots, sans ma connaissance ou mon accord, donc je les ai enlevé. On peut toujours négocier des changements/ajouts du/au Řots, mais j’aimerais en savoir.

Fellow mapper Deltanz and I started a discussion recently about the possible creation of a South-West Astrasian Economic Alliance (SWAEA) between our countries. Since there are however many more countries in South-West Astrasia (the South-Western part of Archanta), it may be possible that other countries are interested as well.

If this is the case for your country, please send Deltanz or me a PM, or make your interest known in the discussion/talk section of the aforementioned wiki page. Any country in the vicinity is welcome to join!

Thanks Isleño for the currency tutorial; this was exactly what I needed all those years! I designed some banknotes for another project between 1998 and 2000 using a program called Pagemaker (which I don’t believe exists anymore), but after that I never got the hang of it again, until now.

The unusual amount of 70 Vargu is explained by the facts that Řots uses a duodecimal counting system and that with notes of 10, 30 and 70 one would need max. three notes to get 20, 40, 50, 60, 80, 90, Ѧ0 and Ѣ0. This system of course has some disadvantages as well, but the people of Řots are used to it.

The other banknotes will have to wait though; between 27/7 and 2/8 I will be in Canada, with limited access to my geofictional stuff. On the other hand, if you live in or nearby Montreal (and possibly also Ottawa) and don’t find it utterly weird to meet with a complete stranger to discuss e.g. some bilateral relationships between our countries, you can send me a message.

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Du lundi 27/7 au dimanche 2/8 inclus, je serai en vacances au Canada, donc si tu/vous habites/z à ou près de Montréal (et probablement aussi Ottawa) et ne penses/z pas qu’il soit complètement bizarre de rencontrer un parfait inconnu afin de parler par exemple des relations bilatérales entre nos pays, merci de m’envoyer un message.

A little bit of background about my activities in Řots (and Hamabaurgs).

Řots is slowly getting some kind of shape. Especially the mapping part is somewhat new to me; since creating detailed maps of my ficticious countries has never been a priority, I am most comfortable with making them on the national level only (and even then I often leave out roads and rivers). Apart from some unfinished attempts in the past, Nekkar and Hamabaurgs (in West-Commonia) are by far the most developed city maps that I ever designed and seeing some of the other cities here at OGF, there is still a lot to do. Deciding what should be where on walking distance scale, estimating the size of buildings, etc. will therefore prove to be a new challenge – if I ever get to that, because there is a lot more to fill in on the national and provincial levels.

At this moment I’m mostly trying to give the coast a less straight character; after that I will probably work on the national borders of Řots (if that is allowed, as I don’t have neighbours yet with whom I can discuss this..).

My other plans are creating some more people (most notably, there will be a notorious duchess who shall be considered a black sheep in her noble family ‘because’ or ‘and because of that’ she has rejected living according to the rules of the Codex any longer) and publish news articles to add a bit of life to Řots. I have to elaborate the local sport of Rřap and I have to revise the description of the Řotsnan grammar; I discovered that the verb system in practise hasn’t turned out the way I described it.

Too bad that there are only 24 hours in a day…

I read about the Assembly of Nations on the wiki, including this and other potentially electible items.

What is the procedure for this? As in the case of the Chief Secretary, there are some gaps in the list. Can everyone just add his or her candidate until the list is complete (with: too bad for those who are too late?) or should there be some kind of election for every past Chief Secretary and then every six years for every future CS?

As voting is one of my hobbies (at least when it’s free), I would favour elections. Since OGF has far more participants than any geoficional project in which I ever participated, have such large scale elections been organised before?

Since I created the provinces of Řots, I have been trying to get their names on the map; following the FAQ instructions doesn’t however seem to work, and trying to copy the data of other countries’ provinces, states, etc. doesn’t either. Of course, the provinces are all named after their largest settlements, so on the map that opens when you click the link above, the provinces are more or less clear, but zooming in or out rapidly causes confusion (for more resp. less settlements are then mentioned). What can I do?

Hi,

Recently I discovered Open Geofiction and I have been enjoying creating the Kingdom of Řots on the southern half of Archanta (1). Although technically a kingdom, most of the country behaves like a republic, whereas the royal and other noble families have locked themselves up in their ancient traditions and are hardly ever seen in public.

Řots may have some features similar to a Scandinavian countries (the similarity between the name ‘Řots’ and the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden, ‘Ruotsi’, resp. ‘Rootsi’, is however coincidence). I imagine that it is relatively cold there, due to its location, but it should be a first world country (2) and more or less a democracy, although I intend to make it not exactly the same as the known systems in western societies on the real earth.

The capital is Nekkar, in the north-west. Nekkar should become a modern city, and I planned to add an industrial area + large harbour in the north-western area, until a friend pointed out that I should consider the general direction of wind, in order to avoid Nekkar becoming too smelly. Are the wind directions the same as on our earth?

The national language, Řotsnan, is in fact a language that I already created for another project, which however discontinued a few years ago. I added the first parts of its description to the wiki. (The phonology part will be added, but the ‘ř’ is pronounced as ‘r’ in ‘dark’ (American-English pronunciation), whereas ‘r’ is pronounced as a sharp ‘rr’ as in Spanish ‘perro’.)

Regards, Rasmus

(1) Archanta seems however to have disappeared since yesterday; is that an error at Open Geofiction or is my computer having trouble displaying the map? - Edit: I read below that flooding of Archanta happens quite often; is that a bug or mistakes made by users? In the latter case: I hope it wasn’t me..

(2) Are there any second or third world countries on these continents?