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Bestiary on temporary hiatus, to return sometime next year.
10 more live sketches have been added, and a few corrections have been made. (116/453 creatures without live sketches). The decrease of 6 creatures is because the 'no live sketch' counter was including creatures that are not shown in the bestiary (there are 6 'extinct' creatures, like the old boomerang throwing Orga Berserker, the Wuss that was once found on Dal'Noth Island, the Venomous Leech once found on Dal'Noth, the Horse once found on Peaceton, the Captain of the Guard once found in Tenebrion's Keep, and the Vine Rose once found in the Valley.) 75% of creatures now have live sketches.
The Ethereal Wurm has been added to the bestiary, as well as 7 new live sketches, and a few old ones replaced with better images. (131/459 creatures without live sketches).
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The live sketch viewer has been rewritten to use lightbox instead of thickbox, and should now properly display under all browsers and conditions.
The Ethereal Splume has been added to the bestiary, as well as 20 more live sketches. The ethereal wurm is still missing from the bestiary. (137/458 creatures without live sketches).
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I'm back. The Turmoil has been added to the bestiary, as well as 28 more live sketches (thanks to LAPDANCE for a few of those). (156/457 creatures without live sketches).
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9 more live sketches, courtesy of LAPDANCE--183 creatures left to sketch. Updated sketches for a few creatures, like the Tangleweed and Darshak Captain, that have had graphical revamps. (Note: Darshak Tosser graphic still not updated, Turmoil monster still not added to bestiary.)
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11 more miscellaneous live sketches, 7 courtesy of Ratbane and the Laughing Academy Picture Development for the Advancement of Natural Critter Education crew. (192/456 creatures without live sketches now.)
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The Darshak necromancer has been added, and many of the missing upper level Darshak difficulties have been added or corrected (all except the Bodyguard's). More live sketches added (203/456 creatures without live sketches).
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The water burst and the watery guardian have been added to the bestiary.
- The fire dra'ryx has been added to the public section of the bestiary. (213/453 creatures without live sketches now.)
- The corsica has been added to the public section of the bestiary. (221/453 creatures still without live sketches.)
- Many more live sketches added (221/452 do not have them now). So, the "live sketches" project is more than 50% done! Thanks much to Largo for his contributions (and a couple corrections) to the Darshak section.
- Many live sketches added (270/452 do not have live sketches now, so more than 40 percent do. Don't worry about the 2 new creatures).
- The live sketch viewer looks much nicer now. See the Yorilla section for examples.
- 25 more live sketches added. I probably won't work on the bestiary again for quite some time, for various reasons. I will continue to add creatures, but I am unlikely to work on the template or add more live sketches (unless other people send them in, in which case I will add them fairly quickly).
- The wake me up has been added. 11 more live sketches added. If you want to submit your own live sketches, which I would appreciate tremendously, check this page to see if a creature does not have a live sketch. (Currently 335/450 do not have them.)
- Addition of the black locust. 10 more live sketches added, mostly of Metzetli Island critters.
- Search feature complete. Lyfelidae section fixed (day forms added), a few other creatures with varied appearances now show those appearances (e.g. winged snakes).
- Search feature functional except for 'sorting' and 'rarity.' Search feature formally incorporated to the site.
- Search feature now partially functional. More testing.
- All sections are in. Darshak and Lyfelidae and a few random others are missing information, such as the slimes. Bestiary officially republished as a beta.
- All sections except Orga in. Darshak and Lyfelidae sections do not have completed numbers, due to my lack of knowledge on the subject. A few other creatures may be missing numbers.
- Plant section updated at long last. The Star Flower and Vicious Star Flower were added. All creature sections in now except for Darshak and Orga (22/24).
- Bestiary more than fifty percent updated (13/24). The lyfelidae section has major problems. However, these concerns will probably be addressed after the bestiary is republished.
- The search feature for users is now partially implemented, though still in testing. Creature sections still in progress (9/24).
- Creatures being added into the database. I am trying to add one section per day. 8 sections are completed currently, out of 24. So, about two more weeks until this bestiary is ready to replace the old copy, assuming I keep this pace. Then comes proof reading, etc, after the new edition is published.
- Live sketches added back in. Click on a creature's static image to see a live sketch (if available). In Firefox, it is obvious if a creature's live image is available (see the Yorilla section). Not so obvious in Safari. I do not plan on making it more obvious in Safari, but hopefully I'll have the live sketches nearly complete some day, and it won't be an issue. Firefox doesn't display the live sketches very well, but I don't plan on fixing it from my end, since the only fixes I can do for Firefox make it look bad on Safari. Maybe some day I'll figure out how to get both to look decent.
- PNG images converted to the (much more space efficient, and without any loss) GIF images.
- Bestiary redesign. Initial stages set. All pages found in the bestiary are now dynamically generated. About 50 creatures currently in the database, more to follow. Public search feature to follow. Live sketches and legacy creature pictures to follow. Orga animations to follow.
06-15-2007:
If you are curious as to what the changes going on are, this link (removed) will show you how I'm progressing with the redesign. As you see (if it's working when you click it), there has been a style redesign along with the structure redesign. More changes to follow. (Later note: Link expired, update has propagated to the whole website).
06-13-2007:
Beta pages now loading out of mySQL and are dynamically generated. No public access yet.
05-26-2007:
And the restructuring actually begins. Hopefully you (the reader) should notice no difference for now. Everything's been PHP-ized, so now I just need to get it reading from mySQL. There should be no user-end difference from these changes (except I fixed a few typos and formatting errors). Actual functionality improvements coming... eventually.
05-02-2007:
The lyfelidae of Kizmia's Island have been sorted properly according to strength (from weakest->strongest). There were a few errors previously. More live sketches added.
04-28-2007:
Featured article on ThoomCare! Minor edits.
04-24-2007:
Many live sketches added (look around! Send in your own!). Made the backgrounds on many of the pages lighter, and thus more readable. So, hopefully no more eyestrain on the darker pages.
04-19-2007:
Added the Ethereal Chamelopod and Ethereal Skeletal. Many creature families updated for rangers who use this guide, and hopefully the separation of families is more obvious now. Ethereal section added. More live sketches added (see Yorillas).
03-14-2007:
Added the Walking Corpse and the Curate to the Undine section. Added hopefully all of the new Darshak (too many to picture), but have not added much information about them yet.
03-13-2007:
Added many live sketches. Updated a few entries. Did some work on the Darshak, but have not added new entries yet.
03-11-2007:
Added the Cave Chamelopod. I received information on all the new Darshak, but have not gotten around to updating the Darshak section yet. "Soon."
02-16-2007:
I was elevated to the status of Mystic only a handful of days ago, so I will be busy with attending to my duties when I have the time, rather than updating the bestiary to its new format (which I have worked on some, but not a lot). There was a massive Orga invasion the other day, and the Orga Petulant" showed itself. There are a couple other new monsters, but I do not feel they have been fully discovered, so I will wait some time before adding them here.
02-01-2007:
I have been very busy, and have not done much work on the bestiary's major overhaul (in part because restructuring the organization is dull to me). However, I do try and keep the creatures in the lands still. I do now believe that all of the creatures in the Orga Stronghold are listed, now that I have added the Orga Callock which avoided detection due to its similar appearance to the Direlock.
01-06-2007:
Error fixes, some missing sketches added. Koi removed. Sketches for Bluli, Nightli added (thanks Kumarajiva).
Curator added (thanks Rieger).
01-04-2007:
Initial public republication.
01-02-2007:
Nearly ready for initial (re)publication.
12-16-2006:
More minor fixes, updates, and rewriting. Shakyamuni has graciously offered to keep this bestiary at his puddleby.net address. Bestiary moved to its new and hopefully permanent home.
12-10-2006:
Draft put up for PAG and others to see. Darshak section cleaned up. Plant section still needs cleaning.
12-08-2006:
Many more new creatures added, clean sketches for nearly all creatures found. Many old creature sketches have been updated. Preliminary work on adding creature families based on ranger information. Some old writing has been updated.
12-01-2006:
Restructuring finished. Many creatures added (too many to list), preliminary work on rewriting and finding clean sketches for all the new creatures.
11-29-2006:
More massive structural changes, some more creatures put in the specials section.
11-17-2006:
Removed nearly all special invasion-only monsters from the bestiary and placed them in a special, hidden section that will not be referenced anywhere except right here. Special monsters will remain if they have a story attached, like Bartok or the Fenix. I also plan on restructuring the bestiary significantly. Likely, I will restructure it based on the clades established by rangers.
11-16-2006:
Whoops, took another year and a half break. Time to actually update. Past news archived.