I could have sworn I put up chapter 6. It must have been one of those irritating dream sequences since it's not on my webpage or on fanfiction.net. Hate when that happens. Got an updated Saiyan, a Wu, a Sanjiyan...but not the updated Nerima Martial Artist. A friend of mine is the one who is updating the Saiyan and Nerima Martial Artist (and wrote the Wu) so it's all his fault;). The Sanjiyan will probably change as I get his feedback (the Sanjiyan is mine but I value his input). I am also updating 'The Journey', adding chapter 7 and 8. The last part (just a few paragraphs) of chapter 7 (misnumbered as 6) was lost so I had to re-write it. It either got lost while I was moving data from one computer to another or was sacrificed to the above mentioned dream sequence. Life it odd...but its better than when it isn't.

Excuse # 4, the cat ate my homework. Nah…what really happened was @home went bankrupt and wouldn't accept AT&T's buyout offer. So I have a new website. But wait there's more. I upgraded to Office XP…and found all my files inflated to over twice their original size. Now I have a size limit on my web account and I know that anyone who reads fanfiction doesn't want to download a 800+k file, especially when yesterday it was a 400k file, so I decided to reinstall Office 97. The problem of course is that the version I had was an upgrade and I had no idea what happened to the original. So I had to get another copy. Fortunately they are dirt cheap at computer shows. I'm sure this is far more than you wanted to know.

I swear there must be a memory leak in the @Home (my internet provider) server. I put up the stories, check to make sure they're there and a few months later the files corrupt, halfway there etc. Anyway I've updated Part 3 and added a revised Saiyan RCC. It's been revised to be more compatible with the Ninja's and Superspies rules. The conversion to Chi makes a lot of sense if you're familiar with the books and rules. I will be doing similar updates to the Nerima Martial Artist in the future. The update and conversion to chi make it much more viable in my opinion. I would like to thank my friend Nohl Espenshade who has done most of the work, with me not doing much more than proofreading and acting as a sounding board. Although I personally prefer the new format I will be leaving the old one up for those who either don't like or don't have Ninja and Superspies.

Thanks to a reader that noticed that I had Ranma change even though he was still wearing the bracers that are specifically meant to prevent this type of alteration. I fixed that, added another chapter and split my page into the fiction, game info (which includes the Occupational character classes) and links page. I added a whole bunch of links and added another version of the Nerima Martial Artist which a friend revised. It's a lot more complex than my version, but it depends on your tastes. If it's not up yet it'll be coming in a few days. I also added some art depicting some of the support characters.

I really don't look at my web page that often. If I did I would have noticed what one of my readers did. Somehow an older version of my page got uploaded and half of the subpages are cut off. Well, I'm fixing this...and adding Chapter 4. I think I'll fix some of the issues with the Nerima Martial artist as well. It's kinda out of hand in certain situations.

Well I'm certainly lazy. I don't have any excuses, I just didn't sit myself down to write. I actually had someone contact me and we started an interesting game of Palladium. They chose to play a Nerima Marial Artist and I found something interesting...don't use Ninja and SuperSpies and Mystic China without modifying the class a bit. The character gets completely absurd stat and bonus wise if these books are used. It was really a shock... I plan to post a revised version of the class with optional rules for using these books sometime in the future.

It's been a while. I have the whole story written down in outline form, its just a matter of writing it. Making myself sit down and do it is the tough part. Anyway, here's the first chapter of 'Tea With Splynncryth'. Enjoy!

Oh, by the way, I don't know if anybody reads this stuff, but if they do, and they live in the Santa Clara/San Jose area, our present gaming group has lost a few core players. If you're interested in playing a Palladium/Rifts campaign drop me an E-mail.

As might have been noticed, I have a new web page. I now have a cable modem and even though AT&T owns the cable company they require a new account be set up for their cable customers. So I moved everything over and was feeling pretty satisfied until a reader mailed me and told me I had set up an old version of my page. Darn. I had made the modifications from my laptop and not completely updated my desktop when I got home. It's fixed now, thanks for the heads-up. Don't have Part Three up yet, but I'm working on it. I think I'll concentrate on updating the Nerima Martial Artist OCC.

As a little ironic side note I went to Japan again on business and went around the Tokyo area for a day looking at the toy stores. I found nothing interesting. At the end of my trip I went to 'Kiddyland' in Osaka and found a bit more anime related merchandise, but mostly Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Devilman stuff. I asked about Ranma but they said he was too old. So slightly disappointed, I came home and went to my local comic book shop and there I stumbled upon a resin kit of Super Seiyan Goku. Very cool. Since then I found a couple of sites on the net that have Ranma-chan and Lina Inverse, which are other models I am willing to invest a small amount of time and money in.

I am presently on vacation, visiting my family on the East Coast. I brought a laptop so I was able to finish Part 2. Due to the oddities of the altered version of Netscape my company bought, I have been able to set it to retrieve my mail and update my web page, but can't send out E-Mail unless I use Microsoft Internet Mail. A week after I come back I go to Japan for a business trip. As always I expect to get a bit of writing accomplished at this time. When I have time I plan to update the Nerima OCC. Someone sent me a lot of new Chi powers I've been meaning to integrate into the original. Many of these are based off other Ranma Fanfics and some other series. I'm not sure how balanced these powers are, but balance isn't really the point of the OCC. It relies very heavily on GM intervention for that.

 09-02-99

I kept putting off writing, then I went on another business trip to Japan. Due to the fact that my job takes me to a really small (dull) town and that jetlag leaves many hours early in the morning with nothing to do I was able to write three Chapters (10-12). It's really about time, I almost feel guilty for taking so long. It also helped that the company I work for issued new laptops (as opposed to the huge and heavy P66 laptop I personally own) to use while out on business. It sure maximized my time usage.

 04-22-99

I put out chapter 6 and then received an E-mail from a reader who pointed out some very valid flaws in the chapter. I had introduced the Demon Queller far too suddenly, didn't explain her motivation or how she was tracking Ranma. I thought this over a bit and had to agree. So I modified the chapter a little bit to make the situation a bit clearer. I didn't really change that much but I think it's a better story now. Thanks for the input.

 04-22-99

I'm back from Japan. I actually almost finished chapter 4 before I left, but I felt it needed a little more polish before I released it. So now I'm putting out Chapter 4 & 5. I hope to be writing a little more regularly, but there's no guarantee since I brought a lot of work back with me from Japan. It was a heck of a lot of work but while I was there I got these neat models of characters from the Sakura Wars game/anime (Don't ask me. I have no idea what this anime is, but the figures looked really well done. It seemed well worth 2000 yen (about 17-18 dollars each).) a Sweetie Honey model and a pretty high quality die-cast model of the Argo/Yomato. I just wish I could find more Toy Stores. It really stinks when you can't read the language…or speak the language…or really communicate much in general. Blah.

 03-15-99

I missed the FanFiction Panel meeting on Saturday. It's really too bad, much as I like anime, the main reason I went was to maybe see some of the writer's who's work I had enjoyed. The line to the dealer's room was an hour long. It was very discouraging. I left early, but the friend I had gone with, went back later that night to play the arcade games.

I was actually planning on holding off from writing until I got back from Japan but…I couldn't help myself. I had so many ideas I thought I might forget them if I waited too long. I hadn't realized so many people (Ranma Fans) actually have heard of Rifts. Maybe I'm just noticing them more but it seems that there are also more Rifts stories posted to the FFML lately. It's really very nice. It's my favorite game and anime combo. I really enjoy reading other people's work as well as writing. Now if only I could convince my local friends to start up a game. Hmm.

 03-15-99

I plan to wrap up part one of my story after a little description of what happens when Ranma get home. This will end part one. I expect I'll be writing part two significantly slower since I expect my workload to drastically increase. Just as well, I was getting bored at work. Most of this increase will occur after my business trip in April. Ironically I will be going to Japan. It's really not as fun as it sounds. All work and no play. Also, even though I spend a few hours in Tokyo and Osaka, most of my work takes me to the little city of Ise-shi. Very small, very quiet, even a bit dull. I've been there before and being in a country where you don't speak the language and most people don't speak yours really sucks. I'm ashamed to admit it but their culture also makes me extremely nervous. Since they're very formal it feels as if I'm doing something rude or embarrassing and have no idea what it is. Still they seem fairly tolerant of the clueless Gaijin.

It appears I'm going to the FanCon in San Jose this weekend. It'll actually be my first. Looking forward to it. I wonder if I'll meet any the authors whose work I read on the FFML. For dates and time see http://www.fanime.com.

 03-12-99

I hate cluttering up a perfectly good story with side issues. I figure if your interested in the reasons or mechanics of the story you will come here on your own.

Anyway the reason I started this Fiction was multi-fold. First I am sadly addicted to Ranma and to a lesser degree Dragonball Z. I enjoyed reading the stories but I also found some of the stories somehow unsatisfying. I enjoy reading about a powerful Ranma. I didn't actually read or see the Saffron episodes, but from the third and fourth hand accounts I have, he blew the top off a mountain. So I figured he would fit well in the Rifts Universe. I suppose I should now explain what Rifts is, but I won't. Suffice to say it's a Roleplaying system I enjoy very much, but have been unable to play except through video conferencing. The videoconferencing experience has been somewhat unsatisfying, leaving me wanting more. This is the origin of this little fusion of science-fiction/fantasy/Ranma. If you want more details on the world of Rifts/Palladium, I wrote a small summary under the game area, which may explain some things.

Getting back to the story. As I said, I enjoy hearing stories of a powerful Ranma. The anime is a story of martial artists that can swim the sea from Japan to China, be knocked through brick walls, brush themselves off and continue the fight. Heck, a training method is to be smashed over and over again with a multi ton boulder. In other words when I read a Fanfiction which had Ranma tripping over a tree root and getting a concussion, I winced. When I read stories where Ranma disappears for some unknown amount of time and comes back a godlike powerhouse against whom none could stand, I naturally asked: Hey, how did that happen? To me, the journey to ultimate power sounded more interesting than the aftermath. It also seemed unlikely that he would reach this pinnacle this century, or this millennium, or…well you get the point. The multiverse is a big scary place and there is always someone out there with more raw power than you. But that's okay. After all, isn't martial arts all about the proper application of force, rather than the sheer amount?

So this story, my first attempt at fanfiction, is the story of Ranma's quest to be the ultimate martial artist. It doesn't happen overnight and actually achieving ultimate power is beyond the scope of my project. However it does promise to be an interesting journey, marked with skirmishes, battles, triumphant wins, and unfortunate losses. And hopefully a plot that makes some amount of sense.

I chose to have Ranma work solo, or with small groups because it's easier to keep track of events working one on one, rather than everyone at once. I also didn't trust my ability to properly characterize everyone in a scene with too many people interacting. Also, I admit I am a Ranmaphile. Ranma is the character I'm interested in, and he's going to be what the story revolves around. However Ranma by himself would be a little boring, so I'll keep his interactions with others alive and well.

The other reason I chose Ranma is my inherent impatience. I have a GM's (Games Master equivalent to Dungeon Master except more generic) mentality. I like action adventure, with a well hung together plot. When I run a game I also try to ensure there's a lot of character interaction and roleplaying as well as mere fighting. However, this is a Ranma Adventure, so there will be undoubtedly more fighting than there would be if we were playing a game. Choosing Ranma to write about allows me to write a story with a fairly quickly moving plot. I don't have to develop a slew of supporting characters, it has already been done. All I have to do is pluck a well known main character out of his normal habitat and throw a few events at him. As he reacts, and interacts with others, the plot progresses. I suppose working with Ranma is a writer's crutch, but it's just too much work to do it from scratch. Besides, I did mention that I really like Ranma Fanfiction and writing about Ranma seems to quench my little obsession nearly as well as reading other Fanfiction.

Started Part One of my first story.