Monday, February 27, 2012

News: KeroKero Ace Reveals Aichi's Birthday, Half Deck Release

The May 2012 issue of KeroKero Ace will include two half-decks, one Gold Paladin and one Narukami. The entire price of this issue is a little under $20, so if you're a player or collector of the Japanese branch of the card game, then this is for you. Additionally, some of the cards may be exclusive to the half-decks.

Less immediately, the April 2012 issue of the same magazine is set to include a partial profile of Aichi, via a poster included with the magazine. Previews of the poster have already spoilered a few key points ahead of the issue's print;
  • His birthday is June 06
  • His blood type is B.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Official TD05/TD06 Cards Revealed

Here's the scoop;
TD05 -- Attacking Claws of the Silver Wolf
Grade 0
Silent Punisher
Grade 0/Gold Paladin - Demon; Critical Trigger/5000 Power/10000 Shield
Elixir Sommelier
Grade 0/Gold Paladin - Unknown; Heal Trigger/5000 Power/10000 Shield




Wind That Blows Through The Grassfield, Sagramore
Grade 0/Gold Paladin - Human/6000 Power/10000 Shield




 

Weapons Dealer, Guidion
Grade 0/Gold Paladin - Gnome; Draw Trigger/5000 Power/5000 Shield




Fortune Bell
Grade 0/Gold Paladin - Unknown; Stand Trigger/5000 Power/10000 Shield




Vanquishing Knight Haugan
Grade 1/Gold Paladin - Unknown/7000 Power/5000 Shield
Activate (Vanguard/Rearguard): [Counter-Blast 1] This unit gets [Power] +1000 until the end of the turn.



Knight of Fair Play, Gallus
Grade 1/Gold Paladin - Human/8000 Power/5000 Shield





Blessing Owl
Grade 1/Gold Paladin - High Beast/6000 Power/5000 Shield
Auto: When this unit is placed on (Rearguard Circle), choose another of your «Gold Paladin», and that unit gets [Power] +2000 until end of turn.



Grade 2
Knight of Divine Power, Bowman
Grade 2/Gold Paladin - Human/10000 Power/5000 Shield




Guardian Sacred Beast, Nemean Lion
Grade 2/Gold Paladin - Unknown/8000 Power/5000 Shield
When this unit intercepts, and you have a «Gold Paladin» vanguard, during that battle, this Unit's Shield gains +5000.

Grade 3
Storm of the Battleground, Sagramore
Grade 3/Gold Paladin - Human/10000 Power
Auto (Vanguard/Rearguard): [Counter-Blast 1] When this unit attacks, you may pay the cost. If you do, this unit gets [Power] +3000 until end of that battle





Knight of Fortitude, Lucan
Grade 3/Gold Paladin - Human/10000 Power
Auto (Vanguard): When this unit's drive check reveals a grade 3 «Gold Paladin», this unit gets [Power] +5000 until end of that battle.



TD06 -- Rumbling of the Thunder Dragons
Grade 0
Lizard Soldier Shishin
Grade 0/Narukami - Dragonman/6000 Power/10000 Shield




Grade 1
Red River Dragoon
Grade 1/Narukami - Human/8000 Power/5000 Shield




Grade 2
Thunder Storm Dragoon
Grade 2/Narukami - Human/10000 Power/5000 Shield



Grade 3
Plasma Bite Dragon
Grade 3/Narukami - Thunder Dragon/10000 Power
Auto (Vanguard/Rearguard): [Counter-Blast 1] When this unit attacks, you may pay the cost. If you do, this unit gets [Power] +3000 until end of that battle



Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Biggest Dozer: Royal Paladin (BT01)

Royal Paladin
Options (Boosting): Little Sage, Marron, Wingal, Starlight Unicorn, Lake Maiden, Lien, Knight of Rose, Morganna, Protector of the Airspace Knight Gryphon, Knight Squire, Alen, Lionmane Stallion, Mirubiru 
Options (Attacking): Blaster Blade, Covenant Knight, Randolf, Knight of Silence, Gallatin, Knight of Conviction, Bors
Backing all winning images are a line of strong rearguards. Your vanguard is irrelevant if your rearguard can't support it, and vice versa; there are two types of rearguards dedicated to this purpose, and creating a strong balance between them is the backbone of any good deck. These are the boosters and mainline attackers, which with several small exceptions, consist primarily of grade 1 and 2 units.

These units are best tackled together, as they are typically packaged within the same set together so that their intended formation is obvious. To begin with, the Little Sage, Marron represents a type of universal booster that every clan possesses; a grade 1 with 8000 power and no skills. Mathematically, any given deck will only need a booster with 7000 power(because all relevant levels of power are divisible by 5000 and most grade 2s have at least 8000 power) but Marron and his many counterparts are not a bad foundation for boosting.

The first instance we get of a "strong" booster is Wingal, who has the misfortune of having a very unintuitive skill. In theory, his ability to grant +10000 total power to a Blaster Blade unit is great, but when you examine this skill more closely, Marron already handles the relevant boosting not just for Blade, but for any unit you place in front of him. Remember that nonzero shield scores are dealt with in units divisible by 5000--Blaster Blade can intercept with a shield score of 5000, Epona can guard with a shield score of 10000, and so on. What this means is that to get past the opponent's defenses, you need to think in units of 5000(i.e. 5000 --> 10000 --> 15000 --> 20000 --> 25000.) So when Wingal boosts Blade, their total combined power is 19000, a score which is functionally the same as 15000. Because Wingal has just 6000 power as a rearguard, instead of boosting 8000-power units up to 15000 he's boosting them to 14, just small enough for the enemy to stop with a draw trigger.

The solution to this is Starlight Unicorn. When called, Starlight Unicorn contributes +2000 power to any Royal Paladin vanguard or rearguard unit. By giving this power to Blaster Blade, his combined strength with Wingal is 21000, enough to make the opponent waste between two and four cards. This is a significant hit to their hand, especially if you could handle it on multiple rows.


Unfortunately, this just isn't that great of a setup. You have to call three different units to make it happen and it only lasts for one turn, where most other Dozers can work continuously for the entire game and only take two cards from your hand.


Lake Maiden, Lien is the ideal card to fill the gap that Wingal would leave. At 7000 power, she can bring any grade 2 or 3 of at least 8000 power up to 15000, and in a secluded list of special cases, provide the support necessary to reach the 20000 absolute borderline. Furthermore, Lien possesses a card changing skill that lets her drop one card to draw one card--while not as nice as paying for the cost of calling her, this helps search the deck for cards with needed skills, or to discard certain less useful units in order to gain a shield. This also makes her ideal for riding when taking the first turn, as Lien can ensure that this turn is not put to waste.
 
Much to my dismay, the Knight of Rose, Morganna also falls in with Wingal's crowd. By dropping 1 Royal Paladin card from the hand, she will gain +4000 power, but only when attacking. This is a deliberate destruction of the hand, which in Vanguard is inadvisable on the best of days. The hand's direct importance to the game is the reason that the Nubatama clan has so few cards in it, because hand destruction is very dangerous and the deliberate elimination of it by a unit that does not at least possess intercept or a viable way to reach the absolute borderline is suicide. Her low power also eliminates much of her usefulness as a booster.

Protector of the Airspace Knight Gryphon is on Morganna's heels. By soulblasting 1, Knight Gryphon can gain +3000 power, but only when attacking. As only grade 2 units can intercept, and most Royal Paladin decks would prefer to save their soul for either Soul Saver Dragon or a megablast skill, Gryphon is relegated to a similar level of obscurity.


Making up for these is Knight Squire, Alen. His skill is a stackable counterblast 1 which gives him +1000 power, allowing him with a CB2 to pass cards like Randolf or Baron through the absolute borderline. While less reliable than some cards to come, Alen should be considered and weighed carefully with Lien's draw power--a number of early decks may even be able to run both of them together.

Following Alen's train of thought but in Wingal's spirit, Lionmane Stallion is a 4000-power unit which soulblasts 1 to give an "Alfred" unit +6000 additional power. Observant viewers might notice that with a vanguard King of Knights, this skill is largely useless. However, Stallion ultimately brings out the hidden potential in a deck which runs four of both the King of Knights and Alfred Early, as this puts them both into the absolute borderline. This card was in fact so good that, four sets after its release as a promo card, it was re-envisioned as the Blaster-oriented Apocalypse Bat.

Like Aermo before him, Mirubiru is an offensive version of Lien, oriented toward boosting. Perhaps if he shared her level of power, then this card would be worth the risk of use, but since his skill is a simple card change instead of an actual addition to the hand, there is not much reason for the opponent to guard him. Due to the aforementioned low power, I cannot recommend his use.





In terms of attacking units, the Covenant Knight, Randolf is a unit that has arrived before his time. While he can rise from 8000 up to 11000 before boosting, this requires that one's hand size exceed the opponents, which is simply not a factor that the player can control. In addition to this, there is no boosting unit with a power of 9000 that can support Randolf in reaching the absolute borderline.
Because of this, it is more practical to run Royal Paladin's vanilla alternative, the Knight of Silence, Gallatin. At a static 10000 power, Gallatin functionally fulfills Randolf's role better than he can.

There is however, one unit which outshines both of these. Packaged in Trial Deck 01, the Knight of Conviction, Bors achieves on his own what both Randolf and Gallatin fail at. For a relatively low cost of counterblast 1, Bors will gain +3000 power; while the skill does not stack, it can be repeatedly easily, and when combined with a 7-8000 power unit like Lien or Marron, this will immediately pass through the absolute borderline. While most Royal Paladin decks prefer to save their damage for more costly counterblasts, Bors is one of the most immediately useful grade 3 units of all because of how readily he wastes the opponent's hand.

As a closing note for this booster pack, please keep in mind that despite my earlier comments regarding Marron, he does have his place as the primary booster for most vanguards, as they tend to clear 12000 power individually.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Running Vanguard on a Budget

With Vanguard's primary two audiences being college-age fujoshi and elementary-to-highschool kids, a large disposable income tends to be one thing many Vanguard fighters are lacking. The most popular and long-running clans are invariably also the most expensive. To prevent burning a hole in one's wallet trying to qualify for the US nationals, here's a guide for cheap deckbuilding.

What needs to be first understood is why Vanguard will cost a Royal Paladin player more than it will a Spike Brothers player. At the center of all this are two factors, card rarity and clan longevity. These are Cardfight!! Vanguard's rarities;

C -- Common. The lowest rarity. An example of this is the Little Sage, Marron.
R -- Rare. The third highest rarity. An example of this is Fullbau.
RR -- Double Rare. Second highest rarity. Iseult is an RR.
RRR -- Triple Rare, technically the highest rarity. This is tied with SP rare, because most RRR cards have an SP variant; however, there are some RR SPs. The odds of pulling an SP are 1 in 16 boxes(approximately 1/2400 cards or 0.2%) An example of RRR is the King of Knights, Alfred, an example of SP is Phantom Blaster Dragon's anime art. The RRR-SP tie has its source in there being no SP cards that do not have a print of another rarity available.

The way the rarities are organized is that one card in every pack is guaranteed to be R or above. Here's an example of why it's so expensive to be a Royal Paladin fighter--the key cards around BT02 for Royals were Blaster Blade, the King of Knights Alfred, Soul Saver Dragon, Akane, Pongal and Barcgal. Four of those cards are RRR/SP and the rest are R. Are you going to get four of three very specific RRR and two R cards from two booster boxes from different sets? The odds are against you.

The other factor in expense is longevity. In the Royal Paladin example described beforehand, RP's competitive cards were split between two different sets, requiring the player composing a Royal deck to buy at least two $60 booster boxes. While this is still cheaper than investing in the shady underworld of buying individual cards, that's over $100 there. And Royal Paladin is technically spread out across no less than five different booster sets--which is why Bushiroad chose to reset Aichi's clan starting with BT06.

To run Vanguard on a budget, one needs to pick a clan that fulfills the following criteria;
  • Has very few to no RRR cards worth using, thus omitting them from the deckbuilding process.
  • Is spread out across a very small number of booster sets, making them easy to acquire.
The first real example of this type of clan we get is the Spike Brothers clan. With the exception of one C and one RR card, every card that the Spike Brothers really need comes from Wild Dragon Soul Dance. The Spike Brothers have only one RRR card, Sky Diver, which is not their key vanguard; that's General Seifried.

Neo Nectar is the very definition of a budget clan. They don't have SPs; Neo Nectar stops at RR. There's only one booster pack dedicated to them. It is not difficult nor expensive to assemble Neo Nectar, and their skills are very meta, making them friendly to competitive players. In an ideal NN deck, there are 11 RR cards, 11 R cards, and 28 C cards. Multiple booster boxes are completely unnecessary for NN.

Bermuda Triangle is just as easy to run as Neo Nectar for an entirely different reason—they have an entire booster set dedicated to them, and there are only 35 cards in the set, which is less than half of the normal(80) count. This makes Neo Nectar and Bermuda Triangle the best of the budget clans, and it helps that they're both associated with making superior calls that swarm the field.

The very antithesis of a budget clan is Shadow Paladin. The clan has four RRRs to its name, all of which are absurdly essential to the clan's overall strategy, and an ideal Shadow Paladin deck will contain no less than 13 RRR cards. These expensive cards are spread out across two booster sets, and worse yet, nothing the Shadow Paladins use is ever phased out or replaced--their strategy is contiguous between sets. The Shadow Paladin clan has been rather firmly established as the trust-fund babies of Vanguard.

The key weakness in these budget clans is their total lack of support. While Spike Brothers found brief aid later on in the first extra booster, this was more by force of luck than genuine planning on Bushiroad's part. A budget clan is not likely to last through multiple seasons, unlike the higher-end, more expensive clans. This in mind, a skilled player can still bring out the potential in a budgeted deck better than an unskilled player with the most expensive Majesty-Phantom-SSD build imaginable. Throwing money at a game isn't enough to improve one's play.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Bushiroad Announces Extra Booster 03


Here's the scoop;
  • This new pack is EB03 "Black Iron Cavalry"(Kurogane no Senki)
  • The release date is May 26th, 2012
  • This pack will feature cards from season 2, Asia Circuit.
  • The pack is geared towards giving the much-anticipated Limit Break skill to existing clans.
  • There will be 35 cards in the pack.
  • Additional Gold Paladin cards will be released.
  • The pack will be available early on May 5th and 6th, at Vanguard Fest
For anyone interested, the Japanese word for "Cavalry" in the pack name is completely made up. Senki can be written a number of ways, and Bushiroad chose to combine the "戦 sen" which refers to war and military strategy, with the "騎 ki" used as a way of counting horsemen(so "juuki" is ten horsemen, "sanki" is three horsemen, etc.) "Senki" is a real word, but it normally refers to battleflags or as stated, military strategy and secrets.

More than that though, the entire booster name is strange. Kurogane means iron, but the kanji reads black steel. Being that all steel is an ally of iron, it is technically correct to call the pack both Black Iron Cavalry and Black Steel Cavalry.

There is currently speculation that the pack will feature remnants of the Shadow Paladins and that the figure at the top is a revived Phantom Blaster Dragon.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Vanguard Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day, fanguard! For this holiday, I've prepared a clan of Vanguard valentines. These were distributed by rarity on February 14th; for the record, only three people won the SP-rare card.

Rare
VT12/1R Heartbau
Grade 0/No Skill/Valentine
Power 5000/Critical 1

"Auto: When you ride “Blaster Valentine” on this unit, Heartcharge (1), search for up to one “Blaster Heart” from your deck, reveal it to your opponent, add it to your hand, and shuffle your deck."

Common

VT12/2C Blaster Valentine
Grade 1/Boost/Valentine
Power 6000/Critical 1

"Auto [V/R]: For every unit in your heart, this unit gets +2000 power."

Double Rare
VT12/3RR Blaster Heart
Grade 2/No Skill/Valentine
Power 8000/Critical 1

"Auto [V]: [Choose a <<Valentine>> from your hand, and discard it] When this unit is placed on V or R, if you have a <<Valentine>> vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, Heartcharge (1)."

Special Rare
VT12/4SP Mrs. Invincible
Grade 3/Twin Drive!!/Valentine
Power 10000/Critical 1

"[V] For every “Blaster Valentine” on your rearguard circles, this unit gains +1000 power.
Auto [V/R]: When this unit is placed on V or R, if you have a <<Valentine>> vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, search for up to two “Blaster Valentine” from your deck, call them to empty rearguard circles, and shuffle your deck."

Saturday, February 11, 2012

"Before Grade 0;" the Original Vanguard

Long before Vanguard first aired, before triggers and Shadow Paladins and grade 0, there was an idea. Where it came from isn't exact--it could be decades-old dissatisfaction with the entire industry, it could be a lifelong aspiration, it could be that the elevator stalled and Ito just happened to be stuck there for an hour with Kidani and Nakamura. We don't know.

What we do know, is that before grade 0 there was an original Vanguard. This is different from the Cardfight!! Vanguard we are now long acquainted with. It's also something of an open secret--the only public information on it reached fans by way of an art piece dated 2010 taken from AnimeNation, who sourced their information to Anime News Network, who sourced theirs to Gigazine, while neither of the latter two websites featured the image.

At first glance the art is simply rough, as to be expected from early promotional artwork. Misaki's outfit is modeled differently from her final design, being a more traditional-style school uniform colored in white instead of black, and the card backs have undergone a similar level of change since the art's production. It even brings to mind the old 1998 Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, which had a very brilliant red backing.

In this early stage of development, Kamui is missing from the storyline, and as such the Nova Grappler clan is not featured. Certain design choices in this artwork suggest that Kamui was a very late addition to Vanguard's storyline, which is unfortunate but supported by the general disconnect between him and most of the series' plot. To get to that point, we first need to look at another contemporary example of the old Vanguard, an even less reported on event from the Tokyo Toy Show 2010;

This booth is a wealth of information on the original Vanguard, as it represents the very earliest designs. In it were previewed artworks, cards and pages from the manga--note that at this stage in production, the opening pages of the manga were not colored as they are now. Also, the chapter ends with Aichi's Blaster Blade being stolen, long before he actually fights. This is important because it shows that the level of completion was significantly lower, and it allows for some changes to be made to the manga and anime that would be very difficult to do at a later stage in development.

On the left we can see Stardust Trumpeter, Blaster Blade, Dragon Dancer Monica and Dragonic Overlord. The card borders are significantly different at this point. For example, shield scores are still tallied on the card's left side, but they're aligned more closely to the bottom, and Monica lacks a trigger icon. For all we can tell, triggers do not exist at this stage. On another note, look closely at the upper left hand corner of each card--boost, intercept and twin drive icons are missing, and in fact Monica is listed as a grade 1. It appears that this skill system, and the existence of trigger units at all, was not added until later.

Now let's look at the event's commemoration item;

 "Cardfight!! Vanguard
TV anime 2011!!"
This is probably the single rarest Vanguard card in existence, seeing as the subject of this photo is the only one we know of. It's also early artwork--really early. You can tell this by the design of Blaster Blade's sword, which is a non-segmenting, more traditional longsword with a type of fanged hilt rather than the laser-shooting monstrosity we're familiar with. The old design fits in with how Blade's skill was initially depicted in the manga, as a second attack made on a rearguard unit. We can also see clearly from this card that the old borders did not have a critical rating--tying into the "no triggers" theory--but an n* after the power. Given how it's used in mathematical notation, perhaps n* was some time of multiplier that triggers eventually replaced?

This is not the only artwork to draw Blaster Blade as such. There was some minor dispute over how Blade was depicted in Alfred Early's artwork, and Early's name may in fact be an in-joke on the original Vanguard;

Take a nice long look, because Blaster's sword is clearly depicted from the front here. This design is virtually identical to the event promo card, albeit with a blue trim applied to the hilt. Blaster Blade's sword can be used as a nice benchmark for game development--most promotional materials were made after its redesign, but this artwork was clearly already finished before the sword was, and from the event photos we can tell that the sword itself was completed before the decision to change the card border(Blaster Blade's current artwork is up there.)

You can still see evidence of the old border design in PR/0001, which rather than listing power and shield scores as "9000" and "5000," includes a comma separating their notation. And like the earlier Blaster Blade, this one also lacks a skill.

From this we can draw some conclusions about the sequence of events in Vanguard's development;
  • At the earliest stages, Blaster Blade and his sword are designed. At the same time, Alfred's initial artwork is laid out and eventually completed, as is early planning for the manga. The first card border is drafted and used in the event cards.
  • Ito begins work on the first chapter of the manga.
  • The event cards are printed.
  • Blaster Blade's sword is redesigned to accommodate for his pinpoint buster skill being changed to a beam.
  • The poster-sized cards are printed.
  • The initial poster this article presented is made.
  • Kamui is added to the storyline.
  • The second card border is drafted and finalized. At the same time, trigger units and grade 0 is implemented into the game.
  • Due to the art, Alfred is reinvisioned as Alfred Early while a new Alfred is drafted to be the King of Knights.
While this is all conjecture, it holds up well with the supporting evidence. It's interesting to see how Vanguard developed over time, and I'd like to learn more about this sequence of events. To the best of my knowledge, the promo Blaster Blade from this 2010 event has turned up nowhere on the internet outside of that one official photo, so we don't even know if the card back is the one from the poster! It would certainly be amazing, to use a genuinely one-in-a-million card like that.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Season 2 Information, Simultaneous BT06 Release in the US and Asia


Here's a compilation of what we know;
  • The title is カードファイト!!ヴァンガード アジアサーキット編 in English, Cardfight!! Vanguard Asia Circuit.
  • It will air on April 8th, 2012 at 10:00 AM (Japanese Standard Time.) The new timeslot is on Sundays.
  • The opening theme will be by JAM Project.
  • Aichi and Kai have new designs and clans, Gold Paladin and Narukami. Like with the Royal Paladins and Kagerou, they are from the United Sanctuary and Dragon Empire.
  • On April 21st the first trial decks of the new season(TD04 "Attacking Claws of the Silver Wolf"and TD05 "Rumbling of the Thunder Dragons") will be released, featuring support for the Gold Paladin and Narukami clans. There will be a new skill, "Limit Break!!" The trial decks' suggested retail price is 1050 yen(About 14 USD.) Each deck will be a full deck of 50 cards, with 18 types between them. Only 8 cards from each deck will be in BT06.
  • On April 28th, 2012 the first booster pack of the new season(BT06 "Limit Break") will be released, supporting Gold Paladin, Narukami, Granblue, Nova Grappler and at least one other clan. The pack's purpose is to allow you to build decks from any combination of clans. Each pack will contain 5 cards and will be priced at 158 yen(2 USD) while a box will contain thirty packs for 4740 yen(61 USD.)
  • According to the Cardfight!! Vanguard Facebook page, BT06 will have a simultaneous release in the United States and Japan.
Additional pictures:

 
Several other websites and forums have picked up on this character's similarity to the "mystery man" seen in ride 57. Note the shared eye color and the stripe running down his forehead.


Aichi and Kai  are now being featured in new outfits. Seven of the eighteen promised cards have been previewed for the Gold Paladin clan, and four for Narukami. Kai is confirmed to shop at Theleess.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Bushiroad buys NJPW, counterfeit cards turn up on the market

In a surprise move, nine days ago Bushiroad bought 100% of New Japan Pro Wrestling's stock, fully acquiring the company. While the reasoning behind this move is unknown, NJPW is the largest domestic wrestling promotion in Japan, and one of the bigger names in the global market, much as Dentsu is the largest domestic advertising firm. As such, this only demonstrates the Bushiroad's growing power. Considering NJPW's impressive roster of wrestlers, perhaps we're looking at some new themed cards for the Nova Grapplers?
ヽ(´▽`)ノ

In other news, counterfeit Vanguard cards have recently emerged on the Southeast Asian market, and spread to the rest of the world. Be cautious, as these cards have different weights from the real product and are not legal in tournament play. There are a number of easy ways to spot these fakes;
  • Poor translation. For example, "Blaster" is translated as "Bluster," while "Resolve" is translated as "Being ready." "Stealth Millipede" becomes "Stelus Milipede." "Paladin" is translated as "Palatine."
  • The box art for the BT04 counterfeit shows Justice Cobalt, and the slogan "Come here right now! Believers of the hollow strength!" This is a mistranslation of "Followers of the empty power, now gather here..."
  • The fakes do not have proper rarity patterns. A genuine RRR or SP will have special holographic patterns on its stock.

The following pictures are attributed to the Facebook group, Vangods.



Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Site Maintenance

Currently I am in the process of revising the character page. In order to combat poor HTML and a lack of space, I am separating each character into their own page, and containing spoilers inside of notified blocks instead of spoiler tags. The current character page will serve as an index of those pages, containing brief summaries of the characters rather than detailed information, and as a glossary of terms. Each new page will be scheduled to be kicked back into October 2011, before I even started this blog, so that they do not interfere with the actual blog posts.