Lands of Ara Reaches "Maven" Level

The Lands of Ara blog has seen a lot of growth in the past couple months in terms of gaining new followers. I attribute this in large part to increased variety in what we're putting out there. Obviously, the most notable facet of this "variety surge" is the addition of Spawn of Endra as a regular contributor to the blog -- check out his HEE-larious DM's guide back cover additions if you haven't already. I also had the good fortune to be able to coax a mythology-oriented friend into offering his very insightful thoughts about the origins of the Otyugh. (Sadly, the "Origins of . . . " column, which I still hope to establish as a regular feature, may have to be placed on hold for a few months while Uncle Junkal's player finishes his doctoral dissertation.) Who knows, maybe my expansion into the realm of old-school product reviews hasn't hurt, either. I don't know, I haven't checked the blog's tracking statistics -- honestly, I am a bit afraid to look at them.

I usually try to stay focused on what inspires and interests me, and while I am a big fan of external statistical rankings like Cyclopeatron's recent "fastest growing OSR blogs" update, I don't want to get too wrapped up in popularity contests or obsession with rankings, etc. My thinking is that true inspiration comes from what I find interesting, not what I think (or try to anticipate that) other people might find interesting -- though our shared assumptions and interests as members of the OSR community hopefully ensure some overlap between those two categories. I fear what I (and this blog) would become if I started consulting my own blog stats too regularly.

That said, The Lands of Ara hit a milestone yesterday: we gained our 80th follower. Now, 8 happens to be my all-time favorite number -- I like its symmetry -- and not only that, 80 followers means that The Lands of Ara has leveled up on the From the Sorcerer's Skull blogger advancement table: We are now Level 6 bloggers, with the Level Title of Maven! An auspicious occasion indeed.

THANKS to everybody who is tuning in!