The Top Articles on Realms of Chirak

Every now and then I like to look at the Google metrics and see what's getting the most attention. Here then is the Top Ten Posts of All Time currently on Realms of Chirak along with my comments on why each article garners so much attention:

1. The 5E Minotaur as a Character Race (3,429 hits)
--I continue to be amazed this sits at the top. It's a write-up of the MM minotaur as a character option, which means you can best use it for class-stated minotaur foes, or if you're not too worried about how OP the minotaur is you can open it up to players. That said, there's an official minotaur option out there, so I can't see much need for this variant now.

2. Shifting From Pathfinder to D&D 5th Edition in 2014? (2,334 hits)
--A lot of people made this leap, around this time, and I find it telling that two of my top ten articles relate to the conversion from Pathfinder to 5E. Makes me wonder about how well Pathfinder 2.0 will do later this summer....I plan on buying all the books, so I guess I'll get to let you know!

3. Ages of Lingusia: The Death Gods (2,224 hits)
--Either people need lots of death gods, or the enigmatic illustration I linked to is highly prized (it's a great illustration).

4. The Many Days of Horror: Return of the Living Dead (NSFW) (2,153 hits)
--The doubling in hits is totally due to my engaging commentary on this zombie classic, and totally not about the nude zombie Linnea Quigley pics in the article.

5. The Super Quick and Dirty Pathfinder Monster Conversion for 5E (1,436 hits)
--Back in 2015 we were still waiting for monster manuals, so converting Pathfinder monsters was often our only option for some beasts not yet documented in 5E. Today...we're drowning in good monster manuals!

6. Tales of the Cannadad Dei: Sabiri Tattoos (1,317 hits)
--I'd like to think there's a compelling interest in Sabiri and their skin-etched tattoo magic, but I think it's really just the linked Luis Royo image. I picked that image because it was the inspiration for my first games set in the Sabiri lands.

7. Halloween Countdown Finale: Dooooooooom! (1,287 hits)
--Just pictures in this post, so presumably more than a few hits from people looking for certain artists or images.

8. Five Things I'm Not Going to Miss About Pathfinder (1,260 hits)
--I think back in 2013-2014 I was not alone among gamers who decided that it was time to take a more or less permanent break from Pathfinder and embrace D&D 5E. I may be having fun with Pathfinder (and Starfinder) these days, but it is with a much more casual and limited approach; 5E made it hard for a lot of us to go back to needlessly more complicated iterations of D20.

9. D&D 5E Updates: The Mohrg (1,170 hits)
--At the time I posted this article no published tome (neither 3PP nor WotC) had stats for the Mohrg, a creature I think is quite popular (or maybe it's just me).

10. Resident Evil 6: The Leon Kennedy Campaign (1,144 hits)
--I'd like to believe it was my entertaining and witty description of this preposterous game's campaign but if the above observations have validity then let's be honest, it's probably Deborah's image.

Bonus: My most accessed Index Page is the Realms or Chirak 5E Index Page which is not surprising, I suppose. The least accessed is my Fantasy AGE Resource page, which is also not surprising, given my mixed feelings about that system and repeated attempts to get in to it, followed by hard crash and burn events.

The Moral of the Story: Use more evocative art, post more NSFW content and wax philosophical on the cons of Pathfinder vs. the Pros of D&D 5E! Or maybe not....I'll just keep doing whatever I feel like instead... ;-)

The top ten list is always interesting because, on average, I may have around 200-300 active browsers who frequent this site regularly, people who maybe have book-marked RoC and like to visit every now and then (and yes, it used to be higher, but as is true with all internet content, when the content slows down people go away). That means that this top ten list shows a lot less about what active blog readers are looking at and what Google's search engine refers people to. Or, put another way, it is likelier showing what people are interested in that by accident coincides with some of the content on my site.

There are probably secondary sources...I run into occasional links to Reddit threads addressing something on my site,* for example (I don't frequent Reddit, have an account, or even try to go there except when a link takes me to one of the threads). There may be other links I am unaware of. But most of these top ten are definitely because people:

...need minotaur PC stats fast, are having a breakup with Pathfinder, need mohrg stats fast, like Luis Royo, like Linnea Quigley, like Return of the Living Dead, like that cool death god image, maybe like death gods, like apocalyptic images, and maybe, just maybe, liked my rip on Resident Evil 6!








*Example: when I started looking for 5E-powered SF RPGs recently I first looked in to Hyperlanes again, to see if issues I had with it had been addressed ever, or if new content was out. I found precious little, and wondering if I was the only one who had been bothered by the way the classes in Hyperlanes (but not the monsters, I will note) dropped iterative attacks and escalating damage as a core design feature of 5E, I did some searching....and ironically that searching brought me back to a Reddit article discussing this and using my own RoC blog post as a reference for the discussion point. Oroborous of the internet!

Looking at Blog Stats (NSFW, heh)

Poking into the Google Stats is always an interesting experience. For one thing, I am usually always surprised at what's actually getting the most hits. The top five articles in the last 30 days on RoC include, in order, with hits over 30 days:

My review of Return of the Living Dead (177)

Five Things I'm Not Going to Miss About Pathfinder (173)

An Open Letter to One Book Shelf (154)

Building Fantasy Worlds in Five Easy Steps (142)

Chivalry & Sorcery 4th Edition Rules are Out (93)

(not going to feed the beast by linking, use the search button if you want....)

Why these five? Damned if I know....my diatribe about Pathfinder has been fairly popular, which I find a bit odd. I've noticed that a little vitriol or negativity can go a long way with blog hits, although "doing it right" is hard....for me at least doing it right is a lesson in how to make it entertaining without coming off like a crazed loon or half-mad old geezer sitting on his lawn, as many other blogs end up doing. Not easy, I assure you.

Why the review of the Return of the Living Dead? No clue at all unless someone, somewhere, is hunting for Linnea Quigley pics. It does, after all, have a NSFW designation in the title. Again, seems like those four letters make great click bait. Pity I'm ad-free!

Open Letter to One Book Shelf....I suppose I'm glad it gets some attention. It was linked in another more popular blog than mine (Tobold's Blog) so probably why it gets a higher number of hits.

Building Fantasy Worlds in Five Easy Steps....a fun little "roll a world" generator I posted like ages ago, ignored for so long, but suddenly collecting 142 hits in the last four weeks. Did someone link to it somewhere?

C&S.....who knew it was still popular enough to roll in some hits?

I remain, as always, both amused and perplexed at what gets the most hits on this site. As always I write what I want, but with the caveat that I try to make it something other people will want to read as well. The blog has been a fantastic method of engaging in "displinary writing," though I admit the ultimate goal of turning that learned process of disciplinary writing into something that will eventually field actual novels is still a bit behind the curve. Behind the scenes I am writing plenty of game content...and much of it ends up on the blog, but that's not honestly what gets the most hits.

Well, if I ever go for an ad-based blog model you'll know it when I start listing daily articles with the "Top Ten Horror Movies Linnea Quigley is nude in!!! (NSFW)" every day....