One More Day . . .
over 4 years ago
– Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 11:03:48 PM
Well, here we go! The last 24 hours of the campaign are always the most exciting (ulcer inducing? You pick). This one will very clearly partake in that trend.
I've been getting a lot of manuscript updates from the authors, who are all working to make my life easier in many ways. Revising text, checking formatting, and playtesting in the background.
With that, though, it's well past time for another glimpse of something. In this case, another page from Hand of Asgard.
This is totally not Hela, Norse goddess of death. Nope. If it were, she'd look like Cate Blanchett, clearly.
Even though this is Norse-flavored, Kevin has done a fantastic job in capturing these as archetypes, so that with a bit of care, they could be worked in as "domain" flavored clerics in any game.
Until tomorrow, then!
Nordlond Sagas: Five Days to go!
over 4 years ago
– Tue, Oct 08, 2019 at 04:06:47 PM
Four weeks ago, the campaign launched. It had the strongest start of any of my eight Kickstarters to date, and funded in the first week. That means all the books under development (see below) are being produced.
There are a lot of folks following the campaign right now, which is awesome. In fact, there are over 500 of them. Combine those following but not yet pledged (420) with those who actually pledged (347) and the stage is set for the Nordlond Sagas to be my best campaign ever with over 750 backers. Both in terms of numbers and dollars if we got everyone!
The Nordlond Setting: Under Development
Here's the quick-and-dirty of the four books under development. Check the main campaign page for some images and further details.
The Dragons of Rosgarth is a quest adventure. The PCs have to do something that the jarls and their huskarls don't have the wherewithal to do themselves (likely due to the issues over at Nordvorn). It details Jarngarðr, the "Iron Garden," likely the most industrialized town in Nordlond. This book is included with the basic campaign pledge.
Forest's End takes place on a fairly in a relatively new settlement, detailed in the book, called Skogurenda: Forest's End. The village described can serve as a useful adventuring location. It also contains at least three dungeons to delve, finally putting the dungeon in the Dungeon Fantasy RPG part of the setting! This book is included with the basic campaign pledge.
Norðlondr Fólk provides several new racial templates, and expands on a few existing ones, to bring more setting-appropriate racial options to the setting. Half-elves, dwarves (dvergr), and proper elves get tweaked, a few new races are introduced, and a whole variety of half-breeds and hybrids get introduced with Norse-friendly flavor. Animal-inspired races such as crosses between humans and bears, wolves, ravens, and boars, plus various mixes of Aesir, Demon, Dragon, and Alfar blood with the ever frisky human population. This book is included with the basic campaign pledge.
Hand of Asgard is a character expansion book. It presents template modifications for each of the 12 gods detailed in Hall of Judgment and Nordvorn for Clerics, and about two dozen Holy Might powers flavored for them. These are available for Holy Warriors as well. This book was added mid-campaign and is available as an add-on. Increase your pledge by $13 to get it in both Print and PDF.
The Nordlond Setting: Already Published
The Nordlond setting was established in two prior funding campaigns, and three books already exist. If you missed both of those, the Allar Sögurnar (all the electrons) and Allar Bækurnar (all the books) pledge levels let you catch up in one fell swoop, if that is your desire.
Hall of Judgment introduced Nordlond. It features a quest adventure, and includes several sample locations for other butt-kicking (Logiheimli and the nordalfar warrens), plus the titular hall. It contains the grappling concepts expanded in Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, enhanced survival rules, a bestiary of over 30 creatures, and pre-generated characters letting you get right into the game. Hall of Judgment established the use of the excellent Caverntown model of what to talk about in a city location.
The Citadel at Norðvörn is like Caverntown, but more so. It details one city, two important towns, and several sample villages (plus a village generator). A relationship map covering four competing factions to forms a web, allowing the GM to instantly improv reactions to the PCs actions. Each faction has goals and relationships described in the book.
Fantastic Dungeon Grappling tweaks and expands the concepts in Hall of Judgment, which themselves greatly refined the rules from GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling to enhance speed of play. It hits the actions needed to round out "these are the kinds of things you want do to with a grapple." It also provides examples of new grappling magic spells, and a page of examples on how to adjudicate new grapple-centric moves that players or monsters might be clever enough to come up with.
Schedule
As noted right away: the campaign ends this Saturday, October 12, at 10:30 pm Central Time. After that, here's how I hope it goes down:
- Oct 12: Kickstarter Campaign Ends
- Halloween Week: Backerkit phase opens for surveys, shipping, and pre-orders
- Mid-November: Backerkit "closes" and cards are charged[1]
- End November: PDF review phase[2]
- Mid-December: PDF feedback due
- Before Xmas: PDFs sent out and final files sent to printer
- End January: Printing
- End February: Moving books through the world
- End March: Arrival in-hand
[1] Backerkit won't really CLOSE until the final printer files go out, so I know how many orders to place, and whether we get the offset print run at 300 physical copies ordered.
[2]The PDF review phase will see about 10% of the backers get preliminary files, probably without full art. These are chosen based on a combination of how much was pledged (total pledge amount, not pledge level) plus a random factor, so that the highest pledge levels get priority, but lower pledge levels are not locked out. This phase is IMPORTANT, and everyone who provides useful feedback receives credit in the book.
Support the Nordlond Sagas!
There's a lot of great material in this campaign, and if you enjoyed the prior elements in the setting, you'll like the new ones as well. Jump on board, and help make this Kickstarter - my eighth - the best yet. Stretch goals make the two adventure books even longer . . . and I know the authors have the material to cover them!
Nordlond preview map!
over 4 years ago
– Fri, Oct 04, 2019 at 09:25:28 PM
Glynn and I just finalized the Nordlond map that will be used to print the posters, and sets the stage for future work in the setting. The team had a blast naming the towns, with able help from Þorkell the Icelander to make sure I don't accidentally name something profane.
Purposeful? Well, that's different.
In any case, this is a preview of what the map looks like. It's mostly final. I see a bit of tightening for some things (Raithur will be rendered as Raiðr, for example).
It will be available as a layered PDF, or in any of the formats discussed in prior posts (12x18 via DriveThru, or 16x20 on 14-point UV-laminated card stock or 100# paper that can be rolled).
GURPSDay! Blog activity for the last three weeks
over 4 years ago
– Fri, Oct 04, 2019 at 05:04:08 PM
Some of you know this from long ago, but in Feb 2013, I started compiling a bunch of folk's blogs into a list. Over time, I had some help turning that into a script. And now each week I try and collect and post the GURPS- and DFRPG-related blog activity for the roughly 100 blogs who have sent me their information. Just for fun, I'm duplicating today's GURPSDay blog post here.
In terms of the campaign, we're still in a flat spot, but I hope that we see a surge as the 400-410 folks who are following the campaign, but not yet pledged, decide whether or not to come on board over this last week. Some may well join during the Backerkit phase. If we can get another 150 folks to make the average roughly $60 pledge, we hit the "extra pages" stretch goal. Given what the authors are currently sending me . . . we're going to need it!
GURPSDay! Sept 13 to Oct 4, 2019
It's another GURPSDay, and here's the last few weeks of posts! Scroll all the way down (the random order is, well, random). Catch up and get some repeat views and if you missed some. They're in reverse chronological order, so if you're up-to-date, just skim off the top!
News for Gaming Ballistic:
- The Nordlond Sagas kickstarter funded, but is having one of the worst cases of the doldrums I've yet experienced. About $100 per day for the last 16 days. Fortunately, there are well over 400 folks following but not yet pledged, so there's a lot of opportunity to hit the $29K stretch goal, and that's between 145-150 pledges, so there's still a good shot at that goal. The authors' manuscripts are starting to come in in more-final form, and those extra pages are going to be needed!
- The swords and shields from Nordvorn were completed and shipped, save for one where the backer asked me to wait since he won't be in town. No problem there.
- The card decks for Four Perilous Journeys have all arrived at the distributors. The die-cut counters shipped out to the UK last night, should arrive in a week or so. The printing of 4PJ was schedule to complete today, but with time differences to Latvia by the time I am at a computer, they're gone for the evening. And it's a weekend. I suspect we'll be ready to parse up the shipment and get it going on Monday.
News for SJG
GURPSDay is in its sixth - GURPSDay started in February 2013, a year after I started Gaming Ballistic. Things have slowed down a bit, and I'll be considering how to revitalize this weekly activity. I'd like to see an average of 100 posts here per week - one per blog, ish - so we'll see what we can do to get creative juiced flowing.If you just started a GURPS blog - and I know that some of you have - email me and get on the list! With the advent of the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, Powered by GURPS, there's even more reason to write.
How? Two action items: post more, recruit more. It's really that simple. More posters is more posts, and more interest in GURPS.
Below you can find the blog activity for the last week. There's a whole lotta awesome GURPS going on. Read all the posts.
Not every blog posts about GURPSevery week, but some are ridiculously prolific! The list is randomized, so different bloggers will be highlighted at the top of the post each week.
As always, if you're interested in having your blog consolidated here, navigate over to The Instructions Page and drop me a line. Take special note of the RSS Settings Fix if you're on WordPress.
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Gaming Ballistic (Douglas Cole)
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Dr. Kromm's GURPS Livejournal ("Sean ""Dr. Kromm"" Punch")
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Insidious GURPS Planning (Mr. Insidious)
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Ravens N' Pennies (Christopher R. Rice)
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DF Whiterock (dripton)
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Frak Frel and Other F Words (Rigil Kent)
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GamePrep: ConsOps, 2.15 (10/03/19) - Prep for the GURPS Action game I’m running in Fantasy Ground on 10/5/2019. No stats abused but some in-game mechanics discussed and links to useful stuffs.
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GM Commentary: ConsOps, 2.14 (10/01/19) - Discussion about the GURPS Action game I ran in Fantasy Grounds on 9/28/2019 which consisted of some RP and then a later HTH fight that lasted longer than I expected. No stats harmed but link to the YouTube recording. Reflections on what went right and what went wrong.
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GamePrep: ConsOps, 2.14 (9/26/19) - Prep for the GURPS Action game I’m running in Fantasy Ground on 9/28/2019. No stats abused but some in-game mechanics discussed and links to useful stuffs. Less stream of consciousness than normal and more actual game preparation.
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GM Commentary: ConsOps, 2.13 (9/23/19) - Discussion about the GURPS Action game I ran in Fantasy Grounds on 9/21/2019 which was a car chase that lasted a little longer than expected, then a bit of roleplay at the end. No stats harmed but link to the YouTube recording. Reflections on what went right and what went wrong.
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GamePrep: ConsOps, 2.13 (9/19/19) - Rambling in an attempt to flesh out the GURPS Action game I will run in Fantasy Grounds on 9/21/2019. No stats abused.
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GM Commentary: ConsOps, 2.12 (9/16/19) - Discussion about the GURPS Action game I ran in Fantasy Grounds on 9/14/2019 which once again turned into a long firefight, despite my best intentions. No stats harmed but link to the YouTube recording. Reflections on what went right and what went wrong.
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Mailanka's Musings (Daniel Dover)
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Refplace (Rory)
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RogerBW's Blog (Roger Bell-West)
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Generic Universal Eggplant (Enraged Eggplant)
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Noh RPG Group (binn05)
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MoeLane.com (Moe Lane)
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Dice and Discourse (Joseph Mason)
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Olympus RPG Group (The Olympus RPG Group)
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GURPS Action: Consular Operations, S2E14 (10/02/19) - Our GURPS Action: Consular Operations campaign continues. The team enters the Ta’izz quarantine zone in search of the source of the plague.
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GURPS Action: Consular Operations, S2E13 (9/24/19) - Our GURPS Action: Consular Operations campaign continues. The team is involved in a high-speed chase through Dubai, relocate to the plague-stricken town in Yemen, and reconnect with a (sorta) team member.
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GURPS Action: Consular Operations, S2E12 (9/17/19) - Our GURPS Action: Consular Operations campaign continues. The team conducts an interrogation that gets interrupted by a surprise enemy and local feds.
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Dungeon Fantastic (Peter Dell'Orto)
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Above the Flatline (Timothy Ponce)
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GURPS Mega Dungeon (John Morrison)
