Everything's better with . . .
about 4 years ago – Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 03:02:17 AM

Looking like a book now
about 4 years ago – Sun, Feb 23, 2020 at 08:56:33 PM

Rosgarth is starting to resemble a book rather than a work in progress.

Progress!
about 4 years ago – Sun, Feb 23, 2020 at 05:52:56 PM

Computer Update

So, I finally got my computer fixed. And by fixed, I mean fixed. Of course, it's easier to say what I didn't change than what I did.

Still there:

• My SSD and HDD
• The CPU and GPU
• The RAM

Changed

• The Case
• The motherboard
• The cooling system (liquid to air, and replaced three fans)
• The Power supply

That really did come at the wrong time. But now I can have Photoshop, InDesign, Word, HWinfo64, and other programs open while playing XCom2 (my guilty pleasure "I need a break" game) and my chip temps don't get higher than about 65C. Given what was going on before, that's really good.

Writing and Editing

I have all of Chapters 3-6 written, edited, and laid out. (Chapter 1 is the 'front matter,' like the ToC, credits, and kickstarter backer list; Chapter 2 is the introduction and quick start, which get written last anyway). Chapter 5 I finished last night, and Emily is doing a post-Doug edit to it ASAP.

Because I'm going to use the same dragon graphic for room descriptions as Forest's End, 

I can't just dump this into layout right now and then make small tweaks. The spacing would be all wrong. So Emily, Kyle (the author), and I will do final edits and tweaks and consistency checks to make sure that the maps are consistent with the text, and the text is consistent with other parts of the book, and then I'll get layout done.

Art and Maps

I believe I will be in a reasonable place to start commissioning main-body art soon, especially on Chapters 3-6. The bestiary art is underway and looking very good. Maps are basically done but likely need some tweaks.

Book Length

The book stands at a likely 105 pages now, and I strongly suspect that the easiest thing to do is plus it up to 112 rather than try and hack it down to 96.

This will impact the post-campaign pricing of the book. All of them, really. Phil Reed and I were discussing TFT prices a week or two ago, and I realized my pricing formula was based on books published from 1995 through 2005. So they're too low. It won't impact any of the people on this campaign, of course, but there are going to be adjustments going forward.

Good momentum from the weekend, computer issues finally settled . . . and if things go well, I finally close on the house I've been trying to sell this coming Friday. So looking at some higher focus coming up.

Good stuff.

Computer Died...a few days of setback
about 4 years ago – Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 02:37:29 AM

My computer power supply went kaput last night. I'm working some fairly extreme measures to get it back functional, replacing the dead one with a CM650 by Corsair (yay, modular PSU) and - because this is the second major computer catastrophe to befall this system due to putting too many components in too small a case by the vendor - migrating all of my parts into a compact ATX case instead of the mini-ITX.

This means layout and art direction will take a bit of a pause until the system comes up and running.

The good news is that the editing I need to do is on OneDrive, in the cloud. So I can use my old GB computer, which my wife now uses, to make progress when I'm not at Con of the North over the next few days.

This project has just been oodles of fun for schedule. More info when I have it.

On the flip side:

Art is Coming In

I have not been idle, nor has my art team.

Glynn is rockin' the maps, as usual. I have . . . no fewer than five maps in hand. Here's one of them.

Next up I placed a few commissions for monsters. The bestiary Kyle has put together has somethign like 20 new creatures. Plus, I know that the jarls of the town of Jarngarðr are important enough to merit character sketches. So, let me introduce to you Rodhulf Scalebane.

(Fair warning: this needs to be tightened up still; the language does't quite sit right with me yet.)

Rodhulf Scalebane

A year ago, Lífstæinn Scalebane, Jarl of the Iron Quarter, and his eldest son Óþyrmir died in a skirmish with a dragonkin war party, led by a young true dragon. The failed attempt to breach the Járngátt catapulted Lífstæinn's 14-year-old son Rodhulf to jarldom as his mother had died some years ago. The Scalebane family has managed the defense of the Járngátt for the last 400 years. Rodhulf’s reputation as a level-headed adolescent with a strong arm and a good heart, plus a hefty dose of tradition, led the hajarl and king to confirm his position.

It was a role for which he wasn’t fully prepared. He’s trying to get a handle on being responsible for the Járngátt’s defenses. Inexperienced but extremely earnest, he depends on his extended family (uncles and aunts on both his father and mother’s side) to help him manage his responsibilities in the Iron Quarter. Rodhulf’s wealth and position make him a desirable husband; his extended family seeks to see him promptly married to a capable partner.

Rodhulf is a warrior of some renown for one so young. He is action-oriented, and prefers the battlefield to council meetings—who wouldn't? Rodhulf regularly takes patrols. During waking hours, he can usually be found on the Wall, consulting with the priests at the Lord of Warding's braethralag hall, or inspecting his smithies. Rodhulf reacts personally to any credible threat to the wall or gate. He is the only jarl who can permit a party to pass the Járngátt on his own authority, no questions asked.

He is of middling height with wiry red hair; he constantly looks harried and a little pale. He is one of the few in town to go about in a full suit of armor. The burnished steel harness is embellished with gold inlay, etched in a dragon scale pattern. The armor serves as an advertisement of his wealth and position, as well as the skill of the crafters he employs. He carries a similarly ornate greatsword, also with a dragon motif. He consciously bucks the Norðlondur trend of being parsimonious with metal, and the Jarngardur’s habit of eschewing embellished equipment. He proudly wears the products of some of the finest craftsmen in the Iron Quarter: His flamboyant panoply and willingness to show off the crafts of his karls makes him the subject of admiration rather than scorn. He is striving to learn the ins and outs of smithing and ironmongery so that he can properly participate in the business of the Smiths’ Guild which is the source of much of his revenue.

The Dark Pack

This was the art direction, less some images provided to the artists for reference.

“Dark Packs” look like groups of large (maybe 3m from nose to tail) mangy black wolves. Their eyes and mouths glow with spectral light. Things that emphasize their unnatural look will be welcome.

Much like the Hulk was portrayed with about zero percent body fat and massive muscles, I’d like to have the dark pack be unnaturally rippling with muscles, maybe with slightly patchy fur (and as LEGO Batman says, “I only work in black, or very very dark grey”) but let’s make them look impossibly gaunt, but not “famine victim” gaunt. Instead, make them “wow, that body builder too it way too far” ripped with muscles and no fat.

They travel and hunt in large packs, usually 10-20 in number, but obviously that many critters is not needed to illustrate them.

One of their powers is an unearthly howl that terrorizes. They howl in unison, so if one were to show this off, it would need 2-3 critters obviously howling together.

Rick and I worked something that will hopefully be compatible with final layout; the image interacts with the page number. He dropped it into a page from Forest's End to give an example of how it'll look.

Gangaeðla Cavalier

The gangaeðla (tunnel lizards) are mostly not a threat to seasoned delvers. Well, except in large groups. And in their warrens. Or when they set traps. 

But "mostly" doesn't cover the situation where they mount up on swift, deadly risaeðla. This particular species comes shoulder high on a typical human, and features a tooth-filled mouth and for maximum danger, a razor-sharp disemboweling dewclaw.

"Clever girl."

Rosgarth Weekly Update
about 4 years ago – Fri, Feb 07, 2020 at 12:46:47 PM

Rosgarth Progress

So, the book is five chapters long, plus a 20-monster bestiary for the original stuff and big bad guys. Where are we?

I edited and am finished with my pass of Chapter 1-3. Emily Blain has hit Chapter 1 and 2 with her own edit pass as well, and what I have left to do here is go back and accept/modify her edits, and then hit the completed chapters with fresh eyes.

Chapter 1, which details the city of Járngárðr (the Iron Garden) grew from 8,000 to 16,000 words and is pretty cool, even if I do say so. Chapter 2, on the various competing factions, also grew by about 2× to ensure that GMs had all the info they need. I followed the advice in my blog post on making sure the bad guys are all the heroes of their own story, which in turn was inspired by some good work by General McChrystal on business strategy. I made sure each of the prime movers had the pieces the GM needs to improvise reactions to pesky PC actions if needed.

Chapter 3 should strike those familiar with Hall of Judgment as more than passing familiar. It's "The Journey," and is a list of encounters and calamities which can and should befall the PCs. There's a fantastic set of play reports - and I'll have to look up the links - that shows what can happen if a campaign leverages these sorts of seeds properly. So I'm quite happy with them, and they should provide a great set of ideas for making the journey to Rosgarth more interesting.

I'm currently working through Chapter 4, which details the area around Rosgarth itself. I am very close to being down with my part of that, and I hope to finish it up today. We'll see: life gets a tetch complex. After that, Chapter 5 is about 10,000 words long currently, but it's also basically self-contained "room descriptions" for the "dungeon" under Rosgarth (spoiler), plus a bit on the titular dragons (also spoiler).

Once those are done, I can get into layout.

Maps, Art, and Layout

The good news is that not all the art requires layout. The bestiary will follow the model of Forest's End and, to some extent, Nordlondr Folk. Each creature gets its own piece of art, with no background unless needed. Because we know what the critters will be - this one is a dragon, that one is a pyromaniacal T-Rex, these are eðlufolk that were allied with the demon-sworn dragon Svartadauði - the art can happen whenever. And it IS happening. I've already received two sketches and one near-final.

The maps are well underway, and there are going to be five or six of them. 

Here's an example of the main Jarngardr map, though I need to tweak a few things (like using yards instead of meters) and add some pointers where they're needed.

There are zoom-ins of both the East and West sides of town, highlighting the four quarters: the Iron Quarter (top right), the Burning Quarter (lower right), the Merchant Quarter (top left), and the Woolen Quarter (lower right). You can see the hammer-mills at the center of the bridge that were built by the hajarl of the town of Midgard, and you can just make out the newer sawmills that one of the jarls had built. 

The other map I have in hand is the map of Rosgarth itself. I'll keep that one in reserve just yet . . . but it's just as pretty, and is really helping me finish out Chapter 4.

Admin and Printing

I'm still gathering quotes for how I will actually get these printed. It very much looks like the right call is going to be getting the short books printed by Mixam (if you have Hexagram or one of Phil Reeds short booklets like his potions work...those were also printed by Mixam), but the larger books get very expensive very quickly. So those will go offset, and I've got quotes from my printer in Latvia, plus another one in Korea. Right now, the Korean quote is without shipping, which makes a ton of difference. So no decisions yet. The real question for me is "how much extra inventory do I get?" The short books are easy. Mixam delivers in about a freakin' week. The long ones are a harder decision. 

What this means, though, is that the printing will probably commence in the second week in March if I'm on top of things and can get all the art in. Four weeks to print, four to ship, a week or two of "I thought you were going to do this" and other lost-time that always crops up, then two weeks for delivery.

That means that final fulfillment is looking like June. If I can pull it in, I will.

Future Work

I'm not starting new projects until this one is done. But that doesn't mean that new projects aren't being considered.

There's the TFT campaign "More Perilous Journeys" in May. Probably early May. Three of the adventures are already in my hands, and David Pulver is working two solos. You'll be able to get more of the delicious 3.5x5" monster/NPC cards, as well as cardboard counter sheets. If you missed the first campaign, there's plenty of inventory left that you can catch up all at once: TEN adventures, three of them solos, plus over 125 Monster/NPC reference cards, over 400 counters planned at this time. It's quite a haul.

The Nordlond enemies book will be the largest single Nordlond project attempted to date. Hundreds of monsters, each given a full treatment. Lots of critters never before seen in a Nordlond book, and more mundane creatures will be given the Dungeon Fantasy RPG spin. That will certainly come late in 2020.

Finally, there are as many as four smaller projects I hope to sneak in, some sooner than others. I'll leverage alternate platforms for those. No details yet...but I don't want to go too long without Dungeon Fantasy RPG support, and the enemies book is a while away.