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June 20, 2006
Mappin' Madness
Hello All.
You may not know this, but I have a cartography jones from time to time and have to scrawl out a map. Here's a secret. I work in very unusual patterns from most folks I know. Typically on adventures and projects, I come up with a title that intrigues me...it may not be the final title, but the working title. Case in point, Iron Dynasty: Sins of the Samurai began as Katana: Samurai Steampunk. I'm still in the infancy of the project and haven't gotten to immerse myself too deeply into it, so often in my head, I use the Samurai Steampunk monniker to sum it up. If you meet me, I'll probably do the same thing.
On a side note, to those interested individuals, RunePunk has always been RunePunk and Agents of Oblivion has always been Agents of Oblivion, though the latter began as a subtitle for another sort of line I envisioned. The craziness of its evolution into True20 and the popularity of the title made me decide to bump it up to a full on product line title. So it goes.
Getting back to the mapping. I snagged some nifty mapping programs. One is an old favorite most recently updated for the 21st Century. The program in question is Campaign Cartographer 3. I've been an owner of CC forever and used it from time to time for campaigns I've run over the years, but found the exchange of time invested for return to not be what I needed, so I'd bounce away for awhile. I noticed on the mailing list they recently updated, so I snagged it at as an early adopter and love it. I can do things easily now that had me smacking my head on and getting all kinds of angry about. So, I'm gonna bite the bullet, plunk down some green on a nice graphi tablet, and set to work on doing the maps for Iron Dynasty. Remember, I mentioned Iron Dynasty at the beginning of this and how I work in odd tangents? Well, with ScatterPoint, I began with a map and set out the places I wanted and racked my head quite a bit for the proper names to lend atmosphere to this extradimensional city and then I got to writing.
Iron Dynasty I've already gotten down in broad strokes. The playtesters have a primitive map I quickly whipped up in a graphics program to give them a sense of location, but for Iron Dynasty, it's necessary to see the proper relation of places, allegiances, and various other elements of coolness. Same goes with the fantasy adventure I'm working up. People appreciate a good map.
The other software I got is better aimed at battlemaps, though I think I can whip up some interesting stuff for campaign level maps. That fantasy adventure I'm working on should benefit from this software, Dundjinni as well as Modern Maps I'll be crafting for the Agents of Oblivion demo in a couple of weeks. While I'm working on the maps for the Iron Dynasty, I've already got a clear picture of things and people, it's just a matter of putting them down and I'm confident that, like always, certain features I work into the map will suggest themselves to adventure.
See, I told you I work in an unusual fashion from most folks I know. Now, if I can only master all the nuances of illustration, I'll be pretty good shape. ;)
Regards,
Sean
P.S. I started to sidebar some discussion of Agents of Oblivion. Instead, I decided since it's more of a ramble than anything to put it in this week's Razorwise Report.
Enjoy!
Posted by razorwise at 11:29 PM
June 12, 2006
The Fantasy Trip
Hello All.
Guess what? I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. Lean close. I've been putting together a fantasy adventure for Savage Worlds. That's been the secret project I've been doing in some of my downtime between RunePunk, Orwell Industries, and Agents of Oblivion. One does not live by crunch alone. I'm hoping to have it out to you guys after Origins and before GenCon. I'll save the name for another one of those days when I don't have a ton of news. ;)
Anyway, I hope you enjoy seeing my take on traditional tropes!!!
Later,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 05:36 PM
June 05, 2006
Anyone wanna talk about RunePunk?
Hello everyone.
I'm finally going through the edits on the GM's Section of RunePunk and tweaking things here and there and shoving in as much flavour about the setting as I can.
Let's see...I've got a lot crammed in the book overall. I ran some numbers on new Edges and Powers and Hindrances and then all those adventure generators and scrounging tables and other assorted madnesses. It'll be fun.
RunePunk is designed to be very flexible. This is evident from the number of races, plus specific racial edges available to each one over and above what each race already starts out with. Before you ask, yes, humans have specific Edges only available to them as well.
I got together with my buddy, Barry, at the hobby store the other day and he made up a character for RunePunk. He hasn't checked out the latest rules set lately since Clint and I had been hammering those out. He's been enamoured by Iron Dynasty. :) So, anyway, he looks at all these options and methodically went through things page by page and he paused to ask questions and I could see he was getting jazzed about it. Finally, he settled on making a Human Demonologist with an Unusual Ancestry, he was part Malakar. As such, he selected Shapechanging as the racial ability he gained from his Malakar heritage. He did evaluate some other options, such as being a Pure Blood character or perhaps starting out with an Arcane Companion, but finally decided to go with this. When we were looking it over and I was seeing it anew from someone who hasn't been breathing this stuff for far too long, it was really rather exciting. I'm looking forward to trotting this out at Origins and GenCon. It's time.
As far as the characters go, what should I make? Hmmmm...perhaps I'll hook someone up with an Overwrought Inventor, make another a Modified Human Demonologist, throw in the traditional Malakar Bounty Hunter, and toss in an Andari Sifter. I'll make a couple more characters to flesh out the ensemble. It'll be good times.
Just wait. When I get the good word on the Player's Guide, then I'll really be chatting things up.
Later,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 06:14 PM
June 02, 2006
Preparing for Origins
I'm wrapping up the last stray bits of RunePunk. That's been my focus as I dance in the maelstrom of everything going on around me.
After this, I'll shoot it off to a few readers to check out and I'll begin typing away on Agents of Oblivion after I wrap up a certain secret project that I've got about halfway completed.
Regards,
Sean
Posted by razorwise at 01:17 PM