Missive #23: The Book is Here!

Howdy Directors and Agents.  I’m on Spring Break so this Missive is a couple of days late.  Sorry for that.  As you should know our book Agents of Oblivion is available in dead tree form.  I hope you all have sought out and gained a copy.  I’m so very proud of this book and the effort put into it by a great team.  I thought I’d take some time to share a little background with each of you about how it all came together and the vision Sean Preston communicated so effectively that the book is one of the best examples of spy roleplaying in the industry.

Sean and I became industry “friends” several years ago, when he was just starting out with Runepunk.  We exchanged some emails and then had several phone conversations.  He told me of his ideas for Agents of Oblivion and I loved the concept having always loved modern horror and espionage gaming. We even developed a super-secret document that I shall henceforth refer to as Document X.  This doc X has all the secret history of the universe, who the big bads are, why it all is coming to the earth, and what was coming. Originally this was to be a cross-over universe between Agents and my own Pinebox setting.  Sean bounced ideas off me and I countered with many of my own over the next few years. Sean entered his concepts into Green Ronin’s True 20 contest and easily won and debuted the first iteration of Agents for that system.

However, it was always his goal to bring Agents to Savage Worlds, and if you know me at all, you know I’m a Savage Worlds Fanboy (given that title by Clint Black) and thought I appreciate and play other systems, I only write and design for Savage Worlds.  Sean had completed about 2/3rds of the conversion, but his business had grown substantially with Runepunk, Realms of Cthulhu, Iron Dynasty and lots of support materials.  When he asked me if I would come on board to help finish Agents I was honored and jumped at the opportunity.

Looking at the final copy I can honestly say our writing flows seamlessly and I have a difficult time knowing what I wrote and what he did.  Once we had finished most of the game, some additionally material was written by Norm “No Relation” Hensley, Dave Olson, and Randall Orndorff especially  in the Spy Sampler section.  Brad Bell, Ron Blessing, Tom Cadorette, and Jeff Scifert provided a great editing team and I was happy for them to take it.  I know I’m done with a project when I can’t bring myself to read it anymore (in the editing stage), and great editors are worth their weight in electrum pieces.  Of course the Lead Editor and real driver was Lyn Harm who had done a wonderful job keeping us straight and focused on what must be done.

And what can I say about the art?  Cheyenne’s cover is amazing and the interior art reflects the feel we were after.  Sean did his best job of layout with Agents, and the final book is absolutely wonderful.

So thanks to the team for a great addition to Savage Worlds and Gaming, thanks to Sean for the vision and for sharing, and a special thanks to you gamers who have supported our efforts.  I’m going back to working on some more horror-espionage goodness that you should be seeing soon.

Till next time, keep the women beautiful, the men tough, and the bad guys ugly!

Ed