Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Insect Shrine Status

This is next on the release list.

What's done:

36 pages of material, written in various stages over the past several years. All the meat (Gorsamfeld's, the goblin village, the insect shrine itself) is done and has been done for quite some time.

12 full-page illustrations will be part of this, and that's all done. When everything is done there will undoubtedly be holes in the layouts that will need some more art.

The number of maps needed is still undetermined. I'll be talking to my printer later this week because I have an idea about making the main map an A3 poster-sized pullout. I need to see what the costs would be on such a thing and if they can attach that within the booklet.

The "uninteresting" areas (no traps or inhabitants or treasure) of the goblin tribe and insect shrine still need to be written up, and the three side-quests need to be expanded from their outlines.

Everything that is already there will need to be reviewed and probably a good portion of that will be rewritten, if for no other reason that to prevent the whole thing from being some sort of Frankenstein's monster of writing done several years apart.

I'm shooting for a mid-September completion date on all this, and then it needs much further playtesting than has already been done on the long-completed stuff. I'll likely announce a week of open Skype gaming. Stay tuned for that.

Once that's done, it's time for proofreading and layout (right now assuming we're looking at 64 pages including maps) and printing and mailing, and finally, finally, you playing.

After that will be a much smaller (maybe 16 pages?) project, The Grinding Gear. After that the Stone Hold Asylum (the adventure itself is written up, it's the diary handout that's not), and I have some "special limited edition" ideas for that one.

That should take us close to the end of the year, and after that I'm out of prepared ideas. Idea kernels running around in my head are a follow-up to Death Frost Doom (not a direct sequel, but another old Duvan'Ku site), perhaps finishing the Random God Generator, or maybe something eminently publishable will pop up in my weekly game between now and then. The Sunken City area from The Olden Domain sessions I ran earlier this year is a possibility. And I may always want to commit commercial suicide by exploring my idea for a Carcosa adventure, working title: "9,383,000,000,000,000 Miles From Home."

But thinking that far ahead is just dreaming about ponies right now. I have real, tangible projects on my plate, and those definitely come first.

2 comments:

  1. like the sounds of the random god generator, sir!

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  2. I'm definitely up for the next round of playtesting in September.

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