Spes Magna Games

Just a quick update today. Busy, busy, busy.

The writing’s picked back up again. I’m still not getting quite as much done as I want/need to, but at least there’s progress. Recently, I statted out the bad guys for the short adventure to be included with Fencing & Firearms. Doing so gave me an excuse to dust off and update my old Unseelie Template.

The unseelie are creatures who’ve been seduced by the dark side of nature. For them, nature is blood red in tooth and claw, more a source of fear than a world of beauty. Many unseelie were normal fey, but others were once non-fey creatures who have given themselves over to the forces of darkness. As Duhnmair, a fey knight, describes in a play-by-post game I’m running, “The Unseelie revel in the darker side of nature. They reject the beauty and creativity that balances the destructive force of a storm or the red fangs of a predator. Their leaders seek to plunge the world into chaos where failure would be the only sin.”

I’m a big fan of adventures that include re-usable material, and a new template fits the bill. Even after the adventure is over and the villains defeated, the Unseelie Template can be used again, applied to different creatures. This template is also a way to get more fey into your game. I’ve never quite understood why the fey seem to get so little consideration in the rules. Folklore and literature are rich with stories about the Little People and the wonderful and terrible things they do to mortals. When I get around to working in earnest on the Novus Mundus campaign world, the fey will certainly be more prominently displayed than fantasy RPG staples such as orcs.

I’m also wonderfully pleased that I’ve received my first official Quid Novi? submission from a subscriber. I read the submission over yesterday, and it is good. As a result, Quid Novi? VII will feature ostriches and emus as the Chance Encounter of the month. Both animals will strut forth fully Pathfinder-compatible and will include what you need to use them as animal companions and mounts. Soon you will finally be able to run that much longed-for Ostrich Riders of the Brazen Plains campaign. A big thanks to Spes Magna supporter Alzrius!

On the bummer front, response to my subscriber-drive contest has been minimal. Of course, it’s only been a little less than a week, so there’s still lots of time. My Quid Novi? subscribers are a big part of my strategy for success with Spes Magna Games. They are the backbone of this little venture of mine, being the folks that I hope will become avid fans (and customers) of Spes Magna products in the future.

So, my wonderful subscribers, let’s get more people to sign up for Quid Novi?! It’s free, fun, and soon will include really large birds.

It’s March 9 already, and I’m still behind with writing, editing, and some website-related work. It isn’t helping that I’ve finally discovered Hulu. In particular, I’m thoroughly enjoying The Lone Ranger. I used to watch the adventures of that fabulous masked man in syndication when I was a kid. I remember owning Lone Ranger, Tonto, and Silver action figures. I don’t think I had Scout, so I’m guessing my Tonto walked everywhere. Fortunately for my time management, Hulu only has twelve episodes of The Lone Ranger available, and I’m just about half through them.

On the work front, I am done with Rewarding Roleplaying and Fencing & Firearms. I’ve started on the Five-Room Dungeon that will be included with F&F. Darren Calvert emailed me yesterday and told me he is getting ready to put finishing touches on the cover for The Case of the Purloined Princess. I’ve looked at the roughs he’s done, and they’re delightful. I really need to upload some images to the site for the world to see. That’s one more thing for my list.

Speaking of The Case of the Purloined Princess, work has slowed to a crawl on my end. I’ve got to get back on track. I’ve been saying product would be released for sale this month. At the rate I’m going, that’s going to end up happening closer to April and than to February.

I’m also working on the Quid Novi? subscriber bonus PDF for March. It should be available with the March 21st issue. This month, I’m offering an alternate version of the bard’s Versatile Performer class feature. The Versatile Performer class feature for bards is a bit confusing. It’s meant to make the bard better at certain skills that seemingly correspond with different types of Perform, but the actual mechanics of the class feature are muddled. Versatile Performer is also a bit on the uninspiring side. It’s an attempt to boost the bard’s role as skill monkey while keeping to the theme of bard-as-performing-adventurer, but Versatile Performer just sort of seems to miss the mark.

The new subscriber-only PDF presents an alternative system for Versatile Performance that draws upon terminology related to music, dance, acting, and rhetoric. For example, a bard could learn Accelerando. This ability lets the morale bonus provided by Inspire Courage also apply to Reflex saves. Furthermore, when the bard reaches 5th level, affected allies gain a +5-foot bonus to base speed.

Speaking of Quid Novi? subscriber PDFs, it looks like Monsters & Magic Items of Greek/Roman Myth is the winner for April. I’ll add the other two to the project queue for May and June. Also, don’t forget about the subscriber-drive contest that’s going on right now.

Well, that’s it for this post. I’ll be back in a few days.

Since Quid Novi? subscribers get the one-third discount, we’re looking to increase our subscriber base, and we’re asking for our subscribers to help.

Get one other person to subscribe to Quid Novi? before April 1, 2010, and you and that new subscriber will both get the new, improved Rewarding Roleplaying for free. Have your recruit email me with your email address in the body of the message to let me know who’s responsible for bringing another reader into the fold. I’ll personally ensure you both get the new, improved Rewarding Roleplaying.

What’s more, the top five subscriber recruiters will get free copies of the new, improved Fencing & Firearms, to include the one-shot adventure.

Finally, the number one subscriber recruiter will get all of the above, plus a copy of The Case of the Purloined Princess.

To clarify: If you recruit more new subscribers than everyone else who recruits new subscribers, you get one each of everything listed above for free. If your numbers two through five in the recruiting of new subscribers, you get Fencing & Firearms, the accompanying one-shot adventure, and Rewarding Roleplaying. Plus, every new subscriber who lets me know he or she was recruited by an old subscriber gets the for-sale version of Rewarding Roleplaying as a special welcome.

The contest started once this post was made, and it runs until midnight, March 31, 2010, Central Standard Time.