Thoughts on Obsidian Twilight (LPJ Designs)

I told you guys I purchased Obsidian Twilight and I read through it yesterday. I feel uncomfortable posting an actual review because I've written for Louis in the past, am currently working on a project for him, and definitely want to write O.T. in the near future. But I want to talk about the setting.

Damn good. If I were giving it a starred review, I'd give it a 4/5. Everything that was there- with a couple of minor exceptions- was high quality. The comissioned artwork Louis arranged for O.T. was excellent- all the new racial and class illustrations rocked, and I like the fact the three biggest and most powerful NPC villains of the setting (Isa Magnor, Celix and Zedibiah) get big, pretty 3/4 page illustrations and full stats. All three of those fuckers, by the way top CR 30, which is great. They are as badass by the game rules as they are in the fiction, and I can see taking any of 'em out as the capstone for a campaign.

Plus, the stock art Louis used was really well displayed and fit visually with the paid-for stuff. The layout was really pretty- I like the curling page borders and layouts. I have to say though, that the gothic purple font Louis used for the paragraph headers and spell names got on my nerves very fast. It looked good, but for some of the spell names especially, was really hard to read.

The world itself is nice, and has a lot of possibilities. When he first told me about the setting, he said to think of it as Dark Sun meets Ravenloft, which it achieves. Not just a rip off, O.T. has got enough originality to stand on its own.

Things I liked about the setting: the big three baddies mentioned above. I liked their history, their plans and the fact that there is a good reason that Zedibiah (the closest thing the setting has to a hero or messiah) can't just solve everything on his own. Despite the fact that thing is CR 30, it's still geased and epic cursed into uselessness- it can be a backer or adviser for the heroes, but it can't be the dues ex machina.... unless the GM really, really wants it to be. Good planning.

The races with two exceptions, which I'll get to in a minute were uniformly excellent. I like the write ups detailing how the standard races fit into the setting (but where was the half-orc write up? I know they're similar to the Harrowed, but I still missed the tusky bastards). The gnomes were a personal favorite- they're cowardly collaborators with the undead lords- think the Vichy French or trusties in a hellhole prison. (And Louis, if you're reading this, as soon as I'm done with the gladiator book, I want a commission to write up a splatbook about the O.T. gnomes.) Halflings got screwed hard in the apocalypse- they're twichy, feral little monsters. But I like the fact they're not the badass cannibal headhunters from Dark Sun... O.T.'s halflings are more like abused, half starved feral children. Very creepy and cool... basically imagine an entire race that's like the Children Under the Stairs.

The new races were awesome- the Rajin were a personal favorite. They reminded me forcibly of Ghost Rider, in that they have a racial ability that is effectively the penance stare. Like Ghost Rider, they're assholes but they kill demons. So rock on. The Exalted and Osirians were also cool. The flavor fiction explaining the Exalted's birthmarks as their heavenly blood warring in their bodies with their sinful flesh is a bit too much of a Christian concept for me. I wouldn't have gone that route, but in the context of the fiction, this eerie and highly visual take on original sin works. If I run an O.T. campaign, I would play up the Exalted's birthmarks/tats- they'd constantly shift and give a clue to the Exalt's mood, like Rorschach's mask in Watchmen.

The Lycians.... points off for the kinda plain name. I can think of half dozen fictional works that call their big scary wolf men Lycians. Still, the culture and some of the racial feats for the big furballs was pretty good. However, I don't think Louis made the case they deserved to retain the shapeshifter subtype, even if these fixed-form wolfmen were originally descended from werewolves. If I'd written it, I'd of given them the plain Monstrous Humanoid type, kept their ancestral vulnerabilities because the flavor behind them is cool, and included a Lycian specific prestige class that gives them their shapeshifter talents back. To each their own, though.

The race I had the most problem with though was the Khymer. I think those guys were an excellent concept (the living blood of those killed by the great disaster that animates corpses as containment suits/temporary host bodies). I'm not sure if these guys should have been a PC race, though they are definitely interesting. The problem is their racial write up leaves too many holes. It's not specifically said in their write up, but is hinted at in other racial feats, that the Khymer turn the host body they possess into a duplicate of the creature they were in life. I would have rather made the Khymer a kind of template that can be added to any existing creature that takes over the mind, but uses the body as is- you've got more flexibility as a GM and can easily run scenarios like John Carpenter's The Thing.

On the heroic front, I would of also liked a feat or Khymer prestige class that would allow you to keep some or all of the body's abilties. Also, the racial write up mentions that when down to their last few HP, the Khymer can leave their old host body and try to jump into a new one. So how many HP does the Khymer have in it's new body? Is it still wounded, or does it heal some or all of its damage when body hopping? That's a BIG question that needs to be answered. If there's O.T. errata, that has got to be at the top of the list.

EDIT: I realized I'd missed the part in the racial description where they mentioned the Khymer did exactly what I expected: They turn their host bodies into a duplicate of their original form. Sorry, I just skipped that paragraph!

Feats and spells were amazingly sick. I liked the emphasis on the gross and the dangerous- most of the new spells were necromancy, and add alot of flavor to the campaign. Some of them are so hilariously broken I can't wait to use them. There are some GREAT damage dealing and curse spells in here. Crucify Foe(mass).... Sunfire Tomb, any new spell of 6th level or above. These things kick ass! Oh, and Vacate Bowels- you know back in my AD&D days, I misused Command (Me to GM: I yell out "SHIT!" ) to do the same thing, so I got a kick out of it.

The mini-monster manual in the back was dominated by the three big bads, and included a pair of other monsters, both of which were CR 8 with CR11 advanced versions. To all the monsters were either epic level or mid level, with nothing high but not epic, and nothing for starting characters to fight. I figure Louis is saving some content for a follow up release, but I would have liked to seen a more even distribution of monsters in the core book, especially at least 1-3 low level threats to start a campaign off right.

Something else I would have liked to of seen was more world info, though what was told explicitly and what was implied by the spells, feats and classes was excellent. Tell me a bit more about Celix' kingdom, it's laws, its cruel punishments, its peasant rebellions, ect. I'm hoping there's a gazetteer or atlas for the setting coming soon.

So I dropped 15 bucks on this beast of a core book, and I definately got my money's worth and more. A couple of problems with two of the new races, a desire for more, but other than a damn good book. Louis did good on this one.

Talk to you later,
CHRIS

Gladiators, Dragons and Futuristic Demeter Worshipers!

Pretty interesting mix of topics, huh?

Okay, the Dragonbound Core Class is out and seems to be selling pretty well. For the last couple of days it's been bouncing around the 30-40 region of RPGNow's Top 100, which is gratifying, and hopefully it will have the long term sticking power of Adventurer's Essentials: The Common Tongue.

I just purchased Obsidian Twilight with some of the proceeds, so I'm sure it's continued sales make Louis pretty happy too.

Speaking of Louis Porter, I got an email from him this past weekend. I've got a freelance project on deck- a generic campaign option type sourcebook about gladiators. He wants 10-15 K words- something on the order of 40-50 pages depending on how he lays it out.

I started researching, which is always my favorite part of any project. Hit up Wikipeida, all the links that site has for references, hit my local Half Price Books for some history texts... borrowed my brother's copy of Gladiator and have it on a continual loop on my DVD player. So far, I've got some really neat ideas and I've laid down about 2,500 words of mostly non-fiction background info. Mostly context about Roman gladiators, historical facts. It's good bit of writing, but I might shave a bit off if I start approaching my word cap.

After the historical stuff, which I'm almost done with, I plan to have another section on how fantasy cultures react to gladiators. In addition to realistic gladiator types, I want to do something with different styles of gladiator based on fantasy classes and fighting styles. After that, I've already got some great ideas for magic items and feats, spells, the usual D20 crunchiness. SHould be a fun project, and I'll probably have a draft to Louis in a week or two.

I've finished the script for the Eleusinian Covenant, and I've got a free 6 page preview going up on RPGNow soon. I'm going to wait up a couple of weeks to get some money together for art. Though I've been doing decent sales wise, the last few months most of the profits have been going to mundane upkeep and expenses, not back into the art budget. So I now have to wait a bit for The Eleusinian Covenant to come out. No big. Hopefully the preview will tide you over and get some interest out there.

Anyhow, talk to you all later,
CHRIS

The Dragonbound Core Class is done!

Last night, I finished up the Dragonbound Core Class. I ended up expanding it to about 35 pages, plus front and back covers, title page and OGL for a total of 38 pages of nice, dragon-ridey goodness. I had originally planned it as a 15 pager, but I ended up finding a lot of great stock illustrations, and some extra inspiration hit.

I picked up the 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual, which is one of the greatest gaming sourcebooks of all damn time at my local used bookstore last week. I wanted to make something fantasy-related that was half that cool.

So the Dragonbound should be up soon, I sent her off to Mark earlier today, and I've got another couple of releases in the pipeline, ready to hit. Expect a short Psi-Watch supplement (that actually gets referenced in Dragonbound!)and another Adventurer Essential, once Mark sorts out the cover layout and gives it a few final tweeks.

Right now, I'm playing around with a few Otherverse America releases. Take a look at this image I've been working on. It's a photomanip of stock art I found at SXC, and will likely become the cover to the meta-porn industry sourcebook. I'll be doing some more work on it before publication, but I kinda like how it looks now.

Finally, check out this awesome video I found of a public performance in LA. The girls are absolutely adorable, the cuteness is overwhelming and I can't get this fucking song out of my head. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTSxsYHZXm8

Talk to you later,
CHRIS

Charts are still my nemesis....

My least favorite part of laying out a PDF is doing the charts. Especially since my Adobe Pagemaker from my old harddrive no longer works quite right with my new operating system. The charts are only printing every third letter now, right in the middle of the text no matter what I do.

So I just downloaded Cute PDF and some other free PDF production software and I'm going to see what works. I've been having good luck with freeware lately. I downloaded GIMP 2.6 last week, and I really like it. It does everything my old Corel Photo-Paint did, and the interface is pretty intuitive.

Today and tomorrow I'm going to spend learning Cute PDF and seeing if I can pull a few short releases together. If it works, expect a new adventurers essential release and a short Psi-Watch supplement: think a D20 version of Marvel Zombies. I'm almost done with the Eleusinian Covenant sourcebook. As it stands right now, it's about 30 pages, and is pretty much complete. However, I sorta have an instinct about when a sourcebook is 'done' and this one isn't quite there yet. It's missing one or two pages of text, one or two additional concepts.... hopefully I'll add those in and release it in the next couple of days.

After that, I've got another Otherverse America release on deck, focusing on the post-human porn industry. Should be a fun one. I expect it to run about 40-50 pages, and at about the same time I want to release another 10-12 page PDF on minor Lifer street criminals and that subculture.

Beyond that, expect some fantasy.
Anyway, talk to you all later.

Blessed Be,
CHRIS

Your Mission, If You Choose to Accept it....

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned I popped up on TVTropes.org in as an example of the trope "Even Evil Has Standards." So now I find myself wanting more appearances under my belt, and while I know I could just post whatever I wanted myself, that seems in some vaguely defined internet code of conduct as non-kosher.

So I leave it to you, all three and a half of my fans.

Add Otherverse America anywhere you think it's appropriate. My first targets: I really, really want to see the setting's Neo-Witch Midwives mentioned on the Swiss Army Appendage page, and the setting as a whole definitely deserves to be on the Divided States of America page.

Anyway, talk to you later, I'm off to catch myself some dinner.
CHRIS

I've got a backlog and a new idea....

Yesterday night I took inventory and I've got 7 or 8 projects of various length in the drawer, and awaiting art or layout. Mark is handling most of those, because when my computer crashed, I lost my image editing capabilities. I just got a new program, Manga Studio to replace the old Corel Painter I was using to edit art, and lay out covers, page borders, ect.... unfortunately it's a beast of a program, and it's going to take me a little bit of time to get spun up on it.

My completed projects include the print edition of Fantasy Firearms, of which I've seen an awesome, spot-on screen copy, and Black Tokyo II. We're still collecting art for that one, but in terms of writing, it's done. I've finished my Dragonrider 20 level core class, and I'm just awaiting layout on that sucker. Like a new Adventurer Essential release dealing with alchemical items and mad science, Dragonbound will be illustrated mostly with stock art, so it should come together pretty quickly.

Finally, I've got another couple of Fantastic Races of the Otherverse releases on deck.

So with a nice catalog of smaller and easily sold PDFs, not to mention a pair of more ambitious works, I've got nice a nice cushion as I start up a new Otherverse America sourcebook.

Yesterday I started seriously writing up a faction-splat focusing on the Choicer's Eleusinian faction, who worship Demeter and Kore as a dual goddess. It's a lot of fun for me, building a fictional culture from nothing deciding what they believe, what elements of real world paganism to include, what to modify and what to ignore. It's unbelievably satisfying to sit back with a completed script and know that I've answered all the big questions about what is (intentionally) a very weird, post-human culture.

What's interesting for me as a pagan author is that when I wrote Coven of Bast, I had no real emotional connection to the Goddess Bast (though that changed, when I got my cat). By contrast, Demeter and Kore's story was one of the first myths I ever read, and it's always resonated with me. In a way, that story is emblematic of paganism to me, so making a sourcebook about a futuristic country that worships the same is both a challenge and a treat.

As a pagan, I want to build this bad ass fictional society, this fantastic vision of a country without Christianity as a teaching tool almost, like I'm saying "Look, this is what COULD be." As a sci-fi author though, I realize that making a shiny happy utopia where everything is perfect all the time is BORING AS FUCK.

That sorta leads into something I've noticed about Otherverse America. The Lifer nation- the ostensible villains- are the real protagonists. They're the ones dissatisfied with the status quo, the ones who have the agenda. Left to their own devices, the Choicers would get up in the morning, go to work, occasionally do a ritual, improve their bionics, watch the 22nd century version of TV and have lots and lots of sex. Utopias are boring... unless some outside force starts poking the utopia with a stick.

Anyway, there's two things that have been sticking in my head as I've been gathering stock art, arranging for commissioned artwork and doing research into the new book, two series I've been re-reading as I prepare to write. One is Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, because the Edenists are very similar to how I envision the Choicers: very, very well educated, high-tech post-Christian utopians who none the less have one of the most kick ass militaries in space.

On the other hand, you've got Brian Azzarello's 100 Bullets comic series, which features the Skull & Bones esque "Trust" as central villans. As I started writing I realized that this sourcebook would also deal alot with the elite families of the Choicer nation, especially the Nicellos bloodline.

Looking back on what I've written so far I realized something, I mean I knew it when I wrote it, but just now do I realize how WEIRD it is.... the Choicer nation is ludacriously well funded. They've got a full scale first rate military, allied superheroes that are pretty much equivalent to having the X-Men on permanent retainer, a couple of orbital elevators and a fuckin' space program! Compare that to now when the real world pagans in my neck of the woods meet for Sabbat get-togethers at a local coffee shop and do rituals in somebody's back yard. The conceptual gulf is pretty wide, you gotta admit.

So I realized that this sourcebook, is a good place to finally explain how the Choicers are able to afford all their cool toys.

Anyway, I'll be done with my Eleusinian sourcebook pretty soon.
Blessed Be,

CHRIS

Some good news for once....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37645422/ns/politics-decision_2010/

Wow, Florida governor Charlie Crist (i)just vetoed a law that would have forced pregnant women seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound in an attempt to dissuade the abortion by A) forcing them to pay for an additional, unnecessary and expensive medical procedure B) force abortion providers into bankruptcy by forcing them to absorb the costs of this additional procedure or C) flat out guilt-ing them into not going through with the abortion.

And Gov. Crist said no.

Awesome. This guy, who is himself a pro-lifer, realized the evil and intentional secondary aspects of this law, and he vetoed it for exactly the same reasons I would have, had I been in power.

Do you have any idea how much courage that took?

I've lived in Florida for almost a year and a half while I was in the Navy. It's.... it's probably the worst state in the union in terms of reproductive and religious freedom. Conservative and religious to a degree where bigotry and violence are sacraments. Florida gave us lovely little "Choose Life" license plates while also giving us Paul Hill and his rampage. Pensacola itself holds the record for most church-ridden city on the planet. Per capita, Pensacola has more repressive churches than Saudi Arabia or Taliban controlled Afghanistan.

I have no idea what else Charlie Crist stands for and I don't care, because he got this one thing- the most important thing- right. Gov. Crist said some things that needed to be said, and if any of you live in Florida, please reward him for his courage come the next election. There's going to be alot of dull-eyed, Bible thumping fools voting against him because of his stand, so I'm sure Gov. Crist can use all the help he can get.

Blessed be,
CHRIS