Warning: Finalizing Backerkit in next few days
over 2 years ago – Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 06:27:15 PM

I'm now staring at a draft with three incomplete monsters, some tweaking, and front and back matter to finish. I anticipate having all of that done today.

That means that for the 23 people who have not completed their survey, it's go-time.

• At the end of tomorrow:
• If you are a digital order with zero balance, I shall process your order as-is.
• If you have a physical order and have not filled out your survey, you will be downgraded to an equivalent digital order, a refund processed for any balance, and the order locked.
• If you are in the "follow the campaign" tier, the campaign is now over, and I'll process those out.

I anticipate having a draft that's ready for eyeballing on Monday, and after that, there shall be a 10-day errata period. My intent is to finalize the book as a printable PDF and cover file and submit to my printer on or about Feb 14, giving a week before they say they'd be ready to start actually printing to finalize files.

So we're on schedule, but for the two-dozen folks with pending surveys: this is your moment.

Almost Ready for Bestiary Prelim PDF Distribution
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 08:41:22 AM

So, today I finished the prose section of the draft.  That means the Table of Contents now looks like this:

There's almost certainly tweaking to be done here.

And I know there's stuff remaining to do inside the monsters themselves. I need to finish two important monsters: the lich needs its spell list and there's a dragon to be made. I think I want to try and find a bit of space here and there for some more lore on demons.

I need to finish the front and back matter, have maybe 20-25 pieces of art to insert that are pending real soon now. Those are necessary for printing but not for preliminary distribution.

In any case, I hope to get most of the new monsters today, polish up the front matter a bit. Probably lay out this page again, because currently I kinda hate how it looks:

I've got a few ideas here, and they should be visual improvements.

For the rest, once the missing content is done (today), it's a matter of going through each and every monster for a detail read, typos, formatting, and ensuring that critters have kept up with the evolution of the draft.

Going through all 190-200 creatures will take time, but not THAT much time. Probably 3-6 per hour, which means I can probably get all of the detail-read done in about four days, including tomorrow. That suggests on or before Jan 31 you'll have a PDF to scour, and report errata. I'll have more to say on that later.

I've also been having folks actually take the creatures out for test-fights against anywhere from 62 to 550 point characters - the lowest was testing the baenadyrid against a single 62-point knight built to be a shield expert, and the highest a party of 5 from 500-700 point characters going up against the logaskuggi. In between, parties of 250-350 pointers trialed out against some of the apex monsters, to good results.

In any case, once the full book has gone to the printer, I'll spool out the cards and get a separate file to Nick and Nose and we'll start the VTT assets. The token pack will be very fast once all the artwork is in.

So...that's where we are.

Seeking: GURPSy Medical Professionals
over 2 years ago – Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 01:19:55 PM

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Major Milestone: All creatures in preliminary draft are laid out
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 01:06:56 AM

So, this is fantastic news. My goal was to hit all the layout in at least preliminary form by today, which gives me a solid week to get the prose, table of contents, indices, and other bits in place. 

So: expect a PDF that all nearly 700 of you can start looking at in a week or so. 

The files are to be sent to the printer for review Feb 15, with an expected print-start date of Feb 23. At this time, I am still on track for that date.

I expect to get the bulk of the remaining artwork sorted out this weekend.

So...looking good, no surprises yet, etc.

Preliminary testing of the critters is turning out pretty well. I hope that once folks get the book, they'll grab it, maybe take some pre-gens from Hall of Judgment, or the lower-point-value samples from Delvers to Grow, and do some test fights, and give me an email for a read-out. Nothing is entirely set in stone until the book goes to the printer, so there's room for tweakage! Though sanity must of course prevail.

Let's Talk About Fight Club
over 2 years ago – Mon, Jan 17, 2022 at 10:48:12 PM

Status

So, I'm coming down to the end, in a way. I'm down to five monsters.

• An example dragon
• Totally not a pit fiend, I swear
• Two alfar nobles
• A worked example of a lich

The lich is basically the same as the one in the Monsters book, except all the spells and details are worked out for the user, rather than all of that being homework. 

I've still got to check about 8,000 spreadsheet cells to ensure they're correct, and go from "spreadsheet" to formal layout. Those are not short tasks, but once they're done, the book gets really close to being ready - at least the monsters part. There's a prose section I have to finish too. And front matter and such. But really, it's close. I'm not sure if I can get something shareable in a week...but I'm going to try.

Help Wanted

Some of the creatures - especially what I call "apex" creatures, are supposed to be powerful. They are meant to challenge a full party of delvers. Others are actually designed more as speed-bumps. But, as Seraph said in The Matrix Reloaded: "The only way you can truly know someone is to fight them."

So I'm asking: Who wants to do some test-fights?

I'd be looking for folks willing to take a monster, fight them against a party of four to six characters with strength between 62 and 250 points (using Delvers to Grow if you have access to it for the lower point value characters), and let me know how it goes. Maybe try a few different scenarios, if you have time.

Not all the monsters need to be adventurer-killin' wrecking machines. But some may be in the wrong league for their intent.

The goal is to get feedback to me by roughly February 7, a week before the book files go to the printer for review. In all cases, sooner is better.

If you're interested, please drop me an email at [email protected] and I'll get you some critters to battle.