We are narrowing down the mechanic drafts through play tests. The current mechanic iteration is reasonably playable based on our last session. Minimal hiccups or need for clarification. The current core rules consists of about 18 pages. This is a playable packet that includes a set of Talents, Archetypes and the Human Heritage. We’re working on balancing encounter creation to character capabilities. Having a system that isn’t constrained by ‘levels’ for character advancement makes scaling encounters a bit trickier. Of course, this gets even more complex as you increase the number of characters in the party.
Talents seem to be the goal posts to leverage for balance. improving the Talents for enemy NPCs definitely makes them more formidable. We also determined after our last session that allowing characters to begin play with even a few maxed out Talents is a bit over powered. We established that improving Talents should be part of the journey through experience so players can feel their character’s growth.
Once we think the core is stable, we’ll get some unrelated guinea… err play testers, to play some adventures using the rules. We will put the word out if we need players.
Production Progress
We have cover and spot artwork for our primary fantasy setting scheduled to begin in June. We also have world map art planned to begin in October sometime. Once complete, if all the writing is done, we’ll dive right into proofing and layout. The target publish date is loosely planned for early ’26. After that goes live, and we’ve had a chance to review how the process worked or didn’t, we will likely start working on another genre setting (sci-fi or modern).
With all the international trade drama we’re glad there’s no planned overseas production for our first product. If all goes well, print on demand and some limited run hard back versions should be an option.
Setting Progress
We’re quickly approaching a shift to setting development to balance out Heritages, Archetypes and any additional Talents that need to be included beyond the core. Having the core mechanics out of the way allows us to really focus in on how we want the setting to feel and play.
I’ve been fleshing out playable Heritages with side tracks into geography and creatures as creativity guides me. I will be roughly detailing regions, realms and notable settlements for various cultures. Many are fairly loose in nature since many established cultures see no real need for large centralized settlements or even lines on a map at all. That might complicate a few things for world politics.
Further from that, there’s details for the primary foes for the setting and their role in the world. They’re dark and nasty without being common, long-term enemies. They will get the same treatment as the playable Heritages and cultures.
Next time, I will try to feature some of the more detailed setting development as it becomes a reality.
