Burrowowl

I know that the publishing world isn’t a democracy, but some thoughts about the IKCG sneak peek have been percolating in my head since I first read it:

1. The book will be starting on what is, for me, a low point: character creation excesses. By this I mean there will be additional Prestige Classes, variant class versions (such as the Fellcaller adaptation of the Bard class) and my personal favorite, more feats. Prestige Classes and additional feats have padded d20 material since the inception of the OGL, and I can only hope that the folks at Privateer Press were able to keep it in their pants.

   Considering that the Lock & Load Character Primer already details much of the Iron Kingdoms variations from D&D canon, so this section should be mercifully brief.

2. The second section is to be a “tour of Western Immoren,” exactly the kind of information a Campaign Guide needs. They promise “everything a manky git should know…” about a variety of places and ethnicities of the IK. I very much look forward to this content, as this is the kind of data a DM really needs in a pre-fab gameworld. Without information such as this, why run another person’s campaign setting at all?

3. Continuing on this line, the third section entails daily life in the Iron Kingdoms. I am a bit concerned that this will ammount to a big equipment listing, but every campaign setting has a place for such things. If this turns out to be 30 pages of equipment tables, I certainly hope that it is exhaustive and I won’t have to go flipping through multiple books to determine the market price of a Scimitar vs. a Greatsword vs. a Military Pistol.

4. The fourth section again is a great cause for hope: details on the Enkheiridion, creation myths, and other religious details that’ll make running a Cleric more productive (both from a roleplaying and a roll-playing perspective). In the Iron Kingdoms game I presently participate in, the details of Morrowan religious observation are possibly the biggest hangup around.

   I just hope that Cyriss doesn’t get shorted. I see that cult as having huge possibilities.

5. Additional information about Cryx, Rhul, and Ios will be welcome additions, and more details about each individual kingdom will be in there. Just some basic information about the political structures of Khador, Ord, Llael, and Cygnar will be very welcome. Although direct participation in political mischeif may not be every player’s cup of tea, it is always good to have a firm understanding of the foundations of whatever the current political (and thereby military) situation is.

   Good info on the Protectorate of Menoth, Cryx, Cygnar, and Khador can be found in the Warmachine: Prime book as they relate to purely military matters, though some interesting insight can be found in Cygnar’s political structure there as well. Though as a rule I don’t care for lots of repetition between sourcebooks, I look forward to the IKCG having a solid, coherant picture of each kingdom and Western Immoren as a whole.

6. Then they will be moving on to History. If you don’t know where you’ve been, you’ll have a heck of a time telling where you’re going. A good grounding in what lead to what over the years can provide additional insight into the mindset of typical NPCs from most areas (you’ll never understand how the French and English feel about each other without some solid history lessons, and it probably holds true in the IK as well).

   I fear that if equipment, feats, and prestige classes are out of hand elsewhere in this book, the history is most likely to receive the brown end of the stick.

7. The book will wrap up with the part I’ve really been waiting for before launching my own Iron Kingdoms campaign: Magic. I don’t particularly care about the 20 new clerical domains, 15 tweaked domains, and so forth: unless they’ve really pulled a rabbit out of their collective hat I’ll read that part last after a quick skim

   The real meat of the magic changes that I look forward to revolve around how, at least among Humans, arcane magic is new and in serveral ways untested. Knowledge of an Astral or Ethereal plane are non-existant (there may not even be such things, but no mortal knows). Planar travel is limited to a generally-accepted one-way trip to Urcaen (upon death, no return flights available). How severely do the Privateers think this should affect arcane spells? How do summoning spells work? Has any wizard even bothered creating the “dimensional anchor” spell? Do Gates, Dimension Door, or Teleport work? How about Blink? Inquiring minds want to know.

   Additionally, we’ve been told that magic item creation is a bit more difficult in the IK than other gameworlds, but have had no hard and fast rules to rely upon. The addition of mechanikal elements supposedly facilitates the process, and we’ll finally have some more complete explanations and guidelines to this effect. I personally envision of a more magic-poor realm than that depicted in Warmachine (I figure some dramatic liscense was in order for a tactical wargame), but having some solid guidelines for when a character wants to “trick out” his rifle or whatnaught would come in handy.

Overall I’m quite looking forward to this book, and will certainly be purchasing a copy for myself. With no solid assurances that this 300+ page tome will have its content properly distributed (light on feats, heavy on campaing setting), and with no solid credibility in the publication timeline (they’re only human, but it is about 2 years overdue now), I see this as a great opportunity for Privateer Press to really come into its own, and with our support, they may be able to quit their day jobs.

The kind folks over at Privateer Press are at it again, teasing and tantalizing me. This time it comes in the form of a rather juicy web rework for their main site, complete with tidbits of information of the long-anticipated Iron Kingdoms Campaign Guide.

Apparently amongst such problems as routine editorial reworks and a pen-arm injury for their lead artist (Brian Snoddy, if I haven’t mentioned it before, is a badass), they’re also trying for D&D 3.5 compliance. Luckily they didn’t announce this two weeks ago, or I may have been rather upset with them. As you would know if you’ve been reading Dragon Magazine or rapid fanboy sites (I suppose this qualifies), there are some rather serious game-mechanism changes happening in 3.5, not all of which I am excited about. However, my generous employer is buying me the 3.5 rulebooks now, no money out of pocket, so I won’t have to blame the PP crew for forcing me to shell out $60.00+ for a new ruleset. I’ll already have had the new core rules for several months by the time IKCG comes out.

Speaking of which, there is additional information now available that projects a release this fall (“…we expect to be sending the book to press near the end of the summer, and shipping it shortly after that…” per their site yesterday). This should give my DM plenty of time to kill us off before I restart my Temple of Elemental Evil campaign. Work progresses, slowly, on the Iron Kingdoms conversion of that particular mega-adventure, along with ample samplings from the Lock & Load Character Primer, the Monsternomicon, and the Book of Vile Darkness. We’ll see how well some of my editorial decisions mesh with the new 3.5 ruleset and the IKCG. Only time will tell, as I keep saying.

With Wizards of the Coast working hard to get us all to pick up three new core rulebooks, they’ve been trickling out details of changes for months now via Dragon Magazine and the official D&D website.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve seen their teasers for the Ranger and Druid classes in specific. These classes, along with the Bard, have been the red-headed stepchildren of the main character classes. Generally speaking, I would consider this to be right and fitting (I still think of Cleric, Fighter, Thief, and Wizard as the proper D&D character archetypes).

However, they’re making a big push to right all the perceived wrongs with the 3.0 d20 system. Rangers will have fewer hit points, more skill points, and a more useful “Favored Enemy” system. Druids will have some serious improvements to the “Wild Shape” class ability, and pick up a spontaneous-casting ability for “Summon Nature’s Ally.” In addition, Wilderness Lore and Intuit Direction have been merged into a single skill “Survival” and “Animal Empathy” has been dropped in favor of a new skill available only to Rangers & Druids that functions much like “diplomacy” but only for creatures of animal intelligence.

I’m not sold on it yet, but amongst my coworkers I’m sure I’ll be able to browse the finished product and see how it all balances out. Supposedly each of the main classes will be more fully balanced and useful, with an eye toward accentuating the distinctions of the mongrel classes of Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, Paladin, and Ranger. Word is that Sorcerers (also a mongrel class IMHO) are practically unchanged apart from some reworded spell rules that also apply to Wizards.

Time will tell.

Two things:

1. Kudos on the elegant, concise remarks regarding web standards over at Daring Fireball:
   

   If Daring Fireball looks like shit in your browser, you’re using a shitty browser that doesn’t support web standards.

2. A colophon, per the damned dictionary is a finishing touch, an inscription at the end of a book or manuscript. If you are a blogger that uses the term “colophon” to describe the content on your site that describes the production of the site, please place it appropriately. Thank you for your cooperation.

Read or Die is a very nicely-done manga and a related 3-part OVA chronicling the adventures of Yomiko Readman, superpowered secret agent for the British government. Now don’t take this to mean that she’s one of those super-cool British secret agents with a “I’m a badass” attitude and cool technology and weapons. Nope, she’s a bookworm. A socially inept recluse that works for the government to enable her reading habits. Her superpower consists entirely of an affinity with paper, hence her codename “The Paper.” She can do just about anything with paper, able to use it as a weapon, shield, vehicle, and multipurpose powertool as need be. Rather neato.

The OVA is definitely of a far more mature and sober nature than the rather silly comic, with far more drama and much less comic relief, but I highly recommend both.

I’ve been reading the Read or Die manga, courtesy of the kind folks at mangaproject.cjb.net and I had the pleasure of seeing a fansub of the animated version.

Rely upon the fansub no longer, and support this super-plus-excellent work by buying the commercial DVD.