Burrowowl

Today Privateer Press announced their first departure from the Iron Kingdoms setting in a major release. First they had the Iron Kingdoms RPG setting, released as d20 supplements. Then came WARMACHINE, a miniatures tactical game that is set in the Iron Kingdoms. It has been doing really quite well, spawning a stand-alone expansion game called HORDES that shares the setting, timeline, and several major characters. This past year Infernal Contraption was released, a card game based on the Iron Kingdoms take on goblins and the Iron Kingdoms concept of mechanika. This one’s a more complete departure: Kaiju. That’s right, giant rubber monsters, teams of super-men, the Tokyo Tower being destroyed over and over again…

I’m not quite sure what to make of this descent into matters so clearly weeaboo.

Monsterpocalypse Preview

Over a year ago, I started up my most recent game-mastering endeavor in the Iron Kingdoms, an adventure pitting a Morrowan monk, a priest, and an Ordic nobleman against a series of Orgoth tombs, all seeking out a personal relic of Morrow Himself. The specifics of the relic were unknown to the adventurers. The details of a monastery raid were long lost to time, as the Orgoth had rather thoroughly defaced their records and monuments at the end of their occupation four hundred years ago. Of the original party members, only Lord Farad Zacharo, retired Capitan of the Ordic Army, the eldest son of a minor Castellan family loyal to Baird Cathor II, survived to see this task completed.
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Several things have come up in the past week or so about the creators of my favorite campaign setting, the Iron Kingdoms.

• The Monsternomicon Volume II has been officially delayed to early July. (link)
• Founding staff artist Brian Snoddy‘s last project with the Privateers was the Monsternomicon Volume II. He finished his part in that project back in November and has since moved on to other things. (link)
• Mike and Alison McVey, two notables involved in the miniatures and hobby-arts aspects of the Privateer Press product lines, have moved back to England and are no longer affiliated with the company, (link)

My, but that’s a lot to chew on. The departure of Snoddy is quite a blow. Years ago when I was first exposed to the Witchfire Trilogy, it was the outstanding black and white artwork that first hooked my attention and helped shape my conception of the setting. I very much look forward to whatever his next project is.

A while ago I installed a copy of Mediawiki for giggles. I wasn’t dead-set on what I wanted to do with it, so I figured I’d put some old Iron Kingdoms web forum content into it. The Privateer Press server has had issues in the past with its search tool, so having a bunch of info at my fingertips on a server that isn’t likely to be bogged down seemed like a reasonably-good idea. Problem: I didn’t populate it in an automated fashion and copying & pasting hundreds of forum posts is tedious. Horribly tedious. I’ll have to muster an army of wikimonkeys to get that task completed, or get an awful lot better at HTTP scripting.

Enter the Spirit of the Century SRD, a website containing the OGL information from Evil Hat Productions’ new RPG. Since it’s open content, I can wrench on it just like the FATE 2.0 rules, but secure in the knowledge that I’m dealing with something that isn’t about to be made horribly outdated by FATE 3.0. What a great chance to kickstart a stalled Iron Kingdoms conversion while brushing up on my wiki-editing skills. I haven’t gotten very far into things just yet, as there is a lot of 1920′s pulp fiction baggage built into the pre-set skills, stunts, and such, which will take some time to properly remove.

So if you’re interested in an Iron Kingdoms Roleplaying Game that isn’t caught up in the sacred cows and proud nails of the d20 game system, come on down to the Gobbernomicon and chip in a bit. The Resources, Gadgets & Gizmos, and Character Ideas articles are in particularly dire need, though any constructive input is appreciated.

*Edit March 6, 2007: Hey neat, somebody else has been working on an IK conversation of Spirit of the Century, here.

Many moons ago, a company called Privateer Press released a book called the IKCG after years of teeth-gnashing delays, setbacks, consternation, and a change in the core ruleset from d20 3.0 to d20 3.5. In the scramble to convert 400+ pages of content to the new rules, a fair amount of quality control issues slipped through the cracks. Some of the numbers don’t add up, some of the tables contradict the text, there are some rather amusing typos, and so forth.

But hark, news arrives via a mailing list:

Actually we are working on an official errata document for the IKCG to be released at the first of the year.

Paraphrasing the upcoming errata, the Gun Mage will be able to avoid spell failure in light armor as part of his spell focus ability with his pistol. This means if you are not holding your pistol, you will have a chance of spell failure for being in armor. This is different than the wording in the Bard class concerning casting in light armor.

-Nathan Letsinger

Nate Letsinger is the director of the Iron Kingdoms RPG line, and hence in a position to authoritatively make such claims. Since an online errata document isn’t subject to the vagaries of the printing process, and the Privateers already have a tried-and-true FAQ-and-errata web interface (here), I have higher hopes for this “first of the year” release date than I might have for other Iron Kingdoms products.