The Author
One of my online gaming compatriots, a previous poster, told me about this thread. I figured I'd be remiss if I didn't check it out and post some thoughts and answers:
First, thank you to all of the people singing From Stone to Steel's praises. I spent a lot of time trying to be both complete and contextual, with varying degrees of success, and I'm really honored to see people appreciate that.
Second, there were definitely errors, omissions, and mistakes. Some I know I'm responsible for, some which came from editing choices, and some which appear to be typos.
Psion, for example, noticed the same thing I did as I skimmed over the Guang Hu in the print form: Meditation for the first three forms doesn't designate the time frame required. Grrr.... That was an early omission on my part, and I did write up an updated version that doesn't appear to have made it to print. That's going to be errata.
Meepo also hit upon something notable: In early drafts, the Materials and Durability rules used to be in the Introduction, and they used to be even more complex. The first chapters were written assuming that those rules were firmly in the reader's mind, and that issues of weapon damage and deterioration would come to the reader's mind from time to time with items like the blowgun. As we fine-tuned the mechanics of the durability system and reworked the flow of the book, early chapters were re-examined, and most erroneous references were removed. Still, as you noted, blowguns have the phrase, 'Blowguns do not take damage from attacking, unlike other weapons.' which is somewhat confusing out of context.
I've noticed a number of little misspellings, typos, compound words broken up, etc.. All of these things will need to be addressed in any later releases of From Stone to Steel.
As for other equipment or more historical meat, all I can say is that I set myself a goal to explore history through weapons and armor, and I tried to balance my approach between history and specificity. I included equipment where it seemed to overlap on my focus, and ignored other equipment that was extraneous to the main narrative. As for cultural context, where there was appropriate information I included what I could. I would have loved to linger on certain cultures longer, just to give a better flavor of them, but I felt, in the long run, that the goal of this book wasn't to be a world culture sourcebook, but a weapons and armor sourcebook which tried to examine the role of culture on said items and the impact of said items on cultures. Again, this was a personal choice, and I must admit that I strayed from this standard from time to time. I think I may have spent too much time on certain parts of Rome and the Crusades, for example, while I wish I had had more resources and opportunity to get down and dirty with Malaysian culture and fighting styles.
In the end From Stone to Steel is how it turned out, and despite the flaws, I am proud of it.
That said, I'm working with the guys at MonkeyGod on errata, and I'd like to make myself available to you folks, to both questions and comments. This book was a labor of love for me, and there was well more than what made it into the book that I had a blast researching and examining. Want to talk a culture? Let's talk! Want to ask me about some of my references to campaign setting options, alternate magic systems, setting flavor choices, or possible extensions? I'd love to! Have a disagreement on my history? I'm sure you're not the only one! Want to keep posting opinions, positive, negative, or indifferent, without my comment? Go for it!
But again, thanks to those of you who have purchased it, and thank you to those who care to make your comments.
