[PR] Preview of Enchiridion of Treasures and Objects d'Art...

[The Sigil]

S.T. Cooley Publishing announces a preview of the Enchiridion of Treasures and Objects d'Art. We originally set today (Dec. 1) as a date for the release of the product - unfortunately, with buying a new home and moving, I got behind schedule. However, here is a little something to whet your collective appetites. The preview is part of Chapter 7, which contains a master list of materials that can be used when crafting items of all stripes. The Preview includes the chapter introduction and the materials beginning with "A" (of which there are 33). Download it here! Note that images of the materials were removed from the preview (out of file size considerations).

I expect to release a Table of Contents preview later this week. I am still pushing to get this sucker released by December 15th, but no promises... as you can see, there is a TON of work involved in doing this! But I'm determined to do it right or not at all.

Feedback and comments welcome.

--Spencer "The Sigil" Cooley

 

[MEG Hal]

If this as good as your first one, you will do fantastic. Good luck Sigil.

As a side note Jim should be getting to you regarding the e-mail you sent to me .

 

[Asathas]

I bought the EoMM and before looking at the preview knew that I'd be buying this one as soon as it comes out. Once I took a look at the preview I was blown away and being honest, it's looking better than I had ever expected.

Definitely on my "must buy" list as soon as it's out.

 

[The Sigil]

I bought the EoMM and before looking at the preview knew that I'd be buying this one as soon as it comes out. Once I took a look at the preview I was blown away and being honest, it's looking better than I had ever expected.

Definitely on my "must buy" list as soon as it's out.

Thanks for the compliments. I neglected to credit my terrific border artist, Fred Simons, in the preview (which I will rectify when I get home from work)... he's responsible for the gorgeous border.

Thanks for the compliments - more teasers (particularly the ToC) soon to come.

--The Sigil

 

[The Sigil]

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

And here's the ToC, as promised (snipped slightly, notes in parentheses are spoilers and may or may not appear in the actual ToC)...

The Enchiridion of Treasures and Objects d'Art
==========
Foreword (by the Author - my little "exposition" of "why I did what I did" and "why it took so long" and a couple of stories about the making of the book)

Chapter 1: Introduction/How to Use This Book (Fairly Brief)

Chapter 2: New Methods, Old Skills (covers Alchemy, Appraise, Craft, Herbalism, Knowledge, Profession, Spellcraft - and the Craft section is a complete rework of the Craft rules for reasons that are explained within the section)

Chapter 3: Ensorcelling Materials (until today, this was Chapter 4, but I decided the book flowed better if I moved it here)

Chapter 4: Treasure Hoard Generation (including generating "random" objects d'art - done from scratch and meant to replace the tables/treasure section in the DMG)

Chapter 5: Item and Material Families (discusses the "broad categories" of items in some detail)

Chapter 6: Special Components (inspired by the HoHF series, and including with gracious permission of Benjamin Durbin adaptations to the new Craft rules of all the stuff in HoHF Dwarves, Half-Orcs, and Elves - Ben was nice enough to send me an advance copy of the Craft section of Elves - thanks, Ben!)

Chapter 7: Materials List, A-Z (you saw A in the preview - and A is just the tip of the iceberg)

Chapter 8: Items List, A-Z (this will include a brief description of each item, with some illustrations, but no game mechanics - though there will be a table of Weight, Craft DC, Standard Material - what they're usually made of, and Standard Market Price broken into material and labor costs. If I tried to do more explaining/detail, this thing would become beyond gigantic and would have to be pushed back another six months - it WILL include some commodities - you can't make a pig out of material other than pig meat, right?)

Appendices:
- New Craft Rules (with heavy Examples)
- New Feats (Feats are interspersed with text, this reprints them all in a single location
- New Spells
- Tables (including lists but not details of Alchemical and Herbalist Items and Commodities - I can't do a better or more thorough treatment of Alchemy/Herbalism than Bastion's Alchemy and Herbalists and Atlas/Penumbra's Occult Lore, so I won't even try - and re-typing them would take WAY too long, so I will simply suggest these as references).
- OGL/Legal

Now, these may change slightly, but this is by and large the format you can expect - and it lets you know what's in here.

More feedback/comments?

--The Sigil

 

[Asathas]

Well... it's the 14th now and I'm eager as hell to get my grubby little mitts on this one. Any chance we can get an update on your progress? Still planning for the 15th? If not it won't kill me but I'm already planning to use this supplement in my campaign and would love to get ahold of it before our next session (next weekend). Thanks so much for all the work and effort you've put into it!

 

[Asathas]

*still got my fingers crossed*

RPGNow shows the EoTaO for release today... any news on whether we'll get to see this one today?

 

[The Sigil]

We MAY get a release very late today, though only if I pull an all-nighter. At this point, I think I am going to have to cut it a little short and release the last part of it as a web enhancement in a couple of weeks.

My optimistic mind says "tonight/early tomorrow AM" though my realistic mind says, "not until January."

Let's put it this way - I'm not 100% happy with the Enchiridion of Mystic Music - I didn't feel it was quite "finished" but it was to the point where I was comfortable putting it out there. I intend to go back and finish it (free update for previous purchasers) after I get the EoTaOdA done. If I can get to the point of "I am comfortable with it as is" on EotaOdA and feel it will take too long to get to "finished", you'll see it at that point.

Mostly, though, I absolutely have to hustle because we're expecting a new baby in a month and after she arrives, I don't know that I'll have a significant block of time to write. Hence the pressure is on me by me.

Keep those fingers crossed - this one WILL be worth the wait!

--The Sigil

 

[The Sigil]

UPDATE: Just finished chatting with my artist. He'll have his illustrations in to me early on Monday (Dec 23) - he's putting the finishing touches on them this weekend.

With that in mind, the release date will be pushed back to Monday (Dec 23). I will have everything ready to go by Monday morning and just wait on the pictures. As soon as I receive the files from him, I will insert them into the Enchiridion, do a quick little format job on it, and release it.

So December 23rd looks to be our firm release date.

I know, promises promises. :-(

--The Sigil

 

[Asathas]

Quite alright... I'll make it a nice little Christmas present to myself.

Just so you know, we're already using one bit from your preview in our campaign. The party's cleric is an NPC (no one wanted to play a cleric) and I'd been looking to make him a bit more interesting. I'm also using Elements of Magic and in a recent level gain, he took on the Companion Creature list and thus gained something of a very, very low-end celestial. I briefly mentioned that the companion's name was Janos at one point and described it as a floating ball of light a few inches across.

In their most recent adventure, the party discovered the remains of a tortured paladin (of the same deity as the party's paladin) when the celestial companion moved up to be just in front of the dead paladin and took on a ghostly human form, briefly touching the cheek of the dead paladin with his hand before resuming his normal form. The party had discovered a journal during this adventure as well which belonged a one of a group of necromancers and found that it described the capture of one Sir Janos and their attempts to subvert him through torture.

To make a long story short, the dead Sir Janos was the son of the animus/soul now housed in the celestial companion. Janos the Younger had a holy symbol (a gold coin at the center of a circular frame of ensorceled black ash wood from your product preview) which the party's paladin has now taken up as his own holy symbol and renamed his character using the phrase "To Honor Janos" in the tongue of his homeland.

Sorry it took me so long to get to the good part regarding your preview but I wanted to include a bit of the history regarding the holy symbol that is based on your product. It's become the party paladin's greatest treasure, has a whole backstory behind it, and it's all due to the inspiration I gained from reading your preview. I can only imagine what inspirations I'll have reading your entire book!