[PR] Secret College of Necromancy Preview

A four-page free preview of Green Ronin's upcoming book, Secret College of Necromancy, is now available at www.greenronin.com

Written by 2nd edition AD&D architect David "Zeb" Cook and former Dragon Magazine editor Wolfgang Baur, Secret College of Necromancy is packed with information for Game Masters and players alike, including:

* Two new core classes: the necromancer and the death knight.
* 72 new necromancy spells, including spells of two new types: mortal
curses and dark pacts.
* New feats and magic items, plus full descriptions of 8 infamous tomes.
* 8 new monsters, including the death angel, the flayed man, and the
blood golem.
* The Secret College, a complete, city-based necromantic organization.
* Detailed locations like the Winter Manor and the Charnel House.
* Full stat blocks for key members of the Secret College.

Secret College of Necromancy is the second in Green Ronin’s Arcana series, and all 112 pages will be available in perfect bound form at the end of May. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the sample spells and other materials in the four-page preview of this dark tome!


--
Green Ronin Publishing
PO Box 1723
Renton, WA 98057-1723

Cover question...

Why is it that many of your previous covers featured corpses illustrated by that Brom guy (who seems to specialize in drawing corpses - I noticed some of the Deadlands covers are by him, and all also feature corpses), even when they didn't really have anything to do with the product (the first 3 Freeport books).

But for a product which is about corpses and the people who love them, you don't use one of Brom's corpse covers. Not that the cover for this is bad, it's actually decent, just noting the irony.

At any rate, the preview looks impressive.

Re: Cover question...

trancejeremy said:

Why is it that many of your previous covers featured corpses illustrated by that Brom guy (who seems to specialize in drawing corpses - I noticed some of the Deadlands covers are by him, and all also feature corpses), even when they didn't really have anything to do with the product (the first 3 Freeport books).

Click to expand...

Trancejeremy, you make me laugh!

Ok, here's how the cover story goes: When Chris was setting up Green Ronin, D20 had not yet launched and no one what certain what it was going to do. When Chris decided to do D20, he knew the importance of having a strong and professional launch, and BROM is professional, recognized, strongly associated with D&D already, and a brilliantly talented artist. I had just had a very positive experience working with BROM when I was at Cheapass Games (the BROM Button Men set specifically) and was frankly thrilled to recommend him.

Another issue for the launch of the Freeport Trilogy was that Chris anticipated the rush of products to come out in the successful wake of 3E. Chris looked for someone who could provide three cover paintings that had a cohesive look that would enable him to establish Freeport as a brand and get some recognition on the shelf. BROM was able to give GR three covers in a similar style when we needed it most: because of the cycle for soliciting to distributors, a publisher has to have cover art in hand 4-6 months in advance for solicitations.

As for the "covers have nothing to do with the books" comment, I've heard that before but I respectfully disagree. When Chris chose the cover for Death in Freeport, I thought it was very appropriate, not because the cover depicts some specific scene from the adventure or anything, but because it resonates with the title, emphasizing the "Death" angle, and there is an encounter with skeletons in the adventure, so I certainly considered it good enough. The second cover has the least to do with the contents, but since the first and third covers were already decided, the cover for the second adventure needed to keep in the same vein to hold the trilogy together. The cover of Madness in Freeport, however, has *everything* to do with the adventure! The figure on the cover *is* Milton Drac, the big baddie who has plagued our heroes from the start. Doesn't get more relevant than that.

As for why we're not using BROM for Secret College, well, again there are several reasons. First, there's no need to make it look like the other books in the Freeport series or the Book of Fiends series (the GR products that used BROM covers). Second, other D20 companies also got BROM covers for their products, which meant that there was less strategic advantage to using BROM's work to "set us apart" on the shelf. Mostly, though, we just have a lot of really, really talented artists working with us on many projects, and we're honored to have the likes of rk post willing to paint covers for us. I think rk did a cool, creepy job with this cover, and it's certainly unlike anything else on the shelves at the moment, so it scores high on the "set us apart on the shelf" scale (which is certainly important in today's crowded market).

I know you didn't *really* want this long, rambly answer to your one-off crack about our cover, but I've been feeling like giving this explanation for a while now anyway, so you just gave me the opportunity.

Nicole

So Nikky, exactly how many new spells will there be? Will there be some necromancer Pr-classes available? How about details about this school/college mentioned in the title? Any other tidbits you want to pass along?

page 2 of the pdf (42 of the book) at the end of the right column, does the T&B refer to tome and blood?

if yes, will we see further partnership between WotC and GR on reference of published WotC books?

Blacksad said:

page 2 of the pdf (42 of the book) at the end of the right column, does the T&B refer to tome and blood?

if yes, will we see further partnership between WotC and GR on reference of published WotC books?

Click to expand...

Yes, we got permission from WotC to reference spells from Tome and Blood and OA. As for the second question, possibly. This particular agreement was only for Secret College of Necromancy.

So how many souls did that cost you Chris? I can't imagine they'd let you use something that wasn't OGL alright with out a hefty price involved.

Since Chris was once the manager of a punk band, and Nikky once published a magazine, they were out as contributors.

So, Nikky, who's souls did you sell to Wizards?

Alan, who soul is on loan at a high rate of interest)

mythusmage said:

Since Chris was once the manager of a punk band, and Nikky once published a magazine, they were out as contributors.

So, Nikky, who's souls did you sell to Wizards?

Click to expand...

Ok, what's up with all the people coming out of the woodwork calling me Nikky these days? Mongoose Matt, look what you started!

Y'all forget that I do have a cute-as-a-buttong first born child to offer up in times of need. (I'm planning to put her to work selling our Welcome to Freeport t-shirts and Assassin's Handbooks at GenCon. Who can resist a sweet little girl who will smile and say "Can I offer you some Evil?" as she hands you a D20 sourcebook? )

Nicole

Okay well then I guess I'll just be wary of children bearing evil!

Would you perfer I called Nik then? Perhaps Nikki? or what about Nickwhickwoo?