[Atlas] Penumbra Bestiary and MINIS!

[JohnNephew]

Whew!

This week has been hectic at Atlas so far, with our e-mail being on the fritz for two days. In spite (or because) of the lack of internet-related distraction, THE PENUMBRA FANTASY BESTIARY has, at long last, gone to press. All 368 pages, in, what, 8 point type? Well over 200,000 words, in any case. Ugh! I'm going to hurt myself packing the orders for this one.

Today we got a pleasant special something in the mail -- Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary minis, in metal! Some of the very first ones cast by the good folks at Lance & Laser minis. It's a delight to partner with these guys -- I remember way back when I worked at Lion Rampant and they did minis for Ars Magica. You can never have too many monster minis, can you?

 

[spacecrime.com]

{whimper} I want PICTURES of the PRETTY MINIS!

Ok, that's more of a whine.

looking forward to happy cross-selling,

 

[Ashy]

Coolness! John - which critters will be made into minis?

 

[JoeGKushner]

So is this sucker fully 3.5 or ?

 

[Eridanis]

Hooray! So you're looking at having it in stores the same day as the core 3.5 books (7/11/03)? Or are you allowed to release 3.5-compatible material before then?

 

[Voadam]

How many different minis are there of bestiary creatures? Which ones?

 

[JohnNephew]

On the 3.5 topic: No, it's not. It had already been edited and laid out when the 3.5 announcement came out, and was in the process of proofreading. We put a lot of thought into deciding whether to re-edit and re-develop the book, which had already devoured months of staff time. (This sucker is BIGGGGGG! I can see why a lot of people like releasing multiple little 64-page monster books for $15 rather than 368-page monster books for $45...) Ultimately, we decided that it was not sensible to hold it back for even longer to work on 3.5 compatibility. After all, not everyone is upgrading to 3.5; not everyone will know all the 3.5 changes right away; and everyone will be getting used to using pre-3.5 materials anyhow (since it's supposed to be fully backwards-compatible).

An even bigger issue is that there are a gazillion books that publishers are holding back for release with 3.5. There are only so many dollars for distributors, retailers and consumers to allocate to game purchases in a single week, and my concern is that some D20 books released at that time will simply be lost in the shuffle (if a store didn't buy a book when it was brand new, they're not likely to pick it up later). It kind of puts us between a rock and a hard place -- risk losing sales by not being 3.5-compatible, and out only a month or less before 3.5; or risk losing sales because we're one of a flood of d20 titles being released at the same time as the three new core rulebooks.

 

[JohnNephew]

How many different minis are there of bestiary creatures? Which ones?

The bestiary figs we've seen in metal are:

Amphi
Bonethief
Rebuilt
Half-Giant/Gnoll
Bortha

Also on the way are:

Cernan
Cuckoo
Ice Lion
War Dragon

Plus, there are figs to go with Mike Mearls' now-classic adventure, In the Belly of the Beast:

Vog Mor
Lydia
Bruno
Ofec
Tarmalac
Nazzek
Vadgral
Ironcrow

Michelle has already stolen the metal and brought it home (she hoards minis, and has a special fondness for monster figs), but I'll see if I can get a chance to take digital pics over the weekend and post them here!

 

[coyote6]

Out of curiosity (since we may not be going 3.5e), will Atlas be doing a web enhancement with 3.5e conversion info, after 3.5e is out?

 

[JohnNephew]

Out of curiosity (since we may not be going 3.5e), will Atlas be doing a web enhancement with 3.5e conversion info, after 3.5e is out?

Too soon to say, but that's a good idea.

What I'm really hoping to see someone to do is a universal conversion guide...a comprehensive index of changes. That'd be useful for all pre-3.5 items.