[Dawning Star] Check out these stats for Helios Rising!

[Justin D. Jacobson]

The release of Helios Rising is fast approaching. I'm happy to report that editing is 100% done and layout is 98% done. Danilo's just finishing up a few more of his amazing illos. (If you haven't checked out the Helios Rising Art Preview yet, what are you waiting for?) So, I thought I'd have some fun and tally up the crunch. Here goes:

37 fully detailed locations (most of them mapped)
59 adventure hooks (paragraph-long--not just a sentence or two)
27 new feats
275 new pieces of equipment (weapons, armor, gear--all illustrated)
30 fully statted and illustrated starships
34 fully statted and illustrated xenomorphs
42 fully statted NPCs
12 playable PC species (all illustrated)
7 fully statted robots
17 new occupations
27 new talents
31 new character classes (including species classes)
18 new psionic powers (specially designed for "Red Truth")

With all that, you'd think this was just some massive complition of empty game mechanics. Not so! The book is pretty well 50/50 between fluff and crunch. It's just that fluff is a lot harder to quantify.

And for those who entered the page-count contest, no, we don't have a final count yet (since we're still finishing up a few items, e.g., the massive index).

 

[genshou]

If you post one more of these things to wet my tastebuds, I'm going to be dehydrated. (It's a good thing. )

Hurry up and get released! I can't take the agony of waiting...

 

[Khairn]

Justin ... I agree with genshou !

Enough with the teasing tid-bits!

 

[andrew_kenrick]

You missed the most important stats out! How many pages is it, how much will it be and, most important of all, when is it out!?!

 

[enworldatemylogin]

You missed the most important stats out! How many pages is it, how much will it be and, most important of all, when is it out!?!

He can't answer the page count, that would spoil the contest. Guess the page count and you could win!

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

You missed the most important stats out! How many pages is it, how much will it be and, most important of all, when is it out!?!

It will be approximately 550 pages. (I can't give you a specific page count yet because there are are couple of additional things we'll be adding, e.g., the index. I'm working on that this week.) It will be $44.95 for the print version and $17.95 for the pdf version. We will be starting pre-orders for the print version through Indie Press Revolution shortly. If you pre-order the print version, you will get a free copy of the pdf version as soon as it's released. The pdf version will be released on or before July 15th. The print version will be released at Gen Con.

Hope that answers all the questions and thanks for your interest. This has been a labor of love for everyone involved--emphasis on both "labor" and "love".

Oh, and for the record the page-count contest is closed. Barring something bizarre, it looks like we'll have two winners who happened to guess the same number of pages. We'll make an official announce once we finalize the complete manuscript.