Dragon Flower: OCCULT LORE preview at Atlas Games

[JohnNephew]

The subject line pretty much says it all...

Point your browser at http://www.atlas-games.com/pdf_storage/pen_occultlore_dragonflower.pdf to get the newest preview of OCCULT LORE, the 240-page tome of new magical goodness for D20 players. This plant, the Dragon Flower, is from the appendix of herbs. (The book has two appendices -- one of herbs, one of spells, both are all-OGC text, and something close to 70 pages total.)

While this is a preview of a plant actually in the book, we also are pleased that some completely new plants will be appearing in the upcoming GAMING FRONTIERS (as discussed in another thread). That article also, I believe, provides some explanation of terms and stats in this preview which might not make complete sense. (Naturally, OCCULT LORE itself has full details on how to use the plant stats, too.)

Enjoy! And watch for another preview in about a week...

 

[Warchild]

Oh, very nice, John.
Not only does it have so many uses, it immediately fires the imagination. Imagine the players brought into help a farming community (heh) whose is being plagued by a dragon....only to find out that the dragon is trying to stop their production of Wyrm Snare, which the dragon traced back to the "farmers" after use of it led to a couple deaths of the dragon's kin. Make the dragon an evil one and what do the players do? hehe.

One question though, what/where is the Middle Kingdom?
I only ask because i have a Middle Lands in my setting! I swear you guys have got my brain bugged.

 

[trancejeremy]

Not that it hurts, but I don't think this is a book that needs a lot of previews to help sell it. I don't buy a lot of d20 stuff new, but this is one of those things that I plan on buying as soon as I can afford it...(assuming my #$@!! local game store bothers to carry it)

 

[Warchild]

Not that it hurts, but I don't think this is a book that needs a lot of previews to help sell it. I don't buy a lot of d20 stuff new, but this is one of those things that I plan on buying as soon as I can afford it...(assuming my #$@!! local game store bothers to carry it)

I agree. There are quite a few supplements coming out that i am interested in, but only one so far thats a no-brainer. Occult Lore is it. This book sells itself.
Not that i don't mind seeing more previews, however.

 

[Mindcrime]

The Middle Kingdom

One question though, what/where is the Middle Kingdom?

Hi Warchild,

The Middle Kingdom is just a generic term that I used to connote the Orient, more specifically a China analog ("middle kingdom" is a literal translation of "zhong guo", which is the generic name china has been known by for millennia.)

Chris

 

[JohnNephew]

You guys are very flattering. I have to say, though, it's tough not to just about put the whole book on the web -- OCCULT LORE is one of those things that fires me up and makes me want to share, just like when I read a great book, see a fantastic movie, or eat at a really good restaurant (or find a really great bargain on technological toys!). It also makes me want to stop doing my work on other projects and just sit down and make new things with OL's material. And it has so much good stuff for making promo PDFs -- both previews and web enhancements (like new herbs I'm personally itching to create)! I figure that there are a lot of folks already primed to buy the book -- but if we feed the flames and get folks talking more about it in advance, that'll really pay off. I'd love for this book to become one of those "essential D20 reading" items that everyone needs on their shelf...

(The first print run is relatively modest, because we have space issues in the warehouse. My goal, in fact, is to have the whole run sold out before Nyambe arrives on Aug. 1 or thereabouts, so the more people are dying to buy it the day it hits the shelves, the better!)

 

[Warchild]

Re: The Middle Kingdom

Hi Warchild,

The Middle Kingdom is just a generic term that I used to connote the Orient, more specifically a China analog ("middle kingdom" is a literal translation of "zhong guo", which is the generic name china has been known by for millennia.)

Chris

It definitely had an oriental flavor to the language you used. Very good stuff, Chris. I appreciate it.

 

[Warchild]

You guys are very flattering. I have to say, though, it's tough not to just about put the whole book on the web -- OCCULT LORE is one of those things that fires me up and makes me want to share. It also makes me want to stop doing my work on other projects and just sit down and make new things with OL's material.

Well don't do that! I'd like to see you guys produce other products as well!

I figure that there are a lot of folks already primed to buy the book -- but if we feed the flames and get folks talking more about it in advance, that'll really pay off. I'd love for this book to become one of those "essential D20 reading" items that everyone needs on their shelf

I think it will become such an item, it already has for me. Everything in the book seems tailor made for me and thats pretty rare these days. Which is strange considering the amount of diversity there is in the D20 community. I think that thats most likely because a lot of you guys (or most) at Atlas use ideas not based off of the Core D&D Rules and bring them into the D20 mechanic, whereas many other D20 companies produce ideas/mechanics based off actual D&D core rules/mindset. I think i bungled that explanation a good deal, but hopefully you get the gist of it.
One of the first things i plan to do is to write a review of the book, here in the ENWorld review page. Hopefully that will help out.
A quick question. How much of the material is OGC?

 

[JohnNephew]

A quick question. How much of the material is OGC?

Hmm...For a start, the appendices are 100% OGC text and run from pp. 171-236 (and they're in smaller type than the body text of the other chapters). That's more than a quarter of the book's pages, to start with. There's a LOT of OGC in the rest of the book, too. Maybe half of it, or even more? I'd comfortably say at least 50% of the text is OGC, in total. Maybe it's more like 2/3 or 3/4.

 

[Warchild]

Okay, thanks John. I appreciate the sneak peak, as well.
Looking forward to the next one, but not as much as getting the actual book.