Krug
Newshound
Give us an overview of your product lines
SteamPower Publishing is dedicated to producing high quality, useful support products for a range of different settings – primarily for ancient historic and alternate historic settings.
Our first line supports Deep7’s Arrowflight game with player and GM resources. Our second line – Ancient Lore – takes real world mythology and history and presents them in a way that can be used in any existing campaign, or as the basis for a campaign set in the ancient world.
Tell us at length about your most recent project (upcoming or just released)
We released the first Ancient Lore book, the Gates of Troy, a couple of weeks back to coincide with the release of Troy at the cinema. The Gates of Troy is at its heart a d20 city sourcebook, detailing the history and locations of Troy, along with the main Trojan heroes.
The Gates of Troy is intended to be used in a number of different ways – firstly, for those curious about the legend of Troy, the background is pretty comprehensive. Secondly, the city makes a great campaign setting, whether before the siege or during it, and the book presents a DM with everything he needs to run a game set there, including adventure hooks aplenty. Finally, the city (and the legend) can be dropped into an existing campaign and we have plenty of suggestions for doing just that – including a few outlandish ideas, like how to use it in an abyssal or sci-fi setting.
Next up for Ancient Lore is Of Legends Born, a guidebook to creating and playing heroes of mythic descent – children of gods, legendary heroes and even mythic beasts. After that we have the Mask of Agamemnon, the greek counterpart book to go with the Gates of Troy. A little further down the line we switch focuses with a series of books set in Hellenic Greece.
We also have a couple that have been on the cards for a long time and that will finally see the light of day – Dead of Night, a game of campfire horror, is out in October and the much anticipated Yesterday’s Tomorrow is due early in 2005.
What is your main target audience, and how much of a spread beyond that do you feel is likely, first for your line(s), then for your most recent?
Our target audience is the gamer – d20 or otherwise – looking for something a little different. This might be a new campaign, a different style of play or simply a fresh way of looking at existing rules.
Each of our products is intended to be as useful as possible to as wider group as possible – A Cast of Thousands, for example, is targeted at Arrowflight GMs, but there’s stuff in there useful to Arrowflight players (such as new combat styles and spells, and any GM running a fantasy campaign (who doesn’t need interesting NPCs and story ideas?).
Hopefully both of these will allow us to spread beyond our base market – if we do it right, anyone interested in running a game set in an ancient era, whether d20 or not, will know to come to us. I’ve already heard people say they’ve picked up the Gates of Troy simply because they are interested in the legend and the story, rather than out of any desire to run a game – hopefully we cater to both types of customer.
What is the main thing about your company that makes you most proud?
It has to be the two products we’ve released to date – I’m so proud as to the quality we’ve managed to achieve with them, from the design of the book to the writing itself. I care greatly about the quality of our books and pore over every aspect of them to make sure they’re up to scratch. I like to think – and the comments we’ve received help me to believe this – that we’ve done a pretty good job.
Where do you see your company one year from now?
I think every company has answered the same, and we’re no different – we’d like to see some of our products in games shops – seeing your game in print is a great ego boost! But we whole heartedly believe in electronic publishing too – I’d like to have a few more titles, and a few more lines, by this time next year, and for our name to be well regarded and well known.
Links
ENWorld username: andrew_kenrick
Contact: andrew@steampowerpublishing.co.uk
RPGNow link: http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id=490
Website: www.steampowerpublishing.co.uk
SteamPower Publishing is dedicated to producing high quality, useful support products for a range of different settings – primarily for ancient historic and alternate historic settings.
Our first line supports Deep7’s Arrowflight game with player and GM resources. Our second line – Ancient Lore – takes real world mythology and history and presents them in a way that can be used in any existing campaign, or as the basis for a campaign set in the ancient world.
Tell us at length about your most recent project (upcoming or just released)
We released the first Ancient Lore book, the Gates of Troy, a couple of weeks back to coincide with the release of Troy at the cinema. The Gates of Troy is at its heart a d20 city sourcebook, detailing the history and locations of Troy, along with the main Trojan heroes.
The Gates of Troy is intended to be used in a number of different ways – firstly, for those curious about the legend of Troy, the background is pretty comprehensive. Secondly, the city makes a great campaign setting, whether before the siege or during it, and the book presents a DM with everything he needs to run a game set there, including adventure hooks aplenty. Finally, the city (and the legend) can be dropped into an existing campaign and we have plenty of suggestions for doing just that – including a few outlandish ideas, like how to use it in an abyssal or sci-fi setting.
Next up for Ancient Lore is Of Legends Born, a guidebook to creating and playing heroes of mythic descent – children of gods, legendary heroes and even mythic beasts. After that we have the Mask of Agamemnon, the greek counterpart book to go with the Gates of Troy. A little further down the line we switch focuses with a series of books set in Hellenic Greece.
We also have a couple that have been on the cards for a long time and that will finally see the light of day – Dead of Night, a game of campfire horror, is out in October and the much anticipated Yesterday’s Tomorrow is due early in 2005.
What is your main target audience, and how much of a spread beyond that do you feel is likely, first for your line(s), then for your most recent?
Our target audience is the gamer – d20 or otherwise – looking for something a little different. This might be a new campaign, a different style of play or simply a fresh way of looking at existing rules.
Each of our products is intended to be as useful as possible to as wider group as possible – A Cast of Thousands, for example, is targeted at Arrowflight GMs, but there’s stuff in there useful to Arrowflight players (such as new combat styles and spells, and any GM running a fantasy campaign (who doesn’t need interesting NPCs and story ideas?).
Hopefully both of these will allow us to spread beyond our base market – if we do it right, anyone interested in running a game set in an ancient era, whether d20 or not, will know to come to us. I’ve already heard people say they’ve picked up the Gates of Troy simply because they are interested in the legend and the story, rather than out of any desire to run a game – hopefully we cater to both types of customer.
What is the main thing about your company that makes you most proud?
It has to be the two products we’ve released to date – I’m so proud as to the quality we’ve managed to achieve with them, from the design of the book to the writing itself. I care greatly about the quality of our books and pore over every aspect of them to make sure they’re up to scratch. I like to think – and the comments we’ve received help me to believe this – that we’ve done a pretty good job.
Where do you see your company one year from now?
I think every company has answered the same, and we’re no different – we’d like to see some of our products in games shops – seeing your game in print is a great ego boost! But we whole heartedly believe in electronic publishing too – I’d like to have a few more titles, and a few more lines, by this time next year, and for our name to be well regarded and well known.
Links
ENWorld username: andrew_kenrick
Contact: andrew@steampowerpublishing.co.uk
RPGNow link: http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id=490
Website: www.steampowerpublishing.co.uk
