Indie Publishers, what are you working on for 2023?

[SlyFlourish]

Myself, Scott Fitzgerald Gray, and Teos Abadia are just about done with Forge of Foes – a book about how to quickly build awesome monsters for your 5e fantasy games. You can see the preview here.

My other big project is one called the City of Arches. It's been a Sly Flourish Patreon exclusive for a couple of years now. It's a sourcebook surrounding a city built atop the ruins of a powerful lich called the Nameless King. The city is full of decaying archways from which creatures often emerge with no memories of where they came from or who they are. A group known as the archkeepers meets these new travelers and offers them fine artisanal cheeses and scented soaps for the nearby pools.

The city is built atop many layers of ruins, catacombs, tombs, and chambers with lots of potential for fantastic adventures from 1st to 20th level.

The PDF is about 75 pages now and counting. I plan to keep working on it this year and hopefully have it ready for a Kickstarter next March.

 

[BASHMAN]

And it's live! The Tome of Intriguing Options Kickstarter has begun!
In this supplement to the Honor + Intrigue Swashbuckling RPG, we add an array of options for your historical campaigns as well as rules and tools to take your game to the stars or into the realms of high fantasy.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/basicactiongames/tome-of-intriguing-options
tinyurl.com/IntriguingOptions

 

[BASHMAN]

Tonight I will be taking part in the Q+A at the Randomworlds TTRPG Discord Server to discuss the Tome of Intriguing Options Kickstarter for Honor + Intrigue. It will be at 5:30 Pacific Standard Time / 7:30 Central, 8:30 Eastern US Timezones. Come on by to ask a question or simply get more information.

To join visit the Randomworlds Discord Server.

Log is posted for those who want to read it over; but if you want to ask anything, tag me and ask away!

 

[Zaukrie]

Diseases....you can see one here:

Fantastic Diseases - Tetanus - Mike's Thoughts

This is an example of one of the diseases I am currently working on adding to my 5e Dungeons and Dragons game. Enjoy!

mikesixel.com

 

[BASHMAN]

The Tome of Intriguing Options KS for Honor + Intrigue Swashbuckling RPG is entering the home stretch and doing well, but the tinyurl shortener we used earlier (www.tinyurl.com/IntriguingOptions) currently seems to be giving an error message. We are looking into the problem. In the meantime, if you would like to share that campaign as we push into our final week, please utilize the full link or this alternative: https://shorturl.at/agVW5

 

[Sacrosanct]

What am I working on now? Mirrored Mountain was so well received, the masses demanded I do Brookmere next!

 

[zedturtle]

After a major health-scare late last year, I decided to take on a personal project—something that would be clearly my own thing (for good or ill) and not part of a team (which is my preferred way to work, but having a legacy became suddenly a lot more important).

Around that time, the OGL Kerfuffle was wrapping up and the Apology Tour was beginning. A friend advised that instead of making something for 'generic fantasyland' to make a setting to contain my work, and perhaps be able to cross-promote things. It sounded good, and Ha$bros execs had just said that there would never be any dim solar adventures, so I asked my buddy from high school that was a Dark Sun-stan for advice, and thus was born Ashen Frontiers.

which I hoped would appeal, at least to some folks. I worked up some general guidelines: no slavery, little metal, the discovery of way to transform Primal power into Arcane energy creating corruptive and destructive Ash in the process, a firm commitment to employing Diversity Consultants to help avoid dangers of not doing being accidentally offensive (again, missteps here were very top of mind).

I launched on Patreon once I had enough to show off, and a bit of professional art from friends (one benefit of being in the industry for a while). I didn't know what to expect. There was a chance that seeing the same setting element in Pathfinder and 5e might be of interest to converts. There was a chance that grognards might flock to a post-apocalyptic setting. There was a chance that marketing a new idea, even as an award-winning writer would be hard. In the end, it was true. All of it.

By then, serious applications for Diversity Consultants were rolling in, and I had prospects review my draft of the setting guide. After some excellent feedback that helped narrow the field, I produced The Broken World, a free guide. As of the last check, over 250 folks have downloaded the PDF, and I've got a print proof (for those who don't like digital files, or who want to support the project without the commitment of becoming a patron on Patreon).

Then I decided that I would demo the game at Gen Con, since I go there every year. I scheduled four sessions (each three hours long with premade characters for the 5e version of the setting) entitled The Lost Vault of Theadira.

You see, when the man who became The Tyrant was first attempting to seize power and invent (or rediscover) the ability to convert Primal energy into Arcane, folks were not blind to this. Some built defensive structures to protect themselves and their valuables. Then, when the Ash came, it killed them and turned them into Undead. So (ala Earthdawn) there's a built-in explanation for why there are trap-laden dungeons full of treasures and deadly Foes (not Monsters, because another project goal was keeping it simple for new players and explaining that not all Monsters are Monstrosities is too much).

Two of the sessions are sold out. Thursday is still open, and Friday has some slots left. After I get back and analyse the results, I'll likely transform into a release via Patreon (and maybe DriveThru or even print). So I hope that the rest of 2023 and 2024 will be good for me. Between the 5e Creative Commons SRD, the ORC licence, the natural drift that a (non-)edition change creates, the fact that a Ruins of Symbaroum product is up for an ENnie, and more announcements to come from various publishers on announced (and unannounced) projects, it should be a good rest of the year.

 

[BASHMAN]

The Honor + Intrigue Tome of Intriguing Options Kickstarter ends in about 16 hours. For those unfamiliar, it is a major supplement for the Honor + Intrigue Swashbuckling RPG adding on many rules options and alternatives, new equipment, random story and encounter tables along with dozens of dueling styles, science fiction rules to let you cross energy blades on the deck of a starship or dogfight through a nebula. High fantasy rules to add wizards, clerics, druids, paladins, and psionicists to your campaign with 140 spells and dozens of magic items. Support for nonhuman heroes with over 50 included ancestries and the rules and tools to create new ones of your own.

If you've ever wanted to play Honor + Intrigue in a fantasy or science fiction world, this is for you. It incorporates everything from the Intriguing Options Series 1-4 with additional material. More weapons, more dueling styles, more high tech gadgets, more magic items, etc. The rules from the Duelist's Guide have also been incorporated and are in full color with additional dueling styles.

And if you've been wanting to pick up the ENnie-winning Honor + Intrigue Swashbuckling RPG, you can get it in the Kickstarter, either as an add-on, or bundled with the Tome.

 

[The Grinning Frog]

This month I've got two things bubbling away. (Well, plus The Oracle monthly RPG magazine.)

First up (because it ends the soonest):

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thearcanemuse/the-arcane-index-vol-2-flora-fuana-and-funga
It is a collection of the above items, suitable for all fantasy systems as it is all lore content and no pesky mechanics.

Secondly:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thegrinningfrog/starship-scavengers
Solo play space exploration game... zooming along and it has flow through the stretch goals so I am busy expanding the bonus adventure that is free for all backers.

There are other various things behind the scenes, the next Zilight game (solo play zombie survival), an adventure collaboration with well known map makers, the next assignment (adventure) for Starship Scavengers plus we are just coming to the end of shipping out our Neo City cyberpunk location guide and I have some thoughts on expanding on that location that I'd like to play around - time allowing.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well I've already posted this in New Releases, but from September of last year until May of this year and published last week, I've created Arcane Armada: a collection of 13 custom Spelljammer ships, full deck plans, 2 new species, 10 new nebula monsters, and a binary Wildspace star system. It's my second product that supports D&D 5.1e - the other being Bloodwing, a single Spelljamer ship, and really more as a pay what you want ad for Arcane Armada. Premium, full color, hardcover 96 page book is $20.50, and the PDF is $9.99 - comes with 1.6 GB of map support.