Amidst tons of chaos with all the other things I was doing at Origins, I still managed to run all four sessions and everyone seemed to have a really good time. I've even got a picture to prove it! (Warning: contains some spoilers!) I'm really pleased with the way everything turned out and may look to release the adventure at a later date. Thanks to everyone who helped and played!
Thanks to some of the wonderful people from the
Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature,
Eight Bars More has be finished playtesting with excellent results.
Not only was a fun time had by all, but Amy Swift was kind enough to donate
a group character
sketch for one of the playtesting sessions. Can you guess the characters?
I've not only incorporated the suggestions from playtesting, (as well as some additional improvements of my own) but I've finished with the printed support materials and they've turned out wonderfully.
I'm very excited about this adventure; it's probably one of my best works and it should be a real blast to play. So come join in! I have it straight from the events co-ordinator's mouth that there are still a few slots open!
So, you may be asking, what is this Shaintar setting that Eight Bars More is written for? It's an epic high fantasy setting for Savage Worlds, of course. But for those of you who don't want to wade through quite so many pages of text, here's a visual introduction to Shaintar: Immortal Legends.
Ready to print PDFs of each character sheet are now available! Each one is by the descriptive title on the characters page. You can also grab all twelve in one zip file.
Once again, characters were altered to match the offical Shaintar sourcebook during the update. I think I've finally caught all the changes this time. Be sure and look at all the characters with powers, as they were the most affected.
I've been fortunate enough to be allowed to see the latest version of the Shaintar: Immortal Legends player's handbook, and I've changed the characters to reflect the changes in the new version.
Excitement is building over the mini-CDs I'm planning to hand out, and with excitement comes more content! If there's anything you'd like to see added, let me know.
With the plot finalized, I've had a chance to review the contents of the mini-CDs I'll be offering to each player. Not only has Shark Bytes granted permission to let me save all the will-be Savages a few more downloads, but negotiations are underway to add at least one item of content that you won't be able to get anywhere else!
Next I'll be finishing up the stats for all the NPCs, working on additional propps, and making the take home character sheets prettier.
Well, it took awhile, but every last wrinkle of the plot is finally ironed out. Every time I thought I had it nailed, I'd get another little idea or twist I had to try and fit in. Not all of them really fit, but the process has left me with quite a nice little adventure, if I do say so myself.
Full character sheets are now available.
Character background descriptions are up, so take a peek and tell me what you think!
I've still got one more surprise up my sleeve for the end of the plotline. I'm really pleased with the large scale I'm managing to cram into a one shot adventure.
I've got a whopping twelve player characters for everyone to pick from. It's been tricky trying to produce Shaintar characters with out a final sourcebook, but I think I've managed pretty well all the same. I'll post the character sheets in the next few days.
I've finished the layout work for all the maps and, as promised,
thrown up a peek at the main room of The Black Gate. The
thumbnail links to a tiny
pdf suitable for printing. The layout is free for personal, non-commercial
use.
Now I'm off to add some depth and color to the layouts and finish
the plotline.
I had really hoped to get the map layout done today, and I almost made it. Ten minutes more tomorrow and I can start on actually making something colorful and nice to look at instead of a bunch of black lines. (Not that black lines can't be beautiful, I'm just not that much of an artist... I admit it, color is my crutch.)
Normally, I'd just use a nice shiny BattleMat, but I figured that if you can play Settlers of Catan on a giant board at Origins, the least I could do was do up a few color maps, right? I'll put up a preview of some of the floorplan on The Black Gate tomorrow.
Almost forgot the excellent news! Zeke Sparkes has agreed to let me put together some mini-CDs as parting gifts for players at my events. (Mostly stuff for folks who haven't found Savage Worlds and it's home on the web yet.) But wait, there's more! He's also put me in touch with their convention support fellow over at Studio 2 Publishing which brings the possibility of even more goodies!
Aren't these folks just awesome?
The basic plotline of events, including the back story, is almost complete. There are a few twists I'm still working on for the final stages, but everything is coming together nicely. It's certainly a far cry from what I threw together in fifteen minutes for an impromptu session a month ago. Necessity really is the mother of invention.
The action takes place at The Black Gate, a moderately successful inn just outside a crossroads of a town best known for its huge harvest festival. I'm quite pleased with the way the innkeep, his family, and staff have all turned out. In addition to a good overview of the other NPCs, and I'm down to the last few details of one of the main antagonists and the associated evil, evil plans.
