2014: A Look Ahead

Yesterday, I took a look back at 2013, so today I'll take a look ahead at 2014. Honestly, a lot of what I have in store for two-zero-one-four will seem familiar. Most of it was started back in 2013 and, being the ADD (that's A-D-D, not A-D-and-D) type that I am, I just had too much going. So you'll see my initial goals for 2014 are ones of completion more than instigation.

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Community Geomorph Project
Now that d30 Sandbox Companion has been put to bed (BTW, thanks for 2 days straight of being at #1 at RPGNow), this is now my highest priority. The group of you that sent in geomorphs as part of the 2nd round call have probably been thinking, "What the hell?" for quite some time. My current goal is to have that round completed for review by mid-January, then make a third and final call for geomorphs for the initial edition (as I imagine it will expand over time). I'm still trying to decide the best way for this project to benefit the CCFA, and hope to have that figured out in the next few weeks as well.

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The Lost Catacombs of Kadmos
Many of you may remember this from my A-to-Z blog posts during April. After a couple of play sessions, I realized there were a lot of encounters that were great conceptually, but LOUSY at the table. It also needs a lot of illustrations (the "show-the-players" kind, a la Tomb of Horrors). I've actually got a completely revised map and a set of updated encounters ready to go in Roll20. I'm still getting the hang of running a game there, but if any of you might be interested in heeding Kadmos's call for first-level adventurers (either in BX/LL or a modified BX/LL), drop a comment below and let me know which nights are good for you (except Mondays). I'll update more on this later, probably mid-to-late February. I'm also thinking about running this at the North Texas RPG Con should it be ready and my schedule allow.

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Dragon Horde Zine #2
I have a good number of the articles written, but I have a few new spells I'd like to add, and the adventure needs a bit of reworking. I think I can have this ready to go be the end of January. If I get my inkjet printer repaired, I will most likely be offering print copies of both this issue, and issue #1. The interior will be printed on my laser printer, but it can't handle the cover stock I have in mind for the cover.

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Valley of the Five Fires Microgame
Okay, I'm super-freaking-excited about this one. I've written a microgame based on my Valley of the Five Fires module. In fact, as many of you are reading this, Welbo and I are actually playtesting it (our first scheduled gaming activities of 2014). The game is designed for 2-4 players and is sort of a "race" to acquire the Luuzhin Coins (the artifacts from the module). As you can tell from the counters pictured here, there are encounters with phase giants, crimson death worms, etc. I think it really captures everything I love about the setting from the module, but encapsulates it into a Task Force Games style microgame. After Welbo and I run through it a couple of times and I order some test prints of the counters and such, we'll be sending out a few playtest copies (recruitment information to come). I'm thinking April release for this.

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Creature Compendium

Let's face it, I'm just going to keep creating new creatures, and at some point I'm going to just have to say, "Enough already, if this is ever going to see the light of day as a finished work." I'm thinking this will end up as a PDF PWWY beta release that will update over time, and I'll hold off on a print copy until I feel like it's complete. But I'm not sure.

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Gateway to Adventure

This is a project I dug into on my iPad while my wife and I were staying in the hotel that we called home while Winter Storm Cleon had our power knocked out. It's a setting for 1st-5th level characters in a traditional fantasy vein (think of a sandboxy-style group of adventures akin to the D&D B-module series.) I don't want to say much else about this yet because I don't want to detract from the things above that are my "first quarter" focus. But look out for a post titled "What I did on my 'winter' vacation."

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And on the blogging homefront...

There will be more monsters (which will, of course, be added to the growing list of those included in the Creature Compendium).

There will likely be posts from the next phase of Gateway to Adventure work (most likely maps for the adventure locations).

I've got my eyes set on the April A-to-Z blogging challenge (as always), but have not decided on a subject yet (maybe a selection of NPCs for Gateway to Adventure).

As for d30-oriented stuff, Welbo and I feel like we've covered a LOT of ground with the 2 completed books (the d30 DM Companion and the d30 Sandbox Companion), so the d30 stuff I do post in 2014 is likely to be a hodge-podge (though I do have some d30 monster generators in mind, but no plans for a d30 Monster Generator book... yet).