This last week was about revisions and updates to the Bestiary, plus a bit of inhale-exhale. The project is really close to entering the printing phase, and the focus is on purging errors from the main draft.

• The last week was primarily about getting to a complete version of the book. That happened on Feb 7, where I completed the index, hyperlinks, and a few missing pieces.
• Since then, I’ve pushed out a few new revisions, so that folks aren’t asked to review and comment on drafts that have errors long since corrected. The current version of the file is “Lightweight” u20220210c. I reverted to pushing low-resolution intermediate drafts as they’re 25MB instead of 75MB.
• We revised the grimmdar (totally not a pit fiend) to make it more interesting
• I spent a bunch of time yesterday adding another layer to the file. This layer is behind the background but holds non-funky characters for all monsters with funky characters. So if you type in blodughufa or blodthrysta instead of blóðughufa (I actually think there’s another accent in there somewhere) or my all-time favorite blóðþrysta, you’ll get to the monster page. I tried to include some variant misspellings too, so that if you get it wrong (like sharkmen or shark men instead of shark-men) you still get there. Also, if you type, say “grick” or “marilith” or “behir” you’ll not just go to p. 25, but also get to the borall (boráll), peshkali/blaðakona/Queen of Blades, or the eldingarlaun. Hopefully this makes the file more user-friendly.
• I’m trying to pivot (today, actually) from “tweak typos in draft” to “check to make sure all damages and such are correct, and then update the layout for cards and the spreadsheet for easy export.” The last few weeks have been all about the draft, but now I have to make sure the master database that I’ll also use for the Foundry VTT module is up-to-date with the main draft.
• I pushed out v1.0 of the tokens, with full-body art on a circular background. This took vaguely forever because InDesign’s file naming system is predictable but not helpful. So I have to rename every single token. Blech, but necessary.
• It’s also time for me to start thinking about future work. I want to take a deep breath before I do more monster work, even for other systems, though that will come. I started the re-engagement process with some of my contributors, too. Ironically, while I feel I need to do “not-GURPS” next, it feels like all the ideas I’m coming up with are for Powered by GURPS projects. That won’t work, but it provides a really fun to-do list for the future.

Gaming Ballistic Patreon

To help with ongoing funding of art and speed eventual time to delivery, Gaming Ballistic started a Patreon in January 2021. Here’s the weekly update on Patreon status.

• Membership status: 63 patrons and $504 per month.
• Special Content: Several versions of the entire bestiary. Also very lengthy designer’s notes essays on how to fight and run the grimmdar and logaskuggi, and why certain changes were made.

Steady going and lots of help this month.

Gaming Ballistic in Media

• Kalzazz did a six-on-one test fight against some Álfar knights.

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

Projects where hardcopies and PDFs are going out or scheduled to do so.

Nordlondr Ovinabokin: Bestiary

• Bestiary PDFs saw multiple revisions; I don’t like doing that, but I don’t like getting 100 errata reports for something I fixed three days ago either. At least I managed to figure out how to ensure that only a single version of a file appears in the Backerkit bin.
• Tokens (one of four sets with variations for folks) distributed

Crowdfunding and Product Launches

The Bestiary Kickstarter is in the fulfillment stage, headed to manufacturing:

• Initial PDF and several complete updates have gone out to all backers, as have one set of tokens
• Finalizing the book to be sent to the printer. The biggest thing I need to check are the damages for monsters with Brawling and Sumo Wrestling, as both add a per-die figure to slam damage I need to watch for. Looking at ALL the damages, especially for creatures swinging big weapons, is also useful
• Today I’m working on the card layout and the spreadsheet that makes data consistency easier
• I need to finalize the PDF Sunday night so that I can send it to the printer for review. That makes the stuff above pretty time critical. Also need to ensure I have a proper cover, including spine width; I’ll ping Livonia on that today, so I can get the cover to them ASAP. Including the right bar-code¸ which is easy to forget
• After the file is sent, I can pivot to cards, including working with ShipQuest and Nord to start getting ready for moving product around the world.

Product Announcements

The full Product Catalog is still out there.

I still need to update the catalog. It’s been that kind of month year.

In Development

Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.

• Inns and Taverns, by Marshall LaPira. Systemless. Revised tavern submitted on Nov 11, returned with comments in early November. Poked author recently on progress now that Bestiary is in finalization.
• Two Warring Houses, by Douglas Cole. Systemless. Outline stage and writing, starting to get more ideas on this, and writing starts again after Valentine’s Day.
• Nordlondr Bestiary, by Douglas Cole. Dungeon Fantasy RPG. See above, workin’ hard.
• Secret Stuff: I’m in communication with other authors and working on my own ideas for 2022. Now that Bestiary is in the final stages, more of my time needs to go to creating new things.

Friction

Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.

• The errata feedback is picking up again, which I don’t like. What I’ve been tempted to do is “assign” my backers one monster each, which since there are roughly 170 pages of monsters and 685 backers, means each single page gets looked at by four people, and the task is not overwhelming. Still – that’s my job, not theirs. Tempting tho.
• Bounced the licensing payment to SJGames back and forth a bit because of internal stuff. We have settled on a new way to send them these payments that works better for both of us, but that means that I am waiting for my bank to validate ACH transfer. This really ought to happen faster. Fortunately, my stock with SJGames is high enough that they told me “look, we know you’re good for it, pay when it clears” which when you think of it is really a nice vote of trust.
• I pinged my collaborating authors but then haven’t reached back out after I received replies, some lengthy. That’s on me.
• While the book is probably publishable as-is, there are so very many moving parts in the thing that there’s literally no upper limit to how much error-checking is needed, and there’s really only me. So this weekend is going to be very head-down.
• I still don’t actually have a figure for my book’s print run costs, due to fluctuations in pricing that are apparently moment-to-moment unpredictable. Do not like.

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• The more recent test fights have gone very well. The apex monsters are proving to have a nice challenge level tuned to 500 point characters (!), and one of my frequent testers ran a giant battle with a lot of my demons against a party that varied from like 350–500 points in DF but not the DFRPG, and found them worthy adversaries. So yay for portability.
• I can really see the end of the tunnel here. Close now.