Two weeks since my last report. Sedra is maybe 60% fulfilled. Happy Halloween. Some love given to the solo adventures, and a lot of writing on Mission X.

• Isle of Sedra is currently at 97% survey completion. First wave of domestic books-only packages has been sent out. Cards are ready to print, now just waiting on a “hole” in the printer’s schedule. Once that happens, it’s a matter of a few days to have that done, then box up the remaining 180 or so packages.
• International orders go out in one bit box (OK, two big boxes) with everything in them. So the UK hub and AUS/NZ packages have to wait for all inventory on hand. Sorry.
• Late pledges are still open for The Isle of Sedra nonetheless. They will close as soon as I have word the cards are on the way, then I’ll update pricing for the new page counts and list the PDFs on my website.
• The last two weeks I’ve been hitting the “Exploits” equivalent for Mission X pretty hard. Using the DFRPG Exploits book as an imperfect scaffold, I have gotten Ch1 and Ch2 into a “playable first draft” state, and the Fighting chapter (Ch3) is maybe half done.
• Played actual Felltower. Peter blogs the delve here, but I don’t have much to say about this one that he didn’t already note.
• Gearing up to actually play a variant Mission X campaign run by someone else to test the rules. I always like this, as it puts it one step closer to “what the customer might do” instead of “what the author intends.” The second one helps, but “how do others interpret the writing” is important for clarity.
• It’s not a big thing, but I finally updated the PHP version of my website(s). This was easier than I thought.

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: 67 patrons and $496 per month.
• Special Content in October:
  • Full copies of all three books for Isle of Sedra.
  • All Mission X writing to date
  • Playtest invite for new rules

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

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

• Isle of Sedra is maybe 60% fulfilled
• I have all the books in my house; they look good.
• Cards are ready to print and actually with the printer as soon as their schedule opens up
• Surveys are 97% complete with only 8 pledges who require address updates or payment of add-on or shipping fees. Not bad, but I want those folks to get their stuff too!

Media

• Geek Gamers did a review on the four TFT/OSR solo adventures and said really nice things.

Crowdfunding and Product Launches

• The Isle of Sedra is accepting late pledges. If you missed the Kickstarter, this is a good time to get it, as page count estimates went from “96 pages total” to “144 pages total” since the project launched. That’s 28 pages for the GM’d adventure, 40 for Monster Hunter Belladonna, the solo/programmed adventure, and 76 pages for the Sedra Sourcebook.

Product Announcements

 

Now for sale on DriveThruRPG:

• Shields Up

 

Now for sale on my Shopify Store

• Artifacts of Legend
• Artifacts of Saga

In Development

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

Let’s see where we are on other things…

• Infinite Archipelago has taken its first steps, and making this one has helped define the next. Logical next step would be Elazar, the neighboring island to Sedra, plus of course moving Nordlond into the mix for TFT and other systems.
• Mission X: The for real writing continues apace, with Ch1–2 written, Ch3 (the super important Fighting chapter) maybe half done. Ch4–6 are key but those have a lot of pre-work done on them by virtue of being extensions of other works.

• Delvers to Grow Companion. Some new professions. A whole bunch of new disad packages. Epic Upgrades. Everyman Adventurer modules. This can’t happen in its planned form with only 425 backers. I just now had an idea of what to do with this, so I’m going to see what I can make of it. I think I’m going to turn this into Patreon-only content. It’s the right level of “get it done over time” and a solid reward for the Patreon community that can come frequently. But it also means it’ll have to push out in terms of any sort of public release; the market just doesn’t seem to be there right now.
• Let Us Rejoice! Looking at my planned releases and the work required, this is 2024. However, there has been an interesting development here that will make the (early 2024?) release more interesting.

• Inns and Taverns; Two Warring Houses, by Douglas Cole. Systemless. 2024 is likely, and I’m probably going to solicit new authors on both.
• Conversion Work: Existing settings and publications to other systems.

I actively encourage prospective authors to drop me proposals having to do with any of the above projects, but bear in mind that there are guidelines and strictures that must be followed to make a sale and move from concept to final.

Wish List

I’m looking for contributions for the Infinite Archipelago. Authors must be detail-oriented, capable writers who can take on projects and deliver them to specifications while still respecting the constraints of both system and setting. Some “demesnes” have been mentioned in other works before and can be considered pre-approved for the right writer:

• Now that Sedra is rounding the corner from “thought” to “product,” I would welcome adventures and scenarios set there.
• A realm modeled after a mix of historical and mythological “ancient Egypt.” This could be an original homeland to what became The Scorpion Empire on the Isle of Sedra, or something similar. Known to be one of the origin places of the cat-folk mentioned in the Nordlondr Folk book.
• A realm loosely based on Kamakura-era Japan (or the region around Japan, Korea, and China which has so much game-adaptable history to it). Hints to this realm, called “Inthriki” in the Nordlond and Dragon Heresy materials exist, but could easily be altered to taste.
• The realm of Morevel, which was based on a mix of Hellenistic and mythical Greece with a focus on an uneasy period after totally-not-Philip-of-Macedon unified disparate states by force of arms. This one should probably be a set of idyllic, Mediterranean-climate island nation-states with lots of rowed galleys, phalanxes, heroes, and monsters.
• The neighboring nations – and we can talk about island or no, but probably yes – of Arnulf and Brionnu. These are “not Carolingian France, really” and “not Celtic Britain, we swear.” Arnulf and Brionnu were more or less created to give the Nordlondr somewhere to go raid and pillage…but that’s up for negotiation too. And “Carolingian France” is darn close to “Vikings, but continental” in their equipment and such, but the cultural differences are enough to make it quite interesting.

Friction

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

• Still waiting on card printing. That’s a known quantity as to why, unknown as to when.
• No matter what, Mission X is a hard bit of work.
• Haven’t been to Viking in a long time.
• I really need to figure out something to do before the end of the year for a product. Maybe a conversion or something.

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• Mission X is making progress and we got a stress test of some of the chargen concepts that the playtest GM did. Some of that are his own ideas, some came from me, but I’m very pleased how quickly and well characters are coming together using the principles I’d laid out – that doesn’t detract from his execution of them, but it means the strategy is sound..
• Felltower continues to be a good way to spend a Sunday.
• Halloween came and went. I did get dressed up in my Viking gear. “Is that a real axe?” was the most common question. Yes, it is real. No, it’s not sharp. My eldest daughter went as Hatsune Miku but I don’t have a picture.