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Dark Roads and Golden Hells is a chance to explore the outer planes of Midgard in mind-expanding style: Inspired by Vance’s Dying Earth, Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber; by the Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone, by Lovecraft’s eldritch abominations and Moorcock’s Eternal Champion, by just about everything written by China Mieville and Neil Gaiman – and of course by the baroquely stylish weirdness of Planescape and Beyond Countless Doorways, in which our own kobold king had no small part.
Rather than presenting a whole new cosmology, we’ll be concentrating on themes, flavorful locations, and special rules that can be integrated into any planar campaign, whether your PCs are occasional wide-eyed visitors from the prime material or hardened planar cynics supping with devils in a gothic planar crossroads. It doesn’t matter if your multiverse is shaped like a wheel, a spindle, or a million shifting spheres – We promise you’ll find a cornucopia of weird and wonderful locations, feats, spells, monsters, and adventures to insert into your campaign.
There’s a lot for the fertile, fevered minds of patrons to do here!
As well as brainstorming the themes and philosophies, strange powers, hazards, afflictions, and special rules for the outer planes, patrons of Dark Roads & Golden Hells will detail cosmic highways like the Niflheim Road, Tree of Worlds, and River Styx, create strange new creatures, and design new spells and rituals — plus whatever new traits, feats, class options, and any other strange and esoteric things your imaginations can devise!
We’ll also be presenting a dozen or more fully developed locations tied to the new Midgard campaign setting and the Free City of Zobeck: The homes of prominent gods and devils, domains of creatures like the shadow fey, and the afterlife of ghouls and kobolds. Pitched, voted for, and written by patrons, these gazetteers will provide everything you need to run adventures: history and geography, major NPCs, adventure seeds and special rules, and notes on how the PCs’ actions can impact and change them — ensuring they stay fresh and exciting for many return visits.
You can sign up for the Dark Roads and Golden Hells patron project here! Join the Dark Roads and Golden Hells project as a patron today. But remember: “You will not return unchanged.”
-Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.
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-Small but Fierce.
Kobold Press
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It's a bit of a Planescape-style project, with that same focus on high concept fantasy made playable and street-level.
The writeup of what's planned is extremely promising and portable to the Great Wheel or homebrew or, heck, even other, non-Pathfinder settings.
But step 1 is making sure there's enough support for the book. So of course I have to say, please do join as a patron. I promise a set of guest designer posts you won't believe....
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I'm intrigued. I may very well be on board with this. I do have a few questions, though, since I haven't been part of a patronage project before.
The overview notes that senior patron will have a chance to write some of the book as a paid designer. What are the general odds of someone getting to do that, and how much would they be writing?
How much information on the planes will I be missing if I don't have all of the other Midgard products? Are there any that will be integral to understanding this?
How long does the design process for a book generally take?
Can sponsorships be upgraded to higher levels at later points?
Edit: I found a 'yes' answer to this one on your site.
Do sponsors retain any intellectual property rights to pitches and idea submissions, or does Open Design obtain full rights to everything?
Sorry about the general barrage of questions. The project is the sort of product I'm highly interested in, and I find myself with a lot of open time lately, so I'm considering hopping on board.
Director of Narrative
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I've been a frequent patron of Open Design projects, so I'll give some of these questions a shot.
The overview notes that senior patron will have a chance to write some of the book as a paid designer. What are the general odds of someone getting to do that, and how much would they be writing?
For the most part, senior patrons compete with their ideas for portions of projects. The pitches get put to a vote by patrons and whoever wins gets to write their adventure or whatever is called for. So, it's as likely as that.
How much information on the planes will I be missing if I don't have all of the other Midgard products? Are there any that will be integral to understanding this?
There has been very little planar information in previous Midgard materials, so there's hardly any 'homework' to catch up.
How long does the design process for a book generally take?
This varies with the project.
Do sponsors retain any intellectual property rights to pitches and idea submissions, or does Open Design obtain full rights to everything?
Open Design obtains rights to material, as far as I know.
I've been a frequent patron of Open Design projects, so I'll give some of these questions a shot.
...How long does the design process for a book generally take?This varies with the project.
+1 to what Daigle said, and I'll add in...
Streets of Zobeck, Northlands, and Lost City all began last summer (I think July for Northlands, and August for Streets and Lost City) and prints arrived on my door today.
If the project has been announced now, you've got a two month window where we're going to try spinning up support to hit greenlight. I've seen this happen in as short a period as three weeks-- both Tales of the Old Margreve and Coliseum Morpheuon were quick starters. During the funding window, you're going to see some discussion of themes, of the range of topics, maybe about possible division of wordcount for material, but nothing too in-depth because we don't want the patrons who show up as we reach the goal to feel nothing is left to explore.
You can count on about four to six months of content, discussion, opportunities to playtest and contribute and feedback. You are going to see how things progress through a 90ish page supplement, soup to nuts. Even if you don't pitch much, or do too much, there's a lot there for your patronage dollars.
Do sponsors retain any intellectual property rights to pitches and idea submissions, or does Open Design obtain full rights to everything?
Open Design obtains rights to material, as far as I know.
Anything submitted to Open Design through these projects is usually contracted as "Work for Hire," meaning it becomes part of Open Design, lock, stock and barrel. They have to do that because this stuff gets used in other projects, and they need to be able to reference what they need to reference.
-Ben.
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Lead Designer on Streets of Zobeck
I've heard from a few of the old Planescape gang and some of the newer Pathfinder planar authors, and it seems like some of them might join in. Soo.....
Anyone in particular that people might want to see as a co-author for Dan Voyce on this one? Whose planar material has impressed you?
Hasn't Todd Stewart (I think that is the fellow's name) written some nice planar materials? I think he did something on the Peacock sprit that was really good.
I'd really like to get in on this one.
It looks like the system for it is still undecided. Will patrons be voting on which system they want? Is this very likely to be for Pathfinder?
Thanks!
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Kobold Press
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Given the results of patron support for Midgard, I feel very confident that this will be a Pathfinder project first and foremost.
It's not an either/or sort of thing, of course. 4th Edition fans may write up some material for that system, and ultimately the patrons who support it will decide the system.
Glad to see the PF support for the planes is strong!
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I've heard from a few of the old Planescape gang and some of the newer Pathfinder planar authors, and it seems like some of them might join in. Soo.....
Anyone in particular that people might want to see as a co-author for Dan Voyce on this one? Whose planar material has impressed you?
I hear that guy David Wells once came up with some funky ideas on the planes...
Beyond that, though, I'd love to see any of the old Planescape crew (you, Monte, Colin, etc.), Todd Stewart, or even James Sutter. I had some great conversations with him about the planes at PaizoCon, and I think he'd be a phenomenal guy to work with.
Also, I'd like to take a moment to say, as a senior patron, I am very excited about the ideas we've been cooking up so far, and think this is going to turn out to be a phenomenal book.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm also going to mention my favorite Paizo messageboard contributors: Set, Mikaze, and Jeff De Luna. If any of you read this, I love everything you folks do and would love to see you contribute to this project.
RE-EDIT: And how could I forget Kevin Andrew Murphy? His ideas on the Campaign Settings board have always impressed me.
I tried to convince Mr. Boomer to join us, but it seems that he's busy, alas!
I've heard from a few of the old Planescape gang and some of the newer Pathfinder planar authors, and it seems like some of them might join in. Soo.....
Anyone in particular that people might want to see as a co-author for Dan Voyce on this one? Whose planar material has impressed you?
I hear that guy David Wells once came up with some funky ideas on the planes...
Beyond that, though, I'd love to see any of the old Planescape crew (you, Monte, Colin, etc.), Todd Stewart, or even James Sutter. I had some great conversations with him about the planes at PaizoCon, and I think he'd be a phenomenal guy to work with.
Also, I'd like to take a moment to say, as a senior patron, I am very excited about the ideas we've been cooking up so far, and think this is going to turn out to be a phenomenal book.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm also going to mention my favorite Paizo messageboard contributors: Set, Mikaze, and Jeff De Luna. If any of you read this, I love everything you folks do and would love to see you contribute to this project.
*Blush*
Well; I am waiting on a check before I can patronize this one...
Speaking of which I kinda promised Wolfgang at PaizoCon to throw some ideas into the pot for Midgard again. Hmmm. Steppes.
I do have a quasi-Vudran/Hindu/Buddhist cosmology sketched out. It's the grand old cosmic mountain concept and lotus-shaped earth.
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Kobold Press
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And it's official, Paizo author and Planescape: Torment designer Colin McComb is joining the Open Design crew for Dark Roads & Golden Hells.
The project just keeps getting cooler. It's also 75% funded. Join us and put it over the top!
On board... how close is this to funded, Wolfgang?
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We're at about 90% to the goal. I'm hoping a few people jump on board this week and put us over the top.
Signing up tonight, just gotta wait for my IT person to come home and show me how to take the green paper from my wallet and turn it into 1's and 0's for y'all.
Kicking and screaming, I will be dragged into the future.
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Director of Narrative
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We're at about 90% to the goal. I'm hoping a few people jump on board this week and put us over the top.Signing up tonight, just gotta wait for my IT person to come home and show me how to take the green paper from my wallet and turn it into 1's and 0's for y'all.
Kicking and screaming, I will be dragged into the future.
Do it!!!
If only I had the money to, I would definitely become a patron. Alas, I am very nearly completely broke.
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Not even up to final funding yet, and it's already got 600 or so posts worth of brainstorm, some of them pretty awesome. The hard part is gonna be paring down the ideas to the most evocative and inspiring and most usable in gameplay (which aren't always the same thing...).
And that's just what I'm seeing in the 'cheap seats' for the patrons-who-are-too-broke to upgrade. This promises to be one heck of a ride, even for those of us who can't afford to spend more than $25.
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Kobold Press
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Yep, the brainstorm so far is full of playable elements, and also some wild-and-woolly-but-totally-impractical bits.
I like impractical, up to the point where it needs to hit the table. But I'm very, very happy that Colin McComb, Dan Voyce, and all the patrons are thinking big. It does feel epic and planar and original.
@Wolfgang: In the kobold shop it says Standard Patron ($24.95) but when I add it to the card it costs $29.95. Which is it now? And how far to complete funding are you?
@Wolfgang: In the kobold shop it says Standard Patron ($24.95) but when I add it to the card it costs $29.95. Which is it now? And how far to complete funding are you?
It's going to be $29.95. This one has a greenlight, folks, we're go for the road to hell with Dan Voyce, Colin McComb and the patrons. It's time to get extraplanar!
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Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.
I'm emerging weary from the depths of hell with many new scars, a unsettling unclean feeling, a rash, and a couple of updates:
After creating a plane-quiveringly potent quintet (yup, the voting was so close we had to pick FIVE new monsters in round one!) of strange and outré planar denizens to bedevil PCs, the big news this week (actually right now) is that our first round of pitches for the planar gazetteers has just gone live! Thirteen achingly awesome locales (and I really do mean that. They're all fantastic) are now up for patron review and voting in the prject forums. Patrons are now going to have to agonise over and somehow cut down this haul to three or four to be developed for the manuscript.
If you're a patron over on Dark Roads & Golden Hells, its time to grab a portal over to the Kobold forums and weigh in!
Those 13 locales are truly amazing. I think Todd Stewart and Colin McComb might be behind a couple of them, but since the pitches are anonymous, I can't be sure.
Really intensely curious as to which ones patrons will pick!
This first round of pitches fell while I was on vacation, so I'm not behind any pitches in this first round, but I'll be there for subsequent rounds.
I'm amazed at all the awesome ideas being posted on this project, and the locale pitches are, indeed, going to be difficult to choose from. The project has a very enthusiastic, imaginative group behind it.