Okay, I don´t care about the stats on that thing, if my DM describes it as it is written I would have an oh crap moment no matter what class and level I´m playing :) .
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Mike just updated his dA account, and the monster of the day (likely from Book 5) looks incredible. Probably my favourite so far.
OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I like it better than the Pathfinder Bestiary art, gives a better sense of scale too with the environment around it.
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Mike just updated his dA account, and the monster of the day (likely from Book 5) looks incredible. Probably my favourite so far.OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I like it better than the Pathfinder Bestiary art, gives a better sense of scale too with the environment around it.
I agree. It doesn't have the four eyes that the original does, but I honestly don't care. It's crazy cool to look at, and if I was a character I'm sure I'd be dropping a load right there. It definitely looks way more menacing than the original. Can Paizo please higher Michael for Pathfinder Tales cover art? I'd read every book.
I've actually fought one of those things in PFS. That was not fun. Even with three paladins along side me.
Also, if you guys haven't already, his monster section has the best purple worm picture I've seen in a long while. So many teeth. It's like he drew a standard purple worm, then added the sand worm from Beetlejuice with the monsters from Tremors. The roper on that page is pretty frightening too. Seeing that many teeth can give anyone nightmares.
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Michael Clarke just sent me an email. He's going to be making an announcement here for his side of the project. Not sure when, but it should be some time this week. I'll be posting at least part of it on the KS comment section as Mike said he can't access that, and gave me a specific section of his email to quote onto it.
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Hello all, this is Michael Clarke. Up until about a month ago I was the staff illustrator / visual design guy at Fire Mountain Games. As some folks have found out (and I also told kevin_video about this, to relay info to the Kickstarter comments page), I was laid off from my position at FMG. The reason given was that there is no more work for me to do. I understand that this news would cause some degree of alarm in backers and others following this project, so I wanted to share my assessment of where it stands.
To give you an idea of the amount of artwork that was done for Throne of Night, I counted roughly 180 color illustrations (many of the recent ones being full-pagers), and 52 maps. In my estimation, Gary has plenty of art with which to complete the entire 6-book path (+ the Kickstarter bonus adventure) and publish it.
The big question of course is the status of the writing, and unfortunately I don't know where that stands or what kind of timeline Gary has for it. It will be up to him to update people about the future of the project and I've encouraged him multiple times to do so. He did tell me that he still intends to fulfill the Kickstarter.
I really hope it does see release, because I'd be hugely disappointed if all that work never got to be used at the game table.
At the very least, I will be able to publish art prints of my FMG work, as Gary has generously granted me rights for that. I can't use it for a gaming product but for art prints or art books I've been given the okay.
I want to say thanks to anyone who had good things to say about the art I made for FMG. Especially kevin_video - who has always cheered me on the most. It really meant a lot, and has often kept my spirits up. The situation with the delay was not anything I had control over, so it got demoralizing at times.
Anyway, that's about all I wanted to share at the moment. I'm now launching into doing freelance illustration full-time, so hopefully I'll be getting some art into some other 3rd-party books and maybe even Paizo's books at some point! I would love to do some Starfinder art.
- Michael D. Clarke (SpiralMagus)
PS... Yes, my Shemhazian has less eyes than the Paizo one - just putting my own spin on it based on the text description, which doesn't mention the number of eyes at all. Anyway, thanks for the positive words - glad you guys like it! :)
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Thanks Michael. Appreciate you taking the time to post this. I can't wait to see what else you come up with and what projects you get to draw art for. All I know is that I'll be supporting it because holy crap are you amazing.
On the ToN front, I've got nothing endearing. I've had to talk with the KS staff a second time, and they've had to go after Gary yet again. Reason being, he backed another four projects that have nothing to do with Pathfinder, and doubtfully anything ToN related, and still we've heard nothing. I'm hoping against hope that we get something before the end of the month. However, like most of you, I'm not going to hold my breath. Just saying that it'd be nice.
I would also like to thank Michael Clarke. I (foolishly?) backed this kickstarter at the $280 level. I DID get my custom piece of B&W art from Michael, that was so amazing that I no longer consider this kickstarter a "loss" (regardless of any more deliverables).
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Thank you Michael, for your informative and honest update. I wish you all the best in your further career, and I would enjoy seeing your artwork in future Paizo products. You have my vote for that.
Thanks Michael. Your art is stunning and you did your job. AND you found it in your heart to keep us updated as best you could which I for one appreciate (and in fact without your art I guess the measly 43 "updates" in 3 1/2 fricking years would be cut in half really).
All the best to you!
Michael, what happened to Gary? Why has he shown so little interest in communicating with his backers?
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Michael, what happened to Gary? Why has he shown so little interest in communicating with his backers?
Unfortunately, Michael can't answer the second question. In his email, as far as he's aware, Gary alive and still planning to work on the AP. Gary's been very short on explanations, even to Mike, and essentially Mike's requests to contact us on numerous occasions has fallen on deaf ears. Even Mike can't explain it.
Currently, Gary has backed 137 projects. Mike didn't know that until I told him. All we can do is wait even longer.
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Thanks for the well-wishes and words of support all. I'm really glad to hear that people like how the art turned out.
Michael, what happened to Gary? Why has he shown so little interest in communicating with his backers?
Gary is still around and working on writing the remainder of the adventure path, as far as I know.
But I don't know the reasons behind the way he has handled communication (or lack thereof) with the backers and fans of FMG. I will just say it's not how I would handle things, and I've often tried to instill some better approaches in this area.
Currently, Gary has backed 137 projects. Mike didn't know that until I told him.
Actually, I never said that. I'm well aware that he supports a lot of Kickstarters. Honestly, I don't feel it's my business how he chooses to spend his personal money, and I think there is a separation between personal and professional activities to keep in mind here. I can see how it can be viewed badly though, in light of Throne of Night's delays.
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Currently, Gary has backed 137 projects. Mike didn't know that until I told him.Actually, I never said that. I'm well aware that he supports a lot of Kickstarters. Honestly, I don't feel it's my business how he chooses to spend his personal money, and I think there is a separation between personal and professional activities to keep in mind here. I can see how it can be viewed badly though, in light of Throne of Night's delays.
That's fair. I guess it's one of those things a person can't really judge if they don't know the full details. For instance, we know he's now supported 139 projects. What's unknown is the amount that was put down or what money was spent. It's the not knowing that can lead people to thinking the worst case scenario.
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Honestly, I don't feel it's my business how he chooses to spend his personal money, and I think there is a separation between personal and professional activities to keep in mind here. I can see how it can be viewed badly though, in light of Throne of Night's delays.
Yeah well, forgive me if concerns about being fair against Gary McBride doesn't exactly make my TOP100 of priorities right now. Even IF this would be 100% true (and there stands to rason that the money we all payed him for working on ToN payed for at least some of those pledges AND that reading/playing 137 books/games (most not for pathfinder) does NOT speed things up reagarding ToN) backing 137 kickstarters DOES mean that he was online on kickstarter 137 times and could have given an update. He got time enough to scour kickstater for new stuff to buy but not to give us a 5 sentence update? Sorry, but wih all due respect, saying that this is all personal and and not anyones business is too easy Michael.
Honestly, I don't feel it's my business how he chooses to spend his personal money, and I think there is a separation between personal and professional activities to keep in mind here. I can see how it can be viewed badly though, in light of Throne of Night's delays.Yeah well, forgive me if concerns about being fair against Gary McBride doesn't exactly make my TOP100 of priorities right now. Even IF this would be 100% true (and there stands to rason that the money we all payed him for working on ToN payed for at least some of those pledges AND that reading/playing 137 books/games (most not for pathfinder) does NOT speed things up reagarding ToN) backing 137 kickstarters DOES mean that he was online on kickstarter 137 times and could have given an update. He got time enough to scour kickstater for new stuff to buy but not to give us a 5 sentence update? Sorry, but wih all due respect, saying that this is all personal and and not anyones business is too easy Michael.
Agreed.
At first, I tried to be understanding, considering the delay may have been caused by something medical related, or a family emergency of some kind.But, if he is of sound enough mind and emotion to go shopping on the same site he can use to communicate with us, but chooses not to communicate, that is unacceptable.
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I think I need to clarify a bit: I don't at all defend Gary's handling of communication with the backers. Like I said, it's not how I would do it, and I repeatedly tried to change this.
To put the money thing in perspective though, the $40,640 raised for the Kickstarter would be enough to pay me for a little over a year of work. And I worked on the project for more than 3 years straight, full time. So I would assume that the Kickstarter money was spent a long time ago, to pay me for my work.
I totally agree though, that it is very bad form to log onto the site repeatedly and back lots of projects, without giving any updates to his own project. It is insulting and disrespectful to the backers, and this aspect of it has frustrated me a lot. Because you guys deserve to be treated better.
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Backing Kickstarter does not require scouring the website or 137 individual visits. I get plenty of kickstarters from Facebook and email. I don't even look at the rest of the site.
This in no way excuses the neglect of this campaign, but it doesn't make it more outrageous than it already is. It literally can't. The only thing that would make it worse at this point is Gary finally responding only to tell you all the project is canceled and you are getting nothing more out of it.
Even IF he got all 139 projects from enail or FB - which I doubt (I also do get a lot from these sources but not everything that interests me and I am rather sure thats how it is for practically everybody) - it doesn't really matter. He was on kickstarter, could have easily wrote a update. Didn't think it worth his time to update his financiers even after 11 fricking months (backed his 139th project tonight)..
But whatever.
@Michael: I understand that. Sorry for getting a bit heated, I did in no way intend to attack you personally. I just think that all things considered we are at a point in time where "thats his own business" regarding anything that connects with this project is long behind us.
But if its the case that the money was used in full to pay you I at least do think it was spent well enough.
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Even IF he got all 139 projects from enail or FB - which I doubt (I also do get a lot from these sources but not everything that interests me and I am rather sure thats how it is for practically everybody) - it doesn't really matter.
That's what I'm saying, it doesn't matter if he is on Kickstarter or not. What he has done is already inexcusable.
I have a certain limited amount of sympathy for Gary, because I have pretty much the same behavior from school onward: turtle up into a little ball of denial and lack of communication.
...I've learned to deal with it by trying to avoid situations where I'm likely to fall behind deadlines.
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@Michael: I understand that. Sorry for getting a bit heated, I did in no way intend to attack you personally. I just think that all things considered we are at a point in time where "thats his own business" regarding anything that connects with this project is long behind us.
No harm done - I didn't take it as an attack, and I completely understand emotions getting heated in this situation. I'm a gamer too and I would find it extremely frustrating to be in the position you guys are. I've backed some projects myself that were very late or got cancelled entirely. So I know how it feels.
I really didn't mean to judge anyone who scrutinizes Gary's Kickstarter backing activities, and I apologize if it was taken that way.
Has anyone heard anything from "Alice"?
My group just finished book 1, and I was really looking forward to seeing what she did in book 2 and beyond.
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Has anyone heard anything from "Alice"?
My group just finished book 1, and I was really looking forward to seeing what she did in book 2 and beyond.
Afraid not. A few people have messaged her and me to know how she's doing. Unfortunately, I don't know anything. I too have messaged her out of concern.
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For those still looking for ideas and help on your own AP, check this thread. There's talk of dwarves there.
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So I recently discovered an old book that I've had for a long time when I came across an old email I sent to one of my GMs. It was about the possibility of doing a Legend of Zelda scenario, but no one knew how to design the master sword. That was until I came across the Mongoose Publishing Ultimate Magic Items book where they had come up with the shooting longsword (put it up on my blog). Curious, I went back through the book to see if there was anything else relevant in there that I could use in a current or future campaign. I came across four things that would work for this AP.
1) Articulation armor. For +500 gold this armor counts as one category lighter for special abilities, movement speeds, and skill check penalties. This was invented by a dwarven smith.
2) Armor of the Arcane. It's a set of full plate with 0% spell failure for 10k. Personally, for that price I'd at least make it masterwork, but that's just me.
3) Breastplate of the Necrotic Grasp. A drow necromancer's variant on the standard +1 breastplate using actual breastbones from a larger creature. Once per round it attempts to use the ghoul touch spell at a +10 attack bonus to anyone adjacent to the wearer. It costs 45k.
4) Dwarf-Skull Helm. Another drow creation using a literal dwarf skull, the wearer gains a +2 insight bonus to the same Craft and Appraise checks that dwarves get with gems, stone, and metal, exotic or rare, and gain a +2 bonus to all saves against SLAs, spells, and poisons.
Other than that, I saw a couple of cool stat reducing weapon properties, both a +2 bonus, that dealt 1 point of Intelligence or Charisma damage. Either one would be deadly against dwarves, but especially Charisma damage. The properties don't work against oozes, plants, constructs, undead, or anything else immune to crits and mind-affecting spells.
Sooooo.......Alice is pulling a "McBride" on us, eh?! LOL. This shit of an AP must be cursed somehow.....^^
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Sooooo.......Alice is pulling a "McBride" on us, eh?! LOL. This s&@+ of an AP must be cursed somehow.....^^
Looks like. I just hope that nothing bad happened to her. Those who had reservations about her, as she only had a few posts on the entire forum, probably have something to gloat about.
It was brought up on the KS that this Saturday will be the 1 year anniversary of the last time Gary gave us an update.
I'm at a point where I essentially just want to admit defeat. You could say I've lost the ability to care one way or another.
Sooooo.......Alice is pulling a "McBride" on us, eh?! LOL. This s&@+ of an AP must be cursed somehow.....^^Looks like. I just hope that nothing bad happened to her. Those who had reservations about her, as she only had a few posts on the entire forum, probably have something to gloat about.
It was brought up on the KS that this Saturday will be the 1 year anniversary of the last time Gary gave us an update.
I'm at a point where I essentially just want to admit defeat. You could say I've lost the ability to care one way or another.
Same here.
I was hoping to see the stuff Alice ran for her table, so I could use it for my group. We just finished book 1, and my players are aware that after the next book, the campaign goes on indefinate hold.The only saving grace is that Paizo finally released an AP I want to run (Strange Aeons). I haven't run a Paizo AP since Shattered Star, but my players and I are really excited about this new one.
Actually I was pretty excited for Strange Aeons too.....which ended pretty fast when I read about the whole "the players visit a dark Paris stuff". I mean come on, didn´t you learn anything from the Reign of Winter/Russia fiasco Paizo??? Why do you need to insert real world stuff into a fantasy RPG?? There´s so many fantasy places to use, why go there again?
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Actually I was pretty excited for Strange Aeons too.....which ended pretty fast when I read about the whole "the players visit a dark Paris stuff". I mean come on, didn´t you learn anything from the Reign of Winter/Russia fiasco Paizo??? Why do you need to insert real world stuff into a fantasy RPG?? There´s so many fantasy places to use, why go there again?
Fiasco?!?!
Rasputin Must Die! was f&&@ing awesome!
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Yeah, according to the devs, Rasputin Must Die did really well and because of that we got stuff like Iron Gods and, well, Strange Aeons.
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They had me at "Dark Paris" personally, I was all set to cancel my sub, until I saw the cover of book six.
Also Rasputin Must Die is one of the single best adventure modules ever. Any version of the game. :-)
My guess would be editing and formatting aren't as easy as Alice thought. :-)
I wouldn't lose faith yet. :-)
LOL Guess one can´t argue over taste, eh?! Most people I know (myself included obviously) thought it horrible. But he! To everybody his/her own. I´ll pass though.....
@Cap: Yeah well.....faith is hard to come by in this particular thread ^^
LOL Guess one can´t argue over taste, eh?! Most people I know (myself included obviously) thought it horrible.
I'd be interested to know why you found the adventure horrible.
Probably a topic for another thread. Don't want to derail.
I'm actually really sad to see Fire Mountain Games fall so. I thought it was awesome to see a third party publisher get a great deal of recognition for an often controversial style of gaming with their evil AP. Especially in the Paizo community, where third party publishers can be much maligned. A real shame to see how they've fallen.
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I can't wait to run Rasputin Must Die! In Ravenloft. It should be fun.
The only problem I had with RoW is that there wasn't enough Interplanetary stuff. Snows of Summer,Shackled Hut and MM&C before players could take off to other places makes me a sad panda.
LOL Guess one can´t argue over taste, eh?! Most people I know (myself included obviously) thought it horrible.I'd be interested to know why you found the adventure horrible.
Sure, why not. Several reasons (and look, all of this is highly subjective, so if you think that „Rasputin must die“ ist he best thing since the invention oft he wheel…..good for you). Also mark you that my beef is mostly with this one adventure, not with the whole AP.
First (and not least) of all: for the same reason I would think that Lord of the Rings sucks right after Aragron, Legolas and Gimli have to fight through a battalion of Nazi Soldiers Sauron pulled in from the eastern front. Or why I would think that “Three Musketeers” sucks when Alexandre Dumas gets them saved from the Cardinals schemes by some Formorians Merlin sent over.
I´m just not a big fan (to say the least) of mixing fantasy up with modern stuff (if the whole system isn´t built on it. But if I wanted to play TORG or Weird Wars I probably would).
Other reasons I think it´s a bad adventure: because
* it has biiiiig plotholes
* it makes overmuch use of (badly done) plot devices (a.k.a. Deus Ex Machina NPC)
* it is unsound mechanically (crunch-wise)
Want me to list some examples (though it´s probably really a topic for another thread)?
My guess would be editing and formatting aren't as easy as Alice thought. :-)
I wouldn't lose faith yet. :-)
Either that, or the Aboleths that silenced Gary got to her as well.
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I know damn well what will happen: nothing at all. Well that''s not entirely true: the 366th day of the silence treatment will come and go. That's gonna happen.
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I know damn well what will happen: nothing at all. Well that''s not entirely true: the 366th day of the silence treatment will come and go. That's gonna happen.
Looks like you were right. Nothing. He didn't sign on either so I guess there's that, but it's pretty weak to use that as a defense nowadays.
Thanks Michael.
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This will likely be my final post here.
Mirko Hess said: Well Derek, you kept this project alive in the forum for two whole years practically on your own. That's something that can't be praised highly enough and you got my utmost respect for that!
Thanks ever so much for those words, Mirko. I did what I could for those that needed it. If nothing else, I found an adventure that people could at least consider ending it at (as a shorter Book 3), and made a journal entry for said adventure (linked in case you missed my original August entry) on how to convert it to Pathfinder.
My final? response on the KS: I really just have one final comment to say on this. I honestly hope that this eventually gets finished. Don't care if it's tomorrow, next week, next month, or even two years from now. It NEEDS to get finished. It deserves it. Michael deserves the recognition, we deserve our money's worth of project, and Gary deserves peace of mind that with this done he can finally rest and do whatever he pleases from that point on.
In the end, I hope I'm right. That Gary didn't abandon the project in the end, that he was just extremely behind schedule, burned out, and the anxiety was what finished him off or something major happened in his life that essentially broke him, and that's why he couldn't finish things right away. And I know you all want me to be right. Even partially. Because it means you get what you're owed and we can put this all behind us, to never speak of it again. But, maybe you're right. Maybe Gary won't finish this. Maybe we won't be owed what's ours. Only time will tell. For now, I'm closing the door on this project, but I'm not locking it. Should it knock on my door once more, I'll invite it in. However, I'm no longer going to actively pursue it or psyche myself up that maybe today's the day. It knows my (email) address.
I wish everyone the best. Especially Gary. Hopefully things don't turn out for the worst. Once it hits the day after the 5th year anniversary, it's end game and everyone's able to try take this to court. Well, every American can.
Just going to add to this saying that I'll still be actively moving about the forum, just not this thread. You'll probably see me pop up here and there and especially on the PFS section as I'm nearly at 4 GM stars (100 successfully run scenarios/modules).
I'm currently working on the part 6 of a 6-part module that's slowly starting to come out (mine's separate from the other books), and there's two adventures/modules that I wrote currently getting edited and published, as well as my second mini-bestiary. Depending on how these go, I may or may not get the approval for the AP I want to write. If I don't, no hard feelings. Just means I still have a ways to go until someone's willing to take a chance on me. I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the scenario survey. Eventually it will get done, I just can't promise when, and no, I won't do a Kickstarter. I wouldn't want to put that much pressure on myself, nor would I want anyone to feel uneasy or concerned that they'd go through the same thing a second time. This was enough of a lesson for all of us.
Wish I could tell you what happened with Alice, but she's MIA. Haven't seen anything new from her account since Aug 24th. Hopefully nothing bad has happened. I remember a couple of people joking that she was actually Gary in disguise checking on things.
Once again, all the best to everyone. Take care. Maybe when we need meet up it'll be under far better circumstances.