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In their newsletter LGG announced it's going to publish a planet hopping AP.
Get the news here.
Interplanetary, New Worlds, Ancient Species, Aliens, Technology, Psionics, and more!
Legendary Games brings you an eight-part, sword-and-planet Pathfinder Adventure Path; authored by some of the biggest names in Pathfinder, Legendary Planet will take your characters across the multiverse and back again in an incredible campaign like none other!
Are you ready to explore the galaxies? Coming to Kickstarter June 15th we plan to run until mid to late July, just in time to get ready for Gen Con.
The Assimilation Strain - To Worlds Unknown - The Scavenged Codex - Dead Vault Descent - Confederates of the Shattered Zone - The Depths of Desperation - Mind Tyrants of the Merciless Moons - To Kill A Star
TL;DR Legendary Planet AP!!!
Woot!
Discuss!
LGG did AP addons and other products for use with Paizo material with the Golarion IP filed off/hidden/alluded to, so it might be set in a solar system that's very familiar.
It nice to know where my money will be spending its summer. :-)
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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Interesting... I assume that this will effectively be its own setting? Or is it tied to a known setting?
It will be its own brand-new setting, though it will also have connections to other worlds.
The AP really begins in To Worlds Unknown, but we have also created The Assimilation Strain as a prequel adventure that can connect any campaign world into the Legendary Planet-verse.
Neil Spicer and I will each be doing a final playtest of The Assimilation Strain at PaizoCon this Friday morning, and pending final edits and layout it should be available at the beginning of June.
Interesting... I assume that this will effectively be its own setting? Or is it tied to a known setting?The AP really begins in To Worlds Unknown, but we have also created The Assimilation Strain as a prequel adventure that can connect any campaign world into the Legendary Planet-verse.
"any campaign world into the Legendary Planet-verse," but what does this mean?
Legendary Games doesn't have their own settings ... or do they?
As far as I can tell, yes, they do. Legendary Planet is a planet-hopping, pulp-esque saga with its own setting rules that can fit into any established campaign setting. Think John Carter meets Stargate. At least that's what I took from the stuff revealed so far.
Will definitely keep my eye out for this in June.
Very glad to see some stuff from you guys not set in "Golarion". I've liked your plug in stuff, obviously. However, I'll personally be very excited to see how you build worlds/adventures not constrained by needing to be "kinda like Golarion". Really hoping this is a success!
Will it be using the Technology Guide rules?
Interesting... I assume that this will effectively be its own setting? Or is it tied to a known setting?The AP really begins in To Worlds Unknown, but we have also created The Assimilation Strain as a prequel adventure that can connect any campaign world into the Legendary Planet-verse."any campaign world into the Legendary Planet-verse," but what does this mean?
Legendary Games doesn't have their own settings ... or do they?
He said it in the first sentence of the post you took that quote from.
"It will be its own brand-new setting, though it will also have connections to other worlds."
So yes, they will have their own setting.
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Will it be using the Technology Guide rules?
Yes. To a fair degree. But we won't constrain ourselves to that...i.e., we may very well wind up adding further to it, in the sense that the Legendary Worlds/Legendary Planet milieu is a bit less sci-fi and a bit more sci-fantasy. Think more along the lines of the kinds of technology you see on Barsoom in John Carter of Mars and you'll be heeling a lot closer to what we have in mind. So, many of the high-end technological items in the Technology Guide won't have a place in our setting. Instead, we may well have different analogues for those kinds of devices, just using a different technological explanation for it.
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As far as I can tell, yes, they do. Legendary Planet is a planet-hopping, pulp-esque saga with its own setting rules that can fit into any established campaign setting. Think John Carter meets Stargate. At least that's what I took from the stuff revealed so far.
Very much this.
Legendary Worlds (or Legendary Planet, as we've called it before) centers on an entire multiverse of worlds all joined by Stargate-like portals which are Ancient artifacts in the hands of various interstellar factions. We're eschewing starships in favor of gates because we didn't want to bog down an adventuring day with lots of downtime aboard a ship or take on the headaches of ship-to-ship combat in space. In its place, we'll very much focus the action on the planets. That way, you get things going right away in familiar surroundings akin to any other fantasy RPG setting. I've heard it favorably compared to Planescape, as well, because of the approach we're taking with it.
So, if you were to link up John Carter with Stargate with Planescape and maybe a low-tech dash of Thundarr the Barbarian and Flash Gordon, you'd be on the right track. Ultimately, it's multiverse-spanning, sword-and-planet pulp.
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Interesting... I assume that this will effectively be its own setting? Or is it tied to a known setting?
Eventually, it will be its own setting.
For the moment, we're focused on starting it out as a single Adventure Path designed to introduce portions of the setting in an epic campaign which you can link up to your existing homeworld--whether that's Golarion, Oerth, Faerun, Eberron, Midgard, homebrew, or whatever. The interplanetary gates which link the multiverse together could very well exist on any of those other worlds, too. And our Adventure Path will basically be a demonstration of how to link it with something else if you just want to expand your horizon a bit from the single planet your PCs may already be adventuring on. Of course, it can also stand alone, if you prefer to start with a clean slate and not link it to any other existing campaign setting. The choice is yours.
In addition, each of the AP chapters will include support articles. They'll be purposefully designed to provide even more information about the specific planets where each adventure takes place. And, there'll be an expanded bestiary section to present new fauna and flora from those worlds, as well as other races, monsters, and alien lifeforms the PCs might encounter...or even play if they need a replacement character over the course of the campaign.
Right now, we're targeting the summer timeframe to launch a Kickstarter to fund the Adventure Path. Provided that's successful, the support articles will be used as foundational "building blocks" for expanding the overall Legendary Worlds Campaign Setting down the line. It's my hope that we receive enough backing to fund both undertakings, though the campaign setting may require it's own separate Kickstarter after we fulfill the Adventure Path for our initial backers.
With the exception of the Kickstarter element, this is somewhat similar to the way Paizo first launched Golarion. It started out as a single AP (Rise of the Runelords) for only a portion of their yet-to-be-published campaign setting (i.e., it only took place in Varisia and Golarion hadn't really been fully defined yet). Assuming the AP helps us launch the first renderings of the larger Legendary Worlds campaign setting, there'll be more to come.
Bottom line, if you have an interest in this kind of world-spanning adventure and you'd prefer that it focus more on sword-and-planet tropes than hard sci-fi, this will be your jam.
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One other little tidbit. Jason and I talked at length about Legendary Planet with Ryan Costello of Know Direction at last year's PaizoCon. Jason and Rachel will likely speak about it again during their 10 minutes with him at his "Know Direction Live!" event this year.
You had to mention Planescape, huh? That will cause some nerdrage discussions.
I for one liked Planescape and also would very much like to see Golarion-like planets included in the AP.
So the planets visited in the AP, who are they?
So how many parts are we looking at in this AP and what will be the level range. This looks right up my alley BTW.
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You had to mention Planescape, huh? That will cause some nerdrage discussions.
I look forward to the conversation. But, in actuality, I know very little about Planescape. I myself have never played in that setting, but I did spend some time reading through a few of the books many years ago. Thus, I'm not beholden to making Legendary Planet exactly like Planescape. There are just some unconscious parallels there which others have pointed out as we've talked about the setting we're designing.
I for one liked Planescape and also would very much like to see Golarion-like planets included in the AP. So the planets visited in the AP, who are they?
They're not all named or fully fleshed out yet, but we'll probably share a few more specifics about them at PaizoCon with a step-through of the planned adventures and their themes. In general, however...
...they'll include:
1) A desert-like "hub" world (very Tatooine-esque) with multiple gateways to other planets across the multiverse.
2) A post-apocalyptic world (somewhat reminiscent of Mad Max, but a bit less barren)
3) A tidally-locked world (with lots of underground vaults built by the Ancients)
4) A shattered world (essentially, a bunch of floating asteroids with their sustained ecosystems, heavily mined by squatters)
5) A water world (essentially a planet whose melted ice caps flooded an entire civilization, but gave rise to a new one below the waves)
6) A gas giant world (with several moons which have their own unique ecosystems)
7) A Dyson-sphere world (i.e., a manufactured "shell" surrounding an entire star at a range where its inner surface is within the habitability zone)
Technically, there's an 8th planet, but that's for the prequel adventure and it can be any homeworld where the PCs get to experience a low-level alien incursion, of sorts. So, it can be a planet like Golarion, some other published setting, your own homebrew world, or a generic planet within the larger LP multiverse.
Hope that helps stir the pot,
--Neil
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So how many parts are we looking at in this AP and what will be the level range. This looks right up my alley BTW.
If we're successfully funded via the Kickstarter, there'll be a total of 7 chapters to this AP (rather than the traditional 6). Chapter 1 starts with the PCs already at 2nd level. But, if you want the full experience of leveling up from 1st, you can play the prequel adventure (The Assimilation Strain) and it will foreshadow the circumstances which lead off Chapter 1 (while also getting the PCs to 2nd level).
From there, the remaining chapters will take PCs all the way up to 20th level (so they get their capstone ability--and enough adventuring room to actually use it in play). We'll also be including a dash of mythic rules available to the PCs...i.e., they'll gain a handful of mythic tiers over the course of the campaign, but not so much that it'll overpower the gameplay at the table. Of course, the NPC villains and monsters will be somewhat less restrained when it comes to mythic power...i.e., we can delve into that toolbox a little more deeply for the GM's use.
Lastly, we'll also be layering in a few experiences utilizing psionics. We don't intend to go crazy with it, as that's not everyone's favorite thing to deal with in play. But, if we're going to stay true to the tropes of sword-and-planet, psionics are very much in play for certain creatures. And, if your GM is a full-bore fan of psionics and you want to play a psionic character from the start, there'll be room for that, too.
It's not that we're trying to throw in the kitchen sink or anything. We're just committed to using a lot of these optional rules in a way that fully meshes with the Legendary Worlds Campaign Setting. And, we're approaching it with the intent of "doing it the right way" to hopefully serve as an example of how to get the most from these sub-systems at your gaming table. We also happen to think it'll help us tell a pretty epic story unique to this Adventure Path.
So, if I've whetted anyone's appetite here, please make an effort to check us out...whether that's at PaizoCon later this week, a future podcast, our website, or the eventual Kickstarter. We'll need pretty much everyone to help spread the news about this undertaking if we're going to take it to Legendary heights. And we'll be most appreciative of anyone who helps us get it off the ground in a big, big way.
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I'm really looking forward to playing through "To Worlds Unknown" this weekend at Paizocon. The teaser blurb sounds fun:
Fire. And a choking haze of smoke blurring the luminous glow of strange lights on the walls and floor. Shouts. And an ever-present ringing in your ears, piercing your brain with the sharp trauma of an urgent alarm. You stumble from a bed you don't recognize, and into the path of strangers you don't know--some disturbingly alien, yet all fleeing an unknown catastrophe. Where are you? How'd you get here? What's happening? There are no easy answers to these questions. But your opportunity to discover them starts now. And they're destined to take you "To Worlds Unknown."
This scenario is a special, cooperative gaming event sponsored by Legendary Games as an introduction to the upcoming Legendary Planet Adventure Path developed by Neil Spicer. Kickstarting in the summer of 2015, be the first to get a closed-door look at this sweeping tale of high adventure in a sword-and-planet multiverse.
Out of curiosity, with Occult Adventures right around the corner, will you be looking to use those rules for your psychic stuff, or Dreamscarred's work? Maybe both? (I'm curious to see a fully-fleshed-out take on how the two system might coexist...)
It may very well wind up being from both, but it'll depend on what we see with Occult Adventures and how much of that makes it into the PRD (i.e., I like to work mostly with stuff that's easily referenced from the main Paizo PRD). It's entirely possible that psionics on one world may reflect the Dreamscarred version, while psychic magic on another world uses the Occult Adventures version. Dreamscarred went the extra mile in helping us with our recent Mythic Mania Kickstarter, which included a lot of new content for how to take psionics to mythic heights. So, I have a feeling we'll be referencing that material at the very least. Tim Hitchcock and Jason Nelson will have the greatest opportunity to explore psionics, and a lot of it will really just depend on where their creativity takes them.
So, we're keeping an open mind (no pun intended). ;)
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Is it too soon to ask about a pricing structure? I sadly shant be at the event, but I'm eager to hear more.
Definitely too soon. Those details will be worked out and then shared via the Kickstarter announcement, but you can expect various options (including PDF-only versus single hardcover compilation, etc.).
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No problem. This is sort of a "dream" project for me...both in the sense that I've dreamt about it for a long time, and it represents an ambitious undertaking on my part. But, I consider myself quite lucky to have the support of more than a few industry veterans in writing and publishing it. And, I really do appreciate any and all support thrown our way in spreading the word and backing the Kickstarter.
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I've already started bugging my friends about it, and I can all but guarantee you'll be getting my money at least.
Thanks, Shisumo. This is definitely one of those Kickstarters where we'll be able to take it to greater heights as more people back it. So, please keep spreading the word and convince as many people to sign on as you can. In fact, I'd like to call in as many cards and favors as I may have amassed over my brief freelancing career to see this thing really soar.
Ideally, I'd like it to become the quintessential campaign for bridging a single homeworld into a larger multiverse. And, we'd all be thrilled to have it serve as the springboard for bringing that multiverse to life as a new, vibrant campaign setting capable of standing alongside so many others in the history of gaming.
This is kind of like my magnum opus. It's a concept which has weighed on my mind for many, many years. And, just in terms of giving back to the RPG community, I'd love to see it published and used by those who imagine taking their adventures across many different worlds...with literally, no end to the amount of new, creative content it can include, or have added to it over the years.
That's my vision, at least. The hard part is making it more than just a vision.
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But, I consider myself quite lucky to have the support of more than a few industry veterans in writing and publishing it. .
There are a lot of industry vets that are excited to be part of it too!
Has an author list been announced?
I don't think so. I know a couple though. Best I leave that to Jason or Neil.
From the (non confidential) newsletter:
Coming down the pipeline...
MAY
Tomb Raiders by Jim Groves, Mike Shel, Jonathan H. Keith, and Benjamin Bruck
Mythic Monsters: Colossal by Jason Nelson and Mike Welham
Legendary Classes: Paladins by Amber Scott and Jason Nelson
The Assimilation Strain by Tom Phillips and Neil Spicer
Legendary Classes: The General by Linda Zayas-Palmer and Will McCardell
Royal Tournaments by Jason Nelson
JUNE
Starfall by Tom Phillips and Mike Welham
Cyborgs by Tim Hitchcock and Russ Taylor
Legendary Classes: Rogues by Matt Goodall, Jason Nelson, and Clinton J. Boomer
Ultimate Prestige: Villains by Jason Nelson
Mythic Monsters: Animals by Mike Welham, Jason Nelson, and Jonathan H. Keith
Scorpions of Perdition by Nicolas Logue
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YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! SPACE ADVENTURE PATH FOR THE WIN! Are there any explosion-loving hippo people? Please say yes!
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But, I consider myself quite lucky to have the support of more than a few industry veterans in writing and publishing it. .There are a lot of industry vets that are excited to be part of it too!
Part of what? What are you guys talking about?
Has an author list been announced?
As a lead-in to PaizoCon (and because some of our contributors are already teasing their involvement), I'll share the first few authors of the Legendary Planet AP (including the prequel adventure):
Prequel - The Assimilation Strain by Tom Phillips and Neil Spicer
Chapter 1 - To Worlds Unknown by Jim Groves
Chapter 2 - The Scavenged Codex by Mike Shel
Chapter 3 - Dead Vault Descent by Matt Goodall
I hope to talk through a general synopsis of these adventures (and the ones which follow in the later chapters of the AP) at our "What's New With Legendary Games?" PaizoCon panel on Friday afternoon at 3PM. So, if you're going to be in Seattle and you can take an hour of your time to check us out, please drop by. We've got a lot to share about all our upcoming products, and that certainly includes Legendary Planet/Legendary Worlds.
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Are there any explosion-loving hippo people? Please say yes!
I can neither confirm, nor deny, that there'll be any hippo-people.
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I strongly suggest that you use the mythic rules only for creature encounters and antagonists. You're going to have tech already and high level characters, that's enough already to balance out for the harried GM.
Hey, LazarX! I know a lot of people likely share your view on this topic, but I'd ask that you please reserve judgment until you see what we do with mythic in this AP. We already have plans to come at it from a couple different directions than folks have seen in the past. And, you can rest assured that the greatest mythic threats will be invested in the creature encounters and NPC antagonists...not the PCs.
That said, the PCs will get their own taste of mythic ability as they gain experience, but it won't be dialed all the way up for them, unlike some of the opponents they'll be facing. In addition, we've already published quite a few mythic supplements for Legendary Games, and they'll be tailored for AP play with a careful eye towards maintaining game balance. This is a challenge we don't take lightly, as there's a lot of value to the mythic rules if they're used the right way. And that's exactly what we intend to do with this Adventure Path and campaign setting. Hopefully, given our track record, we've earned everyone's patience and trust. So, don't give up on mythic just yet. We aim to make it work, and work well.
Also, in terms of the technology factor, we won't be going full-bore with that. This is meant to pay tribute to the sword-and-planet genre. So, much of the "tech" is going to have more of a magi-tech or alien feel to it than engineered electronics, blaster rifles, power armor, and robots. So, that'll help tamp down the power creep a bit, as well.
Any chance of a 5th edition version?
Will it be using the Technology Guide rules?
I think we occasionally need to remind ourselves that the Technology Guide is not a generic book. It is specifically about ancient Androffan tech found in Numeria on Golarion. It won't necessarily be useful for other times and places.
Any chance of a 5th edition version?Yes.
Will it be using the Technology Guide rules?I think we occasionally need to remind ourselves that the Technology Guide is not a generic book. It is specifically about ancient Androffan tech found in Numeria on Golarion. It won't necessarily be useful for other times and places.
While I don't own the book, I don't think this is true. From what I can tell, the book is
an invaluable manual of items, hazards, and character options for use in science-fantasy settings like Golarion’s Numeria, land of savagery and super-science….
where you might also find rules for things like
a laser gun in the hands of a terrible enemy or a set of strange gravity armor found in the treasure trove of an oddly uniform metal dungeon, technology from the future (or even the present-day real world)...
So while the book contains text that aids Iron Gods and details aspects of Numeria, it is not, to my understanding, specifically Numerian or even Golarion-only. Though it being a part of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting line belies that. :)
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A few stray comments:
The Technology Guide does have some Golarion Campaign Setting material (Androffan tech) in it which will have to be changed or removed in accordance to the rules. Sections of the book are also posted as part of the Paizo PRD as Core Rules Content. That makes it a valuable resource and at least as baseline for comparison in making technological content.
So I think both perspectives have some merit but neither are exclusively correct.
We're going to have some technology. The parts of the Technology Guide that are open content are a resource for consistency. We have a responsibility to produce content that is mechanically balanced and consistent with the Core rules. That's why a baseline really is an important tool.
But.. as an author who has communed with both the publisher and developer, we're aiming for Sword and Planet. Not everyone knows what that means. I struggled with it myself. As "homework" I sat down and watched the film version of "John Carter." Without getting sidetracked about things like critic reviews and what fans of the novels felt about the adaptation, its a great visual two-hour primer on some of the themes and tech levels we're looking at. You'll see guns, energy weapons, flying ships but also a healthy dose of sword-fightin' that comes straight out of sword and sorcery style action.
(And I enjoyed the movie whether that matters or not)
Science Fantasy.
Hope this helps!
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So, seven parts. Does that mean six plus the prequel? Or seven parts and a prequel on top?