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Hi there,
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on Parsantium: City at the Crossroads on these message boards so I thought it was high time I wrote something!
For the last couple of months, I’ve been working on Whispers of the Dark Daeva, a new 1st level adventure set in Parsantium’s Dock Ward, to be published in PDF in 2016 by Ondine Publishing. If things go to plan, this will be followed by a second adventure that can be played as a standalone, or the two can be used together in a Tales of Parsantium mini-campaign.
As the boat town of Flotsam gets ready to celebrate the Festival of Flowers, a series of violent murders threatens to spoil the upcoming festivities. When the PCs delve into what’s been going on, they uncover an ancient evil lurking below the city streets in the Hidden Quarter that must be stopped before more innocent people die.
My original plan was to write a short adventure of around 10,000 - 12,000 words, playable with Pathfinder, D&D 5e and 13th Age. Following on from some very helpful feedback on these boards, I’ve decided to write and publish separate versions of the adventure for each edition. Since then, I have been hard at work on the Pathfinder version and have been enjoying building some fun, crunchy NPC villains for PCs to battle in the adventure. So far, the introductory section (adventure background, synopsis and hooks) and the first seven scenes/encounters are written, with the manuscript clocking in at nearly 9,000 words. I’ll definitely be honing my prose on the second draft, but I've still got around seven to eight scenes to write, so it looks like the adventure will run longer than I initially expected.
The plan now is to get a playtest draft written by early January, before working on the 5e version. If you’re interested in running the adventure and providing playtest feedback, please let me know below.
More news to follow...
Any questions, please shout :)
Cheers
Rich
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Hi there,
Happy New Year! I thought I would take this opportunity to update you all on what I’ve got planned for Parsantium this year.
Top priority is to finish and publish Whispers of the Dark Daeva in both Pathfinder and D&D 5e versions.
I am hoping to finish the first draft of the Pathfinder version in the next few weeks. The manuscript currently stands at 12,000 words with only the final climactic battle scene, the “Concluding the Adventure” section, and a few brief room descriptions left to write. I don’t think these bits will take too long to do, but I have a freelance project to complete for Raging Swan Press by the end of this month too.
Once the first draft is complete, I will do a revised draft before sending it out for playtesting. Then, I’ll start commissioning the cover and interior art, and also begin work on the 5e version.
If you are interested in playtesting the Pathfinder version of the adventure, please let me know in below or email me at parsantium@gmail.com
Depending on how it takes to write, edit, lay out and publish Whispers of the Dark Daeva, I may or may not get the chance to go back and finish writing Flotsam and Jetsam, a second adventure for 3rd-4th level characters which follows on nicely from Whispers. Quite a bit of this is already written as I worked on it on and off in 2015 before deciding I needed to publish a 1st level adventure first!
Please do let me know your thoughts, and if there is anything else you would like to see for the setting.
Thanks to everyone who bought Parsantium: City at the Crossroads or Icons of Parsantium or wrote to me with questions and feedback in 2015. I really do appreciate it :)
Cheers
Rich
Might you need help playtesting/converting for 5th edition?
It's a bit further down the line, but yes I will need playtesters. Are you interested?
I may be. It depends on how far down the line.
No problem - I'll post on here when the work on the 5e version is nearing completion ;)
Hi there,
It’s taken me a long time but the first draft of Whispers of the Dark Daeva for Pathfinder is done. Word count is 12,800. I’ll do a revised draft next ready for playtesting, then start work on the 5e D&D version :)
I’ve had a few offers to playtest the 5e version, but none for Pathfinder. If you’re interested, please let me know.
Cheers
Richard
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Hi there,
I've been busy this Easter working on Whispers of the Dark Daeva, converting the adventure from Pathfinder to 5e. This has involved rebuilding most of the NPC and monster adversaries from scratch and also remembering which skills exist in both editions, which have different names, and which need replacing with an ability check! The first draft is done - the next stage will be incorporating learnings and feedback on the story structure and roleplaying encounters from the Pathfinder playtesting.
Last Monday I ran a Pathfinder playtest session for our Monday night group which was very useful, and gave me plenty to think about in terms of making the adventure more enjoyable. We got through about half the adventure in a single 2.5 hour session, so should finish it next time we meet in April. I also had some very useful feedback from veteran GM Paul Baalham on the scenario, and am eagerly awaiting playtest reports from several other groups.
Once this is all in I'll revise incorporate the relevant feedback into both versions of the adventure and get a revised 5e draft ready for playtesting. If you're interested in running the 5e version in late April/May for your gaming group and giving me playtest feedback, please email me at parsantium@gmail.com
In other news, Joe Shawcross is working on the painting for the cover and Matt Morrow is doing initial sketches for the interior art. Hopefully I'll be in a position to share these soon. In the meantime, you can check out the colour cover sketch here.
I'm very excited about how this first Parsantium adventure is shaping up and am looking forward to seeing it out there in the next few months :)
Cheers
Rich
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Awesome piece!
Thanks both - glad you like it!
I still need one or two more groups to playtest - please send me a PM if you are interested and can run the adventure in the next 3-4 weeks :)
Here's a link to the finished cover. Playtest feedback is still coming in and I've got one more session to run myself, then I'll produce a final draft for my editor :)
Rich
We’ve been on holiday this week so I’ve been able to make good progress on Whispers of the Dark Daeva.
I went through all the excellent feedback I received from the 5e and Pathfinder playtests in detail and made a number of improvements to the adventure, tightening up the story and the game mechanics. I’ve expanded some of the encounters and redrew the dungeon map with slightly bigger rooms to give the PCs and monsters more room to manoeuvre before tidying it up and labelling it in Photoshop. I had to remember to update both versions of the text too – thank goodness for Word’s track changes functionality. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the final drafts I will be passing over to Kate to edit.
I’ve copied the 5e draft into InDesign and styled up the headings and most of the text. InDesign is tricky to master but I am learning a few tricks here and there which is cool. We do still need to come up with a style that works for the 5e and Pathfinder stat blocks as this is the first Parsantium release that has included monster and NPC stats.
Next, it’s on to editing and layout. More news to follow soon...
Thought it was about time for an update on Whispers of the Dark Daeva!
Kate has been incredibly busy with her day job as a freelance editor so we haven’t had much time to work on the adventure in the last few weeks. Nonetheless, we have managed to get the introduction, and first three chapters of the 5e version styled up and laid out, including stat blocks, art and maps.
It was a year ago that I first asked you all how you liked to see monster stats presented in adventures and overall the feedback was in favour of including the stats on the page with the encounter description – my preference too as a GM. I want to make the adventure as easy as possible for the GM to run so that’s what we’re doing with Whispers of the Dark Daeva. This can prevent layout challenges but so far I think we’ve managed to achieve this while keeping the layout as clean and uncluttered as we can. Formatting 5e stats in InDesign has been a bit tricky too but we’ve cracked it now (I hope!) and things should be easier for the final two chapters. That’s just as well as these contain lots of monster and NPC stats.
Once the 5e version is laid out, Kate will edit the text and then it will be on to the Pathfinder version. We’re off on holiday in the next few weeks too so it’s likely to be Autumn/Winter before the adventure is finally published unfortunately, but I’d rather take the time we need to get it right rather than rush things.
More news to follow in due course. Any questions, please do let me know
Cheers
Rich
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The 5e version is now available here at Paizo and on drivethrurpg.com
Hoping to get the Pathfinder version finished and uploaded in early January :)