| DougSun |
I managed to keep the project video short and relatively painless, so the Kickstarter campaign for Found by the Way #5: Path to Jarnborg is now live!
This entry in our Pathfinder OGL-optimized series of adventure/location modules takes place in and around Jarnborg, a village founded and populated mostly by dwarves (with a few humans, halflings and gnomes mixed in) and focused on the forge of a legendary weapon smith. It's a place that gives your party a chance to score a cool weapon that relies on superb craftsmanship rather than magic (so it's cheaper), meet some interesting resident NPCs and, if they stick around a little while, solve a mystery that throws the village into crisis, when the smith's book of trade secrets goes missing. You can run it as a stand-alone, or as part of a larger arc that includes Places by the Way #6: Path to The Demon's Veins.
The rewards for this campaign also allow you to catch up on Found by the Way if you missed out on the earlier campaign. Up to two particularly generous backers will also have the chance to make a modest (but credited) creative contribution to Path to Jarnborg or its sequel, Path to The Demon's Veins.
| DougSun |
Two weeks left to go — we're about 60% to the bare minimum that we need to make Found by the Way #5 happen. The text is complete and ready for the production queue, but we still need to cover the production costs and secure some more ISBNs. It's not too late to support our plunge into Pathfinder and get your copy of the Limited Edition of the module!
| DougSun |
One week left to go in the Kickstarter for Path to Jarnborg. We're 75% funded, so we're well within striking distance of our funding goal. I'm confident that the normal late-campaign surge will put us over the top.
Path to Jarnborg is written and ready to go into layout; we just need to fund this campaign to pay for production. Also, Ramen Sandwich Press has run out of ISBNs, so we need this campaign to succeed so we can buy some more.
I think the module turned out pretty well — it's a little light on combat encounters (the next module, which can be run as a sequel to this one, should make up for that), but the narrative elements came together. And Kickstarter backers will get a particularly large (about 1000 words) exclusive Easter Egg for their support.
| DougSun |
I just added conversion notes for the 2E Playtest rules to the manuscript of Path to Jarnborg. That's about 1,000 more words, and it brings the count to about 15,500.
As I suspected, most of the changes involved bringing NPCs in line with the new rules for character creation. I think I have the hang of it now, so that the retrofit notes for the first four modules won't take as long. The encounters had to rejiggered somewhat to make sure they're still balanced, and for that reason I chose to work only with creatures that are listed in the 2E Playtest Bestiary. And of course, it must be noted that Sleight of Hand is no longer a skill, replaced by Thievery.
I recently got a comment from someone who backed our first Pathfinder Kickstarter that I might as well wait until 2E is finalized before I issue conversion notes, just to see how it shakes out. That's a good point, especially since Paizo is tinkering on the fly and at least some of the work may be outdated by the time it's actually published (which will be soon). Plus, I don't even know how much interest there actually is in running anyone's third-party material with the new rules. But I promised the backers of that campaign that I would do this, so I'm doing it.
The bottom line is that Path to Jarnborg is done, ready for production. I'm moving on to write conversion notes for the first four Found by the Way modules (the Kickstarter backers will get PDF copies by email and we'll probably also distribute notes by free download through DTRPG). Now all that's left is to fund this campaign — so rally your friends who are into Pathfinder and let's make it happen!