Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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Remnants of the shattered worlds of Damiar and Iovo, the Diaspora is home to many. From the strange sarcesians to the The Free Captains, from grand dwarven Star Citadel Heorrhahd to the Vesk outpost Jioh Station, The Diaspora offers danger, mysteries, and...lucrative opportunities. Will you discover the secret of the Ascendant Shard? Find the source of The Hum? Brave the risks and travel through Havinak's Vortex and bring Azirian Havinak home again? Or, will you take up the life of a space pirate, raiding and smuggling with hopes to one day hit the big time? So many options, so many asteroids.....
Goal
The goal for the fanzine is to create a collection of fan-created articles and supporting art set in Paizo’s Campaign Setting world of Golarion and the Pact Worlds.
The theme for Wayfinder #20 will be The Diaspora! Please use the Starfinder RPG Core Rulebook as your main reference, along with Pact Worlds, (as well as the handy-dandy StarfinderWiki and the Archives of Nethys)! Preference will be given to articles that follow the issue’s theme. Writers are invited to submit articles that fit within the following categories:
Advice: Share valuable information or experiences with new GMs or players in the new Pact Worlds system. Submission size: 750 words.
Alien Archive: New creatures to terrorize your PCs! Each creature counts as a separate submission. Submission size: 750 words per creature. However, because multiple creatures are combined to form a single bestiary article, smaller entries will be considered as long as they are complete. (i.e., a hard target word count of 750 words does not apply to bestiary entries. See the Starfinder RPG Alien Archive for examples of proper formatting and content.)
Fiction: Wayfinder now accepts fiction submissions directly from the public. Joining a writer’s group to help with editing and development is still highly recommended. Submission size: either 750 or 1,500 words.
Flavor Articles: People, shops, organizations, events, poetry, or other aspects of life in the Starfinder Campaign Setting. These articles should build on the material already available in other sources. Flavor articles may include some rules material, such as item, location, or spell stat blocks, if necessary, but it should be a minor part of the article. Submission Size: 750 or 1,500 words.
Gazetteer: Expand and explore places in The Diaspora that have little to no information about them in the campaign setting literature. If applicable, you may submit up to a 1/2-page map of your chosen locale. Submission size: 1,500 words.
Of Chance and Skill: Games, new to or adapted for Starfinder, to play at your table. Submission size: 750 or 1,500 words.
New Rules: Articles devoted to new themes, class archetypes, feats, or spells for the Starfinder RPG. Multiple smaller entries (usually feats, spells, or magic items) can be grouped together by a clear theme and submitted as one article. Submission size: 750 or 1,500 words.
New Equipment: Articles detailing new weapons, armor, augmentations, technological items, magic items, hybrid items, or vehicles. See the Starfinder RPG Core Rulebook for examples of proper formatting and content.
Starship Building: The Starfinder RPG Core Rulebook contains rules for building starships! This article type is focused on building upon those rules. The article should contain a history or description of the ship or ship line, as well as stat blocks for each ship type. Submission size: 750 or 1,500 words.
Side Trek Seeds: Side trek seeds are short outlines that provide GMs with ideas, either as side treks for a Starfinder adventure or as mini-adventures in The Diaspora. Each side trek seed counts as a separate submission. Please refer to earlier issues of Wayfinder for the layout for this article. Submission size: 325 words.
Poetry and Song: Music and poetry often define a culture. Share your vision of the best-known songs and poems of the Pact Worlds, with special emphasis on the issue’s theme. Submission size: 35 to 50 lines in total.
Weal or Woe: Two 6th-level or lower NPCs (including statblocks—one potential ally, one potential adversary, set in The Diaspora. Include hooks for how PCs might meet each NPC and how to use them in a campaign. Include a boon that can come from the Weal character and a drawback from the Woe character. Please reference earlier Wayfinders for the layout for this article, and try to avoid lengthy and complicated stat blocks, as they take up more space than regular text, and can cause problems with layout (i.e., not enough room for art). Submission size: 1,500 words.
Guidelines
* Thou shalt not disregard canon, thou shalt build upon it.
* Keep in mind thy audience. Keep it PG-13. No slash fic/porn fantasies, cheesecake/beefcake/fan service. These are prohibited by the Community Use Policy.
* Short and sweet. Refer to the word count requirements for each type of submission. These are HARD targets, not a range. Articles submitted with word counts more than 5% above or below the target numbers will not be accepted.
* Limit of up to THREE submissions per person per issue. So, pick your three best ideas!
* Do not submit an article that relies heavily on another submission, whether the other submission is yours or someone else’s. Any submitted articles that reference (an)other article(s) must be pre-approved by the Editor-in-Chief.
* Stick to the theme. Articles that do not relate to the theme will not be accepted. Articles should be taking place on The Diaspora in some way.
* Submissions used to defame, harass, or threaten board members are not tolerated.
Submission Instructions
Conditions for Submissions. All authors and artists must agree to have their works reproduced for this and other Wayfinder products, be it for translations into other languages (we will be responsible for the truthfulness of the translations), special publications, or use on a Wayfinder website. All of Wayfinder’s publications are NON-PROFIT, and authors and artists will be given proper credit where due.
* Send all submissions to: wayfinder.fanzine@gmail.com with the subject line containing “Wayfinder #20 Submission:”, followed by the article title.
* All text submissions must be submitted in DOC or DOCX format (doesn’t matter if you use Office or OpenOffice). Note: Files sent in RTF, TXT, or any other format than DOC will be rejected.
* For people who use open-source software, like OpenOffice and LibreOffice, and save their files as .DOC files, there is a mismatch between file types when trying to open the .DOC files in versions of Word from 2013 and up. It results in losing the last few lines of text. Those lines can only be viewed on Word 2010 or earlier. If you use these open-source programs, you MUST put one or two carriage returns after your last paragraph before you save the document as a .DOC file. Otherwise, we will have great difficulty being able to read and edit your submission.
* Do not use fancy fonts or colors or styles for formatting - these will get stripped out in the editing and layout process. Use the standard body font for the program you’re using - bold and italics are fine. Ask us for an example of our style templates, if you’d like to use that.
* Tables must be tab delimited (DO NOT USE FORMATTED TABLES).
* Use standard Starfinder RPG formats for stat blocks. Familiarize yourself with the style and wording choices used in Paizo products and apply those same style and wording choices to your submissions.
* At the top of your submission, in the body of the article, provide the following information: article title (and subtitle, if any), author name(s), contact e-mail address(es), and word count of the submission.
For example,
* Accepted entries will go through editing passes for clarity and concision. Depending on time constraints, you may or may not receive feedback from the editing process.
* Failure to follow these instructions or to meet one or more guidelines will result in rejection of the submission.
DEADLINE: October 31, 2019, 11:59 Pacific. All entries will be handled on a first come, first serve basis. Some articles may be rejected depending on the final size of the PDF.
You may expect at least one, possibly more more submissions from me. Looking forward to this!
Neat! I'll have to see about actually submitting some rules content this time now that I've got a better handle on Starfinder mechanics.
I had been playing around with the idea of doing a brief history of a derelict/possibly haunted Colossal cruiser with a detailed map? If I try to fit this idea in as Gazetteer...could I skimp a bit on the words and gain more map space?
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The 750 wordcount includes everything. The good news though is that you don't need everything when building a Starfinder monster. Anything that the monster doesn't have, leave out of the statblock. What you'll have is an article that is exactly half the size of one of the entries in Alien Archive. My guess is that it's the size of an AP backmatter monster, if you want to look at something to compare the length to. The AA articles often have 2 statblocks, description & flavor text and a magic item or a player race sidebar. What you'll likely have to do to fit is keep yourself down to one stat block and a couple paragraphs of description.
Hmm
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I missed the first Starfinder themed edition and I'm the Starfinder Guy in my local gaming group so I intend to redeem myself here. Already got a good monster in mind.
Question: Is it "must be 1500 words", like can I stop at 1100 or do I keep writing?
Submitted.
Dropped three articles into the inbox.
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Question: Is it "must be 1500 words", like can I stop at 1100 or do I keep writing?
I see you've already submitted your entries, but for anyone else with the same question, it doesn't have to hit the word count exactly, but needs to be close (within 5% above/below the number listed).
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Question: Is it "must be 1500 words", like can I stop at 1100 or do I keep writing?I see you've already submitted your entries, but for anyone else with the same question, it doesn't have to hit the word count exactly, but needs to be close (within 5% above/below the number listed).
^ This is good practice for professional RPG writing, where the word count targets for some companies are at 1% variance above / below the target listed.
Hmm
I got as close as I could and then pulled the trigger. I'm actually glad I did because the Alien Archive submission was not "Diaspora-y" enough.
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Question: Is it "must be 1500 words", like can I stop at 1100 or do I keep writing?I see you've already submitted your entries, but for anyone else with the same question, it doesn't have to hit the word count exactly, but needs to be close (within 5% above/below the number listed).^ This is good practice for professional RPG writing, where the word count targets for some companies are at 1% variance above / below the target listed.
Hmm
Some are exact, though, so it's best to check.
Or...I've misunderstood and done a lot of unnecessary word-finagling to hit exact word counts on a bunch of things, which would make me feel rather silly. Though I suppose as close as possible is usually better.
What's the word count for submitting new equipment? Can multiple pieces of related equipment be grouped together as a single entry?
Hmm, "pulled the trigger" almost certainly means "sent the submission" in this context. It's used to mean that someone has done something irreversible.
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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What's the word count for submitting new equipment? Can multiple pieces of related equipment be grouped together as a single entry?
Good question. All articles should be either 750 words (1 page article) or 1500 words (2 page article), if not specifically mentioned. That's a GENERAL rule.
As for equipment articles, however, it's a bit tricky. Good item articles should most certainly be multiple items. Some people write an article with a solid unifying theme that all the items relate, and it is wonderful.Other people only have a couple of items they want to submit, and they aren't related at all. But, they are cool item ideas, and they can submit them as separate submissions. What we do with these individual items is select the BEST ones, and combine them into a catch-all market or bazaar themed article. We also get items for these market articles from submissions that have a couple nice items out of several that are not so good. So, yes, we are known to cherry pick items from articles as well.
So, if you can write an article with an strong theme for the items (ysoki tech items in the Diaspora, as an example), then AWESOME. If you only have a couple items or weapons in mind, no theme, you CAN submit them and if they are good, we will include them in a store/market/armory article.
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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Question: Is it "must be 1500 words", like can I stop at 1100 or do I keep writing?
Again, our word counts are HARD. Meaning you need to hit as close to 1500 as possible. I am better with being under it more than OVER the word count, though. Art can always be increased in size to fill the space. Too many words means that art is smaller, and that those extra words will most certainly be cut.
My good will buffer is 5%. Again more under than over.
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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Clarification question: does the 750 word count for an Alien Archive submission include stat block and abilities, or just description and flavor text?
Monster/alien submissions include all of that...stat block, abilities, and description/flavor text. It does not need to be 750 words...it can be less, but it cannot exceed 750 words.
However, as the exception to that rule, playable races of alien/monster often exceed 750 words, and they should be submitted as their own separate article. As their own article, they will also need to be 1500 words. Hard targets....750 or 1500. OK?
What are the rules on submitting art? Does it have to be attached to an article. CAN art be sent with an article? The intro mentions that this is for artists, but every section just mentions word count, except for the location submission, which can include a map.
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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What are the rules on submitting art? Does it have to be attached to an article. CAN art be sent with an article? The intro mentions that this is for artists, but every section just mentions word count, except for the location submission, which can include a map.
To be an artist, you need to be on the Artist Roster. It's a separate process from the article submission.
How does one get on the roster? You sent Wayfinder's Art Director (me) a link to your work. If I think it is good enough to be in Wayfinder, I add you.
Once we pick the articles, I pull out the roster list, and start making assignments, based on previous check-ins on availability, number of pieces you want to do, and your style and preferences. You get about 6-8 weeks to get it done, along with Work in Progress updates at the initial stages.
Also, keep in mind that Wayfinder is an all volunteer, fan-made project.
Hmmmm, thinking of maybe something on Space Drow... :P
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I got my eye on this thread. Stoked to see another Starfinder issue. #19 was fantastic and is a great way for creators to introduce themselves.
If I want to tag Wayfinder on Twitter, is there a particular account I should @?
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hmmm, I'll take a stab at this theme and send some work.
Also if you need a poetry editor I can help.
Working on a submission.
And submitted.
hmmm, I'll take a stab at this theme and send some work.
Also if you need a poetry editor I can help.
No time to submit for this issue. House closing and move coming up but can devote help to the above mentioned offer of poetry editing.
I just found out the call for submissions was out. I'm working on at least one, hopefully more.
Only 12? Man. I should probably submit a third one, then. I just need another idea.
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I just found out the call for submissions was out. I'm working on at least one, hopefully more.
How did you find out? I'm curious to know what methods are working to spread the word.
I'll admit that I haven't turned in any of my three articles yet. Still working on a paying freelance turnover, and then I'll try to finish up at least one of my freelance turnovers.
Hmm
Hmm, I'm mostly confident on my ability to make battlemaps, and I have an idea involving some gladiatorial games - could try and make a oneshot of sorts set in the diaspora, with all the environmental differences it has, and I can tie it in to an underground organization that has similar challenges all over the galaxy. Would that be ok as a submission?
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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Hmm, I'm mostly confident on my ability to make battlemaps, and I have an idea involving some gladiatorial games - could try and make a oneshot of sorts set in the diaspora, with all the environmental differences it has, and I can tie it in to an underground organization that has similar challenges all over the galaxy. Would that be ok as a submission?
So, that sounds great...but, exactly what do you think the word count on that is? 1500? That would be a two-page article.
If you are angling for a bigger article, then we'd need to talk. We have to approve stories and adventures that want 3000 words or more.
Right. First submission sent. Now to write at least one more. :)
Right. First submission sent. Now to write at least one more. :)
And a second one sent.
Hmm, I'm mostly confident on my ability to make battlemaps, and I have an idea involving some gladiatorial games - could try and make a oneshot of sorts set in the diaspora, with all the environmental differences it has, and I can tie it in to an underground organization that has similar challenges all over the galaxy. Would that be ok as a submission?So, that sounds great...but, exactly what do you think the word count on that is? 1500? That would be a two-page article.
If you are angling for a bigger article, then we'd need to talk. We have to approve stories and adventures that want 3000 words or more.
To be honest, I dont know hahah. Ill have to start working on the core (the map + info on it for GMs) then slap on the lore. I dont think the base will be too long, so with some extra backstory, less than 1500 words.
Wont be a 4 hour oneshot, more of a self-contained sidestory. The kind of stuff you pull during downtime.
I'm glad you like the idea though! Exactly the kind of motivation I need to get working :)
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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As we are nearing the "red zone" of one month left in the open call, I'm getting requests to know exactly what gaps in article types there are now.
As of tonight, we have 30 submissions. Here's the breakdown:
Alien Archives: 9
Class (Archetypes): 2
Fiction: 3
Flavor: 8 (4 are gazetteers/places)
Rules: 1
Side-trek Seeds: 2
Starships: 4
Weal or Woe: 1
So, as you can see, we are doing well on monsters, flavor, and starships.
Light on everything else. Rules (these are stuff like archetypes, themes, spells, feats) are really lacking.
WE HAVE NO NEW EQUIPMENT ARTICLES.
I anticipate more Weal or Woe articles, since that is typically a favorite, so yes, I'd like to see more.
And I am assuming that the fiction pieces are out there, slowly being polished.
Battlemap's done and the whole thing is set up. However, this is my first time writting for others. Are there any written guidelines I can follow?
(since I don't see an edit button, I'll have to do with another post, sorry)
Hm, I think I'll move this map to a personal project and release it alongside a pack or something. It became absurdly big (since it's a gauntlet style) and appart of "where it's set", it doesn't really have much to do with the Diaspora.
Still, thanks to you guys for providing me with the motivation to make something!
Theme's also follow the 750 word target, yeah?
edit: oh, just make 2 themes!