Andy Taylor finished the full page print that will be included in the release of this project. IMO it is his
best work to date. Andy will also be drawing some interior illustrations for it. Eric Bergeron has finished the HI-RES cover (included on the sample cover was a LOW-RES version). I am now 5,000 words (plus or minus) into the MS. I am laying it out inline as I proceed. The map versions being used are scanned by GRODOG and are better than the original ones scanned during the auction (like 5x better). I am including historical anecdotes when these occur, mostly relating to EGG's adventures upon the 1st-3rd levels when he was a wee Mordy. All around this is looking more exciting than the Bottle City adventure.
> The map versions being used are scanned by GRODOG and are better than the original ones scanned during the auction (like 5x better).
ReplyDelete*g* Yeah, and I still don't have copies of those! ;)
> I am now 5,000 words (plus or minus) into the MS.
No small amount that, Rob: keep up the momentum and best wishes to y'all for the project. :)
> I am including historical anecdotes when these occur, mostly relating to EGG's adventures upon the 1st-3rd levels when he was a wee Mordy.
Did the relative greater amount of keying for the higher levels assist any in sparking off those recollections?
> All around this is looking more exciting than the Bottle City adventure.
Cool! Looking forward to more hooks to play that through "properly" rather than just running with what's there as bare bones. Not that that's not /fun/, too!
Where does publishing Kalibruhn rate on the "exciting" scale or is that one way over the horizon (in /any/ format) at present?
David, how nice to hear from you, to Wit.... :)
ReplyDeleteKalibruhn. Yes. The last horizon. I have always thought that more worlds, were, well, more worlds. When I first designed the beast, I referenced over 100 articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica. No kidding.
Where does that put it? Well, way out in left field? I have always felt after Tolkien that no one could do a world justice unless they spent at least as much time as he did fiddling with the thing. By the time that is finished, I'll probably be dead or on my way to writing the novel and thus will let the remains figure the rest out.
In between there are always the PDF notes and maps... Maybe I will post a map soon.
Nice to hear from you ole chum! :)
Oh, I forgot. Yes indeed, the encounters are being fleshed out and then some. Dungeon settings change, you know, and ERK is no exception.
ReplyDeleteThe actual expansions of the notes will allow for the gravity of design not possible then which EGG and I played out on the fly.
> When I first designed the beast, I referenced over 100 articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica. No kidding.
ReplyDelete*g* See, thanks for supporting what I've been claiming, Rob... ;)
Kalibruhn was... /is/... (as far as I can tell for lack of any further input from Dave's players) the first RPG campaign world to be designed as a RPG campaign world top-down, as opposed to campaign settings such as Blackmoor or Greyhawk which grew organically (and still didn't have the same breadth of scope even after a number of years).
Kudos. ;)
You're still underplaying that with "3rd longest running FRPG world in existence" and/or missing an even better hook, IMHO, since there's more than just one category in there.
Those campaign settings that were built bottom-up for RPGs as that story grew (Blackmoor, Greyhawk) - and eventually became campaign worlds - are a different class and design approach in general from those campaign worlds designed top-down more-or-less from scratch; either for RPGs, or others similar in a proto-RPG context (Lankhmar, Tekumel, Glorantha, etc.) before any other "players" got their hands on those.
> Dungeon settings change, you know, and ERK is no exception.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Change and merge, even...
And I'm still darned curious about that slide on the lowest level of ERK, too. ;)
From the very little I've seen of Gary's /original/ maps online there's quite a strong resemblance in "appearance". Is that general trend in construction towards deeper levels (from orderly to rough-hewn caverns, etc.) also indicative of ideas bouncing to-and-fro - and it would be "both ways" after the first levels of Castle Greyhawk, no?
(Akk... that's another thing I don't know for sure with regards to how far /that/ had progressed when you started ERK - and your other comment about Castle Greyhawk design having commenced somewhat /before/ the rules arrived from Dave has confused me now, since I'd previously presumed from writings that that was delved into/designed rather more "on the fly").
> The actual expansions of the notes will allow for the gravity of design not possible then which EGG and I played out on the fly.
Ah... using the same words, now.
Yes; looking forward to. :)
Any comments on anything recalled in the actual mechanics of play might be appreciated, too, since (as y'might've seen) there's quite a bit of interest in that side, too.
> In between there are always the PDF notes and maps... Maybe I will post a map soon.
Cool!
That intercepts my other follow-on question in that I presume gro' did take better quality scans of those, too? :)
Awesome news, Rob, Awesome!
ReplyDelete