More artists coming on board!
almost 5 years ago – Fri, May 10, 2019 at 01:21:40 AM

Hey everyone,

You know the full-colour art stretch goals say "artists to be announced"? Well, I'm delighted to announce that the following three lovely folks are now on board and will be producing some fantastic art for the books.

• Emma Lazauski: https://www.emmalazauski.com
• Thomas Denmark: https://www.thomasdenmark.com
• Jon Hodgson: https://www.deviantart.com/jonhodgson

I'd highly recommend checking out their sites. They all have unique and gorgeous styles — I'm super excited to have them all involved!

Now... to that final stretch goal and 40 pages of full-colour art from these folks!

Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome

ps. The trail of Erol Otus is hotting up... some leads are coming in. Hoping that one of them proves fruitful!

Final stretch! Druid and Illusionist Spells preview
almost 5 years ago – Thu, May 09, 2019 at 01:17:26 AM

Hey everyone,

I think it's now official: we're approaching the end spurt of this Kickstarter! There remain only 3 days!!

It's been a crazy 27 days getting up to this point, beginning with the initial funding goal being reached in under 2 hours, progressing on to all initial stretch goals being smashed in about 12 hours, to now having subsequently decimated getting on for €100,000 worth of additional stretch goals! We planned for these books to be deluxe, and I think it's safe to say that they're now going to be super-deluxe!

Since the last update, we've passed the penultimate stretch goal — the addition of 8 pages of full-colour art to Classic Fantasy: Treasures and the Rules Tome. We now have one last stretch goal remaining: €120K and the final 8 pages of full-colour art plates — these to be added to the Core Rules book and the Rules Tome.

I have mixed feelings about nearing the end of the campaign. On the one hand, I'll definitely miss the rush of excitement that comes with watching stretch goals topple, and the wondrousness of the game that we're going to produce be enhanced. But on the other hand, I'm super amazingly ultra happy with where we're at now with the game, and I'm just excited to start sharing stuff with you all! The PDFs of the Rules Tome and the books in the Black Box are straining at the leash! Suffice to say, as soon as the funds from the Kickstarter are cleared and we've got everything set up with BackerKit, we'll be sending these packages of digital gaming goodness out to you all.

So there's something to look forward to in the very near future!

In the meantime, how about we take a little look at the second Advanced Fantasy book: Druid and Illusionist Spells?

Druid and Illusionist Spells Cover

Those of you blessed with the visual acuity of a bird of prey may have noticed that I've already shared a miniature preview of this cover on the campaign description page! For those of you with vision in the normal human range, here's a much higher fidelity version for your delectation.

Yes, that is everyone's favourite subterranean brain-eater being colour sprayed by a dashing illusionist. Classic stuff.

A Couple of Illusionist Spells

The first two, in fact. A classic trickery spell, auditory illusion, and a classic combat/utility spell, chromatic orb. The illusionist class isn't know for its combat spells, so the ability of this spell to directly deal damage is pretty unusual.

Advanced game buffs will probably notice the adaptation of chromatic orb from the original version in Unearthed Arcana. I tweaked quite a few things to make this spell more B/X-friendly, and I'm very happy with the result. All of the spells in this book have been through such an adaptation process, bringing them in line with B/X levels of power and complexity. Some spells, by their nature, required more adaptation than others.

That's all for now! Onwards to that final stretch goal and the culmination of Old-School Essentials deluxury!

Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome

€100K! 24 pages of full-colour art!
almost 5 years ago – Tue, May 07, 2019 at 01:10:19 AM

Hey everyone,

We just hit a major milestone — 100,000 Euro Bucks!

This means that we've unlocked a third set of full-page, full-colour art plates for the books! This time, the new art will be added into Classic Fantasy: Monsters and the monsters section of the Rules Tome. Monster art plates are going to be fun!

We now have a total of 24 pages of full-colour art unlocked, and are €20,000 away from unlocking all 40 pages of art plates. With less than a week to go now (I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by!), hitting that final stretch goal might be a close thing.

Hold tight, and make whatever offerings you can to the "Kickstarter final surge" gods!

Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome

Purist Character Sheet preview — near final version!
almost 5 years ago – Mon, May 06, 2019 at 12:08:13 AM

Hey everyone,

Just a quick update with the nearly final version of the Purist Character Sheet, for your perusal. I'll be publishing this shortly after the Kickstarter finishes (which means next week! — I can't believe we're in the last week of the campaign!).

Without further ado, enjoy the images. If you spot anything amiss / missing, please comment :)

Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome

Announcement: More Name-Level and Immortal pledge slots opening up in 4 hours!
almost 5 years ago – Sun, May 05, 2019 at 06:49:34 PM

Hey everyone,

I know not everyone who wanted to pledge at the Name-Level or Immortal tiers was able to, due to the highly limited number of slots available. If you're one of those people, now is your chance!

In four hours' time, at 20:00 this evening (Berlin time, which is 2PM in NYC, for reference), we'll add two new reward tiers:

• Advanced Name-Level: Your name will appear on the front page of the Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules book, with special thanks to you for your high-level patronage of this project!
• Advanced Immortal: In addition to your name in the credits, you will truly be immortalised! One of the Old-School Essentials artists will include a likeness of you (or another person of your choosing ... your favourite Player Character?) in one of the illustrations in the Advanced books. Want to see yourself depicted being eaten by a grue? Want feature as a mad wizard summoning eldritch evil? Anything is possible! We'll work with you to come up with an idea for an illustration that fits the content of the books and features yourself in some wild situation.

There will be 15 Advanced Name-Level slots and 5 Advanced Immortal slots available, and they are expected to sell like hot black puddings.

I'll have another update later on, showing the near final form of the Purist Character Sheet.

All for now.

Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome