Brent Knowles's Blog, page 2

In Way of Updates and Such…

I hope all of you are well, or as well as you can be given the current state of things.

This is primarily an update regarding Raiders of the Serpent Sea (which I generally update via my Kickstarter) but I figured I’d provide an overview here while I prepare the next, more formal update over there).

I am still deep in the race & class design for the player’s handbook portion (so that I can get that into playtesters hands sooner than later). Once complete I’ll resume writing on the game master’s guide (which I’ve still poked at while working on the player details) and will continue with the other sections of the player’s book (epic backgrounds & the new raiding ship rules).

Art is progressing well but there’s a lot left to go! A few dozen more images remain to be made, ranging from monsters to maps to magical items. Very exciting to see it all coming in.

And for those of you who have not yet checked out Raiders of the Serpent Sea or watched the YouTube video (created by the talented Davis Clifford) here it is:

Onward to the Serpent Sea

I realized it has been a few months since I last posted here — I have been busy putting together the campaign sourcebook, Raiders of the Serpent Sea! And I tend to post updates to all of the Kickstarter backers — if you are ever looking for up to date information about the project, please head over there.

The book is coming together, with my focus currently being:

Acquiring New ArtFinishing the writing for the main campaignPreparing the player’s handbook content for playtest & review by our “Jarl”-level backers

After that the goal is to get content to the final stage so it can be passed off to the layout artist (which is the first step on the long journey towards getting .pdfs created and eventually printing, shipping and all of that). So I continue to tackle the most time sensitive tasks first (anything that might threaten to delay the project). And so I suspect I will continue to be very busy and probably not overly chatty here! But feel free to ask questions and I’ll make sure I respond.

Oh! And if you wanted a copy of Raiders and missed the Kickstarter, the pledge manager / preorder system is open to all now. https://arcanumworldscanada.pledgemanager.com/projects/raidersoftheserpentsea/participate/?ref=blog

Thank you, Raiders!

The Kickstarter for my 5e D&D campaign, Raiders of the Serpent Sea, wrapped up on the weekend. I very much appreciate the support from all of you! For those that backed I am hoping to get an update out today or tomorrow on Kickstarter with some clearer ideas of timelines. And other than that I am busily building a final project plan and restarting those art pipelines that have been on pause while we waited on the new funding. Then it is back to writing & designing.

This is my first Kickstarter and though I leaned heavily on the lessons that others learned (thanks, Stonemaier Games, Enworld & all the in-person advice I’ve received from colleagues) I have several “things I’ve learned” that I’ll present in a future blog post.

In the meantime, I am very excited to continue my adventures on the Serpent Sea and — eventually — share those with everyone who contributed.

We are also in the process of setting up the pledge manager and preorder system for those who missed the Kickstarter. I’ll provide more updates here and in the Kickstarter update messages but if you want to be notified when these are ready, pledge manager has a notification form you can sign up to:

https://arcanumworldscanada.pledgemanager.com/projects/raidersoftheserpentsea/participate/

Until next time!

Don’t Eat the Burger

I’ve mentioned the trip I took to Iceland a few times in the past. It was just me and my kids and we had a very fun trip, though I wish we had spent two weeks there instead of just the one.

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This sign is significant. Why?

We did all the standard tourist things, though I did go out of my way to make sure I ended up on a very special street..

So all in all it was a very fun trip and it helped launch me towards Raiders of the Serpent Sea. I was surrounded by all of this natural beauty and history and it was all very inspiring. And 90% of it was fun and relaxing except the day I realized a poor Viking, I would make.

We decided to head over to the island Heimaey because a friend had suggested checking it out and because I’ve always been fascinated with Surtsey which is an island that emerged in the 60s and is relatively near to Heimaey. So we booked a ferry and I rented a “house” to stay in (though I did not tell the kids that part… more on that in a bit).

(I will pause here for those “in the know” and tell you that this ferry crossing was about to be undertaken near the end of Iceland’s winter…)

We were sorted with the ferry which had a cafeteria on it and given that we were hungry I went to order burgers. The woman behind the counter looked at me. Looked at my kids. Then she said, “You don’t want to eat.”

“But of course we do,” I said. We were hungry!

“It is winter, it is stormy,” she said. “You should take a bunk while one is free.”

I shrugged and ordered the burgers. We ate them. Then we set off. And thus begun the worst three hours of my life. We were in a large ferry but it was like we were a tiny little ship. The sea tossed us all about and me and my youngest were incredibly sick, we spent the entire journey huddled over toilets puking. It was terrible.

I had originally planned to prank my kids and pretend we were stuck on the island and would have to sleep in the car only to have a lucky break with a place to stay. But it was storming outside and I was barely functional as I shambled off of the ferry, so it was a very easy prank to sell. I just wanted to go someplace and lie down. And not move. Like ever again. And I was also planning how to move permanently to the island so that I would never have to board the ferry again. (Because… we had to go back the next day…)

Here’s the “house” I found for the kids (I told them it was an emergency shelter and we just had to make do)

(A funny followup — this trip happened year ago. I just realized a couple months ago I had never told my kids I had actually booked the place and planned it. They actually thought we had gotten stranded on the island and have been telling everyone this for years…)

The island was beautiful though and after my stomach settled down I treasured the experience and the memories we had wandering this wind scoured place in the middle of nowhere. We had a great meal and a great time visiting with the locals — including exploring the new museum. Wouldn’t trade it for the world, despite the pain of the sea crossing.

On the way back? We took bunks and we did NOT eat the burgers.

Raiders of the Serpent Sea has Funded!

Sorry this is coming in several days late but since we funded, I’ve been very busy updating stretch goals and connecting with people wanting to talk to me!

But I did not want to forget to post here and THANK ALL OF YOU! We have reached our funding and have just slid past the $215k mark, with several stretch goals unlocked already!!! And we’ve almost reached our second Community Stretch Goal — unlocking the Beastborn player race and reducing the costs of all other stretch goals. (Only 3 more people need to become Jarls to make this happen).

So exciting to have passed that funding mark on Raiders of the Serpent Sea. There’s a lot more to share and I am very thrilled to get to finish making this book and building this world.

Do let me know if you have any questions!

Read the full update here but here’s a quick review of some of the major changes we’ve made since the Kickstarter launched

The Jarl tier has had a 76 card pack of Game Master cards (monsters, items, etc.) added to it and has had its cost reducedShipping to Canada has been reducedShipping to Edmonton Alberta, Canada will be free (Brent will deliver it himself)The Beastborn player race has been revealed and will be added to the player’s book once we reach the next community stretch goalThe Bonded epic background has been unlockedThe Barbarian and Paladin class archetypes have been unlockecd

Do take care,

-Brent

Also: Early Bird Funding is almost over…

95% Funded – Thank you!

Hello all, I’ve been busy over on the Raiders of the Serpent Sea Kickstarter but I thought I would do a small update here as well. The Kickstarter is going well and we are closing in on securing the funding required to cover the art and printing costs for the book — meaning it looks like it is going ahead. Yay!

(And again, thank you all for pledging your support).

I was fiddling around with some story content for Raiders of the Serpent Sea and I’ll eventually post this to the Kickstarter site as well, but thought I’d share it here first. Athils and her brother live in the Whar clan, to the north of the Serpent Sea. They represent an emerging clan, starting to rise and they have the honor of being the first clan that the wolves from the Lost Lands have chosen to join. Most Wolf Riders (a ranger class archetype) come from the Whar Clan.

The Adventure Begins!

Raiders of the Serpent Sea has launched on Kickstarter and will run for 30 days. I am hoping you will follow along with us on this journey. Your reward? Another high quality hardcover campaign guide and new player’s rules to bring glory to your tabletop campaigns!

Please support the Kickstarter now. Thank you.

The Grimtroll requests your support!

A Bit About Funding & Stretch Goals
The intent behind this Kickstarter is to pay for the art that has been produced and to purchase the remainder of the required art, as well to pay for the physical copies to be printed, stored, and transported. I’ve kept the Stretch Goals pretty simple, to minimize risk.
I do have a few more ambitious ideas, depending on where the funding goes and once we’ve covered the obvious goals — like archetypes for each class, new races, new epic backgrounds. So I’m pretty excited (and nervous) about where we will land.
Perhaps not feasible for this Kickstarter but do let us know if there are stretch goals you’d love to see in this or a future Arcanum Worlds project (either as a comment below or via e-mail).

Thank you so much for supporting Raiders of the Serpent Sea! The Grimtroll appreciates it.

Artists of the Serpent Sea

I am very pleased by the largely positive (and entirely constructive) reception to the Raiders of the Serpent Sea player’s guide to this point. Thanks for all the kinds words and your suggestions. As we roll into the Kickstarter to fund the remainder of this project — and beyond — we’ll be taking a close look at all of the comments you’ve been making in regards to balancing, flavor and interest.

Please head over to our Kickstarter page and ask to be notified when it launches!

With that said, knowing how busy I’m about to be with the Kickstarter, I wanted to take the time to thank all of the artists again and call some attention to the amazing work they have been doing.

John “Sirinkman” Stevenson created the beautiful full-color maps, including Grimnir’s world map, the floating town of Drifthall, and numerous adventure area maps.

Polar Engine created stunning hero and monster artwork, including the raider Wizard on the cover of our Player’s Guide.

Sebastian Kowoll created most of our monster illustrations, including the terrifying grimtroll, the great wolf, the sleipnir, and the yoten. He also created the cover image for the game master book featuring a serpent from raider myth rising from the sea.

Chris Anderson created character illustrations, including the wicker and the tallfolk, as well as illustrations of ships and items

Davis Clifford created several interior illustrations, including the great ravens. He also put together our Kickstarter video!

Tom Ventre created several character portraits, including the heroic raider, Hrolf, and the mysterious child, Siddhe.

Erikas Perl created the landscape artwork depicting raiders storming across a beach towards their unfortunate victims.

Wadim Kashin created mythical landscapes, including the lost Stone Court, the great mountain and several other scenes depicting areas and events across the mythical landscape of Grimnir.

Again, a huge thanks to all of the artists who are contributing and I look forward to featuring more of their work (and the work of additional artists as they join the team).

The Raiders Campaign

A question I’ve been asked a few times about Raiders of the Serpent Sea is: “What sort of campaign is this. Is it like Odyssey of the Dragonlords?”

The short answer is, of course, it is like Odyssey!

But… what does that really mean?

I really enjoy game mastering Odyssey and Raiders borrows significantly from the framework/structure developed for that campaign. And where I think I can improve delivery, I have. Here’s a bit more about it…

This is a Campaign — Not Just a Setting

I want Raiders to be usable by other game masters — a practical sourcebook that is fun to read in between sessions and useful while they are running events at the table. Let’s be frank — I’m not uniquely qualified to translate Norse myths into an RPG system. There’s lots of great examples of that already out there. But I can build strong encounters, adventures, and story frameworks — each deeply flavored by Norse & Viking lore.

But what I thought worked well with Odyssey is that it was a functional framework that was ready to use. The myths and background were very cool and interesting but I’m not picking up a campaign book just to read stories. I need it to be functional. And that’s what I hope Raiders delivers as well. (And yeah, of course, I also hope game masters and players really become invested with the Stone Court gods and raider society and the assorted characters your party will stumble across…). But most important is that the game master and their players have fun and feel like they’ve explored a self-contained, interesting, and volatile world with numerous solid adventures building towards a satisfying conclusion.

(I’m also totally happy if some game masters just borrow a few plots or player character concepts to use in their own campaigns!)

So expect interesting and varied adventures (populated by helpful and troublesome NPCs) set against a backdrop of a Norse-inspired setting. There will be hordes of new monsters to encounter along the Serpent Sea (or to use in your own adventures), new magical items to find/borrow/steal, and beautiful full page art everywhere. And longships, lots of longships!

Raiders of the Serpent Sea will hopefully serve many and varied purposes over the years!

Please visit our Kickstarter landing page! Your interest will definitely help us decide when to press the launch button.

Player’s Guide Now Available!

So, here we are! The preview edition of the player’s guide for Raiders of the Serpent Sea is now available. You can download it from Modiphius.net, Modiphius.us, or DriveThruRPG.com. In the pages of this free pdf you will find two new races and three class archetypes as well as background about the world and a preview of the naval rules we will be developing.

I really appreciate the hard work of the artists, and Michal E. Cross who did a fantastic job with the layout and the brilliant page design. I hope you’ll agree that this book stands up, quality-wise, to Odyssey of the Dragonlords!

What To Expect?

We intend to launch the Kickstarter this October. I am new to this so I’m still learning all the numerous levers and buttons that need to be engaged to build a Kickstarter (hat’s off to all the hard work that James, Jesse, and the Modiphius team did for Odyssey!). But… October seems possible.

If funded, the rest of the main campaign (and all the necessary cartography, creature & npc art, and environment art) will proceed. Additionally, depending on the stretch goals reached, more class archetypes will be developed — my goal is to have one for each core class. We also have concepts for a couple more races: these will require more design, playtesting, and of course, amazing art. Finally we intend for more than four epic backgrounds when we release. These all require reaching our funding & stretch goals.

For those of you taking a look at the player guide: More playtesting is needed; expect rules wording to change as we continue development. My approach with the class archetypes specifically is to ensure they all have as much flavor as possible. I want players to want to play them. And with that, I am leaning towards making the archetypes more powerful than maybe they should be. During playtesting, I’m paying attention to which abilities must be toned down but overall the class archetypes in Raiders will probably be somewhat more powerful than others…. Definitely want to hear thoughts and opinions and I’m already compiling feedback received.

Please visit our Kickstarter landing page! It will definitely help us decide when to press the launch button.

Questions? Let me know!