Greetings and welcome back everyone!
First, the important news:
Vasgothia is complete, the PDF is released and available at the shop, and the file was sent to the printer. Print copies indicate “Back-ordered,” but this means we don’t have physical copies in stock yet. Because they don’t exist yet. This just means physical copies are pre-ordered for those of you getting it outside of the Kickstarter and the bundle (print and PDF) will get the PDF now and the print when we get it in stock.
For anyone reading who didn’t back the Kickstarter, it’s 288 pages (32 more than initially advertised) on one of Thera’s provinces teetering at the brink and full of and and mysteries. Without turning this into a full advertisement for Vasgothia, it’s full of great content for a variety of different playstyles. There’s the Lowlands controlled by Therans and their Empirist allies, the Deep Forest full of Barrite tribes and danger, mystery, and perhaps fragments of the past, and the Caralkspur Midrise with Bear Strider companies and activities Therans may want to keep more out of sight.
Vasgothia also has modified character creation — it’s not Barsaive after all — with two Namegivers not found anywhere else. A new Path which is has three very different variations and a Discipline variant of Sky Raider, Marauder, practiced by both Barrites and Bear Striders. Though, with different perspectives on what it means. For gamemasters, there’s new thread items for use or inspiration, a new type of blood magic and enchating — rune tattoos — creatures, Horrorspawn, and thoughts about the dead Vasgothian Passions.
Hopefully, there’s something for everyone in there.
On to GenCon!
This was my first GenCon where I didn’t run any games, something of a big change for me, and my first GenCon as line developer. There might be a connection.
Choosing to not run games this year was a prudent decision since designing an adventure is an involved process for me. From the concept and establishing a framework that’s flexible but also naturally leads players to stay on track without feeling like a railroad. Then designing custom content for it, fleshing out the scenes, etc. Let alone creating characters that fit well into the needs of the story and have unique ways to contribute and deciding what interesting things to test out at the table from either side of the screen. There’s a lot. Not doing this allowed me to focus on doing things like getting Vasgothia out faster and working on other, long-awaited projects with previews leading up to GenCon.
Not only that, but it allowed me to spend most of my free time at the booth, interacting with fans or potential fans, and selling Mountainshadows. So. Many. Mountainshadows. While I don’t know the exact sales numbers, that adorably grumpy dragon moved. The very last of the limited edition (blue hardcover) books are now sold and in the wild, so I truly hope you got them if you wanted them. The deluxe edition (black hardcover) are still available, but some went into reprint along with various softcovers.
Hopefully due to the still slightly “off” nature of GenCon because of Covid, this was the first year we outnumbered the fans at both the Earthdawn Developer Seminar and the Morning with FASA Seminar. To be honest, it was a little disheartening even though our crowds are generally on the small side. Still, I greatly appreciate the fans who showed up to see us even with busy schedules and the temptation of the exhibition hall.
It’s always welcome to see the FASA family each year, including new members Dan and Phil (who gets to be part of the family after Andi-wrangling for the event). Getting to meet Dan, Demonworld line developer and lead designer and designer for Aetherstream, was great. We got to sit down and start collaborating on something. What exactly remains a mystery for now. Also, some nice, though focused downtime at the booth to collect thoughts in my notebooks.
There it is, a more-than-slightly rambling update and I feel like anyone who reached the end should earn some kind of prize. There isn’t a prize. If the world was a kind and just place, there would be.
Take care and good luck,
Morgan “Panda” Weeks
Earthdawn Line Developer