Gods & Monsters: Though I announced a few months ago that James M. Ward was working on it, his schedule didn't work out, so Davis volunteered to jump in. He's been hard at work on it for months. He is on target for handing over his portion of it on September 15. I'm going to take up where he left off. When Jim had to step down Davis and I sat down and had a long discussion on what the book should be going forward. We came to some pretty nice conclusions, and agreed on a host of things. We both agreed that the first major change is that it has to be a part of the Mythos series by Brian Young. With that in mind Gods will have a different approach than its 1st edition. Now we'll have a series of opening essays on fighting the gods, role playing clerics, the classes and gods, avatars, divine attributes and holy symbols. This will be followed by the Pantheons. But these are not going to replicate what is in the Mythos series. They will be the following (not set in stone, but where we are now) Ahirde, dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Gnome, humanoid and an appendix in which we touch on the earth pantheons such as rome, egypt ect. This last will be the simple stat blocks of the gods (as appear in the Players Guide to Aihrde), with the meat of the mythologies to be found in the Mythos series. The focus will be on the player, not the CK. The mythos set up to be used by the player himself with holy symbols, temples, etc etc. Of course the CK will have mountains of material to use, but the player will be the focus.
Aufstrag/Gods & Monsters of Aihrde: I have been working on Level 6 of Aufstrag, the Torture Garden. I plan to have this wrapped by mid to late September. I have another Gods and Monsters of Aihrde section wrapping up for the Classic Box set. I'll combine this with the previous version that went in the black box and begin to wrap that up (no time on that one though).
Adventurers Spellbook: Peter Bradley has begun the cover on this. On Tuesday I'll turn over all the files of spells from the PH, ABP, PGA, Mythos etc so he can dive into that and begin laying it out. I've written the section for the Shadow Runes and will begin wrapping up the other Rune Schools in order to add all that to it as well. I have a loose TOC for this book, but want it to do for the spell casters what the ABP did for players in general. Lots of small useful stuff that comes up in game, such as spell books shapes and size and a list of auto-generated ones for magic items and beginning spells, casting spells in conjunction with each other, enhancing spells, adapting spells to your game play, plane travel, spells in other planes etc etc. There will be spell cards.
Rogues Gallery: The name of this book will change. But Davis has been working on this book off and on for awhile. I asked him to move it back to center stage after he finished his part of Gods and M. He plans on doing that. We've worked up a host of notes to include here and its going to turn into a very useful tool for everyone, players and CKs. This will be our next Kickstarter, probably in a month or so. I'm really excited about this one. Its been on the docket for years and its a tool I think we really need at the table.
Planar Book: No title for this one yet, but it probably won't be planar book.
I'm actually very excited about this one. I worked up notes for plane travel for the Adventurers Backpack awhile ago when I realized that that portion of game play is hard on CKs and we have little resources. Davis and I work very well together when it comes to these things (the story of how Inzae and Aihrde wove together in the cab of Old Blue on a 13 hour drive is really cool). So it will be nice to jump into this with him. We have a very very loose outline for it already and will expand that in coming weeks.As you can see all of these, except the Rogues gallery, weave together thematically quite nicely. Gods and Monsters, Of Gods and Monsters of Aihrde, Aufstrag (where I'll be mapping out a plane) and the Planescapes book and even the spell casters book. So we'll see as it unfolds, but I suspect its going to be an extremely busy, C&C heavy fall and winter.
Things to look for in the near future: Level 6 of Aufstrag and the first draft of Of Gods & Monsters 2nd Edition (this will be a true edition as it will be lots of new material in it and a different focus).
Castles & Crusades is the only RPG I play and I have no intention of going elsewhere!
As always I invite comments and questions.
Trollzah ~ Steve Chenault
