Talk with the Stornlands authors

[scriptarium]

Hello all,

Any feedback about the recently-released Stornlands 1 book?

Well, here is your chance to talk about it straight with Scriptarium authors who contributed to the writing of Stornlands 1! Go wild!

 

[Thoth]

Good supplement all around, though I did have a few questions about format and content.

Was there supposed to be a fully flushed out assassin class in the book? If so, what happend to it and will we be getting it in the future?

I noticed that the book had stats for "Silver Bows of Duadon", but they were quasi-hidden in the fluff of the book rather than in say a boardered text box on the page or an equipment section in the back of the book. Is this meant to be an easter egg kind of format for readers to search things out rather than being easy reference?

 

[Zorkaan]

Hi Troth and thank you for your feedback!

Unfortunately an Assassin class was scheduled and had even been announced last year, but it has not been possible to release it in Stornlands 1 (See with Mongoose Publishing for the rationale about this decision. Concretely, the manuscript was too long). Sincere apologies. However, the class is written, and all the authors are examining various solutions to publish it relatively soon: you'll get it!

Regarding the nearly hidden stats for "Silver Bows of Duadon", sorry for the inconvenience too. We indeed planned to make of it a kind of surprise for the 'studious' readers, because such bows are relatively rare stuff. But it seems you did not enjoy having to look for them in the book... In further supplements (I'm thinking about Kai Monastery which is currently written and which will provide the stats of special Kai items), we will separate any stat in a separate boardered text box.

Vincent Lazzari

 

[Thoth]

Believe me, I am familiar with the concept of having to cut a book down to size and trying to balance what goes into it.

Generally you want to start out with a goal of a 50/50 mix between fluff (storyline material) and crunch (mechanics). But the Lone Wolf Multiplayer system is an interesting challenge to design for due to its simplisitic nature, which in turn means you really can't go much more over say 25% crunch per supplement.

Fluff detail is great for the GM who wants to set the game in that area or the Player who wants to have a better backstory. But those are very specialized uses for that information that doesn't apply if the game doesn't take place in the afforementioned locations or requires that backstory.

On the other hand, the Crunch of a given supplement can be used anywhere in a given game. The information is useful either as it is presented or as a guide for a GM or Player for their own ideas.

Any Archer character would want stats for a Silver Wood bow, regardless where in Magnamund they are playing. A GM can port the rules for the Silver Wood bows for Black Iron bows if they are running a Drakkarim/Deathknight game.

The Narbul bombs that are hinted at but not statted can be used anywhere there are Cener Druids, associated Assassins with access to them or perhaps any where you have Liganim or Nadziranim.

Even how the information about a given place can be crunch or fluff based. For instance lets compare the Sommerlund supplement vs. the Darklands book.

Sommerlund pretty much assumes you will adventure around the area, protect it or use it as your home base (I lost track of how many Inns were mentioned). But the book also assumes that you won't be trying to destroy the cities or be in control of their military forces.

The Darklands book on the other hand practically assumes that you will want to attack these places, so every city or place has troop stats and numbers, relevant political data and very little fluff that can be used as storyline setting if those places were your home bases.

I know I am getting a bit long winded here and I am sorry for that. But I am trying to convey the concept that game supplements need to be more universal in scope.

Under the assumption that the announced Drakkarim book has playable classes, the Sommerlund book really doesn't give the GM much to work with if he or she was running a Darklands War game (the magnakai books timeline) from the Darklands perspective.

But then again, that is just my opinion about such things. I hope it was the kind of feedback you were looking for.

 

[scriptarium]

Thank you for this "fluff n' crunch" essay. This is indeed very instructive and we will see how we can integrate in our future supplements.

 

[Zorkaan]

Sorry for not having answered earlier, Troth, many thanks for your comments, support and advices. I like your distinction between fluff and crush. Personally, I'm more interested in "fluff" stuff when I read a sourcebook, but you're right, many readers can be in need of "crush" stuff, because they will reuse it in other contexts, areas or eras. In that way the Silver Bow and even more the Narbul bombs are good examples. The former are the best bows to be found in Magnamund, while the latter are exclusively produced by the Cenerese, which can virtually be found -and faced- everywhere in Northern Magnamund.

Sorry for the stats of the Narbul Bombs: they should be found in the Assassin Class which has been removed (some assassins of the Stornlands, namely the Assassins Guild of Duadon, have strong links with the Cenerese). I hope we'll manage to publish it soon.

Thanks also for pointing the fluff or crush based purpose of a sourcebook. Indeed, Darklands and Sommerlund are quite different books, the latter providing few (relatively) information about the defenses of the Kingdom of Ulnar. In the future, it may be useful to add such data in scenarios made for teams of Drakkarim PC, or even in the sourcebook itself (for example data about obvious targets of the Drakkarim, like the weak points and strength of some forts of Sommerlund, like Shadow Pass or Fort Durnspa, or Lencia, like Maycastle).

 

[Thoth]

I am glad that my some what demented ravings were useful. Feel free to PM me if want to pick my brains on such things in the future.