My problem is that I'm a "pantser." That is, I write "by the seat of my pants." While I do outline everything I write, I rarely "fact check" it against anything else I've written - never mind some of the many throw away details. What are all the various saints patrons of? What are the southern lands and western lands called? Well... ideas evolve over the years. The broad strokes of the Rosewood Highlands go all the way back to 1983 or 1984. Almost 40 years... Dang. I have a whole filing cabinet filled with dungeons, adventure notes, maps (oh so many maps - I mean, they're terrible, of course, but I have maps by the folder full...). The general shape of the continent of Daen-Ral (the Midlands, at least) has been relatively unchanged since the late 80s, though the nations and peoples have evolved.
Around 2010 I started codifying things and writing my first adventures - The Shrine of the Fallen Angels and the Hall of the Gnome King and the barest seeds of what became the Chantry of the Deepflame were those first adventures. Then I set those aside for some time to put together the Northern Tier as an experiment in a regional setting. Looking at the Tier now, it's pretty crude and incomplete, but it was a giant leap forward for me in adventure writing. Slowly, I populated the Tier with various adventure settings (Blackfalls Hall and the Sepulcher of the Burning King and the others) and added a few unexpected adventures (The Keep of the Broken Saint came in a flurry of writing over about three weeks, Goblin House in just a few days and The Ghost Downs, while it took some time to complete, began as a generic, ten page "quick adventure" location that might be dropped in anywhere).
So that's how the Highlands have come to be - or at least some of the highlights. I've had a couple people aske me specific questions about details of the Highlands and I've done my best to answer those questions consistently. But I think now is the time.
I need to set other things aside and put together the "Setting Bible" so that as I write, I have an accurate frame of reference for the adventures and various other setting products I write. Or, at least I can try to devote the time and energy to the endeavor.
So - Thanks Eloy! You've given me a ton to think about and lots of great notes on the inconsistencies in the Highlands.
I'll try to keep things updated!!
I have downloaded a couple of free items of yours from DriveThruRPG, and I like some of it, find some of it confusing, and wonder whether "Swords and Wizards in the Highlands" (apparently a rules set?) is available somewhere. Also, is your material open Gaming License (i.e. can I include it in other published products, luck much of the other OSR material)? If so, I would be a lot more likely to buy your stuff, [if I could pick and chose and use some of it in my future work (with attribution, of course)]. Let me know.
ReplyDeleteHey Captain Nolan - I saw you posted a bunch of comments throughout the blog and I probably won't be able to answer all of them individually so I'll give a shot at hitting some of them here
ReplyDeleteCurrently none of the work is Open Game Content but if there's something you'd like to use, maybe we can work something out.
Swords & Wizards in the Highlands is... well, vaporware at this point. It's a jumbled collection of house rules for Swords & Wizardry. You asked about what rule system I might use: S&W (of course), Low Fantasy Gaming or Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyberborea both have humanocentric worldviews (with VERY different approaches) that some have used for adventures in the Highlands. OSE and Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord all fit the bill, in many ways (the Highlands don't really have demihuman populations in the traditional D&D sense...).
The first posts on this blog became "The Northern Tier" which is a small (42 one-mile hexes) hexcrawl that includes a variety of locations/adventures including The Chantry of the Deepflame, The Shrine of the Fallen Angels, The Hall of the Gnome King, Blackfalls Hall, The Cult of the Drunken God, The Rusted Tomb, The Sepulcher of the Burning King, and the Ghost Downs.
Other adventures that are loosely related to one another are: Hope Cross Village, Goblin House, Shadow Over the Greatwood, Bonepicker's Tower, The Storm's Impending Rage and the Mud King of Stoney Creek (mostly, they are related by geography, though there are a few bits where they reference one another).
In all the products there are "dangling bits" that I put in that I can maybe develop later (though I sometimes forget!) and some subtle (and sometimes blatant) references to various projects.
In one of the comments you asked which are the 100+ page books:
The Northern Tier (PDF Free, available as POD) is 140 pages
The Chantry of the Deepflame is 244 pages (PDF and POD available)
Shadow Over The Greatwood is 102 pages (PDF and POD available)
Storm's Impending Rage is 100 pages (PDF and POD available) - POD might be missing a map...
There's a chance we'll do an omnibus version of the Northern Tier with all the locations and the Hexcrawl in one very large PDF/POD - revised and expanded. It's a lot of work (and less creatively satisfying) going back over old material - re-editing, redoing layout work, etc... But some of the early works really should be updated...