Reply To: Background Info
Yes and yes.
It’s not per se from an RPG, since the book started first. I then started working on an RPG with a friend of mine (years and YEARS ago), and there was stuff we did together like character creation, etc. And then we divided up principle responsibility. He took combat, I took magic.
So the magic system for the book and the game were basically written together. So it’s kind of a weird variation on the two options: Book based on RPG and RPG based on Book.
The book and story and world, existed first (although not complete). We then made the world the “first” campaign setting for the game and I constructed a magic system. In general, the book is not/was not required to follow pure game rules, but rather I tried to write game rules to explain the book.
It’s a classical RPG that has a combat system that’s fairly miniature oriented (it really helps to know where you are facing vs your opponent). It’s more similar to the old Steve Jackson games than D&D in that sense.
So anyway…we wrote up a lot of background info for the game, and I actually had all the non-mechanics parts posted on a site for the game http://www.astlan.com (which I accidentally let expire–and now a squatter wants a couple grand to get it back) I’ve been re-purposing some of it for the book background.
But being “one person” despite what Tizzy says, I’m a bit overwhelmed on the writing/editing/web design/graphics front and so there are short cuts and mistakes that reveal its original nature.
I’d like to finally publish the game someday “Animus” (playing on animus and the Animus of Animosity) but I gotta drag my friend back in to get it out there and updated. Modern Self Publishing makes what we tried to do in a previous millenia so much easier…
The game is/was completely playable, but there were a lot of rough edges we never got smoothed out. Things like a character design system that is rather long for new 1st level characters and insane for creating higher level characters. And player with an animage requires a GM of epic proportions…because what they can do is difficult for the game mechanics. Most of the game is pretty detailed and explicit in terms of rules, but Animages work better in something like the “StoryTeller” universe of games. That and Lesser/Intermediate/Greater “Miracles”
–Onto the other races.
yes, they are out there, the high level overview of many are on the site, just hidden. I am still editing them, and I’d like to get images for those pages, they are very text heavy.
The section is called “The Body Politic” and it covers the races that the majority consider “people” vs monsters. I.e. they or related races conduct trade/commerce/war/etc. Although by D&D terms some are monsters. (Satyrs, Centaurs, Minotaurs, Gorgons, Giants, Ogres, Orcs and their sub races–plus most all the Sidhe (light and dark) etc.) Unfortunately, from a book perspective I only want to put out more “book level” information rather than the more detailed “monster manual” style stuff…so that is where editing becomes a huge job.