By Heiko, on April 26th, 2011  Click to preview some pages Three days ago (and one entry below) we showed its 3D view, now our third map is ready for play and can be purchased on RPGNow, DriveThruRPG & WargameVault (Paizo and IPR will follow). With this one we start a new mini-series: “Two Roads to Choose From”, focusing on the theme “taking the land route”: Often, there’s more than one road to take and PCs need to choose wisely… Click the picture here to preview some pages and see the product description in the shops: This time, we added a verbal description of the place again, but kept it strictly system-neutral, just giving distances players most likely will ask for, elaborating a bit on flora and fauna, and pointing out the unique features of the place and it’s possibilities for play (for example, a hidden cave). GMs who bought our first maps might ask, if we continue the Mountainous River theme… of course we will (next map is already in the making), as well, as we plan for some more roads to choose from! Game on! By Mia, on April 22nd, 2011 
Our next map is nearly ready for upload and will follow in a few days… but first, we wanted to show a glimpse of the map’s final 3D view. In an earlier entry the “raw” model, built in L3DT, can be seen. And now look how a bit of gardening does wonders;-) All the greenery was planted in Artlantis, and the roads were paved in Photoshop. Of course, there was some overall heavy Photoshopping as well, ending finally with our “comic layer”, a finishing touch to take too much hint of reality away again of the sometimes astonishingly realistic looking maps and to give them a more adventurous and fun-to-look-at style.
For our landscapes are fictitious, fabricated solely for role-playing needs! That means we don’t start with aerial photos or suchlike as the basis for our topographies, but think of typical situations in RPG and what kind of landscapes we encountered in all kinds of campaigns. These landscapes are built as computer models and then it’s about how to green and develop them further (all of which is done by Heiko’s ecomancy, including most of the original thinking).
Of course, we look a lot at real landscapes, to get inspired and see what works, for example, what kind of vegetation is needed. But it’s more about looking through the eyes of a GM and thinking about drama, and what additional features could be included, like the landslide this time, and a cave. By Mia, on April 18th, 2011 This first real entry in the category “Sourcery” is dedicated to a series of books that we won’t be able to pin to any specific supplement*), because they’re kind of basic reference and inspiration to us: The works of Frances and Joseph Gies.
So far, I read the following three books: • Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages (1994), where the authors delineate technological advance from A.D. 500 to 1500, from the heavy plow to movable types;
• Life in a Medieval City (1969), where they describe what was it like to live in a medieval city in 1250, taking today’s French city of Troyes as an example;
• Life in a Medieval Village (1990), where they describe everyday life in an English village (uh, and which I got only half through before having to return it to the library, not the book's fault…). Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel, we loved most (Heiko read it, too), because we’re always interested on the topic of “tech level” in fantasy gaming: Do people have clocks? Mirrors? Where do they wash their hands? How’s their laundry done and who’s doing it? We’re thinking carefully on these things when building our locations. And, when writing about characters, I just love to drop details of their daily life and work. The Gieses’ books are full of such details on daily living and outstanding achievement. Sometimes surprising: Would you’ve thought that there was a mechanical clock in 1090? (In Khaifeng, during “Sung Dynasty” – I always underestimate the tech level of a given period); and sometimes outright funny, for example when they mention that coverlets and clothes were folded so tightly in a chest that fleas would suffocate. (Which means, that your PCs “just doing a quick search for any valuables inside this chest” will have hell of a time to get all the linens back and the lid closed, if they don’t know how to efficiently fold bedclothes.) I read this detail in “Life in a Medieval City” on p. 45 (“A Burgher’s Home”) and what’s even better: I dimly remembered reading it and found it again today looking up the index under “fleas” -> Great Book!)
If doing so (folding tightly) was a widespread and successful practice… I don’t know, and there’s no reference to corroborate this tidbit of cultural history. But as a writer of fantasy game aids I don’t care so much, as long as it’s such a funny and atmospheric detail. Searching the web, I found astonishingly few entries about this married couple researching and working together for apparently all their lives. Wiki tells us, that Frances Gies (born 1915) and Jospeh Gies (1916-2006) wrote (not always together) 14 books on the Middle Ages (and lists them, of course).
There are lots of positive reviews to be found, though; here is an elaborate one on Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel. In Blogs you read sentences like “Before you do anything, though, go to the library to borrow, or buy all…” or “one of my all time favorite resources”, which I'd perfectly agree with. Finally, I found a lengthy entry on Google answers attesting to the Gieses’ credibility (and sounding very credible to me;-) The anonymous author puts it well: “If you are a serious historian, you may want to seek more ‘scholarly’ works and since history is an evolving topic, you may want to find more recent works as well. But if you are just beginning your studies, nowhere will you find a more comprehensive, detailed, and accessible general introduction to the topic of medieval daily life. We all have to start somewhere, and I recommend the Gies highly.” Yes, me too:) *) with "specific supplement" I mean our floor plans yet to come - somewhat later as planned;-) By Mia, on March 23rd, 2011 As shown one entry before, our next map will be on traveling overland via roadways: dangerous, rutted, lonely, busy, notorious, etc. (whatever the GM’s need)… we’ll place two of them in the terrain, one down at the floodplain, and another one up on the terrace. This we knew from the beginning, hence our working title was “Two Roads”. Since then, we struggle for a less prosaic title… Problem is, I fell in love with the two-roads-approach at once, because of the (yes, I know, very frequently quoted) poem by Robert Frost (1916): The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; (…) [I skip the two stanzas in the middle] I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
I always loved the last two sentences, being so full of verve and meaning! Surely, an ode to non-conformism! I never read the complete poem before, actually. Now found it on Wiki, together with a discussion on its interpretation. It seems that Frost, rather ironically, wanted to express that we often rationalize our decisions in hindsight; but that there would not have been so much difference if we had taken “the other road”. Funny thing is: That’s exactly the feeling that creeps up on us gamers when we’re getting ambushed or encounter otherwise interesting times on the roads we let our PCs take. And we never can be sure what would have happened elsewhere. After all, the GM has prepared the ambush/encounter/treasure in advance and is now eagerly waiting to make it happen. In case of Heiko’s campaign, due to a painfully low session frequency, but even more due to our tendency to dally on the way, “role-playing our character!!”, this can take quite a time. Once he had a mind-blowing encounter in a tavern ready for us for more than a year, location, music and all. When we finally arrived in the PC’s hometown, hoping to “keep a low profile” in his family’s townhouse, he only needed this one sentence (“There’s a problem with the kitchen, Sir”), counting on us role-playing our characters (mostly their flaws, in that case) to get us to said tavern – and an hour later we had our minds blown…at last! Still, there’s this feeling of fatedness or predestination, and we might want to ask: “If we had taken the other road/door/coach/exit, would we have been saved/killed/bored?” Of course, the cunning GM never would answer that one:)
By Heiko, on March 8th, 2011 
Although our next map will include a major body of water as well, this time the voyage won’t be going through a mountainous landscape, but rather a hilly one and the map's focus will be traveling overland on roadways. It’s a classical situation in RPG, the “Secret Diamond Route”, the more classic “King’s Road” or the “highway to hell not otherwise specified”. In any case, we wanted to show a map in its very early stage: This is a raw 3D model of the topography built in L3DT before next steps are taken, for example planting greenery. Without, it looks a bit naked and evokes a more “seascapish” impression (we will do such a series later on!), but as soon as trees and bushes are brought into play, this impression changes completely. Right now I’m doing the road which lends a touch of civilization to this otherwise untouched landscape. Game on!
Heiko By Mia, on March 4th, 2011 
25% off from our map, for example, but only until Monday, March 7th! I really like the slogan the shop came up with: “No GM, no dice, better get him something nice…”
Need not be our map; could be anything… but really, when did you last honor your GM’s service for the greater good of your circle of gaming friends? (Thinking… yes, it was on his birthday, when we banded together and brought a cute little mini-keyboard for more efficient remote control of scary sound effects… you see, it’s because we’re an especially desperate and pining lot of gamers when it comes to session frequency.) However, today’s GM’s Day: Cheers to all you creative, scheming, semi-(sado-)masochistic GMs out there! By Mia, on February 24th, 2011 
Map Nr. 2 is up for sale: RPGNow, DriveThruRPG & WargameVault (and soon at Paizo and IPR as well). Take a look at our preview: River in a Mountainous Landscape – II Our new map shows a more picturesque and peaceful river section, with cultivated land and a nice tree plantation… again, lots of room for bad things to happen! And it’s different from our first map insofar as we added a new kind of 3D model that helps a lot to fully grasp the terrain’s possibilities. At the same time we abandoned the additional story seeds the first map included. As these backing stories need some time to write, skipping them allows us to sell the actual map at a more favorable price ($ 1.99) and to publish new maps at a faster pace. Looking forward to… By Mia, on February 14th, 2011 This blog is not only to inform you about us publishing at a snail’s pace, it is also to let you know why this is so! In my case, it’s because I love doing research. For example, if we do a map showing a tree nursery I read a bit about medieval forestry.
I do so for two reasons: First, I’m kind of an inquiring, history loving and perhaps slightly pedantic mind; and second and more important, I’m always in search of words (English ones; need them dearly, had only German ones when I began). So I stumble across countless interesting websites and leaf through lots of books on every conceivable subject. And although I’m aware that websites that compile interesting links must be legion, I still need to do my very own compilation: It’s an opportunity to
a) honor the people who did all this awesome research without including lists of “Further Reading” in our supplements that nobody would care to print;
b) point to material that might be useful to others, and in this way
c) settle my mind (*bouncing* Have you seen this? Have you seen this? Really useful! Anybody?)
So, in the category “Sourcery” (couldn’t resist) you’ll hopefully find a growing pile of interesting resources for writing fantasy game aids. In a similar vein, Heiko could tell you for days about the pitfalls of terraforming and ecomancing, and hopefully will share some of his deeper insights into artistic work flow; hindered sometimes by an inquiring, slightly pedantic author (“Don’t you have conifers? Firs might be the sapling of choice in that kind of environment...”), but more frequently by the exhausting, yet exciting process of realizing a landscape idea in L3DT first, then greening and illuminating it in Artlantis, polishing it in Photoshop, and finally “Indesigning” and “Acrobating” it profoundly to get a handsome PDF. Even better, such a category allows us to feed you with glimpses on work in process.
And so, in “Ecomancy” you’ll find insights on creating maps and samples of work in process. By Mia, on February 6th, 2011 Just to let you know – if you want to buy our first product, your choices increase: Now our map(s) can be downloaded from paizo.com and from IPR, also. Obviously we should produce more maps now, double quick, to balance the ratio between products and shops:) By Heiko, on January 14th, 2011 We reacted to a reviewer’s concern and revised the navigation in our PDF’s page header. Originally, clicking on the running head led back to the introduction and contents. We thought this might come in handy, but at the same time, it might have been somewhat counterintuitive. Now, clicking on the running title “River in a Mountainous Landscape” leads straight to the main map. We still struggle with one of Adobe’s quirks concerning navigation: The backward button needs to be clicked twice to do its job. Some users might prefer hiding the bookmarks, so we didn’t want to drop this function completely: With the “limping” backward button, they still navigate faster, then. See the very first review of our very first product on RPGNow here. Game on!
Heiko | |
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