Dec 12, 2014
Fate Core. Narosia is an extremely good fit for Fate, and the card system (used in place of Fate points) had some very interesting and positive impact on Fate mechanics. Richard Bellingham, author of Secret of Cats, has committed to developing Narosia for Fate Core. He and I have already started collaborating and he has already put together a great framework and approach.
Savage Worlds. Michael Surbrook has stepped up to handle this conversion assuming we meet some of our funding goals, and I am very excited to be working for him. Michael is also on-deck to craft the Narosia Bestiary once we get through our next two projects, so hopefully we will keep Michael as busy as possible. His latest work on Fantasy Hero Complete demonstrates that he understands the fantasy RPG experience, especially from a HERO System perspective.
Dungeons & Dragons 5E. This was an unexpected twist. I had gotten involved in the early playtests of this game and while it was initially intriguing, later playtest drafts turned me off of it. However, once it was released in its final form I was amazed at how well the system came together overall. I started playtesting it as well and to my surprise Narosia works very well in D&D.
In some ways this is coming full circle, with Narosia having been initially implemented in d20.
Additionally, going into the kickstarter the D&D version of Narosia will be available to download and play. Right now I am working towards posting our Ruins of Baradahm adventure in D&D shortly, but until they you can take a look at the characters we’ve been using for the playtest.
We have already begun work on this and have assembled quite the team to see it executed. Here is the team so far:
- Backgrounds. Rob Donoghue of Evil Hat will be tackling the Backgrounds in a way that will capture a lot of what makes Narosia unique. He has posted a taste of what we are going to be doing if you are interested in seeing his direction. We will share all of this as soon as it is ready, which right now is looking like January/February timeframe.
- Art. Rik Deschain. Rik and I met at Origins 2014 and I spent some time going over his portfolio. He has a style for capturing many of the creatures of Narosia that I really want to see in this book, and so we signed him on.
- Bestiary, races, and Depths of Baradahm adventure. Alex Greenshields from Paizo is managing the conversion of the races and bestiary, as well as the writing the sequel to the introductory adventure included with the book. I have known Alex for years and I am very excited to be working with him.
- Village of Gillkas adventure. Brendan LaSalle and I met when I got to play in his latest module for Goodman Games (Hole in the Sky) and it was absolutely fantastic. I knew then that I wanted him to write Village. His GMing skill and sense of pacing I think are critical to what I want to see with this adventure. I wrote the first episode of this adventure last year, and Brennan will expand it into multiple episodes and develop Gillkas as an adventuring base so that once the heroes save the village, they have a new place to call home. Brendan is also the creator of XCrawl.
- Cartography. Monkeyblood Design is back to provide all of the maps for Village of Gillkas (and anything else we might come up with). Depending on funding, we may even be able to go color. Check out his portfolio.
- Classes. Ryan O’Grady has been on the Narosia playtest team for a while, and his feedback has been invaluable. When we decided to tackle this project, he wanted first crack at the class modifications we would need, primarily for the channeler and shaper.
- Magic. Shawn Dry is a professor of history and also long time playtester of Narosia. Weekly did he challenge my magic system, and his input helped shape the Narosia magic system we have built upon the bodies, er, shoulders of mighty playtesters before him. Shawn and I will be working together to classify all of the magic in D&D to fit Narosia. We are not creating a new magic system for D&D as we want to keep it familiar to all D&D players, but there are some things that need to be represented based on how magic works within the world.