Click on the image to download the full sized version in HD as a wallpaper.
We’re extremely pleased with this cover art. Oliver Wetter did an amazing job! You can see the progression of the cover by going to his website.
We’re not messing around here. We want you to think “Kick Ass Quality” every time you think of Griffon Lore Games.
And this book cover kicks ass.
And it. Is. Spectacular.
This is one for the ages folks. Oliver went above and beyond, and it is our desire that the quality of the content inside is as good as the outside.
You can see the cover before anyone else live in all its glory at Oliver Wetter’s shared booth at RPC-Germany – „Die Apokalyptischen Zeichner“ booth E-058 – F-059 on May 12th and 13th in Cologne.
Later, we’ll post the wallpaper to the Discord channel and then several days after that, here. At that point, you won’t be able to escape it, mwa-ha-ha-ha!
All the best,
Anthony Pacheco
Griffon Lore Games
Quite possibly, the most fun thing we can think of doing, all made possible by you, our Kickstarter backers. Christophe and I are in awe. Still. Again. Living the dream! The dream guys, the dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeam!
Some housekeeping first!
The backer survey will be sent more towards our ship date. We will be collecting alternate digital distribution email addresses (if any) and physical addresses for shipping. We treat your personal data very seriously, and one of the higher-order rules for security and privacy is not to store data you don’t need. We don’t need anything right now, so we’re not collecting it. Please standby.
Just send us email. We will tag you in the Kickstarter system as wanting to upgrade and around the time we are sending out surveys, we will send you an invoice for the difference. Please note this invoice will be from PayPal (which does accept credit cards without a PayPal account). We don’t have our own merchant system and won’t until we deliver Curse of the Lost Memories.
The question of the day: where we at?
I would say we are on time. We might be delivering things on June 30th, but hey, it’s June, right?
We’ve gotten several public and private messages saying to take our time to deliver quality goods. We appreciate that commentary. We also don’t want to drag this project into summer because we need time to do business planning and execution. As a (current) two-man band with a bunch of helpful folks, we spent a considerable amount of time on the Kickstarter at the expense of business development. We know how to design, write and publish books. This needs to be a repeatable process, and to do that we need solid thinking on all aspects of the RPG business.
For example, a storefront. We need a place to go for people to buy our products outside of Amazon and other places such as DriveThru RPG. We have plans. Those plans need to meet reality. However, that reality takes a back seat to Curse of the Lost Memories delivery. We want this product to be the best RPG module money can buy.
Another example is fulfillment. We will need to spend less time stuffing things into boxes and more time designing and writing.
And to be blunt, we aspire to go beyond what RPG publishing does today. As a DM, I want to click on a button and get a high-quality hardcover, the PDF, the physical battle mats, a map portfolio I can print player maps from, and pre-painted 30mm-scale miniatures used in the encounters. Can Griffon Lore Games do that? The business-minded side of GLG says, man, that sounds like a lot of work.
But we sure would love to figure it out.
Does anyone else want that one-click All-The-Things experience? Leave a comment please.
In the order of transparency, completing this guide in June as a physical book the way we want it to be is looking mighty iffy. We had as much interest in this book as we did Curse of the Lost Memories. This book will also serve as the blueprint to the rest of the campaign-centric material. We don’t want some simple PDF tack-on, we want the full meal deal. There are a lot of reasons to make this book stand out, so that is what we are shooting for.
So, we’re committed to giving backers a guide, but it looks like you’re going to get several different versions before the final product. And be aware that if you change your physical address between the time you get your first book and the printed campaign guide, you’ll need to make us aware of your new address.
Our singular risk is still the length of time it takes to play-test everything up to our standards and incorporate feedback. We have money, solid book publishing infrastructure and a motivated team. Luckily, modern layout software supports a high degree of dynamic text changes. Making an encounter three pages instead of two isn’t going to set us back a week. But we are hyper-aware of all the modules we ourselves played with encounters that seemed dramatically—off. That is not going to be an attribute of our RPG offerings, especially given our encounters will be difficult out of the gate.
Dudes. Spectacular doesn’t quite cover it. We’ll do a cover-art reveal when we have the finished goods back from Oliver, but wow. We asked Oliver to give us a cover that is a nightmare dream of the fantastic, and he’s gone above and beyond.
Stay tuned for this and more sneak-peeks!
So, that’s a thing.
Christophe and I saw this coming, we just didn’t know when. Well, August 2019 is going to be the release, with August 2018 as the play-test start, and we’re going to be into the 3rd book in the Chronicles of the Celestial Chains adventure path sometime next year.
Let’s be totally upfront: Pathfinder 2E is a very good thing for the RPG industry and Paizo in particular. I’ve seen some grumping about the need for it (as in, not needed), but the both from a creative and business ends, Paizo needed to rev their rule-set. D&D 5E is a fresh take on old concepts. And without a lot of marketing, Wizards is selling it faster than they can print it. There is more than enough demand for fresh ideas and good refinements for Fantasy RPGs, Pathfinder included.
What does that mean for Griffon Lore Games and our backers?
We’re committed to a conversion PDF for all our Pathfinder 1E works. Unless most of our Pathfinder backers want us to switch over mid-campaign, Chronicles of the Celestial Chains AP is a Pathfinder 1E product. If our backers want us to switch over, we will, but we don’t see that desire right now.
Then again if you would have told me that Wizards, after D&D 4E sliding into oblivion, would produce an update so popular they sold out of their entire inventory, I would have doubted that would happen, too.
That’s it. Expect more updates as we approach June!
This was our first Kickstarter campaign and it went beyond our biggest expectations! We are super proud that our vision and passion spread to almost 400 backers and now that we have your support, the adventure really starts. We will hard at work over the next few months to deliver a product of great quality and meet all the deadlines we talked about. Please connect with us here, on Facebook or on our Website to receive all the updates we will share along the way. See you on the Wailmoor! Thank you again for making this possible.
We are totally excited about bringing Curse of the Lost Memories to you.
The Griffon Lore Games team
Christophe & Anthony
www.griffonloregames.com
We want to give you another concrete example of the cartography we are including in the book. This is Silas’s Tower designed by Christophe and illustrated by Tad Davis.
I love this tower!
The encounter around this tower is something interesting, that’s for sure. Don’t let the current lived-in look fool you. The demon trapped on the third floor should be an indication things are not fine by any stretch.
This is a low-res version of what will appear in the Map Portfolio. This version doesn’t have room numbers, so would be well-suited for a VTT like Roll20 or Fantasy Lands. In the physical book, we’re putting a version with room numbers on a half-page for the DM to reference with the resultant encounter.
We’ll be showing off a preview of that encounter next month—to our backers. If you haven’t backed yet, you have until early morning of Feb. 22 to do so. Click here to do so!
In the Wailmoor, there are a number of places PCs can “clean out” in order to establish a base of operations. While Silas’s Tower is a ruin (the floors above the third are collapsed), it has unique, magical properties the PCs can exploit to their benefit.
Assuming they can deal with the tower’s defenses and the trapped demon, of course. I’ve nicknamed this tower “The Tower of Broken Dreams” and it’s quite possible some PCs won’t even make it past the stairway entrance.
One possibility is the PCs can even leave the trapped demon be while they use Silas’s Tower as a base of operations in the Wailmoor.
Spoiler: not recommended.
Have some yummy videos!
Here we talk about our Reward Tiers:
Aaaaaaaand here’s the stretch goal video:
Questions? Let us know!
BOOM! Another Stretch Goal Reached! Mohr Maps! WE LOVE ALL OF YOU!
This makes the Map Folio just that more awesome. And if you’re on the printed map tier, you are getting a heck of a deal. You’ll open the shipping tube and out pours high-quality MAP GOODNESS you don’t normally see in adventure path modules.
Stretch Goal #3 is Kicked into High Gear Interior Design and Artwork. We’re going to go crazy with functional, but highly stylish-artistic, interior art. We’re talking opening the book and going whoa. And the book layout. Will be. So incredible!
Please back us on Kickstarter!
Have a video update, in which Anthony talks about Hard Fantasy.
BOOM! We’ve flown past a stretch goal and marching towards another!
In this video update I talk about art styles. The next video update we’ll talk about hard fantasy and Curse of the Lost Memories.
Be sure to back us on Kickstarter if you haven’t already. Back early! Back Often!
Best Regards,
Anthony
CURSE OF THE LOST MEMORIES is now LIVE on KICKSTARTER!
We are very excited that what was a gamers dream a few months ago finally takes shape today and is ready to fly with its own wings! We’re going to Kickstarter to fund our first campaign, an ambitious and original Adventure for Pathfinder and D&D 5E that we hope will capture the imagination of the folks we’re building this for. Starting today, you can back a great module, with original art, excellent cartography and packed with fun, yielding about 10-15 sessions of play! We’re in this in the long run and your support will not only allow us to deliver this first module but enable us to build the foundations of our others projects to come!
Thank you and see you on the Wailmoor!
Not literally, of course (unless yer talk’n about some undead campaign), but the ever-present honest-to-Istus looming threat of the real possibility that the Game Master (GM) will let it happen and the party is dead forevermore, no NPC white-wash-find-the-bodies-and-Raise-Dead, etc., etc.
Now, before I go further, this isn’t an original concept for moi. Entire product lines are predicated around TPK threats in encounters and advocating tough games. So, not blazing fresh territory here, at all.
But I have a Griffon Lore Games spin. This post is part one of The Campaign Imagination Engine blog post series.
That section title sounds like a bad early-80’s sitcom. But I digress.
Before going into the TPK, let’s talk about the GM (DM in D&D speak).
What’s the main function of the GM in the fantasy Role-Playing Game? There’s a bunch of attributes we can slap on to that, but let’s prioritize. The GM:
Lays the foundation for the game by populating Non-Player Characters (NPCs), monsters and villains in a fantasy setting in order to:
Be the role-playing arbitrator of the story the PCs are telling in order to:
Be the conflict arbitrator of the conflict the PCs are creating
I’m talking campaign play, not off-the-shelf one-offs, living campaigns or gaming societies. Once the GM and the players are going to venture forth on their own by playing in a campaign world, well, that’s when the magic starts happening!
The GM Hierarchy of Giving goes like this—a campaign has a start. The GM determines where that start is based numerous things that need to be determined ahead of time. Many DMs purchase campaign worlds to help them with this start, some roll their own, just as many take a world and heavily modify it.
Once the campaign world is set and the game starts, the GM, at that point should be the arbitrator of the narrative the PCs are creating. For themselves. Sure, there may be an adventure, or adventure path tossed in, but GMs should rise above their own narrative desires and embrace the story-telling the players are creating.
And once that occurs, the GM really is the neutral third-party to the conflict going on at the game table. The GM has no skin in the game insofar keeping everyone alive so the players can have fun. Fun isn’t just winning at the game table. It’s heroic wish fulfillment. And a PC can’t be a hero if they don’t have a stake in the game and if they don’t have the consequences of failure.
And once that occurs—the TPK falls under the story telling auspices of the PCs. The GM is no longer responsible for that TPK.
The party did it to themselves.
It was a TPS: Total Party Suicide. Oh, sure, maybe the GM screwed up and flubbed the difficulty by accident. More than likely, the PCs in a game where they are the drivers of the story, failed at combined arms. Or just had some bad dice. Or, a combination of the two.
It took me years to understand the real role of a GM. Years of GMing, years of playing, years of playing MMO. Feedback from players, feedback from GMs.
Being the GM using a Campaign Imagination Engine means letting go of the story. Stepping back, and letting the players run with it.
The larger benefit of that philosophy is player deaths are a blip in the player’s world, not yours. Your shackles have been removed. You are now free to create encounters that have weight and meaning.
So, with an understanding of the GMs real role in player death, encounters that have a chance of killing PCs bumps up the game a rather large notch, doesn’t it? But if we have most combat encounters like that, aren’t we becoming too formulaic? Isn’t there some drama to the lead up to the Big Bad?
That’s just it. Once the GM lets go of the baby, the lead up to the Big Bad can be just as interesting as the Big Bad. Here’s a look at hard encounters leading up to a TPK encounter. Which is like, but dramatically different from, the resource draining encounter leading up to the only real challenge.
PCs have a talky-talk encounter that leads them to an area.
On the way, the PCs encounter some Bad Guys that are super motivated to prevent them from getting to that area. These encounters have the capability of killing some PCs. The NPC motivation: prevent PCs from going forth. This has nothing to do with draining 25% of a player’s resources. It has everything to do with preventing the players from getting from point A to point B.
Maybe Bob the Ranger dies on the way. Now the PCs have some handy information. The Big Bad can kill them. Heck, someone else could die on the way!
Arrival. The virgin is in the cage, waiting for darkest hour to be sacrificed. The Big Bad is angry. He has everything to both lose and win. So, he goes at it with everything he has. Now it’s the PCs who have everything to lose or win–this encounter has the capability of killing them all!
But, but, but, what if this is a neutral party with no paladin. Maybe they don’t care about the virgin, they care about how much money they can get when they bring the virgin back to the Baron, her father. Maybe the Big Bad sleuths this out and simply gives the PCs a greater reward to turn around and pretend they didn’t find the Big Bad.
Well why would the PCs simply not take the reward and then kill him, and then return the virgin, and cash in?
Because, the Big Bad is really a Big Bad. Your mercenary PCs know this. They came here for the money and they are now being offered to leave with the money. Maybe they really, really need the money to do something Super Important. The Super Important overrides the virgin’s desire to live and her father’s to have her back. Or maybe they remember how Big Bad Minion Ganked Ranger Bob. Maybe the players are looking over at Dead Ranger Bob’s player looking forlorn about not being at the Big Bad encounter.
Let’s pretend the PCs take the Big Bad up on his offer because they have bigger fish to fry.
And the Baron finds out and sallies forth to kill them all in an encounter that has a chance to kill them all.
Get it? The TPK this scenario was based on the GM not moving the story along but simply arbitrating PC role-playing:
The PCs KNOW there is a Big Bad coming up because his minions are the shiz-nit and are formidable, and difficult, opponents.
The Big Bad sits there enraged when confronted, but his goal is to sacrifice the virgin. That’s his motivation, and he’ll do everything he can to meet it, including humbling himself by offering a bribe. If not accepted, all bets are off. It’s do or die time–welcome to the chance of a TPK.
The Baron can dole out his own TPK. Bonus points if the Big Bad, still smarting over losing all that loot, drops the hints on what really happened–welcome to the chance of the TPK.
Ah! But maybe there is a paladin in the party. And the paladin needs that coin for the Big Bad his god cares about, and, wait for it, there is a ticking clock. Well then, that makes the Virgin Sacrificing Big Bad offer (VSBB) all that more interesting, does it not? Your PCs free actions in a long-running campaign have more narrative weight than all the Game of Thrones episodes combined.
The above scenarios are dramatically different from the typical module scenario because the typical module scenario is predicated on a narrative, rather than narrative choices.
TPK means never having to say you’re sorry, because it’s was never your story. It was a great run, PCs. Let’s try a 20-point buy on the new characters. Sorry not sorry.
That’s a given and natural. There is a point, however, where that feeling is recognized, acknowledged and then dismissed. Your players will go through life without the actual, real thrill of rescuing (or not) the virgin from the VSBB.
They can, however, play D&D or some game where they can find that thrill in a campaign world.
And thus, I’ve concluded, that the GM that doesn’t let their player’s risk going the Ultimate Splat still has narrative control over their stories. It’s less about the PCs all died, and more about your baby, the story you are trying to tell, is now at an end. You don’t want to let go, so, as the GM, you aren’t going to put the players in a position where they can fail because their failure is just a reflection of you.
This is Griffon Lore Games design philosophy. This is hard fantasy not just as defined by the wikis, but as the foundation to the wonderful difference between an RPG campaign and an MMO where death is simply a re-spawn. Curse of the Lost Memories presents a world in which the GM simply provides a structure for the PCs to start driving their heroic fantasies. There is structure, yes, but there is just as much opportunity to do the hard thing, because the PCs thought it was the right thing.
The best module adventures have the looming threat that the Game Master will let a TPK happen and the party is dead forevermore. Its more than the stakes, it’s a story. Their imagination, kick-started by the GM’s campaign start, made it all possible.
It’s the PCs story.
Best Regards,
Anthony