Happy Yuletide Everyone (Patreon)

Good Heroes!

What happened to this December?! Here we are, halfway through the gates of Yulehålla, past the Mass of Christ and closing on the Eve of Saint Sylvester.

Well, over here, my second daughter was born just two weeks ago and my life has been largely upturn'd with incorporating this new human into this jolly world. It's a joy and a chaos and a lot of autopilot and definite gaps in my memory caused by the occasional lack of sleep. I do seem to recall First Daughter enjoying Christmas with grandma and grandpa and uncle, and her and Hound chasing one another and stealing one another's treats.

Everyone's healthy and well, and honestly, that feels like the most important thing. Especially after that weird attempted early December coup by the now-impeached president.

But, let's leave the workings of the local world and see where we are, and where we're headed with the stratometaship.

Round Up and Forward

2024 was kind of a wild ride, with the OGA crowdfund exceeding my expectations and parenting also exceeding my expectations. Both in terms of how much I enjoy[ed] them and how much energy they take[ook].

I thought, for sure, I'll have the Guidebook locked down and ready for you with all the pretty spot art by the end of the year, but what can I say ... I'm one person and I have a bit of a perfectionism bug and a day has 24 hours and children aren't as understanding as my wife. :P

Still, first, foremost, a huge thank you for bearing with me over this year.

Forward: the Vastlands Guidebook is so close to finished I can smell it. After that it's the Our Golden Age book. Just the Yellowlands left, then wrapping up the intro adventures, and putting a bow on it with some of the surrounding realms' content.

And regular art, of course ...

But these crossverlap with the crowdfund and you've heard me yammer about them for a while already. So what's coming to the Stratometaship specifically?

TSKNS - The Sea Knows No Stars. You've been seeing this in spreads over the last few months. It's both an outlet for me, to relax from making a big book, and a way to try out some layout ideas for ... adventure modules. For a while I've been thinking about doing a layout that has main content in the central column, with GM-relevant stats and attributes in the side column. For now we've been in the "hexcrawl" part of this module. We're closing in on the main dungeon part.

I want to format my adventure modules using this square format going forward. It feels really easy to use for me, and it also offers a convenient compromise on screens: it uses the same proportion of a landscape and portrait layout, leaving whitespace for GM notes.

And shorter adventures and modules is what I really really want to get to once OGA is done.

I want to finally put the Necropolis (Red Sky Dead City) into a finished PDF. Possibly with less editing than my perfectionist self would otherwise be tempted to do).

And the Dark Prologue. That'll go great with the aspects system I'm trying out in TSKNS + the simple d6 mechanic in Let Us In.

And the Silver Ship Wizard. The square layout beats the current A5 layout hands-down for my taste.

Therefore, plenty to look forward to, but the next few months may be a little slow on this page front (with finishing OGA). Still ... getting there!

Right, I have to run — Daughter One needs me.

Peace, love, and health to y'all, good heroes!

—Luka