Rough draft cover for new supplement

Slowly, but surely, I’ve been working on my new Ebonyr campaign setting supplement called the “City of Heirandos”. So far I’ve started detailing 71 locations around the city and its environs. Here’s the rough draft cover that I concocted using MS Publisher.

City of Heirandos - Ebonyr campaign supplement

 

 

New Logo finished

Beside working on my first supplement for Swords & Wizardry, I started working on a new logo for Knightvision Studios. I toyed around with chess pieces, knight helmets, etc. I really like Dark Horse Comics logo and decided to go that route.

Here I present the new Knightvision Studios logo:

Heirandos: Points of Interest

Well, today I finally got some more work done on Heirandos. I developed over 70 points of interest within the city. I’ll be populating these with NPC and monster stats, rumors and organizations. I want to give the referee (GM) as much information to create an adventure on the fly, but yet let them have free reign in creating there own information. I also create two videos on my ustream.tv account while making this city supplement.

S&W Review

I took a 6-8 week self-imposed sabbatical over the summer. I wanted to reflect on my past work
and what I want to attempt to accomplish in the future. I soon kept seeing this new retro clone called
Swords and Wizardry (S&W) crop up on different forums that I visit. S&W was even nominated for a ENnie award
for the best free product. I thought to myself, a retro clone of 0e is getting major recognition from outside
the OSR (Old School Renaissance) community? So, I went to the S&W website and downloaded the core rules
and was pleasantly surprised by what I read.

Here is one item I found interesting about S&W

Using challenge levels for monsters was a master stroke. I never played 3e/3.5 however, I like the CR (challenge rating) feature and wished the old school dnd had that. Alas, now it does!

Swords and Wizardry

I took a 6 to 8 week self-imposed sabbatical over the summer. I wanted to reflect on my past work and what I wanted to accomplish in the future. I soon kept seeing this new retro clone called Swords and Wizardry (S&W) crop up on different forums that I visit. S&W was even nominated for an ENnie award for the best free product. I thought to myself, a retro clone of 0e is getting major recognition from outside the OSR (Old School Renascence) community? So, I went to the S&W website and downloaded the core rules and was pleasantly surprised by what I read.

The one item I found most interesting was the Challenge Level for monsters. Though I’ve never played 3e, I liked the CR (Challenge rating) indicator to be helpful. I see that 4e dropped this. But, I like the way S&W uses this “new” feature to help the game referee with monster selection.

All in all, I really like S&W and hope to support it with a great campaign setting, adventure modules and supplements.

Heirandos: District Map

I had a chance this past week to continue to develop the capital city of Sherran, Heirandos. I looked at the next layer of the map which, in this case, is the districts of the city.
Instead of just writing down some names and calling it a day. I researched the the districts of some rather large cities such as London, Paris and Berlin. I came up with nine distinct and diverse districts for Heirandos.

Here is a brief description of one of the districts:

Quayside District
History: Quayside was, until recently, a slum area of rickety shacks and petty crimes. The Seneshal (city) Council wanted to move the main commercial wharfs (Quays) from the Seapoint area to another, less congested, area. They cleared out the slum and offered the land, at a price, to transport and maritime companies to set up shop.

Community: Several large businesses have their headquarters here and employ a large part of the surrounding areas. A poor, working class, neighborhoods have built up around the quays.

Economy: Maritime and overland transport companies dominate Quayside. Most of the surrounding population is employed in these industries. The Trade Authority has it headquarters to the south of the main wharf and collects taxes on all inbound/outbound commerce. Small taverns, inns and shops cater to the business and residents of this district. The most notable tavern is the Heart and Groin Tavern and Eatery.

Back in the saddle

We’ll I’m back after a six week self-imposed sabbatical. I have been rethinking Ebonyr from top to bottom, hand drawing maps and creating new races.

I also thought about doing a better job branding Knightvision Studios and the campaign setting of Ebonyr. I have redesigned the KVS logo to better represent me and my fledgling company.

I also wanted to create a “map brand” if you want to call it that. I want all my maps to have the same colors for forest, roads, building tones, etc just like Google maps.

I have really delved into Fractal Mapper 8, which I’ve had for over two years and really haven’t used it much. I plan on using this program to create my villages, towns and cities and use Paint Shop Pro to put the finishing touches on it.

As If have talked about branding, I also decided on specific fonts for supplements, adventure modules, map headers and body fonts. I think this will give a clean and refreshing look to my work.

Unity Foundation

I’ve come up with a new twist on Unity

4. Unity Foundation

Polytheistic religion that has unified the main gods of mankind into one faith

Beliefs

The Empyrean is the name given to the main pantheon of gods worshiped within the Unity Foundation. Only temples to the Empyrean can be found within the capital city of Lucidia.

Despite their varied nature, the personalities of the Empyrean continue their harmonious relationship, thanks mostly to the political machinations of the Concordat Council

Janar

Janar is seen as the creator of the world. Janar is the God of Kings. During ancient times, it is claimed that the some kings proclaimed himself the son of Janar. This bold declaration was quickly followed by the riots and destruction of the capital and the loss of its central areas. This lead to a rapid decline in the worship of Janar and he is often considered to have removed himself from the affairs of the world.

Anar

Anar is the Goddess of the Moon and Lady of the Night. She brings with her the tides and is worshiped by mothers and midwives. She is often called upon to to bless the birth of a child. She is a goddess of cycles and is thus often prayed to during funerary services.

Updated map: What a “relief”!

I added some texture and relief features to the heldon city-state map. As you can see below it gives it some added flavor or “eye candy”. I’ve also given some “fluff” on encounter descriptions. I intend to write a pdf document detailing this entire city starting with the first forty areas.

1. Government/City Hall

2. Religious University

3. Secular College

4. Church/Temple

5. Tavern

6. Inn/Restuarant/General Store

7. Barber/Launderer/Clothier/Hostel

8. Green Grocer/Butcher

9. Weaponsmith and Blacksmith

10. Ship Chandler and Boatwright

11. Wainwright/Astrologist/Lamp maker

12. Harbormaster HQ

New map concept

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on different concept maps for the City-State of Heldon. I was looking at Google maps and said to myself, “Self, why do create each individual building?”. I think it looks pretty, but is it useful? The Google maps look really nice and you can’t see each building unless you click on the Satellite button. I think I’m going to go with this method of map-making for the rest of Ebonyr.