The State of Blood and Treasure

/ jstater

I get a few questions now and then about where Blood & Treasure stands in terms of completion. I’m going to answer them.

First – my plan to include actual poisoned needle traps in the print books has run into some legal problems, so that’s out. Yeah – contact poison is out as well. Still no word on the possibility of working glyphs of warding.

Second – Here’s an outline of the different sections of the game and where they stand. Keep in mind, all of these sections are going through editing and playtesting, so take the “100% complete” tag with a grain of salt.

I. Introduction – 100% complete
– Basic concepts of an RPG, the dice, etc.

II. Characters – 100% written and laid out
– Five Seven races (sorry), 13 classes, 13 variant classes, spell lists, feats, equipment, strongholds & domains

III. Rules of Play – 100% written and laid out
– Encumbrance, movement, light, poison, disease, falling, survival, task resolution, combat, mass combat

IV. Magic – 100% written in first draft, now being given a serious edit
– Spells, intro to magic item creation

V. Adventures – 90% written
– Dungeons, wilderness, urban, planes

VI. Monsters – 100% written in first draft, now being given a serious edit
– Monsters, creating and modifying monsters

VII. Treasure – 100% written in first draft, now being given a serious edit
– Money, gems, art, magic items

Appendices – not yet written
– Conversion guides (old school, new school), inspirational reading, useful charts and tables

Once the sections that are “being given a serious edit” are “seriously edited”, they’ll go to the next stage of editing by Tanner Yea, my editing hero.

Also – here are the “final” covers for the Player’s Tome and Treasure Keeper’s Tome.

 

For the TK’s Tome, I wanted something that suggested the wider world of fantasy, while the Player’s Tome focused on the adventurers. The Complete book (contains Player’s Tome and TK’s Tome in one volume) will look like the Player’s Tome, except it will replace “Player’s Tome” with “Complete Game”.

The Player’s Tome will include the Intro, Characters, Rules of Play and Magic chapters.

The TK’s Tome will include the Intro, Adventures, Monsters and Treasures chapters.

So – now you know. I’m also working on the S&W Rappan Athuk conversions (about 10 more chapters to go – this is going to be one seriously &^#&@ huge adventure – I’m pretty sure I’m going to run it on G+ when it’s finished) and NOD 15 (the final circles of Hell! Hallelujah!!!). When Blood & Treasure is in the can, I start on 1800 – American Empires in earnest. I really want to do something good with that one, and will probably make it compatible with Blood & Treasure.

I’m busy as beard groomer at an OSR convention, and thankful for it!

18 thoughts on “The State of Blood and Treasure”

  4. Also – I managed to reply to the wrong comment! I'm firing on all cylinders today!! There are seven races – they're all there, plus rules for many more in the monsters section.

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  5. Wrong reply, illustrating my point further.

    How do I find time? Spend one to three hours a night writing/editing, and you'll be amazed at how much material can accumulated.

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  6. Ha, Matt, this looks great. I'm gonna score some land of nod issues here when I get some time off. And I am in agreement with gary, covers look fantastic.

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  8. Matt – I really strongly urge you to do a hardcover version of both books or at least make Complete a hardcover. People would buy those (look at the Swords and Wizardry Complete hardcovers) and the have a longer shelf life.

    Plus – great great covers for the volumes!

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  9. I'd prefer a more supplement approach. If your rules don't contradict previous d&d rules, don't explain them. Nobody needs chapter 1: what are dice? Arneson and gygax didn't feel the need to pad that into greyhawk and blackmoor.

    Seriously.

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  10. UWS – It's one page – not exactly padding.

    Zdan – I'm not averse to doing a hard cover version – simple enough with print-on-demand, but I doubt it will be cheap.

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  13. I'd love to do special combos if I could figure out a way, but with Lulu it's just not feasible. I can't set it up through them, and I can't discover who has bought what through them. I might set this one up for sale on RPGnow.com, but again, I don't know if they have a way I can set up such deals. About the best I can do is ensure that the products are about as cheap as I can make them and still have a shot of breaking even on them.

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  14. Are we still looking at $30 for a complete book, $15 for separate books? I'm asking since I know the page count has increased a bit since the last time you mentioned it.

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  16. Matt – I understand those will not be cheap. But making it an option in a print-on-demand system is not hurting anybody. See the limited edition foil cover for the DCC rpg – much more expensive than the usual cover and yet people jumped on it. Just saying that an option of an hardcover is never bad.

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  17. A) Covers look great, you really have a natural flair for design.
    B) Drop everything and focus on 1800!
    C) FYI my browser (chrome) doesn't like your blog lately, I get warnings popping up every visit.
    cheers

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  18. I know some folks were having trouble because of a site that was linked to in the blogroll, but since I removed it I thought the trouble stopped for them.

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