Hydra/Hydra Fountain Prototypes
almost 9 years ago – Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 12:38:22 AM

Hey all,

Good News!

This update doesn't need words. Needless to say here are a few anyhow. They Hydra prototypes arrived today and I am happy. Nic Genovese outdid himself (Valiant Ent. did as well). Holding them really does them justice and the blue resin is near perfect in color and translucency.

Thanks everyone for your patience, it has allowed these to be the best that could be made.

-Zach

June update. Adventure to detail oriented proofreading gnome, maps, minis and more!
almost 9 years ago – Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:24:30 AM

Greetings Backers,

Here is an update that contains more than pictures and happy text about the boxes (though I have some of those too).

The Big News

(cue the crumhorn and trumpet fanfare)

Death & Taxes has been passed to proofreading. Specifically the adventure section, the primary of its three books, has been shared with the grammar man himself. The Microsoft Word document is 69 pages long but Lesser Gnome Grammar Division's Chief Enforcement Officer, Scott Swift, is on the task. In fact he has already made a number of good suggestions which were incorporated this morning. 

In celebration I would like to present a short excerpt from the introduction for your reading pleasure.

Excerpt

The Letter

An ivory tube was cushioned in a traveler’s chest between the official’s silk pantaloons and soft velvet overcoats. Within, a writ’s wax stamp sealed a few terse commands, “Welcome the Salise back into our embrace. Pinpoint its wealth, then squeeze without mercy. You are beholden to no one.” 

Without hesitation, the letter's bearer set forth accompanied only by his handpicked porters, servants and scribes. A detour to the windswept wastelands of the savage cold plain found him the type of soldiers he needed, ones who make looting a sport. They would enlist in his venture with promises of vengeance. The pay would be mere tokens from the spoils acquired. 

He entered each town and gave a rough speech. “Welcome back to the glory your grandfathers knew,” he shouted. "Long have you lived a life of hardship beyond the fringes of the Empire." 

“We have much to do,” the official explained, “We shall begin by conducting a census.”  

“If he is only here for a census,” they thought, “why does he need the half-giant Auditor and a pack of gnolls?”   

After a welcoming feast, Æthelbert answered. 

New Art from Lloyd Metcalf 

Close-ups of the boxes

In the last update I showed the box delivery. Here are some close-ups showing the boxes and their layout. 

The Minis update, old and new 

The new gnome figurine, Feuery from the setting guide, will be a two piece model. I verified again with Valiant that they are doing the necessary cuts before the mold is made. The large muscled elf is in the final stages as you can see in the updated pics below. 

Nic Genovese thinks they will be sent for casting in the upcoming week. 

Just a reminder, these will be included in all of the minis only and $75 pledge level rewards. The extra minis are a bonus I am happy to include with the extra text. 

What extra text? 

While waiting on some of the inputs that are out of my hands and thus my control (see Valiant above for one example) some ideas that I wanted to include but had not because of time limitations are now included. The text itself was expanded by over 15 pages of new adventure book material (in Microsoft Word). This does not include even more extra material that is being added to the GM and Setting guides to match the expanded text. There are now 70 keyed areas within Death & Taxes, some having up to 5 sub-keyed sections. 

This can be seen in the vector maps which are shown below. 

What isn't shown are the handful of areas currently in the final stages. These are being revised to reflect some new material finalized yesterday. 

After a very long week working with Edwin in Google Hangouts everyday I am confident that, if you were a fan of Whisper & Venom, you will think Death & Taxes is even better in every way. 

Overall Status 

First, everything is either paid for or budgeted for with no problem anticipated. The biggest expenses are either paid for already or known. Project money from the Kickstarter remains to cover them as well as some for last minute surprises as well. 

I am still waiting on the prototypes for the resin figurines from the casting company. I followed up with them today and they apologized for being behind but informed me the resin is in the molds and I should have an invoice with the sample set sent next week or the week after. The blue resin on the Hydra fountain takes longer to cure than the standard gray which explains why the current sample in the mold may arrive 10 days from now. I will post pictures when I get them. 

 Once those are received and approved I expect to be starting layout for the first book. Whisper & Venom was a four week layout process. This will be close to that because, although I am better and faster than I was, I know more and some of the advanced techniques are time consuming. They are worth it though and I assure you the layout will reflect the quality of the text, art and cartography you have seen in the updates. 

 As the layout is nearing completion the conversion authors, Jeff Tadlock (Pathfinder) and Edwin Nagy (5e) will receive the final text to begin their work.

 The release order is expected to be as follows- 

• OSR Boxed Set 
• OSR Retro Module 
• Pathfinder Boxed Set 
• 5E Boxed Set 
• OSR Hardcover 
• Dedicated full feature PDF files of the three versions. 

Some of the layout work on these has already begun (Indesign file set-up, bleed art and master pages among them). I expect to be able to post WIPs of these in the next update. 

That is plenty long for this update. As you can see things are moving along at a good pace while keeping quality the number one focus point. 

More news in July. 

Thank you everyone. 

 Zach, Head Gnome

The box unboxing
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 03:02:40 AM

May Update, More Figurines, Vector Maps, NTRPG Con
almost 9 years ago – Sat, May 30, 2015 at 09:53:12 PM

Greetings everyone. 

Time for a long update. 

 Highlights- Boxes, Extra figurines in the box, cartography changes, vector map of the Auctor's above ground floors, NTRPG Con, Timeline 

Boxes 

The boxes are on the truck from Marion Paperbox Company in Indiana. They are set to arrive Monday and there are a lot of them. In anticipation of their arrival I cleaned the gnome operational center (my garage). I even took some items (non-gnome related) the trash compactor. I will need the space to fit them since they come assembled on pallets. Unlike during the Whisper & Venom fulfillment process Lesser Gnome is an ongoing concern and my wife will kill me if it is ongoing into the house.

It was a good thing I cleaned for another reason, as on Tuesday I got the first batch of production shipments of: torlings, gnolls and M. Mange figurines. This jogged my memory to order a large pile of 28mm slotted bases and  another box of clamshell packaging. 

I had a minor victory in my ongoing war against logistics. This time involving the Torling figurine sets. Thanks to Nic Genovese, who followed my wishes down to the tiniest lizardy detail, an expensive unknown cost was made irrelevant. One of the hardest logistical decisions on a crowd- funded boxed product is planning everything to for fit. I was told  in business school that well designed interior packaging trumps weight in importance. So, with all the non-resin production minis in front of me, I  compared the plan versus the reality. Thanks to good planning and great sculpting I was able to fit all nine torlings plus all nine of their slotted  bases in a standard size clamshell pack- and close it up. This means that, excepting the Hydras, I have tested all the components and can breathe easy in that regard (the hydras come in pieces and will easily fit in the interior box). 

Speaking of Hydras... 

The last Sculpts unlocked during the Kickstarter are being molded today. There was a necessary delay on the Hydra Fountain. Although sculpted on schedule both Nic and Jeff (the mold maker and casting guy at Valiant) wanted verification and adjustments to the cuts on the model. Making sure the cut is correct is why I use professionals like Nic and Jeff, there is no way I would really know and not much I could do about it. Luckily my involvement was limited to getting the news from Nic and, hopefully, making an upgrade to the fountain. While they were both focused on the fountain model I dig the hard job of deciding if I liked translucent blue resin (as opposed to regular gray) for the fountain's water streams. As soon as the samples have set I will know for sure if we are getting them. 

Boxes got heavier. 

The biggest development is free stuff. Everyone who pledged $75 or higher (plus the $40 miniatures only backers) will be getting two new figurines. We can consider it stretch goal for accounting purposes. 

 The first, naturally, is a gnome. Meet Feuery.  

Remarkable backer Allan Williams was a backer whose pledge level included having a character included in Death & Taxes backer. He submitted a detailed and fun character he developed back in January for use in the text (the town of Arrant specifically). Fast forward to a few weeks ago and he contacted me again with a surprise. He asked about getting Feuery produced as a figurine. His people contacted my people and an iron clad deal was forged (probably in a smoke filled room). Part of our agreement was that all of you get one and, thanks to Allan, you shall. 

 Flexing his huge biceps, the exiled heir to a warrior king is sworn to vengeance. He was last encountered carrying a pair of  unattached heads in his backpack. From that description a mental image is pretty easy to form. So if I asked you what player race the above character would be I know there is a 90% chance you would say...

an Elf. 

 And you would be right. 

 Meet Drakan... 

In his wire stage WIPs. Thanks to Nic Genovese. 

 Maps 

 Right after the last update I was informed by Dyson that would he would be unable to complete the maps for Death & Taxes. Which I thought, through no fault of Dyson, had put me in a bind. I saved by someone who knows her maps very well. 

 Alyssa  offered to do our hand-drawn maps for the interior locations in Death & Taxes after I asked her if she recommended anyone. She recommended Alyssa. I am sure Alyssa will do just fine. 

 This is what we sent her (minor spoiler alert)... 

The above are the finished and no-nonsense vector maps made with Adobe Illustrator. They show the final scale, key numbers and wall structure of the Auctor's main floors. 

There are two more maps like this of deeper, less friendly areas beneath the Auctor. It was eye-opening to work with Edwin Nagy, author of the First Sentinel, on the vector maps. I heard Edwin teaches engineering in addition to writing first class adventures. The vector maps were made as we proofed the doors, room sizes and stair locations against what was in the text. The attention to the smallest detail regarding the architecture has made the Auctor better, and it shows in the text and on the map. 

 Details like this...

While on Skype, the topic of groined vaults was brought up. If, like me, you assumed a groined vault was olympic team slang for the most dreaded pole vault related injury you would ne wrong. It turns out groined vaults relate specifically to ceiling structures and placement of arches. Within 15 seconds Edwin placed all the pillars in their structurally sound locations in one of the great halls. He explained about the arch and load-bearing long after I stopped listening.

And that was just keyed area 4 on the map. 

The two days we spent on the vector map not only made the room descriptions more vivid, it made them more believable. It also made the room balance within the Auctor more natural.  It also opened up 7 new chambers which have been added in at least outline form. 

 What coming up? 

 Well it is the end of May and, as you can see, we are waiting for some of the final creatives (hand drawn maps) as well as last minutes production items (Hydras). Both of are in progress and in good hands. 

So while we wait we will improve the manuscript with details and additional shorts (half-page or less) narratives. These are fun and add a great deal of flavor to the setting/adventure. They are also something that relies on everything being near the final reading stage. 

 Did I say final? 

 Well, I was wrong. It isn't close to a final read. It is more of a last pass by us before being passed to someone who..

 A) has not seen it 

B) knows role-playing games well and 

C) gets emotional when reading the Elements of Style or similar style guide (he assures me they are not all the same). 

I know just the guy that meets that criteria.

So after I get back from NTRPG Con the manuscript will get shared to the proof reading gnome- Scott Swift. He will look first at the design looking for glaring omissions.  Then he will pour a drink for that extra dose of evil proofreading requires. Then he will smile and laugh as he points out errors.  

These will get fixed after we discuss them. 

Then it will go to the cheapest ENnie nominated production & layout person on the planet. What a sucker that guy must be :)

I will be starting with the OSR boxed set books. When I finish layout for the first books then the go to Jeff & Edwin for the conversions 

 It is an incredible amount of work but it is worth it. The story itself is solid and the art will be first class since it is being done by Lloyd Metcalf 

Speaking of Lloyd, he is running a Kickstarter for one of his own adventures. It is active until June 10th and you can view it by pressing here.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lmetcalf/last-call-oliviah-rpg-adventure-by-lloyd-metcalf

 I wonder who he got to do the art? 

 NTRPG Con 

 If you are going to be at NTRPG Con next week you should come by the booth and introduce yourself. I have a bunch of swag, all of it of questionable utility, for everyone and something special if you are a backer.

Thank you all very much for allowing me to create Death & Taxes for you. You won't be disappointed. 

 Zach Glazar 

Head Gnome

News, Images and Words (Lots of them)
about 9 years ago – Sat, Apr 04, 2015 at 01:02:14 PM

Greetings All,

 

Short Version- Maps, Minis, Conventions, Boxes, Backer Submitted NPC's and Bird of a Feather.

Whew its been awhile since the last update. Things have been very good and very busy for us at Lesser Gnome World HQ . News is good and plentiful so lets start...

The important items summed up for all of you. Extra images are located at the end of the update. 

GaryCon 

GaryCon was last weekend in Lake Geneva. Lloyd Metcalf kindly allowed the gnomes to utilize half of his booth in the vendor hall. Lloyd Metcalf and I had a VERY successful 4 days; so much so that Luke Gygax is allowing each of us our own booth next year (well, allowing me my own since Lloyd already had a booth). 

Pictured- Luke Gygax signing Lloyd's print at our booth. You too can have one of those prints by visiting lmetcalf.com.

A milestone was reached for Whisper & Venom. We sold all but one of the collector's sets. So I have one left for sale. There are few set aside for those that purchased one in BackerKit. These are now going to be shipped out early and at my expense to avoid any last minute issues. Those boxes are unlikely to be reprinted and I want them away from the unlucky and the accident prone that surround Lesser Gnome :). 

While at the Con I met a number of backers and was able to show them some of the final sculpts from Nic Genovese. Many were impressed. I also displayed the miniatures painted by Tom Nelson on our table.

This brings us to…

Miniatures  

Here are some new pictures of the last of the sculpts from the Kickstarter (many more at the end of the update). Most are at, or have been shipped to, the casting company, Valiant Enterprises. I spoke with the head of production there. 

We verified that we will be on schedule - ahead actually- for making the production molds and manufacturing your rewards. 

After Valiant gets their money. Which is the easy part as I paid them a lump sum down payment back in December. As a cushion against cost unforeseenoverruns I also just added more Kickstarter funds yesterday to cover the hydras and hydra fountains. These are expected to be prototyped by April 15th. 

 Any problems? 

Not a one. I already have fulfilment batches of over half the figurines and the rest are going to fall easily within budget. Which can be difficult as costs vary according to the sculpt and method used to create the final model. 

Overall, Nic Genovese has earned his money from us. He has worked hard to keep the quality high and the production time low. I bet he needs a break. 

Too bad! He isn't getting one from us. 

Nic has one more job for us on this project. We are adding another figurine to the the final fulfillment. It will included in the $70+ pledge levels and up. Lloyd is doing the concept art now and it will be awesome. I will share images as I get them.  

Other physical rewards  

• Hats- Check
• Shirts- 75% Check, I am ordering the larger sizes for the old-school fulfillment soon.  
• Dice- Check  
• Dice bags- Check  
• Interior boxes- Check  
• Miniature clamshells (both sizes)- Check 
• Miniature Insert Cards (3 styles)- Check  
• Miniature case add-on units (check) - Check 
• Undisclosed fancy cover sheet- Check
• SWAG/Ephemera- Check 
• Custom dice- check  

Which leaves-  

• Poster maps- soon as I get the finals from Alyssa these will go to press, I expect these fairly soon.
The latest map (in case you missed it) is right here.

• Interior art- 

Lloyd and I had a great deal of focused time on Whisper & Venom. Since then Lloyd has had the audacity to become quite a well-known fantasy artist. He hobnobs with Gygax's and rooms with the famed Jeff Easley at notorious Texas conventions. All this work has been put to good work, as you can see-

As busy as Lloyd has become he knows paying him has become almost a hobby for us. This works for him as well as for me. He has assured me that April has been set aside for our interior artwork. Starting with this almost finished pen & ink...

Thankfully he has already finished awesome pieces that will be on the....

• Boxes-

After much prodding, cajoling and (privately) swearing the boxes have begun the manufacturing process. I received an email saying that just 14 hours ago from Marion Paper Box Company. They approved the die-lines, found no graphic elements that would be affected by manufacturing, asked me one last time how many I wanted, and finally, emailed me a great big ol' invoice.

How big?

$556 in just in shipping big.

The proof sheet should be here next week with the pallet of finished boxes arriving on April 24th. The boxes are very nice if I do say so myself, if I have personally improved substantially in one area it has been in my use of Adobe Creative Cloud software. I cannot illustrate anything but I can resize jpegs and make minor alterations to files all for the fair price of free :)

Don't take my word though see for yourself… 

The box is less cluttered than Whisper & Venoms, with our logo and branding muted to highlight Lloyd's excellent artwork. I even redid our logo to match the color scheme and style…

Speaking of Logos… 

• Interior Maps-

 I am proud to tell you that we have commissioned a new cartographer for the interior maps in Death & Taxes. Almost all of you know him (or at least his maps) and they are among my favorite interior RPG maps around. They have a distinctive style that does not interfere with their function for the GM.   

Our maps for Death & Taxes were initially created on wet-erase battle mats. Getting them into the computer is a second opportunity to verify the entrances, stairways, transition points match and the scale is consistent. 

Mapping a 'realistic' building that was not either A) boring or B) gameplay breaking was harder than I expected (small wonder everybody makes dungeons and caves ;) ). The design was laid down last spring for the exterior shape and major rooms. 

Wow, a year? You must really suck at maps. 

Yes and no. The part that we cared about most was that the Auctor maps - once the fun fantasy elements been established- reflected a place that had a believable design. Not only an interesting place to have an encounter but also a reflection of a place that was 'real'. In a large location that meant looking at the building's design from the perspective of everyone inside. Thus, the perspectives of servants, guards, lords and prisoners were considered. 

 

That seems like overkill. 

It may have been but John and I are convinced establishing realism and believability to a location enhances than fantastical elements. Even if not explicitly stated in the text; these kinds of details give a feel to a place that make it a part of the story- rather than just a place. It also acts as a check against lazily using 'magical' solutions to design problems. We have those, but there are alternate ways to do everything. Something we keep in the front of our minds. Although I put them into the computer it was only to make a clear framework for the cartographer. Which is funny as they will have gone from drawn to digital and back to drawn by the time we print. 

This will be done by Dyson. For those of you who are active online in OSR forums, social networks and blogs you will recognize how they will look. He is a top-tier cartographer that I am honored to have doing the maps. If you don't know who that is (or care) here is a map pulled at random. The maps will look like this- 

 :)

Speaking of prints...

• Printed Books & Booklets- 

These will be the last portion to be completed. This is also the portion that relies heavily on the guy with the most time. The guy who is the cheapest link in the whole process. The guy who regardless of award nominations still  works for free (i.e. me). Even with proofreads from 4 different readers this will not be a long process since it is the one we have the most direct control over.

Importantly I should add that I have the money to print the books on the awesome paper in the payment account with Amazon. Just as we said we would. 

They will be great. 

They will also be much longer than anticipated. All the logistical work you have read about has taken a great deal of time. During this time John and I have made several key changes to the story and the setting that vastly improved what we already felt was a good story and game set-up. We, John especially, like to keep all of you in mind as we write. Like us, you are all older now and the modules you remember were not tailored with our age group specifically in mind. With that fact as a guide we worked very hard to have characters examine gray areas. 

We want players to meet flawed heroes, confront tormented individuals that can be either adversaries or allies and interact with local townsfolk with lofty but unrealizable ideals. Ideals that torment them when they fall short of in private their self-reflection. Communities have been more developed and the adversarial climate between them is not simple. Though it manifests itself in different ways much of the region's simmering mistrust and hatred was born of thoughts and emotions that, now that we are all over 30, we recognize as human constants even in the very best of us- spite, jealousy and envy.

So when we have had extra time since the project ended we have found ways to weave this kind of depth into the draft. At least we think we have, you will be the ultimate judge of our success.

The Small Stuff

Death & Taxes (as well as some of our current items) will be shrink wrapped for your pleasure. When one of the figurines cost can under budget I went ahead and bought a shrink machine system. It protects the boxes from scuffing while at the same time give a professional feel to the end product.

Also it is cool as hell :)

Bird of a Feather

The 2nd Prints of Bird of a Feather was printed in time for GaryCon. our first print sold out in about 5 weeks which was surprising to me. Unfortunately the economics of small press publishing make it ill-advised to print too many copies the old fashioned way- which we have to for TSR style modules. So I redid the layout to look a but more modern and had it printed by Lightning Source. It was printed with the finest paper and color process they have available. You can see the cover in the  picture below...

If you made it this far I think you should be rewarded for your patience. There is currently a 10% off sale in Bird of a Feather at our webstore. If you made it here and want a copy you can take 20% of everything we sell (except the last boxset). Just head here and use coupon code LONGUPDATE20.

Thank you everyone for your continued support of our products and your contribution to our success. This is a hard business to be successful at and thanks to you we have been.

Respectfully,

Zach Glazar

Head Gnome

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