> In a nutshell, I would like to see a product like Griffin Mountain
> produced for Sartar. It contains great maps, a nice gazetteer, loads
> of NPCs, adventures of varying length and scope, nice bits on cults,
> trade, and regional history, a wide variety of encounters, and just
> enough demographics to put it into perspective.
Griffin Mountain or Sun County for Sartar, yes.
That's what I would have liked for the project, too. I don't know what happened to the mapping - there are a couple of very able cartographers out there who could have worked over Greg's old master maps if they had had access.
The gazetteer appears to be the kind of game material which is out of style with official Hero Wars supplements, which focus on TV script-like scenarios rather than giving the narrator some flexible setting wherein well-defined NPCs with defined goals and means make the story much like in a freeform game.
What I would have liked to see are locations with flavour and plot to be included in whatever story-line the current scenario has. Humorous or irrelevant but action-laden sidetracks, much like TV series provide, too. The ghosts of olden days random encounters, but heck, they did work to take some preparatory load off the narrator without keeping the players unoccupied.
There is a difference, though. Griffin Mountain describes a vast area, and it fails a bit to capture the campaign for the natives. It is tailored for Orlanthi or Lunar visitors in a primitive world, either group supplemented with exceptional native characters (like some of the Uz, Skilfil or the Hawk riders).
I proposed a "Strangers in Sartar" compilation a few months ago, and I still think this would be worthwile.
John Hughes' current stormstead project reminds me of the highly inspirating Midkemia Press supplements (City of Karse etc).
> Furthermore, I feel
> that the Griffin Mountain approach could be applied to a great number
> of other areas. For more densely populated areas it could be further
> detailed with products like Pavis or Big Rubble.
That's mostly a question of scale.
For my own in-family game (suffering from long intervals) I've chosen an unsignificant clan next to the Quivin Mountains which has a magical wilderness among the Quivin peaks, a city confederation centre and rival clans nearby. This works for either Jonstown, Wilmskirk or even clans near Boldhome without having to detail too much of the local specifics.
> Furthermore, I feel
> that religions/cults/animism/whatever could be well done in a Cults
> of Prax or Cults of Terror approach. If Hero Wars focuses a bit more
> on the spiritual or mythic side, no problem. That just means that some
> of the space filled with the mechanics side of the detail is swapped
> for more space for the myths and history side. Why discard a still
> very popular formula.
While the formula is fine, I'd go a step further than the Lords of Terror approach (which effectively is chaotic Rune Masters rolled into CoT) and add more normal strength opportunities, or hero band stuff.
Having a hero band as recurring villain makes occasional final defeats for some of the villains easier to remain in a pre-written story line, too.
> Let me ask all of you this: Would you buy books approximately done to
> the standard and scope of Griffin Mountain on topics like the Shadow
> Plateau, Prax, various parts of the Lunar Empire, various parts of
> the West, the Holy Country, etc.?
I would. That's the kind of material I am likely to produce, too. That, or Freeform style products like my co-writing for Ingo's Heroes of Wisdom and Rise of Ralios.
However, that's also the "usual fare" we find in the magazines nowadays.
> If you have the Griffin Mountain book try doing the following: take a
> look at how much of Genertela is covered by the maps of Balazar and
> the Elder Wilds and then mentally calculate how many more maps could
> be done if you wanted to do the rest of the continent.
That calculation works only if you combine one map of the Wastes with one map for each more densely populated region. For comparison, the hex grid maps in Griffin Mountain (Balazar and Elder Wilds each) are the size of the Dragon Pass boardgame map.
The Troll Pak material combined with Drastic Darkness has about the same amount of information for Dagori Inkarth, which covers an area of half the size of the DP or NG boardgame map.
Looking at Dragon Pass, a volume the page count of Griffin Mountain could cover one quarter of the game board - i.e. one book each for (NW) Tarsh, (NE) Far Point with Snake Pipe Hollow and Stinking Forest/Vale of Flowers, (SW) Grazers, Exiles and Beast Valley and (SE) Old Sartar and Dragon's Eye.
And for Old Sartar the page count could easily be twice Griffin Mountain if you visit individual clan myths, local specialities etc and define say one third of the native clans in detail.
All of this just covering the years between 1619 and 1621, not taking into account the drastic magic and climate catastrophe of 1622, possibly taking up the thread again 1623 to 1629 with the liberation wars just a side issue treated in the legendary story line prepared in Sartar Rising, Sartar Burning etc. (Meshing in with this, though, but treating "everyday adventure" or preparatory campaigning.)
The problem is that Issaries lacks the manpower (i.e. the finances) to get the products up to standard, and the productive fan base is already semi-included in the Issaries projects.
Are you proposing to continue the Gloranthan Classics line with new supplemental material? (Provided Greg gives his ok, or Issaries finds a way to have an entire supplement produced outhouse before approval.)
If so, the manuscripts ought to be started now.
Anyway, everybody sit down and do some writing. You'll find a publisher...
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