Eldritch Witchery, Back to Basics

TIM: Hey all, guest blooger Tim Brannan here.  I wanted to take some time and talk a bit about where I was in the upcoming Eldritch Witchery book for the Spellcraft & Swordplay game.  Not sure of a release date yet.

I am returning to work on Eldritch Witchery, my guide to witches and warlocks for the Spellcraft & Swordplay RPG. The idea is simple really; make a witch class for the game. But I want to do this class justice and not just do a retread of the material I have written for other games.

So I am going back to school.

I have been rereading old Dragon and White Dwarf magazines from the 70s to the early 80s to get a proper feel for the game as it was then. What were people talking about and doing in their games. I have also been going over my basic assumptions. Why is a witch needed if we already have Clerics and Wizards? What niche does a witch fill in a Sword and Sorcerery game? For this I am indebted to Jason Vey who has been giving me a crash course in all things Pulp related. Conan (whom I never really read and now understand I know next to nothing about), the works of Robert Howard and how they relate to Lovecraft. Plus I have been thinking a lot about my own influences for D&D. Clark Ashton Smith is a big one for me. I have been rereading all my old D&D books and notes. My first witch character was made in October of 1986, I wrote my first set of rules (20 pages) around her.

What has this done for me?

Well I have a pretty good idea what I want to do and how I want to do it and it is different than say my d20 version of the witch, or even the magic I wrote about in Ghosts of Albion. What does a witch do in the world of Spellcraft & Swordplay. Well the witch is more connected to the primal nature of magic. I hesitate to say “beyond good and evil” but maybe before good and evil. She is like nature. I also want to incorporate a lot of what is old folklore and fairy tales about witches. So these are defiantly more Baba Yaga than Sabrina.

What do Witches Do?

In any game you need to figure out where a character’s niche will be. What is it that the character will do, what can she do and what will she bring to the adventuring party. Where does she fit in this world organically. I also want keep in mind the classical or stereotypical powers of the witch; casting spells, making potions, the evil eye, curses, charms, turning people into animals, flying on brooms, consulting with familiar spirits. The witch then for me needs to provide that air of mystery in a world already full of magic and magical-using characters. She needs to have something special about her, I want the other characters in the group to say, “We need her, she is a witch!”

Hopefully players will say the same thing.

Next time, more on the occult powers of the witch class.

Personal Blog

If anyone's interested in my more mundane comings-and-goings, I've begun a personal blog at http://grey-elf.blogspot.com/

I did this so as not to clutter up the Elf Lair and Wasted Lands blogs with off-topic postings.

Feel free to pop over, read, comment, whatever.

Status report

Well, folks, here's the deal.

I have too much on my plate at the moment. This means that something has to give, and right now, the only thing I've got to give...is Elf Lair.

We are not done. Just on indefinite hiatus. I intend to get up and running again just as soon as I figure out how to deal with the stresses of everything I have going on. Unfortunately that means that until the end of the year at least, Elf Lair is closed down.

Fortunately I haven't yet officially set us up as an LLC.

It's cool if you want to keep checking here for updates, as I'll post them as I have them, but hopefully we'll be very visible when it's time to come back. I want to put some money away to do this thing right when it's ready to take off, and hit everyone with a marketing blitz when we're ready to go.

I realize this is a disappointment to our fans, but all I can say is, nothing can prepare you for what hits you when you enter grad school. Between that and my day job, my time is utterly monopolized. I'm told that after you're in for a semester things calm down a great deal. We shall see.

As things calm down...

The wedding is next week. Within 2 weeks or so I'll know how badly classes are going to kill me.

Best case scenario: I hope to have Twelve Parsecs in playtest by October. Whether we see any releases before that depends on Tim's work on Eldritch Witchery and Vampire Queen.

Thanks for your patience, everyone. We're keeping you updated as we have info to post :)

More Detailed Update

A bit more of a detailed update than the one below, since I'm sure some folks are wondering what's going on, or if I'm going to let this grand experiment die off.

Elf Lair is (mostly) a one-man operation. Tim gives his input, thoughts, and advice as he can, but he's a busy guy with a lot of expenses of his own (both financial and time-related). I have to call on volunteers to help me edit and proof documents, and that generally isn't conducive to cutting down typos and errors as much as they could be cut down.

Add to that the fact that I'm working on a novel (with interest from a potential publisher), a major freelance project, and gearing up to start grad school in the fall...and the grind has worn down on me.

I'm not saying I'm quitting. Far from it. What I am saying is that Elf Lair has suffered from its inception from inefficiency that needs to be eliminated. I wrote S&S on a whim, from early experimentation with using Chainmail as a basis for role playing. When it was complete I figured some people might be interested so I threw it up for sale. Never expected that a year later I'd be nearing 500 units sold by nothing more than word of mouth and a few postings on message boards!

That many sales means we have a solid fan base, and you guys deserve to have the best delivered to you, by a properly run organization. Until now I have admittedly been haphazard with things, making corrections as I go and letting certain things slide. That needs to stop. Sure, Lulu is conducive to that, but just because you can do something doesn't mean it's the best way to go about it.

So what does all this mean?

What has been going on behind the scenes is a lot of thinking and re-organizing. I'm recharging my batteries and clearing off my plate so that I can sit down and decide exactly how Elf Lair needs to be run. I may look for investors so I can provide you all with high-quality, professionally printed product in distribution. I also desperately want to move away from Lulu. I understand OBS is gearing up (at last) to get their PoD service up and running; I'll be watching that development closely.

Elf Lair Games may have started on a lark, but it's starting to take on a life of its own. I see that as a great thing, and I want to do right by the people who have supported us. So I need to recharge my own batteries and see what I need to do, to give us a place in the industry as a real player. I can only fly by the seat of my pants for so long before I have to step off and work it out; otherwise everything's going to fall apart. And none of us want that.

So I hope you all understand that and will keep watching, playing, posting, and supporting Elf Lair as it moves forward. Thanks again, everyone.

Quick update

Just so you all know we haven't dropped off the face of the Earth.

Life happens, as it tends to do, and sometimes brings with it chaotic schedules and a general feeling of burnout that is detrimental to a one-man operation like ELG. I'm not closing up shop--far from it, I still intend on releasing all the stuff I advertised. But I'm taking a short break to recharge the mental batteries. Been focused too much on producing gaming material for other people instead of doing it for my own enjoyment.

The down time should be brief; hopefully by September sometime I'll be back on track.

Monstrous Mayhem Deluxe Release

As promised, we have released the Deluxe edition of Monstrous Mayhem. This version contains only the material that did not make it into S&S Deluxe (which is still a pretty hefty page count!) In addition, we have added "Thug Rules" (also popularly known as "mook rules") to the mix in the Appendix.

Because the Thug Rules were not available in the original MM and I am loathe to make people buy the same product twice to get all the rules, we have made the Thug Rules available as a free download (which also includes collected errata for the first and second printings of S&S).

Now the bad news.

I was able to discount the softcover and e-book versions of this slightly (though not as much as I'd hoped), but not the hardcover edition, which is already priced so low we could never hope to have it in stores (seriously, we make *very* little off of the hardcover versions of these books). This is the down side of dealing with Lulu and their high "production costs."

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the "deluxe" MM, and get some use of the free thug rules.