Hey all...

Another installment from the Mortar Pit.

I am going into depths I have rarely gone before. I am delving into the world of lua. That crazy little programming language that makes rulesets and extensions work, and it wasn't long before I realized I suck at it ;)

About a week ago I got asked in discord to help put together a language and font extension for a 5E campaign. Something I hadn't done before, but I'm all over it like flies on...well...you know.

I had managed to hack together a couple of themes in the past, this ought to be something I could puzzle out pretty quickly. I mean if somebody like Trenloe can make one I ought to be able to right?

Not so fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found a couple of language extensions on the forums, including one by the aforementioned Trenloe. I looked at them, looked at the lua scripts inside. Neither one was difficult to understand.

Not long after that I found myself in a test campaign in FG trying to figure out why this simple extension wasn't doing what I thought it should be doing.

Moon Wizard was in discord the other day telling me I need to look at X script and do Y...

I'm yelling back at my monitor... "I am doing Y with X script @#$%^&*()_#@$%"

My first mistake was made right off the get go. In all the time I have been using FG I have never used a an extension that added fonts or languages to the game, so I had no idea of what to expect with one of these extensions.

Danger Mortar!! Danger!!

The script may have been working properly (I got the languages added I think, but not the fonts) but it wouldn't have mattered.

Doesn't matter how simple or complex a project is if you don't know what the end goal is, and you'd think after 24 years in the infantry I would've known that :p

Time to go check out those extensions in a campaign and see how they are supposed to work. Then I can finish up this little learning project ;)

There might be a few updates here too -- https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...onversion-List

I am still quite angry with the treatment of veteran's issues by Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), and by extension the government, as I ranted about in my last post.

Even worse because of stuff like this CRAP posted by CTV News.

A few years ago, VAC couldn't cover service dogs for veterans because there was no national standard in place. Okay, so a group of stakeholders, including veterans who had been given service dogs through private charities, service animal providers, as well as VAC, got together and worked on a national standard. Just as it was being finished up, VAC walked away from that process. Apparently the standard wasn't good enough, no national overseer body to enforce the standard, stakeholders not working in good faith. The reasoning behind it doesn't matter. The current government walked away from that process.

Now they say they are waiting on the results on an US study that they already have?

Come on really? Time for the idiots running the show to give their head a shake.

How hard is it to look at veterans that have a service animal and see how well that animal works?

How much more money do you have to throw at studies for this?

Same thing for the whole medical marijuana issue, but hey...keep pushing all those medications that big pharma wants you to push.

Both work, all you need to do is look at the quality of life of veterans who use either. It is amazing to see the difference in the veterans I know personally that have either.

Speaking of money. That $372 million in budgeted funds unspent to the government? That's actually an improvement..not that long ago is $1 billion returned. Yet, THAT'S the fault of the veteran who aren't applying for programs??

Somehow I don't think so...not when you have to wait a year or more to find out if you qualify for a program. Well over a year more if you want to appeal a decision.

Its been a motivator of sorts. I don't have the energy, the will or the desire to become some public advocate for veteran's issues. There are already some really good guys that are out there doing that already, and in a far better manner than I could ever do.

I need to find another route to contribute, and to feel like I am contributing in someway. I have been mulling over some ideas, then kind of got caught off guard by my wife's suggestions. I got voluntold twice.

Our youngest is attending the NB College of Craft and Design in their fashion program, and has decided he want to start a YouTube video blog, where he discusses Canadian art, artists and fashion designers. My wife promptly decided I will handle all the "other stuff...you know - like editing the video and uploading." So apparently I need to learn some video editing skills. Worst part about it, the kid has the personality for it.

Second, grows out of the nebulous of an idea I have had for a bit, and it involves far more work for me. I have been thinking hard about getting being my own indie rpg writer/publisher. With the rise of the community content creation Guilds make this far easier through the OBS system. I need learn how to do layout and a bunch of other stuff as well.

Since I have been doing a lot of work with Campaign Cartographer, from ProFantasy software suite, not super competent with the platform yet but this is my more recent Map (hig rez). I have also have been experimenting with the Map Forge software, as well as Dungeon Painter Studio on Steam.

The crux of my wife's idea is create stuff - stories, maps adventures then sell those. (Nice to know I have her support and backing in something like this though.). Now thinking back to my that news story couple with my drive...that need that I stubbornly that I need to feel like I am contributing to something bigger than myself. To me this includes contributing to the household.

I see two possibilities in front of me.

The first is I create material - maps, small adventure ideas and sell them directly through OBS, possibly even the Savage Worlds Adventurers Guild and taking all of the proceeds and donating them to a suitable PTSD service dog training charities here in Canada.
The second idea is to possible set up a Patreon creators page and do the same thing with the proceeds - donate them to a service dog training charity here in Canada.
To be honest, the only critique my wife had with either those choices, is in her words...."You are a veteran, and you could use that money as much those charities can right now."

For all those content creators, not just map creators, but all of you that I know out there, whether you use one or both of these platforms you have any tips or pointers from your adventures as you started out?

Any other thoughts or comments?

Current as of: 21 May 2020

Castles & Crusades

Player's Guide to the Haunted Highlands
Expanded Classes
C&C Theme Extension: http://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums...174#post387174
Castle Keepers Guide

As of 22 April 2019 I look after:

Black Libram of Natarus
*Deities of the Haunted Highlands
*DB1 The Haunted Highlands
*DB2 Crater of Umeshti

Pathfinder

Beasts of Legends: Coldwood Codex
Conquering Heroes
Lost Lore - Divine Heroes
Rappan Athuk - Player's Guide
Rappan Athuk - Pregenerated Characters

Savage Worlds

Evernight

I assumed responsibility for these products effective 1 Oct 17.

Evernight Setting (currently being remastered)
Evernight Online Gaming Tokens Pack

The Last Parsec

TLP Archetypes
TLP Core
TLP Omariss Death Worm

Tropicana

Tropicana Campaign Setting
Die Fast
Gorillaconda
Researchers of the Lost City

Weird Wars Rome

Weird Wars Rome Setting

Winter Eternal

Winter Eternal Campaign Setting
Winter Eternal Adventure Guide: The Wastelands

ETU

Degrees of Horror

Wiseguys

Who doesn't like Conan, and who wouldn't want a chance to adventure rich world of Robert E Howard? When Shotgun Jolly first pointed me in the direction of Modiphius' 2d20 Conan system in its Kickstarter stage I was initially intrigued.

After downloading the quick start rules a read, I became really hesitant about looking deeper at what Modiphius was doing with the setting and rules. To be honest I have never played or looked at any of the newer d(x) systems, fate, gumshoe, or anything "off my beaten path" as it were. I had played one session of Dungeon World with damned at FG-Con 8. When I read the quick start, I found that the rules read as a clunky, convoluted system. It felt that there was so much to take into consideration that there would be little to no flow to the session and that it just wouldn't be fun to play. I will admit that my initial read wasn't as in-depth as it could have or should have been.

Well, after two test sessions I am happy to report that I couldn't have been more wrong!

There is some gaps/breaks in flow as questions come up and rules explained in the initial stages. When playing any new system the first time that is expected. Once you get past that as a player the rules and game play are anything BUT clunky and convoluted. The momentum/doom mechanic of the system is fantastic and really pulls the players in to the game and the current "scene" (read: encounter). The mechanic really enables the players to build off each other's actions (momentum) and makes for some really epic moments. The whole idea of the players deciding who goes first, while new to me, really aided in the interaction between the players (and the characters) themselves as we tried to build up that momentum for each other. It also served to further draw us into the scene as it unfolded.

The system plays far more fluidly and quickly than it reads, especially as the players understand the mechanics. The ebb and flow of the tide of the game was really exciting to feel, and build really memorable moments in the story telling.

If you are unsure about this system, give it a try. I think you will find it enjoyable to play as I did.


Note: Crom, since you were obviously not listening last night....to hell with you!

I am definitely still in the fight, but the health took a major beating over the last couple of months and I most definitely took a few steps backwards. Enough about that or I'll end up in some rant about something totally off topic.


Now that SmiteWorks has released 3.2.0 (yeah, I know 3.2.1 is out now), I had to do a bit of rework on Weird Wars and the other projects I had in the queue or simmering. Here is a quick update on all of them.

Weird Wars Rome - the 3.2.0 compatible version I believe is available now. On review of the theme I submitted to go with it, Mr. lokiare and his non standard resolution found a bug. I think I have fixed it, but I am waiting to hear back on his resolution before I submit the fix. JPG (Moon Wizard) actually did pretty much all the work to bring WWR to 3.2.0 guidelines, but I fixed a couple of persistent typos in it.

Winter Eternal - This was completed and in review before the onset of 3.2.0. Since that release and per the policies put in place by SW with the arrival of the newest FG patch, the modules needed a bit of a rework. That rework is now complete, and they are in for review again. So, what you'll see now is the WE setting book with all the one sheets and pregens released by +Just Insert Imagination as one product (as 3 modules - player/gm guides, onesheets/pregens). WE Adventure Guide: The Wasteland is a separate product.

The Last Parsec- This was almost done before 3.2.0. Now TLP Core, Archetypes, and Omariss Death Worm are all in the queue awaiting review. I do have to make a couple of changes due to the fact that setting requires the use of Pinnacle's Science Fiction Companion. Doug and the gang have a policy of not wanting a FG module to absolutely require anything other than FG itself and the base ruleset to use. The Last Parsec is a bit of a oddity in that regard, so I needed to make sure that the requirement is noted in the modules and visible to users. That has been done and the modules are awaiting review. They want you to buy their products, but they don't want to HAVE to buy other FG product.

Tropicana - The main setting book is almost complete, only a couple of entries from the Bestiary to go. I hope to have all the released Tropicana material converted and into SmiteWorks next week, More to come.

Expanding Classes - For the Castles and Crusades ruleset is at the point where I have somebody else check it out and let me know if there are any broken links or typos I missed, or if there is anything else I need to change. I am also contemplating doing it over in the refmanual format as the flow of modules is way better. More info to come once I decide.

What's coming up on my list? Frank Turfler's Heart of Darkness for the Savage Worlds ruleset, I actually have it started and will wrap it up once I have Tropicana finished. I have oodles of time for at least the next 6 months - likely far longer - so I plan on trying to single-handedly swamp James at SmiteWorks!

Beyond that I have pretty much all the released material for Last Parsec and all the released adventures for Weird Wars Rome so those are definitely on the horizon. More from Castles and Crusades as well. I will need to do some coordinating with Talyn to avoid any unintentional overlap. Between us, C&C is going to get some decent coverage.

During my recent stint in the hospital my kids bought me a pile of "reading" material through RPGnow/DrivethruRPG. About three fourths of it was third party 5E material. Up until that point the only 5E product I owned in any form was the Deuluxe PHB on Fantasy Grounds. If I can ever completely figure out all the syntax, I will look into maybe converting some of that over as well.

As always....flame away!

I know that FG 3.2.0 isn't going to come out until after FG-Con in October, but I have already seen discussion on this topic so I thought I would throw some info out there.

First, Eric Lamoureux (Mask_of_Winter) posted a great overview video last night. You can check out on his YouTube channel here.

I am going to ramble on a bit about the pregen and archetype changes coming in the next update. Now this a huge update, JPG at SmiteWorks has done a ton work for this. After playing around some in the new UI, I am kind of liking it. It does have a lot going for it, and it does make finding information better.

Unfortunately right now my main PC is down in need of a couple new parts, and they just aren't on my priority list right now. That means all the screen shots in this post are on my little laptop screen (13.3" @ 1920x1080) so keep that in mind.

Longtime players of Savage Worlds, or pretty much any setting, will recognize the terms "pregens" and "archetypes".

"Pregens" are those characters that are pre-generated that a GM has for players in his game. Pretty simple.

"Archetypes" are brief (or even lengthy) blurbs about iconic character types from a setting, whether its just "Thief", "Brown Cloak", "Knight". Sometimes these spell out recommended stats/skills or even specific requirements. Again straightforward.

In FG 3.2.0 you will still see both in your modules, just with this update FG has a reserved XML tag called <archeytpes>, coincidentally (but not really) there just happens to be a new sidebar button labelled "Archetypes". In functionality that really means nothing to the user. other than a second way to see your pregens. The screen shot shows the vanilla FG UI with every single sidebar button (as of this writing) with the module activation window opened. Just updates.before taking this screen cap I did a fresh check for updates.

Attachment 15419

Yup, that's a lot of updates. Two things I notice right off the bat, the "Notes" button is not labelled, but I believe JPG already knows that. Secondly, the weird vertical grey bar on the right side. That is actually called "shortcuts" in the XML of FG. There is something funky going on there as it should go all the way to the right edge of the screen. It could be my screen size, or its a bug and its framedef is off.

You will notice that one of the buttons is labelled "Archetypes", fourth one down from the top in the far right row if its hard to read - the King of Hearts. So let's click that and see what we get.

Attachment 15420

This screen shot shows the "Archetypes" list. It actually list every single entry from every module you have open in your library that is listed under that <archetypes> XML tag I mentioned earlier. You are seeing a move to the "Master Index" or "Master List" whatever SmiteWorks calls it. There are your "pregens". You can set which "group" or module you want to show by using the down arrow at the top, the same with all the other new buttons.

The issue that I am seeing right now, and it might be an issue of me joining my own game from the same computer, is that player can see all the pregens from his own loaded modules not necessarily what you want them to see. I suspect that is unintended, so I will mention it in the Test Release 3.2.0 thread on the FG forums. I also have to find a volunteer and check to see if still exists.

The "old" way you are used to getting your characters is still there in a way, if I remember correctly it is a slightly lengthier process. In my case I am going to use the "Weird Wars Rome War Masters Guide". Open the module as usual, and you will see the entry for the "Pregenerated Heroes" (or whatever title the dev gives the entry). A library window opens with a link, you click on that and the GM Character Selection/Import window opens up with the pregens and import as before. These will be visible to the player under his "Character" sidebar button as before. Key thing to remember here is that this method only shows you the pregens from the opened module, and only shows the players the ones you import.

Attachment 15421

Another thing to keep in mind here, is the "old" way will ONLY work if the module creator includes the SW <pregencharacterslect> XML code bit, otherwise you will not see them in your Character Selection/Import window.

As Eric said in his video this update is coming, and the guys at SmiteWorks need us to test, find and report the bugs. I happen to like what I am seeing, and think its a big step forward. This is a massive update to CoreRPG and every ruleset layered on top of it. JPG has done a crazy amount of work on this, and I am pretty sure he went through all the SW content and made it compatible with this update. James and Doug likely helped some, one of those three will have to chime in to let us know. Still a massive undertaking anyway you look at it.

Hopefully you find somewhat helpful, and as always flames and comments always welcome. Now off to post those issues I noticed.

Yes, you read that correctly....projects finished up and projects started.

Like I said its been a really crazy ten days, both in my personal situation and my piece of the RPG world since I posted I was going to start The Last Parsec. Today's post is focusing on the last bit - my corner of RPG-dom. Its going to be a long post too folks!


Winter Eternal has been reviewed by James, and I fixed the issues and resubmitted the modules about 8 hours later. (I have no life - really!) So if they are happy with the fixes, it should be appearing in the store in another week or two.

I pushed updates to Weird Wars Rome, based on some issues reported to me by Eric Lamoureux and Gonzalo Durán. Thanks guys! Incidentally, both those two were very helpful in the completion and review of the theme I updated for the Rome modules. Eric originally built it a couple of years ago and sent on to me with permission to use whatever I could out of it. Once SmiteWorks releases FG 3.2.0, I will push the theme for inclusion with the module.

Then a funny thing happened a couple days ago. It actually got underway a few weeks ago when Deron Poisson, who I have gamed with for a couple years now, shared a post that popped up in my stream about this little OSR adventure entitled "An Adventure Most Fowl". I thought about purchasing it then, just never got around to it. A week or two later I saw a post by Howard Beleiff looking for people who were interested in review copies. I mulled that over for a bit but never took him up on the offer.

I liked the idea they were presenting with it, so I went and bought it. Now, the product that Grey Fey initially released was, I felt, sub-par. The story line right from the start was a hit with me, an inventive plot with a really cool way to challenge low level adventurers. The writing was excellent, with great NPCs in a small village with a problem.

The problem with it at first, was its presentation. Layout and illustrations were what initially turned me off the adventure. That layout, in a war reminded me of the way modules were presented by TSR in the late '70s or early '80s. Not bad, but compared to what can be done with software now it felt substandard. It just didn't look good, so it kind of gave the impression it wouldn't be fun to play.

Howard shared a post saying that the product had been updated with a new revised layout and illustrations. So, having enjoyed the meat of the adventure I went downloaded the new version and took a second look. Way better presentation from the front to the back, definitely leaves a better impression of the adventure. It also makes me want to see what else these guys produce.

If you like playing OSR, then you need to check it out.

Three days ago, I posted a small mini review of "An Adventure Most Fowl", both Howard and Deron re-shared that post - Deron actually shared it twice. That post is now my second most read post, not that big a feat really but very surprising to me. So thanks Howard and Deron for bringing a couple more readers this way - maybe one or two of them will come back.

While on the topic of OSR, one of the first one shots I played after finding Fantasy Grounds was a Castles and Crusades pick up game run by Damian Hupfeld . Now, it was my first time I had played that ruleset and really liked the feel of the system. I am now even playing in a C&C campaign, that is currently on hiatus. It just seems that the rule set doesn't get much in the way of love from SmiteWorks, part of that is player market on FG. There aren't a lot of players on FG, and consequently not as much demand for new product. Since that first game of C&C I have been slowly buying PDFs from Troll Lord Games.

I am not aware of anyone actively working on C&C conversions, but I have started to test the waters. I do have one conversion (Expanded Classes) underway that I started a couple of nights ago. TLG packs a pile of info into their books, so the process has been a bit slower as I work out how to present it within FG, especially charts...OSR systems love their charts. The screenshot below is the result of about 30 minutes worth of work on it. I am trying to decide whether I like the library method better, or creating it as story entries then exporting it.

Attachment 15112

As you can see, I have only just begun to work at it. I can give an estimate yet of when it will be done nor can I say what I am going to tackle after this is done. I do have a couple of options, plus I have been really hoping Doug would be able to provide an update a certain post on the FG forums.

So now onto the finished products that I mentioned in the post title.

I'll leave this teaser here:

Attachment 15113

Other than making sure a couple of NPCs get tokens assigned and a few others have token paths corrected those are all complete and will be submitted to SmiteWorks in the next day or two. Some of the work was already done, I just had to update it and polish it off.

This one was at times very frustrating. A couple of edges that NPCs have are from other Pinnacle setting books. One of which I did not own, so I first had to figure out where the edge came from. Savagepedia gave me a starting point, turns out both the products it was published in were on sale yesterday on Drivethru.

What it means though, is to use the information for the Scout (DLR) and Explorer (Solomon Kane/Slipstream) edges I need to get permission from Pinnacle through the SmiteWorks team.

The other very frustrating bit was that one of the Walkers included in the Core rule book has no modifications listed for it, no notes at all to match it's stats listed in the book. I found a thread started in March about the missing info. It was missed completely by the folks at Pinnacle, but I just saw that +Clint Black is aware of the issue. So I may wait a little bit to see what transpires before submitting The Last Parsec modules in the screen shot to SmiteWorks.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group we need moar Weird Wars Rome!!

However, that forum user Jeffrey Gordon has a fantastic website with all kind of useful tools for you Savage Worlds games. Check it out HERE

A couple of other projects that are underway and that I am picking away at slowly, both in support of Weird Wars Rome:

Nox Germanica: this one I am using the SW NPC maker and Enhanced Library extensions...normally I do it all in Notepad++, but again trying something different - maybe it will cut down my creation time significantly

Attachment 15114

Wellspring: this screen cap gives you a small sample of the theme and the new library window in FG 3.2.0

Attachment 15115

I do actually have three others started but no screen shots for them. I have actually only got skeletons of the XML for them:

• Beasts and Barbarians - but there was a hint somebody was close to completion on that, but I haven't been able to get confirmation.
• Shaintar - this one will require a bit of work as it will definitely need an extension, plus I right now I only have the Player's Guide so it is simmering for the moment.
• Accursed - this setting is just plain awesome, and again it will require an extension - and my lua skills aren't quite up to that level yet. If nobody else does this setting, I will get it converted.
• If I can figure out the adventure/card deck stuff in SW I will give the recent Mutations Deck from +Just Insert Imagination a go as well. Hmm, actually the little light bulb flickered a bit as I wrote this out - I might give it a go sooner than later.

So, that pretty much wraps it up for now. A lot of reading and some pictures for ShotgunJolly to look at.

Thanks for taking the time to read this mess today., and as always comments and flames are more than welcome. Game on!

Its really funny how that old cliche "you don't know what you have until its gone" continues to ring true. In my case, its more I didn't realize how much stuff I actually did on my old laptop until it finally gave stopped working. I did almost all my conversion work on it, moving to the main computer occasionally. Generally, any image work tended to be on my main rig as it was far more capable than the old laptop for that stuff.

Needless to say, after the death of that 8 year old laptop my work basically came to a crawl. Really the only work I got accomplished until the arrival the new laptop was finishing off the few remaining tidbits of the Weird Wars Rome theme I had been plugging away on. Also, I completed some fixes to the WWR modules themselves. Some of the pregens were missing skills, some had missing edges and hindrances, and there was a piece of mundane gear that I had missed. The fixes to the modules will pushed to SmiteWorks for upload into the system tonight or tomorrow.

The theme will have to wait until 3.2.0 goes live, as it is actually not 100% compatible with the current version. There are some rather significant changes to the way the sidebar is structured and organized, and a couple even have been renamed under the hood to align with the CoreRPG rule set.

Anyone that played in the recent one shot by +Eric Lamoureux would have had the chance to see the theme. Although, since then it has gone through a couple of changes - for the better.

To be fair, a lot of the work in this theme was originally done by +Eric Lamoureux about two years. He ran into issues with a font he was trying to use and the anchor points of various windows and frames due to that font. He actually dropped work on it, when he moved from running a WWR game to some other stuff. Once I started work on the conversion of the modules, Eric was kind of enough to send it along to me and gave me permission to use whatever I could from the work.

I don't like reinventing the wheel if I don't have to. So I took that theme and puttered away at making it work. Sidebar buttons got a couple upgrades over the course of the work. Frame definitions got a few changes, as well as all the graphics used to make the various frames got new looks. +Gonzalo Durán provided some helpful feedback on the look of the character sheets, as well provided a script to enable Sanity as a derived stat. I took that script and worked into the theme so that it auto populates on character generation, but players will have to update in game when their sanity goes up and down.

So thanks to you both for the advice and assistance in making this theme work.

The first image is the desktop see when you load into the rule set with the theme enabled.

Attachment 14966

The next image shows the original character sheet, in this case right after I got the Sanity derived stat scripting sorted out. I happen to be a big fan of that character sheet, it just didn't fit with the rest of theme. Every other frame is similar in appearance to the chat window.

Attachment 14967

The character sheet now likes what you get in image three alongside the combat tracker, the chase tracker has the same look as well.

Attachment 14968

So this theme will be uploaded once 3.2.0 goes live and will get pushed out as an update, there will also be a portrait pack bundled with the modules as well. I just need to get it uploaded too.

Winter Eternal was submitted on 18 July, so its just the waiting game for it to makes its way through the review process. I am going to be doing a theme for Winter Eternal as well. Just takes me a bit, I have a lot on the go and I am absurdly non gifted in the arts department.

As for the next project, I have actually a few different works started. I have begun working on all of the plot point campaigns and savage tales that Pinnacle published, as well I have started work on The Last Parsec. The Archetypes pdf has already been completed with tokens (less than 24 hours real time start to finish on that one). Work on the CORE has progressed to the point I already have the entire first chapter converted. I am going to push myself to see if I can get this done in a week.

I am always open to suggestions as to what the next project should be. For the moment, I have been looking at products I already own otherwise it will be a bit of a slower process as I acquire the material to convert, which is why for example I started The Last Parsec vs High Space. I am not at the point yet where the product gets provided by SmiteWorks (and frankly I have too much fun doing conversions to care)

As always comments and flames are welcome.

I really need to do more regular updates than once every couple of weeks. It has been a wild two and half weeks though, filled with a pile of good news and one tiny tidbit of not quite good news - but not really bad news either.

So first that one piece of "bad" news; until at least the end of August I have very limited availability for gaming during the night time hours and occasional time during the day. I have been working with an occupational therapist to re-acclimatize myself socially to large groups and crowds, starting in controlled reasonably controlled situations. I have been outside my "comfort zone" more in the last 15 days than I have in the last 18 months combined. Enough about that for now.

I am still excited about Weird Wars Rome being released. It was a really cool learning experience from start to finish. I still find it a bit weird that I put together something people are actually willing to pay for. I have only been told about one error in the module so far, not something game breaking but definitely annoying so I will be correcting that. My biggest mistake though was not having another set of eyes look it over before submitting it to SmiteWorks.

Work on a theme to be included as an update is still progressing at about the speed of a really fast snail. Not quite sure why but I find theme creation way more difficult for me to grasp. It could be that I totally went about it the wrong way - sort of a trying to run before I can walk situation.

So now that I have gotten everyone to read through that stuff, onto what I know everybody is waiting to hear. Work on the Winter Eternal conversion is complete. Both parts of the module, the Player's Guide and GM's Guide, are in Eric Lamoureux's hands for review. Pending any edits required it will be submitted at the end of the long weekend. I am positive I found any issues when I went over it...but I felt the same way after completing Weird Wars Rome.

Both Winter Eternal and Weird Wars Rome took me about two months to complete, with 7-10 days of actual work time devoted to each one. Pretty sure I can knock a couple weeks off that, either way it definitely been an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Already looking forward to the next project...and I actually still have no idea what it will be yet.

It has been a "little" bit of time since I posted any news here on the progress I have (or haven't) made with the both the Winter Eternal and Weird Wars Rome conversions. So here is the latest "breaking news".

First, on the Weird Wars Rome front, the modules are now in the hands the Production Coordinator at SmiteWorks and I have fixed the errors that he reported to me and sent back the fixed version. The rate that James has been kicking new products out the door, you should be seeing something soon. His work is going unseen by us, but he is got to be a pretty busy fellow.

I am still working on a theme extension for this, but it won't be included at release. With FG v3.2 there are some slight changes to some of the XML components (at least for the Savage Worlds Rules set), so it has been altered to work with those changes. At the suggestion of the esteemed damned, I am also going to be including some themed buttons for those you out there that use Dulux-Oz' extensions. Since I have never even downloaded any of his extensions, it will actually take me a bit of time to see what should be themed and what shouldn't.

That is in a way a good thing. As Mask_of_Winter can attest from the messages and images going back and forth between us - I am in no way, shape or form artistically gifted. For whatever reason my brain, at least for the time being, does not seem to like working on image editing. So it gives me a bit more time to stumble through the creation of the graphics for the theme.

Now onto Winter Eternal. I am down to the encounters and parcels, pinning those to the maps and the actual inclusion of maps and images. +Morne Schaap has actually sent me the imagery I need twice because I am a tool and lost the first ones.

Just Insert Imagination created some very interesting stuff for Winter Eternal, and it has been very interesting to try and get everything to work the way I think is "best". In this case the "best" meaning the easiest and fastest for users.

Some of the critters in Ehlerrac can be nasty, they have all sort neat little abilities like Icy Aura, mutations, the ability to turn people into minions and even a crazy old bat of a shepherd who decided to cut off his own leg to use as a club. More on those in a bit.

Included in the module are 10 pre-generated adventurers. You get five heroes at Novice level, and the same five after they have gained some notoriety and become Seasoned. With the little tidbits of XML code that Moon Wizard revealed on the FG forums the GM can import either set of characters by simply hitting the pretty little green plus sign. The image below is a bit older and shows the first incarnation in game, the names now have a (N) or (S) beside their names so the GM and players can quickly tell at a glance what level they are in the import and character selection screens. There were no portraits or tokens in the module when I took this screen cap.

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This next image shows both Player view on the left and GM view on the right with characters imported to the campaign. I apologize for the size of the image - both views are full screen images on both my monitors.

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As I was saying earlier, some of the critters your heroes will meet have some really interesting abilities. The Blue Gorgon (think frozen medusa) is a good example of a couple of them. First, she, like many of the other critters has the Icy Aura ability. You stand too close to her and you take damage from the sheer feeling of cold she emanates. Since Ehlerrac is frozen, she is one cold-hearted woman. So I set this up as an attack (although the screen shot below doesn't show it). You simply hit the dice and it rolls damage.

Secondly, she has this ability to turn people into her little minions, who in turn get their own powers. As it is listed as a "template" in the setting book, I decided not to create the minion as a standard creature sheet. Clicking the "Minions" power on the Blue Gorgon opens up a text window with the powers of the minion set up as drag and drop links for the GM to add to whatever hero falls to the frozen medusa. If she has a bunch of minions the heroes are in for a "treat".

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The Shard Orcs and their mutations, as well as the Mad Shepherd fellow and his hazardous Whispering Trees. Note, the Icy Aura attack on the Blue Gorgon now.

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The Cyclops Centipede was interesting when I first created the entry. It has this heat ray that it can shoot. When I see "ray" I think ranged weapon, so I set it up as a ranged attack. However, this poor critter doesn't have the Shooting or Throwing skill, I had also not entered the <traittype> correctly. So when looking at the monster sheet, there was no "attack" icon beside the "Heat Ray" entry - but I could still click and FG would still roll its attack.

Except it was rolling the centipede's Notice skill to attack - and reporting it in the chat window. I probably rolled it a couple of times, looking at the XML trying to figure out why it was rolling Notice to attack. I actually had to open the SW GM's guide to look at a monster sheet there to see what was going on. First, it actually took me a couple of minutes of comparing the two sheets side by side to realize that I had not put an "Unskilled" entry on the creature's skill list, so it must default to the last skill in the list. Comparing the XML for the two I then realized that instead of the "ranged" that FG was looking for in the <traittype> attribute I had typed "range"- hence no icon for the attack. Fixed those two things and everything works the way it should. In the end I had a pretty good laugh at myself over it.

That warps it up for this entry, thanks again for stopping by to read my ramblings. As always, you're welcome to leave comments and harassment below.

I spent the first few days this week messing around with the Weird Wars Rome theme extension that +Eric Lamoureux sent me a while ago. I did manage to get it working to a point. Some of the frames aren't using the correct images yet, the fonts on the side bar need some work, tab icons are either not being used or not there. Of course, I am doing it the hard way and floundering a bit at it.

The screen shot below shows what it is looking like at the moment. As you can see, it still requires some work.

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If I had half a brain in my head I would start slowly and add more pieces as I got a handle what the various XML files and lua scripts do. Never claimed to be that intelligent though, so there is a lot of "what happens if I change this?" going on. Still learning, maybe just not as well or as quickly.

I also made some more changes here on my G+ blog, mostly because the good idea fairy shows up...then I am like "Oooohhh shiney!" I am slowly getting the blog site to where I am happy with it. Overall, its not that bad for something I'm not paying for.

Last weekend, I played in my first game in the Shaintar setting with +Stephen Dragonspawn for the GM. It was a blast, a whole of nice rolls were made by the other players...not so much by me. Shaintar is a "bit" more of a high fantasy setting. Now I have only read enough of the Player's Guide to create my character, but one of the things that bugs me with this setting in Fantasy Grounds is that the experience ranks don't correctly show on the little character summary. My first actual dabble into the realm of extension creation was to come with something to fix that. This one was surprisingly easy to do. The changes needed were quite evident in the lua script, and making sure the correct XML files were added was pretty straightforward as well. The extension - all 4 KBs of it can be found here.

What all that stuff meant in terms of the Winter Eternal project is that I missed my personal self imposed dead line of yesterday. I did get a bunch of work done though. All the pre-generated characters are entered and linked. The bestiary entries are set up, and the NPCs are being created. Those two sections will consume the most time as there are a pile of information to be entered for each one. This is a long weekend here for us in Canada and of course the weather forecast is calling for rain. That does mean though that I will have all the bestiary entries and NPCs completed by Sunday evening. That will leave images/maps, treasure parcels and encounter pins to finish up on Monday/Tuesday. The screen cap below gives you an idea of what the module set up and the entries look like.

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The good news though, is that our friends at +Just Insert Imagination are pretty happy with the way it looks so far.

Flames, slags, gripes and complaints always welcome.

I really haven't dome as much over the last three of four days as I originally planned. Weather has been great so I took some time to enjoy it. I did manage to get all of the text information for all four of the Savage Tales entered. The bestiary entries have been started, and all that remains after those are the images/maps and pre-gens.

One of the issues with the images in the Winter Eternal setting book is that the non-color artwork does not copy well at all. They turn into an all black image with very thin white lines. They look fantastic in the book and are very evocative of Ehlerrac...not so much when you are trying to manipulate them to add into the Fantasy Grounds conversion. Not going to be a huge issue as +Morne Schaap is providing workable copies of them.

A brief discussion with +Eric Lamoureux got me thinking a bit last night and some today. He mentioned pinning the various encounters, as some GM's like saving the prep time for other things. Honestly, at first I was a little hesitant simply because some of the encounters are 2 or 3 baddies for every player and my line of thinking was along the lines of "how many should I add". After thinking about for a bit, I realized that I can **** of a GM - "the player's problem if there are too many bad guys...not mine" was my next line of thought. So once I have the maps all re-sized and prepped for use in Fantasy Grounds I am going to go back through and pin all the encounters - likely based on a party of 5 PCs. Another thing I am going to do is go back through and set up treasure parcels for all the areas that have treasure.

I have no screen shots of any the bestiary entries yet, but I do have a couple other ones. First one is a screen cap from today showing all four windows for the Savage Tales. Ochlandis' Schema took the longest, not only because it is the longest of them all but I did two versions of it. One, as you see in the picture with all the heading set up to be expandable. The other version all the headings were created as separate windows. To keep window management and screen real estate usage as low as possible for the GM I went with the version you see now. All the relevant story entries on one window, with the only things being separate are the maps, treasures and encounters.

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The second image shows the one sheets that +Just Insert Imagination published and all are available on your favorite game shopping site. Of particular interest is the NPC window that is open. The Savage Tale "Cold Memories, Long Forgotten" involves a Chase scene where there is a cavern collapsing all around the players. To help the GM with this I created that same cavern as an NPC, and yes that cavern is a Wild Card in the one sheet! This image is what led to that aforementioned discussion with +Eric Lamoureux.

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Not a huge update, but still forward progress. If you have any thoughts one way or another on pinning the encounter let me know in the comments. It wasn't something I really thought about until that discussion.

It's finally here - today's update on Winter Eternal! The weather was pretty decent on the weekend, so there wasn't as much accomplished over the last for or five days as I would have liked. The good news is that quite a bit did get completed.

First up is a screen shot of both the random ruin generation tables. Now these are based on cards, so it is beyond my abilities, at this time, to try and create some Lua scripts to make these clickable for the GM. I am not even sure if that is even possible. The table for the red shard mutation effects IS clickable for the GM, and as you can see by the screen shot it spits out the results in chat.


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The next screenshot is where you will notice most of the additions. I have the artwork, bestiary and the four adventures left to actually input. The basic structure is in place for all of those, the data just needs to be entered. Of these the bestiary will actually be the most work both in terms of time required and amount of data entry required for each of the critters in the setting book and adventure guide. The reason the entries from the Winter Eternal setting guide have their own headings underneath the "Game Master Section" is simply space. Those entries tended to be multi-page in the PDF so it only made sense to have them open in their own window. The information in the "Dangerous Places and People of the Wastelands" were only a few paragraphs each; to me it didn't make sense for each one to have a separate window. I am going to try and keep the number of windows required for each of the adventures down as much as possible as well. Ochlandis' Schema is quite an extensive adventure so it will prove the most difficult to keep the clicking to minimum.

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I am still going to try and keep to the timeline I mentioned in the last update on this, so I would like to be done around the 18th of May.

Any suggestions on the next project? I know +Eric Lamoureux and a couple other people would like to see Beasts and Barbarians by GRAmel converted. I do have that PDF, so it is a possibility. I also have the Shaintar setting PDF, but that will take some Lua scripting- that means that one will take me a while. I also have the Accursed setting by Melior Via that is on my "want to do" list.

I know that for Accursed, SmiteWorks would have to work out a licensing deal with Melior Via, but I am not sure if there is a license for GRAmel products. To be honest I haven't looked too much into the large catalog for FG,

At this point I do not have any knowledge of the status of Weird Wars Rome either, so no news on that front.

As always feel free to comment or direct hate mail my way.

For the update this time around I am doing something a little bit different. Normally, what I do after a couple days of working on the Winter Eternal module is post some screen shots of what has been accomplished on G+ and share them only with Morne Schaap and Eric Lamoureux (know around here as Mask_of Winter). I then get their feedback and suggestions, make any changes that come out of that, at that point I make an update post here. Incidentally, the two of them have been fantastic to work with on this. Well, this time a couple of the screen shots they haven't seen yet. I figured it was time to put another post up here so the rest of you that have an interest can see the progress.

As a quick aside here, this is post number 11 on My Own Little World, and there are actually people out there that come and read my ramblings. About 50 view per post and literally from all over the world. That alone makes posting here worthwhile to me, so thanks to all of you that have stopped by.

After I posted the last update Morné commented on G+ that I should add the adventure guide to the module. So I picked up the Winter Eternal Adventure Guide: The Wastelands on the weekend and I spent time just looking at the format of the guide and the information in it, trying to work out the best way to integrate all the setting and adventure guides. It wasn't until yesterday that I actually started the process though. I added the information into the Player's Guide that I felt belonged there, the rest is going to be included in the GM Guide. I took some screen shots and posted them for the dynamic duo at Just Insert Imagination to take a look at them.

So the first screen shot below shows the new hindrance from the adventure guide added in, as well as parts of the opening chapter of the adventure guide integrated into the Player's Guide.

The second screen shot shows all the new gear added to the previous gear tables that I had built. This part was a bit more time consuming mostly because I was experimenting with a couple things to try and get a bit of a different look. The entire Mundane Items list has 102 entries, so it is a pretty big list, that does include all the add-ons you can purchase for an Ice Suit though. I have been thinking of breaking the list up a bit, but I am not fond of the user having to open a pile of windows to find something. As you can see, everything is still drag and drop.

The next couple of screen shots are the two that Morné and Eric haven't seen yet. First, I got thinking today because of the fact that the adventure guide has been added the credits/legal info from that guide should be added to the module as well. So, to be safe, I went and did just that. At first I just added the info to the original credits/legal window already in place. That didn't last long,it looked messy as hell so the adventure guide credits got their own library entry.

The next one shows the setting rules on the effects of cold and Vigor checks from the GM Guide. Originally there were set up as tables, but the flow and the feel of the tables wasn't right so they ended up as lists. At first I was looking at adding this section and others into the same window with the expandable notes, but again it felt like the flow of the information was off. So unfortunately for the GM - he is going to have a fair bit of library entries.

So that's where things stand with the conversion of Winter Eternal. If the weather stays reasonable in my area then I plan on getting a bunch of yard work done, so that might slow me down a bit but I hope to have this completed and turned into SmiteWorks for the QA process in about two weeks. This is the part where you, the reader get to flame away or even just make a plain old comment.

Here is it is, the next update! Update of what? Don't worry I have asked that of myself as well. I keep tinkering a little bit with the look and layout of the blog. Obviously, I am doing something "wrong" though...all the "how to" blogs are telling me I need to post more often, automate posting and even make "how to" blogs. Google Ad-sense even tells me I don't have enough words on my blog for them to determine what "my" little corner of the web is all about.

As for Winter Eternal, the Player's Guide is essentially complete. The only piece left to do is the artwork - and the Winter Eternal setting book has a lot of that. The mono-chromatic images don't copy well out of the book, so I will be getting source images from Morné Schaap when I am ready to add the artwork. To make it easier, I am going to begin work on the GM guide this weekend, and with any luck it should only take two weeks or so to do.

I made a concerted effort to try and keep the click a player needs to get to information he/she is looking for. I believe I have achieved that as much as possible. Generally, from the main library menu of the module, there is one sometimes two clicks to get to any piece of information.

The first screenshot gives you a pretty good idea with the Religion, Calendars and Festivals and the Magic pages open. The new power is drag and drop as well.

The next screen shot shows what the "Quick Link" window has. I think that covers the important stuff from there. All maps are roughly 480x640 and the largest is around 187kB, yet the still have decent resolution in game.

Lastly, all the city sections have links to their respective city maps. Once I am have the imagery sorted out as well, I plan on putting a link to the maps in the Artwork window as well.

Let me know in the comments if there is anything that you think should be done differently.