artesiaonline.com

General Update

Mark Smylie — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 21:57:30 +0000

I wanted to post a quick general update. With things a bit topsy-turvy at Archaia this past year, getting any concentrated work done on Artesia has been a bit difficult, but the series and its world remains a high personal priority. In addition to a 2nd edition of the RPG, I’ve also been having some discussions about card and board games based on the Known World setting and hope to have some projects to officially announce soon. Recently I was able to put a couple of pieces of gaming art into KrabJab Studio’s The Art of RPGs exhibit in Seattle; one of those pieces was from Wolfgang Bauer and Kobold Quarterly’s Midgard Campaign Setting book, which is fresh from the printers and features a fair number of illustrations that I’ve done for Kobold Quarterly over the past couple of years. The Midgard setting, like the Known World, draws heavily from real-world history and mythology to create depth and resonance; unlike the Known World, the Midgard campaign book is designed for the Pathfinder and AGE systems so those of you who prefer class-based systems might have some fun with it. I hope to have some more updates soon. Thanks as always for your patience!

RPG Playtest Maps

Mark Smylie — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:23:10 +0000

Happy Holidays! I’ve added a page to the RPG section entitled RPG Beta Playtest. On that page I’ll be adding rules and info for the beta playtest. As a teaser I’ve included links to pdfs for a set of maps we’re using in the current inhouse rules playtest. They’re a little different from previously published Known World maps; I recently discovered the maps made by DM Cornish for the Half-Continent, setting to his wonderful Monster Blood Tattoo books (called variously the Foundling/Lamplighter series here in the States). They reminded me a lot of the maps for the Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy (the old maps for the City State of the Invincible Overlord and Tegel Manor are two of the great classic fantasy maps, in my mind; Tegel Manor is, I suspect, the inspiration for Hogwarts) as well as the Columbia Games maps of Harn. So the maps in the current playtest are an experiment in mashing up those styles, often using real-world locations as the starting inspirations and then building the fantasy world around them. Enjoy! Map guides and legends will be forthcoming as the playtest matures.

The Book of Urgrayne

Mark Smylie — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:53:13 +0000

The second “sourcebook” has just been posted. It’s The Book of Urgrayne, containing three short stories from the first three Artesia Annuals that have not yet been reprinted (the other stories from the Annuals have been included or will be included in the graphic novels). Each of the stories featured Urgrayne, Witch Queen of the Harath-Éduins, in little vignettes as she tours the Highlands with the head of King Bran. I’ve also included Birds of a Feather, a little three-pager done for the 1999 Sirius Gallery, which Sirius used to do once a year as a San Diego Comic-Con special. I’m working on the third sourcebook, the History & Timeline of the Known World, which is fairly large. That should be ready in a few more weeks. And I will soon post as a teaser a set of maps that we are using in the “in-house” RPG playtest. The rules this time around are veering much more in a traditional 3.0/OGL vein, with heavy influences from Chaosium’s BRP systems, but keeping a lot of the Known World flavor from the first edition (lineages, omens, star signs, etc. during character creation, dangerous combat, and ritual-oriented magics). More soon (I hope)!

Inaugural Post

Mark Smylie — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:38:31 +0000

Hello! The new Artesia Online site is now officially “open.” Meaning that I’ve kicked the tires enough on it and gotten enough feedback (not every suggestion could I follow, unfortunately) that I figure it is past time for it being a beta version. In the coming weeks I’ll be adding a couple of items to the Sourcebooks page, The Book of Urgrayne (a compilation of short stories from the Annuals that have not yet been collected, along with a 3-page short from the 1999 Sirius Gallery that probably few people have ever seen) and a History & Timeline of the Known World which will combine the history sections of the RPG with the timeline that was in Annual #3. The inaugural newsletter will go out soon, and soon there’ll be news on Artesia Besieged and the RPG 2e playtest. At least I hope there will be. Thanks as always for visiting!

Website Beta Post

Mark Smylie — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 02:50:07 +0000

Hello! I’ve noticed that some folks are already stopping by and signing up for what will hopefully be a periodic newsletter. Thanks for checking out the website as it gets reconstituted (hopefully in new and interesting ways). The work on the website is in part preliminary to getting back to art on Artesia Besieged #4, now long delayed. The (more or less) success of Archaia as a publishing company has been good news and bad news as most of my time over the last couple of years has been spent on company business, but with Mike Kennedy in as Publisher and a lot of our publishing schedule set almost through the end of 2012 with a lot of great upcoming titles, I’m finally able to start looking again at Artesia. The website will hopefully be finished in the next couple of weeks (I think it’s almost there now), to serve both as a place to post updates on Besieged but to also as a home base for playtesting an eventual second edition of the RPG.