The Big Manifesto

And I'm back at it. After releasing The Northern Realm, I took two steps back, thought of a hundred things I'd do different and jumped back into it. The premise of this little adventure is to build a game system around the Northern Realm that adds to the game while exploring new ideas, adding campaigns, creatures, items of power, and most importantly getting feedback (and hopefully play testers), so it's not built in an echo chamber.

I've spent the last 5 years writing out a campaign world and building a game system that I felt was both familiar and 'got out of the way' of the story, but what I really did was ignore the system for the most part and built the flavor of the world into a bloated behemoth. Well, now I've got some ideas that really work– and the mother of all ideas is to make an intuitive system that adds to the tension, to choices, and ultimately to the experience. By the end of this, there should be no special rules, no exceptions. Basically, the rules are the physics of the world– and I don't mean I'll be trying to cover every little detail, I mean they'll be unbreakable rules that carry over to every mechanic, spell– physical interaction with the world. 

When this whole thing is banged out, the Northern Realm will be a sweet little package. The only other major thing I'll change from Version 1 is I won't do it all myself. Version 2 will have full art and will be professionally edited and designed. I don't see a point of rereleasing a flawed game. So readers, if you're out there feel free to click the links on the right-hand side of the blog. I'll link an updated version of the new game  there. I've also added a link to version 1, a map of the world, and to the artist, Magda Zwierzchowska's deviant art page. Enjoy.