Hey Planarchs! I finally decided this supplement is done and put it up on Lulu for print sales. There’s more info on the post linked below. Thanks for your patience with the slowness of new Planarch materials emerging. I hope to have at least 2-3 things happening next year! (fingers crossed)
Originally shared by J. Walton
The Calvino Cycle or, If on a Wintry Plane a Freebooter, the second excerpt from the Planarch Codex, is now available in print form through Lulu. It is at a new 6×9″ size, matching the dimensions of Dungeon World, Class Warfare, and so on, but is a 32-page B&W saddle-stitched booklet printed in Lulu’s highest-quality paperback format.
It’s kind of a bizarre product that’s difficult to describe: it contains a series of short adventure seeds for Dungeon World that connect with many of the same themes as the first Planarch Codex module (Dark Heart of the Dreamer), but these seeds are interwoven within a frame story inspired by Italo Calvino’s classic postmodern novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Basically, the Planarch Codex series is an excuse for me to deconstruct and then rebuild our expectations for what a fantasy RPG product can be, inspired by postmodern literature, and this is definitely an attempt at doing that.
Ariel Cayce, in a brief review of Wintry Plane, said it’s “a very lyrical love-letter, with dungeoneering as its method and natality as its theme… When [Jonathan] says in self-depreciation that it’s a ‘weird’ adventure, what he means is that it’s adorable, lovely, and sincere.”
If you already purchased an earlier version of this booklet from me, or received one for free because you helped review or playtest it, I would like to offer you a copy of the new version for free as well. Just email me or plus me into a private thread with your address and I’ll send it along, since I can get copies at cost from Lulu. Folks I think might be in this category include: Lillian Cohen-Moore Jackson Tegu Ariel Cayce Lukas Myhan and anybody else who might have picked it up at GoPlay NW 2014. I’d also like to send copies to Claudia Cangini and Paolo Bosi, if you’re interested, since otherwise this booklet wouldn’t exist. In many ways, it’s also a love letter to all the Italian fans and translators of Dungeon World and the Planarch Codex. There are definitely more than a few “Easter eggs” in it for the Italian indie RPG community.
Late December is a terrible time to release a new product, so this is essentially a pre-release to thank everybody who’s supported my games over the past few years, giving you folks early access (if you want it and are not already buried in holiday expenses). Feel free to reshare if you want, but I’d honestly rather folks support Indie Mixtape Vol 2 if you have limited funds right now: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/141681/Indie-Mixtape-Volume-2
If you don’t care about print (or if shipping is too expensive), the final PDF version should be up on DriveThru/RPGNow shortly. The PDF is also currently available in one of Epidiah Ravachol’s terrific Epimas bundles, along with some other amazing games that I am honored to be alongside: http://www.worldswithoutmaster.com/epimas/
Love and thanks to you all! It’s great to have gotten another game product to this point.
Hot Pink Jesus from Outer Space, I just now found out about the Codex and you double-down on impressing me by releasing a supplement referencing my favorite Italo Calvino book.
(Let Me Tell You About My Character digression: I once played The Reader in a LARP where everyone was a character from a book.)
OK, I’ve bought If on a Wintry Plane from Lulu and the Dark Heart of the Dreamer PDF from RPGNow.
Since I’m a bit late to the party here, is a PDF of If on a Wintry Plane available anywhere? The Googles have failed me.
Not yet. I’ll try to post it when I get home.