Author: J. Walton

Here’s the revised version of The Path of Ghosts, thanks to solid feedback primarily from Ben Wray and Dylan Boates. Pretty happy with it!

http://corvidsun.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pathofghosts-050713.pdf

Decided to write up a fun new compendium class after work, based on that earlier thread on thieves. The PDF is available here: http://corvidsun.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pathofghosts-050613.pdf

Sales data update, for the benefit of other DW publishers!

Originally shared by J. Walton

Transparency! Here’s DriveThru sales for Planarch Codex: Dark Heart of the Dreamer, updated with April data. Earlier today it passed 200 lifetime sales, which is pretty cool (and doesn’t include copies to Kickstarter backers). http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/110283/Dark-Heart-of-the-Dreamer

Still hovering around 12 sales a week, though for a while it looked like we might be lower than 10 for April. But then Judd Karlman started his “love letters” thread, which apparently sold nearly ten copies by itself. It’s really stunning how much one great post by an excited player really makes a difference in sales and how easily we can track that in the internet era.

Really, Planarch has benefited from the beginning by having a great batch of supporters, some of whom I’ve known for a while and some that are completely new to me. Multiple people are still posting about the supplement every week (typically because they’re actually running it!), both when it works for them and when they have issues, which is great and helpful. Even when it doesn’t work, it gives me ideas about things I should post about or new materials I could create to make the concepts more accessible and useful.

First attempt at a cover for issue #2.

Hey international Dungeon World fans; I want to try out the US Postal Service’s new Global Forever stamp, to see if it will really allow me to mail copies of the Planarch Codex to anywhere in the world for $1.10, which just seems insane. Hence, I am offering a FREE print copy of the Codex (assuming this works) to the two people in the DW community who live the furthest distance from Seattle, as determined by Google maps and my own arbitrary judgment. Name the city, town, or remote Antarctic research station in which you live and we’ll see who gets them! (The only catch is you have to tell us when they arrive).

http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2013/pr13_011.htm

Just to share my weekly sales data with other folks thinking about or already selling DW material on DriveThru or other places. If any other publishers are willing to share data on their DW sales, that would be great and help build a better picture of what the market for these products is like. Dark Heart is tough as an example because loads of people got it for free due to the Kickstarter. Also, I’m not really pushing it that hard, aside from running it some and releasing extra materials.

Originally shared by J. Walton

Transparency! Here’s lifetime sales of Dark Heart through the end of March 2013. So far, I’ve had a grand total of exactly 150 sales at $5 each (my cut is $3.50), with a relatively steady average of 12.66 sales per week following the big spike of the initial release. That’s roughly $500 total profit at this point. Anecdotally, the book is getting very regular mentions on G+ and a fair amount of regular play as well, which is awesome. Still no sign of the thousands of people who’ve bought the DW PDF, though. I’ll be interested to see what print and PDF sales look like for Johnstone Metzger’s new book, just to have another point of comparison. I have a suspicion that print is beginning to be a real draw in a world of super-easy PDFs.

ASHEN KNIGHTS (That Ancient Serpent, p. 3)

Notes on ancient Samnis and its remains

When the daughters of Erredulon emerged from the great rift onto the frozen steppe of Samnis, they lit fires against the cold and despaired. But the ash giant Sōga, she-of-eighty-hands, spoke to them: Sisters, my flame is nearly spent; let my journey to meet the dawn be my final gift. And, lo, she planted her ashen body into the winter soil, springing forth in great bounty.

Centuries later, the gladiators of Samnis shed blood and burned corpses in the colosseums as tribute to Sōga, joining the fruit of their bodies with the soil to ensure the harvest. The wealthier houses converted old, crumbling arenas into walled gardens, knowing that the noble dead dwelt among the rows.

Though Samnis is now the Iron Bourse (Dark Heart, p. 20), some of the old ways remain. Illegal back-alley fights are ringed by circles drawn in blood and ash on the paving stones. The women of the merchant houses—the great-granddaughters of gladiators—are buried under agricultural fields in distant planes.

Heritage Moves: sow ash to bring bounty, consecrate a ritual combat, speak with the ghosts among the rows.

Patrons & Targets: merchant, guild, criminal.

Outline for That Ancient Serpent. Pretty excited to start making it happen, though still buried in other stuff for now.

Just posted this in another forum and thought I’d share:

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[When running the Planarch Codex], I replicate something like Fronts by using the jobs + “what happens when you don’t take a job” move. To start, I roll up several possible jobs while the players are finishing up their characters (like buying gear or whatnot), have them pick the job they just finished (rolling to see how it went, as in the “love letter”), and then pick the job they’ve just decided to take on. Then we play that out as a single session. Next session, right before play begins (perhaps while they’re spending their loot from last session), I roll to find out what’s up with the job they didn’t take, which increments the background fiction and makes the world around them have a life of it’s own. Then I roll up a couple new jobs and add them to the board. Eventually, you’ll then end up with multiple jobs out there that the players are not actively engaging with, which grow and develop or get replaced by other jobs. This becomes the “metaplot” of Dis, humming and churning along, but there for the players to actively engage with whenever they want, just by them taking up one of the available jobs.

—–

This method could totally work in a non-Planarch setting too. Like, if your crew is a bunch of mercenaries in a fantasy world, or anything else that has a more Shadowrun-like structure of patrons and missions (or, say, quests). It’s a bit like how things work in modern computer RPGs (like Skyrim), except the missions don’t wait there doing nothing until you decide to take them on, rather, they’re moving targets: if you don’t do them, maybe someone else will, or they may not be the same when you get around to them.

Jobs rolled up for the Planarch Codex one-shot at Gamestorm last weekend:

1. Merchant, killing, temple, don’t know

The Corpse Merchants travel to planes consumed by Dis, recover the bodies of your loved ones, and then sell them back to you. However, lately they’ve been targeted by a secret band of necromancers, the Night Ilk, who massacre Corpse Merchant bands and take all the bodies. The merchants want these corpse thieves out of the picture.

2. Outlaw, protection, temple, don’t know

A heretic of the Church of the Font, a healing cult based around rejuvenating waters, believes the church is after him and will stop at nothing to find him. He wants to get as far away from them as possible, to the Outer Darkess beyond the edge of the planes.

3. Guild, delivery, library, nearby plane

The Artificers Guild has crafted a special order for a giant mechanical book with moving type that records and updates the names of the damned. It is immense and heavy, but needs transport to the Library of the Greater Hells, preferably by being transported through a portal from one of the nearby lesser hells already consumed by Dis.