Café de Nuit

Dear members of the Fraternity,

Here’s some netbook news from the Fraternity of Shadows: Another great netbook project is on the slab!

The Eternal Night Approaches. This Halloween, the Fraternity of Shadows is launching an ambitious project - Gothic Earth Eternal.

This is an original idea by Rucht Lilavivat, Ravenloft veteran, who proposed us this interesting and original concept last spring. This concept is very cool and we quickly embarked in this new project.

What is Gothic Earth Eternal?

Gothic Earth Eternal is a modern update of the Masque of the Red Death Setting. It is set in the Year 2012, the year of its release.

Ancient evils walk the land. Dracula. The Monster of Frankenstein. Professor Moriarty. Elizabeth Bathory. Long have they walked the earth.

And their rage is …eternal.

But modern days evil also compete in wickedness. You’ll get to know more about these “new” ones … soon. In a place near you.

What will Gothic Earth Eternal consist of?

It will include the Eternal Guide to Gothic Earth, a netbook consisting of:

- New Pathfinder classes and advanced classes for modern-day Gothic Earth
- New rules for firearms on Gothic Earth Eternal
- New rules for horror, fear, and insanity checks
- New information on Gothic Earth Eternal - learn what’s changed and what the Earth is like in 2012
- At long last! Information on the Jade Horror and its machinations!
- And most importantly, updates on some of the Darklords of Gothic Earth Eternal

When is this coming out?

The beta version of the rules for Gothic Earth Eternal is coming out this Christmas. Players and game masters will be able to peruse the rules and provide feedback. Throughout the year, fans will be asked to playtest these new rules.

The final and finished product will come out Halloween of 2012.

Wait, domains? Since when do Darklords on Gothic Earth have domains?

Read our Eternal Primer for Gothic Earth here. It’s all in there, along with what Gothic Earth is like in 2012.

Also, we’ve included one example of a new GE Darklord and his domain, the creepy Ed Gein.

How can I be a part of this?

We absolutely want you to be a part of this. Here’s how:

- Starting now, we will announce a new Darklord for Gothic Earth Eternal every month.
- Once a Darklord is announced, fans will have three weeks to submit a write up on that Darklord, along with his or her domain.
- Rucht and the Fraternity will select one submission every month to be the canon for Gothic Earth Eternal.
- The winners will be announced at the end of each month.
- Then on Halloween 2012, the twelve chosen entries will appear in all of their glory in the Gothic Earth Eternal netbook as part of the final product.

What are the submission guidelines?

Each submission should include a write up for the Darklord of the month. It should also include a write up for the domain that the Darklord dwells within.

Both the entry on the Darklord and the entry on the domain should be under 500 words.

This word count is only for flavor text, no game stats. If you really want to provide game stats, or ideas to make these stats (classes, power and abilities, etc.), send it as a separate document when sending your 500 words flavor text. We’ll use them when designing stats.

Dread Possibilities and Adventure Hooks are well thought of, but these are best used as teasing hints and mysteries. Whole plots should not be spelt out and there should be some wiggle room for DMs to customize these for their own campaign. A good dread possibility, adventure hook or even throw-away line is one that excites the imagination and starts the reader thinking.

Please send your document to submission@fraternityofshadows.com ! When we receive the article, we'll send you a confirmation.

Only 500 words?

Yep. We want each entry to be short, sweet, and to the point. Each write up needs to be under 500 words because we want game masters to do most of the writing and storytelling. What we need you to do is give them ideas.

What is the first new Darklord entry for us to work on?

Dr. Josef Mengele. Yes, the nazi doctor..

Because, contrary to popular belief, he didn’t really die in 1979, you know... What is he doing now ? Go design. Go have fun fleshing this guy.

Deadly deadline is Tuesday October 25th !

Another new darklord to be announced on Halloween!

Rucht Lilavivat and the Fraternity of Shadows
Home of Ravenloft since 2003

And we are highly interested in hearing your thoughts about this project

Joël

I like the idea! While my play time in Gothic Earth is one character in a one time session I did like the rules and such, and making modern day equivilant Darklords is also something that I must admit I have thought about a little bit.

As long as real life allows me more time than it has recently I would love to support this... But heck I could not even finish my entries to QtR this year...

Still better luck next year I hope! Now who to try and write up? So many evil real and fictional people to choose from!

The first one in the monthly game is Josef Mengele. You have until October 25th!

There will be twelve in all, one per month. Next month, who knows who it will be? Do you think we'll talk that easy?

Joël

Is something like my writeup of 'Escape from New York' here: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... f=1&t=6814 be the sort of thing that's needed?

Manofevil wrote:Is something like mt writeup of 'Escape from New York here: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... f=1&t=6814 be the sort of thing that's needed?

In general, yes, but much shorter. Remember, 500 words max.

- New Pathfinder classes and advanced classes for modern-day Gothic Earth

So the ruleset will be Pathfinder? Or d20 modern ? Or both? Have you considered this Pathfinder modern version The Modern Path: Heroes of the Modern World 2.0 (PFRPG) PDF

Also will Nathan's Unified Power Check Theory be adapted or the unwieldy official version?

The ruleset will be Pathfinder, not d20 Modern. d20 Modern and Pathfinder have similarities but are different rulesets.

As far as Modern rulesets for Pathfinder, there are actually a few that I know of. However, the ruleset I'm coming up with will be specifically tailored to the Gothic Earth Eternal setting. It's one of the reasons I'm pretty excited about it. For one, it will assume that game that the PCs are playing are more investigative in nature and will have abilities tailored to that.

Interesting. So how far will you go with designing new rules? What will you use from PF? Will you design a complete new set of classes?

It's my intention to design new classes for the Gothic Earth Eternal system. Some of them will seem quite familiar, of course, because some of the Pathfinder classes only need a nudge here or there to fit into a modern setting on Gothic Earth. However, many classes will look pretty new.

I'd say that the my driving design precepts are to:
1) Design classes that fit a modern, investigative, and supernatural setting. Can you design a character from the X-Files or Fringe? Can these classes do the sorts of things that they do?
2) Design classes that fit Gothic Earth, given its history and background.

I've actually deliberately stayed away from other Pathfinder rulesets as much as I could, so as to avoid creating something too much like what's out there.

Do you know the archetype concept for classes that PF has introduced? It's similar to how kits used to work in 2E or in d20 the character concepts from the Quintessential line from Mongoose. I would imagine many PF classes that need only a nudge here or there, can be neatly expressed as archetypes for existing classes.

Of course if you want to design your own classes to deliver a complete package as the 2E Domains of Dread I can respect that too. The former would encourage inclusion of other PF classes by players, while the latter would hint at a preferred exclusion though.

Will you adapt from existing d20 or earlier Masque rules (the S&S book for example or the different version on the net) or work from a blank slate?

Yep, I know the archetype concept quite well. I use them in my current Pathfinder game that I'm running!

What is intended, when released is a complete Player's Guide. Meaning, all of the pertinent class information will be in there. The idea is I'm trying to help players refrain from having to flip back and forth between books as little as possible. Some degree of this is inevitable, of course, as the bulk of the PF rules (spells, combat, etc) will be in the core rulebook.

So, it's more like I'm starting with a blank slate than trying to "convert" anything.

There is a very good reason for this. And that's the #1 design precept that I'm working with - I really want the classes to be aimed at a different kind of campaign. One that strongly accommodates investigative and scholarly characters alongside combat and magical characters.

Sounds good. I'm really looking forward to seeing this netbook.

Holy crap!

This sounds really good.

No promises about helping, but I'll try pitching in a few ideas...

THANK YOU to all involved!

Patrick

Five days to go!

Joël