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Welcome
Welcome to the eighty-first Briefing and the second scheduled Briefing of 2018.
January started well but I was quickly besieged with last-minute requests by students to have their dissertation drafts checked, followed inevitably by the onslaught of the marking. The last handful of assignment submissions have been duly marked and I am human again.
Shadow World
“Six Rolemaster Heroes” for Shadow World has been a very popular free download. At the time of writing, it had clocked up 251 downloads.
Knowing that the marking season would cause a prolonged overload, I prioritised my editing sweep of Jaiman as it did not involve juggling spreadsheets, word documents, and pieces of paper. Editing sweep of Jaiman safely completed early in the month, so Terry needs to make some modest amendments and we await the arrival of some artwork and some RMSS stats.
There has been discussion in various places as to what would be desirable in a future 5th edition Shadow World Master Atlas. I am currently of the opinion that the next “Atlas” should be more of a GM Guide, with a renewed emphasis on the gaming experience within Kulthea and helping GMs to make it feel real for their players through colourful detail. I would also be minded that the system mechanics should be extracted to form System Handbooks, so would envisage a Rolemaster Handbook and a HARP Handbook. With HARP Folkways showing what can be done with cultures. HARP Bestiary virtually complete in text, additional and high-powered magic coming with HARP Something Wicked Something Wondrous, and Jon Cassie getting to grips with the divine in the coming HARP Beyond the Veil, the difficulty degree of writing a HARP Handbook for Shadow World has been quietly lowering. (Once upon a time, it would have been a sheer folly writing maneuver, I am certain, not any longer.)
HARP, HARP SF and Cyradon
On the new supplements and adventures front, everyone has been working hard on their respective manuscripts and I have been able to assist several of our freelancers who had burning questions that needed answering.
On the Cyradon front, our intention is, as I stated in the January Briefing, to release the base book followed by a series of adventure modules. There is no point in releasing just the setting book and then have everyone waiting for ages for the next supplement. So you won’t see Cyradon (as in material set on the Cyradon continent of Mithra) return until the adventure modules are also ready to go and then we will release them like clockwork – one a month. (No pressure, Colin). The adventure modules that we have already in full draft follow the refugees’ timeline in sequence before opening up the scope in both space and time. I would expect that we will commission additional Cyradon modules for the more open scope at some point during this year.
Not all Cyradon material is set on the Cyradon continent of Mithra. Chris Seal’s excellent “Wedding in Axebridge” is set in the Shatterings; his current work-in-progress, the campaign module Caer Glais is also set in the same portion of the world. Caer Glais does not and will not need to wait on the other Cyradon books. Note that Chris’ work and southern realms setting is different in tone, feel and flavour to the Cyradon continent – Mithra is a big world.
Rolemaster and ERA
The RMU singularity did not happen in January.
Two new datasets for ERA were completed by Max, so we now have a ERA for RMC Treasures and an ERA for RMSSFRP Treasure Companion dataset.
Until next time
Back to being human and getting more editing and writing complete before the singularity The next scheduled Briefing will be in March 2018.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
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