Good Backers,
Happy New Year of the Vermilion Horse!
Last week was a big holiday here in Eastasia, with the Lunar New Year, which meant a few days with the kids. Nice to ha...
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Luka Rejec
about 1 month ago
From the Project Quarry 1 (21): Mountains For Humans
Favored Backers,
The Belated One would wish you a "Happy New Year." I, your bedraggled scruff-strewn creator, shall not, for I cannot aspire to the spiritual power of the Be...
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Luka Rejec
about 2 months ago
From the Book Mines 20: The OGA Book Is Done
Good Backers,
It is my great pleasure to present you a small gift for your patience on this Saint Sylvester's Day, this Eve of the Novel Year, to whit—the editor-ready PDF...
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Luka Rejec
2 months ago
From the Book Mines 19: A Christmas Bookacle
Merry Christmas, Goldenagers!
It's a Christmas Bookacle*!
Believe it or not, it is the eve of the 24th of December. Yes, I skipped last week's update since I had a feelin...
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Luka Rejec
3 months ago
From the Book Mines 18: One Land Left, Space Gets Tight, New PDF
Good Goldenagers,
Greeting this 12th of December. I hope you've had a nice week. Mine's been pretty busy.
It's time to share a PDF with the Backers again (scroll all the ...
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Luka Rejec
3 months ago
From the Book Mines 17: Slower Week
Good afternoon, good Goldenagers,
This is a much shorter update because it's been a much slower week. As I knew would happen sooner or later, another childhood disease has p...
Last week was a big holiday here in Eastasia, with the Lunar New Year, which meant a few days with the kids. Nice to have a bit of a break.
Now, here is where you'll suspect I'll have some unfortunate news about delays and whatnot? No! It is not so.
Cover art for the pananthropy zine.
I've finished off the texts on both of the zines, the Pananthropy and the Biomantica. And thus, today, you get both of them (down below the backerfold).
These are not laid out yet—I'll do that and add the final art after a pass from the editor.
I'm also redoing the Biomantica cover, so, uh, currently you just see the title as it will be. The rest will coalesce around that in the fullness of drawingtime.
Aww, look! life, uh, finds a way!
Some of the interior art may be older pieces ... after all a lot of the biomantica is already illustrated and I have lots of humans lying around ...
I've had this illustration for one of the powers for ages, but I'm not sure I'll use it. Oh, since 2022. There it is.
Anyway, we'll see. These zines have much simpler layouts, since they're single column, so that'll be quite a quick thing to do. Illustrating them up will take a bit longer, but ... that's a sleepless night or two for future me.
Coming Next
The Cards
or the Poster Adventure
or The Adventure Journal
I'll take a few days off, so ... you've got time to convince me which will be best done next!
Ongoing
The OGA editing is now 70% done.
Still need to adjust the final map (need to add the Legend).
Revise the box art.
Book endpapers for the two hardbacks.
---///---
Anyway, hope the tail end of winter is treating you well. Over here we're healthy and alive and getting this beastie done ... but I don't have more to add to this post (well, aside from 16,000 words in the two zines), since I have to go gefetch the child from the creche.
Be well, Good Backers.
Another update soon, another mile closer to the Endtime.
The Belated One would wish you a "Happy New Year." I, your bedraggled scruff-strewn creator, shall not, for I cannot aspire to the spiritual power of the Belated One. Instead, I will merely regale you with a celebration (or presentation) of the next step.
But first, a mountain.
Mountain 6: Clouds flit across the white cowl of the heights, tenebrous messages for the nephomants of the valley below.
I spent my two-weeks-and-change away from the labors of Our Golden Age doing something completely different ... uh ... besides walking the dog and changing diapers and feeding little humans, that had to happen every day irregardlessless (that's how one spells it, yeah?). I drew and painted mountains. Some of them came out quite nice.
I doubt any will fit into the OGA books and zines, but one could use them very easily with my Longwinter ttrpg icebox, yes, very easily indeed. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
The other thing I did was nuke my existing website (www.wizardthieffighter.com) on the way to its rebuild. It'll be back online in some form soon enough, but because my priority is the Golden Box of Our Age, it's not going to be in the driver's seat.
hwoo ... hwoo
Let's review where we're at:
Our Golden Age is with our munificent editor, the most wordie lexical M. B. Stoddard, accummulating instructions for its further perfection. Subsequent to that editing, I will review and revise the grand file and assemble the Index and End Pages, completing the tome for a semifinal pass and the printing of the proof copy. That's where real live humans with naturally selected intelligences will read words on paper to see mistakes I have made (like the line missing in UVG 2E because I covered it with a piece of art - mea culpa). The editor has already found a spot where I seem to have gargled up two spreads.
The Vastlands Guidebook is also with the aforementioned M. B. Stoddard for a last pass of some revised spreads before I finalize the endpapers and it goes for proof-printing.
I'm going to prepare the Two Bonus Zines for your delectation: the Biomantica, a tome of spells biological and chirurgical and archiatric, and the Pananthropy, a bestiary of creatures human, citizen, and personable. I haven't precisely decided which of the two I will complete first since I am tackling them together to ensure they comply in style and content with one-the-other and the two books of OGA and VLG. It's a fair question: which would you like to see first? I would be a falseling if I said your preference on that subject did not matter to me.
Then, after those are done and art'd, I'm going to tackle the poster adventure, the cards and finally the adventure journal. Step-by-step, to the end. Which is now in sight.
I haven't even mentioned ongoing tweaks, like fixing up some art, adjusting the final map (I've added roads), revising the box art (it's secretly a map, shhh), and other details. That's just par for the course.
I don't really have many pretty spreads or texts to share right now, since I just got back to working last week. I guess the fair play at this point is to challenge y'all - which do you want to see first? The flesh magics or the bestiary of all humans? Comment-pete in the comments, since this is not a poll.
Welcome back to the new year and looking forward to chatting with you in many many more updates from the project quarries ... ah, it's good to be out of the mines and see the Green Sun again!
On Saint Sylvester's Day, Around 03:00 in the Morning.
Good Backers,
It is my great pleasure to present you a small gift for your patience on this Saint Sylvester's Day, this Eve of the Novel Year, to whit—the editor-ready PDF* of Our Golden Age.
260 pages (for now)
250 graphics and pieces of art (for now)
a few words
an idea or two less than originally intended**
Scroll to the Backer-only section for the download link right now.
*Editor-Ready PDF To be clear, this is not the print-ready version. Brandes (the editor) will now review the text, hunt down errors, skewer confusions, and more. With that the priority, this PDF:
does not include all the final spot art
may see some pages rearranged before the end
may see a spread added or removed to make the correct page count (I suspect I might have space for an extra spread at the end, but if the index needs an extra page I'll find something else)
does not include final page numbers, cross-references, and some navigation aids
certainly includes weird typos and [errors]
does not include all the final maps—the labels are a separate linked PDF file which I will update once I have finalized the map completely (adding some locations from the OGA, revising some symbols, adding more roads and travel connexions)
**Cut Content Two big chapters, totaling about 40 pages, did not make the cut:
the noösphere, including rules for navigating there and modifying characters translated into that liminal space
the near and far void, including rules for travelling on voidships
I'll try to get these into zine form, but that's an issue for later.
***Previews Now, for a little bit of showing and tell.
So much contained within.
The last chapter.
An Interruption Generator for background events.
The Nexus Grid to run weird conspiracies, ongoing background events, and odd connexions between sessions.
The two meta-factions. Not-law and not-chaos.
Terminal Locations.
Terminus.
The Back Cover.
260 + 172 = 432
That's All For This Year Folks! Between the OGA and the VLG we've gone and finished* 432 delectable ttrpg pages for your enjoyment this year. I can say without a doubt, that's all folks [for this year]! Together with the UVG, the Polychrome Trilogy aka. the Vastlands Collection (we should vote on the name) stretches to over 600 pages. Whew!
*see above
Ho Ho Ho. Some art still waiting to find its final place in the book.
I'm now going to take a couple of weeks' sabbatical from this project. Take care, enjoy the last day of the year, have a wonderful and happy New Year, and see you in January!
Believe it or not, it is the eve of the 24th of December. Yes, I skipped last week's update since I had a feeling I might, just might, be able to post an update this week announcing that the Our Golden Age book was all ready to head out to the editor next year.
Well, I'm 15 pages with translucent magenta boxes away from being able to say that (those boxes mark pages and sections I still need to revise so I don't accidentally sent out unfinished work — or if I do, everyone will catch it and ask what in the name of the eye-burning magenta is going on here.
I'd add screenshots and everything, but it is Christmas Eve, I have left it late, it is time for the after-Pudding Christmas film, so for you, good Backers, this is a small gift for your patience—a nearly finished book, a taster ... well, let's say I think I'll have the final gift ready for you by Saint Sylvester's Eve.
I.e. Next Week.
Bone Noël!
—Luka
*Bookacle - not quite a miracle, but most of a book.
![Our Golden Age (OGA): An Ultraviolet Grasslands RPG []equel](https://images.backerkit.com/active_storage/backerkit_production/blob/w3x8sovt158sexgb2brviuof2eia?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&auto=compress%2C%20format&cs=srgb&lossless=true&ar=16%3A9&fit=crop)
