Sunday, December 11, 2011

Ashenclaw Studios 2012 Game Plan

With the New Year fast approaching and my new job demanding much of my attention, I wanted to address a post concerning what Ashenclaw Studios has in store for 2012!

Firstly, I have been writing and editing and generally poring over a series of short stories that I intend to release soon, hopefully in the first quarter of the year. I am targeting around April to have at least the first of the six out, with the others to follow shortly after. The short stories will include the happenings of the three High Council members Tiyarnon the High Priest of The Shimmering One, Nimaira Silvershade, the half-elven mage and Rolin Hardbeard, the dwarven warrior, prior to the Prologue to CotFK*. If you read the book, it may explain why they had to go and find help! Then I will add tales (from approximately 12 years or so prior to the novel) concerning our protagonists, which will add to the character building and give a glimpse into their history, describing important events in their past that put them on the paths they currently walk. These will theoretically be ninety-nine cent downloads straight to your kindles, Nooks, iPads and other reading devices.



Secondly, Nick Titano (of Infernal Titans & Ashenclaw Studios) and I, as well as the rest of the gang at the studio (Tom, Liz and the others) are working on a role-playing aid that we intend to publish as a supplement to 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons as well. The work has stalled a bit with the holidays approaching, but we plan to accelerate the work after the first of the year. This is requiring quite a bit of work, as we are intending to give the audience a broad and general lay of the land with all of the important towns and hotspots in Wothlondia clearly marked and a brief description of the towns. We figured a general description of the cities and areas might be just the spark that a Dungeon Master might need to spice up his own campaign or even start a new one in the Realm of Ashenclaw setting. We are also working on a brand new character class based on the alchemistic stylings of Elec Stormwhisper in the first novel. He is being designed as Nick describes it as “an At-Will, Encounter, Daily, Utility class,” as well as a few new monsters that we have play tested and are—if I may say so—awesome! We are also working on a shield-bashing Ranger defender essentials build.

As a side note, I will be having a contest shortly to give the potion-popping class of Elec Stormwhisper a name where you can win a signed copy of CotFK if we choose your suggestion! We have a few ideas, but I am not going to give any indication of what we are thinking and leave it strictly up to you.

There are also several themes being worked on as well for the RPG. I am shooting for a midsummer release of this with possibly more supplements to come. I will keep anyone posted that asks. This will certainly be available as a download for sure and we are looking into a possible print version, though I would like more feedback from you gamers out there what you would like to see. Is a download to your laptop or tablet good enough?

Thirdly, I am hoping beyond hope to release the second novel in the Beginnings series by the end of next year. I am leaning again toward an eBook only version of this, but have not decided for sure. I had started writing this late last year with an outline and got about 1/3 of the way through before business decisions tore me away from this and back to getting the first novel published and put together. It is tentatively entitled -- Secrets of the Ebonite Mines.


As always, I would love to hear from any and everyone concerning the stories and the RPG supplement.

*Covenant of the Faceless Knights, my first full-length novel.




See you in Wothlondia! Cheers!

Please visit MY HOME PAGE to enjoy an extended reading experience, see direct links to purchase Covenant of the Faceless Knights and to see what else Ashenclaw Studios, LLC has in store in the future!

Photos from Stock.xchng & Nick Titano's camera @2011 Gencon! 

All maps, names and content copyright Ashenclaw Studios, LLC 2011 unless otherwise noted.

3 comments:

  1. Deeply engrossing interesting and inspiring theme and characters.Creating a mysterious atmosphere.Would definitely read more.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anjum, thanks for the comment and I am hoping to fulfill all of your wishes once it is done. My team and I are committed to giving out only the very best product that we can. We have several unique creatures that we have been play-testing and those have been working out very well. I will share more later in a future blog!

    Mike, thanks for stopping by and...no...probably not. :) Nick V. said he will be running an Ashenclaw campaign for your Thursday groups as soon as we have the last two classes finished. Which should be soon!

    ReplyDelete