Gamebook store

Friday 24 February 2017

Baby steps in the Weeping Jungle

If you've been waiting for news of the seventh Fabled Lands book - and I know you have - then stop chewing those nails and take a look at this. Paul Gresty has cleared time from his very busy schedule to write us a guest post updating everybody on the book's progress. The nutshell version: the manuscript is finished and it's on to the final furlong. For the juicy details I'll hand you over to Paul...
 

Dave has been kind enough to allow me to write a few words here on the Fabled Lands blog to talk about where we're up to with The Serpent King's Domain. And, this time around, it's big news: we have a finished draft of the book, and we're well into editing. Our editor, Richard S Hetley, is the first adventurer to leave Dunpala for the wilds of the Weeping Jungle. He's currently trekking through the Feathered Lands, and putting the seventh book in this series through its paces.

In editing terms, this brings about a lot of fine-tuning. There' a lot of back and forth discussion right now about the economic consequences of two ports, Dunpala and Begotombo, being so close to one another; about whether a score of ghouls should have a higher Stamina score than that big bull in Cities of Gold and Glory; about whether the new Obfuscation blessing is too similar to the Immunity to Injury blessing in The Court of Hidden Faces.

I've intentionally geared the book towards throwing up some challenges for very high-rank characters, and so it's fascinating to see how Richard tackles it with somebody newly created at 7th rank. The number of locations to visit in the Feathered Lands is considerably higher than in the first six books of the series; consequently, some quest-important items or codewords are proving really hard to track down. Some opponents are probably too tough for a character that's just starting out (hey, that's what resurrection deals are for) and, frankly, there are more than a few paragraph links that are flat-out broken, and need to be fixed. That's where we're at with the text of The Serpent King's Domain right now – we're addressing all of these points.

Dave and Jamie have also been giving valuable input on the setting of Harkuna as a whole – notably how the Feathered Lands relate to other regions in the world, and some details on how the different faiths fit together. This has, dare I say, even allowed for a little tentative planning of books 8 to 12.

As regards the interior artwork, Russ has completed about half the necessary pictures, including all of the high-level backer rewards. The latest news is that he's working on rough outlines of the remaining full-page pieces, and the smaller filler pieces that will intersperse the text.

Kev, our cover artist, is in a similar position. Before Christmas I wrote up a comprehensive brief for him about the setting, and the notable people and places within the Feathered Lands; he's now partway through his black-and-white roughs. He'll be back in touch with us shortly, with a more complete image.

I'll take the opportunity to address a point that Michael Hartland brought up on the Kickstarter page (and that was somewhat echoed by James Cartwright): "What's the chance of getting the book finished by June, do you think?" On the writing side of things, it'll be finished way before then. I'm hesitant to make grand promises on top of that, because there are still things like artwork and page layout to consider, and then hiccups can always occur with printing and shipping. But I'll provisionally say that the chances are really good.

And I'll conclude with a point of precision about how to most efficiently direct questions about The Serpent King's Domain. Asking questions here on the FL blog is fine; better yet is to contact Mikael Louys at Megara Entertainment, as Megara are responsible for running the Kickstarter and publishing the book. That can be done through Megara's website or the Kickstarter page. At this stage all questions are likely to be referred back to me anyway, so please feel free to go ahead and contact me directly. I welcome and encourage all inquiries, comments and criticisms, and I'll get back to you as soon as my frail mortal body will allow.

As always, huge thanks to all backers for your support in this process, and for your patience so far. The Serpent King's Domain would not exist without you.

- Paul.

20 comments:

  1. Great news and great work folks! The High King will surely be very pleased... hope the Unspeakable Cultists are happy too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Question about a rules interpretation for Fabled Lands. The books stat that any of your skill can only reach a maximum of 12. Is this a base maximum, or an absolute maximum?
    For example, if my basic Thievery is 10, and then I buy "Gloves of Sig" (plus 3 Thievery), would I still be able to use them to achieve a Thievery score of 13?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes.

    Also, the maximum of 12 is for your base Attributes. There are a couple of items that can add to your Attributes instead of providing a bonus. If you gain the Ring of Ultimate Power (or whatever it's called) you get +1 to all your Attributes (so if you have all 12s in them you'd now have 13s). So, in that case you'd have a 13 Thievery which you could combine with Gloves of Sig (Thievery +3) to have a Thievery of 16 for the purposes of rolls.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the update Paul. Does anyone else think that the title of this post sounds like a Brian Eno album ? ; )

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can't take the credit. The title was Paul's. I do feel as though I ought to have that album around somewhere...

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm not sure if I'm more excited about the imminence of book 7 or the smallest whisper of a tease for books 8 onwards. I do truly hope that no-one has lost their appetite for those over the last 12 months or so. Like with anything though, all that will ultimately be remembered is whether the book was any good or not - not how late it was.

    On a tangent - has anyone played Sunless Sea? It's very reminiscent of Fabled Lands; I'd not be surprised to learn that there are some fans among the game's developers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jamie and I met the Failbetter team a few years ago, Michael. There are indeed some Fabled Lands fans among them, and they cited the FL books as one of Fallen London's major inspirations.

      Delete
    2. I know Richard is a Sunless Sea fan. I haven't played it myself. I saw it was free-to-play (and cheap-to-buy) on Steam last weekend, and I was very tempted... but in the end I didn't click. I can't risk getting sucked into a new RPG for the next few months, just now.

      I have played Fallen London quite extensively, however. My main character is the proud owner of an Overgoat. It takes a lot of clicking to get that far.

      A quick plug for Failbetter, actually: their Kickstarter for Sunless Skies, the sequel to Sunless Sea, is currently live. It finishes on 3rd March:

      https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/failbetter/sunless-skies-the-sequel-to-sunless-sea?ref=nav_search

      Delete
    3. I'm the reverse of you Paul; haven't played Fallen London yet but have spent nearly 100 hours on Sunless Sea. Fantastically addictive. Sunless Skies looks just as intriguing; my pledge has been in for a couple of weeks. Maybe a reward for yourself when you've finished your writing duties?

      Dave, I can well imagine a partnership of some sort with FB being quite fruitful for Fabled Lands. Perhaps it would depend on their appetite for developing an existing creative asset, rather than creating their own. But I gather they're not planning any further expansions for Sunless Sea, so after Sunless Skies is complete, who knows...?

      Delete
    4. I was strongly reminded of Dangor the first time I sailed into Gaider's Morn. Not that I've been to Dangor of course, but a man has heard many things about the city in the Forbidden Realm.

      Delete
    5. In the early game I found myself often thinking of Fabled Lands while playing SS. Many of the mechanics are very similar, but as Prophet-of-Ganja says, some of the locations too. The city of Hideaway built on a giant crab - sounds like Carapace on The Great Turtle to me (specific water-bound creatures notwithstanding).

      Delete
    6. That was an idea we liked so much that we reused it in Abraxas for the city of Xanthus, built on the back of the giant crustacean Ix. It'd be nice to think Sunless Sea was making a nod to FL there, but more likely it's a case of "great minds thinking alike".

      Btw I see my reply to your comment about a partnership between Failbetter and FL has got detached from the thread, Michael. But I wouldn't rule out some original FL apps from another source ;-)

      Delete
    7. Talking of Dangor, it gets a little mention in a post we've got coming up next month. Stay tuned.

      Delete
    8. Sounds intriguing Dave. With the Kickstarter success of FL7, as well as that of Sunless Skies (which is likely to achieve 300% of its $100k funding goal), you have to be bouyed that there's a market for a FL app?

      BTW, did you ever do a 'year ahead in FL' post for 2017? Just with any releases you have planned for the year.

      Delete
    9. There are a lot of things still up in the air, Michael, so I'm holding off until we have those "inked" as they say. But you'll hear it here first.

      Delete
  7. We'd be delighted with that, Michael, but I suspect Failbetter have lots of their own projects lined up.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Does anyone know where I can get book 4 without spending alot? I have only been able to find 2 copies, one for about $200 and the other four about $1900.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The books were on sale at $8.99 but seem to have gone out of print. Have you tried Barnes & Noble to see if they still have copies in stock?

    Or you could order from Amazon UK - the exchange rate might actually make that cheaper. You can use the UK bookstore tab in the sidebar or this link:

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0956737234/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Amazon UK is out of book 4 too it seems. Any chance of getting a reprint? Or any kind soul willing to ship me a copy if they can find one?

    For that matter...
    - are large editions of FL3+ still in the works? FL just doesn't feel the same without them dual columns of text.
    - any chance of seeing falcon 2+?
    - ....or walls of spyte??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I prefer the large format editions too. I just need to clear some spare time to format them... and scan and lay out Falcon 2-6. And at least fix the broken parts of the flowchart in Walls of Spyte, if not tweak it to be less of a comedy romp.

      However, I can at least promise that FL books 1-6 will be back in stock later in the year in the UK and Europe as well as the US. And hopefully the rest of the world too, wherever Amazon has spread its tentacles.

      Delete