Vermissian Black Ops Preview, production update
about 4 years ago – Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 04:10:48 AM

Hello!

VERMISSIAN BLACK OPS

If you're interested in learning more about Vermissian Black Ops, our upcoming Heart sourcebook that'll be released alongside the core game, you can take a look at a preview I just wrote.

SPECIAL EDITIONS

Mary visited our leather merchants last week and picked up some delicious samples of the leather we're using for the Heartsblood editions. (They smell fantastic, and come in four colours!) For those of you who went for the special edition, I'm excited to reveal the final (beautiful) design of the cover. In the flesh, the yellow here will be gold foil:

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

As is inevitable with any books, upon receiving the final PDF of the Heart core text from Jay, we immediately discovered several minor errors - so we're ironing those out at present. We've confirmed our dates with Livonia, our printer, and we're looking good to go ahead on schedule.

We're also moving into layout for the sourcebooks, and work on Burned and Broken continues apace - we should finish that up at the end of this week. 

(Which means, dear reader, that my bit - all the writing - is done. So that means I can stop for a week or so. I think I'm going to do some gardening.)

MISSION BOOK ONE

Fans of Spire will also be pleased to hear that the text for Mission Book One - ten one-shot missions by a variety of different authors, some industry veterans and some completely untested, is complete and now being edited by Helen Gould. It's been really exciting to work with new authors, and I've been so impressed by what they managed to pull off. 

GENCON

We've submitted all our games sessions to GenCon 2020 - in addition to running a stall on entrepreneur's avenue, we're putting together a super-team of GMs to run Heart and Spire for us. We'll be showcasing a sawn-off version of Sanctum for Heart, where you'll build a haven and then defend it from Angels; for Spire, we'll be running Life and Soul and A Shotgun Wedding, two scenarios that focus primarily around elaborate parties in Red Row, so you know they're going to be good. Keep an eye out for event sign-ups going live in May if you're interested in playing!

That's all for now. Be good to each other!

- Grant (also Chris and Mary)

Doors to Elsewhere, Burned and Broken, New Art, Pre-orders closing soon
about 4 years ago – Fri, Mar 06, 2020 at 02:28:51 AM

Hello! Some brief updates:

- We're going to close pre-orders on March 31st. This is a little earlier than planned, so apologies if you were waiting until mid-April to order, but it'll mean that everyone gets their books faster, which I think we can all agree is a good thing. We'll charge your cards on that date, so expect that.

If you haven't entered your address in Backerkit - or it's changed, or it's going to change before June - then please make sure fill it out correctly before March 31st. If you're unsure of your address, it's a good bet to use the address of a friend or relative who can pass on the books to you. If you'd like to modify your order, you can do that too. 

Once the pre-orders have closed and we've received payment, we'll begin distributing PDFs of any books that are ready to go. We'll definitely have the core book ready to go at that point.

- Felix has sent through all the completed art and Jay is in the final stages of getting the corebook laid out. It's looking gorgeous. Below is a lovely picture to illustrate how gorgeous everything is and, coincidentally, show off the rough scale of the Heart:

- Continuing our sourcebook previews, this week we take a look at Doors To Elsewhere, our dimension-hopping adventure set in a city between realities.

- We're continuing our work on Burned and Broken, and the texts for Sanctum, Doors To Elsewhere and Vermissian Black Ops are edited and ready for layout. (Felix is currently resting his poor hands for a bit before we harangue him into illustrating the sourcebooks.) 

On the subject of Burned and Broken, here's a look at one of the Origins that we've included in the game:

When you begin a Burned and Broken campaign, you'll remake your Spire characters by choosing some abilities from the relevant origin. Astute readers will notice that these are much less powerful than standard starting Heart characters, and that's entirely intentional - we wanted to reflect the way that ministers, while they're powerful in the City Above, are all out of their depth in the City Beneath.

As you hit beats from your Fall (a sort of group calling that illustrates your descent), you'll pick up abilities from a Heart class, and eventually you'll be the sort of hardened lunatic that has a chance of surviving in the the undercity - but you'll carry the remnants of who you were in Spire forever.

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That's all for now. More news next week.

- Chris, Grant and Mary

February update
about 4 years ago – Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 11:09:16 PM

Here's all the news that's fit to, uh, upload:

- We're still plugging away on the sourcebooks! We finished Vermissian Black Ops last week (very exciting), and if you'd like to know more about the supplemental material we're releasing for Heart, you can take a look at the SANCTUM Preview here. (SANCTUM is the new name for ABSOLUTION.)

- As mentioned above, we changed the name of ABSOLUTION to SANCTUM because by the time we finished writing it we realised that no absolution took place at any point in the text. We've also changed the name of the Spire Conversion Guide to BURNED AND BROKEN, because a) that's a better name and b) we're creating a set of rules that work out what happened to your Spire character to drive them into the City Beneath and play through their first faltering steps. 

These products have changed names in Backerkit - but it's still the same books we promised, you'll get them on the schedule we agreed to, and so on.

- We've nearly completed layout on the core book. Pictured below is one of the ancestry pages that you can pick from when you create a character, complete with sketch artwork:

That's all for now. In three weeks' time we should have all the sourcebooks written and edited, and from there we begin the exciting journey of getting everything printed and sent out to you. Stay tuned for more weekly previews of our sourcebooks and intermittent teaser pages from the books!

Cheers,

- Grant, Chris and Mary

End of January update
about 4 years ago – Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:20:07 PM

Hello! 

We're still alive. Here's what's happening with regards to Heart right now:

- We're still on schedule! Pre-orders will remain open until April, not February, as previously stated. 

- Felix has finished the pencils for the core book illustrations (including all the landmarks you came up with and the adversaries you adopted) and is working away on the inks. Here he is:

- We've finished Absolution, a short book about making and destroying havens (alternative title: The Heart Is Where Your Home Is) and we're really proud of how powerfully disgusting some of the Angels are. At present we're writing Doors To Elsewhere, and here's a preview:

- We'll be exhibiting Heart (and Spire) at the UK Games Expo (29-31st May) and at GenCon (30th July - 2nd August). If you're attending either con, you'll be able to collect your book from us on our stall if you'd like (and we'll refund your postage costs), or receive it through the mail as normal. We'll make sure to give you apt warning before we set this up.

That's all for now. 

- Grant, Chris and Mary

New Year Update
over 4 years ago – Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 01:51:43 AM

Yes - we know that we're technically two weeks into the New Year. Anyway.

THE CLEAVER

Our ninth and final class is ready for its close-up - please enjoy the CLEAVER CLASS BREAKDOWN, and sing a carrion song of meat and plenty for all to hear.

PROGRESS REPORT

We're pleased to announce that, as of Thursday last week, Chris and Grant finished the core text of Heart. Standing at just over a hundred thousand words, this beefy lad is ready for a trip to not one but two different editors to make sure it's as good as it can be. We're really proud of what we've managed to do with the book - from the nine unique character classes to the plethora of weird places to explore to the tragic, sad array of adversaries to regretfully murder. We're really excited to share it with you too.

Up next, we're going to work on the supplements that you unlocked via stretch goals, which are:

- ABSOLUTION, a guide to leading players in making their own haven, assistance on running a campaign based around a central landmark. and also five different kinds of nightmarish angel to smash things apart with

- DOORS TO ELSEWHERE, a plane-hopping handbook filled with details on peculiar otherworlds and information on Elsewhere itself, a colourful and storied nexus between multiple worlds that transforms into a maze of shifting, living shadows at night

- VERMISSIAN BLACK OPS, a guide to running special forces-style operations on behalf of the Ministry in Spire using the Vermissian as a dangerous travel network; this comes with full rules for twisting the mechanics of Heart out of the red wet heaven beneath the earth and into the ramshackle train hell that punctures the City Above

- BURNED AND BROKEN, the Spire conversion guide; instead of providing a straight by-the-numbers translation of Spire's mechanics, instead we're interested in working out why someone from the Ministry would choose to go into the Heart, and tweak the Classes and Callings rules to represent the fall into obsession and madness that's part and parcel of your standard Heart character

We've got a busy couple of months ahead of us but we're confident that we can get all of the promised supplements printed alongside the Heart core book. We'll keep you informed as and when anything exciting happens!

That's all for now. 

Speak soon,

- Grant, Chris and Mary