Birthdays, Book Blocks and Behind the Throne!

So it’s my partner’s and my birthdays this week, and I’ve gotten myself a neat little present (the missus has already been sorted). This week should herald the availability of the Print on Demand option for the Core Rules! The book is already available from Lulu.com however their printing costs are rather high and the end price of the book is far above what I envisioned our customers having to pay for the hardcover. This will all change with Lightning Source having accepted the book block files and I eagerly await imminent arrival of the print proof this week. As meticulous as we have been, I hope there are no major flaws with the design and layout and I anticipate the POD option being activated shortly after I have the hot little number in my hands.

So, stay posted and I may even debut the release with a special discount in celebration for this milestone.

In other news:

·         Behind the Throne – Enchantments Supplement for HoF is in development. There is still tons of work to do on it, but already there’s plenty of source material to explore and expand on. We introduce several new factions, a plethora of new spells, a sinister back story to the shadowy Oculus bogey men, and an introduction to the mysterious Fae of Karth.

·         The Book of Artefacts. Work in progress introducing a multitude of Artefact type magical items to HoF. From Plot Device level of power all the way down to the everyday items sold by street vendors, the variety of Artefacts in the Hands of Fate universe deserves its own supplement to do it justice.

·         Animism and Benedictions Supplement still in concept phase. We envision exploring the Shaman faction of Karth, as well as touching on their ancient enemies, the diabolists, and the coming darkness that’s been hinted at in other parts of the fiction sprinkled about the Hands of Fate books. For Benedictions we plan to have more religions detailed and to add some fiction to support their implementation into Karth.

·         Softcover editions of Monsters of Karth and Ars Academia planned. Now that the whole process of book block creation is no longer a mystery it should be fairly easy to put together the required typesetting. We plan on releasing all supplements as softcover standard colour in order to keep costs as low as possible.

A Note on Costs:

Low costs = low prices, which is everything we stand by here. This endeavour (I’m talking about Audio Samurai Games) does not have making money as its end goal; our end goal is to provide quality gaming products that are affordable to just about everyone. As a gamer myself I know how expensive it can get trying to collect as many gaming books about your favourite systems as possible, and that’s something we want to alleviate here at Audio Samurai Games. In order to create quality products, however, we need quality artwork to break up the walls of text. We’re always on the look-out for decent, yet affordable artwork, especially if it’s free! If you have a doodle of a cool character from your favourite games (and they don’t look like someone trademarked) and you’d like to see it in print we’d be happy to accept donations. I can’t promise you much in the way of cash but you’ll definitely receive a mention in the credits and we’re happy to give out complimentary PDF’s of our products (or possibly a Core Rules if the artwork is exceptional). Tell your friends; tell your family; or anyone you know that can draw either digitally (preferred) or on paper and wouldn’t mind giving away some free time.