All right, time to get to work on Muster again. I’m brilliantly leveraging my newsletter routine for that, so you’ll get a feature article on the exact steps I’ll use to finish the book. Planning time!
State of Muster
Pretty much the last significant work I’ve done on Muster was around the New Year’s, when I finished the “preview ashcan” of the book. The ashcan consists of a basically complete manuscript draft and a rudimentary layout that I’ve been spreading out to interested people so they can do “studio critique” — read the book and tell me what’s wrong with it so I can avoid any blind spots.
The studio critique process has been quite the success by my measures. I’m not much of a social gadfly, and in the past I haven’t had nearly as much unpaid volunteer support on various writing projects as I do here. I actually have gotten loads of useful, detailed correspondence from subject matter experts and men of letters on this. I believe that the crowdfunding campaign is the main reason for that; the backers form a sort of pre-committed pool of interested people who can (and apparently do) follow the progress of the project. That seems to translate into a practical desire to engage in some light sparring over the details, which is exactly what this stage of the process has wanted.
That being the backdrop, I’ve been making notes about the things that I need to do to finish the book in high style. Let’s see, I’ll try to turn that into a human-readable to-do list…
To do: writing stuff
While the manuscript is mostly finished, we’ll want to send it back to the author for a round of extensions in some aspects that will meaningfully improve the book overall. (Being both the author and editor on this allows me to discuss myself in the third person.)
A summary pitch for wargaming D&D: I’ve concluded that the front matters of the book will be improved if I condense the material even further, into a 4-page leaflet that can be independently printed for players with the expectation of them actually reading it. (As opposed to them reading even just the ~50 page basic section of the actual book, which is a bit of a tall order when not all players are that literate or committed to improving their play.) Also, a quick way to get an experienced fellow gamer on the same page about what the game is trying to do.
Glossary: It’s probably useful if I go over the book and lift any technical language used in there and explain each concept with a paragraph or two in a separate glossary at the back. The language register I’ve settled on for the book involves using fairly precise terminology that the reader is expected to pick up sufficiently from the context, but in a large world with lots of different people there’ll undoubtedly be people who’ll appreciate more explicit explanations. Just gotta put it in the back so the actual text flow is not slowed down by theoretical exposition.
Write up a few more war stories: There are a couple of practical stories already in the back section of the book, but there should also be a couple more in the advanced section. I also might conceivably put a few extra stories in the back matter; the storytelling seems to get generally positive feedback from the test readers, so it may be a pedagogically useful way to approach the topic. The war stories aren’t that difficult to write either.
Design some graphs and diagrams: There are a few places in the book that could benefit from graphical presentation. I just need to pinpoint them and design the diagrams.
I’ll want to get these parts done first before the work that falls more into editing, as the big picture text structure affects the editorial decisions so much. First things first.
To do: editorial
After I have the aforementioned missing sections of the book on hand, the more difficult part is polishing up what we have into a finished text. Here’s my recognized steps for doing that:
Re-read and polish: I’ve taken enough of a break that I can probably improve on the text myself by simply reading it through again and straightening out things that jump out with the benefit of hindsight. One good thing about having taken a vacation in January.
Parse the feedback: I have almost as much feedback notes as manuscript at this point, with a few hundred different observations and reaction data points on various parts of the book. Some of the stuff is fairly easy and obvious to work with, while other parts require deliberation and deep review.
Commit to a book structure: I’m not sure at this writing whether the book’s current structure with a “basic” and “advanced” section holds up. I feel it has its advantages, but as has been remarked, the distinction between the types of material involved in these sections is kinda subtle. It’s not exactly “this is for players, this other thing is for GMs” or “this is for newbies, this is for veterans”. What the structure is trying to be is “read this before you first try to play, then read the rest of this at your convenience”, but maybe there would indeed be some better way to put all of this together.
Add backer credits: I would totally have forgotten about this if somebody didn’t mention it. I should indeed put a backer name list section in the back matter.
Arrange for proof-reading: Once all of the above is done, I’ll get the manuscript some language editing. A proof-reading at least.
To do: product development
Finally, these are the things still to be done for the product development of the project. I’ll mostly work on these side by side with the editing stage, I expect.
Arrange for drawing of diagrams: There’s a few diagrams that the book should have. Get those to a draftsman while I’m working on other parts so they’re done by the time I’m finishing up the layout.
Get the rest of the art in: Much of the art is already done, but I’d like to have illustrations for the war stories that I haven’t written yet, too, so obviously those aren’t quite done yet. I’m striving to keep the art budget at around ~500 € (as per the crowdfunding campaign), but Sipi likes to draw, so we’ll see how that ends up working out. Depends on how much time he has to draw in the coming weeks yet.
Finish up the layout: The layout is mainly done, but I want to do some alternate formats as well, so that’ll take a bit.
Get ISBNs: There’d be other stuff to do in preparing the product to market if I was trying to get the book to distribution or anything like that, but as it is, this is just about everything needed here.
Arrange for printing and fulfillment: I’ll probably have the book printed somewhere hereabouts and then mail copies to those who wanted it on paper. I’ll worry about that after the book’s otherwise done.
Summary roadmap
There’s probably some things I’m forgetting right now, but the newsletter is for quick drafting, not careful deliberation. The main take-away here is that the above is maybe… two weeks of work? Just gotta get it done. Might even be finished at the end of the month if I attack with zeal after wrapping up this newsletter and don’t run into anything that’ll particularly slow me down.
Coup review: Septuagint Deliberations
Ten sessions have gone by since my last general update on how Coup de Main in Greyhawk is doing, so it’s review time again. Update the high score tables, general observations on how the campaign’s doing, etc. The actual session #70 (I time these reviews on the online campaign’s session numbering) went by during my January vacation, so this is technically a bit late, but so is the newsletter overall. The spot-check numbers and such are from after session #73, to be precise for posterity.
Here are the prior reviews for comparison:
The original campaign pitch
The Decaton Review
The Icosiad Celebrations
The Tritonian Review
The Quadratic Review
The Anniversary Jubilee
The Hexadecaton Review
For me the decaton was most defined by my writing hiatus and the unusually high number of skipped sessions thorough. Those are clearly connected, but on the other hand I was heartened by how well the campaign rolled on even without my constant presence, so I’ll count that as a win. The actual adventures have been progressive, with both crews grappling with the slowly emerging mid-tier challenges.
I’ll need to do some real prep on long-standing campaign initiatives to not needlessly curtail the growth of ambitions, though. There are some mid-levels adventure materials that must be actively prepared for the campaign to be able to move in those directions, such as more careful specs on the cities of Greyhawk and Hardby, and the Eurofighter Initiative adventure. Assuming I get those done, we could see the campaign develop into full mid-tier maturity over the coming year!
Scenarios played
The Greyhawk crew missed a fair number of weekly sessions over the winter holidays, so the decaton actually stretched to about four months of real time (as opposed to the nominal two and a half that it’d take if we managed to play weekly). Of course the decaton is still exactly ten sessions of play for this campaign branch nevertheless, so you’d expect roughly as much action as usual:
Ruined Monastery of St. Clewd was a flashy adventure with a creepy undead crow spirit, lost children (including a noble kid!), a CHAOS HYDRA and a forgotten treasure lair thoroughly, entirely cursed. This was part of Tuomas’s Coup-de-Gnarley initiative, where the adventurers had defeated a dragon earlier and were now a big-brass mid-tier adventuring party who could harness the Cuthbertian bishop of Narwell to help them with their issues with the pharaoh’s curse and whatnot. The party, involving most of the A-list characters of the campaign, even has a name now, which I enjoy: they’re called the Knights Temp.
Elfquest in Castle Greyhawk is something I started conducting in December, as Tuomas was busy with real life stuff and I’d been on hiatus from the campaign long enough. Some simple megadungeon dungeoneering would be just fine. The premise of the Elfquest campaign arc involved a callback to session #39 (30 sessions ago!) when the elves kidnapped Frida the Teenage Witch and some less important PC adventurers to join them on the valiant quest. As is often the case with mortal affairs, the Elfquest imploded spectacularly after a few sessions of dungeon action, but not before managing to again map the convoluted environs of Greyhawk, particularly the Mouths of Madness, a fair bit. Enjoyable megadungeoneering, I thought, and an opportunity to exercise characters who aren’t adventuring in the Gnarley with Tuomas.
The Gryphon Mountain venture is something the Knights Temp got involved in in the aftermath of their adventures in the cursed monastery of St. Clewd. Specifically, while the Cuthbertian temple was able to help the less sinful party members with their treasure-curse issues, the high-ironically-Evil Sven the Viking was left helpless after eating the Chaos Hydra, and various associated hijinks, left him Alignment-incompatible with that. Seeking help from a wizard, Sven committed the Knights Temp to a fetch quest in exchange for his healing. The adventure itself hasn’t had the time to actually begin quite yet on account of a side venture in Illmire stealing our attentions, but we’ll get there.
The best part of that last adventure is that I’m playing in there with a player character! The Bard has yet to gain much in the way of points, but he’s doing good work for the Knights Temp in the party face department.
Meanwhile, the Sunndi crew has also been playing. While the online group had been skipping sessions over the holiday season, the same goes for the Sunndians, so there’s basically just been the one venture:
Tomb of the Iron God is a classic adventure module that Sipi refereed for the crew while I was on hiatus. It took the last quarter of ’21 to conduct, and while the reports I’ve gotten back from the period are a bit patchy, I understand that the adventure was generally a big success: the party managed to form an accord with one of the major bandit groups running roughshod over the principality of Dhalmond, and then settled the bandits at the Temple of the Iron God after cleansing it of the worst of the opprobrium of dark dark magic. I’m most impressed of how the party managed to not release the Eater of the Dead from the Temple.
The High Score Table
I list characters of 2nd level or higher. Characters entering from prior campaigns only enter the honor rolls after having showings (leveling), tracked unlisted as “ringers” until then. Name Level’s the Dream, so all honor to the high achievers!
| Score | Character | League | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reigning | 18 658 XP (13 226) | Sven Torsson Mint Reaver (Barbarian 4) | Selintan |
| Runner‑Up | 13 283 XP (ditto) | Phun Eral Mint Foil Magister of Wee Jas (Theurgist 4) | Selintan |
| 2nd RU | 12 707 XP (9 728) | Rob Banks Near-Mint Foil Elder Brother (Thief 5) | Selintan |
| Honors Roll | 8 773 XP (7 222) | Artemur Fairy Blade Weredeer (Fighter/Elf-Friend 3) | Selintan |
| 2nd | 7 117 XP (ditto) | Magister of the Song (Cultist 4) | Sunndi |
| 3rd | 5 882 XP (2 279) | Kermit the Hermit Savage Forester 3 | Selintan |
| 4th | 4 654 XP (3 910) | Ælfstan Foil Immaculate (Monk 3) | Selintan |
| 5th | 4 471 XP (-) | Stone Battlecreek Half-Orc Barbarian Retainer 2 | Selintan |
| 6th | ~3 650 XP (-) | Bard the Eunuch Chorister Bard 2 | Sunndi |
| 7th | 2 813 XP (-) | Sparrow Royal Inquisitor (Paladin 2) | Sunndi |
| 8th | 2 739 XP (ditto) | Peter Pandemic Wild Goat Ranger (Ranger 2) | Selintan |
| 9th | 2 535 XP (ditto) | Lalli Praetor of Fear (Blackguard 3) | Sunndi |
| 10th | 2 580 XP (2 517) | Fridswid the Elflock (Elf-Friend / Witch 2) | Selintan |
| 11th | 2 566 XP (-) | Aku The Akuma Wizard the Book 2 | Sunndi |
| 12th | 2 510 XP (ditto) | Rocky Balboa Fightin’ Cultivator (Fighter 2) | Sunndi |
| 13th | 2 349 XP (2 307) | Saad Maan Mint Baklun Evil Fighter 2 | Selintan |
| 14th | 2 232 XP (-) | Timppa the Warrior Doublepurse (Fighter 2) | Sunndi |
| 15th | 2 218 XP (1 865) | Bob Wretch Foil Commoner 3 | Selintan |
| 16th | 1 570 XP (-) | Trumhal Forkner Half-Orc Assassin Retainer 3 | Selintan |
| ~4 702 XP (ditto) | John Hawkwood Slave Chevalier (Paladin 3) | migrating ringer | |
| 31 030 XP (ditto) | Luigi de Luca foil Saint (Theurgist 6) Second Ultramontain | migrating ringer | |
| 1 435 XP (ditto) | Senja Foreign Battle Master (Fighter 3) | migrating ringer |
I added a couple of new Sunndian adventurers who might have been eligible for the lists last time as well, now that I had the campaign materials on hand. Still might be missing some, the player folders sure are a confusing mess. I also added a couple of retainer types; with the campaign protocols developing, I’ve been convinced that retainers really are characters that gain XP, so it behooves us to track them in the statistics as well.
As you can see, the top of our campaign pyramid has gone up by a massive 5k points since the last time, with Sven the Viking racing to seize the championship crown. Tuomas has been busy GMing, so obviously Phun Eral, our long-reigning champion, hasn’t been putting in the work. Same goes for many other adventurers, particularly on the Sunndi side, where play hasn’t been quite as active over the winter. Still, many very promising candidates are throwing themselves at the brick wall of mid-tier success, and the honor rolls are longer than ever, with 16 entrants in total! We also haven’t had any deaths on the roll; on the one hand I’d like to see some blood (always good for the ethos), but then again it’s great for growth if we manage to keep all these cadres alive and adventuring.
Coup de Gnarley has in general been fairly good for the Selintan league, as the heuristic Tuomas has used in picking out the adventures to play (he’s basically gone through the recommended favourites of Ten Foot Pole when populating Gnarley) seems like it favours kinda showy, high-ish stakes, high rewards stuff. We haven’t really had any thorough lemons there, and the party is strong enough to generally make good progress against these adventures. Might look very different with an all-1st-level lineup, I imagine.
AP Report Pile: Coup de Main #70
In mid-January Tuomas returned to GM for us, so we set the Castle Greyhawk stuff aside and went back to a tricky campaign situation that had been left to wait for further developments back in session #65: the Knights Temp had looted the monastery of St. Clewd, where they ran smack dab into a roiling tangle of curses that caused the entire party to lose their ability to sleep. This is obviously a desperate situation that would lead to death on the order of weeks, so the party didn’t waste any time pulling on any and all strings to convince the locap clergy of St. Cuthbert to cleanse them of the curses. Except, Sven and Stone, the dynamic barbarian duo who are much too cool to give a flying fuck about Alignment, had slipped into being Chaotic Evil (what with eating Chaos Hydra and wearing the Iron Crown of Evil as a fashion statement), so the ritual didn’t work for these sinners. That’s where we’d left it before the holidays.
I created a character for the game myself before this session and participated in the pre-session strategic maneuvering. The party had had trouble talking a locally situated wizard into helping Sven with his curse, but fortunately I’d rolled a high-CHA character, The Bard, who then proceeded to act as an intermediary and negotiate Sven (and his doughty sidekick, Stone) some wizard-consultation time.
The wizard proved a capable generalist, whom we carefully calculated to indeed be capable of ritual casting Remove Curse in his laboratory, so it seemed like Sven wouldn’t need to die from lack of sleep after all. As for the price, we readily agreed with the wizard to do a fetch quest: a starmetal relic lies in the sanctum of an abandoned temple on top of a mountain inhabitated by griffons, so says the wizard’s divination. Sounds like a job for the Knights Temp!
So that was pretty much pre-session. In the actual session, well, Tuomas has continued writing up fairly detailed yet not insanely so session descriptions, so I’ll just save myself the trouble and quote him:
Adventures of Knights Temp continue in the picturesque Gnarley Forest!
Knights Temp spend couple of days preparing for their next big adventure in Narwel by hiring henchmen and buying supplies and equipment. After having done they headed to little town of Illmire, closest nest of civilization to the mountain that hid their target, Periapt of the Dark Star.
Journey to Illmire went without big incidents. They met some faeries and got helpful tips dealing with griffons and herald of the duke of Narwel was returning from Greyhawk hinting about the duke hiring mercenaries and adventurers for some purpose.
In Illmire situation didn’t look good, Rob was mistaken for being part of some gang by stable hand and he heard about something called “Fearmother”. One of the party’s new henchmen disappeared from his room overnight. Investigation revealed that some of the local seemed to be under some charm as they behaved very oddly. The town temple of Pelor was boarded up and closed for renovations and the priest seemed rather extreme in his sermons on the town square. Furthermore, some monks seemed to be patrolling around the closed down temple.
Knights Temp where highly suspicious, they thought their henchman had been kidnapped and rescue was discussed in private. The temple and priest also drew lots of suspicion and Knights decided to check it first. The Bard provided distraction while Rob Banks scaled the temple wall and peeked inside. There was devastation and desecration! Rob also checked suspicious mausoleum and found hidden passage to someplace underground.
That’s a fair summary of what happened. This Illmire business came up because Illmire happens to be a pesky little shithole of a dying mining town that’s also the closest bit of habitation to the Gryphon Mountain. The party had visited there once before my hiatus, noted that they clearly have some kind of Innsmouth situation (weird cultist town next to a misty lake), and moved on, because not our town and adult adventurers don’t need to snap at every bait the GM lays before them.
We were totally planning to let Illmire continue stewing in its weird cult business this time as well: just find out any local lore about the Gryphon Mountain, maybe hire a scout or two, stock up on food and be on our way. But no, the cultists had to decide that young Will was easy prey for their human kidnapping operation, so now we had to root out that cult.
Thing is, the cult made a huge damn mistake. One of the Knights Temp is Sven goddamn Viking Reaver. He’d murder that entire town on his own. The cult better hope they have something big in that church to stop a mid-tier Barbarian. or I guess young Will is the Chosen One, and they just hadda gotta musta have him, the dumb fucks.
(“Young Will” is a NPC hireling we got for the party in Narwell before leaving for the adventure. His distinction is that he’s the youngest of four new ‘lings, three of whom are poachers who joined up with us to get away from the local law. Will is the younger brother of one of the poachers, and the only one of the four who doesn’t know how to shoot a bow. He also got sick on the road, and is generally just useless for anything except getting kidnapped, apparently.)
At this point this is all in the past, more or less, but I guess instead of continuing the story right now I’ll ration it up for a few more newsletters.
Session #74 is scheduled for tomorrow, Monday 14.2., starting around 15:00 UTC. Feel free to stop by if you’re interested in trying the game out or simply seeing what it’s like.
State of the Productive Facilities
Well, I discussed the immediate plans in detail in the feature article. I’m finishing up this newsletter on Saturday, and I just unfortunately sprained a muscle in my inner thigh while ski’ing, so I guess that leaves me with extra time for office work while waiting for that to heal.