Hello, happy dogs! I had a wonderful time in Toronto at Fan Expo Canada, where I met a couple of Kickstarter backers (thank you again!) and made some new Pugmire fans. All of the Pugmire games I ran went well, and everyone seemed excited for the future!

When I got back, I immediately went heads-down for the final push on the Pugmire manuscript. And I’m happy to say…

PUGMIRE IS COMPLETE. I REPEAT, PUGMIRE IS COMPLETE.

Yes, the manuscript finally has all its words written! But before you grab a celebratory drink, I should quickly clarify that while I have a complete manuscript, it still needs some revision work by me, and then a pass by an editor who isn’t me to make sure that I didn’t accidentally write “dribble dribble dribble” somewhere. Then it goes to layout, and there’s a couple more passes between me and the layout artist. So, we still have a few months to go before a digital version of the book will be in your hands. But now I can start talking about getting art with Rich and the incredibly talented Mike Chaney, I can get the background material off to the anthology folks, and a lot of other things can move forward now that I have something resembling a complete game on my hands.

Okay, now you can have your drink, as I move on to other updates.

PUGMIRE PLAYTESTING!

As soon as I get things ready for the editor, I’ll compile a pre-edited manuscript of new bits that I could use some playtesting on. This will be things like revised tricks, new spells, and new enemies. I’m anticipating about 4 weeks of time for people to run the new material in their home game and send feedback, so if you have a group that’s interested in kicking some new rules around, see if they’re free in October!

PUGMIRE BACKER CHARACTERS

Last month I mentioned I was having a bit of trouble getting all the backer characters in. I was planning to discuss it with Rich, and right before the meeting I realized that just about all of the characters fit into the calling and breed spreads! So, 13 of the dog characters will have illustrations, official Pugmire names, and a quote. Here’s a small example of the text:

Ratters
“Most dogs say the only monsters are outside Pugmire’s walls, but I’ve seen civilized dogs do horrible things to each other. That’s why I’m here to dig out the real monsters, even if I have to break the law.”
— Satyrini Papillon
[ART NOTES: USE KICKSTARTER BACKER CHARACTER “SATYRINI PAPILLON”]

Some of those characters are also sprinkled through the rest of the text. For example:

The captain of the Royal Guard is chosen by the current ruler, and the rest of the Royal Guard are chosen by the captain. The current ruler, King Puckington, chose Sir Albert Corgi as his Captain of the Royal Guard, and Sir Albert has served faithfully ever since.

Also, two characters ended up as NPCs in the adventure, but I’ll leave that as a surprise. 🙂

As for the cat characters, I did discuss them with Rich, and I think we’ll probably save them for the Monarchies of Mau Early Access book. Since we’re hoping to have the Monarchies of Mau Kickstarter in early 2017, that’s not much of a wait, and all the cat characters will have a place where they’re the focus, instead of being shoved into a book about dogs.

PUGMIRE EARPLAY AND AUDIO DRAMA

This has been put off for a bit, but for good reason, as Earplay announced they have the license to product interactive audio products for Wraith: The Oblivion! So we put together a spooky ghost story for people at the Grand Masquerade in New Orleans. It was an insanely tight schedule, but everyone really loved the final result. It really showed us that people get the potential power of interactive audio, and I hope fans will love Pugmire Earplay just as much. We did learn that it doesn’t take much time to go from the germ of an idea to a final product, so once the Pugmire Earplay kicks into gear, things will move pretty quickly to getting the experience into your hands (certainly much faster than producing a full RPG book!).

PUGMIRE FICTION ANTHOLOGY

Jim and I are discussing contracts, but he’s already reached out to some writers, and thus far lots of folks are either eager to be on board, or they’re waiting to see if they can make time in their schedule. Once all the contracts are signed and pitches are accepted, I’ll let everyone know the final list of authors for the anthology, but so far I’m really excited about who is coming on board!

PAN’S GUIDE FOR NEW PIONEERS

Another project that was waiting on getting a final manuscript together was Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers, which is intended as a supplemental guide to teach people new to RPGs and Pugmire in particular how to play. I had a few weird ideas of how that product could evolve, but I knew I wasn’t going to have time to focus on it, since I have to shift gears to work on Monarchies of Mau.

I’m happy to report, however, that Matthew “Gentleman Gamer” Dawkins has agreed to be the developer for that product in my stead! I’ve had the privilege of working with Matt on a few different Vampire: The Masquerade products, and he also was kind enough to run a Pugmire game for me during the Kickstarter (check it out on YouTube if you missed it)

Like with Jim Lowder, I trust Matt with my world, and I think he’ll do a fine job with it. I’ve already brain-dumped much of my vague, weird ideas on him, and he’ll mulling them over. He’s a busy guy and has a lot of other projects to wrap up this month, but come October he should be able to focus on Pan’s Guide. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with!

SEE YOU IN OCTOBER!

My travel is done for the year, but I still have one more convention to attend. If you’re going to be at SIEGE in Atlanta on October 7th through the 9th, stop by! I’ll be hosting a panel on writing for franchises in video games, but I’ll be happy to chat about Pugmire or anything else during the show.

And with that, I’m back to work. See you next month!