Sorry for the Radio Silence!

Getting the ACKS Imperial Imprint ready has kept me busy.

Feb 13, 2024

I haven’t updated this blog since last year, nor have I released any further episodes of Arbiter of Worlds on YouTube. Do not despair! I have not abandoned you, my loyal readers and watchers, nor have I turned my back on gaming or YouTube.

Rather, I have been exceptionally busy finalizing all aspects of the ACKS Imperial Imprint. Today over at Kickstarter, I released the latest playtest versions of the Revised Rulebook, Judges Journal, and Monstrous Manual are now available. Today's update was quite major:

The Judges Journal now includes the commissioned adventurers that our high-tier backers made possible. There are now four full NPC parties in the book - Orison's Devotion, The Company of the North, The Drakonian Guard, and The Prophet's Entourage.
The Judges Journal now includes optional rules for distinguishing between different types of shields, such as bucklers, kite shields, and tower shields.
The Judges Journal's Settlements chapter now includes an entry for Amphitheaters. Every town needs an arena!
A number of minor tweaks have been made to the Custom Spells system to avoid a over-powered combinations that only fiendish Discordians would notice.
The Monstrous Manual now includes the commissioned monsters that our high-tier backers requested. Check out the Death Knight, Cairn-Dweller, Living Ancestor, Phoenix, Tokay Gull, and Wild Huntsmen.
The Revised Rulebook now includes the commissioned rituals that our high-tier backers imagined. Apotheosis, Consonant Transit, Consume Power, Emissary, Flying Fortress, Magic Mushrooms, Palace of Sulaimon, Ranine Rain, Seven-League Stride, Shadeveil, Spawn of the Deep, and Youthfulness await!
The Revised Rulebook's naval combat rules have been revised to more accurately reflect the speed of naval vessels on the battlemap. The result of doing so was to eliminate 'phased' movement, which had proven problematic in ship vs monster combat.
The Revised Rulebook's reconnaissance rules have updated to make it easier to track and handle scouting by multiple armies, as well as to clarify the exact effects of magic on recon.
The Revised Rulebook's supply rules have been updated. Prisoners fed to carnivorous troops now provide the same gp value of meat as they would if fleshed and butchered using the rules for harvesting components in the Monstrous Manual. My apologies to all my flesh-eating backers for not properly accounting for this previously.
The revised Rulebook's weather conditions have been updated to include "Cold" in between "Mild" and "Frigid", so that snow no longer melts in 20F weather. Presumably if I ever went outdoors I would have spotted this error sooner.

The files are very, very close to what will be laid out into the PDF. The book is scheduled to begin layout in March. We have retained the Ennie Award winning layout artists from MonkeyBlood Design & Publishing to do the layout and I am confident they will produce an absolutely fantastic PDF and print book. Layout will take approximately 6-8 weeks, so I anticipate that you will have PDFs by the end of May, if all goes well.

The Grey Brotherhood

Since my last newsletter, I’ve released four more episodes of the Grey Brotherhood.

Arbiter of Worlds will be returning soon; my brother - who is the audio engineer - has been in a crunch mode at home and work, but when his schedule clears we’ll resume. I might even livestream!

Yar, We be Pirates Now!

I will soon be launching a new ACKS II campaign for my home group. I've entitled it Pirates of the Syrnasos. It is set in the Syrnasos Islands, west of the Auran Empire, approximately 2 years after the start date of Sinister Stone of Sakkara. It will focus on the new mercantile and nautical rules that are featured in ACKS II and might, possibly, even cause me to create mass combat rules for naval combat. The abundant material I write for my home game will, of course, be appearing on the Autarch Patreon, alongside 2E updates to existing books and future releases.

Ascendant Rogues Gallery

The hardcover copies of Ascendant Rogues Gallery has shipped out and is currently on the water. The ETA to the U.S. port is February 28, and the predicted final delivery date to the fulfillment house in TN is March 15. Once they arrive, all US backers will get their Rogues Gallery tomes sent to them, while my long-suffering overseas backers will get their full suite of products and add-ons.

Actual Play of ACKS

There are more people playing ACKS today than at any point in the game’s 12-year history. It’s incredibly gratifying to me as a designer and it gives me hope that ACKS II will reach an even broader base.

With the help of the Autarch Discordians, I compiled some links to some other ACKS campaigns:

And here’s our flourishing Substack community:

If you have a blog or third-party product that supports ACKS or Ascendant, please let me know and I’ll be happy to include you in my next round-up.

Support the Community

Once you’ve pledged for the Discord, head on over to these community links:

Arbiter of Worlds