Code Monkey Publishing

[Havard]

However, I am perhaps most interested in your personal plans, Havard.
--Is there any chance you are willing to disclose a hint or two?

Well, there are several regions outside the Blackmoor map that I intend to develop. The Thonian Empire is one of course. I am also using Mystara lore to explore other parts of the continent.

According to Mystaran history, you have a region populated by South American type cultures as well as Dwarves and Giants. Could be fun to develop further....

Havard

[Havard]

Well,
just went back to CMP's site. Nothing new with regards to the Shaedrath/New Lands project or the previews that were supposed to be released in May.

Havard

[Rafael]

RPG supplements and publication schedules.

I think Wizards is the first company IN THE HISTORY OF ROLEPLAYING that delivers its products at a date even remotely near the first announced one.

[Havard]

Good point Rafe.

This just in from CMP:

Not much to say this week, I was waylaid by other real life obligations this week.

Some more writing/typing got done on the Dungeons book, some more DB tweaks got done for the apps, and coders are coding.

I still did NOT get to those last 5 people, and I apologize for that!

The Shaedraeth freebie/teaser stuff I've been working on - waiting for a couple minor art things before I get it out to you all... If I don't get them during this week, then I'll simply get them up without them (I'd prefer to have the art, but...) and when I do get the art, then I'll re-release the little buggers.

That's it for this week... back to those other real life obligations now. :x

W. Robert Reed III
Mynex
- #1 Evil Monkey
- Code Monkey Publishing Owner
- Summum Malorum Simius

Source: https://codemonkeypublishing.biz/index. ... c&topic=57 (17.7.2010)

Havard

[Rafael]

Not trying to disrespect Robert or anyone else, but I will believe in the new books when I hold them in my hands.

[Havard]

Well, I see where you are coming from on this one...


Havard

[Havard]

This just in from CMP:

General Background - 5 years ago, along one of the main trade roads (still a few hundred miles away from serious civilization though) the WelcomeBack Inn appeared, fully formed and open for business... 9 months ago a pair of massive Doors appeared behind the Inn leading into the Dungeons... The brave and foolish have been going into it's depths since then... Most have not returned... the few who have speak of a massive complex many levels deep, confusing stairs, and random teleportations... and monsters throughout the place... Some lucky few end up teleported 30' above lake Orianus for unknown reasons, but the patrons of the Inn sit along the Inn's defensive walls taking bets on whether or not someone ends up taking a 'Dungeon Bath' whenever someone enters the dungeon.

Where in Relation to Blackmoor - Unknown Blackmoor is not a known name (legally none at all - if it were mapped it would be West by northwest - past the plains of Hak over the mountains)

Time in relation to Blackmoor - None - because of the legal aspects the timeline is vastly different...

Timeline - yes there will be one... kinda needs to be... in the Dungeons of the Lost Moorlands book it will be a very truncated version since the timeline has little impact on the module itself.

In the Dungeons Book - no. It's a dungeon crawl.

Ever-burning Torches - Nope. It'll just be one of life's little mysteries! ;p

W. Robert Reed III
Mynex
- #1 Evil Monkey
- Code Monkey Publishing Owner
- Summum Malorum Simius

The above is a response to questions from Sheridan, so it may seem a bit more confusing than needed.

-Havard

[Havard]

Latest from CMP:

On the writing side, in short; Gaining Steam

Other than putting some holiday's on it, and prettying it up a bit more, the Calendar for Shaedraeth is complete (As in an actual calendar year from/for the start date of the campaign setting, 13mos of weather, events, moon phases, and holidays!)... The holiday's needing population are for the Deities...

There are 30 Deities for Shaedraeth, and all 30 are written up except for some mechanics (Rituals/Powers/Few Paths) and Some Myths/Rumors on a few of them. Getting them into electronic format is on my docket for this week, then getting the art into place and layout for them.

As part of the Deities information, is the cosmology of Shaedraeth. This is half written, the other half requiring me to sit for about 3 hours to focus on, then type it up an get in into the layout with the Deities info.

Why so long on Deities? Because I'm not using the abbreviated version that's in 4e, I'm using the old (sort of) method (1e/2e) with a ton of information on the deities, physical stats, preferences, relations, church/temple info, etc... Why? Because the Deities in Shaedraeth are very hands on with the Mortal population... for reasons that will be made clear.

The last section on deities will be the Religious Organizations themselves for each Deity. Structure, daily devotions, special/recurring holidays (or Rituals), followers, including stat blocks for the leaders, etc. This one I have only scribbled notes on, even though they're all in my head at the moment.

Sounds like a lot right? It is. Sounds like it is going to be a separate book right? It is.

But what about the Dungeons of the Lost Moorlands Book you ask? Glad you did! I've gotten 15 levels of it written up (sans stat blocks, which I'll explain in a moment) and 6 levels of it typed up. The remaining 6 levels I have 'pseudo-written', i.e. I've got all my notes, just need to put them in a logical, readable (to others) order.

Then I have to make the maps, which I'm leaning towards using Campaign Cartographer 3 for. First, I'm familiar with the ProFantasy Products. Second, since this is going to be a PDF product, I don't see the reason to limit the maps to 8 1/2 by 11 for book printing (They will of course be in that size for those who want to print the book out though), but I'm looking at it from the 4e mini's perspective, battlemaps.

Then it's stat blocks. Contrary to what many people may think about 4e, making stat blocks is easy. Adjusting stat blocks for Tiers and levels _can_ be difficult, but with the ATL Matrix™ I've come up with, that's easy as pie! Getting the presentation IN the text, after figuring out the first one, i.e. the best way, then that's also easy as pie!

Then it's layout and art.

I'm aiming for a christmas release for both the Deities and Dungeons book. That will depend a lot on my art people, but it's looking good at this point.

I'm aiming for the end of this month, beginning of next month to get the Calendar out (for free!)... That will depend on whether I decide to add a timeline of Shaedraeth onto it.


In other news;
I debated mentioning this, finally (obviously) decided to... I was negotiating with a large publisher to get their material into RPGF, and while the interest was their on both sides, the lawyers mucked it all up, as they're wont to do. *sigh* We may revisit them again next year, but we'll have to see where things are at that time.

No, it wasn't WotC, and no, I won't get into who it was or wasn't...

I simply wanted to let you know between everything else (Writing, Merton, Negotiations, and Real Life in general) the why/what of me being silent.

CMP Continues to trudge forward. At times we may be on life support, but, in the immortal words of Monty Python:

"I'm Not Dead Yet!"

W. Robert Reed III
Mynex
- #1 Evil Monkey
- Code Monkey Publishing Owner
- Summum Malorum Simius

Source: https://codemonkeypublishing.biz/index. ... c&topic=83

-Havard

[Havard]

Nothing going on at CMP's forum since October.

-Havard

[Havard]

In a word: Horrid.

But you all knew, or at least figured that, from the silence of the last few months and no release of books at Christmas time.

So what happened? In short, failure of people to adhere to contracts.

I had completed writing (and typing up) of The Dungeons of the Lost Moorlands, Shaedraeth: The Tide of Years (Calendar and event book, short), and Faith & Fervor (Gods & Religious Organizations books)

I had contracted an Editor, a Layout person, an Artist, and a Cartographer

The artist had his list of what's what - They simply failed to deliver on the appointed due date and literally disappeared off the face of the planet (I literally cannot find this person, real life or anywhere on the web now)

The editor failed to deliver on time, started giving me excuses, then simply said they were not going to do the work and refused to return the physical copies and the electronic ones to me.

Without the physical or the electronic copies, I could not get them to the layout person or the cartographer, both of whom are now engaged with other work.

Given our track record of writers, artists, and other sundry, but required people to turn out a book of great quality, I was more than a little incensed. This is not the first time we (CMP) has been shafted by people thatwe've contracted, and in several instances, paid in advance.

So I went after the editor legally. It is considered a civil matter when one is in breach of contract, so I had to do it through the civil courts.

I could not talk about ongoing legal issues, but finally 2 weeks ago, we won. The person was found in breach of contract, required to return all materials within 2 weeks, and has to pay all the legal fees involved.

Well, yesterday was the 2 week mark... and what I got back was... Not everything. Not even close. It was only a part of my written material on Dungeons and the Gods books... and by part I meant about 10% of it. None of the maps, none of the electronic copies...

And their excuse to the judge? My kid set fire to house!!! Which was apparently true it turns out, However the funny thing is, the portions that were returned do not smell of smoke, there's no water damage, and no fire damage. Truly a miracle!

I made note of this to the Judge, the Judge asked this person, this person said that the papers in question were in thier car because they'd left them there from working on them a few months back and 'forgotten they were there'.

???...???...???

Ok, so why the hell didn't I have a backup of the electronic copy? I did.... 3 of them... Hard Drive in my computer and 2 flash drives...

So what the hell happened to them? Electrical surge into my computer. Not enough to cause a 'melt down', but enough to fry my MB, Memory, and Hard Drives... and of course fry both flash drives (and a couple other usb devices I had plugged in).

But that happened before the editor went awol/stupid... So I wasn't overly worried about it, and when I initially asked for an electronic copy back, our schedules simply didn't coincide to get together...

Yes, I know the editor in real life, was a friend of mine that I did trust, and was local to me... Same for the artist...

We (CMP) had tried numerous people for these types of positions before, but mostly people referred to us, came along with previous projects, and almost always we had met only a few times... And given the horrid track record of people before, I decided to use people I know and were local to me for the critical positions needed.

... ... ... ...

I can not describe how angry, frustrated, and in general disgusted I am... I just can't... even those words are not enough...

So what now?

I'm still sorting things out, seeing exactly what I have in hand... rewriting is what's going to happen, I simply have to decide where to start and get to it...

Considering that the total amount of pages was right around 1000 (That's in word, dual column, not art holding spots), it's going to take no little time to rewrite it all.

As for art... I think I'm going to go against the grain and 'common wisdom' and have no art at all in the books... unless I find decent, appropriate, free art somewhere.... There are page/cover templates I've found that can be used for commercial use that I like...

Cartography... Guess I'll finally have to sit down and truly learn CC3...

I know the basics of layout within Adobe's CS...

In other words, I'm simply going to have to do it all... since we (CMP) has had so little luck with hiring outside people that actually adhere to their contractual obligations.


I know, on top of this, that there's going to be some people laughing their asses off at CMP, saying "They can't do anything at all" and just generally knocking us about, etc...

Well out track record so far prooves them right, sadly... and maybe it still will down the road... But I'll be damned if I don't give it my all...

It's all I can do.

W. Robert Reed III
Mynex
- #1 Evil Monkey
- Code Monkey Publishing Owner
- Summum Malorum Simius

The latest from CMP. Not very uplifting.

-Havard