To celebrate the launch of the Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein Facebook pages, here’s a competition to kick things off.

Anyone who posts a picture of their DH: LoF group to the Facebook photo album during May and June (of 2011) will be entered into a draw to win a signed copy of the Core Rulebook, with scribbles in it from as many of the creative types involved as I can nab between now and July.

This past weekend was the public unveiling of the game at Conpulsion 2011.  My sincere thanks to the organisers, and to Simon Proctor for running the two demo games.  Both of those games were fully subscribed.  In both, a unique t-shirt and a copy of the PDF were awarded to the player who contributed most to the experience – though in the first game the shirt was given to the only person in the group it would fit.  You naughty snack-munchers you!    A pair of PDF’s and t-shirts were also donated to the event charity auction, adding a modest total of £60 to the takings.  A few of us were around for the day, and pics were taken, as you can quite clearly see here.

There will be other demos of Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein run periodically at events Cubicle 7 attend, and also by Simon.  A signing session is going to be organised for Aberdeen in the near future, and Steve Ironside is going to be running the game for his local club there.  Watch these news pages and the forums for further announcements. 

Speaking of demos, the scenario Simon used at Conpulsion 2011 is to be written up and added to the site, complete with illustrations from Rowena Aitken.  Steve Ironside is going to write up the adventure he used in playtesting the setting, and I’m intending to get some unique art for that too.

Plans are afoot for the expansion of the Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein IP so, again, watch this space.  I’m looking forward to making further exciting announcements over the coming months.  Of course, those of us who are working on the future of DH want you, the folks who buy, read and play, to be part of that.  Use the forums to tell us what you think of the book, share the stories of what and who you encounter in Promethea, and let us know what you want to see next.  We’re listening!

For now, I’m off to have a cuppa to celebrate.

Onwards!

The review can be found elsewhere on this site, or at the Geek Native website: http://www.geeknative.com/19074/dark-harvest-the-legacy-of-frankenstein-review/

If you’re looking for a chance to see what all the fuss is about, myself and several of the other Dark Harvest folks will be at Conpulsion 2011.  It runs from Friday the 25th of March through to Sunday the 27th, at the Teviot Row House Students’ Union, Bristo Square, Edinburgh.  Simon Proctor will be running two demo games on the Saturday, and I’ll be up with Chris Baylis talking about getting games published on the Sunday.  Feel free to have a chat or just say hello to any of the DH contributors over the weekend.

Full details of all the events can be found on the website: http://www.geas.org.uk/conpulsion/

See you there, I hope!

A bit like giving birth.

(I’m told.)

Anyway…

Yesterday, the 15^th of February, was a HUGE landmark date in the project.  On that day the final approval of the print and e-book pdfs came through from Dominic at Cubicle 7.  At the same time, I was given the as-near-as-damn-it release date for the book – the 13^th of April, 2011.  Now I’m just waiting to see print proofs from, well, the printer Cubicle 7 use and that’ll be that.  The book has been available to pre-order internationally for a number of months now.  This was very exciting, particularly as we hadn’t entirely finished the thing when pre-orders became possible…

Let me fill you in on everything that’s been happening since we last spoke.

Just before Christmas, the very brilliant Andrew Peregrine and Walt Ciechanowski handed in their work on the RPG chapter.  They battled through colds and flu to do so, might I add.  Such heroes!!  It was then turned over to Steve Ironside and Neil Wiseman, with a few contributions from me.  Steve did the majority of the writing from this point, with additions from myself and Neil.  Neil was our expert spotter, pointing out things that were missing, unclear or generally messy.  This was invaluable.  When you’re close to a project, what seems obvious to you is occasionally less than obvious to a fresh pair of eyes.

The finished RPG chapter was handed in with two weeks to go before the final submission date – the 31^st of January.  James King had already laid out the majority of the book, complete with amazing new work from Rowena Aitken.  While James sorted out the RPG chapter and the rest, I got on with indexing.  I was determined the book would have a decent index.  As a gamer, I hate not knowing where things are, so I was determined readers of Dark Harvest would not have that issue.  However, I had no idea of the task I was taking on.  I can understand why there are companies that publisher friends of mine use who do nothing but indexing.  It took a full week and a bit to do, and nearly drove me mental, but it got done.  I was and am stupidly proud of that index.

So, James and I had a weekend to check the book.  At this point InDesign decided it would make our lives more interesting and would randomly take offence at where James and I wanted things.  Text would mysteriously move.  Administrative county maps would wander hither and thither.  On the Saturday before submission, I scan read the book half a dozen times checking for errors.  On Sunday the 30^th, the pdfs were done and sent, based on the last compiled version done by James at 4am.

Since then, things have continued to move on with the project.

I had the pleasure of sending a pdf copy of Dark Harvest to Ian Livingstone, OBE, to whom the book is in part dedicated.  That made me very happy.

Conpulsion 2011 in Edinburgh (http://www.geas.org.uk/conpulsion/) is looking like it’ll be the semi-formal unveiling of the game, as the fabness that is Simon Proctor has said he’ll demo the thing.  This will be, barring incident, the first time anywhere the gaming public will get a chance to have a glimpse into Promethea.  More details will be announced later.  Simon and I are going to work on the demo game, and I’m hoping to get Rowena to create art specifically for it.  The demo game will eventually, I hope find its way to the website.

Also on the website as of today is the Promethean map, as created by the wonderful Robert Coles.  I wanted to make the pdf available to you all so that you could fully appreciate the frankly incredible detail Robert has put into the map during the many, many months he worked on it.  Even now he’s not sure it’s finished, so it may well get updated further.

So, that’s it for this update.  More details of various things will be announced as time goes on but, in the meantime, I’m looking forward to hearing what folks make of Dark Harvest.

The Dark Harvest project hit an important milestone today, with two 95% complete rough-and-ready copies of the book going out to two VIPs for their perusal.  I’m now pacing the floor like an expectant father, waiting for their feedback.

Over the Bank Holiday weekend, Kim Roberts delivered her last art work for the project – two pieces to illustrate stories written by myself and Andrew Harman.  It’s always a massive buzz when you get great art to bring moments of you stories to life.  Good therapy for the first day of the working week!

I’m very happy to say that Corlen, the cover artist, is prepping a couple of little B&W pieces for the book, based on sketches from early in the cover design process.  Loving having more of Corlen’s work in Dark Harvest.

Robert Coles is working hard on the map.  We had long discussions about the Promethean border a week ago.  He and Andrew also had chats about the politics of maps – can you fully trust a map to be honest?  After all, we ‘hide’ military and other sensitive sites by not showing them on our maps in the UK.   The map prepared by the Promethean government won’t show its military bases, laboratories and suchlike.  Mention was made of a Resistance equivalent.  Watch this space folks – Robert might well be talking himself into extra work… 

All being equal, it looks like this month is still going to be the one featuring the big announcements of when the rest of the world gets to see Dark Harvest.  You’ll read it here first, and on my Twitter ravings (follow EmbraAgain if you Twitter), and if you live near enough to me to hear the “Woo-Hoo!”

Today’s pic: my desk – where lots of Star Wars has been happening.

Today’s pic: my desk – where lots of Star Wars has been happening.

Kim Roberts finished work on the Promethean flag on the 2nd of April, with some great feedback from Robert Coles worked into the final design.  I fear my brief was one of those horrible ones artists must dread; full of vague hints and idiotic statements like ‘I’ll know it when I see it.’  Still, Kim rose to the challenge, and the results are here for all to see.

Flag of Promethea

The flag commission came out of a sudden, horrified realisation that struck me when reading through the history bit before it went up on the site.  Promethea couldn’t not have a flag!  The very idea?

It always amazes me that the obvious isn’t always obvious, particularly when the project is so big and being created in ‘spare time’, whatever that is.
For now, Star Wars magazines call yet again, with more DH stuff to be done in the evenings.  I look forward to passing on more news in the near future.
Iain

When completed, it will mean that DH:LoF will be a stand-alone RPG, but with the delicious possibility of additional details and gaming options available thanks to its compatibility with the Victoriana books.With the expansion of the book, additional art has been commissioned.  Some of it will soon be available to view on the website of artist Scott Purdy.  Well post news and links here.  As soon as its finalised, well even give you a look at the cover of the book.  It has an ISBN and everything!
In the meantime, heres the press release that officially announces the whole thing.
Cubicle 7 Entertainment have a website of their own, of course, which is: http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/

Expect more news and updates as April grows closer.

Regards,
Iain