The biggest slowdown on work at the moment involves pinning down a first drafting of magic notes. I’ve scrapped two approaches thus far because the things I want to do with it seem to tug in different directions. *sigh* I am going to be forced to compromise somewhere along the line.

Current thoughts involve limiting elemental/natural magic to the Elves, this slots into their appearance fluff which denotes that their hair (eyes and other features too depending on power) reflects an elemental origin. I am suggesting to GMs that they offer Elven mages a chance to develop features that denote an increase in power by whichever level-up marker they feel best. The additional reflections of power tend to be a shift in skin hue, arcane tattoo about the face or chest and in some cases a rare (but beautiful) mutation. Other forms of magic are more open, or device dependent.

Anyway, I digress… The more I suffered on the subject the more inclined I was to look at Savage Worlds again and so I’m preparing the work with more of an eye to Savage Worlds. Notes are still going to be made for use with Anno Geometrica. In keeping with this I’m going to try and release an open draft to download at some point, this will involve me stalling settlement work a little to release it with only Furnace Town active. This means I can get feedback from generous playtesters and drop the time-consuming settlement work in at later stages.

I’ve started using Derwent graphitint pencils to work-up sketchy artwork for the system, I don’t think the scans do them justice but I’ll work on that when I have a bit more time to tweak settings. I promised I’d show off some of the work done with them so far, so here are the first two pieces…

The above reflects my current ideas on the elemental nature of the Elves, this particular Elf draws the power of air, I have referred to him as an acolyte of storms…

The above is an equipment draft for Dwarven PCs, their tower shield is one of the mightiest tools at work in tunnel warfare along with the Jade-core Splinter. The Jade-core Splinter is mildly arcane, giving off a faint glow and increasing the chances of penetrating magical shields, barriers or armour.

Apologies for the lack of updates for the last few months, every single time I got close to typing up a new entry something more important jumped on my back and forced me down.

-Tompl