A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to DHAMPIR


Robin's probably going to make me rework the cover a bit.
In fact, I think I just figured out how to solve a design issue.

I wrote a different adventure instead. Robin and I are both running some TKiD games at Chupacabracon in Austin in a couple of weeks, and Robin felt she had a better grasp of the plot and nuances of DHAMPIR than she did the other adventure we planned to run, so I wrote the other one instead. It’s called VARGR, and it’s about a bloodthirsty cannibal you have to save from the vampires trying to kill him.

(Yes, “save.” I can't seem to stay away from moral ambiguity even though the setting was supposed to be "The French Revolution except there's no guilt over killing the aristos because they're vampires.")

Hilariously, VARGR is a sequel to certain events in DHAMPIR, but the connection is invisible if you're not one of the five people who has played DHAMPIR. The adventure is pretty short, but including all the pre-generated characters, NPC stats, new crunch, and introductory material plumps the whole thing out to about 30 pages. Unexpectedly writing a different adventure and final tweaks to the layout and art means there were delays and so we probably won’t be finished until tomorrow, meaning it probably won’t be published until Thursday.

Robin’s doing a lovely job on layout, and using period art is turning out to be more evocative and fun than expected – though choosing particular pieces has sometimes been a pain. (I suddenly find myself fantasizing about using some kind of weird, mash-up collage style for the interior art. I doubt the larger Savage Worlds audience would enjoy it.) The increased professionalism of the final product is one of the elements slightly stretching out the completion date.

Hopefully, it will be available on May the Fourth -- which would be funny because of some vague Star Wars allusions in the latter part of the adventure. Wish us luck!

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