The last update was pretty lengthy, since I had all sorts of news to share. This one will be shorter, but not because we’re lying down on the job! Indeed, we’re hard at work going through the revision process on most of the chapters – particularly the basics, like Aspects & Skills. A lot of the text was inherited from Spirit of the Century, so we’ve been going through and fix any inaccuracies that came up in tweaking FATE for the Dresden Files. Combine that with our editors hard at work going through the drafts we give them, and there’s a lot of work going on but not a lot to blog about.

Still, I have a couple neat points. One is that going back through chapters like Aspects has given us a neat opportunity. Often, we’ll get on the FATE mailing list or on various forums about how aspects work, such as if you can, as a player, compel an NPC’s aspect (which, by the way, you effectively can – check out “To Catch a King (Tagging for Effect)” on p. 42 of Spirit of the Century). Given the last couple years of experience in answering these questions, we’re going through the text to see how we could better present these options to players, focusing in part on making sure the terminology makes sense in the face of three years of public “playtesting”.

Lenny’s looking forward to talk about such things on the site in the future, though probably not often – we want him working on the book first and blogging second!

The other is that I got a chance at Dreamation to sit down with Jennifer Rodgers. She shared with me some pieces that are still in progress, and I have to say I’m always stunned by her work. But rather than tell you, let me show you one:

Oh yeah, that’s The Archive all right.  I can’t tell you how forward I am to seeing the finished version. I hope you’re as eager as I am!

Meanwhile, Fred and Clark are digging in on turning setting guru Chad Underkoffler’s text and notes into DFRPG style “statblocks”.  February did get away from them a little, but Clark’s Baltimore chapter is fully statted (if not yet fully vetted), and our “Goes Bump” (as in, “monsters what go bump in the night”) chapter is practically done as well.  The biggest monster of all, though — the “Who’s Who of the Dresdenverse” chapter — lies ahead of them.  They’re working on the battle plan as we speak.  Soldier on, gentlemen.

Before I sign off, I’d like to give a quick shout-out to our crack editing team: Amanda Valentine, Adam Dray and Chad Underkoffler. I mentioned above that we’re hard at work – we’ll, they’re definitely hard at work with what Lenny & I throw them. In particular, Chad’s been great with keeping the voice & tone of the text consistent. Good editors are too often unsung heroes in the publishing world, so I wanted to take a moment to tell them, “Thank you.”

With that, I’m back to the grindstone. I’ll catch up with you all in a few weeks.

- Ryan

For those who haven’t been a part of our alpha runs, you might not be familiar with one of the big design elements in DFRPG: mortal stunts & supernatural stunts. If you know Spirit of the Century, then you know stunts – those are pretty much what we think of as “mortal stunts” around these parts. And all those wicked awesome creature & wizard abilities are, of course, “supernatural stunts” (which we sometimes shorten to “powers”).

I mention that to say this: Lenny & I spent a couple weeks going over every single supernatural stunt, taking in alpha tester feedback and further observations, and tweaking the language to make it clearer and to consider some unexpected combinations of powers. Some of them were little things, but there were a couple that unexpectedly turned into multi-day conversations – the Toughness stunts started as a “eh, this’ll be quick, we’ll slam it out of the park” ideas that turned into a four-day conversation between Fred, Lenny & myself about how the various limiting factors (or “catches”) should work.

We’re pretty happy with the changes there, but it has eaten up more time than we expected. Along with that, Lenny & I have worked out applying Adam’s redlines on the Spellcraft chapter and working up text on “Sponsored Magic” – how the rules work when the magic you’re wielding comes from another power, like, say, the Summer or Winter Queen.

But, there’s a lot more to this project than just what Lenny & I have been working on!

Awesomeness incarnate, thy name is Clark Valentine. He handed us the Baltimore chapter – which is essentially an application of the City Creation chapter as a playable-out-of-the-box example. Now, I’ll be honest, the idea of playing in Chicago sounds fun, but I prefer to play in places that I could make my own. And I really want to play in Clark’s Baltimore. What he’s made is a fantastic, unstable web of politics and seething inhumanity that’s just ready to boil over, and he’s practically provided you with a dozen PC hooks into it (including just taking characters from the write-up, which is a City Creation method I particularly like). We’re not quite ready to leak anything from Baltimore, but I’m looking forward to when we can!

Our crack editing team of Amanda & Adam haven’t has as much work as we’d like them to have, mainly because Lenny & I have a lot on our plate to get pushed back to editing. But Lenny & Clark aren’t the only writers here! We’ve received the Chicago chapter from Kenneth Hite, and Amanda is going through that right now. I can’t tell you how eager I am to start going through it myself, though I have to get my own work done before I do.

I think that leaves us with what I like to call the Relentless March of Statblocking. Fred & Clark have been working hard stating up all the supernatural critters using our adjustments from supernatural stunts. If you’ve been following Fred on Twitter, you’ll see him talking about stat-blocking quite a bit. I know that I get excited every time, since every single one gets us closer to the goal: getting you a brilliant (and more importantly, finished!) book.

You know what? I’ve been geeking out over all this, and it’s probably hard to geek with me when I’m talking in shotgun updates. So, let’s share with you all what’s been exciting me. Here’s some of that sweet, sweet Fred statblocking action I mentioned:

He Who Walks Behind

Description: Whole appearance unknown, though he is said to have an inhuman face—and spines.

What We Know: AKA The Hunter of the Shadows, Lord of Slowest Terror.

Long considered by Harry Dresden just to be a major-league hunter demon or spectral hit man sent to kill him by Justin DuMorne, it turns out that He Who Walks Behind is the most powerful of all of the Walkers.

He Who Walks Behind has an “anti-sound” scream—a noise that absorbs other noises.

He sponsored the Evil Eye Franchise’s ritual entropy curse targeting Arturo Genosa’s female associates and can apparently possess mortal corpses for at least a short time.

Powers: He Who Walks Behind’s abilities include (as far as we can discern) tons of supernatural strength and toughness, can track nearly anything anywhere, can possess people once summoned, might be able to turn into a gaseous cloud, is covered in spines, can emit an “anti-scream” that eats sound, and can even be called upon to empower rituals without fully entering into our world. Except for evidence that it’s been beaten before, this creature looks to be practically undefeatable.

Weaknesses: Since He Who Walks Behind is the Lord of the Slowest Terror, it’s possible that his normal speed is slower than even a mortal’s usual top speed—this would indeed make He Who Walks Behind glacially slow compared to most other supernatural entities, but still fast enough to walk up to you and kill you proper.

HARRY: That’s highly speculative, Billy. I couldn’t say if you’re right one way or the other.

Harry Dresden somehow managed to kill its temporary shell for a time. It apparently took quite a few years for He Who Walks Behind to regenerate a shell, or perhaps just to regain access to the mortal world again.

Otherwise, as per other Outsiders.

BILLY: What can you tell us about this thing’s powers, Harry? Am I on the right track?

HARRY: You’re in the ballpark, at least. But honestly? I was young and desperate—I didn’t really stop to take an inventory.

For all I know He could have just been toying with me and I surprised him.

BILLY: Got it. I’ll write this thing up as essentially unbeatable.

High Concept: Outsider Assassin

Other Aspects: He Who Walks Behind; Lord of the Slowest Terror

Skills

Discipline: Great

Fists: Superb

Endurance: Great

Intimidation: Superb

Stealth: Great

Most other skills default to Good.

Powers

Claws [-1] (Spines)

Domination (Possession) [-5]

Gaseous Form [-3]

Supernatural Sense (Senses) [-2] May “impossibly” track its prey, assuming it has access to a fresh ritual component from its target—fresh blood or hair, its True Name, etc…

Supernatural Strength [-4]

Supernatural Toughness [-4]

Supernatural Recovery [-4]

The Catch [+2] is a weakness to holy items and expressions of genuine faith

Physical Immunity [-8] (speculative!)

The Catch (Stacked) [+0] is … honestly, I don’t know. Swords of the Cross and Harry Dresden have managed to get past it, but we’ve got no idea what else could.

Zone of Silence [-1] (see below)

Stress

Mental oooo Physical oooo(oooo) Social oooo

Zone of Silence: He Who Walks behind may emit an “anti-scream” placing a “Silenced” aspect on a zone that prevents any sound from being heard within. Each creature in the zone may get a “free tag” on the aspect, once per scene, when making a Stealth roll. The zone dissipates at He Who’s whim, or when He Who exits the zone in question.

(rest of effects summary follows)

Total Refresh Cost: -30

HARRY: I am in so much trouble.

So, I think my next status update is around early March. But if you want to talk with me about the project, I’ll be around at OrcCon in LA & Dreamation in NJ next month. Free free to come up and chat!

- Ryan

You can download the episode from this page:
http://thatshowweroll.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=336154

Leonard has been playing RPG’s for almost seventy percent of his brief life. Putting his better known alias, Landon Darkwood, into Google.com will turn up house rule designs for several systems in several languages and other, younger writing embarassments which he begs you to ignore.

While this will be his first published credit, Leonard’s invisible hand has shown up in various works that have come out of Evil Hat Productions, as he is a frequent sounding board on our development efforts, and a steadfast ally in keeping us honest to our goals. We’re excited to be able to have him officially involved in this project, and we’re certain it will be all the better for it!