I know you will all understand that many of these previews are early stage. With the first draft actually done, we are going back and seeing all the stupid sh@$ we’ve written. Sometimes its goofy grammar (I admitted I have bad spelling, maybe even a mild dyslexia...or just ham-fat-fingers and too tired all the time), sometimes it’s a minor alteration. Already we have made large changes to a few ideas, and I haven’t even gotten to the foundation spells yet. At this point, we like what we’ve done with our techan classes and our races have few problems, but we have modified several elements within the classes, totally screwed with one of them, and made a few alterations to lifepaths and equipment. Thankfully, nothing yet has occurred which has forced us to throw anything out. I will admit that we would throw out elements if we felt they weren’t working.

For Foundation Spells, these were always meant to be quest items—a reason for a voyage, and not something a player just got for free. They were something you fought and almost died to earn. Not only that, it was more powerful than the slot it filled, though you could only achieve it at a level when other abilities were as or almost as powerful. The question is: does the sacrifice counterbalance the slight increase in power the spell offers? This point was brought up by someone dealing with disruption, where we said disruption was not required to balance technology and was only a fluff point those pulling the techans out of Amethyst could ignore. We are not going that direction with foundation spells and like the idea of a spell that requires a sacrifice—which, by the way, is a fluff part of the novel I am trying to incorporate. This may not work and we may scale them back so the spell is different but not more powerful then the level it is acquired at. The plan was for them to be the outcome of a wizard’s final journey, something more tangible and believable than that goofy “demispell” idea. Foundation Mage is an Epic Destiny but not the only one for Wizard. I am looking at ways for other people to use them as well, making them strange magical relics rather than spells. Like I said, it’s a work in progress.

At 251,700 words, this first draft is done. Now, we test, retest, cut and modify until we have something that’s print-worthy. Truthfully, nothing would test the system more and find all the mistakes than to post these rules online and have all of you read it over and offer advice. Unfortunately, that’s just not an option. It’s not that I don’t trust those who post...it’s those you don’t.

I leave you today, with something special. Nick has been tiredly working on new artwork and I am hoping his sketches of final works will generate the same buzz the old sketches did. Here are two of my favourites...and yes, it was hard to choose.