The title is slightly misleading, as I don't actually see this being fully published like our first attempt. But I do see this atleast being complied in .pdf form for ease of reference (either to put on RPGNow or for my own usage as a setting for a game I'm gonna run) and I've had some format ideas I'd rather get down somewhere now, so I don't forget when I get to that point later.
Basically I see each Sandbox collection of islands that we make as it's own sub-set of releases.
Basically I see a gazetteer style write up, split for both the player's and the DM.
This being a Player's Guide, you'd start with an introduction of the world as a whole, an explanation of the whole flying island concept and what not, as detailed in previous blogs. From there you'd shuffle into a AEC style write-up (a paragraph or two) on the playable species that inhabit that land along with all bells and whistles that come with choosing them. From there it's a breakdown of all the named places on the map, with roughly a paragraph of info explaining what the average person growing up in that area would know about it (i.e. leaving out all the secret bits) and it would probably cap off with one of the towns completely mapped, vendor stocked, and filled with NPCs to give off quests, as sort of a starting hub town.
The DM would get the inside dish of the same things, a slightly more thorough intro on the world as a whole, the real story or additional information about the named areas on the map, several areas not named on the map that contain all kinds of wondrous and evil things for the players to discover, a batch of wandering wilderness monster charts and then cap it off with one of the lairs/ruins/dungeons fully mapped and stocked (probably closest to the hub town) to act as the first dungeon for the adventurers to start their journey.
But now, you don't have to stop there, being the detail monger Sean and I are, there are plenty of add-on "books" just staying in that first sandbox.
Firstly, you have the other dungeons, all the other multi-room locations full of bad things for the player's to slay, these each need their own release so the DM can run a full campaign on the island chain.
Next, you have things like more detailed gazetteers, taking one of the islands and giving it a run over with a fine toothed comb, mapping all the towns/cities, giving detailed histories and NPCs, maps, lots of maps, and more.
Also, you have a monster manual attached to the island chain in question, basically taking all the monsters and monstrous species you've listed in the DM book and any adventure released so far and giving them great one-two page write-ups about their reason for being, ecology, habitat and all kinds of other fluffy bits that make the world alive (see my entry about my love of monster books).
There are also things like Species books, a whole book dedicated to the intelligent species that are introduced in the first books (or possibly later books) with more details on how they live, how they act, what they like, what they hate, what they celebrate, what they mourn, art they make, wars they wage, fighting styles, clothing, architecture, etc. etc. And this doesn't hold just to the Friendly Species either, you can also do monstrous species if they have a interesting enough society.
There are a hundred other things from there you could do to, whole books dedicated to various organizations, the obvious "Gods" book, a book on Arcane Magic and how it works (along with new spells and what not) and that's all before moving onto another sandbox.
I like this new idea of starting small and really covering that area well, we'll see how far it takes us, but, with ideas like this, we have plenty to keep us occupied.
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