Author: john wick

 starts her HotB game this Friday. She and I were talking about some of the reasons I chose the ven as a subject matter for the game. One of those reasons was their distinct non-European appearance. No blondes. Darker skin.

When I ran the game, the ambiguity of the ven sponsored all kinds of interpretations. One group had a distinctly Arabian feel. Another was more Chinese. I was delighted to see people take the vagaries I employed in the book and draw their own conclusions.

For her game on Friday,

 has been doing research on Hawaiian and Samoan cultures to give her own interpretation of the ven a distinctly different taste. A hint of pineapple. Long, hot summers. Scorching rains. Bare feet on cool stone. Colors, colors, colors. Exotic flowers everywhere.

At first, my head hiccuped. I had never pictured the ven that way before and it took me a little while to get my mind around it. Then, as I thought about it, I started asking questions.

“What kind of swords would they wear?” They wouldn’t have the traditional rapiers or scimitars or broadswords. Their weapons would be shorter and easier to carry. Nothing in ven literature says the swords are made of metal: an assumption I carried from my own culture’s biases. Discussing this with

, she suggests her version of the ven carry wooden swords for the matters of insult and put those away when a more serious matter comes to light.

Clothing would be different. Flowers and feathers. The suggestion of more revealing clothing makes sense in this light. No furs or velvet. Cotton, cotton, cotton. But think of the headdresses!

Of course, the Houses themselves take on different kinds of meanings in this context. Bear and Elk and Fox and Falcon. Serpent and Wolf. Different setting, different meanings, different symbols.

An idea that first caught me off guard, a suggestion that I quietly rejected in my head–and then slowly began to ask questions about. And now, I have a new vision of the ven completely different than the one I had before.

My mind said “No” until I forced it to consider “Yes.”

I should have taken my own advice.

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PS: Now I’m thinking about Aztec and Mayan ven, too. Blood sacrifice, indeed.

In his ongoing “character creation” series,

  (WW freelancer extra-ordinaree) has gone and made a Houses of the Blooded character that completely rocks my socks.

If you have any questions about character creation–or want to see a full on bitchin’ HotB character–check it out here.

___

EDIT: My apologies. Over the last couple of days, I’ve been reminded why I turned my LJ Friends Only. The comments posted here were off-topic, inflammatory and inappropriate. I’ve deleted them.

Please continue with your reading.

Thank you.

The printers have the book.

Five days for a proof.
Five days to print.

I’ll keep you updated.

Also, thanks to dilligent readers, I think we caught all the printer gnomes (typos and other errors that sneak into the final draft). The final .pdf will ship with the books. 

The Wicked Dead Brewing Company is proud to announce a new kind of Open Game License for its newest release, Houses of the Blooded.

The Shanri Research Institute (SRI) provides players of the game the opportunity to upload their own independent research on the world of Shanri and its most notorious denizens, the ven. Independent research will be evaluated by the SRI’s members and made a part of “official canon” upon successful review.

With the HotB Graphics Pack (provided to purchasers of the Limited Edition and soon to be on sale for general purchase), members can create their own character sheets, reference sheets and research papers (supplements) for approval by the SRI review team. If approved, any such research papers may be made available for purchase as official supplements to the game.

This is an exciting time for ven research. Join the SRI and help us compile the greatest database of ven knowledge on the internet! 

* * *

Here’s the deal.

I’m releasing Houses of the Blooded under an OGL. 

(Clarification: Not the OGL.)

You submit a supplement to the SRI. We review it. If we like what we see, we’ll approve it and you can use the Graphics Pack to create your own Houses of the Blooded supplement. You can give your supplement away, you can sell it, whatever you want to do with it. It’s out of my hands.

Both the ven and the game will be open to the public with a forum to discuss their findings and experiments. Also, all the inDesign files and graphics used in the game will be made available to players to fiddle with as they see fit—including using those same files and graphics for building their own supplements.

This is still under construction, but I should be making an official announcement about the SRI at GenCon.