Category: Houses of the Blooded

Website re-design goes on as I type. I’d like to know what kind of forums folks would like to see.

FAQ for each Book
Research (for discussion of ven research others have made)
House Rules (my favorite!)
IC Discussion
OOC Discussion

What else?

The Standard Edition is now shipping from the printer. It will be at GenCon.
If you ordered the Standard Edition, E-MAIL ME so I can bring a copy for you at GenCon.

The Limited Edition took a little longer to print and will not be at GenCon.
It will ship just a little bit after GenCon.

Everyone who pre-ordered the books will receive a PDF of the final text/layout.
The Special Edition folks will receive their bonus CD with the shipment of the book.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this one of my most successful projects. You guys rock.

mnight

  has begun a series of posts about the HotB game she’s running–and I’m playing in!

I had a ton of fun–even though we only played a few hours on Friday–and we’ll have even more fun next Friday!

mnight

 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,

mnight

 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

mnight

, 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.

__

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

In his ongoing “character creation” series,

innocent_man

  (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. 

Looks like all the downloads are messing up senduit. please continue trying!
I also sent a secondary link to the list. See if that works.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I present the Houses of the Blooded pre-release PDF.

This .pdf is yours. Use it as you wish. Share it with friends if you like. The only thing I ask is that you do not post it in a public forum or make it generally available.

I want to thank you for your leap of confidence. I hope Houses of the Blooded lives up to (and exceeds) your expectations.

All you have to do is click on the link provided and begin downloading the .pdf. This is a preliminary pdf. The cover is not included. Your full download/bonus material is forthcoming.

As for the hard copy, I’m going to print next week. The printers inform me we’ll have about a 2 week turn around. The books will be in the warehouse ready to ship by then.

Again, thank you for your patronage and support. I’ve never had so much fun working on a project. I hope it shows. If you have any questions, problems or comments, please feel free to let me know.

Take care,

John W.
______

If you pre-ordered the book and did not receive this e-mail, comment below, e-mail me, whatever. I’ll get you the link asap.
 

I have just finished the last edit before sending the book off to the printers and Indie Press Revolution–something I’ll be doing on Monday. Once IPR has the files, they’ll e-mail them to all the pre-orders.

That means this week, hundreds of people will be looking at my game.

I’m excited and terrified, all at once.

I’ve spent so much time on the book, I don’t have any objective viewpoint anymore. I love it dearly. I love it more than anything I’ve ever done. After all the playtesting, I’m not sick of it. After all the questions, I’m not sick of it. I think I could write about the ven forever. (I just may end up doing that.)

But I have no idea how the rest of the world will receive it. Everyone who’s played it has loved it. Everyone who’s read it has said something along the lines of, “It’s the best work you’ve ever done.” I dunno about that, but I’m damn proud of it.

A lot of people paid a lot of money for this. I hope they feel their purchase was worth it. I hope they find as much joy as I did.

I hope.