With the work of dozens of patrons, the final text has been designed and playtested. The cartographers and artists have turned over glorious work. Editor Mike McArtor has finished his review and improvement of the manuscript, and Steve Wark has completed the layout. This weekend, I went over the final proofs. There’s final tweaks and one round of changes to the galleys, and then this huge 170 page adventure will go out to the patrons by the end of June. That is, before Tuesday. The Gazetteer will follow shortly thereafter.
So Last Call is on for the 3E/OGL version of this adventure. If you want your copy, sign up today! This project will not be available in game stores or at koboldquarterly.com. It’s purely a limited edition for those who support it. And it’s an amazing deal for the money: a complete dwarven sourcebook with spells and setting and gear, plus an adventure that I can only describe as the best dwarven stronghold adventure since Moria.
Thank you all for making Halls of the Mountain King amazing, and thank you for your patience as it’s been put together!
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open_design- Wolfgang Baur
- the Free City
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I know you have explained this before. Sorry, lots of life stuff still going on.
I have Uber 4E Patronage. How can I also secure 3E/OGL PDF patronage? I can only swing a PDF of the alternate version, but I'd like to have both.
Kind of a steal.
My ten bucks has already been sent.
Unless it is some sort of ethical or personal principal not to support one edition (which I can't speak to), it would seem pretty unwise not to be a dual patron.
Thanks for the reply!
My money is sent sir!
Other bits depend on the isolation of a group of dwarven, human, and other miners in a remote mountain location, which clearly isn't Ptolus.
I'd say you could run about 60% of it without much change, but the intro and at least one of the adventure sections would require changes.
Thanks every contributor!!
Anyway teaching part-time at two different colleges I don't get paid much (the big bucks in academia go to the researchers, not the teachers) so I struggle to make ends meet and purchase items very carefully. So you'll be happy to know that I just purchased Halls of the Mountain King. (I can hear the Edvard Grieg music in my head even know. :-D) I can use it even without the written adventure it contains, as I actually have an underground city of dwarves that long ago was taken over by the minions of Lolth. Yes, I read Lord of the Rings back in the 1970s (when I started my campaign world) too.
I might be able to use it, in the alternative, as the actual drow city in the Underdark from which the drow sorceress in my campaign escaped (although I bought City of the Spider Queen for that purpose.) Or it might serve as some other subterranean city. (I might have to ignore or change a bit the portion in the mountain above flat-land level.) Oh, I have a city of fire giants in a mountain, so I might use it for that, although I was thinking of using the Hall of the Fire King for that. Wait, why did I buy this again? ;-) Seriously though, I'm looking forward to getting it. How long does it usually take to process the PayPal payment? Will I get an email telling me my download is ready?
Also I’m kind of interested to see what comes with Open Design membership. Since I’ve very weak on physical design, I’d love to see especially that aspect of design. Will it allow me to ask others if they’d be interested in designing something? In particular I have to locations I’d like designed. One is just a simple wooden stockade fort. I was even just thinking of using the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief’s upper level for it, although I have in mind something more along the lines of a large American frontier fort.
I’d also like to have a fortified port city that has a relatively small entrance to the harbor with a stone tower or stone rock outcropping towering over each side of the opening. If they’re rock they’d have stairways, rooms and windows carved in them to allow people to fire down at any ships that come near the opening to the harbor. A massive chain would run just under the surface to stop any unwanted ships from entering, but could be retracted to allow friendly vessels to enter (or leave). So in the rock on either side would have to be room for the chain to retract and for mechanisms to retract and extend the chain. (I’m not even sure if that’s physically possible, but it seems like a cool idea.) I was also thinking that there’s a “dungeon” under the ground level, for storage, access to the chain and mechanism, with a secret underwater entrance which characters might use to access the one or the other of the towers by swimming or using an Apparatus of Kwalish.
In my current campaign the pirate kingdom has seized the fortified port and one inland fort from the half-elven kingdom, and might sent the party (which has reached 23rd-25th levels) to try to free one or both. I can’t really have them do either though until I have the physical locations designed. So I don’t know if Open Design people might help with that or not, but it would be great if they did. ☺
How long does it usually take to process the PayPal payment?
Depends, but usually < 48 hours. You should have an email in your inbox right now.
Will I get an email telling me my download is ready?
Yes, once the 4E project is complete. I'm looking to late August as a target release date.
Regarding asking others to design something: Absolutely, that is part of it, though it is limited to the topic at hand (dwarves in this case) and is best done at the start of a project (this one started in January, the next one starts around July 15th).
As far as asking for the design of something in Open Design, if I wanted a wooden palisade fort or a fortified port city, I'd have to ask for them as dwarven places, or would I need to wait until such time, if ever, that Open Design choose fortified places as a topic?
Yeah, I think that the fortified city is best done by a cartographer rather than a huge patron community. Though honestly, doing a city design rather than an adventure design does have its appeal.
You might find someone eager to tackle a city project at the Cartographer's Guild...
I've been looking through Halls and it (they?) look great!