Building Print Editions of the Star Frontiersman

As I mentioned in the last State of the Frontier post, one of the projects I want to tackle is to make print versions of the Star Frontiersman issues available for those that want them.

Once upon a time, the first 17 issues were available with black and white interiors from Lulu. However, with the trademark kerfluffle a couple of years ago, WotC had Lulu take them down. I have copies of all of these (ordered in a batch just before they were no longer available) and they are okay, but being black and white, lack something compared to the full color PDFs.

Plus, I found that the page registration was lacking on several of them. This manifested by having the border not on the edge with a gap around them on some sides. I suspect that this registration issues are simply a by-product of the way Lulu does its printing. It uses the original PDFs with no bleed. That combined with the fact that it prints the pages oversized, binds them, and then trims the pages to size means that things like that are going to happen. I was just surprised by how bad it was in some cases.

At some level, that is neither here nor there as those versions are no longer available.

What I want to do is make full color versions (like the PDFs) available via print-on-demand through DriveThruRPG. Much like the issues of the Frontier Explorer. While there are several hurdles to making that happen, the biggest problem is that most of the original (non-PDF) files for the early issues have been lost due to hard drive failures or the person who had the files leaving the gaming scene and dropping out of contact. I have issues 9-11 (I edited those so I have the original files) and can get issues 19-25. But for the others, I just have the PDFs.

This is an problem because the files I need to supply to DriveThruRPG for print editions are different than just the regular PDFs. First, I need a separate file for the cover (front and back combinded) and then a file for the interior pages. Both of those need a “bleed” region where the images and border art extend beyond what would be the printed part of the page to handle minor variations in the printing process – those same registration issues I saw with the Lulu prints. PDFs are not designed for extensive editing and having the original files would make things easier.

And truth be told, if it weren’t for the border art on the pages of the Star Frontiersman, this wouldn’t be too much of an issue. I could just increase the page size and be done. Of course, that means there wouldn’t have been the noticeable registration issues in the Lulu printed ones either. But those borders are definitely a problem. In fact, that’s exactly why the Frontier Explorer doesn’t have page borders; I didn’t want to have to deal with this issue and we were planning on print-on-demand versions of the magazine from the very beginning.

Additionally, in the Star Frontiersman, those borders changed starting in issue 7 and the new border art looks like it extends off the edge of the page. Which would be great for the bleed. Except that the border was drawn to exactly fit the page, not factoring in bleed. It has been dealing with these borders that has been the biggest concern that has kept me from really getting started on this project for the past few years. Having the original files would make it not so daunting but working with the PDFs is not easy. However, issues 11 & 12 will be easy to do as we changed the border on those issues to a much simpler line border. This is because we had feedback from readers saying that they were printing out the issues at home and the complex, detailed border was using up a lot of ink. So we went with a simpler border. But the magazine reverted back to the complex border starting in issue 12 again. And in fact, some of you may have issues 11 and 12 with the complex border as Larry changed the border on those issues and re-uploaded the new version. I think the ones on DriveThruRPG have the more complex border while the ones on the magazine website have the simpler border.

Cover of issue 7 with full page cover image.

Another problem is that later issues of the Star Frontiersman, also starting with issue 7, had cover images that fill the entire cover. The first six issues had the cover images in a frame and just a solid blue color for the rest of the cover. This was really easy to extend to make a bleed region for printing the cover. For all the later issues, I need to try to find the original cover images (which were almost guaranteed to be cropped to fit the cover) so I can get the rest of the image for the bleed on the cover. Otherwise, I’m going to have to do something to extend the cover to give it a bleed region, possibly, just using a black region.

Those are the hurdles. And they are understandable as the Star Frontiersman was never conceived to be a printed product and was designed as a digital product. In fact, the first few issue were just something Bill whipped up to give to his players, they weren’t even originally designed for public distribution. To get the POD version, we’ll just have to work around these hurdles.

Getting Started

In November 2020, I decided to bite the bullet and see what I could do. I started by trying to tackle the first six issue of the magazine. As I mentioned above, the covers for issues 1-6 are nice in that they just are a solid blue that extends to the edges with the image in a frame. Making the POD file for the covers was easy enough. Using my 4K monitor, I rotated the cover sideways, put it in to full screen mode, and did a screen capture. This gave me a fairly high resolution image of the cover which I scaled to the correct resolution for the print file. I then just had to fill in a little bit of the blue color for the bleed (and a bit of black for the issue block). And then I was done. (I actually did that last, after figuring out the interior). Here’s what that file looks like:

Cover file that needs to go to the printer.

The interiors of those six issues are also the same (almost) but took a bit more work. The interior pages were designed to look something like a file folder with a hatched background. The challenge was to extend this hatching out beyond the original page edge for the bleed and have it line up a closely as possible. If I had the original files, I could probably just change the page size to include the bleed area, check that the images didn’t move, and be done (That’s what I do with the Frontier Explorer) as I suspect that they were just using a pattern as a background. Unfortunately I don’t, and working with just the PDF version was going to take a bit more work.

What I have to do is a multi-step process. First I have to increase the size of the pages in the PDF to be the correct size for the POD version and include the bleed region (which is 1/8th of an inch on the top, bottom, and outside edges). Then I have to add the content for the bleed. This will be done by adding a background to each page of the file that extends the hatching out to the edge. The left and right pages have the hatching going the opposite direction. Luckily, they are mirror images of each other (or, as it turns out, nearly so).

So the main task was to make a background image that I could drop in behind the existing pages that lined up with the existing hatching border. I started with doing a high resolution screen capture of a page of the magazine. I then imported that into GIMP, enlarged the image size to be the correct size for the bleed, and deleted all the content except the border and hatching. Finally, I used regions where the hatching was prominent to grab a pattern and replicated that all around the edges. It turned out it didn’t exactly line up in places which required a bit of tweaking but in the end I was able to get a pretty good image. I then mirrored it to get the background image for the facing pages. Here’s what they look like:

The background spread. These are actually two different images, show here together.

Finally I added the background into the expanded PDF pages. This is where I discovered that they weren’t exactly mirror images of each other but I was able to shift things to line everything up well enough. Remember, if all goes well, this bit that I’m adding will get cut off and you’ll never see it. It’s just there as a contingency.

I did all that for issue 1 and sent the files off to the printer. And then I waited. It took about two weeks for the print proof to come back. Looking over it, it all looked fine. I could see some small variations that I knew were from the bleed area but I could only really notice them because I knew exactly what I was looking for. But that justified the work because if I hadn’t done it, there would be a bit of white border around the edges of the page.

And I have to say, I like the color. Here’s a picture of the Lulu black and white version next to the new color version.

Issues 2-6

With issue 1 looking good, I started working on the other issues. That actually went fairly quickly. Using the hard won experience of getting issue 1 set up, it only took about 20 minutes to convert each of the other issues to create the interior files.

Until I hit issue 6. I had never noticed, but issue 6 has a different hatching scheme. Instead of the diagonal lines, it uses a grid. So I had to make a new background image. But again, I knew what to do here and resolved that in quick order. Here’s the background images with the new gird that I used for this issue:

Once the interiors for those issues were complete, I created the cover image files for each issue. Again, this was a fairly straightforward and easy process. The biggest problem here was the fact that each issue is larger than the one before and I had to grab a separate template file for each one and adjust the size of the area used for the bleed and, due to the way the file is set up for the printer, shift the position of the barcode box (and the exact position of the classified ads on the back cover).

Speaking of the classified ads, due to their size, there is always going to be a bit of the lower right one that is cut off by the barcode that the printer uses to identify the cover and match it to its interior. This is just another casualty of the fact that the Star Frontiersman was designed with printing in mind. Luckily the box is fairly small and doesn’t have a large impact.

Print Proofs

With everything done, I uploaded the files for issues 2-6 and ordered print proofs. Strangely, even though I ordered them all together, they only printed issues 2-5 and sent them out. Issue 6 got delayed for a while. After waiting a couple of weeks, the print proofs showed up.

The covers all looked good and issues 2, 3, & 5 looked good inside. But when I opened issue 4, I got a bit of a surprise.

The cover and interior of the issue 4 print proof. It’s the interior for a stretch goal from the 2013 Kickstarter for White Wolf’s Exalted game 3rd edition.

Somehow, they put the wrong interior inside my cover! Remember that barcode I talked about earlier. They print that on the cover and on the last page (which has to be black) of the interior and use them to match things up. In the case of this print, they don’t match. Something didn’t work and someone else’s interior got put into my cover and someone else got the Star Frontiersman interior in their cover. Oops.

The barcodes from the cover (left) and interior (right). As you can see, they don’t match. They do in all the other proofs.

By this point issue 6 still hadn’t shipped so I contacted DTRPG and they check on the status of issue 6 and got their printer to order me a new copy of issue 4. Issue 6 shipped a couple of days later and arrived just this week. I’m still waiting on the reprint of issue 4.

Available for Order

I had planned on posting this last week but was still waiting on the print proof of issue 6 to arrive. Now that it has, I’m making the first six issues available on DriveThruRPG. I haven’t gotten the corrected proof of issue 4 yet but given that the others look fine, and the error seems to be a mix-up of the printing process and not a problem with my files, I’m not too worried about it.

If you want printed copies of the Star Frontiersman, just head over to the Star Frontiersman page on DriveThruRPG and select the issues you want. Like the PDFs, these are pay what you want. The difference is that the minimum is not free (as it is for the PDFs), but the “at cost” price to print the book (i.e. no money to me, just to the printer). These issues range in price from ~US$3.75 to ~US$7.00. The exact price depends on where you are in the world (inside or outside the US as the print prices are a little different) and the page count of the magazine. Issue 6 is about the same size as an issue of the Frontier Explorer and so costs about the same. Some of the later issues are much larger, and so are going to cost more.

Also, I recommend you order as many as you can at once to save on shipping. At least in the United States, where I’m at, it costs basically the same to ship one issue as it does to ship five. In either case it’s about US$5.00 using media mail. I can’t speak for other shipment options or foreign shipping but I suspect it’s similar.

Going Forward

There are more hurdles for the remaining issues as I’ve mentioned. My plan is to work on these off and on over the coming year to make them available. As I do, I’ll post notices here that you can get them.

Once all the individual issues are up, I may go back and do omnibus editions that combine the individual issues into larger volumes. But that is something that will have to wait at least until 2022.

State of the Frontier – Dec 2020

You may have noticed that I didn’t have a post last week. I think that was the first weekly post I’ve missed since I started the blog. The truth is, I just didn’t have anything ready to write about, nor the time to generate anything. Hopefully you were too busy with the holidays (like I was) to really notice or miss it.

I don’t do yearly retrospectives in these updates so looking back will only be December. However, given some of the things that happened this month, looking forward will take a bit longer view than just January. Read on.

Looking Back

As I already mentioned, I missed last week’s post. That said, I still managed to get four posts up (this one makes five) this month. It’s just that one of them was the off-schedule battle report post of the Battle of Ken’zah-Kit. We started the month with the usual Detailed Frontier Timeline post which I followed up with some musings on the Second Sathar War triggered by all the work I’ve been doing on that in the the timeline. I then posted the first part of a series with videos showing how I make my ship deck plans as I work on the deck plans for the HSS History’s Hope.

And that was it on the blog front. The reason for that is that there has been a lot going on behind the scenes.

First and foremost, I changed jobs mid-month. Now instead of being an Adjunct (part-time) Professor at the local university teaching an occasional computer science class and working full time as a software developer at NASA, I’m now an Assistant (full-time, tenure-track) Professor at the university and only part-time at NASA. Making that transition (I’m no longer working from home), plus the holidays, has severely cut into my free time this month and I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to work on game related topics. I’m still getting my schedule sorted out and figuring out when I have time to schedule my various activities.

What time I did have was put primarily into the next issue (#31) of the Frontier Explorer. I’ve edited most of the articles and will finish those up this week and get the preliminary layout done so we can figure out what art is still needed. Once again, I had more things scheduled for the issue than will fit so we’re already well on our way to having all the content for issue 32.

Another chunk of time was spent on the timeline. With the aftermath of the battles last month and this, there was a bunch of logistical things I had to track and work through for the timeline and that ate up a bunch of time.

The other thing that happened is that I started looking at the Star Frontiersman magazine again. Ever since Bill Logan passed the magazine off to me, I’ve had two things I’ve wanted to do. The first is bring it back to life, probably on an annual or semi-annual basis filling the pages with adventures, kind of like TSR’s old Dungeon magazine. Looking over the magazine submission queue, there are several adventures in there and it may be time to kick that project off.

The second is that I’d like to make print versions of the Star Frontiersman issues available for those that want them. The first 17 issues used to be available in black and white from Lulu but with the trademark kerfluffle a a couple of years ago, WotC had Lulu take them down. I want to make the full color versions (like the PDFs) available. The problem is that for most of those back issues, I only have the PDF files, not the original documents, and the format needed to make the print version is not just the PDF that currently exists. I started to go into an explanation of the issues involved but realized I should save that for a separate post and do it proper justice. The short version is that I managed to get proper print files for issues 1-6 ready and sent off. I’ve received the print proof or issue 1, which I did first, and am happy with it. I’m just waiting on the other five. This project sucked up the remaining free time I had this month (including some time I probably should have spent on the Frontier Explorer).

Looking Forward

On the blog, there will definitely be another Detailed Frontier Timeline post next week, and toward the end of the month, three more battle reports (which I still need to play out the battles for). I also hope to finish the History’s Hope deck plans and post those and the associated videos. Beyond that, I don’t know what other posts, if any are coming. It’s really going to depend on what I end up working on.

The other thing that is definitely coming out this month is the next issue of the Frontier Explorer and the print-on-demand editions of the first six issues of the Star Frontiersman. I haven’t missed an issue of the Frontier Explorer since we started in 2012 and don’t plan on starting now. That will always get my #1 priority slot. And the Star Frontiersman issues are just waiting on the print queue and shipping. Once they arrive and I can look them over, I’ll make them available.

Over the past month or two, I’ve been thinking a lot about what projects I want to work on going forward and what that will mean for this blog.

For the past half year or so, I’ve felt really pressured to try and get an article out each week even when it hasn’t been something I really wanted to work on for focus my time on. When I started the blog, I also launched my associated Patreon campaign. I originally promised one post a month but later decided to try to get a weekly post out as a way to generate interest and Patreon supporters even though a weekly post was way down on the goals list. But I felt that a more frequent and regular posting schedule would be helpful in growing my readership and patronage. And I was was able to keep it up for over 2.5 years. However, I think going forward, I’m going to dial back my posting a little bit.

I’ll continue to have the Detailed Frontier Timeline posts on the first Tuesday of each month, and I’ll continue to do these State of the Frontier posts on the last Tuesday of each month. In between that though, I think I’ll be posting on a more sporadic basis as I finish projects and/or have progress to report. I also might start doing more small announcement type posts when I learn about other things going on or have something to mention. But that begs the question of what will I be working on beyond the Detailed Frontier Timeline.

First, I want to finish up the deck plans of the HSS History’s Hope and produce a Technical Manual for the ship. That should be good for at least two posts. One, which I hope to have ready by the end of the month, on the rest of the decks, and a second giving more details about the ship in general, maybe with more detailed room descriptions. Then there will be an announcement post when the final Technical Manual is available.

Second, I want to get back to my 3D modelling. Both finishing up the recreations of the miniatures from the Privateers boxed set that TSR created, and making new ships of my own design. I’m going to start with the Privateers. If I can manage to get one done each month, that will get me through to June. When I get to my own designs, they may or may not come with deck plans. I’d like to Technical Manuals for each one but may shift to a lighter “spec sheet” version that doesn’t go into quite as much detail as my Technical Manuals but still provides game data on the ships.

Third, and related to the modeling effort. I have a new starship construction system nearly complete (it has been for a long while) that I want to finish and make available. I’ve posted excerpts from this in the past and really need to just finish it and get it out there. My plan is to base all the miniature designs of my own creation on ships created with this system.

Fourth, I want to finish the Death at Rosegard and Ghost Ship Osiris adventures that I started when I began this blog. I’ll probably start with Death at Rosegard as that one is mostly done, I just need to stitch it all together. Then I can tackle Ghost Ship Osiris. The latter was put on hold as Bill wasn’t really doing anything with FrontierSpace. However, with Trevor Holman’s FrontierSpace adventures coming out (that I edit for him), and Bill starting to get things going again with FrontierSpace, it’s time to finish that one up as well.

Finally, I want to get back to writing. I’m 75,000+ words into a first draft (probably about a quarter done) of a Star Frontiers novel and have an outline for the sequel to my book Discovery. I’d like to start spending more time on those as well. I’m not sure how much of the writing will show up in the blog until I get toward later drafts and have excerpts I can post, but it’s something that I will be spending time on.

Final Thoughts

Things are going to look a little different going forward, but hopefully there will still be plenty of content for you to enjoy. What types of material would you be interested in seeing that I haven’t mentioned already? Or what aspects of the mentioned projects would you be interested in seeing me write about here? I’m always open to suggestions.

I want to end this post with a big thank you to all those who have supported me on Patreon over the years. You have really helped to keep this blog going. If you are already a supporter, thank you again. If you’re not a supporter, consider helping out.

State of the Frontier – Nov 2020

It’s another month down. I hope everyone in the United States had a great Thanksgiving holiday and the rest of you had a good month as well. I’ve been having a blast.

Looking Back

The biggest thing this last month has been the start of the Second Sathar War in the Detailed Frontier Timeline. This has resulted in a number of reports for the battles that have happened so far. To date these are:

Tracking the Second Sathar War and playing out the battles has definitely take up most of my time this month. I’ve been having a lot of fun with this. I was quite a ways ahead on the narrative but playing out the battles has eaten most of that buffer and I’m only a couple days ahead at the moment. However, now that the big initial push is over, things will settle down a bit. Expect to see a few more battles in the next few days and then they will start to really spread out as the sathar replenish their ships.

Beyond the battle reports we had the usual Detailed Frontier Timeline post at the beginning of the month, a post on the HSS History’s Hope describing the 3D model for that ship, and a look at the sathar starship construction centers. The battle reports represented the post for the 4th week.

Behind the scenes not much was happening beyond me working on the SSW narrative. The only major event was that the hard drive on my server failed and had to be replaced which took all of my Star Frontiers sites down for about 36 hours while I got a new disk installed and everything restored. Luckily I had good backups and nothing was lost.

Looking Forward

Tomorrow will be the next Detailed Frontier Timeline post that will have all the details of the events surrounding the opening of the Second Sathar War that happened this last month for those that don’t follow along on Twitter.

Next week I plan to talk a bit about the Second Sathar War in the timeline and muse on some of the ideas I’ve had relative to the setting and this fight since I’ve been playing out the battles.

Beyond that, I don’t have any specific plans. I’m working on the History’s Hope deck plans so those might come out this month. I am making “how-to” videos showing how I make my maps and the recording of those got put on hold with all the SSW battles, which is why they aren’t done yet. (It would go much faster if I wasn’t recording as I could squeeze in bits of time here and there instead of needing some dedicated time.) I’m also still thinking about that astrogation rules post. We’ll just have to see what comes up.

There is a major behind the scenes change coming next month. I’ve been offered a full-time, tenure-track faculty position teaching computer science at the local university and I start mid-December. Which means I’ll be leaving full-time at NASA but will remain as a consultant on the project I’m working on there. I have no idea right now what impact this job change will have on my time so we’ll just have to play it by ear and see what happens. Which is why I don’t have any specific plans for the end of the month.

There are at least two more battle reports to come in the near future. One will be on the 2nd and another on the 4th. Depending on the outcome of the fight on the 2nd, there might be a third on the 5th of December. But beyond that, it might be a while before another battle to be reported. It depends on the outcome of those battles.

I’m also starting on the next issue of the Frontier Explorer. Most of the articles have been selected and I’m planning on front-loading the editing work on this issue due to my job change and the holidays. We’ll see if I can actually pull that off.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really have anything else. If you like what your seeing on the blog, consider supporting me on Patreon. Just follow the link or click on the “Become a Patron” button. As always, comments and feedback are welcomed and encouraged.

State of the Frontier – Oct 2020

I can’t believe October is over. In fact, the end of the month snuck up on me so quickly that I’m writing this in November. But it’s been a good month.

Looking Back

For the most part, this month went almost exactly as I expected, a rare occurrence these days. We started out with the usual Detailed Frontier Timeline post, then the write-up on the GODCo bio-lab and the last full article of the month was my notes on the adventure I ran in that bio-lab and a game report of how it played out.

I said last month that I wasn’t sure what the fourth article would be. It turned out to be the third article and was a write-up of the Battle of Stenmar, a sneak-peak at the ship battles of the Second Sathar War as they will be reported in the Detailed Frontier Timeline. The war is about to open up in the timeline and I’ve been busy playing through the opening fights this month behind the scenes in preparation to reaching that point of the timeline. I asked around and people were interested in seeing how the battles played out and this post was a trial run to work on the format. More on this in the “Looking Forward” section.

The other major effort this month was getting issue 30 of the Frontier Explorer out the door. This took a bit longer (by about a week) than I had really hoped to spend on it, but I did manage to get it out before the end of the month so we stayed on schedule. It’s been 30 issues (I can’t believe we’ve done that many) and we’ve still managed to get every single one out in the target month.

Between the Frontier Explorer, and playing through the Knight Hawk Battles, I haven’t had much time for anything else. So much so, that I have put my Skills for Hire game on hiatus. As I talked about in my What We Need is More … Focus post, I’m stretched too thin and while I enjoyed running this, it was taking up too much of my currently limited time. So I made the decision to put it on the back burner for now. The players have stepped up to the plate and are running games for one another but for now, I’m not running any more. We’ll see if I get back to it.

Looking Forward

A lot this month is going to be about the Detailed Frontier Timeline. We’ll start with the usual post on Tuesday recapping all the events of the last month. But this month the sathar fleets start toward the Frontier and the first battles of the conflict occur later in the month. My plan is to do a post that is part Knight Hawks scenario, part battle report, and maybe some commentary much like the Battle of Stenmar post for each of these battles as they occur. For the most part, these will be posted on the day the battle occurs (together with the summary post on Twitter). However, at the start of the fight, there are four battles on one day with on more two days later. These will start on the 21st and I just post one a day until they are all up. That will constitute the weekly post that would have come on the 24th, the last of the month, but you’ll get 5 for the price of one. Had I waited to post the Battle of Stenmar until the day it occurred, that would have been the post for the 17th. But I wanted to get that one out early to get feedback. After those initial battles, the post will be much more sporadic and I’ll post them on the day they occur and I’m not planning on having them be the regular weekly posts.

Beyond that, this month is wide open and what will be coming out is completely up in the air. Your guess is as good as mine. It’s NaNoWriMo and I might try to get back to writing my novel but I don’t actually think that will happen.

In the “behind the scenes” arena, I do know we have a number of projects under discussion in our “Frontier Explorer Presents” series. One will probably be out by Christmas. Another, which I’ve mentioned before, is the short story collection. That one is going to be my focus as Tom Verreault, my Frontier Explorer co-founder, is working on the one for Christmas. We’re also kicking around the idea of another project with Eric Winsor, the author of all the Jurak Hangna articles in the magazine, to put together a special Jurak Hangna themed publication. But I think that one is a bit longer term.

I want to get back to modeling so I’m hoping to focus a bit more on the HSS History’s Hope and get its model finished and draw up the deck plans for it. That may be another Technical Manual once it’s all done. I might also put some time into my starship construction system this month as well as I’d really like to get that done and start making ships based on the system.

Final Thoughts

And that’s it. I’m sure that there are several other things I should be mentioning but they have completely slipped my mind. As always, share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

State of the Frontier – Sept 2020

I had hoped to be able to do four full articles this month but between kids’ sports activities, running a half marathon, a protracted job interview process (it will probably be a month or two before I hear anything – you’ve got to love the slow academic hiring process), and a few other things, the month got the better of me.

Looking Back

Besides the Detailed Frontier Timeline post, this month didn’t look anything like what I expected. I had planned to do a location post and a game write up but due to complications, my game session that would have completed the adventure (so I could post the write-ups spoiler free) was canceled. Instead, a discussion on the Star Frontiers: Alive and Well Facebook group prompted me to write up my notes on Void Jumping. And then I followed that up with a post that hearkens back to the tag line of this blog (“Creating sci-fi RPG resources”) that provided links to all the maps and counters I use in my games, many of which I created myself.

Behind the scenes, I have started working on issue 30 of the Frontier Explorer. I’m not as far along as I’d like due to all the other things going on this month but I’m quickly catching up.

Also, I was playing in RJ McDonough excellent Second Sathar War Campaign but again, this month’s events intervened and I had to bow out of that game. And then unfortunately, just a few days ago he had to close the game down completely.

And that’s about it. Like I said, this month has been crazy.

Looking Forward

October looks to be much better. We’ll have the timeline post as usual, and by then I should have had the final game session of the current adventure so you can look for a new location, a bio-lab operated by the Greater Overall Development Corporation, that the the PCs have been investigating. I also plan to do an adventure write-up as a second post detailing the adventure itself and how I used the location. I have no idea what the fourth post this month will be. We’ll see how it goes.

The other major item this coming month is issue 30 of the Frontier Explorer. Look for that in the latter half of the month. This will be taking up most of my time until then.

I want to get back to working on the deck plans and 3D model of the HSS History’s Hope from the timeline but we’ll see if I actually get that far, most likely that will have to wait for November.

Behind the scenes, I have a short editing effort that I’m doing for another FrontierSpace adventure by Trevor Holman and it looks like it’s almost time for me to do my freelance writing assignment for the upcoming Space Kids RPG by Nick Landry. The Kickstarter for that funded at the beginning of the year but COVID-19 had impacted the production and we’re just getting to my part in the endeavor.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really have much more to say. September has been rough and I’m hoping October goes a bit better. I should at least be able to get caught up on all my regular activities that have been put off by first the truck issue in August and the extended job interview process in September.

If there are any topics you would like to see my write about, let me know and I’ll try to get them into my queue.

State of the Frontier – August 2020

As has been par for the course this month, this post is coming a few hours late. I had always intended to do this post on Sept. 1st as the first post of the month but it’s still not coming at the usual time slot in the morning. (I wonder how many of my readers actually read it when it first drops. Probably very few if any.)

Looking Back

This has been a rough month for me. I managed to get my regular posts out but it was a close thing. I partially looked at this in my post last week for the RPG Blog Carnival where I summarized all the projects I’m working on. That’s really nothing new as all of those projects have been going on and off for years, but they still contribute to everything I have to think about each month as I work. The funny thing is, after I published that post, I thought of a few other things that I had forgotten. I updated the post to add the podcast stuff, but I thought of other things later that probably should have been in the list.

The other posts for last month were the regular Detailed Frontier Timeline post, a detailed post on Brekstoone Manor in Myha’s Beach on Pale, and an outline of the Skills for Hire adventure I ran last month. There should have been a second session of that game but life intervened and I had to cancel.

The month started well as we took the family up to Glacier National Park in Montana for an 8 day camping trip. We had a lot of fun and it was quite relaxing.

The problems started on the way home. As we were driving we needed to stop. As I was making a left hand turn, a car came up from behind (in the on coming traffic lane – he was apparently passing people in the line of cars behind me on the two lane highway) and clipped the front of my truck. He went flying off into the ditch with a big dent in the side doors of his car and my front bumper was bent in. Luckily no one was hurt. We were able to drive our truck home (another 650 miles) without any real problems. The only real issue to driving was that making a right turn caused the tire to rub against a bit of plastic on the bent in bumper. However, it turned out that the damage was enough that the truck was considered totaled (it was an 18 year old truck).

Dealing with that – taking the truck in for repair, finding out it was totaled, getting a rental car (with 6 drivers we could not manage on only 2 cars), and looking for a new truck – used up all my spare time this month. So there really was no “behind the scenes” game work done. I’ve even fallen way behind on the timeline posts on Twitter and have about a week and half of them to complete writing and catch up on. The good news is we found a new truck we’re happy with and all that is now officially behind us. I’m turning the rental car in later today.

Looking Forward

Beyond the Detailed Frontier Timeline post next week, I really don’t have a clue what is coming down the pipe. This month has five Tuesdays which is why I moved this post to today. I think I’ll be posting another location. I have the maps all sketched out, I’d just need to do the write-up and make nice versions of the maps. This is the next location for my Skills for Hire game which I am hopefully running tomorrow. So you might get a write-up on that adventure as well. Beyond that, we’ll see.

Behind the scenes I’m starting work this week on the next issue (#30) of the Frontier Explorer to be released in October. That will take up a bunch of my time as well but I’m going to focus on getting started early so it is more manageable and more spread out to allow me to work on other things as well.

I still have a bit of real life stuff to catch up on now that the truck purchasing is out of the way and that will probably use up any extra time I have left. School has started for my wife (she’s an astronomy professor) and kids so we’re starting to get back into a regular routine. Hopefully the schools don’t shut down again and throw a wrench in that.

Final Thoughts

It’s not a long post but there really hasn’t been a lot happening this month related to the blog. I just managed to squeak by. I looking forward to September being a little less stressful. As always feel free to share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

August RPG Blog Carnival – What we need is … more focus

This is going to be a bit of an introspective post (and a bit late again).

I’m a bit behind in reading through all the posts on the blogs I follow and finally read the kickoff post for August’s RPG Blog Carnival which is being hosted by Campaign Mastery. The topic is “What We Need Is/Are …” When reading the post, I had to chuckle at the comment that “more prep time” wasn’t a good answer given the current COVID-19 situation.

But to be completely honest, that really is one of the things that I need. Since the pandemic shutdowns started, I’ve actually had less free time to do gaming activities than I had before this all started. I already worked from home full time before the pandemic. My wife was still going to work every day. And I had all of my kids home full time, many of them still in school and even over the summer, trapped in the house without friends to distract them and keep them out of my hair. I could definitely use more time. But since that is off the table, I have something else to write about.

To be honest, I hadn’t planned on doing a blog carnival post this month, but as I was driving to pick up one of my kids from work (the joys of having 6 people working and only 3 cars), I was mulling over the topic and the thought hit me that what I really need, more than more time, is more focus on what I spend my time on.

And that got me thinking about all the irons I have in the fire.

Myriads of Projects

Not counting my full-time job, plus my wife and seven kids and all the things that go along with that, here’s a list of all the different hobby projects that I’m involved with or have on-going.

Obviously, the biggest part of my distraction revolves around the Star Frontiers RPG. For many years now, I’ve sort of been the primary torch bearer for the game in the on-line communities. With that comes a number of projects.

Websites & Social Media

To start I host all of the following websites on my personal server here at my house:

This site
The Star Frontiers Network (starfrontiers.info) – wiki and on-line game forums
Star Frontiers: Join the Revival (starfrontiers.us) – forums, development projects, character generator, and other items.
The Frontier Explorer fanzine (frontierexplorer.org) – currently active
The Star Frontiersman fanzine (starfrontiersman.com) – currently dormant

I didn’t initially create all of those sites (just 3), but have inherited them over the years as the original owners have drifted off to other things.

With the exception of possibly this site (which is relatively new) and the Star Frontiersman site (which I rebuilt when I inherited it), the others are all in desperate need of of updating. Two of them date from 2007 and one from 2012. I have standing projects to update all of those sites to new technologies. But those are daunting tasks and require a lot of dedicated time.

In addition to the websites, I’m a founding member or admin on multiple social media platforms including a Facebook group and a Discord server. There are a few others but they are not nearly as active (or were shut down as in the case of the Google Plus group). Each of those also compete for some of my time.

Fanzines

Circling back, the Frontier Explorer fanzine is still active. With the exception of the year we took off at the request of Wizards of the Coast (due to the attempt to acquire the trademark by Evil Hat), we’ve put out an issue every 3 months. I’m getting ready to start working on issue 30. This takes up a significant chunk of my time the 6 weeks prior to each issue being released.

Related to the Frontier Explorer, I’ve done two starship technical manuals in the past that were full products by themselves and released in the “Frontier Explorer Presents” line. I’ve been asked about doing another one on the HSS History’s Hope which I’m considering. We are also in the editing and art stage on another Frontier Explorer Presents” publication that will be a short story collection based around the Khad’dan, a fan-created Yazirian honor weapon.

And we are also looking at resurrecting the Star Frontiersman magazine to be a vehicle for publishing adventures in, separate from the Frontier Explorer. I have several submissions from authors that might end up there.

Another project in this category waiting for my attention is an on-line index of all the articles from all of the fanzines and the old Dragon, Imagine, Polyhedron, and Ares articles. I have that list mostly compiled (it was complete up the the hiatus), but still need to make it searchable on-line.

Finally, there is the project to get all the articles on-line in HTML format as opposed to just the magazine PDFs. Some of that is done and we had the intention of doing that for all the Frontier Explorer articles originally, but that fell by the wayside early on (issue 7) and I’ve never gotten back to it.

Blogging

Then there is this blog. The writing of each article takes 1-2 hours, sometimes more, depending on the topic and length. And that doesn’t count all the time that goes into making the content that I’m writing about.

Which brings me to the next list. Namely projects that I’m working on related to this blog.

Detailed Frontier Timeline
Death at Rosegard adventure
Ghost Ship Osiris adventure
3D ship models
New starship construction rules
probably others I’m forgetting

Long time readers should recognize the items there. Newer readers can peruse the archive to find my posts on those projects.

I have a couple of other blogs that are no longer active. One of the things I’ve been meaning to do is consolidate all the writing I’ve done on those blogs into a sort of “blog archive” on my personal site (thomasstephens.info)

Active Games

Next there are the on-line Star Frontiers games I’m either running (Skills for Hire) or playing in (a Second Sathar War game from the Knight Hawks Campaign Book). The SSW game doesn’t take up a lot of time but it does consume some. Prepping for the Skills for Hire game, on the other hand, does take a fair bit of work as I need to prepare adventure outlines, maps, etc. for each adventure. The goal was to have a weekly session. I quickly discovered that I didn’t have time to prep for that and so dropped back to bi-weekly. But recently, as my players can attest, even that hasn’t been possible. On the flip side, this prep does give me items to share as blog posts here.

Podcasts

Addendum: I completely forgot about the podcast projects until after I posted the article originally. I want to start a podcast as well a post the audio from my on-line games on-line. The game sessions are recorded. I just need to convert them into an audio format and get them posted.

As for a regular podcast, I have several ideas (and did one a decade ago) but with all the other projects, this has just never gotten off the ground. Maybe it won’t happen. But it is definitely something I want to do. One idea I’ve had is to do a discussion of the Star Frontiers rules. Start at the beginning and go through them discussing the rules, how they work, and various fan-created variations.

Other Projects

In addition to all of that, there are a few other projects kicking around. One is my Second Sathar War computer game. I started that a long time ago. It’s about 90% of the way to the full base functionality. It works (except for seeker missiles and repairs) but needs a lot of polish (and a few bug fixes). I haven’t really worked on it recently (other than to get it working on Windows 10 a couple of years back) but it’s always sitting there in back of my mind begging for attention.

Another project is a pair of books I’m writing. One is a sequel to my book Discovery. That is roughly outlined and has one small section written. The other is a Star Frontiers story set on Pale when the sathar attack that planet. That one is outlined and I have about 1/4-1/3 (~56000 words) of the first draft done. Both of those are projects I’d like to get back to.

Next, there is some freelance stuff I do including indexing games for DWD Studios (publishers of FrontierSpace), editing FrontierSpace modules for Trevor Holman, and I’m on tap to do some science nuggets to include in the upcoming Space Kids RPG by Nick Landry. Those are hit and miss but when they come up, they can take most if not all of my free time for any given week.

Finally there are my other blogs and website, most notably my personal site (thomasstephens.info) and my game company site (newfrontiergames.com) Both need a lot of work.

I’m sure there are other things I’ve worked on (and probably not finished) that could go here but this list is already long enough as it is.

Gaining Focus

As you can see from the list above, I have a lot of irons in the fire. While I’m not necessarily actively working on all of those things, they are are there hoping to gain my attention. And because there are so many options, I can get easily distracted bouncing between them all. Hence the need for more focus.

I’m not sure what the best path forward for me is right now. The Frontier Explorer and this blog are definitely my highest priorities. Mostly because I enjoy them, but partially because they actively generate some income (through their respective Patreon campaigns) that I use to keep the websites going, cover my time spent working on them, and reinvest into time or resources for other projects. If you like the magazines and the blog, and want to encourage me to keep them going, consider supporting the Patreon campaigns for the Frontier Explorer (per issue) or this blog (monthly).

Even just the blog suffers from a bit (okay, may a lot) of a lack of focus. There are a lot of topics I’ve covered and would like to continue covering. To focus on fewer of them may mean that I don’t post as often as there won’t be anything to post about. So I could see the blog slowing down if needed. I’ve been consistently getting out at least a post a week (even though some, like this one, don’t get out on time at 8am on Tuesdays) for over two years but maybe I need to scale that back a bit. The real question is where to put my focus.

For all the other projects, I think what I need is to sit down and really prioritize them. Then focus on one until it’s done and move on to the next. I think part of the problem is that the huge number of projects creates a large cognitive load as they are all vying for attention and so I can’t pick just one and I spend a lot of time thinking back and forth and don’t make any progress.

The only other thing is the on-line games. As much as I love them, they are a huge time sink and I often find prepping for the game I’m running takes all my free time and then some. Maybe the option there is to fall back to one session a month. Although they do help generate content for the blog that are inline with my original goal for the blog, namely to create and provide resources that others can use in their games.

What’s Next?

I’m not sure. This is going to take some more thinking. I might have more to say about this in my next State of the Frontier post next week. Or it may take a bit more time to sort all of this out. School just started and that might free up time (as I have the kids around less during the day and so get less distracted from work that I have to make up later) or if they shut down due to COVID-19 again, it may mean less free time like it did last March and April.

But this is a chance for you, dear readers, to chime in. Which of all the projects I’ve listed above would you like to see more of? Which should I focus on? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

State of the Frontier – July 2020

I can’t believe July is already over. I was sitting and thinking about what I would be doing for my next regular Tuesday post and realized that I had this one to write before then. That was last night (the 30th, I’m writing this just before it goes live). I think the month flew by because I’ve been busy working on the Frontier Explorer all month.

Looking Back

Normally, I start this section with the blog posts I made but this month they seem almost ancillary to everything that has been going on that I’m going to start with the behind the scenes stuff.

First and foremost, my time this month was taken up by getting issue 29 of the Frontier Explorer ready to go. I really struggled with this issue and procrastinated working on it until the very tail end of June so most of the work was done this month. But I managed to get it all finished just a couple of days later than I planned. If you haven’t already gotten a copy, you can get it either at DriveThruRPG or on the Frontier Explorer website.

I only ran one session of my “Skills for Hire” game on-line this month as the first session got canceled due to lack of players (we only had one). So I put out a reminder call before the next session and had a bunch of new players show up for that session. We had eight players total, although one had to drop out due to connection issues. They got through about half of the adventure I had planned, which is where I expected to get to, and everyone had a good time. We are looking forward to finishing it next week.

I also joined another game, as a player this time, were we are playing through the Second Sathar War game from the back of the Knight Hawks Campaign Book. We have several people on each side with someone playing referee between the two sides. He’s added in some twists and a bit of fog of war which makes it interesting. I’m playing the militia and unattached UPF ships. The game is played fairly asynchronously, with the players on each side of the battle taking turns moving and firing on Roll20 with the referee, but otherwise independent of the other players. There is also a forum were we post strategic movement orders. If you want to follow along, we have a Facebook group were we post updates. I think we’re also still looking for a 4th sathar admiral so if you want to play as well, jump over to the Facebook group and volunteer.

With all that going on, I also managed to get my regular blog posts out, although sometimes just barely (like this one). The first, as always was the Detailed Frontier Timeline post. If you follow the timeline on Twitter, you will have noticed that it was only coming out in batches this month and not daily as it has in the past. That was partially due to all the above going on and partially as I would be so busy with other things that I forgot to post for several days at a time. I also have gotten a bit behind in writing the updates so I’m always right on the edge of what I’ve worked out and that would sometimes cause delays as well. I’m hopefully over that and will get back to a regular schedule of tweeting this month.

Next up was a background piece discussing my ideas about the enlisted crews of Spacefleet vessels. That one had been sitting in my todo list from day one of the blog and in my mind for several years before that. After that came an update post on the HSS History’s Hope with some of the material provided by Mathew Crymble, a long time Star Frontiers fan that contacted me about helping flesh out the ship. It that post, I described the ship a bit more (using material provided by Mathew), provided its game stats, and an update on its travels to date in the detailed timeline.

Finally I ended the month’s posts with a new organization, the Tristars, an organized crime group based in Myha’s Beach. I had actually planned to write about them earlier in the month but since that one is a direct off-shoot of my Skills for Hire game, I couldn’t post it until we played through the adventure and that got delayed this month. But it’s out now.

Looking Forward

We’ll do this section slightly reversed as well. The first major thing happening this month has nothing to do with the blog. And that is my family and I are going camping and I’ll be completely off-line for nearly a third of the month. So if you see some disruption in posting, or lack of response from me, that’s why.

Rough HSS History’s Hope model next to a Swift Class assault scout for scale.

Otherwise, things will look pretty normal. I’m currently working on deck plans and a 3D model of the HSS History’s Hope. I teased the model on Facebook and Twitter with the image to the right. I don’t expect to finish this all up this month so it will probably be September before you see that post. I’ve also been asked if I’m going to turn this into another one of my Technical Manuals. The answer to that is probably yes, as I’ve been thinking about that as I work on it, but that is going to be even further off.

Another behind the scenes item that I’m working on is editing a new Frontier Explorer Presents product. This time a short story collection. We’ve been sitting on this since we first conceived the Frontier Explorer back in 2012 and we’re finally getting to it. It is a collection of stories based on the khad’dan, a yazirian honor sword created my Mathew Crymble back in the 90’s. Some of the stories are from that era and some are newer. If by some miracle we get all the art and editing done quickly that might come out in August but more likely, you should look for it in November, after the next Frontier Explorer issue.

As to this month’s blog posts, we’ll start as usual with a Detailed Frontier Timeline post. Assuming that the next session of my game doesn’t get canceled, that will be followed by a post on the Brekstoone Manor in Myha’s Beach. The PCs have determined that that is their next destination so once they’ve been through the manor I can post the details. You can also expect an adventure write up for the scenario they’ve been playing through once they’ve finished.

Related to the game, I’ve been recording the sessions and planning on releasing them as an actual play podcast, but haven’t had time to get that all set up with all the work on the Frontier Explorer going on. With issue 29 out of the way, I have time to focus on that so you will most likely see those sessions showing up here, probably with a kick-off post to talk about it. And maybe that rules review podcast will kick off as well but no promises there.

I didn’t do anything for the Blog Carnival this month due to lack of time. I don’t know what August’s topic is (I just haven’t looked) but there might be a related post there as well. We’ll just have to see what happens.

And I think that’s it for August. My kids start back in to school this month as well. They are starting at the school in person, but we’ll see what happens relative to COVID-19 when everyone starts getting back together. That could have an impact on events at the end of the month or, more likely, next month.

Your Thoughts

And that’s it. I’ve got eight minutes before this is supposed to go live so I just squeaked in before my self-imposed deadline. 🙂 As always, if you have suggestions on things you’d like to see me write about, let me know in the comments below.

State of the Frontier – June 2020

This is coming on the first of July instead of the last day of June as I was hosting the RPG Blog Carnival last month and the normal day for this post was filled by the wrap-up post for the carnival. Let’s get to it.

Looking Back

As I already mentioned, last month I was host to the RPG Blog Carnival with a theme of “Organizations” and that was the source of the majority of last month’s posts. I started the month (and the blog carnival) off with a post about the True Yazira Society, a group that works to oppose the Family of One and preserve the cultural heritage of Yazira. Mid month, I wrote about another organization, the Investors, a shadowy organization that works to increase their personal wealth and power by manipulating governments and corporations throughout the Frontier. Finally, we finished the month with the wrap up post for the blog carnival.

In between those posts I sprinkled in the regular Detailed Frontier Timeline post, and a post about a new location, Myha’s Beach, a city east of Point True on Pale.

Behind the scenes I was supposed to be working on issue 29 of the Frontier Explorer. And while I did get some work done on that, I did not get nearly as much as I should have.

I also ran a session on my online Star Frontiers game, “Skills for Hire.” There should have been two sessions but due to technical difficulties and a lack of players, the second session didn’t happen. There was a bit of development work for that game that will show up in future posts. I just have to wait for the players to get to it so that posting the details doesn’t spoil things. But there is at least a location and possibly another organization to be written about.

On the technical side, I finally got my mail server migrated and updated from my old server to the new one. My old server is now officially retired. It’s still up and running so I can access stored passwords and such on my account there but all my servers are now running on the new machine. I even started looking into an upgrade of the starfrontiers.us site but didn’t get very far on that. Upgrading the mail server allowed me to use security certificates from Let’s Encrypt instead of being completely self-signed. Going forward this will solve some of the mail issues I’ve been having with my websites since their recent migration and upgrade.

Looking Forward

Beyond the Detailed Frontier Timeline post next week, I really don’t know what this month will bring. There should be a post about a new location. I have all the maps and room descriptions, I just need the players in my online game to get there first. 🙂

I also think I’ll be doing another post on the HSS History’s Hope. This will include at least an updated map of it’s progress, a description of the ship, it’s game specs, and possibly a rough 3D image. I’m currently working on deck plans for the ship but I don’t think I’ll finish them this month.

That just leaves one post up in the air. We’ll see what comes up, possibly a writeup of the mini adventure I’m waiting to run for my game.

The main thing I’m going to be working on is issue 29 of the Frontier Explorer. My goal is to have it all done by the 15th and out to the supporters of the magazine’s Patreon campaign. That means it will be out on the 22nd for general release. If you want to get it early, consider joining as a supporter there. Although if you are already a supporter of this site, don’t feel that you need to support both.

Also related to my on-line game, I’m still planning on posting the audio of the sessions (and possibly the video as well) on-line as a podcast here on the site. I just haven’t had the time to sit down and get it all put together. I was waiting for a Windows update that would allow me to use the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 on my computer. That came through earlier in the month (finally, it was dated for April). If I find time between working on the Frontier Explorer and posts for the site, I’ll try to get that up.

I’ve also floated the idea of doing a podcast series reading and discussing the core rule books for the game. I posted about this on the Facebook group and it got a positive response so maybe I’ll tackle that at some point in the future as well. But probably not this month?

Your Thoughts

Do you have any ideas or suggestions on things you’d like to see in the blog? Is the rules reading and commentary postcast something that would be of interest to you? Anything I’ve mentioned that you don’t want to see? Let me know in the comments below.

June RPG Blog Carnival – Organizations – Wrap-up

It’s the end of the month and time for a wrap-up on this month’s RPG Blog Carnival. Regular readers of my blog know that I normally do a “State of the Frontier” post on the last day of the month, that post will be up tomorrow. Today we’re going to look at the various entries in this month’s blog carnival topic, Organizations.

I don’t know if the topic wasn’t very appealing, people were crazy busy, or if the blog carnival is losing steam but we did not have a lot of submissions this month. I know I’m guilty of not doing an article every month as sometimes I’m strapped for time or just don’t have the inspiration to bend the often fantasy themed topics to sci-fi. But I was hoping this month’s topic of organizations would be broad enough to appeal widely, I guess I was wrong. That said the entries we did get were great.

First up was Building a Financial Landscape with Megacorps by Phil Forbes on the Stray RPG Thoughts blog. This entry discusses how to use Keith J. Davies’ Polyhedral Pantheons system to, instead of creating gods for a setting, create a series of mega-corps that are the main influencers in a setting. Phil then goes on to apply the system to the local branches of the mega-corps and the local markets they are operating in. This provides a rich framework of connections and competing interests for the players to interact with. I found this one interesting as my preferred setting, Star Frontiers, already has a pantheon of canonical mega-corps controlling various interests throughout the setting. I’m definitely going to take a look at this system for expanding these interactions.

Next up was an entry by Andrew Girdwood on the Geek Native blog. He gave us a random secret society generator. You can never have enough random names on hand and this generator gives you an infinite supply. You choose a general genre (Contemporary, Horror, Low or High Fantasy, or Sci-Fi) and then generate a name. You can keep clicking to get new ones or until you find one that sparks your imagination. The second one I got on his sci-fi generator was “The Eternal Planet Faction.” I immediately thought of a tie-in with the True Yazira society that I posted as part of the kickoff of this month’s carnival. In this case, it’s not part of the True Yazira Society, but a faction within the Family of One and the GODCo mega-corp that is trying to recreate their homeworld. I might write that up in the future. I’ll definitely use it at some point in my game.

Next was the entry by Gonz from Codex Anathema with their entry on the Silver Arrows, a loose, crime-prevention organization that might be part of the Church of the Silver Flame in their Ebberon campaign. They even provide a variation on the Arcane Archer archetype to play a member of the Silver Arrows.

As host, I offered up two different organizations. The first as part of the kickoff post, was the True Yazira society, primarily a cultural organization striving to preserve the traditions of their homeworld but also opposing the practices of the group that has usurped authority (as the True Yaziria Society sees it) from the rightful rules of their species. The second was the Investors, as shadowy, behind-the-scenes organization that works to influence governments and corporations to increase their own wealth and power.

That’s it for this month’s RPG Blog Carnival. I hope you found a nugget you could use in your game from this month’s posts or were inspired to generate some new organizations for your world even if you don’t blog or didn’t submit an entry. For me this is just a springboard as I plan to present various organizations from my setting in future posts, not just part of the Blog Carnival. I have several ideas lined up, I just need to find the time to write them down and get them posted.

Next month’s entry is still TBD but be sure to check out the RPG Blog Carnival’s home page on the Of Dice and Dragons blog to find links to past and future topics. And come back tomorrow for my regular “State of the Frontier” Post.