While we're waiting for the precise schedule, let's keep at it. Not many files left to finish.
Last the map's went and gone got all finished, with a spanking new legend. I also updated the map in the book to an embedded vector with a pretty legend. That means the book PDF is a bit bigger, but you can now actually zoom into the map and rede it. No longer shall the book endpaper maps be unready!
Scroll down the map slice to see the title. Or all the way down to the backer section for the full, zoomable PDF version of it and the latest edition of the OGA.
2026 October 20 - Map Updated with Legends and Such
I decided to attempt more frequent updates - both to keep you informed and to motivate myself a bit more through the layout process.
You can barely see it on the map, but one of the things I did was add a scale (in metric miles, thankyouverymuch), and updated the map grid to match. This is one of those things that looks trivial, but in practice requires ... uh ... some precision.
Thank You, Stepchild of Excel, for your Calculationationisming.
In the background I've also been updating some parts of the Lexicon of the Vastlands, so _that_ reference work stays current.
Anyway, here we are:
I realized my All-Folder was missing the folder for one of the zines, to whit Biomantica. Hah. What one finds out while uploading stuff.
There's one very last piece of layout-layout work left: preparing the Referee's Screen (erroneously mislabelled by someone-probably-me the GM Screen). That's going to take some very close attention to some very small scales ... but then we'll have both the GM Screen and the Reference Cards ready to go.
After that it's all just drawing stuff, coloring stuff, and putting it into its assigned places.
Ok.
I'll hop to it. That'll be the next update. Unless I get the schedule first, in which case, well, that.
Hope you're all having a lovely October. Take care, good humans! See you again soon!
TL;DR: Here's the last of the zines laid-out for you, 58-pages of biohorror spells ... er ... powers. Also, received the proposals and questions from printers, submitted feedback, still waiting on timeline.
Be greeted once more on this unseasonably warm October day.
First, The Hard Topic: Timelines
I've had the meeting with Exalted Funeral to review the proposals from the printers and clarify some further questions. Breaking it down:
Good. Everything is well within budget, doable as initially planned.
Expected. Had to clarify a few page counts, adjust a few of them, specify endpapers vs covers, things like that.
Unfortunate, but Not Unexpected. Still waiting on final timeline I can share. Something about time zones, holidays in different countries, and so on (we had three long weekends in four weeks here in Korea).
Meanwhile, what're we doing?
Prepping all the files, getting them print ready and plonking them into the production folders.
Gonna make a happy little visual to motivate y'all as it gets done-er. Till then, here's the production folder for the meanwhiles ...
Notice the subtle off-white aging and the stylish and complex design choices ...
On that note, since I expected there to be some delay on the info, I did what should be done in such a situation: just kept working, because things needed doing.
Second, To Whit: Biomantica
That means the second zine (codex, hah!) laid out and ready to receive art.
Biomantica is getting a different art style from the Pananthropy. Where I went all Oldtech on that one, using a portable mind-stealing device with a stylus input, I decided to trust my biological senses on this one and do it all in pencil and ink. Here, in this scene we see Lispian the Younger, his Bandwave Thief Piri-Piri, and their Wardfoe Thespian.
The full codex, all 58 pages of it, awaits you in the backer-only content section. I'm pretty proud of some of these spells.
Some are simple biomedical spells. Very regular, not terrifying stuff.
Others explain the origin of the Gelatinous Geometric Solid™. And grant new traits while risking mutation, which is always fun.
And then there's fun stuff like the Ecosphere subset of Awakened Sphere spells that really make the don't-call-it-a-druid PC-thing feel alive.
I'm still pondering whether I should add an endpaper / section repeating the dangerous magic and corruption sections of the Vastlands Guidebook. For this codex in particular having a lot of mutation structure here might be useful. However, that's a decision I'm going to make a little later, after I have the cover art and the referee screen nailed down.
Anyway, now that Biomantica has its final layout, I can tally up the pages ... 58 for Biomantica, 54 for Pananthropy, 260 for Our Golden Age, 174 for Vastlands Guidebook, 120 cards for Nemesis and Jubilee.
We're at 666 pages, folks!
I doubt we've got many more to go.
I'll post the next update as soon as I either have news on the timeline or I have another pretty piece laid out.
Till then, may the dragons be ever within you and not without, —Luka
I've also finished some more art for the Pananthropy. Pretty, isn't it?
TL;DR: Update on progress and still waiting on dates from printer. Plus links to all completed materials thus far in the backer-only content section, which will be a permanent feature of updates from now on.
Wow. Backerkit tells me it's been 25 days. What has happened to September?
Work in progress on the Accusers. This one references the style of one of my favorite illustrators, Kay Nielsen. It's a quite wrist-intensive style.
This is one of those updates where I confess, it doesn't look like much has moved. I had the meeting with Exalted Funeral to review all our production specs because since our initial crowdfunding a few things have changed. On the global stage, the Big Beautiful Government of the United States has introduced some tariffs, among other shenanigans, while on my smaller stage Our Golden Age, the Vastlands Guidebook, and the Pananthropy all gained a few pages each.
We've aligned on the specs and are now waiting on production, shipping, and assembly timelines from our printers, shippers, warehouses, and so forth.
I put off getting back to you sooner because I hoped to have detailed numbers to share, and also because some post-moving issues (don't you love 'em?) and getting used to the new daycare schedules (more driving for yours truly) have left my regular creative schedule a bit disrupted.
Goes to show what I know, eh?
I know nothing. That's what I know. Nothing.
Anyway, I'll get the dates to you as soon as I have them. I can say that the dice will be the slowest item to produce due to the tooling, so there's a lesson for me.
Meanwhile, here's the news:
I got Biomantica back from the editor and I'll share the edited and laid out version as soon as it's done. I've started doing tests on the technique I want to use to illustrate it. I'm a little bit inclined to working in pastels, but we'll see if that makes sense. In any case, it'll be a rougher, faster style than the Pananthropy. More messy biomancer's journal than pretty clacker's textbook.
I've continued doing the art pieces for the Pananthropy. I admit: between production a bit slowed and some sleepless nights, I've been giving the art a bit more time here. Perhaps too much? We'll see.
This week is Chuseok in Korea and since my wife's traveling for work, any progress I make this week is a bonus, not an expectation. Gotta say ... shepherding two toddlers and a dog is interesting. Especially with flu season approaching ...
Oh, and a little bonus - I did write up the Silent City (attached below), so, I suppose that'll be a bit of a bonus for all you Circle Sea fans. The write-up got longer than the 2 pages I planned ...
OK. Onwards to the end. We're at around 450 pages + 100 cards of laid-out material by now. Last stretch. We got this, right?
No. The Liches got this. For lo, they are deathless. We must bow down to our technofeudal overlord liches. Bow and scrape. Whimper.
Right, where was I before that interruption by the liches?
Oh, right ... happy Chuseok, everyone. Catch you after that one.
A pleasure to be back. Getting settled in the new house continues, figuring out new routines, dropping off children, and so forth. Fortunately, some work has also been ongoing.
I got feedback from the editor and some noble typohunters on Pananthropy, so that's closer to done. Soon as I have all the art inside, it's ready. Then: Biomantica.
The Alphas or 'Lephines or 'Fines are a tribute to the work of Beardsley
I've decided to play with a bit of a conceit, as mentioned, making visual tributes to some pieces of 20th century (or thereabouts) Human art that capture some of the essence of these far-lost branches of Humanity.
The faceless banality and surreality of the Betas seems well served by Magritte.
For the Gammas, I went with a piece that's a tribute to Rivera.
Some of the pieces were a bit more involved than I'd initially planned. I hope you will tolerate having slightly more involved and colorful art in the Pananthropy than was initially perhaps planned by yours truly.
You can download the latest PDF down below the fold.
The other thing that I did was ... almost finish the Silent City map. Haven't finished describing it yet, but this is kind of a bonus, since it's not strictly speaking a part of Our Golden Age, rather it is ... mmm ... an expansion or elaboration of a place described therein.
Being the Silent City, WIP version P.
Next week I have a call scheduled with Exalted Funeral (I missed the last one due to moving-days-exhaustion + my calendar notifications didn't work because I don't have any notifications enabled on my "phone") to nail down the production outline. Once I have that, I'll be able to let you know more clearly on when we'll have the printed proofs in hand, and from there, the books and boxes!
Now that the books are done (well, apart from the cover, which I need to finish-finish-final version coloring), I can start getting the other pieces print ready. In production the books, as a rule, have the longest lead time, so once that's locked, all the other stuff is - comparatively - easy.
Hope to have more details on that soon.
And if not: it'll just be more pictures, more layouts, and closer to 100% done on the dig-ital front.
Wishing everyone a pleasant and not-too-hot or wildfire-infested end of summer.
—Luka, The Best of All Possible Worlds*, Seoul
*La-la-la I keep my head in the sand and do not** see the news la-la-la
I feel like the last two weeks have been a blur, with the moving and all, and one might think I have nothing to share. But it is not so. Nooo ...
I've been coloring the OGA cover art. It's ... uh ... slow going. This is a reduced size image.
I've gotten a decent start on the cover. Maybe another week and it'll be all done. Then I add the legends and the character sheets to the end of the book and that's all folks. Both are done.
One evening I also set up the indesign file for the Pananthropy zine. I reworked the Magitecnica / ERK style to fit better with the VLG and OGA books. It uses the same body font, but I decided to use different header fonts for each of the zines, to make them stand out a bit more.
Pages 4 and 5 of the Pananthropy Zine. As you can see, I've gotten started on some of the art.
You can get the laid out zine's PDF, sans most art, in the backer-only section down below.
It's framed as a lecture given by the Clacker, the academic character in the first page, so I've decided to reference some hits of human art for the illustrations.
As I might have mentioned somewhere, I did some work on the OGA character sheets. A version is also in the backer section below.
Finally, as part of the work on the stratometaship, the next illustrated map will be the Silent City. You can see it on the big map:
There it is, the Silent City.
So ... it looks like the OGA is going to have expansions in the works!
It is, honestly, a relief to be writing again, not just doing layout and filling in spot art. That was a big project. Phew.
I hoped to have some more information about production today, but I borked my alarms last night and missed my call with Exalted Funeral, so I need to reschedule that. I'll probably have some news by the next update.
Now, take care if you're experiencing a heatwave, don your environment suit, and hydrate, hydrate, hydra.
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