Introducing
the Council of Magisters
I
found myself overwhelmed. Arcana
Unearthed was garnering far more attention than
I had ever expected, from both gamers and publishers.
Suddenly, lots and lots of people were contacting me
with potential licenses, fan sites, and more. I couldn't
keep it all straight. I needed help.
I
could have hired someone, maybe part time, to help manage
and review all of the products coming out from our partners
and deal with licensing. But I didn't. I decided to
handle that end of things myself. That left other duties
however -- approving fan sites, promoting Arcana
Unearthed, organizing game demos, and more.
After
giving it a lot of thought, I realized that the best
way to handle this was to go to gamers themselves. I
wanted to create an organization for fans of Arcana
Unearthed (and gaming in general) that was made
up of fans. I chose three people: two longtime playtesters
that I've worked with for a long while, and the archivist
on my message boards. All of them are outgoing, friendly,
knowledgeable, and smart. I named this small group after
a fictional organization described in The
Diamond Throne.
Without
further ado, I'd like to introduce you to the Council
of Magisters:
The
Council members are first and foremost the primary advocates
of Arcana Unearthed and the Diamond Throne setting.
In this capacity, you'll see a lot of things from them
-- new material, adventure ideas, and so forth. In fact,
the council is going to have their own website, diamondthrone.com
(not yet active) to showcase these initiatives. But
that's not all.
Diamondthrone.com
will also host other fan-generated content, and will
have an extensive list of links to Arcana Unearthed
fan sites and campaign sites. (Contact
the council for more information.) Rules discussion
should still be handled through the Arcana
Unearthed message board.
Another
goal of the Council of Magisters is player education.
In the future, they are going to create a PDF demo kit
for people to use to run demo games at stores, conventions,
and elsewhere.
To
start things off, in The Stuff this week, the council
has created an
example combat using two Arcana Unearthed
characters, which shows off many new features of the
book. Look for more material like it from them soon.
Also look for more exciting initiatives that they'll
be helping with or spearheading as Arcana Unearthed
is published next month.
I'm
really proud of the Council concept and I'm really happy
that the members I asked were willing to join. I'm looking
forward to working with them in the future, and I predict
that all Arcana Unearthed fans will see great
value from the things they create and help others create.
