I started this Design Diary to talk about the development of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, which I've been doing for the last nine months or so. But Arcana Unearthed is out now, and The Diamond Throne is out as a PDF. There are more Arcana Unearthed-related products coming, but that's not what I'm working on these days. So, if you'll indulge me, I'm going to keep the Design Diary going, but I'm diverting its contents to what I'm working on now: a book called Chaositech.

Now, I'm not going to give you the sales pitch for Chaositech. You can find that here. Instead, I thought I'd talk about how I'm going about breaking up the material, which is actually quite varied. See, I'm making this a general sourcebook about chaos stuff (cults, spells, etc.) that focuses heavily on chaositech itself, as well as the terrible awful things behind chaositech, the Galchutt. Sounds like a book with three chapters, one dealing with chaos in general, one for chaositech, and one for the Galchutt (and a few other related chaos monsters).

Except the more that I got into it, the more developed, robust, and dynamic the ideas became. I realized, for example, that there are two different kinds of chaositech. The first are the straightforward items, including weapons and armor. These are mostly metallic items, so I call the chapter "The Bones of Steel" to juxtapose it against the other type of chaositech, which is the modifications that one can make to one's own body. This involves strange procedures and dangerous operations (details of how characters perform such procedures are included, of course -- you can make your own Kinion Luth). This chapter I call "The Betrayal of Flesh."

I also realized that there are ramifications to long-term exposure to all this reality-warping chaos. So I knew the book would have to include an extensive section on mutation. Of course, the chaos cultists would see mutation as a wonderful gift from the gods, so the chapter is called "The Blessings of Mutation."

It also became clear that chaos cultists and chaositech called for specific character focuses and groups, which means that a few prestige classes were called for. So that makes six chapters.

As the ideas flourished, the book increased from 64 pages to 96. I feel that 96 pages is my favorite length for a book -- long enough to be meaty and substantive, but not so long that it encourages a writer to start padding it with stuff no one really needs.

Chaositech is a really fun project for me to be working on. It grew right out of my Ptolus campaign, and some of it harkens back to other designs I've worked on in the past as well. While it is technically a rulesy sourcebook, the focus is on the flavor and the wild ideas, and that's the way I like it. I can guarantee that it'll be different from almost any other product you've read.

Whoops. Starting to slip into sales speak. That means it's time to go....

 

DESIGN DIARY PAST ENTRIES

* Magic Items in The Diamond Throne -- August 28, 2003
"Magic items in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed and in The Diamond Throne sometimes require a little bit of thought on the DM's part. Using them isn't a problem..."

* A Look at the Land -- August 15, 2003
"This week I've prepared an excerpt from The Diamond Throne. As I've said previously, it was my design choice to spend most of the gazetteer portion of the book on the general aspects of the world..."

* Designing a World -- August 7, 2003
"I have mixed feelings about campaign settings. On one hand -- speaking as designer -- it's fun, challenging, and rewarding to create a whole world that's all your own...."

* Weapons and Armor -- July 17, 2003
"I absolutely love the introduction of exotic weapons into D&D. It's one of my favorite things about 3rd Edition. In Arcana Unearthed, I wanted to make sure that the exotic weapons were worth the feat required to use them...."

* Greenbond Notes -- June 26, 2003
"Last week's preview of the greenbond class gives a nice glimpse of a lot of Arcana Unearthed issues. First off, the greenbond is no druid...."

* Spell Templates -- June 12, 2003
"This week I thought I'd discuss an idea that I'm really very happy with. The idea is spell templates..."

* Playtesting -- June 5, 2003
"Playtesting is extremely important to me. When we developed 3rd Edition, we did more playtesting than perhaps any other RPG product, ever...."

* High Magic -- May 29, 2003
"I referred to the Diamond Throne as a high-magic setting. I should clarify..."

* The Diamond Throne -- May 23, 2003
"So it's about time I start talking about the Diamond Throne. The Diamond Throne is a campaign setting for Arcana Unearthed -- the default setting, like Greyhawk for D&D, I suppose...."

* Death's Door -- May 8 , 2003
" I like the D&D death's door rules. I like that at 0 hp, you're still up and can take a limited action, but then you exhaust yourself...."

* Hero Points -- May 1, 2003
"A roleplaying campaign can be like putting up wallpaper...."

* Truenames -- April 18, 2003
"Truenames are common in many fantasy settings. I think I first became aware of the concept in Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy..."

* Go, Go, Go! -- April 10, 2003
"Short entry this time. I hate spells with 1 minute/level durations...."

* Ceremony -- April 3, 2003
"I think I've already mentioned that one of the goals I set for myself with Arcana Unearthed was to make things a little less generic...."

* Things That Rules Take Away -- March 21, 2003
"There are aspects of fantasy roleplaying that rules, inadvertently, can actually take away...."

* Still Talking Classes -- March 13, 2003
"I've saved some of the best classes for last. Let's talk about the runethane, the mage blade, and the witch...."

* More Classes -- February 27, 2003
"This time, I want to tell you about some of the other classes: akashics, magisters, and greenbonds...."

* Build a Better Fighter -- February 23, 2003
"The title this week is facetious. It really should be 'build a different fighter'...."

* The Magic Balancing Act -- February 13, 2003
"In Arcana Unearthed I'm introducing a new method of magic item pricing. First, I streamlined the item creation feats..."

* More Magic -- January 23, 2003
"This week, I thought I'd talk more about the new magic system in Arcana Unearthed."

* Magic -- January 17, 2003
"As a designer, magic in Arcana Unearthed posed a huge challenge. I knew that I wanted to ditch the Vancian system...."

* Design Decisions, Part Two -- December 24, 2002
"Here's a bit more discussion of some of the general issues I faced as I began designing Arcana Unearthed...."

* Design Decisions, Part One -- December 19, 2002
"Before jumping into another big area of Arcana Unearthed's design, like classes or the magic system, I thought I'd discuss some of the general issues I faced as a designer starting the book...."

* Arcana Unearthed Races -- December 5, 2002
"I started with the races. While I knew that the game needed humans as a basis, I wanted all the other races to be new. I didn't want to just create dwarf and elf analogs with different names...."