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Malhavoc
Press
Chat Transcript: Chaositech and Other Topics
January
15, 2004 -- 5 p.m. PST
 I
was pleased to welcome almost 40 of you to our very
own chat room last week to chat with me and with Sue
about not only our new release, Chaositech,
but also about some of the other products you'll be seeing
from Malhavoc Press later this year. Thanks to everyone
who attended! And thanks as well to Carthain for moderating
and sending us this
transcript*. —Monte
Carthain:
Welcome to a Malhavoc Press Chat! Today we are chatting
with Monte Cook. The topic of today is Chaositech
and other Malhavoc products
Monte:
Thanks for coming, everyone. It's great to be chatting with
you all again.
Carthain:
Okay, before we start with questions (*nudges people to
msg me some*), is there anything either you or Sue would
like to say, Monte?
Monte:
We'll recently announced a bunch of new products and we'd
be happy to talk about any of them. Or anything else you
want. Other than that, I blather on on the website enough,
so why don't we just get to questions?
Carthain:
All right then. ^_^ From Blueleaf: "How would you describe
chaositech to someone who's never played with it before?"
Monte:
Chaositech devices are things that can make the impossible
possible. They are things that should not work, but because
they are powered by chaos, they do. But because they are
powered by chaos, they come with a price and a risk.
Carthain:
From Isida: "Monte, what aspects of Chaositech
are you using in your own game, if any?"
Monte:
Virtually everything in Chaositech came right out
of my own Ptolus game. Even the
mutants and the Galchutt. The PCs faced off against many
of the different cults. The web enhancement
I did last week with Kinion Luth comes right out of Ptolus
too, although his stats have changed some. So, I guess,
the short answer is, pretty much all of it. The players
in my game just last week learned of a new foe collecting
chaositech, in fact. He's a dark elf who stole a bunch from
the ruined Dark Elf fortress Ul-Drakkan (if you read the
exploits of the Black Lantern, you know what I mean).
Carthain:
From Valerius: "Why didn't you include rules for creating
new chaositech?"
Monte:
You can create new chaositech using the Craft (chaositech)
skill. And the pricing guidelines are in there as well.
They're basically statted up like magic items.
Carthain:
From Taurren: "Do you have plans to redo a Dark
Space style setting, and is Chaositech partly
based on that setting?"
Monte:
Chaositech is very much the grandchild of Dark
Space. I imagine that if I ever did a science fantasy
kind of setting it would be like Dark Space, but
not exactly the same. But I have no immediate plans to do
that. Maybe someday. For now, Chaositech is my new
update to Dark Space.
Carthain:
From Valerius: "Why did you decide to make chaositech
evil?"
Monte:
Well, it comes from the Galchutt, who are evil in the broadest
sense—it's tough not to call something that wants to
destroy all creation evil. Chaositech itself isn't evil
in the same way that an evil magical artifact is evil, but
it is corrupting, and dangerous stuff. It's all a matter
of flavor, I suppose. But a non-evil character can use chaositech
and get away with it if he's got some wherewithal (good
saves) and he's careful.
Monte
Cook's Arcana Unearthed
 Carthain:
From Caledonian: "Has there been any progress towards
establishing an Arcana Unearthed Sage?"
Monte:
If by "Arcana Unearthed Sage" you mean
someone to answer Arcana Unearthed questions in an
official way, no, not really. I'm not sure about it. Soon
we'll maybe make Mike Mearls
do it. ;)
Carthain:
From Caledonian: "Seriously, what will Children
of the Rune actually be about?"
Monte:
Seriously? :)
Carthain:
Apparently ^_^
Monte:
It's an anthology of stories written by different authors.
Each story is very different, but involves a runechild in
some aspect. It's been fun to see the different takes on
the idea from different quality writers.
Carthain:
From Merganser86: "Can Monte let us know more of the
authors with stories in Children of the Rune?"
Monte:
Sue can...
Galhavoc: Authors include Ed Greenwood, of Forgotten
Realms fame (Ed has written a cool story of Sormere)
and Jeff Grubb of D&D/Dragonlance/Star Wars/Magic/Forgotten
Realms fame (his excellent story involves a giant).
Then we have not one but TWO stories from Monte. One is
a cool look at the challenge of a verrik runechild and the
other one is sort of light-hearted. Plus we have wonderful
stories from Stan!, Lucien Soulban, Thomas Reid, Richard
Lee Byers, Wolfgang Baur, Will McDermott, Mike Mearls, and
more. It's some great talent, and we hope you all will like
the book -- so we can do more!
Carthain:
From Fontbone: "Can we expect to see stats and/or other
future support for characters and events in Children
of the Rune, or is this a one-shot thing?"
Galhavoc:
Perhaps as web enhancements, but game material won't be
in the book itself. It will be fiction only. Monte?
Monte:
None of the events in the stories are world-shattering.
They're not that kind of stories, so there will be no need
to change anything you'll find in a game product or update
anything based on what happens in the fiction. I'd be happy
to do stats for the characters in my stories at some point,
though.
Carthain:
From Celestiallord: "Will any future Malhavoc products
not specifically made for Arcana Unearthed or the
Diamond Throne setting contain rules for adapting them to
these rules and settings?"
Monte:
Yes. The Complete Book of
Eldritch Might coming out next week does. The
Book of Hallowed Might (revised) will as well, as
will Book of Hallowed Might
II. Basically, it's our plan that most will when
appropriate.
Carthain:
From Caledonian: "Should Arcana Unearthed be
considered a completely different cosmology from D&D?
Monte:
Yeah, as much as D&D has a cosmology. It's probably
easier to say Diamond Throne as a completely different cosmology
than Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk.
Carthain:
From Celestiallord: "Can you describe more about the
intended cosmology to be used with Arcana Unearthed?"
Monte:
Uh. I'm not sure where to start. The idea for Arcana
Unearthed is to actually step a bit back from the heavy
reliance that D&D puts on planes and contact with other
planes. Not a lot
of spells, for example, deal with planes in Arcana Unearthed.
Thus, the cosmology as described in the Diamond Throne is
fairly ephemeral. No one knows a lot about the planes (unless
you live in Thartholan). Like Beyond Countless Doorways,
however, the idea is that there are limitless worlds out
there.
Carthain:
From Caledonian: "Any thoughts about what happened
to the Transcendent verrik from DT?"
Monte:
Vnaxians? Well, they are all gone, except Xyphon, who's
sort of a god now. They could come back, though--that would
be a cool adventure hook.
Carthain:
From Wareden: "Would it be possible to get an update
on the data sets coming out from Code Monkey for Arcana
Unearthed? Thank you."
Monte:
I think we're really close. They sent us some stuff to look
at that was almost finished for PCGen a while ago and we
gave feedback. I think we're just waiting for them to finish
making a few changes.
Carthain:
From Taurren: "Will Malhavoc be publishing any more
material on the Diamond Throne setting?"
 Monte:
Yes. Absolutely. The products are a little too far out to
talk about, except for Legacy
of the Dragons and
Mystic Secrets, both of which will have some
campaign information (although one's a bestiary and one's
a rulebook).
Carthain:
From Fontbone: "Will Legacy of the Dragons be
designed to be a replacement for the MM, if the DM desires,
or is it designed solely as a supplement?"
Monte:
It's a supplement, in that it doesn't have stats for animals
or basic monsters that you might still want to use.
Carthain:
From Celestiallord: "Can you describe some of the new
rules that will be presented in Mystic Secrets?"
Monte:
I'd love to, but I can't. :) Mike Mearls is writing that
book, and so we'll have to have an online chat with him
sometime. You can bet that there will be new ceremonies,
new runes for runethanes, new types of witches, and create
some all-new cool stuff as well. And new spells and stuff
too.
Carthain:
From Inviolate: "Where can more in-depth maps for the
Diamond Throne setting be found? i.e. cities, ruins, etc..."
Monte:
Well, you can check out the published adventures set there,
Plague of Dreams and Siege on Ebonring Keep,
as well as those that are coming from Mystic Eye and Necromancer
Games. However, they best ones will be on your own sheet
of graph paper. I specificially and intentionally made Diamond
Throne a setting that DMs could make their own. Like the
old World of Greyhawk gazeteer from back in the 80s.
Carthain:
From Caledonian: "Can you tell us about how many entries
were received for the recent NPC
contest?"
Monte:
There were over 100 entries. We're going through them now
and they're great. It's a hard contest to judge.
Carthain:
From Isida (follow-up question): "Is that more or less
than you expected?"
Monte:
Both, in a way. It's fewer overall entries than I thought
we'd get, but they're almost all serious entries done with
a lot of care. There are more GOOD entries than I thought
there would be. Usually, when you run a contest like this,
you get a lot of entries that aren't so good.
Carthain:
From Caledonian: "Any chance you could give us an official
ruling for the mysterious and puzzling Sturdy feat?"
Monte:
If you normally would gain a +2 bonus to your hit points
at 3rd level, and take the feat, that level you get a +4
bonus to your hit points instead. I guess I don't know what's
puzzling.
Carthain:
Caledonian could you expand the question a bit more?
Caledonian:
There's a whole five-page thread in AU rules about it.
The uncertainty was about whether the feat replaced the
normal Con. bonus hit points or whether it added the hit
points on additionally.
Monte:
It replaces it.
Caledonian:
Some interpretations held that people with a +3 bonus gained
less than people with a lesser bonus and others wanted to
know why it wasn't just a straight +4 hit points.
Monte:
It's not a straight +4 hp bonus because people with a higher
Con will get more benefit this way. (So it's a good feat
for even tough people.)
Carthain:
Caledonian: satisfied?
Caledonian:
Excellent. Thank you for the clarification, Monte.
Beyond
Countless Doorways
 Carthain:
From CD8D: "How similar will the Beyond
Countless Doorways product be to the old Planescape
design of planes?"
Monte:
If you mean "the great wheel cosmology," it's
pretty different. However, all the planes in Beyond Countless
Doorways are very modular and self contained. Any of
them could make a very cool demiplane or a layer of an existing
Planescape/Manual of the Planes plane without any
trouble. If you mean will they be designed with the same
level of wild creativity and big ideas, like Planescape
had, then, I'd say yes, that's the goal.
Carthain:
From Caledonian: "What cosmological setting will Beyond
Countless Doorways use?"
Monte:
Beyond Countless Doorways offers its own cosmology
that you can use in your campaign if you wish. It's basically
set up to be very open ended and adaptable. You can also
chuck it and just use the individual planes, which make
up the majority of the book. In flavor, I suppose the cosmology
is a little like what's described in The
Diamond Throne, or what Michael Moorcock offers
in his books. A limitless number of worlds and planes to
visit. There's more to it than that, but that's it's main
difference from the Planescape "there are these
planes and no more or less and they all fit together in
this exact way" method.
Carthain:
From sigmundk: "Hey Monte! What sort of planes are
included in Beyond Countless Doorways?"
Monte:
Well, the book's still being worked on, but right off the
top of my head there's a cool plane that's kind of a parallel
world where an apocolypse occured brought on by an invasion
of formians. There's another called the Mountains of the
Five Winds that PCs can try to reach to find Father Storm
and learn his secrets. There's a cool one that's kinda like
Dinotopia (a little). It's a big book, with four imaginative
authors so we're going off in a lot of cool directions with
it.
Carthain:
From Merganser86: "Are the 'Countless Doorways' a nod
to Sigil?"
Monte:
Not really. The title refers to the fact that the book's
premise is that there are an infinite number of planes and
worlds and each one of them has at least one doorway to
get to it.
Carthain:
From Merganser86: "Are there going to be notes on where
to place portals from Book
of Eldritch Might III's Nexus in the Beyond Countless
Doorways planes?"
Monte:
The Nexus will work really well with the Beyond Countless
Doorways planes. There will be direct tie-ins.
Wrapping
Up
 Carthain:
From Ian: "Given the number of people who favour not
having to check message boards daily, are there any plans
to establish an email discussion list to run concurrent
with the boards?"
Monte:
Not on my part. I have enough things to read. There are
great email lists out there, though. I used to read the
main D&D one, but not anymore.
Carthain:
From sigmundk: "Could you also tell us a bit more of
Hyperconscious?"
Galhavoc:
We're trying to take some of our more popular 3.0 books
and update them for the 3.5 revision. You see we've already
done so with The Complete Book of Eldritch Might.
One of the goals of Hyperconscious is to do the same
for the psionic rules material Bruce Cordell's published
in If Thoughts Could Kill
and Mindscapes. In
addition to these updates, Hyperconscious also contains
a new adventure from Bruce, for 7th-level PCs. The scenario
concerns the Sundering of the Seven Seers, as Bruce describes
on the product page.
Carthain:
From Kraah: "You're probably tired of hearing questions
about your view on this and that about the new edition.
However, I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on the
new damage reduction system? Improvement, unneccesary, etc?"
Monte:
Personally, it might be one of my least favorite aspects
of 3.5. You'll find that in all upcoming Malhavoc products,
we'll provide both. So a monster that has DR 10/+1 will
have DR 10/magic listed with it. That way, people can use
whichever system they prefer.
Carthain:
From SkidAce: "As a homebrew campaign designer, how
do you deal with new products that parallel ideas you had
ages ago..and new players who think you are copying?"
Monte:
Well, great minds think alike. It's just a fact of life.
It happens all the time and there's no way to prevent it.
All you can do is assure your players that what you've created
is your own. If they're your friends, they should believe
you. And in the end, as long as you're having fun, what
difference does it make where they think it came from?
Carthain:
From CD8D: "Will Sean K. Reynolds or Skip Williams
be doing any more products for Malhavoc in 2004?"
Monte:
We are working with Skip on a new book, but we don't have
a release date yet. We're talking with Sean about some ideas,
but they will probably be for 2005.
Carthain:
From Blueleaf: "Does Malhavoc Press has any plans to
release a DM's computer tool/organizer?"
Monte:
Not really. We don't have any plans to release any kind
of utility software. It's just not our thing. I think there's
some good stuff out there, though.
Carthain:
Well, that's the end of the questions that we have time
for tonight. I'd like to thank everyone for coming, and
for giving us your questions. ^_^
Monte:
Yeah, thanks everyone. Good questions. It's always cool
to find out your thoughts on things.
Galhavoc:
It was great to see you all here!
*
Transcript edited for style and clarity.
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