I'm a little late on my monthly update, 'things' happened over the last week that took precedence. You see, Sabre is based in part on the Runequest 6th edition rules, specifically to do with skills and some basic mechanics. Sure, a *lot* has been customised but I'd accidentally left some of their text in the manual and I needed to fix that, and acknowledge the origins underpinning the system. 

That's all resolved now, and for the better, as I found some old and indistinct rules in the system I'd forgotten to correct before release, so that's been fixed too. Win/win!

I've been thinking about my work schedule of late regarding all of my projects, and concluded I have too many plates spinning at the moment, so I'm having to trim down on a few of them in order to actually get the more important things done.

* I've nearly finished writing my current novel so that's of course the highest priority. The cover art for that is well under way too, so this should all be done by the end of October. 

* I had planned to revise my first series of novels a bit more and redo the covers. Most of the cover redesign is done, but instead of redoing the art, I'm just going to take better pictures of the current work and use some subtle touches to improve them a little. This will be a big time saver, allowing me to do more Sabre things.

* I'd like to do a burst on the Feydwiir Atlas, and get the entire northern end of the island finished.

* I have a lot of ideas for portrait art for the races for the main manual, and I'd really like to get started on those. They're not huge pictures so I think I could one done per week without too much trouble. I'd like to take another crack at some dramatic cover art too, but take a different approach this time. Not a high priority though. One factor to getting this done is to make sure people who have tried the system actually like it, and therefore make it worth the effort to get the artwork done. I'm starting to see some positive feedback (presumably after people have used it for a while) so I'm thinking about this more and more now.

* Once those are done, I'll take some time to create audiobooks for my novels, as many people have requested this for some time and I'm eager to give this a shot. 

* I've had a bit of a resurgence of interest in my canvas art, and had hoped to produce some more but I'm deferring this project until some time next year. 

* The Scifi version of the Sabre RPG is pretty much done, but I don't really have time to support another system while the first one is still incomplete. So I'm going to delay release for this until next year while I finish up these other things. Besides, the starship rules are slowly becoming detailed but again, I don't think it should be my highest priority right now. 

So that's my revised plan for the near future. I definietly will be supporting and working on Sabre over time so it's by no means been abandoned or anything like that. Oh, and my immediate gaming group had to shut down due to lack of players (some of whom had to travel some distance to get there), but I'll be starting a new one up in the near future, so Sabre Scifi development will undoubtedly continue! This campaign will actually be very low-tech, treating technology with the rarity of magical items, should be interesting!

After sorting out some software issues with the site, we've finally managed to get the Sabre RPG online. That took a bit longer than I initially thought, as I'd planned for an early January release! Still, the extra time has served it well, for I tweaked and modified a few things while waiting for the site to get fixed. Mostly, the work has involved streamlining things, as smooth play is one of the aims for the system. 

So it's ready for public use, though I don't consider it 'finished' as such. Consider it a very advanced public beta, and based on feedback, I'll tweak and modify things as needed. But after three years of development and play, I have to say it's pretty solid. 

The core rules settled down some time ago, after a big streamlining effort in the middle of last year. During the first two years it had accrued quite a bit of system bloat, and it really benefitted from being pared down. The aim was to keep a good amount of detail, while making sure it played well. Hopefully it's straight-forward enough for beginners to use (let us know!) yet with enough depth to satisfy veteran players.

Art

Now, a word about art - the manuals don't have a lot. Sure, it has a nice watermark, cover and little graphical flourishes, but my plan to personally create all the internal art, such as race portraits, monster portraits and such, hit a stumbling block. I'm predominatly a landscape artist, and relatively new to the field of fantasy art, so I wasn't happy with the results of some of my work. I plan to keep practicing, but that'll depend on how many people try it out, too. In an extreme case, if it garners a large following, I might just end up paying a real fantasy artist to do the work.

Atlas

In its current form, the atlas depicts the primary location of the game, the Kingdom of Aielund. It should be more than enough to provide a starting place for your adventures, should you wish to run them in the campaign world of Feydwiir. I have preliminary work done on the rest of the world, it's really just a matter of formatting and checking to make sure it's all correct, so releasing expanded editions should be straight-forward. Speaking of updates...

Update Schedule

The initial plan is to provide a system update every six months, but I can step that up if demand increases. Each update will require re-purchasing a given product, but I plan to make it worth your while! I'll be sure to include a few more pictures, plus additional spells, talents and tactics for the manual, plus some more beasties, NPC templates and whole countries for the atlas. I won't be releasing errata sheets, as I plan to simply update the primary PDF to make sure any rule adjustments are fully integrated, so you won't have to chase any changes through separate files.

Hardcover

The likelihood of creating a hardcover print version of the manuals depends on demand, and of course the amount of art that's been added to the system - we can't have "placeholder images" dotted throughout the bestiary! But yes it's something that's being considered for the future. 

For now, check out the system and see if it's to your liking - we're quite proud of the result and we think you'll enjoy it!

Science!

As for the sci-fi version of the system, that's still in development. Converting the fantasy system over was pretty easy for the most part, but has yet to be tested. We'll get on to that in May and have an early release up in June for you to try out. I've crunched the numbers and it should work out fine but these things rarely pan out in practical tests, so we'll see.

There will be a system for space combat too, ship-to-ship, but the rules will be slightly different to ground battles so it'll come in a separate release. I'm pretty excited about what I've done so far and can't wait to try it. You'll be able to salvage, build or upgrade your own robots, vehicles and advanced weapons using a very elegant methodology. The system will be good for modern combat too, as I've been sure to categorise equipment into 'Modern' and 'Advanced' lists. So, this varient of the system should cover modern or futuristic settings very nicely.

I'm planning a campaign world that blends a medieval-style setting with 'relics' from the before-time, i.e. pistols, machine guns and other more advanced systems. Oh, and the only magic available is a Psychic skill, so it's more of a hard-science approach instead of a full blend of magic and science. Still, you could absolutely combine regular Sabre with the sci-fi system to create your own science-fantasy setting, as the core rules are exactly the same. Yes, I'm having a lot of fun putting this together!

That's all for now, peace out.