Which makes this setting unique, however, you don't want to alienate those folks that don't want to build the sets as well. While I have no doubt that the modules will introduce a good number of players to the wonderful world of card stock modelling, it is important that the general audience knows that the setting is for everyone, regardless.

I bring this topic up because I assume that the module can be played without the CaveWorks set. Reading the advert for it makes one think that I have to purchase the module and the Cave works set.

Just a suggestion. Maybe these modules can be another window in expanding WWG by publishing them via the standard paper method in FLGS. A worthy adventure folks can play with some great cut outs and folks will flock to the WWG site for more CaveWorks packages.

I'll talk with Denny...perhaps it isn't explained clearly enough on the product page.

Something Below is completely playable without CaveWorks as a "normal" module, with battlemats or whiteboards. However, in order to build everything that Something Below has on the map and play it out as it was intended, it does require CaveWorks as well s the new models included.

Question about upcoming Arcraetia modules... when can we expect to see one in which Himmelveil plays a prominent role?

And since I haven't read Something below... does it have any references to Himmelveil (and/or twitching )?


[Edit] ... and for that matter, does Skull Cove fit into the world of Arcraetia? If so, where?

There are small Himmelveil references. One is in a character background and I remember mention of it in the history portion of the adventure. More of a nod at this point.

I would like to see background and adventure seeds in the model sets that flesh out the city as it is released. With different contributors you could do something reminiscent of Sanctuary back in the 80's.

I assume everybody understand the way the sandees are built. It's quite easy, but here's a small sketch I made explaining the process.



(As you can see, the bases in here are rounded, instead of the octogonal ones in the final release)

Don't bother asking in case you have any doubt.

Cheers!

I am going to wait for Something Below to show up at RPGNow, while the hassles that I have had with Denny's storefront have been small I think that I will avoid them this time 'round. (I do not love the time limit on downloading a purchase.)

That said, I am most definitely picking this up - for the new bits and to see what I can swipe from the adventure itself. Considering how many maps I have with mine tracks...

The Auld Grump

Por cierto...The ilustrations are over the top...they give a taste of diference, not typical d&d or at least it seems to me (they give more setting than the module - but I understand that an adventure in a mine don't give for a lot of information)
Hope that the next module give a bit more of the world to know...

I just want you guys to know that your input so far has been fantastic and that we are all paying careful attention. No harm or foul on this end and we honestly appreciate it. We've been discussing internally changes to the next module to account for some of your suggestions. We're hoping that we can raise our bar to your personal expectations in relatively short order with the next few releases. We will also be looking at additional materials to better expand upon the world of Arcraetia.

Thanks again for the input!

I love it But I do have one suggestion: Could we get the Arcraetia Guide with a plain white background? I wanted to print one out but I don't want to kill my printer so I held off.

Agreed. It looks very nice, but having a printer friendly version would be a blessing. Some of the names are interesting - Kriegsrom River - War Storm River? Others seem pdeudo-historic. (Nothing wrong with pseudo-history, it is one of my favorite world building tools.)

The map is pretty, but trying to make sense of the geography (prevailing winds, etc.) is a bit awkward. (Yes, I know that this won't matter for most people, but I like to analyze what forces shaped a world... I was a big fan of the old TSR World Builder's Handbook, and did the map for my homebrew 1600s game using it.) 'Course, not knowing where the equator is might be part of my problem.

A 'Little Ice-Age' (or i this case 'Long Winter' is an interesting historic point, goodness knows the ones in our world certainly shaped our history. (For example the 'Wasteland' in Arturian myth may have been the result of a very minor ice age.) Some very interesting plot points in the histories of the kingdoms. Good for pipe laying.

The Auld Grump, up late, with no' enough sleep...

I'll try to squeeze out a printer friendly version of the free Arcraetia history document

Groovy!

I had considered doing a cut 'n' paste to Word Perfect.

I did print up the map however.

The Auld Grump - maps are always good...

To those who haven't picked Something Below up yet:

Something Below is set on the northern borders of one of the northern duchies of the Talon Kingdoms (Grey Owl, in specific). It's in the same kingdom as Himmelveil, but on the opposite end.

I can't speak for the other lines, but I can say that the second module in the Dark Spiral will be set in Grey Owl as well (the capital, Kiermont).

We'll be approaching Himmelveil over time, particularly as model sets for the location start coming out.

Grey Owl??? Grey Owl? My favorite settings include Iron Kingdoms, Mordheim, and Greyhawk.

Is Grey Owl a nod to Greyhawk?

On another note, I think Himmelveil is going to be the big kicker for your new setting. I love the name and what it envisions for me. Sort of a Mordheim before the meteor crashed. Dark fantasy, yet within a city of hope and beauty. That is the mood and feeling that the name conjures up in my head.

Looking forward to reading the new mod, though.

Actually, all of the Talon Kingdom's duchies are named after a type of bird. Falcony, Grey Owl, Red Kite, Black Erne, Grand Eagle...

You'll be happy to know I pushed for the inclusiuon of a coal pile - just for you.

Excellent! All birds of prey it seems. Just don't have a Baron Hedwig running the White Owl province. LOL.

Hey, if there is an opposing kingdom, name it after snakes. I need to play for or against BLACKADDER!!! I just go to!

Seriously, sounds great. I am reading G.R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones and love all the houses and their heraldry. House of Stark's Dire Wolf image is really inspiring.

Does anyone have a photo of a completed Skeletal Viper, or at least some step by step instructions? TIA!

Becky

I second the Skeletal Viper request.

I think I might have a suggestion to help meet that desire to help seperate this module from others and balance portablility. You see, portability in pre-generated characters is completely unneeded because campaigns in progress already have characters. This means that pre-gen characters - particularly their backgrounds - are perfect opportunities to shed light onto what makes the world of Arcraetia special. I'm talking about more than just names of cities. We need details on life, magic, religion, politics, etc. and characters that are unique to Arcraetia. That way the pre-gen characters are still valuable for everybody (including Savage Worlds players) and we have a more fleshed-out setting.

I hope this picture helps. At this moment, the Viper was still a prototype and some small changes were made, but this is the best I can do for the moment.



Thank you for the kind words, but It was the module that started It all. I just tried to help everybody picture the things that are inside.

yes, that helps! Thanks. I was starting with the idea that the two sides of the snake had to be glued together, but I knew that wasn't right.

Becky

Hiya

Just thought i'd add in my tuppence worth...

First off, what a nice module. I know it's only a dungeon bash but hey, who doesn't like a good cave crawl to kick off a campaign? It's going to be the first game my group has played in a while and it'll be a gentle intro back into the fray.

Add ons for CW are great, love the lift (although i think that's going to cause me some "fiddly" problems).

Only suggestion i'd make is that the actual adventure itself could've done with being on a white background. The greyscale is nice but it's going to takes ages to print.

Where's the next one going to be set so i can get a head start on my building?

All in all, top notch. Keep up the good work.

Mr Blackhammer

Thanks! The lift is a bit fiddly, true, but that's the only way to make it strong enough to hold a solid chunk of metal mini!

Be sure to post pics of your game in progress!


That's a secret that only Bob or Denny can reveal!

I finally finished reading through the adventure for Somthing Below. After reading through some of the complaints, I can see where some people see an issue with the project.

Here's my Opinion on it:

The BAD:

Very Short. For $15 I would have thought it would have more content.

It is a dungeon crawl only, the background while good, is not a lot and it seems that people expected it to be. I do not own the Witchfire Trilogy by Privateer Press, but I do own "Cult of the Reptile God" by TSR (yes, way back then!!!!) and I love that adventure. All other adventures are compared to that particular module. So compared to that one, SB falls flat. It is just a crawl. It would seem that a good mystery would be better served by having the characters deal with more NPC's.

The magic item in the game is named the same as a monster. That is confusing. I can see my group going, "WHAT?!? Abysall MAW... Hollly f*!! We can't fight that!!!".

The GOOD:

The PC's included are very well fleshed out. There was a complaint about there being 7 pages worth of PC's. I really liked that they were very well fleshed out and everything was picked and done, they are "ready to go". That I like a great deal. I can just pass them out and get running.

I liked the background story. It would have been nice to have it fleshed out even more.

The card stock items made it well worth the $15. If it were the adventure only, then I would be hard pressed to spend $15 on it.

As far as Crawls go.... I liked it. Nice challenges for the levels offered to it, and the dangers of the natural environment were spelled out. Now when my players go "I want to crawl down the cavern where the water fall is" I have the DC's and I don't have to attempt to create them.

Over all I'd give it a 7 out of 10. I like the story, but was left scratching my head with some of it. As an intro to a new world, it could be better. But I think a novice DM will appreciate the work that has gone into it and an experienced DM can modify it to suit his or her tastes.

Again, just my OPINION.

CCotD'

7 out of 10 is a respectable score, thanks for the comments CCotD Something Below was concieved by Bob Cooper as a trilogy so much of the story has yet to be told. The module was in production prior to Arcraetia's development so it had to be skillfully retrofitted by Bob to better fit the world. Perhaps it's not the ideal introduction to Arcraetia but the module does grow into a larger story within this world. We have many other modules coming out from other authors that will flesh out the world in coming months.

In terms of price the biggest factors in that decision were labor and content. We have an author, illustrator, model creator, and creative director all involved in the process and they all need to be paid. With a full adventure decked out with top notch artwork, paper standees and additional paper models it would be hard to justify a lower price tag.

As each new module is released we will learn from the criticisms here and steadily improve our product. No one is expecting an instant success with Arcraetia and I am all too aware that respect is earned. We'll get the formula right eventually with your help and our audience will grow out of that mutual respect. We'll just keep doing what we do until things feel right

I'd also like to say thanks for the feedback. That's just the sort of things I need to hear to be able to make improvements.

From an NPC interaction perspective, I think you'll find the next module in the series to be much richer. I'll also work in filling out the background more extensively.

I'm glad to hear that you like how the environment was spelled out well. That's something I try to do a lot of...clearing out the grunt work for the DMs so they can focus on running the adventure. Expect more of the same.

As for an intro to Arcraetia...you're right. It doesn't do much for that, as Denny has pointed out. The next couple of adventures from our other authors should really help fill out the setting well, and I'll look to do more with my next module as well. It's coming, but any tips and suggestions from those who have read it are entirely welcome.


As to the length...duly noted. I've a couple of tricks up my sleeve for the next one that should make for a longer, more extensive adventure without the need to do *too* much additional building.



For anyone who's BUILT the Silver Mountain Mines...how did that go? Is it an easy-to-do build? Too fidgey? Too big? Too small? If a future adventure covered much more ground, would it still be within your tolerance range to build?

As the model designer, I'm keenly anticipating this feedback, too.

The Lift, especially, is rather complex - I can't wait to hear (and see pics) from those who've built it!

I like the sounds of everything, and just wonder for us non-roleplayers, will there be a terrain-only set available at some time in the future? The things I see would be a great addition to CW, but I dont know that I will ever get back into an RPG, with the possible exception of a Stargate game. Perhaps this might be a good followup to the Hilltop/Portal set for a small release. Thanks for thinking about it.

Andorax
I purchased SB around a week or so after it was posted and didn't get around to start building until the beginning of January. Working on it an evening or two a week and about every other Saturday, I'm expecting to be finished in the next week or two.

Using CW, the build has gone pretty well and quickly. This is my first time building with CW so I didn't have any pieces already made which would have speeded up construction considerably.

The only thing that I've had any trouble with for fiddlyness is all of the cave openings in the corridors and intersections which I finally resorted to cutting out with <gasp> scissors.

As for size, from an adventure point of view, it is a bit on the small side but from a visual perspective, it looks impressive sitting on the table.

For future adventures, personally, I'd like to see mention of not only the base set being used but a breakdown list of what constructs will be required from that base set. I know you wouldn't want to post the finished map as players may be perusing but just a list like

Adventure Name uses the following DungeonWorks Classic pieces

7 Long Corridors
3 Corners
2 T Intersections
...

would be a great help to getting a head start on building.

Aleph13
The lift actually wasn't all that difficult to build, just requires some patience (yeah, right) to put it down at the end of each step and work on something else for a bit while it dries. Reusing the winch setup from CWU was a good idea without having to reinvent the wheel.

For those interested in pics, I hope to have some up by the end of March. I'm just starting a campaign in Arcraetia with a group of 1st lvl PCs in an adventure I created earlier that I can easily tie to SB.

Barbarosa, thanks for the feedback...I really appreciate hearing your thoughts on the adventure. You will hopefully be pleased to know that the next adventure in the Dark Spiral will be physically bigger...more areas, covering more ground...but hopefully without too much additional building (I have some neat ideas in mind for reusing bits).



Do you mean for the advertisement/product listing, or within the product itself? If you look at the last page of the "Building the Mines" document, there's a complete breakdown of all model pieces required, both original CW and new from SB.