Matt Jackson, blogger amd cartographer extraordinaire, has created a map for the Fallen Empire of Vaneria. Here is is:

Click on the map to see it in full size (2400 x 1800 pixels)

When I wrote WR&M I only had a faint idea of what the known world looked like but Matt managed to turn my words into an awesome map. I especially like the city icons. Adorable!
There was also the question of scale that had to be tackled. In the end we settled for a size comparable to Greece.

I hope you like the map as much as I do. And while you’re at it, why don’t you visit Matt’s blog and check out his other works? It’s worth it!

Warrior, Rogue & Mage has been translated into Spanish! You can check out the game’s announcement on the Arcano XIII blog and download the complete game here.

As I said before, the guys behind the translation project have done a great job and the final product is just looking great.

The team around José Muñoz is currently thinking about translating all the existing supplements and some of the Arcano XIII members are developing their own material for the game.

If you are a Spanish-speaking roleplayer, please check Guerrero, Pícaro y Mago out. I hope you enjoy it!

When everything goes as planned they’ll officially release it on their blog on the upcoming weekend.  I’ll update this post with a link to the PDF as soon as it goes life.

I won’t bore you with all the numbers here, but if you are interested in seeing all the details, I’ve made them available as a Google Docs spreadsheet here. What I want to talk about today is what I found out looking at these numbers.

When you look at download totals WR&M is the most popular product, but if you look at the monthly averages, Jay Steven Anyong’s BADASS wins this particular title. BADASS was hugely popular in the first two or three months since release. But on the long run I think WR&M will remain the strongest Stargazer Games’ title. It has been downloaded at least 6151 times since its release in July 2010.

What makes me a bit sad is that Resolute, Adventurer & Genius is obviously among the least popular products. And that’s a real shame. RAG written by Andrew Modro and Jason Cabal is a great game that is not only better looking than WR&M but also fixes a lot of the issues the first iteration of the Wyrm system had. But it seems fantasy is just much more popular than pulp will ever be. I also believe we should have done much more “advertising”.

Overall I am very happy with the success of all the products we’ve released. There’s not one game that hasn’t been downloaded at least 800 times in only a few months and especially the interest for Warrior, Rogue & Mage is still very strong.

What does this mean for the future? I think some more support for our current games would be in order. A while ago I mused about a setting book for Resolute, Adventurer & Genius. This could be a fun project and also raise interest in the game again.

Even though a lot of people urge me to write more stuff for WR&M I am not sure if I want to do so at the moment. Yes, it’s highly popular, yes it’s still my “signature game”, but personally I want to work on new projects at the moment.

Arcane Heroes is another game that was done in a few hours but has shown a huge potential. More than once I have thought about expanding it to a full game with a complete setting, revised rules and more stuff for you to play with.

On my blog I recently wrote about the upcoming NaGa DeMon and I think I might work on a special project for that event. So stay tuned for updates on that front.

Rough Draft 5 is the final iteration of the normal d6-based rules. But he didn’t stop there. Rough Draft 6 uses a new d12 mechanic, which is something I actually planned for the SF variant of Wyrm. From what I’ve seen WYRED has a lot of promise and if you are into the genre you definitely should check it out!

You can get the details on both releases here.

A couple of days ago they sent me a layout example and I have to admit it looks very nice. Check it out:

The final PDF version is not done yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as it’s out. I feel honored that people actually find my little game interesting enough to do the hard work of translating it into another language. By the way, the Spanish version is not the only translation of WR&M currently in the works. As far as I know there are currently people working on a German and a Hebrew translation of WR&M. I can’t wait to see them released as well!

Check out his awesome work here!

So, what can we do to make things easier for all of us? At first, consider posting your ideas, question, works, etc. at the official forums. There are quite a few active fans who can help you with advice and perhaps with other problems as well. Of course you can still shoot me an email, but these get too often then not lost in the deluge of emails I get every day. So the forums are usually a better way to get attention.

As an alternative or in addition to that you can always release your fan product on your own website, blog, etc. and let everyone know where they can have a look at it in the forums. If I find what I see interesting I will gladly post the link on the Stargazer Games blog as well.

Last but not least you can join me and other RPG fans in the #stargazersworld IRC channel on sorcery.net. And when I am not around there are several other users who know most of my works as well as I do. A lot of the people involved with the creation of WR&M for example hang out there on a daily basis.

To cut a long story short, I am currently not able to reply to every submission in a timely manner, so please consider the listed alternatives to submitting your work directly to me. Between my job, my private life, my own RPG projects, my involvement with Dungeonslayers and my blog Stargazer’s World there’s only so much time.

The world began as nothing but ocean. The Origins raised up a million colourful islands, anything larger than a few dozen miles being swallowed by the envious deep. Some of these immaterial beings chose to take a physical form and live in the varied lands they had created, eventually settling into the forms of men and beasts. Our ancestors.

The Origins that did not take physical form paid a great cost. They were left unable to affect their world directly, relying upon influencing men with words and knowledge. Their teachings led to our understanding of elemental balance, the formation of the thousand Legendary Styles and the universal code of combat that define our world today.

You are a great man or woman. An errant trained in both the noble art of combat and in contests of body and mind. Drifting from one island to another, you have your own philosophy on life and the power to enforce it.

A Wanderer’s Romance is a game of martial art duels and tea-making contests set in a world of unnatural islands on an endless sea. It draws on its Wuxia influences but focuses on a character driven game with scope for incredible environments and a true sense of exploration.

Features of the game include:

• A fast, simple and easy to learn system for task resolution that spreads consistently across duels, contests, activities and group tests.
• Dozens of combat styles for characters to learn as well as countless other types of contest they can specialise in.
• A setting outline designed for maximum creative freedom. Every group’s world will be different but will share in similar themes.
• Multiple ways to support your allies from teaching them lessons in defeat and envigorating them through activities to training them in combat styles and preparing tea and food that will balance their elemental forces.

By the way, the beautiful artwork in the game was created by Pavel Elagin and was used with permission. Check out his portfolio for more examples of his art!