Wanted: Sea Monster Sighting Reports!

[Jester of the FoS]

Done

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Thanks Giamarga for pointing this out to me!

Barring emergencies, all major entries for the VRF:Sea Monsters will be due in my hotmail-box by July 1st, along with any supplemental text or artwork (monster/NPC stats, Dread Possibilities, artwork) to go along with them. Work on the DM Appendix can continue for an additional two weeks (July 15th), but anything which needs its own chapter has to be ready for incorporation by the end of this month.

Got it! Glad to have a deadline again.

Marine fey - DeepShadow

Sea spawn - DeepShadow & Nathan

These are actually well under way. Nathan and I have had some good correspondence, but I believe he was waiting on something before he continued? Email me, Nathan.

Bowlyn & aquatic remnants (unless cure still wants them)

I believe I claimed aquatic remnants along with my fey.

DeepShadow, if you're willing to write something on that, it'd be super; if not, perhaps you could pass your notes from your Saragoss campaign on to someone else, so they can do it?

I'll handle it. The plant-kelpies and sea mire are both from there, so I might as well talk about the whole ecology, eh?

[cure]

Bowlyn & aquatic remnants (unless cure still wants them)

I believe I claimed aquatic remnants along with my fey.

All yours, I never wanted them.

[cure]

I dunno.... I'm rather leery of creating entirely new classes and prestige classes.

There is precedence for it with the Captain of the Mists. The only two questions that strike me as particularly relevant are:

1. Does it complement the particular work in question?
(points Rotipher addressed)

2. Does it complement play in, and the atmosphere of, Ravenloft?

[Boris Drakov]

Could some mod please edit the link in Boris Drakov's post? It's making my screen cry.

Whoops. Sorry about that.

[Jakob]

Isabella's willing, last I checked. Jakob? Are you still interested in doing some artwork also?

Sorry. I've been really busy in the past month, so I couldn't check the boards.

My friend (the artist) is under pressure because of an incoming deadline. I'll be rewriting the kanibozus in the next days. Sorry for the huge delay.

Was the edited text on the Caller ok?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

The Caller text looks good, aside from the usual grammatical edits. I'll have to revise the sidebar about the Siren's Call effect, however, to take out the original spell's description. (Our netbooks shouldn't re-print whole spells from WotC books. They've been polite about us using classic Ravenloft NPCs and backstory, but they would object to our making other sourcebooks' copyrighted material available online.) We can include a description of what the Caller's power does, provided we leave out the stats of the spell it duplicates, presenting it purely as a monster-ability.

I don't think we need to replace the fiendish shark with a magebred one, BTW, as ordinary sharks are native to the same domains as the Caller. It's normal for summoned creatures in Ravenloft to lose the "fiendish" or "celestial" template. If you think the shark needs to be tougher than its baseline stats, it'd be simpler (and easier on DMs who don't own Eberron) to advance it by a HD or two.


BTW, Jakob, are you still interested in writing about the will-o'-sea and/or the blackskate? If you're too pressed for time to do a full description on them, a sidebar would be better than nothing.

[Jakob]

The Caller text looks good, aside from the usual grammatical edits.

I'll have to revise the sidebar about the Siren's Call effect, however, to take out the original spell's description. (Our netbooks shouldn't re-print whole spells from WotC books. They've been polite about us using classic Ravenloft NPCs and backstory, but they would object to our making other sourcebooks' copyrighted material available online.) We can include a description of what the Caller's power does, provided we leave out the stats of the spell it duplicates, presenting it purely as a monster-ability.

In Italy, the (C) laws says you cannot reproduce more than 15% of a protected work. I thought it applied to the spell (AND US law too).

I don't think we need to replace the fiendish shark with a magebred one, BTW, as ordinary sharks are native to the same domains as the Caller. It's normal for summoned creatures in Ravenloft to lose the "fiendish" or "celestial" template.

I wanted to have the caller summon something a bit... Unusual for a shark, coming from YOU-KNOW-WHERE (;)). I'll look into it.

BTW, Jakob, are you still interested in writing about the will-o'-sea and/or the blackskate? If you're too pressed for time to do a full description on them, a sidebar would be better than nothing.

Sorry, but I'm a bit on sbattimento duro (don't waste time trying to translate ) here. I don't think Ill be able to work on them, sorry.

[Sorti]

I'm a bit on sbattimento duro

*runs away*

[Rotipher of the FoS]

The Caller text looks good, aside from the usual grammatical edits.

No need for ; even submissions from native English-speakers get their grammar checked.

In Italy, the (C) laws says you cannot reproduce more than 15% of a protected work. I thought it applied to the spell (AND US law too).

Probably true in both cases. But frankly, we violate WotC's intellectual property-rights all the time, simply by using terms like "Ravenloft" or "Powers check" or "Azalin". They could shut us down in a minute, if they actually wanted to; that's why we're anxiously awaiting their fansite policy announcement, to find out where we stand.

The real question is, does our use of their ideas give people cause to quit buying WotC products? So long as we aren't giving away too much hard information, the answer's "no", so they let us continue (mostly as a form of free advertising). It's safest if we include enough crunch to make the netbook a useful resource, but not so much that reading the sea-monster book means you'll never want to buy Stormwrack. Statting up the Ravenloft-ized version of the Caller just barely qualifies as a new variant, but the original Siren's Call spell is pure WotC.

Now that 3E is being retired as a product line, it's possible that things will actually lighten up in that regard. If they're not selling 3E supplements themselves, they might not mind if we release "crunch" from the old 3E sources. But until we learn otherwise, let's err on the side of caution; it'd be a crying shame if we had to use e-mail to distribute these netbooks to fans, because WotC made us shut down the downloads page.

Sorry, but I'm a bit on sbattimento duro (don't waste time trying to translate ) here. I don't think Ill be able to work on them, sorry.

Okay, I figured as much. Sorry you're so busy.

Anybody else got time to write up the will-o'-sea...? Anyone...? Anyone...?