The past week, Kevin made progress on the adventure included in the Aethermancy book, and I focused on the equipment chapter of the new edition of Aether.
First up, let’s hear from Kevin on his work with Aethermancy.
Aethermancy continues to move along in a positive direction! We like to include an adventure with our big supplement books and this is no exception. The adventure received most of my attention this week, but I’ve also been looking at the series of adventure seeds that we include in each book like this. You’ve already seen them in Zombacalypse, and you’ll see them in future major release books as well. These scenarios are designed with our random setting generator in mind, using the same dice rolls, but forcing them to be in the fantasy wheelhouse. As Ben and I explore the future of Aether and make little changes and adjustments to the two-decade-old system, those changes ripple through what we’re currently doing with Aethermancy and will be reflected in the rules for magic for the system. We want you to have a complete experience, not have to buy all new books as we’re cleaning up the rules and weird little artifacts left over from the original manuscripts that were started last century!
Kevin
Aether equipment chapter updates
On the Aether 2023 edition front, I spent a good amount of time this week reworking the equipment chapter. The previous edition heavily focused on modern firearms, and didn’t include much in the way of other equipment. Prices were rarely included, with the assumption that players would be playing in a modern setting and looking up prices online or in stores. Stats were included for almost every caliber of bullet and how different firearms treated them.
Aether 2023 changes all of that. It’s more streamlined, condensing all of the various handguns into just “light handgun” and “heavy handgun,” all of the various rifles into “hunting rifle,” “sniper rifle,” and “assault rifle,” and making a ton of similar abstractions. It also adds weapons and armor for eras other than modern day. The equipment “kits,” similar to starting packs in other role-playing games, expanded to include several fantasy and science fiction options. The “legality” and “hide” columns and information have been removed, and prices for fantasy, modern, and science-fiction are included in most tables now.
As part of the streamlining of these weapons, I also took another look at the related skills and weapon categories. We will be making some clarifications to the rules around using weapons, but nothing mechanically substantial will be changing.
General equipment is next to be added, including full lists for all three main time periods. After that will be lists of vehicles for each era, and rules for modifying vehicles. General equipment and vehicles are going to take the most time to add and next week’s update will likely focus on this.