Out now in Print & PDF: Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume One, REMASTERED

[Nick Brooke]

The remastered edition of Jonathan Webb's Sun County-inspired RuneQuest campaign setting Sandheart Volume One: Tales of the Sun County Militia is practically complete. The book is now illustrated throughout by Mark Baldwin & Ludovic Chabant, with beautiful new maps by Ludo and settlement views by Kris Herbert. Cover art by Jacob Webb, layout by yours truly.

 

It's grown from 39 to 103 pages; apart from the all-new artwork (and some nifty player handouts), new content includes: four pages of tedious tasks the militia has to resolve; four more pregen militia characters from Darren Page-Mitchell's game (bringing the roster to ten); and my 19-page article on Sun County Backgrounds, an idiosyncratic canter through seventy years of recent history to answer the key question: how on earth did you screw up so badly that you ended up in Sandheart District? (Plus insights into secrets of the Sun Dome Templars, the County's all-but-forgotten Summer of Love, and some extraordinarily subtle links to the apocryphal Secret History of Sun County)

If you enjoyed RQ3's Sun County, we think you'll love Sandheart. This new edition will be a free upgrade for previous customers. Coming soon to the Jonstown Compendium...

Edited October 12, 2020 by Nick Brooke
Out now in PDF (24 Aug) & Print (12 Oct)

[soltakss]

1 minute ago, Nick Brooke said:

It's grown from 39 to 103 pages

In that case, it should be a new product. a free upgrade is fine for slight revisions, but that is effective a new second edition.

[Nick Brooke]

Just now, soltakss said:

In that case, it should be a new product. a free upgrade is fine for slight revisions, but that is effective a new second edition.

We love our customers, and want to reward them.

[Nick Brooke]

I shared a small preview from my article over on the Zuckerberg Engine, and will replicate it here for the tin-foil hat brigade.* 

and the saddest result:

* I didn't manage to fit my joke about Yelmalions wearing tin helmets to preserve the purity of their thoughts into this book, so you can have that one on me.

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

The book is now illustrated throughout by Mark Baldwin & Ludovic Chabant, with beautiful new maps by Ludo and settlement views by Kris Herbert. Cover art by Jacob Webb, layout by yours truly.

Looking forward to the new illustrations - what's been shared so far have been very evocative of the setting.

[Nick Brooke]

The remastered edition of Tales of the Sun County Militia is now live.

If you bought the original version of Sandheart Volume One, you will find two new files in your library -- the 103-page REMASTERED book, and a Map Pack of high-resolution printable maps and views. Please consider updating any previous reviews or ratings on DriveThruRPG to reflect the new content you've received at no extra cost.

Andrew Logan Montgomery has reviewed the new edition on his blog: 

Quote

Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume One is another example of an RQ supplement that "gets it." I am reviewing specifically here the "remix," a 103-page expanded version of the original 39-page (!!!) Jonstown Compendium offering.  Written by Jonathan Webb, with help from Nick Brooke, Darren Page-Mitchell, and Shaun Rimmer, what stood out to me reading it was how intuitively the authors understand why Glorantha is such a powerful setting and how to use that to their advantage.  Indeed, right from the very start on page 1 it is made clear to us that Sandheart is going to be a sort of dialogue between Bronze Age societies and our own...

What we have now is an embarrassment of riches, with better and better Gloranthan material coming at us every day.  Sandheart is a worthy successor to Sun County, and it looks to be just the beginning.  Thoughtful, exciting, challenging, it is essentially what you want your fantasy gaming to be.  And if you learn something about yourself in the process, even better. 

 

[jajagappa]

On 8/21/2020 at 4:29 AM, Nick Brooke said:

The remastered edition of Jonathan Webb's Sun County-inspired RuneQuest campaign setting Sandheart Volume One: Tales of the Sun County Militia is practically complete. The book is now illustrated throughout by Mark Baldwin & Ludovic Chabant, with beautiful new maps by Ludo and settlement views by Kris Herbert. Cover art by Jacob Webb, layout by yours truly.

Kudos!  Really nice to see the remastered work - the artwork is great and very evocative (p.57, also shown upthread, I think is my favorite - that feeling of adventurers heading home after a challenging day).  Very nice approach on the character background - works very well for the local scale of Sun County and a nice mix of intrigue and humor.  I was pleased to see more skills blended in as background additions, particularly ones such as Intrigue and Insight(x) which have not yet had much opportunity to come to the fore.  

I like seeing the whole Sun County setting coming to life once more.

Edited August 25, 2020 by jajagappa

[Nick Brooke]

8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I was pleased to see more skills blended in as background additions, particularly ones such as Intrigue and Insight(x) which have not yet had much opportunity to come to the fore.

Thanks, Harald! I do like those skills, they’re new in RQG so they don’t get much love, and they dovetailed nicely with all the political undercurrents in Sun County.

I will confess, though: one of my favourite bits was the 1610 event, which sets out six ways the Lunars impacted the Sun Domers — militarily, magically, theologically, economically — and gives adventurers’ families reactions from “Outrageous!” to “Awesome!” for each one.

“Those bastards! They’ve commercialised the arduous Pilgrimage route to the Hill of Gold! And they’re selling tacky souvenirs of Yelmalio’s great ordeal!” - vs. - “It’s brilliant! There’s a magical road that leads almost the whole way to Bikhy, now, with these amazing taco trucks every few hours, and I was able to pick up this golden crystal from a local relic-authenticator!”

Edited August 25, 2020 by Nick Brooke

[Minlister]

Just downloaded it, it is splendid work! Congratulations! I like to read scenarios and setting but I nearly never play them, preferring to cannibalize things for my own settings, but this could be the exception! And the second volume is still by favorite gloranthan scenario!

[Nick Brooke]

POD soon...

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

POD soon...

Price(ish)?

[Nick Brooke]

13 minutes ago, g33k said:

Price(ish)?

Usually 2x digital, but don’t quote me on that. 

[Nick Brooke]

Slightly longer answer: you can see exactly how much any Lightning Source print-on-demand book costs to produce using DriveThruRPG’s calculator, here. (This one is hardcover, premium colour, large format, 104 pages, IIRC)

NB: the author makes a smaller margin on every print copy sold (at 2x digital price) when the cost of the printed book is greater than the selling price of the digital version. (Which it is, in this case: $11.95 digital, vs. $15.60 to $15.80 in print - so Jon makes (50% of) $11.95 if you buy the PDF, but only (50% of) $8.15 or so if you buy the printed book for a notional $23.95. If he wanted the same margin, print would cost over $27.50, but he doesn’t and it won’t)

You can have all kinds of fun working out how much JC creators are earning, as the best-seller medals give you rough sales totals and most books are digital-only. The great thing is, a lot of us are ploughing our royalties into art and maps etc. for future books. Which makes artists and map-makers happy, and future books better: hurrah!

Edited October 11, 2020 by Nick Brooke

[g33k]

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

... hurrah!

yes indeed!!! 

 🙌   👍   🥰  

[Nick Brooke]

The remastered edition of Tales of the Sun County Militia is now available as a print-on-demand hardcover book from DriveThruRPG: just $23.95 for 104 pages of Sun County goodness.

[soltakss]

Thanks Nick.

I only buy PDFs now, but I am sure that the POD will be popular.

[CaptinDan]

Great news, been looking forward to the print version. Ordered first and third volumes. Are there any plans to update the second volume?

[Nick Brooke]

36 minutes ago, CaptinDan said:

Great news, been looking forward to the print version. Ordered first and third volumes. Are there any plans to update the second volume?

Yes, we're working on The Corn Dolls remastered edition now. Lots of Mark Baldwin's artwork is already in the bag, there's been a fair bit of scenario expansion / rewriting by Jon Webb, some lovely enhanced handouts (inc. Beer With Teeth perspective views of every stead), and we'll be adding a bonus at the back which will take a bit more work yet. But I can confirm it's happening.

(The print sequence feels strange because Jon brought me on board to do the layout for his pimped-out third volume, Tradition -- the first one to include Mark artwork, fancy commissioned maps, etc. -- after which we went back to remaster Volumes One and Two, in that order. In a few months time, we'll all laugh about this, but I appreciate it looks weird at the moment)

[Nick Brooke]