Next Projects: Urban Arcana and a Birthright Campaign Module

Hey, folks! Not dead yet. Not for lack of the world trying, or anything. Buying a house is scary and intimidating. As is work crunch. For all this crunch, my abs don't seem any more defined, but I blame Thursday Belgian Beer night at the local watering hole for that.

Now that life is starting to back the heck off, I've had time to consider my next projects. My good buddy Brandes encouraged me to start work on an adventure module set in the Birthright setting, using my converted rules. Since Birthright doesn't easily lend itself to the "standard" module layout that Wizards established for 5th Edition thus far, it's proving an interesting challenge in module design.

Of course, due to the magnitude of that project, it's not going to be ready for some time. There's lots to go into something of that size, as you might expect. I'm taking some implied story hooks from the various Birthright products and expanding them into a full-fledged campaign arc/adventure book. It's proving to be very fun so far, and I'm making much better progress on it than I did on my ill-fated Ghostwalk conversion. Boo.

On the side though, I'm going to pump out some other stuff to keep my content from being too one-note (I'm sure casual readers are sick to death of me gushing over Birthright). Some comments have recommended checking out certain popular shows for inspiration and possible conversion, but what ended up happening was that I got a hankering for some urban fantasy. And sure, there are plenty of systems and settings already out there for it that use more narrative rules, but what I really wanted to see come back was Urban Arcana.

Some time back, Wizards themselves put out a little Unearthed Arcana entry, Modern Magic (PDF link), that was meant to evoke some of the fun of this sub-setting of the d20 Modern RPG back from the 2000s. I'd like to see more of it come back, but using some of the base classes from 5th Edition and not the (let's call them "controversial" and leave it at that) base classes from d20 Modern.

I think, with a few modifications and updates, it could be a great little project. I hope you enjoy the next few entries, I'm going to attempt to pick up the pace a little and hope that the homebuying process that is still ongoing doesn't kick me in the shins too hard.