Dwarves and Things, A Lesson

Winter Cometh!

So my work in the winter issue of Kobold Quarterly, which was just released contains some pretty awesome racial utility powers for Tieflings, Gnomes, and Minotaurs for use with 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons. The powers are akin to the ones introduced in the Heroes of Shadow book and most of them have a very ‘classic’ feel to them, hopefully invoking warm thoughts of the racial bells and whistles of yore. I’m offering them to my players as freebies in my game, as I feel stuff like this is flavorful, fun, and having little to no impact on the balance of the game. These powers are things I feel we should have seen put into 4e to begin with.

Anyway, I won’t give much more than that away though, because you should really run out and pick up a copy, after all it’s only 6$ for the magazine! Don’t run out and grab it only on my account though (actually yes, please do) because there is a lot more in there than just my ramblings, such as the wisdom of Monte Cook and much, new stuff for pathfinder games, book reviews and a whole bunch more.

The Pitch

Originally my query contained racials for Dwarves instead of Minotaurs, however after WotC published some dwarven racials of their own, I needed to adjust my pitch as to not be doubling up on similar content. This was my first experience in the freelance world and also my first experience with needing to turn on a dime when something pops up, it was exciting to be perfectly honest. I’m pretty comfortable with Dwarven tropes and stereotypes, but forcing myself into Minotaur territory proved to be a fun and useful lesson in both game design and writing in a professional manner.

While I remain a huge fan of Rob Schwalb’s work, and I’m pretty sure he’s well aware of that, I must say I’m definitely biased to liking my own Dwarfy traits, just a bit more. It was great to feel like part of the industry, like I managed to carve out my own minuscule little corner of the D&D world. I can’t imagine how guys like Schwalb crank out so much work, so often, and with such high quality. I definitely feel like I’ve got my work cut out for me if I want to make it there someday, and I’m not sure that’s what I’m aiming for but this freelancing thing sure is fun, and I plan on doing a whole lot more of it.

Onward!

I also got some pitches that received a thumbs up and am currently working on revising them for Kobold Quarterly, I cannot give any spoilers though so I suppose you guys will just have to hold out until the next issue or two. It’s going to be be co-written by my lovely wife, I can’t wait to work with her doing revisions on what we’ve dreamed up. Until next time, thanks for reading!