Where is Attack of the Frawgs?
Wanted to give our loyal readers an update as to the fate of Attack of the Frawgs. The short of it is: as it was written for the Goodman Game’s Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game (DCCRPG), I will not be releasing the Frawgs before the DCCRPG is released to public. DCCRPG beta rules have been available for a while now–since June 2011 if memory serves–but Mr. Goodman has done a few significant updates to the rules since the beta was released. Most importantly–and I don’t believe I’m violating any NDA’s I have with GG buy saying this–the release of the product is very close. As an official licensee for DCC RPG, I’ve been receiving regular updates of the core rules manuscript, and recently I received “the final draft”. All of the text is there, all of the art is there–and the art is fabulous, the art alone will be worth the price of purchase–and now the layout is there too. I have confidence we’ll be seeing the release of DCCRPG in the April-ish timeframe.
So what about Frawgs?
The writing for Frawgs has been complete for several months now. I’ve sent the adventure to a few folks for proofreading (the most recent editor has been David Flor of Darklight Interactive!) and have been fixing typos and cleaning up text where I find it. I’ve completed the first round of the layout in Adobe InDesign, and our faithful graphic designer Ms. Catherine Harkins will be applying her magic next week. So in short, my goal has been to release Frawgs as closely as possible to the public release of DCCRPG and I think I’ll be able to meet that goal.
What is Attack of the Frawgs?
So what is Attack of the Frawgs anyway? Frawgs was actually born from the work I’d been on the sequel to The Haunting of Larvik Island (aka “Larvik 1”). One of the “things I would do differently” lessons I brought away from Larvik1 is that, if I were to do it again, I would’ve made Larvik 1 a smaller module. So when DCC RPG beta rules were announced, I was immediately intrigued and knew right away wanted to write for that system… and I thought, I should probably start small. Luckily, I had spent the previous several months writing the outline and mythology for “Larvik 2”, the second in the Princes of Kaimai series with my brother James Newton. The process for writing Larvik 2 created many new backstories and motives for the key historical characters in the series. With every location and villian we’d ask, “But why would they do that? What were their goals?”
But, of course, just because I’ve written a large backstory doesn’t mean I need to publish that into the adventure itself. I’m hoping the work James and I have done will make a tighter story for future Princes of Kaimai adventures.
So what about Frawgs?
Ultimately Frawgs is the product of judicious editing from Larvik 2 and the “start small” lessons learned from Larvik 1. I’ve been referring to it as “an alternate prequel to the sequel to Larvik 1”. The events of Frawgs take place after Larvik 1, but before the beginning of Larvik 2. Of course, all of these adventures can be played standalone, but player’s that play Frawgs will, hopefully, also be pleasantly rewarded with the continuity within Larvik 2 and/or Larvik 1.
So there you have it, friends, Frawgs is ready when DCCRPG is, it’s a bit of a prequel to Larvik2 (being written for DCC RPG) and is an all around sweet adventure! Looking forward to any and all feedback from any of the readers out there.
