Sorry about last Wednesday, here’s a present to make up for it.

My apologies for missing my usual post last Wednesday.  I was busy collaborating with several friends to write and produce a LARP game for Staff Week at The Wayfinder Experience (where I’ll be running another game for a considerably younger audience in a few weeks), and as such was pretty much entirely incommunicado.  I still have yet to say happy birthday to my mother and step-father.  I’ll try to get to that as soon as I finish this.

Since Wayfinder (WFE) is all still very much on my mind, I thought I’d offer you a collection of the teasers that I and my friend Thom have made for our upcoming game (Adventurer’s Rest, at WFE’s Intro Camp, July 20th-25th), and some of our thinking behind them.  If you know anyone who might be interested, you should totally tell them about it.  I want lots of players for my game!  Actual entertainment follows after the break…

Let’s start with the Burmashave knock-offs (and remember that Teleport is pronounced like Colbert):

The vacation that you planned
couldn’t quite get off the floor?
Come and see those distant lands!
Life is best with Teleport!

Leave your packroll, leave your tent.
Those long journeys? Nevermore!
Here to there in one instant!
Be there fast with Teleport!

Orcs are coming for you now
Numbering thousands, plus some more!
Wipe the fear-sweat from your brow
You need not fear with Teleport!

The best armor is distance,
Danger I do thus abjure.
Bugbears, goblins, giant ants?
Safety’s easy: Teleport!

The lich guards most won’drous loot
But its vault is too secure?
You may render barriers moot!
Petty theft, through Teleport!

And of course, for verisimilitude and an obvious plug for players to sign up, these have all thus far been followed by this:

This message brought to you by Archmage Teleport’s TeleporTation Network, official sponsor of The Wayfinder Experience.  For more information, please contact your local service representative at 845.481.0776
Sign up for our program today!
Intro Camp 2014, July 20th-25th

See, Thom and I were of the opinion that there was no way we could compete by creating teasers that were anything like what other people had used in the past.  It was simply too rich an environment in which to make a distinguishing mark. Therefore, we decided to show off a number of the in-setting background pieces as a way to start building attention around the game.  The actual idea for using Burmashave as a starting point for our teaser campaign came to me while stuck on a bus without any clear idea of what to make for our teasers.  Watching road signs flit past conjured up memories of Burmashave’s doggerel, and then I spent much of the rest of the trip writing poems that made me laugh.  I’ve got fourteen of them in total, so expect to see more of them up here at some point.  I loved our character Archmage Teleport, and introducing the setting through the lens of advertisements for his teleportation business seemed like too good a chance to pass up.

Thus far, it isn’t clear that this has resulted in any increased level of sign-ups for Intro Camp, which is perennially less popular than the other summer overnights that WFE runs.  On the plus side, it gave me the opportunity to write fun, snappy poems, which I haven’t done for a long while.

The next part of our teaser campaign focuses on introducing the presence of large quantities of magical in-game loot.  Without spoiling too much, a sizeable section of the game will revolve around letting the PCs run around the land trying to get their greedy paws on as much of the town’s magical treasure as they can, all of which they’ll be able to use as they see fit.  No Macguffins here, only sweet sweet loot.

In order to best introduce all the sweet loot, we decided to create an insurance company in the setting, one that had insured the various treasure vaults held by the town.  This way we can include in our teasers descriptions of some of the actual things that will show up!  Here’s the insurance intro, and the subsequent first batch of sweet loot (all credit for execution goes to Thom, I just nodded approvingly after we came up with the idea):

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Arcanum Intuitum Gnomes (AIG)

AIG was established in G.Y 234 to provide property and casualty insurance solutions to successful adventurers and their families. Serving clients in 54 realms around the world, we have offices in the Dwarven Holds, the Pits of the Underkingdom, the Elven Forests and the Dukedom of Raitt.

Our inventive property and casualty insurance products are designed to protect, and minimize threats to, the personal wealth and safety of our quest-enriched clients. With an integrated, holistic approach toward insurance, we strive to reduce the cost and magnitude of risk for our policyholders.

Whether you collect fine art, elven wine, artifacts, rare tomes or other wondrous items, you can take precautions to protect your treasures from costly, and often irreparable, damage, theft, or dimensional dislocation. AIG’s knowledgeable team of risk management specialists can help you preserve the value of your collection and minimize its exposure to conditions that can lead to damage and loss.

Our experienced staff can handle a wide range of tasks:

• Ongoing oversight of a wide range of private collections — weapons, shields, armor, rods, staffs, rings, amulets, cloaks, periapts, phylacteries, potions, oils, apparati, boots, books, cubes, figurines of wondrous power, horns, harps, vestments, etc.
• Dungeon inspections and installation supervision
• Arranging packing and teleportation of individual pieces using our pre-screened translocator network
• Restoration and resurrection oversight
• Trap installation coordination
• Documentation services, including inventories; condition reports; updates to existing documentation and woodcuts; third-party appraisals; and all other collection tracking needs

Addressing your vulnerabilities.

You can rely on AIG to swiftly settle even the heftiest of claims, but wouldn’t it be better to avoid damage altogether? Our seasoned team can:

• Inspect your collections with an eye toward the potential impact of fire, theft, water damage, breakage, renovations, dragon attacks, demonic summonings, etc.
• Develop sophisticated pre-disaster planning and post-event action steps for collections in areas prone to natural catastrophes, severe weather conditions, or orcish hordes

 

Form 33a: Assessment of Goods
Client: Adventurer’s Rest (incorporated town)
Assessing agent: Libaline Acerfinklethornwhiptorville

Item # 220
Artifact Title: Hero’s blade
Physical Description: Unadorned. Blade twenty-three inches, enchanted steel. No crossguard. Handle five and a half inches, leather-wrapped. Orb pommel.
Putative Powers: Unfailingly strikes the head off of large or “monstrous” foes.
Assessor’s Notes: Hero not specified. Likely a generic title rather than an actual possessive. If historical hero or heroine linked to blade, will have to revise assessment of value upwards.
Suggested Security Measures: Package B-21.

Item # 352
Artifact Title: Lich’s Little Helper
Physical Description: Twisted corpse-figure, approximately 3 feet tall. Attached leather harness (non-magical) allows it to be worn on the back. Corpse produces faint murmurings when worn, apparently detectable only by wearer.
Putative Powers: The murmured advice, if followed, allows large numbers of undead to be commanded. The corpse itself is immune to harmful anti-undead magic, and extends that protection to its wearer.
Assessor’s Notes: Unsettling aspect, bulk, and powers largely useful to undead wielders produces an assessment value far below what is warranted by its potency.
Suggested Security Measures: Package B-21 with Sigma add-on.

Item # 852
Artifact Title: Nimrod’s Favorite Necklace
Physical Description: Fanciful but primitive tchotchkes (glass costume jewelry, sticks, etc.) bound with crude twine.
Putative Powers: Bends probability to the wearer’s favor. Originally misfiled as a cursed item due to its infliction of severe dyslexia and dyscalculia.
Assessor’s Notes: Future assessorss should be caerful when tetsing this aritfact, as aefects may ilnger.
Suggested Security Measures: Package B-12.

Item # 961
Artifact Title: Nymeia’s Circlet of Impoliteness
Physical Description: Silver circlet, 12-carat emerald setting center.
Putative Powers: Allows the wearer one-way, nonconsensual telepathic contact if a hand is laid on another’s head. Works only when used by, and against, humans.
Assessor’s Notes: Broader applicability to various nonhuman bloodlines unknown.
Suggested Security Measures: Package B-22, VanDyke’s addition.

Item # 1055
Artifact Title: Chains of Chaining
Physical Description:.Six feet of unrusted iron chains.
Putative Powers: Chains magically and bind a target within reach when commanded by the wielder.
Assessor’s Notes: Name not on record, provided by assessor.
Suggested Security Measures: Package B-22, possible Smythe upgrade.

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Pretty cool, no?  There’ll be more good stuff coming up after this.  We’ve only got a few more weeks before intro camp, but my hope is that we’ll be able to pull in more intro campers before things start up.  We’ve planned another two phases of teaser releases, but I’ll leave that a secret for now.  If you like what you’ve seen & heard, please spread the word!

p.s. This is my first automatic crosspost on tumblr, my apologies if any of the tags, links, or breaks fail.