Project Description
Ninth World Assassins
Game Design: Andreas Walters
Layout: Andreas Walters
Main Illustration: Vincent Yau
Editing: Scott Vandervalk, John Adams
Writing: Elizabeth Chaipraditkul, Scott Vandervalk, Ben McFarland, Ryan Schoon, Sarah Richardson, Ben Woerner
Supplemental Art: Eric Quigley, Jeff Brown, John Devlin, Eren Arik, Dean Spencer
Size: 8.5×11 in | 127 pages
Type: Standard Hardcover, Leather Gold Foil Deluxe Hardcover
Published: 2018
Recognition: Silver Medal seller on DTRPG
Background
As a fan of the Dark Souls games and Soulslike games, I wanted to put together a setting book that identified and exemplified what people loved about the games and it’s world. Dark Souls is a game about characters and the consequences of their decisions (often at the expense of the realm). Embers put forth its own ruined world set up in a way that would be compatible to insert into your own tabletop game.
Project Challenges
- Narrative Flow The book was designed using a similar modular approach as the Baby Bestiary and Atlas Animalia. A big problem we had near the end was tying various pieces of the character narratives together so that it would form a more cohesive setting (special thanks to editor Scott Vandervalk).
- Art before Writing, While prepping for this project, one concept was a book of bosses. And so we had a lot of creature/character art before we pivoted into a setting book. This meant we had to build uses for art that we had created (as the budget is limited).
- Print Quality, We had some quality control issues with the Deluxe Leather Embers book, as the shrink-wrap used (and time from stamping to binding was too close) in that many books would flake leather when the shrink wrap was removed.