When I started the journey to reboot Allazar in April, I set a release deadline for the first book for November and it’s kept me honest.
Since then, I have spent 100,000 words developing stories that became series outlines (36 total), including the story that is truly the starting point for the entire series and the writing is going well.
But there was still a few problems:
— I have to have a place for us to meet so I can show you what’s going on in my universe and you can tell me why you love or hate it. That means building allazar.com to be interactive and responsive.
— On this site, social media, and email, I will have to share the lore and the backstories to give you some context as Allazar is rich in both.
— I would like to do this before the book was released.
So what am I to do?
Still have a release in November, but not release the book until March.
I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, so let me tell you a story…
In a former life, I was a part of a group of D&Der’s and there was nothing (and I mean NOTHING) that was bigger than The Game. And when it was time again for The Game, the emails in the group went fast and furious, with pics, backstories, side stories to the main quest, and requests for XP points so the characters could be hit harder, run faster, and give us more leeway when our dice decided that we really needed to die.
The Game was all, but the big deal was The Birthday Game. This was usually a one off (a quest totally unrelated to the main campaign) that was more often than not a gaming system that we didn’t usually play. And with that there was a lot of preparations to make:
— Everyone had to get a copy of the ruleset and the backstory so we could figure out what character we wanted to play and we would exchange emails to figure out how much we could mid-max before the DM decided to kill us all.
— We had to determine what time and where the game was going down (location was essential) and if Rock Band would be played afterwards (also essential)
— What food would be served. Gone are the days when it was Cheetos and Pepsi in your mom’s basement. Now it’s a two full meals since our games went for about 8 hours with drinks and snacks served throughout.
All of this was before the day. And on the day of we never just jumped into the game (nope, nope, nope!) – we would take hour or so to catch up with one another, we would listen as the DM told us about the universe, the culture, the deities, the rulers, the creatures and all the relevant regions and how it all related to the quest of the day. We would ask a boatload of questions (whether it related to game or not), cracked our jokes (which were rarely related to the game and more often than not at the DM’s expense) and at the razor fine edge of the last of the DM’s nerves, we would finally get the game going.
And if I’m honest with myself, I see Allazar as a incredibly big birthday D&D game.
From now until November 1st, I’m going to keep all of you up to date on all the plans & preparations made to get Allazar up and going (in that word and the real one) as I have so far. In the next week or so, I will be requesting emails so those who want to be in the loop won’t have to find me on the various social networks to see what I’ve been up to, so stay tuned for that.
Then on November 1st, I am going to reveal the new Allazar.com site, which will be responsive and interactive and have backstories on all the Houses, locations, characters and creatures you will meet in the first series, Cities of Refuge. And as we get closer to the release of the first book, you will get excerpts and insights on the scenes, sorta like the special features portion of a DVD (remember those?). Think of this time as the catching up and the intro to the universe before we actually get to playing.
And in March, the first book of the series (which is yet to be named- that will be released before the book does, I promise) and then after a bit of time, you will get more details on the next book, with not only the familiar places, but new haunts, creatures and characters as well.
I really can’t tell you how excited and grateful I am about having a chance to share this with you and all the encouragement and support you all have given me so far. The Allazar team is working hard to get all the pieces together to make this a truly fun and enjoyable experience for you.
I look forward to sharing these things with you and stay tuned for your chance to play a part in building a universe.
Until then, Good Bye Citizens and May Your Light be Bright Always!