Paradigm Concepts

[hodge182]

Edit: we've figured out where to go next (year of ill harvest and CSE campaigns), but I'd still be grateful to hear other's answers to the questions or just view points on the game in general.

And of course, we still hope the adventures from LA year three-year six are made available someday in some form (hint hint )

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Summary:

I ran some living arcanis intro adventures (1028IC), we are faced with “where to now.” We want to play the main storyline (preferably where our intros left off):

Is there a cheaper/free timeline of all living arcanis events/plot summary?
If shattered empires quick launch has the only available plot summary*, but is it good enough for our needs? will there ever the the option to buy it as pdf only**?
Are there any adventures for free/to buy for year 4+? (or advice for setting a campaign then, and somewhat matching canon)
If you could buy only one adventure line or year, which one (year of ill harvest, year of the fall, ect)?


clarifications:
*I assume it must since it is after the living arcanis plot, but I don't know if our needs warrant buying it (see rambling, third paragraph).
**I prefer pdfs because they take no physical space (and no territorial arguments), and I don't want to order and waste resources on a book I won't keep (money is an issue also, so I'd like to buy the pdf only.)

Reasons for questions/a little rambling:
I'm very new to living arcanis, but liked the setting and tried it with my group. A few years ago I downloaded some free intro adventure's from living acranis dot com (and copy+paste basic history/description to). Recently I downloaded the free codex arcanis (1024IC), and figured between that and some very brief skimming (time's an issue) it was enough to “wing it” and play a few games with the group. It went very well and everyone loved it (especially “Intro3 Duty and justice”, we also did “taboo” and “one night in coryan.”)

Now the players wants to continue with the characters made so far. Ideally we would like to do the “living arcanis main story arc” picking up during the coryan civil war, 1 month after the battle of Enpebyn, this is where “intro3 duty and justice” left us off (Game year 4). Sure, it's a home campaign and we can anything, but everyone likes the written material and we are all curious of what epic paths the “canon” story has (though pc's may totally alter it).

However, I'm new and have stumbled onto nearly 10 years worth of a campaign, I have no up to date timeline, living arcanis seems to have finished, some websites seem to not exist (404 error livingarcanis?), what sites I have found don't give a ton of info, and I can't find anything past 1028IC. Internet searches seemed to show “chronicles shattered empire quickstart” might have a timeline of it all? But since we are just starting we're not interested in going past living arcanis' story, or switching from 3.5DnD (yet...we feel no rush, and it seems all of living arcanis' story used DnD), and I don't want to pay shipping and prefer pdfs...this seems to mean we won't need the majority of that product.

From what I'v read, it seems all living arcanis adventures besides year 1+2 are locked away. It would be fun to run canon adventures where the intros left us off, or at least use a plot summary and timeline to create more adventures. Neither seem readily available. The only product I know of (CSE) that might have what we'd like seems to mostly be things we are not (yet) interested in (hope that summarizes the rambling a little.)

If there is any info my searching missed, I'd be very grateful to be pointed in the right direction.

[PCIHenry]

Hello Hodge,

I'm glad you and your players enjoyed the original 6 year story arc.

Unfortunately, with the exception of Year 1: The Year of Ill Harvest and Year 2: The Year of the Fall, the rest of the adventures are no longer in circulation.

The Quicklaunch has a brief bridging summary of the 40 intervening years between the last story arc and the new one, but a blow for blow time line does not exist anywhere (at least to my knowledge).

However, the good news is that the new Campaign (called Crusade!) has just started and the first four adventures should be made available shortly. Have you players jump on board from the very beginning which will allow what occurs at the table you run to possibly affect the direction of the campaign and the world.

The new story-arcs will be much shorter in nature, 1 -2 years in length, so you won't have that issue of sifting through ten years worth of material.

Sorry its not the answer you wanted to hear, but give the new Campaign a try. Same world - different (and IMO better) rules.

Best,
_________________
Henry Lopez
President
Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

[hodge182]

[PCIHenry]

Hello Hodge,

The new campaign assumes that you don't know anything about the previous campaign. While the Quicklaunch has that bridging history, it isn't needed to play in the new campaign.

I get the sense that you are reluctant to purchase the new rule set for the new campaign? Is there a particular reason why?

We gave away about 125 free adventures during the last 6 year story arc. The only thing we asked was that the players supported the company by purchasing our products. Given that we don't produce more than 4or so book a year, we don't feel its that onerous a deal. In return, we make available lots of free adventures for you and your players to enjoy.

As far as your last question, if you run Year 1, it was designed to be an introductory mini story arc of its own. It has a beginning, middle and end. So that might satisfy your player's sense of completion.

Best,
_________________
Henry Lopez
President
Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

[hodge182]

[Chris24601]

[hustonj]

The thing I want to add, here, is that while the SE rules system serves the setting very well, the MECHANICS are NOT tied to the setting, actually.

Sure, the book contains races, starting regions, Traits, most of the Backgrounds, some of the Talents, and some of the Spells that are, most certainly, tied to the setting.

With some effort, you could provide races, regions, Traits, Backgrounds, Talents, and Spells specific to the setting of your choice.

I think this is one of the best base, generic rule systems I've come across. The fact that the initial exposure to the engine has a rich variety of setting specific material embedded in it simply makes it look better to me than the game engines that try to sell themselves in the pure generic form.

I want the CSE campaign to work through the kinks of the system for a bit first, but I am interested to see what other settings these guys have up their sleeves that they could implement using this rules set. I don't want to see any such thing for a couple of years at this point, so that the rules get beat up before then, but I want to see them.
_________________
Valeriano Innocenzo Camillo de Larissa la Galletti
San Antonio, Tx-based Harvester
Jeff Huston
huston.harvester@cox.net

[hodge182]

I would like to thank everyone for their answers/help. I think I'll copy+paste+print them for the players. The feel I get from the group is that our campaign will definitely be in Arcanis, just where and when is left to decide.

[Chris24601]

[hodge182]

Hi everyone, sorry for the late-ish reply, i've been out of town and couldn't check the forums for awhile.

Anyway, I asked the group which they wanted to do CSE or year of ill harvest. The response was “Do both, they both sound fun”. In hindsight, it seems like the obvious choice.

Of course, we still hope the adventures from LA year three-year six are available someday in some form (hint hint )

Also, I might be able to get them to split the cost of CSE instead if I buy year one myself. (I only allow 30$ per month for things I don't need/just want. It also makes more sense, since as DM only I would need the year of ill harvest pdf, but the players would need CSE collectively for the CSE campaign.)

[hodge182]

[KittyCurtis]

[hodge182]