One Book to Rule Them
So the deadline is looming and I'm finishing off the last remaining tasks. A big one is the rule book.
It's not just how the players will understand and learn the game but also what gives them the theme and therefore the setting and a reason to play it.
At the same time, if it's too full of fluff then it becomes difficult to understand and the game cannot be played.
So its a balancing act between these two elements, as well as all the additional tasks of text, layout, font etc etc.
Paper
I spent quite some time making the paper. I started out with different grades and various methods for staining it - tea, coffee grinds, vanilla essense and (from a gash in my toe after stubbing my foot) my own blood.
Yes, I've literally bled for this project.
The final result, after a fair bit of weathering and retouching is a decent scroll look, with a few layers so that it blends / multiplies with the text properly.
Font
I intended to make my own font, but eventually cracked under the time limit and donwloaded one.
My versions hadn't been good - problems with kerning and legibility all over the place.
I got lucky and found one called JSLAncient by Jeff Lee, made back in 1997.
It looks perfect for my needs, and serves as both a title and block font, which is great.
Just need to make sure that the legibility is ok when printed at their real size on paper...