Hello,

Swordfish Islands is far from dead, but blogging has definitely taken a back seat. Like all bloggers who have fallen off, I've got a plan to return, but we'll see if I can swing it for real!

I woke up this morning with what may be a complete understanding of elves.

It's Their Infravision

Patrick asked if about people’s feelings on G+ being gone. He doesn't miss it.

I do.

It took me a few weeks to bring myself to delete the app (and inbox) from my phone, and I still try to click where it used to be out of force of habit.

But what about it do I miss? Patrick’s points about it having been on a major downturn for quite a while are very much on the nose, so why even miss it?

A while back now, I got "into it" a bit with a friend over skill checks. Much has been written on this topic so hopefully I won't be rehashing much, but I felt like I came away with a new personal understanding of my feelings on the matter.

Hi! Silent Titans pre-sales are now live on the Swordfish Islands store. You can snag a copy here: http://shop.swordfishislands.com
 
If you live outside the US, this is a great time to grab a copy as non-US copies sold during this time will ship from outside the US. PreSale ends April 22.

Books sold after April 22nd will all ship from the US.

More information and details to come, but here's the quick announcement!

 

Hello Everyone,

We haven't forgotten this blog. Promise. In fact, we're working on a whole overhaul of the site to make swordfishislands.com a more meaningful and focused experience. Soon™

News Item #1 - A New Map

There is a new map of Hot Springs Island by Jason Thompson (@mockman). It is utterly amazing.

Things have been kinda nuts on this front. The Dark of Hot Springs Island won the gold Ennie for best adventure at Gen Con 2018. It won the prestigious Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming 2018. And it just won game of the month for November 2018 on Reddit's RPG subreddit.

We're working on getting a reprint going (almost sold out of physical copies of the first run of books!). We're working on the next book The Spire Islands. There are two spire islands: North Spire Island (home of the green scaled lizardment the Goa) and South Spire Island (home of the blue scaled lizardmen the Kiru). Together these two islands have 26 hexes, making them slightly larger than Hot Springs Island (25 hexes).

Because we won game of the month on the RPG subreddit, we've been invited to do an "Ask me Anything". Stop by http://reddit.com/r/rpg on Friday 11/09/18 from 11:00am - 12:30pm and ask us any questions you'd like about Hot Springs Island or the Swordfish Islands, or whatever else you like.

Here's one way to start a Swordfish Islands campaign

 

Your past does not matter.

As the title says, the Hot Springs Island books are on sale. 25% off. Check it out. Or don't. It's a sandbox adventure afterall.

The blog is not dead. I just do most of my blathering these days on Google Plus. The Kickstarter was successful and has been 100% delivered (aside from 10 people who haven't told me where to send the books!) and the books are live and for sale. There have been some great reviews that I really need to do a better job of collecting all in one place, but check out this excellent video review by Questing Beast if you haven't already.

A viewer asked a few questions about Hot Springs Island, and I thought it'd be nice to post them here, along with my answers.

The Kickstarter for the Swordfish Islands: Hot Springs Island is now live! Finally!

Hot Springs Island is a high fantasy sandbox adventure setting that can be used with any table top role playing game. It's comprised of two books: One for players and one for the game master.

Three days remain in the Swordfish Islands Kickstarter. For International Tabletop Day (4/29) we'll be livestreaming a game on Hot Springs Island from 12pm CDT to 4:30pm CDT. You can watch it directly on the Kickstarter page, and ask us any questions you'd like!

We're fully funded and only $600 away from adding bookmarks to all the books!

A huge thank you to everyone who's helped get us this far! If you've pledged, you're amazing! If you can't pledge, but have told a friend or shared a link, you're amazing too! We couldn't have gotten here without each and every one of you. Thank you.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pandesmos/the-swordfish-islands-hot-springs-island-an-rpg-he

What's the deal with "The Swordfish Islands" and "Hot Springs Island"? How do they relate? What's going on here? Well... have a story!

Black powder is comprised of three basic parts: charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur. Apply a bit of fire and not only do you get an explosion, you get a big puff of smoke and an aftermath of highly corrosive residue. This "explosion of consequences" can be found at the heart of most memorable and frequently retold stories. The death of Caesar. The choice of Paris. The storming of the Bastille. In each case, a powder keg of decisions, relationships, beliefs, debts and random chance ignited and we retell the stories of the explosion's flash, smoke and caustic consequences to this day.

This past weekend I had a vendor table at NTRPG Con 2016. I was mostly stuck to my booth, but I met quite a few awesome people hustled a few copies of A Field Guide to Hot Springs Island. On Saturday Evan and Donnie made it up (and promptly took this awesome picture of me not looking at them after they handed me awesome magnets to look at) and ran an impromptu game of Hot Springs Island using D&D 5e.


By all accounts it went well!

Swordfish Islands at Chupacabra Con 2016 - A Recap

The Good Things:
People said some very nice things about Hot Springs Island, the highlights being: About The Dark of Hot Springs Island (The GM book) "I've never been so excited about a book I can't have". About the Field Guide (paraphrased) "[The Game Master at my table] said your book was the best $20 he's spent at this convention and that I needed to buy a copy too, so tell me about your game."

If people would give me 10 seconds, they'd almost always end up giving me several minutes of their time, and probably money or at least an email address. They also appeared to be legitimately enthused when they walked away, or at least more animated.

Chapter 7: Naval Indian Hunters

Chakaika

sloop-of-war

During that time, her sailors helped the citizens clear the woods at the edge of town to hamper the Seminole's ability to launch a surprise attack.

Chapter 5: Mexican Interlopers

As one officer wrote, "We march into the country and play them all sorts of pranks." In one of these pranks, a Mexican landing force went ashore a few miles from Havana and captured a mule train carrying coffee. [a whole mule train aboard a shipwreck. or other animal train. camels! rhinos! a circus! mythical beasts!]

Chapter 4: Pirates and Pirate Hunters

The first outbreak [of piracy] began around 1695 and lasted until about 1725.

Golden Age of Piracy

Blackbeard
Calico Jack
Black Bart

After the end of the War of Spanish Succession in 1713, a large number of unemployed English privateers turned pirate and made the Bahama Islands their home base. [See... ex-soldiers after the US Civil War led to the Wild West. Ex-soldiers after Spanish Succession lead to Pirates! Ex-soldiers + untamed wilderness = romanticized adventure world]

Chapter 3: Privateers

James Wimble

• Born 1697
• Built his own vessel with the help of friends and sailed from England to the West Indies. Lost his ship upon arrival.