We’re always busy working on official projects at athas.org. Here is an update on the current projects with priority. <p>
Dregoth Ascending: The work on the much awaited first part of Dregoth Ascending is in full progress. David Tisch (Cyrus9a) is assisting us on map creation. </p><p>
Terrors of the Deadlands: The Monster Bureau has been busy these last months with Terrors of Athas. These guys continue to impress me all the time. Now they’re working on updating Terrors of the Deadlands from 3.0 to 3.5 rules. </p><p>
Tyrian Conspiracy: I’ve received some very good feedback on the preview of the update from 3.0 to 3.5 rules. The public playtest is still going on. Expect a final release in October. </p><p>
DS Core Rules 3.5: The largest remaining parts of the Core Rules 3.5 update are the psionics and spells chapters. </p><p>
Prestige Class Compilation: Prestige classes are being developed for Dregoth Ascending. The doc currently has 28 prestige classes and more are to follow. </p><p>
Epic Rules: The Epic Bureau is still working on the advanced beings rules and other rules concerning these concepts, such as dragon magic and psionic enchantments. </p><p>
Other projects: Secrets of the Deadlands, The Emissary, Whispers of the Storm 3.5 update, City-State of Draj 3.5 update, Lost Cities. These projects are either put on hold, or progressing slowly. </p>
Tyrian Conspiracy has been updated for 3.5. The current release is tagged as a preview release; please report any conversion errors to jon@athas.org. Enjoy.
Athas.org has founded a new templarate bureau: The Epic Bureau. Its current members are Paul Liss, Jon Sederqvist, Chris Flipse, Nels Anderson, Clifford Hill and Doug Hagerty. The Epic Bureau will be responsible for the further development of Epic rules for DS3.5.
Mike Ring has joined the Monster Bureau. Mike wrote some of the monsters for Terrors of Athas and he is a welcome addition to the monster team. Welcome to the Templarate, Mike.
David Schwartz (aka Hill Giant) has joined the Monster Bureau. David has given us a lot of quality feedback on Terrors of Athas. Welcome to the Templarate, David.
[Many of you know about this already … this announcement got stuck in the drafting stage over the holiday. Sorry about the delay.]
Dragon #315, subtitled Campaign Classics contains an article on
Defiling, written by Dave Noonan of WotC. Also mentioned is that Dragon
and Dungeon will be publishing a set of articles in May presenting a
full set of Rules for playing Dark Sun in the May issue, also written by
Dave Noonan. The articles will be published shortly after the release
of the 3.5 Psionics Handbook, which is due out in April.
We have been in contact with the folks at Pazio, who took over the
publication of Dragon and Dungeon earlier this year. I can't reveal
everything that was discussed, as we're still trying to sort out the
relationship.
Pazio has a rule that they cannot publish anything that has been
published elsewhere, which eliminates everything currently on the site.
It also invalidates quite a bit of our non-module development materials,
since we have been very open in our rule-development process over the
years.
However, we're discussing with them how to better involve Athas.org
in the process. Whatever results come of this will likely be applicable
to all of the official sites.
No matter what ends up happing, however, there is a continued place
for athas.org, and all of the official sites. Dragon is a D&D
generalist magazine -- it's needs and goals don't mesh well with the
continued support that a fleshed out setting requires. Products such as
City State of Draj (even if it were much,
much shorter) just aren't the sort of thing that Dragon is insterested
in publishing, because it's not of much use to the majority of their audience.
