a few updates to the spells document:
The spells document has been updated, including the long-missing spell list for the Templar class. There should be another update to this document, as well as the magic chapter, before the month is out, revising the Defiler / preserver rules.
Two new articles are available on the articles page: Rules for botanical enchantment, and an unofficial variant rule on the relation of Magic to Psionics on Athas.
As you might have noticed from the last releases, we’re getting into the state of working on layout for the DS3 core release. What you see in the Races and Classes documents is about the best that Gab and I can do, neither of us being professional layout artists, and both of us stuck using a sub-standard tool for that job (Word2k) …
So, if you think what you see in those two documents is good enough, you're probably not the guy we're looking for. ;) What we are looking for is someone who can do layout work for us<0>. End result is PDF document. Source documents are in Word 2000 at the moment, and we can supply a bevy of images to sort through. (Preliminary versions of the documents didn't include images because they increased the file size of the source docs by *two* orders of magnitude ... no good when you're passing them back and forth a lot.)
DS3 being what it is, you have to be *available* and willing to deal with changes and the like. This go-round is only a playtest, after all. And I'll want copies of the files used to generate the PDFs, so we're not SOL if you get hit by a bus. ;)
The best we can offer for payment is the satisfaction of seeing your name in the credits ... but if that's enough for you, send a note, and a URL to some samples, to senate@athas.org ...
<0> I know I've gotten offers for this in the past. I lost my mail archives a few months ago, so, sadly, I don't have any of them anymore. Otherwise, you'd've heard from me a few months ago. :/
The Classes chapter of DS3 has been edited. As I’ve hinted at, there are a couple of class updates:
I’ve also uploaded a new PDF for the Races chapter. There aren’t any changes to the content in this, however – it just looks prettier.
An errata update to Tyrian Conspiracy has been released.
Also, I just uploaded a new short story, "An Athasian Story" by Siri Khalsa. I'm also in the process of formatting another, which should be posted in a day or two ...
All the material at the Mind’s Eye to the end of 2002 has been compiled into one document. See also the thread on the Psionics Message Boards.
We’re revisiting some of the classes, after feedback and consideration. A quick rundown of some (not all – we’re not entirely done yet) of the changes:
No promises on the bard, but we’re going to release a new revision of the classes document once the Templar writeup is complete. There’s still some debate over their spells, so no promises on exactly how long. Hoping for sometime in the next two weeks.
An update to Tyrian Conspiracy is available. The changes are minor; some corrections on NPC power points, other minor things.
Getting things sorted out with Verisign took quite a bit longer than expected. However, two weeks later than I’d initially hoped for, the DNS entries are updating, and http://athas.org/ now points to the server it’s supposed to.
In other news, there are some "small" updates to the Races chapter of DS3 -- namely, the Thri-kreen have been replaced with the version that appeared in MM2.