When it comes to RPGs I really don't have a lot of "Wants."
I have been successful in my career so many daily needs of home, food, and health are all covered.
I certainly don't *need* any books or games. I have enough here to last me the rest of my life and then some.
Though I do think back to a time when a combination of my low income, lack of access and lack of choice produced some Wants in my RPG life.
The biggest examples of these are my various witch books.
I have often said that the main drive behind everything I write and publish is a reflection of the wants I had of growing up in the 80s.
I write the books I wanted to buy back then, but couldn't. Sometimes that couldn't was because I could not afford it or didn't have access to a good Local Game Store. But most often it was because the books I wanted didn't even exist.
So really nearly all my "wants" are in the form of "I want to write this book." or "I want to run this game."
And there are a lot of those.
I am currently working on two separate projects (well...more than two, but these are the two I am talking about today). I have alluded to them both in passing, but I guess today is a good day to make them official.
First, and since today is Monstrous Monday it is good to mention it, is my book on monsters.
The Basic Bestiary: Monsters from the Other Side is my homage to the Fiend Folio and the source of many of those monsters, The Fiend Factory from White Dwarf magazine.
This book takes monsters that have appeared in my various witch books and monsters that have been featured on Monstrous Mondays. So very much like the Fiend Folio. I have even retained the alliteration of the original monster books. Like the Fiend Folio I am including some new, never before seen monsters as well. Also like the Fiend Folio/Fiend Factory relationship not all the Monstrous Mondays monsters will go into this book. I am going to leave some of the sillier or snarkier monsters out.
It was the original Monster Manual that got me into D&D all the way back in the 70s. This also stands as my homage to that.
Presently the book is 220+ with 300+ monsters and no art yet. So far on par with the original monster books. The final art for the cover is not yet set and there will be a soft-cover version for fans of "Basic-era" D&D and a hard-cover for fans of "Advanced-era" D&D. While I love the Fuseli art, it predates my beloved Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood art by about 80 years. But, given the source material, it is quite apropos. Though I might look for something that works better as a full cover. I am just loathed to not use this somehow. Unless I can find something from say, Hieronymus Bosch. but he is even further outside my Pre-Raphaelite time period.
Second I have what I have been calling my "Last Witch Book."
The High Secret Order: The High Witchcraft Tradition is going to be the culmination of everything I have written about the witch to date.
Every witch book under the Basic-era Games banner I have written was designed to capture a particular Zeitgeist of playing. Daughters of Darkness captured the witch as an evil temptress vibe. The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch captured that Fall/Winter of 1979 when I was heavy into mythology and picked up the Monster Manual for the first time and my experimentations with the Holmes Basic book. The Basic Witch: The Pumpkin Spice Witch was not going for any particular time save for the fun of Halloween. The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch was made to capture the time playing Moldvay/Cook & Marsh B/X D&D game and my times discovering both Norse and Celtic myth as an alternative to Greek myths.
As the last Basic-era Witch book this book covers the time of me moving away from Basic-era D&D towards Advanced D&D. Though it is less about a "time" and more about a "process." I can go with the process of moving from Holmes Basic (and their promise of a witch class) to AD&D. I can go with the Greyhawk supplement for OD&D as the first real springboard towards what would become AD&D. Or I can go with my own process of moving from B/X Basic to AD&D and a time when we all mixed all the above freely and without concern that we were "doing it right."
Such things might not matter to you, or they might. I just want to capture that time/feeling and make it solid just for a little bit. My gift to that young teen in the middle of the mid-west who could not get his hands on the books he wanted. Let alone books with witches and demons in it in the 80s in an extremely White-Christian small town. My book is the book form of the Santana song "Hold On" which consequently is from the same time period.
Again. Like Basic Bestiary above the art is not 100% final. I like Daniel Gardner's painting, but again he is outside of myPre-Raphaelite time period. The "compatible with" designation is not on yet since I am not 100% sure which game I want to make this compatible with. I have a few choices, but the idea is to capture the proper feel of the time and I need to look to a clone ruleset that does the time in mind well. Just like Children of the Gods was my time with Holmes, Blueholme Rules was a perfect fit. Basic Bestiary will go with Labyrinth Lord.
So far my research into my last witch book is moving ahead, but not a lot of writing yet.
I keep saying "last witch book" because there are other things I want to do. I'd love to write some 5e material and I even have a good idea for a 5e series.
I have a Blue Rose book coming out soon which I am pretty happy with and I have had a desire to write some more for BESM4 after picking it up earlier this summer.
So there is a lot I want to do.
