Jim Raggi is the craziest

By: Unknown on 04:11

I swear to Grodd, every time I hear of Jim Raggi's lastest scheme for his Lamentations of the Flame Princess publishing outfit I think to myself "dude's finally gone off his rocker".  A boxed set RPG in this day and age?  Publishing suicide.  Update Carcosa as a flashy hardbound?  Who needs a deluxe version of a niche little weirdo product like that?  Crowdsourcing a hardbound version of the LotFP main rulebook?  Who the hell is going to kick in on that?  (Me and several other people, it turns out.)

Hell, just starting a new game company is a pretty crazy ass thing to do, much less "Hey, I don't really speak the local language, but I think I'll start a publishing outfit in Finland anyway."  It's like he's always charging headfirst into some wall but instead of hitting it and crumpling, he leave's a Raggi-shaped hole as he smashes through.  He continues to give the one-finger salute to the haters who want him to fail.

Raggi's plan for the month of July is to crowdsource nineteen different modules from nineteen different authors with nineteen different artists assigned to the project and then shepherd to publication all the individual products that get funded.  Madness.  If anyone but Jim Raggi proposed it, I would say it was an impossibly stupid thing to try, but clearly the man has an established track record of making awesome things happen.

Below is a list of all the people involved, with links to their individual campaigns.  You can see how the funding is going for all the individual projects by checking out this page.

Escaping Leviathan by Aeron Alfrey

The Seclusium of Orphone by Vincent Baker (art by Cynthia Sheppard)

Strange and Sinister Shores by Johnathan Bingham

Towers Two by Dave Brockie

The Unbegotten Citadel by Monte Cook (art by Eric Lofgren)

The House of Bone and Amber by Kevin Crawford (art by Earl Geier)

Of Unknown Provenance by Michael Curtis (art by Amos Orion Sterns)

Machinations of the Space Princess by James Desborough (art by Satine Phoenix)

Horror Among Thieves by Kelvin Green

We Who Are Lost by Anna Kreider

The Land that Exuded Evil by Cynthia Celeste Miller (art by Rowena Aitken)

Pyre by Richard Pett (art by Michael Syrigos)

I Hate Myself for What I Must Do by Mike Pohjola (art by Joel Sammallahti)

Broodmother Sky Fortress by Jeff Rients (art by Stuart Robertson)

Normal for Norfolk by Juhani Seppälä (art by Rich Longmore)

Poor Blighters by Jeff and Joel Sparks (art by Mark Allen)

The Depths of Paranoia by Jennifer Steen (art by Jason Rainville)

Red in Beak and Claw by Jukka Särkijärvi (art by Jason Rainville)

The Dreaming Plague by Ville "Burger" Vuorela (art by Juha Makkonen)

There's a lot to take in here: Michael Curtis, author of Stonehell and The Dungeon Alphabet; Cynthia Celeste Miller, who will always have a place in my heart for writing d12-based RPG rules; Vincent Baker, of Dogs in the Vinyard and Poison'd fame but who I always think of as the guy who wrote kill puppies for satan; James Desborough, who featured heavily in the latest internet ragefest I got sucked into on Google+; Mike Pohjola, author of the Turku Manifesto; and Dave frickin' Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus of GWAR!  Hot damn!

And I'm on this list, too, with cool guy Stuart Robertson suckered into doing art for my project.  My module is called Broodmother Sky Fortress.  Titles for projects are not my strong suit (hence Jeff's Gameblog, one of the least interesting titles ever), so I have to give Mr. Raggi credit for helping me tighten up the name of the adventure.  I would have gone with an X of the Y Z sort of arrangement.  He suggested that was played out and that of all the possible title ideas I pitched him the words Broodmother and Sky Fortress were the strongest.  Here's the elevator pitch for the adventure:

You know what your crapsack campaign world needs? Giants made out of sharks and elephants, lurking in a haunted house in the clouds, ready to jump out of cyclopean shadows and murder your PCs right in their stupid faces.

So over the course of the next couple weeks I'll be talking about the basic concept behind Broodmother Sky Fortress, what I'm trying to accomplish, some old modules that got me thinking along those lines and why Stuart Robertson is a kickass choice for the illustrator this adventure.  I'm told video clips make for better crowdfunding campaigns, so expect a few videoblog entries.

In the meantime, if you are already onboard with Broodmother Sky Fortress, please go pledge.