Cover Redesign On the Way

As much as D&D - and specifically B/X and BECMI - mean to me, I want to move away from visually referencing those editions and that history. Whether we want to admit it or not, writing RPGs or even writing about RPGs will always carry a bit of D&D with it (at least within my lifetime), but that of course looks different to every one of us.

The OSR is most definitely about nostalgia for me, and I'm okay admitting that. Whether it's the ruleset and play style, or in fact nothing more than the time period when it was all happening - for me that means super late '70s and basically all of the '80s - I do look on it all and feel a sense of longing. I'm sure my age has a good amount to do with that.

I don't want that to hinder Dynasty of Blood, however. Obviously, it's a story set in the '80s during the Satanic Panic, and pretending Dynasty of Blood (the game) is this fictional timeline's D&D isn't interesting to me.  And, truly, I am kind of approaching this all a little sadly, because Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast have trashed decades and decades of good will so easily of late. I'm not online raging (or even AFK raging) about them, but it's a little hard to ignore the signs they don't have the well-being of the game(s) in mind.

I like the way Old School Essentials (OSE) by Gavin Norman does it. Here's a section from the OSE Classic Game Set, I have the box set so it's in the Characters volume:

The old-school gaming scene is sitting on a secret: a huge number of games, despite having different brand names on their covers, are highly compatible! This cross-compatibility between many games means that a great wealth of adventures, campaign settings, and rules supplements can be used with Old-School Essentials . Old-School Essentials is 100% compatible with the 1981 edition of the world’s most popular fantasy RPG, commonly known as the Basic/Expert edition (B/X for short). Any material published for the Basic/Expert rules can be used directly with Old-School Essentials. Decades of adventure are at your fingertips!

Pretty much everyone knows what this means, what is being discussed and referenced. It's there, but it's not. That's how I want to write Dynasty of Blood, both the story and the game. Keep your eyes out for the redesigns, which I'll release as alternate editions for Volumes 1 - 3, then continue on with the new design for all subsequent volumes.

Writing of Volume 4 continues, as does work on more art! Eyes out for updates.

-austin
https://linktr.ee/austinRwilson