Swordfish Islands Kickstarter

Last post I briefly mentioned +Jacob Hurst's Swordfish Islands Kickstarter campaign.

The campaign offers a lot of really great content, but you can find out about it by going to the kickstarter page itself.

I'm going to talk about something completely different.

I've started reading A Field Guide to Hot Springs Island, which is intended to be an in-game resource for players. It includes a fascinating story from one group of explorers as they traversed Hot Springs Island, and what they found there (or rather what found them). It also has sections describing native flora and fauna that are found on the island, including the muttering serpent:

        No one knows what the head of this large serpent, covered in mirror like scales, actually looks like as it always appears as the observer's head, even in death.

Muttering Serpent

I don't want to give away too much information, but I can describe A Field Guide... as over 200 pages of inspiring content. I can see how it could be useful in player's hands, but as a DM, it's particularly useful to me. Reading the introductory story segments help paint a picture for this strange island, and the suggestions presented of the creatures that are found there get the gears turning for new things to throw at my players.

This book is getting an upgraded reprint as part of the new kickstarter, but the second book is the really interesting one: The Dark of Hot Springs Island. This book is the DM's guide to everything crawling on and around Hot Springs Island, arming the DM with a plethora of new content that makes running a hex crawl on Hot Springs possible. It's the book I'm most looking forward to getting. In fact I almost passed on getting the Field Guide reprint, but it's only $25 more to have both books beautifully rendered so...why not?

If you enjoy hex crawls and campaigns of exploration, I highly recommend making the decision to back this project. There is a ton of beautiful artwork inside, and Jacob is a person who is very interested in producing high quality content. The decision to print these books the way he's pursuing is a great example of that.