This thread exists to centralize the planning for Issue Two of the fanzine. Subscribe (manually or by replying) if you wish to receive updates on our discussions. The top post will be continually edited with the freshest information. This is a community project, so always assume any choice not filled in, such as particular items for running features, titles of issue features, art themes and articles to receive them, things to add to the checklist, etc., is up for discussion.
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Issue Two
Theme: Mechanus
Desired publication date: ____?
Articles
Articles due date: ___?
| Running Features | Subject selected? | Author assigned | Draft rcvd? | Final draft rcvd? |
| Issue Intro/TOC | no | no | no | no |
| Planar Locations | no | no | no | no |
| Faction Focus | Yes | Yes | no | no |
| Races of Sigil | no | no | no | no |
| Log X | no | no | no | no |
| Adventure Item | no | no | no | no |
| Issue Features | Subject selected? | Author assigned | Draft rcvd? | Final draft rcvd? |
| Feature 1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | no |
| Feature 2 | Yes | Yes | no | no |
| Feature 3 | no | no | no | no |
Faction Focus: Subject: Fraternity of Order. Author: Anetra.
Feature 1: Subject: Order of Lawful Neutral druids native to Mechanus. Draft thread: here. Summon Nature's Ally list for Mechanus druids. Draft thread: here. Labyrinthine Portal travel rules and trait. Draft thread: here. Author: Jem.
Feature 2: Modron paper minis. Author: Anetra.
Art
Art due date: ___?
| Article to receive art | Theme selected? | Artist assigned | Draft rcvd? | Final draft rcvd? |
| Feature 1 | no | no | no | no |
| Feature 2 | no | no | no | no |
| Feature 3 | no | no | no | no |
| Issue cover | no | no | no | no |
| Issue general? | no | no | no | no |
Checklist:
Any potential IP issues? ___?
Credits composed: ___?
Layout assignment: Anetra
Have I missed anything? Are Faction Focus and Races in Sigil intended to be running features, or were those part of our Sigil-focused issue?
I think Races of Sigil and Faction Focus can come back when people have ideas for them but they don't need to be in every issue?
Fine by me, although a number of running features with low page count each are pretty easy to write and pad the zine a bit.
I think that those 2 should probably be recurring features.
Re: Faction Focus, I have ideas for PF Crunch (either an archetype or prestige class) for the Fraternity of Order, which is intended for this issue. If someone else wants to write this I can post what I have in mind.
Re: Races, do you think there would be IP issues with featuring the Axani in this issue? :S
I haven't the foggiest. What are the Axani? Where are they from? What license governs them?
Axani were lawful Planetouched introduced in Dragon Magazine #297. I know we have permission from WotC to use the Planescape setting and WotC IP as it pertains to said setting, but I don't know if that extends to Dragon Mag. At the time of this issue (2002), the magazine was being published by WotC, but it wasn't published as open game content.
Do we have a theme for the issue?
Issue 2 is the Mechanus issue. I have some Modron paper minis on deck and ready to go for it, as well.
Cool. I can probably get us an art piece or two for the zine, just need some descriptions.
What would the Modron paper minis count as? An "Issue feature"? I can put that in the appropriate category if so.
Regarding art pieces, wasn't there a Mechanus druid that was done for us by someone a while back, up to the stage of a sketch at least?
I have two items I would be happy to add: a lawful neutral order of druids and a discussion of use of the Labyrinthine Portal which comes with a trait of use to planar characters, if people are interested in these.
Anetra, regarding Axani from Dragon magazine, do you have the exact wording available from when we were given permission to use Planescape and WotC IP? We can see what and how much it would cover from such a source, at least to the best of our abilities.
Anyone keeping up with the extent of what if any Planescape material is going in to 5e?
Paper Miniatures: I've been doing paper minis for each issue so far (have them done for issues 1 & 2), so yeah, let's put it down as a feature.
LN Druids and Labyrinthe Portal: both sound perfect. Do you have crunch for the druids, or just fluff?
I think we were trying to work on a Planar Druid archetype for Pathfinder for this issue way back when, but I don't recall how far we actually got on it, and PF also has a lot more archetypes and options now, so it may have become redundant.
Wording for our permission to use Planescape: I don't, no. When I was trying to look into this before to find out what kind of legalese we need to put into the zine itself to cover our permission to use the IP, I was told to use basically the same thing that's on the bottom of the site. "Planescape, Dungeons & Dragons, their logos, Wizards of the Coast, and the Wizards of the Coast logo are ©2008, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc. and used with permission."
Planescape in 5th Edition: All I can do is speculate, but the D&D 5e Game Designer job posting that was up on the Hasbro website a week or two ago made some reference to knowledge of previous settings being an asset ? (The posting is down now, so I can't check what exactly it said) Who knows what this actually meant, or which settings they were interested in if any, though.
Hmm. If we can use Planescape IP, are the Axani Planescape? The issue is Mechanus themed, so does their fluff specifically mention Mechanus and their role in a planar game?
I have a lot of fluff for the druids, but it could use some savage editing depending on word count desired, or I could add some more Mechanus-centered leadership stuff. The main bit of crunch I have for them is a revamped Summon Nature's Ally list specified for Mechanus. I'll post both of those for people to take a look at.
Top-line organizing post updated with discussion so far. I'm good with Anetra doing this issue's Faction Focus on the Fraternity of Order.
Depending on whether the axani make the cut, for a Mechanus-themed issue it does seem like the rogue modrons would be the natural choice for a Races of Sigil focus.
Oh! Yeah, Rogue Modrons are a great idea.
I have some Pathfinder Modron conversions as well, but I'll need to go back over them, as I did the conversion a pretty long time ago.
Thoughts on what we need to do for the second issue to move forward?
Ticking the next "no" in any row to a "yes."
We need to choose a subject for the running featurettes Planar Locations, Races of Sigil, Log X, and an adventure. An author should be chosen. This could probably take place in the reverse order. Anetra volunteered for the Faction Focus featurette and should provide a draft, to be linked from this thread. I can choose or write a Log X submission.
I have uploaded a draft of my feature article materials for the Brotherhood of the Cosmic Order, at the linked posts in this subforum. I have received no feedback and would be interested in any that people cared to provide. These could be turned into a final draft form fairly quickly.
Anetra needs to upload a draft for her Faction Feature of the modron minis or at least declare that she has a draft ready for inclusion (although I'm sure the project would like to see them).
A third Issue Feature subject should be chosen and authored.
We should find the art assets we had for the Mechanus Issue, make sure they're available, and link them from here. New art assets should be commissioned or volunteered.
Once all of these drafts are submitted and finalized the issue can be put together by someone who knows layout.
I'll see if I can dig out the art that was previously submitted, though unfortunately I think it was posted on the old site's forums and may be gone.
Will also review the articles you posted Jem, and will see about getting some of the other stuff checked into Yes.
-Sci
This stuff is three years old, anything new going on?
I don't want to make any promises of a definitive date, but I do plan on resurrecting the zine.
Sadly each time we try life upheavals get thrown at us...so fingers crossed...
This was all my attempt at an organizational tool; I have no experience with publishing workflow other than as a participating writer.
It's rather embarrassing to put out one issue and then vanish. If we are ever going to do something like this again I would want to have three more issues in the barrel before publishing the first. Making it quarterly and having three more ready to go gives us our first year to get the next four issues ready.
I have never gotten a single datum of feedback on the material I posted.
Is Anetra still here? If not, we will need to reassign their author material and the layout work.
It would be nice to have some additional active authors contributing material.
I am here by the grace of email notifications!
I'm good to do layout.
Will probably do PF2 crunch instead of PF1 crunch, my brain is not in PF1 mode at all anymore. PF2 archetypes are also a dream to create in my experience so far. Could also do PF2 modron stats, on a longer timeline.
I have plans for making faction abilities as PF2 archetypes but that's neither here nor there as a Mechanus issue, unless we trickled them down and just included the Fraternity of Order archetype in this issue.
Re: more authors, I'll talk to Shemeska and some other paizo freelancers I know, I may also be able to bring people in who know 5e?
So far I have maybes from Mikhail Rekun, Ashton Sperry, and Andrew Mullen (pending time/schedule), and Shemeska says she has time off in July and November that she could use to write. Still fishing around to see who else might be interested. If we can get a large enough group of authors, that alleviates the pressure on everyone's schedules to contribute to EVERY issue.
Update: Tentative interest from 5 more Paizo freelancers.
Great, send 'em in!
We have to figure out how we're running this zine first, I think. A lot of the maybes are because their involvement is highly dependent on: what kind of content do you want? what's the deadline? what's the wordcount? etc.
Who is in charge of this thing? I can do layout, but do we want to try to source an editor? Who is deciding which articles to include or not use, or are we using everything? Etc.
So far absolutely everything has been catch as catch can, a completely amateur fan effort with no money behind it. sciborg2 originally came up with the idea of the zine; sci, you (Anetra), and me have been the only ones who have done any organizing or authorial work to the best of my knowledge. Mogget and Zimrazim were also credited in Issue One. As far as I could tell sci made most of the decisions for Issue One.
I am willing to take ownership of Issue Two. I know absolutely nothing about publishing except for the rare occasions on which I have been involved as a contributing author, but I am willing to learn and alter any sudden pronouncements I might make in consultation with authors interested in contributing. I will consider this a cemented agreement if Anetra and sciborg2 both post in this thread reacting positively to the proposal.
If I do so, I will aim for the same format as last time: a 24-page zine, including cover and illustrations. If the zine is to be quarterly, we will need to get on pace to put one out every three months, so from today (July 3rd) I would aim for a publication date of October 1st, and every three months thereafter.
I would appreciate it if one of you would volunteer to pick up Issue Three on similar terms, aiming for a January 1st publication. Whoever did so would have six months for their task.
I'm good with anyone taking lead, whether it's me or you or sci, just so long as we establish who it is. Last time we didn't, really, and I felt like our efforts suffered a bit for it.
I'm going to start 2 new planning threads because there's some stuff we need to decide that isn't all specific to this issue.