Announcing Sig: City of Blades
about 4 years ago
– Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 07:29:12 AM
It’s been nearly five months since our last backer update for Sig: Manual of the Primes and a lot has happened during that time. In this time of pandemic, protests, and orange skies, it is even more important for us to tell stories together with our friends. That is why we have been hard at work on Sig: City of Blades which will be coming to Kickstarter soon thanks to you!
Our final stretch goal for Sig: Manual of the Primes was a promise that I would work on an adaptation of the setting to work with the mechanics of Blades in the Dark. It’s taken months in the dice mines, but we now have a game we are proud of. It explores the messy struggles between the Factions of Sig, as they fight for territory, infamy, and coin. We give you the tools for planar heists, whether it be turning a tea-shop to work for your guild, starting a revolution against the brutal enforcers, or stealing a primordial artifact from the vault of heaven.
We are excited to say that the game is looking great so far. Whereas the Manual of the Primes has more of a relationship on the philosophical aspects of the setting as reflected by Beliefs, this new game explores the conflicts between the different factions of the city. In the City of Blades, you play the elite agents of the Heralds Guild, Performers Guild, or the Sage Collegium who seek to advance their factions. Here’s a sneak peek of those factions as illustrated by the excellent Juan Ochoa.
We will be bringing this to Kickstarter on October 5th, 2020. We would love it if you would sign up to be notified when we launch over at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/Jagash/sig-city-of-blades. The more support we can get in the first 48 hours, the better chances we will have of a proper offset print-run and other exciting stretch goals.
Thank you very much for your time, and we hope to see you in the City of Blades!
Jason Pitre, Genesis of Legend Publishing
New Arrivals in the City Between
over 4 years ago
– Fri, May 01, 2020 at 11:54:19 PM
Back in 2017, we introduced Sig: Manual of the Primes. This cosmopolitan planar fantasy roleplaying game has been well appreciated over the years as people have used it to tell stories of family, faith, and faction politics. This colourful, hardcover book has been so well received that we couldn’t leave it alone. That’s why in 2020, we are inviting you to Sig with three new projects.
The current pandemic crisis has reminded us of the importance of community and escape into fantastic worlds. We invite you to play the game online using tools like Roll20, Zoom, or Twitch so that everyone can escape into this fantasy city for a few hours of adventure.
We want to make this happen and we are happy to help by offering your entire group free PDFs of the game. Just gather a group of friends and companions and schedule a session. When you are ready to start, contact us at [email protected] with "Free City” in the subject line to get started.
The Gnomes and the Winged are at war, and only you can find a path to peace. We are working with the excellent Luke Elias to write and develop this brand-new adventure suitable for one-shot games or to launch short campaigns. We will keep you posted when this new adventure is released but we can’t wait to share it with you.
Sig is a rough city. It’s a home for cutters and bashers, hungry for coin and glory. It’s a battlefield between the city factions as they fight over territory. It’s a city of gods, demons, and stranger things which lurk. No wonder that scoundrels and freebooters flock to the Nexus of the ‘Verse.
Ever since our original kickstarter campaign, we have dreamed of expanding Sig into new arenas. We saw the fascinating system behind Blades in the Dark, and recognized how it could align with the planar fantasy setting. We dreamed of planar heists, turf-wars in the ever-changing city, and the exciting lives of Freebooters. We also realized that we would have to make some small adaptations to the system so that it would truly represent the planar fantasy genre, so we set to work.
Sig: City of Blades will be a stand-alone game that adapts the setting of Sig to the Forged in the Dark rule system. It takes a multi-part character approach similar to Nathan Paoletta’s “Mask of the Mummy King” or John Harper’s “Danger Patrol”. It restructures play around a single territorial map with key blocks of territory under the control of the different factions. The struggle for territory and position is fierce in Sig: City of Blades, and each of you belong to one of three minor factions who are seeking to grow. There is a lot to explore and enjoy with this game.
We are once again working with Juan Ochoa who is illustrating this book with his usual masterful skill. Here is a sneak peak at some of the artwork he already prepared for the game.
A magister and a lizardfolk in the middle of a heist.
I look forward to seeing you in the City Between, and planning our next heist together.
Jason Pitre for Genesis of Legend Publishing
Freebooters Reborn – The Blades Between
almost 5 years ago
– Sun, Feb 02, 2020 at 04:44:09 PM
Hey everyone!
I know it has been quite some time since the last backer update for Sig: Manual of the Primes, but I have been working away on the one challenging stretch goal which remained; to adapt Sig to the Forged in the Dark system. This has been a challenge to work on due to the complexity of the rules system in play and a desire to adapt the mechanics to this setting. That said, I have just recently finished the rules document and sent it off to my editor (Christopher Rothwell) yesterday.
As another game titled “Freebooters” has appeared on the scene, we have renamed it as “The Blades Between” which also gave me a chance to pull together a new wordmark.
The Blades Between
There are a few interesting changes to the Blades system that folks will enjoy. Each character sheet is broken into thirds, with contributions from the Favoured Parent, the Disfavoured Parent, and the Power they follow. You are all members as one of a specific faction such as the Heralds Guild, the Sage Collegium, or the Performer’s Guild. Your faction needs to secure more valuable territory if they wish to grow, so you will be using a common map of the city to drive play. Each block of territory can give you a crew upgrade such as a workshop, secure vault, or even access to one of the planar tethers.
The Map of Sig for The Blades Between
When I get the text back from editing, I will be laying it out using some of the assets provided by John Harper. While it won’t be a stand-alone game, I suspect that many of you will enjoy what we have cooked up.
While I am at it, I also wanted to let you know that I have just launched my kickstarter for Zinequest and I am super excited about it. It's a game about a teenage princess who is fleeing a palace coup with the aid of unlikely companions. It's inspired by games such as Dream Apart / Dream Askew, Kagematsu, Archepelago, and Witch: Road to Lindisfarne. If that strikes your fancy, I would invite you to take a look at this small (and affordable) game. Link is here!
Of Sessions and Songs
about 6 years ago
– Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 08:56:26 PM
Hello everyone!
I just wanted to drop folks a line and give a few updates, just before many of my American backers are enjoying Thanksgiving celebrations.
Freebooters Update
Freebooters, the hack of Blades in the Dark for Sig, is slowly proceeding. Our current plan for the design is to effectively establish each plane of existence in the role of Factions in Blades in the Dark, with those with the tether at a higher tier of play due to the surge of power. We are also planning on baking in familial, professional, and religious obligations into play as an adaptation of the Vice system. We shall see.
Scope creep is a real challenge when you are looking at a toolkit as extensive as Blades in the Dark. It will take us a bit of time to work through all of the options and and refine it into a playable state, but we will let you know when it's ready.
Actual Play!
For those of you fine folks who enjoy watching actual play videos, we now have a series of them up on Youtube. The first two videos are from GauntletCon 2018, where I was happy to run some kick-ass sessions.
Session 1: The Drunken Angels
Session 2: The Child of Blood
The Prime World of Polvo
Back in July, I sent out a backer update that mentioned we had a quickstart for our next game, titled “After the War”. It’s a science fiction game centred on building new communities from the rubble of fallen warships, on a distant frontier world. It takes the basic rules of Sig, and adapts them to tell stories of intermixed horror and hope.
Last week, we launched the kickstarter campaign for this new game and it’s going well. I would invite you to take a look at the campaign and learn a bit more about the stories it will help us tell.
