We've already signed up for, and have started preparing for, Gen Con 2024! It's so crazy, because it feels SO early, but we've already had to get our rooms, and we'll soon be purchasing our plane tickets. We're already trying to plan some new product line-up for this year, to include a new Art Book and some play-mats with various selections of our new art being showcased.

This year we may be changing our standard format for running demos to allow for the introduction of some play-testing sessions of our currently-under-development Shard Spiral Arena card game. I was hoping to debut it this year as a finished product, but it's looking like we don't have time to get it manufactured and ready for distribution in time for the show!

Regardless, it should be an exciting convention!

Scottie

The interesting thing about the Shard Spiral Arena card game, and hopefully what will interest folks who are enjoying our paper RPG, is that its rules and playable dynamics mimic the combat system of our RPG almost exactly! If you enjoy our Shard RPG combat system, then you'll find a great, even faster-playing analog for martial arts combat in the world of Shard when trying the card game. The rules are basically the same, except instead of rolling dice you draw cards against one another to determine success!

Anyway,...you might be surprised how easily you find yourself playing the card-game, because when I designed the rules for it, I did so with the fact that, like you, I normally don't enjoy wrapping my head around card game rules, and found them difficult to "get into"... As a result, I designed a card game that I actually enjoy playing, and it feels fast-paced enough to really capture that "back and forth" feeling of maneuver-based martial arts battle!

Aside from that, though, and like I mentioned, we'll have our new coffee-table-quality Art of Shard book available, as well as some cool play-mats with some of our best art for folks that enjoy that kind of thing! And of course we'll be running our demos as well! Please let your sister know that we'd be glad to include her in one of our game adventure demos if that's something she'd enjoy. We hope to get our events up and ready soon!

Take care!

Yeah,...I totally get it. Watching a show that tries to pace itself like some kind of game mechanic is no fun for me either... On the other hand, playing a tabletop game is always expected to come with some kind of game mechanic to even allow it to function, and card games are no exception. With the Shard Spiral Arena card game, however, we do have the same dynamic as the Shard RPG has for its combat, in that players are encouraged to participate by describing how their characters interact with one another during the combat itself, to lend a sort of "cinematic" air to what the cards indicate. Additionally, one of the cards associated with each card-game character when a game is played (and which changes every time play occurs to mix things up a bit) is a Story Card that indicates a particular story element that affects that character during game-play, and represents another difference between characters as they interact with one another while battling in the Spiral Arena. This story element could be a special pet, a special weapon, a particular power or condition enjoyed only by that character, a "blessing" received by a priest, a magical item, or a particular aspect of that character's past that would influence the mechanics of the game in some interesting way during game-play... Of course, at the end of the day,...it's still a card game set in our world, and based on our RPG game's rules, so if that's not your "cup of tea", then even those story elements I mentioned might not be enough to entice you to play.

Most of the myths concerning the Devah are considered "regional" in nature, which means that they are often told within particular cultural contexts in a sort of whimsical, relaxed literary fashion often reserved for either "story-time" before bed, tales told around the fire, or even the more bawdy atmosphere of drinking with friends at a teahouse. Often these tales are told for amusement, or for the sake of providing "lessons" in non-temple circumstances... Though these tales might be hinted at in the pages of the most renowned holy books, they only come to blossom fully when told by traveling musicians, poets, mercenaries, and merchants, and often feature situations not spoken of in polite company! As such, though we have no plans to create a specific "book of myths" for the Shard RPG, you will eventually find such tales featured in adventure modules we'll be writing, or in the eventual Traveler's Guides we'll be working on for each of the 18 nations of our world...