The Blue Knight edition of Chronica Feudalis is now available! The PDF versions of the game have been updated with the new edition files at RPGNow and DriveThruRPG as well as Indie Press Revolution. If you have already own the PDF of Chronica Feudalis, just go to the site where you purchased it, log-in, view you past purchases, and re-download the PDF. If you don’t own Chronica Feudalis, what are you waiting for? Buy the PDF today!

New in the Blue Knight edition:

• Simplified defense rolls to make conflicts run smoother and quicker
• A streamlined skill list
• Enhanced conditions that improve the effectiveness of maneuvers
• More robust purse rules

Print copies of the Blue Knight edition will be available at the Indie Press Revolution booth (#2339) at Gen Con 2010. Look for them at the IPR website and your favorite local retailers soon after. Just look for the blue knight on the cover.

Announcing the Blue Knight edition of the medieval RPG, Chronica Feudalis. This new version incorporates all the changes from the revision document (found in the downloads section) into the complete text of the game. These updates to the rules, made over the past year since the game’s original publication, make this game of imagined adventure more streamlined and accessible at your game table.

Every effort has been made to maintain the pagination and layout of the original book. This means that, except for where rules have specifically changed, any rule you look up will be found on the same page as in the original edition. There’s nothing preventing you from playing with both versions at your game table.

Print copies of the Blue Knight edition will be available, barring any significant printer issues, at GenCon 2010. PDF sources will be updated with the new version soon. So if you already own the PDF of Chronica Feudalis, you will be able to update to the Blue Knight edition for free!

Just look for the blue knight on the cover.

Here’s the deal, from my interpretation of the reports I get from RPGNow, there were something like 7400 purchases of the bundle. That is the kind of penetration into the gamer community that few independently published RPGs ever see. Over 7400 people now own Chronica Feudalis who didn’t before. Over 7400 people own 3:16 and Apocalypse Prevention, Inc. Thousands of new owners of Full Light, Full Steam and Beast Hunters.

You probably personally know several other people in your local gaming community who donated their $20 and picked up this bundle. This has been touted on every major gaming forum and a myriad of blogs, podcasts, Twitter tweets, and Facebook posts. Gamers came together in large numbers and in agreement for a cause like I have never seen before. It has been tremendously inspiring. The effort raised over $180,000. That’s significant.

Just because the bundle deal is over and the iPad was announced and Amazon and Macmillan got in a little tiff, doesn’t mean the problems of Haiti have gone away. So, when I say this, don’t take it like I’m saying the crisis is over. It’s not. We still have lots of work to do.

But here’s my point: take a little time to play. You and 7400 of your closest friends have new game material. There has never been a better time to find players to play these games. Take advantage of that. Games are meant to be played. They long to be played. They desperately want to be played. Call up your friends and say, “Did you download Diana: Warrior Princess? I did and it’s awesome. How about we get together this weekend and roll some dice.” Don’t just get your $20 out of these games, get the full $1000+ bundle value out of them. Crack them open, take them out, use them, abuse them. After all, they’re PDFs. They can take a beating.

Here is what the revisions do:

• Combines the reaction and passive defense into one defense roll
• Streamlines the skill list down to 20 skills (5 in each category)
• Revises mentors in regards to the new skill list
• Enhances the effectiveness of conditions, therefor making maneuvers more advantageous
• Removes the Vigor Rush rule
• Clarifies disarming an opponent through the use of a maneuver
• Better defines the rules for buying and selling using one’s purse
• Includes a conversion guide for updating existing characters to the revised rules

Be sure to check back often as further revisions may be added to this document.

The rules are light and easy, as is character generation, with a setting that has room enough for both GM and players to make Medieval Europe what they want.

Read the full review here.

Listen here.

But in reading over Diaspora over the last couple of weeks, I find myself reminiscing over one of the key concepts of FATE that didn’t carry over into Chronica’s design: phased character creation. For those of you who are not familiar with this process, introduced in Spirit of the Century*, each player writes a paragraph of background material for each of several periods (phases) in their character’s life. These paragraphs then serve as inspiration for the character’s aspects.

So, I’d like to present an alternative protagonist creation method for use with Chronica Feudalis. This method utilizes three phases. In each phase you will write a paragraph about your character’s background, pick one mentor (and apply those benefits), and write one aspect (and, optionally, one background).

Phase One: Childhood

In one paragraph, describe your character’s early childhood — from birth until the age of ten years old. What class was she born into? Who were her parents and what did they do? Was she provided with any education (perhaps via a hired tutor) or was she brought up to learn the trade of her parents? Some children are betrothed when they are very young. Did this happen to your protagonist?

Pick a Mentor

Choose one mentor from the mentor list to represent your protagonist’s most influential teacher from this period in her life. For the three skills that mentor teaches, increase those on your character sheet by one step. Copy each of the mentor’s gifted tools to your tool list.

Write an Aspect

Using what we’ve discussed about aspects in the core rules, write one aspect that encapsulates your protagonist’s childhood. If your character was born with a particularly unique feature or inherits a particular status or title by blood, this aspect should be used to indicate such things.

Write a Background

You may optionally write one background that describes something about your protagonist’s childhood.

Phase Two: Apprenticeship

In one paragraph, describe your character’s introduction to their life’s trade and their subsequent education. A noble’s son might be made a page in another noble’s household. Many sons and daughters are sent to be novices in monasteries and convents. In a city you might become apprentice to an artisan, and in a village you might remain with your parents taking responsibilities on the farm. What happened to your protagonist? What kind of person is he shaping up to be? What do his parents want him to be? Is he willing to go along with that? Some young people are getting married at this phase in their life. Is that the case for your protagonist?

Pick a Mentor

Choose one mentor that stands out as your protagonist’s most influential teacher from this period in his life. For the three skills that mentor teaches, increase those on your character sheet by one step. Add each of the mentor’s gifted tools to your tool list.

Write an Aspect

Write one aspect that encapsulates your protagonist’s apprenticeship. If your character has professional skills that reach beyond adventuring, it might be a good idea to establish those with this aspect.

Write a Background

You may optionally write one background that describes something about your protagonist’s apprenticeship.

Phase Three: The Path to Adventure

You’re not likely to play a protagonist that stays on the farm or in the shop forever. Write one paragraph that describes how your protagonist transitioned from the mundane life that was planned out for her to the hero of the tales you will tell in your sessions. Did she run away to escape an arranged marriage? Does she display some unique skill that influenced her convent to use her as an emissary? Was there some crisis that interrupted her life and forced her to find her a new path? And in all this, what kind of adult is your protagonist turning out to be?

Pick a Mentor

Choose one mentor that proved to be your protagonist’s most influential teacher from this period in her life. For the three skills that mentor teaches, increase those on your character sheet by one step. Add each of the mentor’s gifted tools to your tool list.

Write an Aspect

Write one aspect that encapsulates your protagonist’s path to adventure. If your character has a major motivation that will drive her throughout the campaign, you may wish to establish it with this aspect.

Write a Background

You may optionally write one background that describes something about your protagonist’s path to adventure.

A Name

Likely you have already named your character in order to write about him. Fill this out on your character sheet and the process is complete.

You will note that is incredibly simple to make child or adolescent characters simply by limiting the number of phases you go through. 6 to 10 year old characters should only complete the first phase. 11 to 15 year olds should complete the first two phases. 16 years old and up protagonists should complete the full three phases of the procedure.

* True, there were phases in FATE 2.0 but they do not appear to be as fleshed out.

Meanwhile, over at RPGnet, a new Chronica Feudalis review has been put up. This one from the pen of C. W. Richeson. See his take on this medeval RPG of historical adventure.

Chronica Feudalis is, of course, available at IPR and the fine gaming stores that carry indie RPGs.

The first is cf_pregens.pdf. It consists of a collection of pre-generated characters. These are the protagonists that I created for the “Warwick Castle” scenario I ran at Gen Con (it’s also featured at the end of the “Explore” chapter in the core rules of the game). These eight characters are proper starting protagonists, each supplied with personalized aspects and their own particular agenda.

Second is cf_reference.pdf, a fan-submitted reference document supplied by BiggerBoat. It does have the side-effect of taking what I describe as a relatively rules-light system and makes it look like a heavy-weight, but this flow chart is actually a very helpful look at how Chronica Feudalis works. It takes a step-by-step look at the system mechanics and conflict systems that you can use as a primer before the first time you play or keep on hand as a reference throughout your adventures. Take a look.