Monday, March 18, 2019

Through Ultan's Door Issue 2: Progress


Issue 2 of Through Ultan's Door is nearing completion. I still need to commission a few pieces of art, but we're almost there. Here are the contents:
  • A cover by Russ Nicholson showing the entrance to the catacombs (pictured above). Roughly twice as much art as in Issue 1, including several jaw-dropping pieces by Huargo. Like the one below!
  • The Shades of Zyan on the nature of the living dead of the dreamlands.
  • House Rules for Slumberland, a new regular column introducing house rules for play beyond the veil of sleep.
  • The Catacombs of the Fleischguild, an entire 31 room trap-filled dungeon of the butcher priests of Zyan. As in issue 1, the cover of the zine is detachable with a lovely map of the dungeon by Gus L. on its interior.
  • Items & Spells: Several new spells for clerics of Vulgatis, the Archon of fecund and unseemly growth, and the legendary Spatterhaft, a splendid tool of ritual slaughter passed down among the Master Carvers of the Fleischguild.
  • Down The Sewer River, A separate point crawl map of the sewer river on folded 11x17 paper. The map is also being drawn by Gus. The key will be right on the map, with a massive encounter table on the reverse. This map connects the Ruins of the Inquisitors' Guild in issue 1 with the Catacombs of the Fleischguild in this issue. In a single sheet of paper, it contains everything you need to send your PCs down the river to numerous destinations.
By Huargo
If you wish to receive notification when Issue 2 becomes available, please send an email to throughultansdoor@gmail.com to be added to my mailing list. If you ordered a physical or digital copy of Issue 1 from my Big Cartel store, then you are already on the mailing list. I may at some point start a Patreon, but have not done so yet. 

When the new issue goes on sale, I will also be reprinting Issue 1. So if you missed it the first time around, you'll have a second chance to nab it. The Melsonian Arts Council will be handling orders for both issues outside the US with more reasonable and reliable shipping than I can manage here. I hope that will better serve international customers this time around.

And did I mention that Dave Sealey converted the first issue of the zine to 5E? Check it out here.

OK back to work.  

19 comments:

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    1. That's a picture of Szadu, if it's not already obvious.

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    2. Szadu's rage is palpable. I feel it in my bones that he's going to reappear at the worst possible time.

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  2. Surely we've defeated him for good...surely...

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  3. I thought this was already nearing the Platonic form of weird adventure, then, "cover art by Russ Nicholson". Outstanding.

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  4. Yes! Thanks for Sendung #1 and #2 to Melsonia! Cheers from Germany!

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  5. What happened? I picked this up a couple days ago from DriveThruRPG and now it's gone from there. Luckily I downloaded

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    1. Edgewise, I only uploaded it to DTRPG to have the PDF approved and ready to go when I was done printing Issue 2. I accidentally ended up publishing it for maybe 30 minutes, during which time 4 people purchased it. I took it offline because I'd rather not have the PDF circulating before I put the physical zine on sale. (I took a break from folding zines to write this reply, so we're super close.) So consider yourself to have a lucky sneak preview! Only 4 digital copies in existence! One of the other 4 purchasers caught an error on the map (right before I printed it, thank goodness): we hadn't entered the room numbers on the map. We fixed the PDF right away, but since we took it down you probably haven't been able to download the revised version. If you send me your email at throughultansdoor@gmail.com I'll send you a revised PDF with the room numbers present on the map. Anyway, enjoy in the knowledge that you get to see it first.

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    2. Oh wow, what a weird coincidence! I'm fine waiting for the re-release to update the changes, but thanks for your offer. It's fantastic stuff, by the way...extremely evocative, highly usable.

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