Hello Bludgeoneers!

Last weekend, for Diwali, I quickly decided to wrap up some explorations, make 'em look pretty and send them out into the world!

I mean, to be fair, there was a lot of other work in last week's update, most of it focused on improving legibility and UX, but we're not here to talk about that! No, we're here to talk about the new Lore sections.

So, first of all, you'll have noticed that we've moved all the lore to the end of the book. We realized that having the Lore as a 'Divisor from General Rules and Power Source Rules felt discordant. Bludgeon has and always be about innovative rulesets and that's what you're here for. We're ensuring that it all flows more naturally. Lore's important, but it won't interrupt the flow of other things.

Second of all! We've broken up our creation myth into sections that each define 'an Age' in the world. This is to better reflect how we hope to share setting information for Ananta-Lok. We'd talked about this in a thread aeons ago, but hadn't touched upon it quite a while. While we do this, we're also rewriting and editing. Tone checks are half way complete with this lore as well.

Finally, we've added the first in a series of lore sections that cover the Cultures & Kingdoms of Ananta-lok.

This is something I've wanted to talk about for ages. Since I started to compile the rulebook, in fact. I always knew that I wanted a better way to reflect the different Races and their cultures. The blurbs next to each Race provide enough of a taste of what matters to each type of people, but the thing to remember that these ideals are strongest in the regions where the Races hail from.

I wanted to lean into the diversity of my home country and how you witness cultures bleed into each other the closer you get to state borders. Of course, if you jump a state, you're dealing with some form of culture shock.

In the same way, when I define Regions in Ananta-Lok, its with the understanding that immigration and emigration will lead to changes in culture in salient ways. 

Instead of getting stuck in the nitty-gritty of what that means, I want to provide prospective BM's and world builders enough of a starting point. I want to provide guidance without being prescriptive.

At the moment, we describe a nation, talk about who lives there, and mention what towns/cities of note are within its borders. I'm trying to ensure I mention border towns and what makes each place so unique. Again, to provide subtle hints to BM's as to how they may want to expand their own world.

Of course, you can't talk about Culture without mentioning festivals and food! These were a big part of my and the whole team's upbringing and we're trying to infuse as much variety and quirk that we partook in growing up into the world of Ananta-Lok! 

The current edition of the Rulebook only has the beginnings of our efforts, but you can expect these sections to grow in the coming months!

In other news, I had a brainwave about the Divine Classes and have briefly shifted focus away from the Primals to this power source. It's entirely possible that they'll be released before Primal, but I can't promise anything. We'll see how things go!

Thanks for your time everyone! I hope you enjoy the new font and the new monsters!

Let us know how its all working out for you & may your games be amazing!