ICRPG QS/2e hybrid - Handmade Tome

[Nicolas_Bohnenberger]

So, I’ve been showing my progress around the Discord server, but I feel it’d be cool to have this process documented in a more… permanent fashion. So here is where I’ll document my progress on it.

TL;DR of the project - With 3e not coming and me out of a book, I’ve decided to make my own compilation of the bits and pieces from the new Quickstart and the 2E Core Book as my “Ultimate Tome”. I’ll also be translating it into my native tongue, Portuguese.

I’ll be using Fountain Pens and Tomoe River 52 gsm cream paper for this. I pray my meager stock is enough to contain the power this tome will hold. I’ll be using 10 sheet signatures. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep to using only black and red ink.

I’ll think of the cover when I get there.

I’ve finished the Introduction section today and now I’m in Effort. Doing this without any training in drawing does make my ‘book’ less visually spectacular than the real thing, but it also adds an element of accomplishment to the task - every small doodle in it is a personal trophy.

I’m also not bothering myself with keeping it perfectly tidy. If I make a mistake writing somewhere (which will happen since I’m hotwiring translation and transcription together by hand) I’m just crossing it and correcting or writing over. It will be as good as I can make it without bothering with making mistakes. Also because I have no clue how much paper I’ll need for this and since I’m not using regular printer paper - I’m using Tomoe River 52gsm cream paper, one that is not sold here in Brazil - my supply is very, very limited, so I can’t afford the luxury (literally) of throwing ‘botched’ pages out.

Oh, and a blotter could be handy for making faster page flips.

Here come the first pics:

These will be my faithful companions throughout this endeavor. The light background allows me to see my line guide there with ease, not stressing the eyes so much. Fountain pens write under their own weight if properly built, so I don’t have to force my tendinitis-ridden wrist down on the paper.

I took the Wizard’s Lock from INDEX CARD VOL. 1 as my guide. I feel it is the “original”, at least as far as I remember. Here we begin to see the toil of fountain pen writing - gotta watch where you lay your hand on the paper lest you smudge it all.

Where I stopped before making this post. I’ll probably update again when I begin the Player’s Guide. Trying to figure out if I try to update my favorites from Core to join the classes in the QS. We’ll see when I get there.

Thank’s for tagging along so far!

[Khan]

That’s a tough job. Good luck man!

[Quirkville]

I think you may have inspired me to do something similar…

[Nicolas_Bohnenberger]

As promised, update upon starting the Player’s Guide.

Things went smoothly enough so far. I’ve been able to cobble together pieces of art from INDEX CARD volumes and books to make up for my lack of artistry, training, and talent. Basically contour and fill. The Wizard’s Lock is one example, the Hero Coin imagery is another (below).

The Player’s Guide has the character sheet right at the beginning, and… that will be tough to get in the tome, by hand, still readable, AND translated. I hoped to be able to model a translated character sheet by getting whatever file it is made in and modifying it to use as some form of a stencil to copy in, but it isn’t the way Hank does things and I most definitely do not blame him for it. His style and ideas got us together here and that is work enough for one person!

So I’ll leave things as they are done right now and think about a solution. I feel the section going through the character sheet piece by piece is dope and a really useful reference for players on their own and GMs guiding people through it, so I really want it in my tome.

When I find a solution and execute it, I’ll come back here and report it to you peoples.

Until then, peace and raised shields!

Berger

[Ragnobash]

I used to do something like that this back in the “day” ( IE middle-school in the late 80’s) when i would use those silly spiral bound wire notebooks to handwrite my gaming books so that i could design characters and mecha (mekton or Battletech Anyone?) in class and the teachers would be none the wiser.

Once my family got a “Family” computer, i started to make may BOK’s ( Books of Knowledge) digitally. I got good with Quarkexpresss and bookbinding to make huge tomes. At one point I had all of the monster manuals for 3.5 in a singe, leather bound book.

But, there is something about those old handwritten books that always had some appeal. You have inspired me sir. Got to whip up a nice book design and find the right paper, and i’m going to follow in your footsteps.

[Nicolas_Bohnenberger]

So… this was embarrassingly faster than I thought it would go.

After exchanging a few messages with Hank, he provided me with the name of the font most of the character sheet uses. Got it pretty easily, went to see what I could do with it.

I actually had to utilize a fairly advanced and complex tool of image manipulation to transform the patches of the image that contained words in English into…

Paint. I used Paint, Microsoft Paint, and was able to get a very decent result from that. After that, I have an actionable character sheet in Brazilian Portuguese.

Having that, I could miniaturize it to fit my tome in progress. Which I did. But again, the whole thing has been (and I intend it will continue to be) by hand, sooo…

Yeah, I drew it in. It was not fast, but honestly, it turned out quite fine!

(pen by its side to show a sense of size there. Sorry, Do not have a banana on me ATM.)

If I manage to free enough time tomorrow, I might end the character sheet rundown. I’ll try to report again once I’ve entered the Alfheim section.

Peace and raised shields!

[Nicolas_Bohnenberger]

First Signature DONE!

Table of Contents + 38 pages of content, going up to the Bard in the QS. Arm & Wrist are nearly gone in pain and tension from pulling this in 5 days. Going forward I’ll have to pace myself - think of it as a marathon rather than a sprint, 'cause it will be!

Another thought that springs to mind now is handling the pages: hand oils might smudge, erase, and otherwise damage the pages. No bueno.

I’ve been looking up solutions for this, and I think it’ll take some saving to be able to get my hands on decent protection for the pages. Sucks, but that’s the price we pay for this kind of work, isn’t it?

I’ll give myself 2 days of just plain rest and start the second signature on Wednesday. I’ll be back here documenting this journey when I get to Warp Shell!

[Ragnobash]

So, you’ve inspired me to do something similar. I’m going to take one of those small, pocket notebooks and put the whole Of charter creation and loot tables into one. I’m going for 2.0 for the moment since I’m still digesting hanks mod.

It’s going to take some creative adjusting, but I write sMall to begain with.

[Moose]

This is such a cool project! Thank you for sharing these awesome photos!

[Nicolas_Bohnenberger]

So, as promised, I am BACK reporting to you guys, not live, from my home!

I’ve just passed the middle point of the second signature, and have now finished the Player’s Guide, which was the straightforward part of the project, as there was no mixing of QS and CORE up until now.

Tracing the images to the quality I believe makes B’s art justice is the most time-consuming part of the project every time I decide to put one image in there. I believe, though, I MUST get them in there, otherwise, I’d not be truly compiling an ICRPG Tome.

And I’d not shy away from that in a million years.

I have had to change my tactics on it though since if I choose to fill out an image with ink before I’ve written on the other side, it makes it harder to find my base lines (and to trace images if they are there) later on.

I’ve noticed in this process, I’ve been misusing (or, putting it better, not taking full advantage) my light table, so I changed my setup to have two A5-sized pages to be able to write and work on.

I’ve obviously had to cut some images (and some flavor text) to fit the pages correctly. Sadly my handwriting is not as well behaved as a computer font, and my spaces are bigger. However, I’ve been able to keep some of the neatest portions of images, the ones that will most help the players reading. I’ve kept one example of each life form, and all the basic loot imagery for both Alfheim and Warp Shell.

Now I’ll collect my thoughts and prepare the conjunction of CORE and QS. As the QS touches upon some points of CORE’s Gamemastery Section with (some very freaking cool) innovations, it’s now my toil to find the perfect place for these new innovations to be inserted at.

It will be some time until I update again, I believe, as I will first do the mental lifting, then the scribing for this part. I believe having near-perfect laid out plans for this is the way to go. Moreover, my wrist has been swelling up quite easily from this and other tasks that involve writing (and typing), so I must give it some rest, or I may have an unfinished project simply because I’ve overworked myself.

Thanks to you all for the support you’ve shown me in this endeavor, as it does help keep my resolve unwavering. I’m glad I was able, through sharing these reports and images, to inspire people to take upon themselves a task similar to mine, in the DIY spirit we know is cherished in this community.

Until we next meet.

Peace and raised shields!

[Nicolas_Bohnenberger]

So, according to the forum timestamp, I last updated this project… 8 months ago. Whew.

Fact is, I had to halt it to be able to focus on finishing my Diploma Work - a sort of paper required for college graduation here in Brazil. I simply did not have the time to keep with it.

(Also I’d run out of paper, and this particular paper… a) Is nowhere to be found here, and b) Last production runs had decreased in quality. So it was both hard and expensive to find the right paper.)

But now I’VE GRADUATED!!! And this means I again have the time to apply myself to my hobbies, at least until I start on the Master’s Program I’ve been selected too. And my first pick was the Tome, or as folks on the Discord Server put it…

THE SCRIBING.

I took some time to define an order for mixing the material in the QS and CORE. As the first builds, inevitably, on the other, I tried to find where to insert the GM Innovations shows in the QS with the CORE material, and what had replaced (in an ‘evolved’ sense of the word) something in there.

I am always amazed at how shallow my read of CORE was. As I went over ‘scribing’ the Game mastery section, there is SO MUCH I did not consciously read, eager to put the book to use. I’m glad I’m able to read it again, carefully and attentive this time around, to really absorb the ideas Hank wrote on those pages.

I decided to post here today not only because I wanted to ‘up’ the post, but to acknowledge (to myself at least) the progress I’ve made thus far. I’ve reached page 100 of the Tome! One hundred pages of translated ICRPG wisdom and sound advice for gaming. It’s insane to think that I thought, in the beginning, that I’d condense the whole thing under 80 pages! And I’m glad I didn’t.

Anyways, below is just a commemorative shot of the hundredth page. There are not big, flashy images in this most recent section (They’ll come next, with Encounter Archetypes), but I thought it important to mark this milestone.

Hopefully I’ll finish the compiling of the words soon, and move on to preservation of the pages, and binding the Tome together!

Peace and raised shields for us all!

[Greenhorn]

This is some seriously inspiring work! Congratulations on the milestone

[Nicolas_Bohnenberger]

'Tis done.

Had to pull through pain and suffering to end it. My wrist fought every step of the way for the last 15 pages.

I had to decide, given I did not have enough content for another signature (AKA 40 pages), what to keep and what to cut from the Monsters and Tables sections. The “Tome” will have a neat 120 pages, or 3 signatures, or content, including Summary and Glossary.

So, I went with what would be most helpful, to me, at the table. I kept the Monster Creation section, the Location tables for both Alfheim and Warp Shell, and the 4 Monster tables (State, Motivation, Abilities, Upgrade). With these, I can dream up adventures on the spot, combined with GMing experience.

This project began as something SO much different than it ended up being. I started it as I found myself without a physical book to bring to the table when the time came again (as I started it mid-pandemic), and decided that instead of just printing it, I wanted to make it more ‘personal’, in a sense. It’s become so much more.

During this time, @Alex , in his kindness, sent me a book (among other ICRPG goodness) all the way from the US to here (Brazil). From there on out, it became a way to honor not only his kind action, but the whole of the energy found in the Shield Wall - the kindness, understanding, civility, and friendship that can be found in it. It became a way of making a physical representation of that, of trying to bring it closer to my home country.

You guys cheering me on when I updated the project here, the folks on Discord helping me decide on what to do when I got stuck, this wouldn’t have been finished if not for YOU.

Ask anyone that knows me closely - I’m not the person who takes a project from start to finish. I’m very good at beginnings, and at endings, but the in-between? Nope.

So, from all my soul, thank you all. THANK YOU.

However, It is not yet over!

I’ll come back when I’ve taken the first steps into binding this bad boy.

Peace, and raised shields, for you all!

[Alex]

Congrats on finishing! That’s a huge accomplishment, and from what I have seen, it looks gorgeous. You should be super proud.

[matthew_vanderhoff]

This is amazing, the dedication of transcribing to your native language and making a awesome work of art in the process shows a lot about how cool the system is, but more importantly how awesome you are for doing this whole project. many rpg enthusiasts go and read the book from cover to cover, very few write it from cover to cover.

you now have the “lore master” mile stone ability
all int rolls to remember icrpg rules are now easy as they have been etched in to your mind as you wrote them down.

[emikanter]

Mano do céu!! Bora jogar

[Hexeter]

I am just now getting to read this after having rejoined the Shield Wall, as a long time lover of both fountain pens and Tomoe River paper I found this entire process utterly fascinating! I am in envy of your light table! It is my goal to one day have a large enough work space to get one for myself. Congratulations on your spectacular accomplishment!

[Ogbang]

This is an amazing labor of love!!! Well done!

[Nicolas_Bohnenberger]

As an update (nearly a year later, as it seems to be the trend for this project), I’ve finally begun binding the Tome.

I’m going to make it a Sewn-Board style book, with a breakaway spine, as seems to be the norm here.

It’s all sewn up already, with mistakes abound but all manageable, and the text block is glued together and pressed (as best I could - as always, hobby materials are hard to find here. Couldn’t find a book press, nor most of the materials that would be good to make covers, such as manila card. I’m using 300gsm watercolor papers instead.) It’s not an exciting image, but I DID film myself as I struggled with thread and needle so I’ll have that here at some point.

The cover will be black, with a red spine, and I HOPE (emphasis here) to manage to make a Wizard’s Lock as a centerpiece there. With luck, that all happens. The final step will be to make the cover waterproof with the material I bought (and that didn’t work) for the pages. It won’t be perfect, as this is my first attempt at bookbinding, but it’ll be the conclusion of a passion project.

Well, expect final remarks soon, as I plan to finish up this project this weekend!

[Alex]

Love this! Thank you very much for the updates!!! Such an epic, cool project.