Song of Swords: Flash, Bam, Alakazam!

What was up with that creepy robot face at the end of Jimmy's celebration video anyway?

Someone said he's a Burdinadin serial killer, but I can't find any mention of Jimmy talking about him.

ah, it was on the website at some point.

Thanks robot feels man. I still remember hnnghing out of the early EH threads.

So what's the future of Ballad?

Soon™.

Jimmy, will Ballad have Rifle Magic like in Youjo Senki?

youtube.com/watch?v=O9Bhn6fvUik
youtube.com/watch?v=g1hIT71Elu8

Shooting at multiple targets at the same time, or powering up a bullet.

The fuck is this?

Dragon Ball: WW2 edition?

It's WW1
Some guy in our world dies, talks shit about god, got lets him be reborn as loli with magical prowess (though he is not the only magic user there ) in an alternative histories equivalent of WW1 (It's still Europe).
It's a fun watch. Not particularly good, and not particularly bad imo.

Well obviously if our project is very successful and we manage to pull this puppy off, we'll be able to start looking towards the future, but that's too far ahead to address right now. For now we need to focus on winning this thing.

Nice buzzwords pal.
You're funded, now fuck over here and start a fecht.

Not yet, we're planning one though.

Lu Bu vs Gizka?

Triggered

We elected Trump and I'm tired of winning now.

God didn't plan him to be a super magic loli, God just made him a little orphan girl, but he got himself evaluated for magical aptitude, turned out to be solid, and volunteered in order to be officer track. God probably thought that was bullshit.

If Trump is winning I don't wanna lose

He is

There have been several promises. I think we will have a topical series of fechts very soon, but obviously that one is very near and special to my heart.

Uh oh. Last time Jimmy thought something would happen soon it ended up taking 3 years to happen

But it did happen.

To whoever recommended the 2011 Threee Musketeers, thanks; it's pretty campy fun.

Remember that time when Jill Redfield and Titus Pullo punched Englishmen for an hour?
/sos/ remembers.

The guy on the Kickstarter comments presents an excellent idea about a video example.

Even just Jimmy's voice going over a "So Galiant declares a seven dice thrust and in response Goofus declares a five dice parry."-like script would add a great deal.

Some kinda life-or-death example along the lines of this:
>youtube.com/watch?v=qzkVTDfxIUI
would hook me right the fuck in.

Aww. I wanted a Visionary Noble PLUS+ but it was gone by the time I got off work. Guess I gotta settle for the non + version

That reminds me. Why did they hire a voice actor when Jimmy already has a beautiful voice?

Nice piece of official ballad artwork there hombre but I'll raise you three members of glorious Chiron. Chironite Officer, Practitioner of The Way of Five and a Sternritter

Yeah while I would have liked the + version it was about 100 Ausbucks out of my budget so I settled for the non + version. Honestly I'll just be happy to get a piece of work commissioned and put into the rulebook.

Any idea what you'll get them to draw?

An Australian? Lynch him!

Probably one of my older campaign characters.

bump

It's only WWI because there wasn't another one before it. It's set in the interbellum period, except minus the archduke assassination.

>not having them so your favorite anime character or sonic oc

>kickstarter just launched
>soaring through stretch goals
>thread still ded

...

We're all in fucking shock dude, I'm still having trouble believing it's actually happening.

All I'm hearing is stat Kirito again.

Do it then faggot.

If we hit 17,000 before this is all over I will drop my folder.

THE PACT IS SEALED

>at least one person is going to give Jimmy money solely to get a hold of his thousands of anime girls

So when are you doing a fecht?

Song of Swords desu

Zell vs Hef fecht when.

We already did that, years ago
Why would we ever use Hef again

This is as good a reason as any to back this project.

Hef evolved into elves, they're called Zells.

You haven't been paying attention.
Less 'lets' and more 'forced'.

The tipping nip in question claimed God wasn't god, and then when questioned as to why everyone was faithless in the modern era said that the luxury and ease of living had destroyed faith as only those in dire straits would ever consider believing in God. The no atheists in foxholes thing.

And so God said, "aight seems fair, you got yourself a deal" and created an entirely new universe on the verge of its first world war and reincarnated the tipping nip as a young girl in a country fighting a war on two fronts in an effort to make her(him) faithful via adversity. The God granted her(him) great talents in magic and continually turns the world against her in an effort to make them become one of faith while the nip is constantly trying to survive and fight against God who he calls "Being X" believing it to not be God at all.

What gives these swords that distinctive wave pattern up along the blade?

Oh shit son, that's actually TWO sternritters.

When the fuck does God interact with her magical aptitude?

>created an entirely new universe
I'm pretty sure it was a preexisting universe. That's implied by the phrasing when he's first reincarnating the MC, and also in that scene where he's talking with other gods before the type 95 miracle.

More of these the better:
freesuggestionbox.com/pub/uaflvev

So far popular stuff is Maneuver Cards, Bestiary related products and a a Gizka dakimakura. Weird to me that there's no King requests. Oh well. Guess we'll throw all of those out.

On another note: We're doing a lot of media outreach, but if you happen to be a reader of a blog or youtube channel it doesn't hurt for you to suggest that they check out our kickstarter/do a piece on us.

Nothing persuades bloggers and content creators like hearing from their audience.

I believe it's different hardening. The blade is covered in clay during hardening to make it harder than the spine, or some such.

God created her(his) new body. The overflowing magical talent is so they'll constantly be embroiled in strife. Ordinary people live ordinary lives. This is not the intended goal of Being X

The wavy pattern (the hamon) is unique for every sword and is created during the hardening process. has it. As a note, "modern" katanuhs don't have one naturally. They're given to the blade via wire brushing or acid etching as the modern swords are all made of a singular kind of metal.

>As a note, "modern" katanuhs don't have one naturally. They're given to the blade via wire brushing or acid etching as the modern swords are all made of a singular kind of metal.

There's still a few made the traditional way today in Japan; those will have a properly formed hamon.

that's just a meme. totally.

Memes are stronger than swords

Differential quenching. The edge of the blade is covered in a very thin layer of clay, and the spine is covered in a thicker layer. Once that is dry the sword is heated and quenched.

The thin clay on the edge accelerates the cooling rate thanks to the rougher surface texture, hardening the edge thoroughly. The thicker layer decreases cooling by its insulating properties, leaving that part unhardened. The visual differences between the hardened an unhardened parts are then brought out by careful polishing, or by a not so careful polishing and a bit of an acid etch for cheap stuff.

The exact shape of the boundary is controlled by changing the shape of the thicker clay covering.

As a bit of trivia, this differential quenching also puts a good bit of curvature into the blade. Hardened steel is less dense, and thus take sup more space, than unhardened steel. So the edge expands relative to the spine. The residual compressive stress that this puts into the edge should toughen the blade a decent amount, working on the same principles as hardened glass.

This doesn't stop you from making a straight sword of course, you simply forge that with a forward curve to compensate.

>are all made of a singular kind of metal.

Since the hamon isn't the result of a pre-existing inhomogeneity in the steel, like a laminate construction, but one we create with the differential quenching, it can and does appear in swords made form perfectly homogeneous steel. And as martensite and pearlite react differently to etching, etching can be used to bring out a real hamon, and not just to fake one. I can't recall seeing a hamon faked with acid etching to be honest, but I guess someone's tried it at some point.

Wire brushed hamon are mostly a thing on blades that simply will not respond to hardening, so either the really cheap walhangers, or iaito training swords that for legal reason are made of non-ferrous alloys.

Is it bad that I think Katana's without their guards or wraps are sexy as fuck?

No

That's just called being a normal human being.

Let us know if anyone actually shills for you. I want to see their videos and blog posts or whatever.

Jimmy will you ever run the fecht about that Kamen Burdinadin?

I've heard that a proper polish can cost as much as the blade itself. That conversation was in a showa context though. Do you know how that is with modern methods? Has that been a broadly true statement for a long time?

campaignmastery.com/blog/basics-for-beginners-11/

Massive blog post about rules systems and campaign structures. He gives us a shout out about halfway in.

>all this talk of Streamlining on the KS page
Remember gents to only trim the fat. If you get a little loose with the scalpel, you'll be damaging the game.

Nice.

So how far do you think this thing will go? Based on the funding drop-off so far, I'm thinking the adventure module will be funded, and probably illustrations for it, but the half-page chapter illustrations for the main book will only be funded if there's a significant push towards the end, and there's no way we're getting the mystery.

i'm just hoping I'll be running my real life campaign in February 2018 when this game is finally out.

>February 2018
>implying they can do this in one (1) year just because they said they could
If the estimate is off by less than 100% I'd be surprised.

Daily averages to hit:

$25,000 Mystery - $367

$23,000 Magic art - $295

$21,000 Core Art - $224

$19,000 Adventure Art - $152

$17,000 Adventure - $81

$15,000 Armour & Weapon Deck - $9

Yep.

SoS could be doing WAY better, I think. It's a gritty historical knife-edge tense RPG -- that's what a lot of people want.

Yep. Jimmy and the boys are doing shit at marketing, the only reason this is "successful" is because the goals are so low.

We just need to send the word out more. Print a few fliers and go to your local church tomorrow

I think is closer to the truth -- Opaque need to reach out more to the normies. That one blog was something, at least, but normies are normies.

So, sell me on Song of Swords. What's the point, why should I play it, that sort of thing.

We've put out a lot of tendrils, it just takes a little while to get word back. We've got some fun stuff coming up though.

A proper polish today is the same as in the Showa period (having reached the current standard somewhere in the late 19th century or so, earlier than that even top end polishes were probably a bit simpler), and the cost of living in Japan hasn't decreased, so...

Polishing metal to a high standard is always relatively expensive, as it takes a lot of time and work. In this case by a very highly skilled craftsman no less. And a such low end blades may be worth less than a full polish, and their value won't increase by nearly the cost of a polish when treated to one.

A quick google brought up a western polisher who seems decent enough (well, I'm not spotting anything wrong, see pic, so he isn't abhorrently unqualified at least, beyond that I may not be the best judge), he wants 85USD per inch for a full polish. So most katana blades would fall in the 2100-2300USD range there.

Do you like gritty, realistic medieval combat where stabbing someone in the crotch is a legitimate way to end a fight quickly?

Do you look at the old AD&D polearm chart and think "That's not autistic enough for my needs"?

Do you like a gonzo fantasy setting with several flavors of crazy elves including pirates, Not-Basques, and, a republic of homicidal brown slavs, Not-Germans trying to fend off an evil forest, Not-Englishmen using longbows in defiance of their Slav conquerors, a Not-Persian Empire that never declined because it drowned the Not-Mongol invaders in bodies, and more?

Would it be good to hack for Warhammer Fantasy (not AoS)?

I've done that before, and it worked well. The Winds of Magic will need homebrewing but the Empire is dead simple since it's basically the Holy Roman Empire.

People will say "the combat system", or "the historical realism", but that's only the half of it. SoS is the kind of game that will force you to roleplay life and death. When your characters launch a coup, you know they know failure means death. And you know they're doing it because it's their only choice (given their personalities and motivations). The levelling system really helps with this.

Rules-lite systems aren't good for good stories. Crunchy shit like this is.

It's good to see you still around dispensing blade wisdom, KM. Especially at a time like this.

I wouldn't say that they're bad for good stories, but this is certainly fantastic for certain kinds of stories. I try to plan my games as interactive Bernard Cornwell novels, and that works.

Maybe you should have done some of this before launching the kickstarter?

You would be surprised at how not seriously people take you when you contact them about an upcoming kickstarter.

Sorry that was me.

Jimmy Jimmy, let's talk about the future! Monsters, what are the sorts of beasties we're going to be encountering that are smaller than like shadow of the colossus things? Like man-sized or a bit larger. Stuff we can fight with conventional rules. I know we've got undead and werewolves and grues, anything else?