Sinclair's Library offers two must have supplements for your table, and all the accessories associated with them. With more than a 150 NPCs and their matching minis, 120 player options allowing you to create new and unique characters, the Library offers content for many of your future campaigns.
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Hi everyone,
We come today with great news: the first book, Sinclair's Almanac, is fully drafted! It's now off to the first edit pass. Now, "first edit pass" might be a little vague for some, so we figured we would use this opportunity to give you a little behind-the-scenes insight as to how we operate and produce content at Sinclair's Library.
The Claim Sheet
For each book, we have a claim sheet, where we manage the book's scope, content, and progress. How does it work? Each category of content (in the example here, subclasses) has a number of slots allocated.
Some slots are filled with predetermined concepts (such as the Pew Pew Mage). These represent particularly resonant concepts, niches we want to fill, or ideas from the team leads that we'd like to see in the book, but don't necessarily want to, or have the time to, write ourselves. We mark the concept and leave it up for grabs, letting one of our writers with a passion for the concept flesh it out themselves.
Some slots are left blank, leaving opportunities for our team of talented writers to pitch something cool. They bring an idea forward—sometimes writing a quick draft to give us a better picture of what they're aiming for—and if the design gets approved, they're off to the races.
Then comes in the team lead. Team leads are, simply, a smaller team of writers in charge of maintaining cohesion. They do the first fresh read of the design, perform an initial balance check, give the writer their opinion on it, and make sure the design will integrate well with the rest of the book's content; this includes checking for thematic or mechanical overlap with existing content, as well as directing the writer to another design (and its respective author) that could interact nicely with each other. Once everyone is happy with it, the team lead greenlights the design for edits.
The Editing Process
Once a design is sent to editorial via the Ready for Edits folder, the design's assigned editor goes through the piece—discussing matters with the team lead if questions arise—performing the second balance check and, well, editing the text. (In the initial edit pass, this is done via comments, giving authors guidance and advice and permitting them to make their own adjustments.) Then the design is sent back to the original writer to address the edits. Edits are made, text is improved, mechanical hiccups are corrected, and the writer tags it "Revised". Once these revisions are completed to their satisfaction, the writer relinquishes the design for final preparation; from there, our illustrious and tyrannical editing lead Isabelle Thorne does a final edit pass, making sure both the writing and balance passes our high quality standards, and sends it to layout.
5E conversion
At any point during the process, the editing lead is entitled to deem a design "ready for 5e". This means a rewrite is now off the table, and no conceptual issues have been found. As this point, the "ready for 5e" box is checked—what would we do without Excel?—and the design is placed on the 5e team's own Claim Sheet, where our conversion director David N. Ross assigns it to a 5e writer. From there, the design undergoes a very similar process, converting the design and making sure it's ready for layout.
Why this process?
Some of you may be familiar with standard industry practices, and so might know that this is an unorthodox method, slower than the usual creative process. So why so many loops; why so many people involved on a single design? Simply, quality. By letting our writers pitch designs, we make sure much of what's written for our books is someone's passion, an idea championed by the writers themselves. By including a team lead in the writing process, we make sure content remains cohesive and aligned with the book's overall concept, and that this conceptual oversight is shared with the writers. By adding an additional editing loop with revisions performed by the writers, we make sure our more junior writers get to learn and improve from veteran editors, with direct feedback on each design submitted; further, this lets writers remain invested in their designs, rather than casting their content into a black box. All these extra steps—while admittedly requiring investments of both time and money—are intended to guarantee the highest-quality content not only for this project, but for the future of the Sinclair's line.
Okay, that's great. What about playtesting?
The Almanac is written, congrats! But I don't see the playtest content anywhere on this process. Unlike the rest of the phases, playtest is handled on a design-by-design basis. Some designs will be sent to playtest after the first edit pass, others after the second edit pass, and the most complex or innovative may be sent more than once. Designing this workflow took some time, trial, and errors; bottlenecks were encountered along the way, and... well, things got delayed. Our online forms and Discord server are ready to receive playtest feedback, and we are simply waiting for the content to be ready. The good news: you won't have to wait a month between each playtest package to drop. As the Almanac is fully written, we're hoping it won't be too long a wait. Trust us, we're just as excited for you to see this content as you are to see it!
Hi everyone,
It has been a long time since our last update, but be assured, it is because we are hard at work. We know many of you are eagerly waiting for playtest material and to finally see some content. We are working on putting together the first Playtest Package, as well as the places for you to submit your comments, feedback and questions. There will be a form and a discord server where all comments and suggestions will be welcome. But most of you already knew that. So we're giving you a little something today, the full index of Sinclair's Almanac, with progress report for each design started this far.
Now this content is still susceptible to change (names being a likely example), but most of these designs have already been pitched, approved, and sent to the first edit pass.
Hi everyone,
We are finally able to reveal our 5 Nemeses, as requested by many.
Liliana Bandit Warlord and her Companion Baastri
On the warpath against the nobility that she decries as corrupt and greedy, Liliana and her mercenary army are a grave threat to the established gentry. Once, she was dismissed as a mere bandit threat, something for local authorities to concern themselves with. Now, her empire greedily devours countries and counties, tearing down the wealth and power of landed lords and uplifting the common folk. Will you join with Liliana—whether in service to republican idealism or simply to line your own pockets—and help her overthrow the nobility? Or will you defy her illegitimate rule, halt her conquests in the name of the true rulers, and bring her to lordly justice?
Hoonordel, the Mad Geneticist
The world has ever been a dangerous place, haunted by unsettling monsters. But some things are beyond mortal or even immortal ken, foul things that have no place in nature's design. And yet, these aberrations now multiply throughout the region, spreading, infecting, consuming. They must come from somewhere beyond the world itself. Unless... they were made, somehow. But who would commit such atrocities, create such monsters? Who could?
Dore'ni, The Eternal Night
For as long as mortals have preyed upon each other, there have been vampires. In these enlightened times, we expect organised vampire societies; lords of the night in cocktail attire, sipping delicately at wasted veins, or packs of blood-sucking beasts hunting the dark alleys like the dark woods of earlier eras. But there was a time when vampires were yet unknown, a tale told in terror and whispered in woe. A predator of the night, utterly lethal and cruelly thirsting. In these enlightened times, though, who truly believes in such horrors?
Sebastian Polik, Thief of Magic
The act of ownership, the mere concept, casts the shadow called theft. The hard-earned money of one is the easy-lifted coin of another. Sebastian Polik... is not that type of thief. There is nothing easy about his work, and his heists are boundless in their complexity, their ambition, and their flair. There is no lock he cannot pick, no safe he cannot crack, no guardian menacing enough or fortress impregnable enough to deter him from his latest obsession. Will you try to capture he who has never been captured... or outfox the slyest fox that ever foxed, and claim his prize for your own?
Mikael, the Aeon of Providence
The gods' ultimate creation... or their greatest mistake? Among those scholars who have cause to suspect its existence, some would say the former, many the latter; and no small number would say it is both. But none would dare to deny its terrifying power. This weapon of destruction, forgotten even by the gods whose wrath it was wrought to embody, bides its time in its sealed vault. Waiting to be set loose upon the fallen world. Waiting to fulfill its Apollyonic purpose.
Howdy, everybody!
Nonat here. Apologies for not posting any updates for the past two months. The long-and-short of it is that there hasn't been much exciting to update on. Our team is fully staffed and hard at work conceptualizing and writing content for both the Codex and Almanac. We've already made leaps and bounds on some of the chapters of the books, but nothing has reached "Playtest" phase quite yet.
We have multiple NPCs, Archetypes, and more currently in the "Peer Review" phase. Once that's done, it'll be released to Playtest. Starting in September, we'll be releasing a Playtest Package each month. This might be archetypes, NPCs, Variant Rules, or even classes. These Playtests will be vital in the perfection of our content, and we can't wait for you to get your hands on it!
Otherwise, everything is currently moving according to schedule. Release dates have not changed so we're still looking at somewhere in the realm of January-February. The release date will get more accurate as we get more done. Thank you all so much for your support and patience! Expect more updates coming soon, especially as we begin finishing some of our designs and moving them into the Playtest Phase!
Until Next Time, No Nat 1's!