Pre-Order Store for Historica Arcanum: Empires of the Silk Road

The World is on Fire, and we are Playtesting & An Important Survey to Come
over 1 year ago – Sat, Jan 14, 2023 at 01:13:12 PM

Hey there everyone,

What a week to be a TTRPG publisher. 

The world is on fire, the future is unclear, but we know one thing: both books of Empires of the Silk Road have to be, and will be absolutely kickass. 

Playtests Start!

So, we already started private playtests. We are testing two things right now: the feel of the setting, and the feel of the narrative, specifically in Herald of Rain. We are having a full party running through the first city, Samarkand, both ''Rules as Written'' and ''Worldbuilding as Written''. This is more or less an in-house playtest, DM'd by Fatih - our history advisor, and played by veteran players who are not in Metis. Once we have the book layout demo finished, we will expand the playtest to public, to also see if our layout makes the game easy to run, along with previous points. You can be included in this stage if you wish so!

In this playtest, we wanted to make sure of two things: First, the players are to feel that they are specifically in our designed time period, in Silk Road, and in the world of Historica Arcanum. Second, the narrative flows well through quests, and mentally prepares and hypes the players and DM towards a grand campaign, starting as soon as scene one. 

I wholeheartedly CAN'T wait to share the world we designed; the story, the art, the characters - especially the antagonist, the locations, even the soundtrack. 

An Important Survey to Come

The world is indeed burning around us, and well, it is not unsurprising that we are, along with almost every member of the community, is very concerned regarding the future of OGL. However, since day one, even as early as when OneD&D was announced, we took a very firm stance, saying that our design philosophy will be Historica Arcanum first, system second. 

As we said previously, we will wait for ''more'' official announcements to make definitive statements. However, we are far from standing still. We are already in contact with a lot of other, big, publishers. 

One thing we are fiercely debating internally is, well, where our community stands. Unlike some other ''big publisher'', instead of taking action without talking to people that make us who we are, we want to communicate with you directly. 

As soon as we are able to, we will create a survey to talk about your preferences, where do you stand on the OGL (although some of you made it VERY clear regarding your support, thank you), what makes Historica Arcanum series appealing to you, your game table choices regarding system, and so on. Our goal is to build the future of Historica Arcanum, together.

One Other Thing

We are, as a TTRPG studio, growing - much faster than we first anticipated. When we were first funded with our first Kickstarter campaign, we said that you guys did not just fund a niche 5e book, but a full fledged TTRPG studio. OGL or not, we will not stop making great tabletop content - at an increasingly faster rate. Once the dust more less settles, you will hear 'interesting' news :)

So Much Love, 

Sarp - Producer @ Metis Creative

Important Update Regarding the Recent News Concerning OGL
over 1 year ago – Mon, Jan 09, 2023 at 04:16:09 AM

Hello all, 

As many of you are also doing, we are watching the situation surrounding the future of Open Gaming License as closely as possible - both personally, and professionally with legal counsel. 

As a company, our current approach is to wait until we receive an official contract, or a statement from Wizards of the Coast, in order to take a full decision. 

Currently, our goal is to release Empires of the Silk Road as 5e, as we initially promised. However, if the Wizards of the Coast's officially released contract forbids us from doing as such, or attempts to claim ownership of our Intellectual Property as it was seen in the recent leak, we will explore other options. We will also ensure that the options we explore will either remain completely compatible with our previous work, or we will release official conversion documents.

Regardless of the outcome, we will remain fully transparent to you, and include all our community in the conversation when deciding the future of Historica Arcanum series, and our future TTRPGs! 

All the best, and thank you so much for your support in these turbulent times,

Metis Creative Team

Production Update: City of Crescent 2nd Edition Printed - LOOKS GORGEOUS!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 10:18:17 PM

Hello everyone,

Before we sign off the year 2022, we have one last update to you - that also caught us a bit by surprise. 

Our printing press have finalized the full reprint of Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent earlier than we expected, and this generation of the book looks ABSOLUTELY STUNNING! This is, by itself, great news for backers who added City of Crescent hardcover to their pledge; but also for all the hardcover books for Empires of the Silk Road campaign - as we will manufacture all of our books with this exact product quality!

Without further ado, here's the Second Print of Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent, hot off the press:

Last Developer Diary of 2022: Worldbuilding
over 1 year ago – Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 09:21:05 PM

Hello all, 

Although we haven't announced here, we are periodically releasing developer diaries to talk about interesting stuff we have done previously in our journey as a TTRPG studio.

We just released another developer diary on our process of Worldbuilding for Historica Arcanum, our final one for the year 2022.

If you would like to take a look, here's the link!

Best Wishes and Happy New Year,

Mehmet Onur Kart - Lead Writer for Empires of the Silk Road

Announcement Regarding the State of the OneD&D and OGL
over 1 year ago – Mon, Dec 19, 2022 at 05:06:35 AM

Hello everyone,

We wanted to release an update to explain our stance regarding the troubling news on OneD&D and OGL. 

For your information, Wizards of the Coast has previously generously provided the community with the OGL, the Open Gaming License, which allows 3rd party content creators like us to develop games for the 5th edition with a few limitation. As Wizards of the Coast is preparing for another edition, the situation of the OGL has been brought to debate - especially since Wizards of the Coast, and their parent company Hasbro, has called for "increased monetization".

If it ever comes to that, that WotC completely blocks the way for us to create Historica Arcanum for 5th edition or beyond, we will decide on the future of this IP, and what system will be powering it, with you, our community. Our design philosophy has always been Historica Arcanum first, 5e (or any other system) second. 

From our individual experience as people who love tabletop rpgs, we believe that our hobby has benefitted massively from being creator friendly - and we were blessed with swathes of custom and well designed content for our tables. We hope that this game remains OPEN for all as it evolves over time.

Please do let us know what you think of this policy change by WotC and Hasbro. All our team, including our legal counsel will be keeping a very close eye on all the news.

All the Best,

Metis Creative 

P.S: Empires of the Silk Road's first draft is about to be finished, and we finalized Herald of Rain's narrative line!