Elseridge Academy 01 - On the Precipice
Added 2023-08-24 15:29:02 +0000 UTCThere's a school there... at the edge of the world
Welcome all to our newest and largest borough yet! Elseridge Academy is our answer to all of who you voted for a magic school setting in our most recent poll. Well, you wanted a magic school, and we're giving you a magic school! Elseridge Academy is a massive university abutting the cosmos.
This borough will consist of TWELVE releases (finally justifying our two-digit numbering scheme), and we'll be releasing it through the start of 2024. Just a scheduling heads up: we will be intermittently breaking up our normal release schedule to drop additional LIMINARC content as well as a smaller city in the middle of October.
Alright, let's check out Elseridge Academy!
Borough Guide
Our first borough guide for this massive magic school introduces you to the basics of the academy. First and foremost, we've got its origins and location. Elseridge was founded by a time traveler who fled to the distant past to save the future. As such, Elseridge places a preeeettty big emphasis on time traveling responsibly. Notably, Elseridge Academy is north of Vyndurvoht, where Hjass ends and the stars beyond begin. We introduce you to the 6 colleges and 2 interdisciplinary tracks, discuss the environment at the edge of the world, and prepare you for the ins and outs of the first few days of classes.
Maps
This first map is the northwestern edge of the school. In the far corner, you can see the Hexacoil, a teleportation device that renders travel to and from the academy trivial. Beyond that, you'll find the starry abyss. Waterfalls strech out from the salt flats and under the glorious banquet hall. For Elseridge releases, we'll be creating five variant maps: Forest, Tropical, Winter, and then the stormy season of Fluxum and the spooky season of Starfall.
Patrons at the Chief Courier tier gain access to our banquet hall interior. This map is perfect for roleplaying cafeteria mayhem or casual roleplaying scenes. You'll definitely want to run a glorious banquet on the first night of classes.
Music
Our first track is "Academy Halls," an unabashedly John Williams-esque tune that evokes magical spaces with secrets behind every corner. A meandering melody takes you all across the sonic landscapes of the great magic school. I suspect this will be the theme song for many of your Elseridge adventures! If you want something a bit more spooky for late night sneaking and intrigue, try the "Stealth" variant.
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Get this week's files below!
Delivery Kid
Elseridge Academy 01 - On the Precipice - Delivery Kid Rewards
General Messenger
Elseridge Academy 01 - On the Precipice - General Messenger Rewards
Chief Courier
Elseridge Academy 01 - On the Precipice - Chief Courier Rewards
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This week's map variations:
Comments
This might actually line up perfectly with my campaign! Oh man do I have Ideas already
Ciera Terry
2023-08-28 18:23:52 +0000 UTCClasses start Monday!
Borough Bound
2023-08-26 23:40:08 +0000 UTCI'm so glad Magic School was chosen. I'm ready to enroll!
Chris N
2023-08-26 23:08:53 +0000 UTCOh boy, I had hope it would've been perhaps 6 with two independent levels, so that I wouldn't have to wait half a year! Oh well... Guess I'll have to delay my magic school campaign until next year. I do really like the style here, but perhaps 12 releases was going overboard.
M M
2023-08-24 20:47:28 +0000 UTCHey M M! Yep, this is indeed a map made up of 12 separate releases. The schedule in the post above will show you our release timeline. There are bonus isolated maps that will be contributed by collaborators (without interrupting the release schedule), but the rest is one big seamless map.
Borough Bound
2023-08-24 20:39:57 +0000 UTCLove it, although, I would like a bit of clarification on this project. Is this map actually divided into twelve pieces? Because that is going to be a long... long time until the full map is available. I prefer not to use the maps in my settings/campaigns until they are complete. Or is it also a few sections that are independent like with the island of Yllmourne? Also I do get Paul's view, I prefer the smaller projects too, but I am eager to see what you do with a magic school setting, Also @Paul, i'd love to see some actually good magic school map recommendations, because besides Eightfold Paper, I don't find many actual quality ones.
M M
2023-08-24 20:33:48 +0000 UTCI'm sorry I wasn't clearer with my earlier response. I didn't mean to say "if you don't like it, you can leave," but more like... "if you aren't interested in this setting, there will be no hard feelings if you unsubscribe for a bit and come back later." We can all complain about Patreon all we want, but one of the advantages is that the content is always there, and you can always come back to pick up what you missed later. Next, we don't make settings to stroke our egos or piss people off. We genuinely want to make content that everyone likes. "Magic school" has been one of those settings that has been CONSTANTLY requested since we started this project in 2021. It may not interest you, but I promise you this subgenre appeals to people. It may seem like we're investing too much time in this, but that's because the setting we came up with really needs the space to get fleshed out. The big problem with many magic school TTRPG supplements is that they don't effectively communicated how a GM is actually supposed to run this subgenre, or they don't give you enought materials to actually make those settings work. One of the big draws for BB maps is that they *are* big. You say lots of other folks have made big magic schools, but I've never seen a single one on the scale we're creating. That ought to be a plus, I reckon. Lastly, I assure you: nothing about this setting was designed to justify a price increase. We haven't increased our prices. We literally haven't adjusted our tiers at all since we started BB, aside from occassionally reopening our discount tier. You can ascribe some nefarious motive to us if you want, but really: we're just trying to make cool tabletop stuff. That's all we've ever wanted to do.
Borough Bound
2023-08-24 19:44:34 +0000 UTCAs a typical BB project, this would be fine, not my jam but that's how patreon works = win/lose. But putting literally a thrid of a year into it is such a waste of time when there are, as you agree, already dozens of creators who have done similar content. They want to justify the price increase for their tiers and they do that by... releasing content you can find else where?! Crazy. These guys make such great UNIQUE content, it's baffling to do this. The sheer map size and cost to you as a patreon wont make it "drop in-able", you'll have to set the entire campaign, or a good chunk of it, here. Depending on your sub, you're looking at paying between $58 - $342 for this map. To have a campaign set In a SCHOOL, who the heck wants to pretend to be back in school!? Obviously not alot since Strixhaven didnt sell well. BB putting so much effort into a failed genre because 18 more people voted for it than the other 25 options on the board is beyond lunacy. And then telling subs to wait for the "mystery" stuff they may like or f*ck off is a weird business model but there you go. Now, granted I'm just one jerk who's been here since the beginning, but honestly BB, if you guys were going to devote 4 MONTHS on one project, you should have narrowed the poll down from TWENTY FIVE options and also said that was going to be the case...
Seser
2023-08-24 19:17:53 +0000 UTCI like the project. A well-made academy can be dropped everywhere in a game world and is a hub for all kinds of adventures if it comes with enough plot hooks and NPCs that fit a broad spectrum of settings with interactions and intrigues. Maybe factions plot against each other for influence, and players might support a coalition, leading to a different biome at the academy. Yes, there are many schools made, but not many that have live for a game.
Peter Hefner
2023-08-24 18:28:56 +0000 UTCIt barely won out of hundreds of votes on many other unique maps that only y'all would have had. I just find it odd that you would spend a third of a year on a map style that is already over saturated in the market, that will be to big to run as a vtt once completed and that is for a very niche campaign. I was just putting in my two cents and was gonna stick around Haha but hey if you're gonna go the disney route and tell your customers to go somewhere else, then who am I to resist!
Seser
2023-08-24 16:55:27 +0000 UTCOur patrons voted for a school map, and we want to give it the effort it deserves. If you're not interested in a magic school, you can feel free to unsubscribe. That's half the reason we gave a schedule in the first place. We don't want folks disappointed with the content they're paying for.
Borough Bound
2023-08-24 16:51:06 +0000 UTCAmazing! Just the content I've been needing to jumpstart my own university!
Chris Lontok
2023-08-24 16:41:21 +0000 UTC"Plenty" doesnt mean the same to us I guess. I just dont understand why you'd do 4 months of a school when there are dozens, if not hundreds, of school maps that've already been released when that dumb 5e hogwarts knock off dropped. Guess Ill check back in March.
Seser
2023-08-24 16:37:42 +0000 UTCThis looks INCREDIBLE! Love the colours of the standard map! Tempted to upgrade for the tropical one, too 👀
Nicholas Deacon
2023-08-24 16:29:12 +0000 UTCCheck the schedule I dropped above! We'll be splitting up the releases so that folks who are more interested in other settings will also get plenty of cool content.
Borough Bound
2023-08-24 16:01:08 +0000 UTCAWESOME
Clare
2023-08-24 15:58:48 +0000 UTCWhat? Seriously? One map of a SCHOOL is basically all we'll be getting over the next 4 months?
Seser
2023-08-24 15:58:36 +0000 UTCThis is amazing! I can't wait to see the rest when it comes out
Katarina Torgersen
2023-08-24 15:37:21 +0000 UTC
