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Supplements I Wrote
Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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These are game supplements I have written.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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This was the first book I wrote for Mongoose Publishing. I was part of the Conan RPG playtest, and during the playtest I was asked to write an adventure. A day later, they changed the request to a gazetteer (based, I think, on my website). I happily accepted.
Overall, I am pretty pleased with this book. I stayed fairly close to canon, and only strayed if I had to. My original text documented when I strayed, but Mongoose edited all of that out.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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This was the second book I wrote for Mongoose - and the one I am happiest with. My father is a history buff - esp. the history of America and the Indians. I was able to plunder his library for a BUNCH of stuff and used it to add some versimilitude to this project. I think I was given this project because I mentioned in a private email (to Paul Tucker, IIRC) how I thought skill selection and combat style between tribes would vary - and he wanted to see if I could do it.
After I wrote this, and during the writing of Shadizar, Mr. Tucker left Mongoose and the new editor was upset. He thought I was to be writing an adventure, not a sourcebook, esp. not one that involved the Westermarck settlers. I forwarded him the original email Mr. Tucker sent me, and showed that I wrote exactly what was asked.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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This is the 3rd book I wrote for Mongoose. I was going through a divorce at the time. I like the first two books in the boxed set... am not happy about the adventure.
I had written an adventure for it which was turned down as being "too advanced" for most GMs to run. I tried another one and it was rejected on the same grounds. The editor then gave me an outline and told me to just flesh it out. The end result - a really horrible adventure I really didn't want my name attached to.
Plus... you have the whole map fiasco, where Clayton Bunce plagiarized a TSR map for Shadizar. And then it was replaced by a map which met with my approval, but when they put the final touches on the map, they threw in a river. I didn't write about a river in the book, or a river district, or river trade. The book says Shadizar was watered by a series of oases. Still .... they put in a river.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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I guess, on the basis of my prior work, Mongoose decided to have me write Aquilonia. I think Shannon Kalvar was originally slated to write it, but he left the company and I was now writing this book.
I really like the statistics and the descriptions I gave King Conan. I thought it much superior to the Ian Sturrock-penned version appearing in The Road of Kings.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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This book came about after a discussion at a pub with Mongoose's editor while I attended Gen Con. Mongoose really liked my class combos which I made for The Free Companies and wanted more. They also wanted new feats and variant rules. They did NOT want more prestige classes, so I didn't offer any.
Overall, I like this best of the "Hyboria's F..." series. I think this one is the hardest to find today.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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I don't remember much about the writing of this one, actually. I was already concerned about the new character class I had to create for the next book. I remember reading through a lot of non-Conan Howard to come up with the new spells.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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Because there was only five classes at the time, Mongoose wanted three per book, so I was instructed to come up with a "temptress" class. I had never designed a core class before and they didn't have any ideas for the class beyond the name. I thought I did pretty good. Mongoose must have thought so too, since they included the class in the 2nd edition with a few interesting tweaks.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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Originally titled "Sands of Death" the book was supposed to have both Shem and Stygia in it. I asked permission to write two books instead, one on Stygia and one on Shem and this was okayed, which brought about the name change. I have always had a fascination with Egypt, so this was a real joy to write. I also wanted to make Knowledge (Religion) more useful, so my first attempt to really upgrade the skill rules can be found here. I gave the gods and religions various Mysteries which could be learned by earning ranks in that god's religion.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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This books sports one of the best covers of the Conan line... and is my least favorite book. I thought it unnecessary (at best). I wanted to wait on this book until all the sourcebooks were done, then collect all the additional equipment from all of them into one book... but no. They wanted this now. Mostly this is a reprint of the equipment chapter of the Conan core rules, with some additional stuff from Road of Kings thrown in, and a few new things sprinkled here and there. It was a hack job, but it was what Mongoose wanted. I asked to have my name removed from it, but they didn't want to do that.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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I like this book, but it was severely edited. Mongoose was toying with moving Conan to its RuneQuest rules, so they cut out all of the d20 NPCs I had written, and decided not to hire cartographers to make maps of all the temples (I sent them rough drawings). Still, I expanded on the Knowledge (religion) rules like I did for the Stygia book. I like this one.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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Many fans seem to really like this book, especially the Random Ruin Generator. Fan acclaim seemed so high, I thought I would be a shoe-in to write "Cities of Hyboria" and "Catacombs of Hyboria"... but alas, by the time this book saw print, Mongoose was apparently done with me.
I am annoyed by the name. I titled the work, "Ruins of the Hyborian Age" since there is no such place as "Hyboria" but Mongoose changed the name.
Still a little sore that I didn't get to write the follow up volumes, but something strange was going on behind the scenes and they didn't seem to want me writing Conan anymore for them.
I still use the random ruin generator in this volume, as well as some of the maps and locations.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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Again, major editing mars this volume. The original held together better, I think. Entire sections were deleted, cutting the book down by a third. This was the last volume I wrote for 1st Edition Conan. Mongoose didn't seem interested in my ideas or my books at this point. I don't think the editor at this time liked my work much. Older articles and adventures I had written would continue to show up in print (such as in the Compendium) but I wasn't asked to write anything new. I had started to write a RuneQuest Conan rulebook, but that was cancelled... and I thought my writing career had ended with Mongoose. For a long while, even my emails would go unanswered.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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I wrote this immediately following Stygia, but it wasn't published until much later. This book suffered from some seriously heavy-handed editing. Again, Mongoose was still toying with moving Conan to RuneQuest, so some of the more d20 stuff was deleted, as well as many other things. The religion was seriously cut because of Faith and Fervour (which was actually written AFTER this one). I was told many of the cuts was to reduce the amount of material reprinted from other volumes, yet instead of cutting out a lot of reprinted material, they cut original material and left in reprints from Pirate Isles and other books. I would love to see a 2nd edition of this volume with all the cut material restored.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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After being removed from the list of authors to helm the 2nd Edition, and after not hearing from Mongoose for nearly a year or more, suddenly I get an email from them asking if I wouldn't mind rewriting The Road of Kings, using all new text, nothing to be saved from the original. I am not sure why they asked me - they had been ignoring me for some time, and using other authors - but I am glad they did. This was a labour of love. I loved researching this book and writing it. I am disappointed it isn't in colour, but still... I love this book.
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Vincent Darlage
United States
Columbus
Indiana
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I was also asked to produce a Player's Guide. No one at Mongoose had a clue what they wanted in it, and I never owned a Player's Guide to anything before, so I had no clue. Mongoose wasn't much of a help, so I asked my players what they wanted to see in it. They wanted naming tables, lists of where feats and stuff could be found, and tables of noble titles. So, there you have it. I also included kits to make outfitting players and NPCs easier, and some stuff on Psychology.
This is the last Conan book I wrote in its entirety for Mongoose that was published (I also wrote 2.5 volumes of an unpublished Atlas). I was asked to write the Bestiary, and I started on it, but I found out on the message boards that suddenly Bryan Steele was writing it. I emailed Mongoose and never got a reply. Apparently I had been fired. Don't know why. Never got an explanation of what happened.
Later I did get asked to write an encyclopedic atlas expanding Return to the Road of Kings out to 12 volumes. I wrote two and a half volumes, but it was cancelled.
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Sydney
New South Wales