Enter Ingenium Second Edition

Ingenium Second Edition is just around the corner. It promises to be the greatest RPG I have ever written. I hope it will end up being the greatest RPG you’ve ever played, too.

I love Ingenium. I think the setting is awesome, the rules and artwork are awesome. But there were a number of problems with the original that surfaced after we printed the first edition. Ingenium 2 fixes all of those problems, makes the game more streamlined, and adds a bunch of new content.

Monsters Become Familiar

The creatures list in the new edition is much shorter than the first edition’s. I reduced the number because I felt that the wide variety of custom monsters were too much of a new thing. The familiar must be common if the unfamiliar is to draw attention. Eiridia’s iconic monster, the carnerax, remains in the core book. The other new monsters will be introduced in later books.

Eiridia Arrives

I expanded the rulebook to include two chapters about Eiridia. The first details the two continents of Galtharion and Khathana. The second describes the pantheon of the setting and hints at a wider world than most RPGs explore. First edition barely referenced Eiridia. The original intent behind that was to make a campaign setting book to follow the rulebook. That notion is gone. The majority of the setting fluff from the campaign setting manuscript entered back into the main rulebook. I set aside a lot of the crunch for a series of future splat books.

Glorious, Glorious Layout

Another issue that the first edition that is fixed in second edition is the layout. The “zero printing” of the first edition had a horrific layout error – it doubled in size because I screwed up the baselining. The first printing fixed that, but it still had its issues, since I was still learning how to properly lay out books. The layout in second edition is like a beautiful sunrise that replaces the bland washed-out tones of night.

I won’t say that second edition is a masterpiece, but it’s definitely an awesome book. The next step is going to need your help. I’ll write about that next week.