Anyway the sludge guitars and long tracks really inspired me to look at Blades & Black Magic in a bit of a different light as well as inspiring more spells to be created and hopefully a better "game world" to experience. In fact the heavy feel has led me to sort of thinking of the work as 3 separate parts: Swords of Doom, Spells of Doom and Lords of Doom.
Swords of Doom would be the core rules and Mercenary class--it includes all the character creation, skills, combat rules, and equipment. In addition it will include some quick start Archetypes like Thief, Barbarian, Ranger, etc. These will be full stated, skilled, equipped archetypes so you could copy it onto a sheet and be ready to play. For the Lord of Doom (referee) these could be easy NPC's to use as well.
Spells of Doom would be the Sorcerer class and contain all the magic spells as well as usable Archetypes such as Druid, Witch, Necromancer and Shaman pre-made with stats, skills, spells, equipment so you could copy it down and start playing. Again it provides an instant NPC stash for the Lord of Doom as well to use.
Don't worry the full and normal character creation (choice of attribute and skills/spells) is still included! The Archetypes are meant as a quick hook for those wanting/needing a "class" idea for their character.
Lords of Doom would be the referee book with a look at the world, creatures, random tables for generating ideas and adventures.
I am also working on including hit locations and feats/favors as well.
I am seriously looking at these being in a smaller paperback book size-kind of lock the old paper backs the we all read, re-read, and dog eared back in the 70's and 80's. Small, portable, and suitably unimposing from a "want to try this game?" perspective.
So the works is clicking along by fits and starts but now it has a different sort of inspiration and tone. It may change again before it is all done, but for now this is where I am headed. Thanks for coming along fellow adventurer, enjoy some traveling music.
