Third Kingdom Release Schedule and Announcements

It's been awhile since I blogged about my schedule, and wanted to do so to give folks an idea of what is coming up.

Populated Hexes Monthly

• I'm approaching the end of year four of the zine. Issue 48 will be released in August, and will be larger than normal (I'm shooting for about 12k-13k words as opposed to the usual 10k). This issue will include two smaller dungeons that tie into the Dry Gulch sewers from Issues 34-36.

• Due to reader requests Issues 49-51 will move to the Scarlet Principalities, covering the town of Junction (Issue 49) and surroundings in later issues.

Hexcrawl Workbook and Filling in the Blanks Offset

• In the middle of July I'm launching a Backerkit campaign to fund two new books: a hexcrawl journal and an offset, revised print version of Filling in the Blanks. I've never done an offset version of FitB, and my goal with this one is to make it largely system agnostic so it is more usable as a resource. The hexcrawl journal will be in the style of a spiral-bound, daily journal, but not tied to a calendar. The two will pair together nicely, I think.

BX Bestiary, Vol. 3

I've already started work on this book, which will cover monsters L-N (ish) of the monsters from the OSE Classic book, and will be looking to launch a crowdfunding campaign for it in September or October.

Project Bree-YARC!

I'm going with a working title of Bree-YARC (Yet Another Retro-Clone) for the time being. The plan is to bring this to crowdfunding in March of 2026, and I've got the following goals in mind.

So far I'm incorporating the following:

• BX level limits, race-as-class (although I'm calling them ancestry as class), saving throw categories, hit point and attack/save progressions.

• XP requirements are going to be standardized. For humans (that I'll use as the primary examples), magic-user will be the default baseline for progression, with all other classes based off that. I'm keeping the BX restrictions on magic-users that help bring the power level down, specifically not being able to move and cast spells and losing spells if suffering damage while casting.

• AC will be ascending, and I'm using the 3 base attack bonuses, but with the BX-progression. Saving throws have been reversed to a bonus, hitting a target number of 20.

• The above two changes will make it easier to dip into classes, a feature of 3.5.

• I'm trying to reduce the impact of ability scores -- and eliminate them for monsters -- since I feel that is a hallmark of BX-style games, how you can have an effective character without stupendous ability scores. The hope is to also make it easier to run monsters and NPCs without having to keep track of so much information.

• I'm looking to incorporate downtime activities into leveling requirements, while keeping the XP for gold as the primary driver for advancement, as well as exploration bonuses.

• Retainers will continue to be important.

• Feats and skills.