#ridersofjorvik

[writingonjorvik]

So excited to have the new print of ROJ in. This is a copy just for me, I can’t sell prints of ROJ. But the book’s so goddamn gorgeous, of course I’m gonna show it off.

[treeganart]

Here is a bit of my character sheet for Endre - a kalltic healer that I am hoping to play in Riders Of Jorvik!! ❄️

I really love the kallters and I’ve had Endre as an OC for quite a while! So I’m really excited to be able to role play him in this adventure game! I’ve done previous artworks and character sheets of him so this was kind of a redesign 🤗

For more info on the starstable based ttrpg please look back through my tumblr as I have a few posts on it.

[writingonjorvik]

What did you mean you were "biased" about the Elli & Helena stuff? You said it in your tags, but how can you be biased about that?

Ehhhhhhh, alright, might as well. This is copy-pasted from the ROJ Discord:

"I figure y’all are all due an update since I said I’d be back by now and ROJ has gone pretty quiet. And with some recent discussions going on in the community, discussing ROJ came back up.

I wanna tread carefully with this because I don’t want saying any of this to feel like I’m trying to take the spotlight off people more directly involved. Because while I did miss an opportunity here that I’m very sad about, other folks lost actual jobs and that feels self centered to focus on me. But I’m also not gonna lie and say that seeing some of the community response has me hopeful that maybe the community could motivate the team to change their minds.

That’s a bit vague so let’s be direct. You may have seen recently that SSE has shuttered their publishing department from Elli and Helena talking about how there won’t be more comics or books. I knew this happened months ago because, surprise, I’d been in contract negotiations with SSE to make ROJ an official IP. I’d been kinda tongue and cheek about this, it was an open secret with friends since there was no contract yet. And there never ended up being one unfortunately. When the team shuttered the department, I got a very kind email from the department head and that’s been the end of it.

This is why 1.1 got delayed for so long. I’d been hoping that instead of 1.1, ROJ would move into official production and get a relaunch. So I kept pushing off the release of what was arguably an already ready version of 1.1 until things got signed and we moved forward. 1.1 released very shortly before I got the news. Just had a feeling things were changing, and I was right.

All of this has made coming back to ROJ difficult. I back burnered it originally to focus on other projects until contracts were done but ended up a lot more painful than that after nearly two years of trying to make a deal happen. I don’t begrudge that being the time these things take to produce well or SSE for it taking that long, but it is still two years of my life that I spent excited that maybe I’d get to bring more lore and worldbuilding to this franchise I adore, and a platform for all of y’all to share your ideas as well! ROJ was never going to be true canon but it was a fan’s dream come true. I’ve been playing since international launch, this was bringing every community fan head canon to the table. In some small way at least.

Again, of any people who deserve attention during this discussion about the department shuttering, it’s Elli and Helena. They’re amazingly talented and they deserved better than what they got. If there ever is a return of the publishing department, it should be for their works.

But the discussion has brought it all back up for me too and I thought I’d at least talk a little about why ROJ has come to a standstill. It’s hard to go back to working on the system after two years of talks and because of the short notice that things rolled out, not even some closure on running ROJ as a fan project. That’s how serious things had been, I wasn’t getting resources to continue ROJ as a fan project cause I’d been told the team was committed to seeing it officially published. It’s kinda hard to come back to that and the hiatus was a good enough excuse for me to just not.

This all is very bittersweet, and I should say, I’m not mad at the team or the folks I worked with during that time. It would have been an amazing opportunity and I’m grateful for them working so hard to get ROJ out for so long. But I’m also just sad about the whole thing and I don’t see ROJ getting more attention until I can process that.

Please show your support for Elli and Helena. Their works are amazing and they deserve more support from the community. And if you haven’t already, follow their other works too!

Y’all have been the best and most supportive community and ROJ wouldn’t be where it is without you. I’m so grateful to have met you all. ROJ may come back one day. But we’ll see."

Again, I've been hesitant to talk about this because, mostly, I don't want to take the spotlight off the people who were more seriously impacted. ROJ didn't get a contract, I'm not in the lurch like this closure left other folks because I hadn't adjusted to making ROJ my full time work yet. I also don't want to burn bridges in the event that the department ever returns, which is why I've tried to focus this discussion on the creators and supporting them over pushes to reestablish the department (although I appreciate those as well). I would love still to make the official ROJ transition happen, but I don't want that so badly that I'm not trying to do my best to support these creators post the closure, and realistically, y'all should be too. That's why I made that post with all the resources.

Hope that clears up my "bias."

[writingonjorvik]

Riders of Jorvik

So I realize I've not been terribly active on here lately, but as I was tagged in the recent SSOblr D&D post and I noticed in the tags someone mentioning ROJ, I figured I'd make a post real quick filling in about ROJ. There will be a reblog very shortly of this post with a list of relevant links to ROJ so it doesn't die in the tags.

For those of you who don't know, I've been working on a project called Riders of Jorvik. You may have seen some of the Circle sigils and faction symbols I've made for this project on here already. Riders of Jorvik (ROJ) is a TTRPG inspired by SSO. The shorthand is to say that it's D&D for SSO, though more technical in TTRPGs ROJ is its own system. It would be like saying that D&D and ROJ are both board games, but they both have their own rules, one isn't an expansion for the other. That said, my aim is also to make ROJ easier to pick up than D&D, and I'm getting very close to rereleasing the guidebook with its 1.1 update with a lot of feedback from the community, which will likely coincide with some limited physical editions in giveaways.

I've been mostly active on Insta as I've been working on ROJ for almost two years now, and while I appreciate all the support the SSOblr community has shown WOJ and my projects in the past, my work with JC proved something I already knew, that the Insta community is the largest of SSO's communities at the moment that doesn't require recording, and I wanted to get ROJ in front of as many people as I could to find playtesters. That said, I have promoted the ROJ Discord in the past here and would recommend it again if you have any interest in playing ROJ, news about ROJ, or TTRPGs in general.

I have, before ROJ, run SSO in D&D before on an old podcast that is now deleted. That said, I still have all the resources for it and if there is anyone with an interest in the supplements I built to get that setting to work, they're available on the Discord, or you can DM me for the link. All of the ROJ files are available for public download on the ROJ website as well if you want to pick it up, but don't want to join the Discord. Even though it's not done, I would recommend the 1.1 beta file for the added TTRPG glossary and resources, particularly for new players picking up the hobby. I'm also happy to help beginners pick up their first games on the server and learn the ropes, of ROJ or D&D.

If you're interested in playing ROJ but don't have a current table, I run open games on the ROJ Discord. You don't need any play experience with any TTRPG to join, please just bring a completed character sheet. And if you don't know how to do that, on alternating weeks to my one shots, I hold open character creation workshops on call and am always available on the server to answer questions. The next one of these workshops is this Sunday actually (Sept 11 at 4pm EST)! These one shots will be going on hiatus soon so I can finish 1.1 for release, so please come join while I'm running them.

If y'all have any other questions, my asks are open, anon should be on, and y'all can poke me on that Discord. Like I said, I'll be reblogging this shortly with links.

[writingonjorvik]

Time to start a countdown. Riders of Jorvik 1.1 will be releasing November 15th, 2022.

I know I haven't talked a lot about ROJ on here, but figured I'd share it now in case I forget to post things here later. But consider joining the ROJ Discord or following the ROJ Instagram because I'll be giving away at least a couple physical prints of ROJ that are otherwise unavailable (I cannot normally just give away $30 USD print books and I can't sell them, so).

Also, since I brought it up recently, there is only one more open one shot I'll be running of ROJ before 1.1 comes out so I can focus on editing and launch and then those events on the ROJ Discord will be gone until sometime in 2023 (no set return). If you're interested in joining a game, last chance is Oct 1st for a good while. I'll still be available to teach people how to play, I just won't be running games myself.

[writingonjorvik]

A little late but ROJ 1.1 is out! You can download it for free from the ROJ website (link in reblog).

[writingonjorvik]

Sharing these here as well for anyone who might be interested. You can also get pngs of these on the ROJ Discord.

In order, we have the Free Witches, Hwynair's Court, Rymd Federation Ambassadors (original ROJ creations), Wild Wardens, Keepers of Aideen (canon SSO good guys, not canon symbols), GED (canon symbol), and Sixth Hammer (canon SSO bad guy, not canon symbol). You can read more about all of these on the ROJ Instagram as well and their lore relative to ROJ.

[writingonjorvik]

I’m still mostly active on Insta but wanted to give a ROJ update for anyone who has been missing my headcanons and theories: I’ve been running a series on ROJ’s lore, like the generic system stuff that’s the basis of ROJ’s flavor text outside of canon lore. It’s been doing pretty well and I’m wrapping up the planes’ lore and will be starting the lore on Circles pretty soon. Two things from that:

1) If you have a particular bit of lore you’re interested in, I run most of the polls on the ROJ beta testing Discord. Smaller polls also get run in IG stories once I’ve limited options down enough to fit. But if you want something in particular, go vote, server is open to anyone.

2) Support has been so positive towards the series I’ll be writing a companion lore compendium for ROJ. Entirely optional to play in the system but a source book in the same vein as content for Faerûn for D&D in terms of developing Jorvik as a setting to play ROJ in.

And then just in generic ROJ news, the final changes for the system are almost done and I’ll be rereleasing the guidebook for prints this summer. These are just the print cost, I make no profit off of doing this, but prints are fun to have still. And as always, if you ever want to learn how to play ROJ, I run open tables biweekly in an Adventurers’ League style, all skill levels welcome, I will help you make a character sheet there if you need to.

Bout it. Hoping to have some other ROJ news sorted soon, but still a lot ahead for the system, really in just a few months.