I would like to add that I hope a book like this never comes out. Indeed, it is the main reason I neglectred to participate in the kickstarter.
I have a feeling that I am the only person who is not now nor had ever been interested in the Deidne other than as a moment in history of the game to look back on and have a political opinion about as a facet of my mage's characteristics. Character A feels this way about the Tremere's purge... character B feels this way of our salvation from the evil Deidne.
As for having a book about them... I never even thought a story about them would be interesting to play in more or less run.
Can we now just put them to rest for all time? 
I mean Matt Ryan's blog over at housediedne.wordpress.com/
And why wait...um...there's no really good reason. I may fire up my personal blog again to collect some ideas in the interim. It's about a sort of Regency / Victorian version of the Order.
I mean Matt Ryan's blog over at housediedne.wordpress.com/
And why wait...um...there's no really good reason. I may fire up my personal blog again to collect some ideas in the interim. It's about a sort of Regency / Victorian version of the Order.
Ouch!
Last post: June 2012
Yeah, other things came up. Really cool things, but other things.
Toby and I played together for years, and he has some fantastic ideas for House Diedne. He and I are talking schedules now and might find time (soon) to continue work on the blog.
Matt
fingers crossed
Hmm, it might be interesting to present a couple of Diedne options, given that this looks like it will be "unofficial".
I'd be interested in a 5-fold treatment of Diedne: Divine, Faerie, Infernal, Magic and mundane (natural philosophy etc based, no specific Realm alignment).
None of these would be canonical of course, all would be optional (and perhaps not mutually exclusive) leaving troupe's to use as they see fit (or completely ignore).
A themed Sub Rosa issue might work but for such a project the time commitment may need extra funding, so a Kickstarter might be a better option.
This would require the blessings of Atlas however, as it might be considered a direct competitor using their trademarked material.
Just a thought...
Lachie
It just might...
Yes! This site is excellence in digital format. Amazing and beautiful and so very very slick in production. 
If there is any kind of kickstarter for Ars Magica again, I hope you guys take a look at the Fate Core Kickstarter write up, which was brilliant.
Why do you think it was brilliant? I like Fate, and found it uninspiring. It promised more-of-the-same, without really giving any details or concrete ideas to be worked-up about. The stretch-goals were, in contrast, mostly not-the-same, things like game spin-offs or a shorter-game instead of improving the book's physical quality, adding more core stuff (to it or in supplements), or so on. The core promise was that the contributes would get to participate in an open playtesting, which was kinda cool but I'm not interested, sorry. The fact that everyone will get everything for free anyway in the end is also a turnoff as you don't get an incentive to invest to get unique, kickstarter-only stuff; this is somewhat alleviated due to stretch goals, but still applies to the main project. I also found their graphical presentation to be a confusing mess. In short - I found it rather uninspiring.
I realize the response to the project was strong. But I think that's because the game has developed a huge community of tinkerers that would love to participate in the open playtests and to support a new edition. That's the one thing the kickstarter did right - it appealed to what the game's fanbase wanted. I don't know if this is really applicable to Ars Magica, though; I can't see a similar analogy here. The active Ars Magica community certainly seems smaller and more fractured in its tastes.
I'm just curious how you saw it as a brilliant model that Ars Magica should emulate, when I see it as completely the opposite.
Yair
Honestly, I found the Numenera campaign fairly well done.
But an Ars book campaign, particularly one for this topic?
I'd want to start at the PDF, then make it softback, then make it hardback, engage a cover artist from the line, look at color illustrations, look at metacreator files, possibly separate printable cartography files, look at adding material and pagecount, that sort of thing. If it got big enough, I'd look at splitting off a small book of sample covenants set at different time periods, with date selection input from patrons. I think delving into dice and miniatures and t-shirts is the wrong direction, and a rabbit hole that can consume a project after the fact. I might offer a few options for NPCs in the material with author development, or enchanted items, vis sites, story seeds, and spells-- but it would all be with author development, just to make sure theme and tone are maintained. I'd probably want to stick with authors familiar with the line and that would require its own bit of coordinating. The major issue projects like this encounter are twofold-- they don't do all of their planning and preparation prior to starting the campaign on Kickstarter (you need regular previews through the Kickstarter, a wide spread of secondary advertising concurrent to the campaign, and a certain amount of pre-event promotion-- tell me, did you see one web advert for the Ars KS? I didn't. You've got to leverage everything you can), and their eyes are bigger than their stomach. Kickstarter is about building the project and building the audience. Your first and best currency is the trust you create with that audience, because they not only support you, but evangelize for you. By starting small, with a PDF with POD options, and growing from there, you demonstrate not only restraint but maximize your chances at success.
I see these RPG projects that ask for $20K without any prior demonstrable success and I wince. They need hot concept in the current zeitgeist, a preexisting audience, or a proven track record-- pick two. You fire something like this off small, build momentum and reputation and work into larger, more ambitious projects.
But that's me, if I were kicking it around in my head.
-Ben.
Ben you pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Kickstarters require a contagious passionate idea, you need to build up the audience and the love, before you set a timetable for seeking money.
It's not that I think the kickstarter should be copied literally for Ars Magica... It's that the presentation was incredibly slick, with all of the rewards spelled out & explained well. I Do Not like fate and was like "Oooh shiny colors! dang I should have shelled out $20!"
Solid presentation is definitely a requirement, but I would say regular communication is more important.
I agree, though, it was pretty. 
-Ben.