Echos of Eldritch Development Journal #1

Well Met Travelers,

Welcome to the first post in a series about the process of developing the Echos of Eldritch Campaign setting. I realized that despite this setting taking up a significant amount of real estate on our site, it doesn’t actually have a lot of information available, so this first post in the series will rectify that. As we progress through the Development Journal series, we will share with you the progress we are making and some of our design decisions as we make them.

What is Echos of Eldritch?

First of all, Echos is not a misspelling of echoes. Echos is a being, an entity in the world. Echos is the creator being in this campaign setting. They are a survivor of a previous universe that has been destroyed.

The world of EoE is set on the planet of Antediluvian. It is a world nearing 100,000 years since its creation, and the setting specifically picks up 30 years into the Age of Rebirth, the 7th age of Antediluvian’s history. The world is in a renaissance; the people are in the process of recovering from millennia of subjugation by Corduth the Undying, king of the dragons. The world is exploring what it means to be free from oppression, new technology is facilitating the spread of information, and the scholars of the world have set about trying to piece together the fragments of Antediluvian’s past.

While the world is contending with this, they are also trying to uncover the source of these “Eldritch Bleeds,” fractures in reality from which giants, thought long extinct, are emerging.

If this sounds interesting, stay tuned for more information about our Development process. Up next, we get into the nerdy bits.

Development Journal 1

For years, the other writers at CWG and I have been working on this campaign setting. It’s thoroughly outlined and nearing 200 pages in length. Our intention is to release a few different versions of the setting. We will be releasing at least a system-agnostic version and a Cypher System version. There may be others if there is interest (that is a far future project for now).

As I said, this book is well outlined, and most sections are developed to the point that we feel they are approaching their final versions; there is still some cross-referencing and fact checking that needs to be done, and they will need heavy editing. Other sections, like the one I am currently working on, are in need of some serious TLC; actually, they need me to firmly press my nose to the grindstone.

I am in the process of working on two different sections of the text, the timeline and the magical objects sections. It surprised me how much work it takes to sift through a book, find all of the important events, assign them a year, and compile them into a table (though now that I write that out, it does seem a laborious task). The outlining of the history is done, but I now need to work on developing the entries that expand on the most important points throughout the chapter.

The magical objects chapter is in a much rougher state. I am currently transcribing notes from my physical journals into the Google Doc that is serving as our manuscript. There is minimal formatting, the grammar is rough to say the least, and I am not done noting down all of the objects into the section.

Art and Maps

We are also still exploring our options for art. For a small publisher, art is often a challenge. We are firmly against the use of Generative AI art in our products. While generative AI is a quick and easy method, CWG believes in supporting artists in their work and craft. We’re a three-person team offering free PDFs, so our art budget is limited—but we’re committed to paying professional rates for any commissioned work.

To help offset the cost of the other art we want to have made, we have opted to design our own maps. Two of our team members are hard at work on our maps. Last night they sat down and discussed the aesthetic that we want for the maps. More work needs done, as many of our maps have not been updated in quite some time, and many names and locations have been changed in subsequent drafts.

Final Thoughts

So this is where the project stands at the moment. The campaign setting is well into development, and the writing is on track to be finished by the end of the year. We have not yet lined up an editor, though we have done some editing in-house. I wanted to make sure that all of you Travelers received some information about this project and that it is not a mystery. If you have any questions or thoughts about this project, leave a comment on this post, or reach out to us via the contact us form on our homepage.

As always, farewell and stay safe, Travelers,

~Crazy Weasel