Cover Illustration by Olli Juutilainen
We, or to be more precise Jukka Särkijärvi, has now finished translating the first chapter of Astraterra. We are still juggling around a few words and I need to do the layout, but as soon as those are done, I’ll link the first chapter here as a free preview for you all.
About the Translation
As we started discussing about the English translation with Jukka last fall, we quickly noticed that this is not going to be a cake-walk. Many of the creatures’ names and terminology in the game are word plays or have otherwise funny connotations or double-meanings in Finnish. This playful use of words sets a certain creative mood which is characteristic to Astraterra.
Regardless of the playing with Finnish words, I think we have found pretty good translations for some words already and Jukka has done really good job in finding good English counter-parts even for some more obscure Finnish words. And if there are some words we just can’t translate properly (my guess is there will be some), I’m pretty sure we can find a lot of English words to play with and convey the same light-hearted tone into the book that the Finnish edition now has.
This is how the rulebook looks like
About the Book
OK. So, we have the first chapter pretty much done now, but how many chapters there are altogether, you might ask. The Astraterra rulebook has six chapters: Introduction, The Explorer’s Guide, The Gate Master’s Handbook, Heroic Tales, Creaturepedia and Astratech.
- The Introduction contains a short primer on the world of Astraterra and how this game is supposed to be played.
- The Explorer’s Guide contains rules relevant to the players. These include the playable species, the heroes’ roles, and of course the instructions on creating your own hero. This part also includes options for equipping your hero for adventure.
- The Gate Master’s Handbook contains tips for the Gate Master, whose job is to lead the heroes to their adventures and create interesting challenges and plot twists for them. This part of the book also contains more information on the world of Astraterra and its myriad dangers and mysteries.
- Heroic Tales contains both a beginner-friendly adventure module, and guidelines on designing your own adventures. The module, Temple of the Golden Weaver, can be played straight out of the book or used for inspiration in developing your own adventures. You shouldn’t worry too much about not being able to come up with sufficiently exciting adventures. Most heroes are quite adept at getting into trouble on their own initiative. In addition to instructions on adventure design, this part of the book also gives some tips on the treasures heroes can find.
- Creaturepedia is a collection of Astraterra’s inhabitants, from the mundane dogs to the strange eteep bugs. Creaturepedia is meant mostly for the Gate Keeper.
- Astratech is a chapter dedicated to the ancient astratech, such as nano potions and holoscrolls.
- In addition: At the back of the book, there is also a collection of handy appendices, such as a character sheet, a number of lists, an index, and other conveniences.
So, to put it short the core rulebook has everything you need to play and the original Finnish rulebook was 176 pages long – which is perhaps a bit much. We are collecting feedback of the Finnish edition to see, if people would prefer to have their game in two books: one shorter basic book mainly for the players and another one for the Game… I mean Gate Masters 🙂
Explorer tip: Most giant spiders of the Changed Lands like to be scratched and they purr if you pet their belly. (Art by Olli Juutilainen)
And a Bit About this Blog
We started this site as a game development blog — or a dev diary — in Finnish back in June 2013 when I seriously started working on Astraterra with my kids. The blog turned out like a really good way to let people know more about the game and later this site turned into a full-fledged Astraterra website with resources and information about the game. In fact, this turned out to be so good practice that I decided to do another dev diary for a science fiction RPG that I’m working on now.
Currently the Finnish side of the site has more stuff in it, but I’m planning to add more material in English as well. If you are interested, you can check the Finnish site by clicking the small blue and white flag in the header menu and use Google translate for example to browse through the materials we have in Finnish now.
I’ll try to post here at least a couple of times a month to keep you updated and tell more about the world of Astraterra. To stay updated, please follow us in social media of your preference, some links on the sidebar and here.
Thanks!