Good morning everyone (it’s morning where I am when this is going out anyway), I decided to do something different. There’s a video here, though the audio is a much greater focus than the video part. I’m going to put the transcription here too, if you don’t want to listen or can’t; I removed many of the “like”s, “um”s, and “you know”s from the transcript so that the information is a bit easier to follow; I also added some links where I mentioned different sites. Let me know whether this is stupid, and I should go back to my writing hole, or if this is something cool. I don’t want to do video as a main thing, since finding a time when it’s quiet enough without everyone being asleep is tough, but if it’s interesting, then I might do one every blue moon or so. I’m going to let it, I mean me, speak for itself/myself now.
Transcription
Hello anyone who's watching this.
I want to try out a different format for this topic, because it's something that is historically important, and I think it merits a bit more effort than just writing something. I'm still planning on including a transcript, with pictures of everything that I'm talking about, and that'll be provided wherever I end up putting this video or at least on the Substack article with the video on it.
Originally, I wanted to do this as more of like a "live" thing, where I'm holding a camera or whatever, but I was talking way too much with my hands, so my phone's camera was just all over the place. I don't have a stand, or else I'd set something like that up. I didn't really want to mess with rigging something together, just 'cause, how often am I really going to be doing something like this?
Anyway, I wanted to talk about this book that I got, came in the mail on Monday. It wasn't supposed to come in until today, Wednesday, but it came in early and kinda made me forget whatever I was gonna write about, so I figured I'd just do something about that.
So, this is a book called "The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg" by Greg Svenson. Svenson created the original Tonisborg dungeon, but the book was authored by The Fellowship of the Thing's Griffith Morgan, along with Svenson and DH Boggs. I think his name is Dan Boggs. But, yeah, so they- they all collaborated together to get this book, and, I mean, and there's a bunch more contributors to it, but at least those were the main ones. I know Boggs made the system that's included in the book, and then, of course, Svenson made the maps, and I know Griffith Morgan did all the- there's- it's like a mini DM's Guide about old school gaming. So, he wrote that.
Why he ourple 😆
I wouldn't call this a "review". It's more of a "first look" type of thing. I haven't read it through; I'm on, like, page 35, so I don't think I could accurately review it yet. I may review it later, if that's what you want, but I know somebody at some point who does review things regularly and has more of a sort of a market in that sort of area... You know, somebody will be making reviews of this book, and there are already reviews as well, but it's kind of a new thing to me, so I'm making something about it.
I guess the first thing I want to talk about was actually getting the book. There was a Kickstarter recently (you can look up "Tonisborg" on Kickstarter and it- it'll come up), and it came in two sort of formats when the Kickstarter launched. There's a hardcover for $100 and a softcover for $65, and then they added a "mass market" softcover (that's what they're calling it) for $30, and that's like a print-on-demand type of book. I haven't checked personally, but I think there may be a way to still order the books. I know the Kickstarter itself is closed, but I think maybe on BackerKit, you can still order it, but I know they won't be accepting orders forever, especially for the hardcover and the $65 premium softcover. You know, those would definitely have a closing date. I just don't know that date off the top of my head, but I believe that they'll be accepting - even if they close the orders for the mass-market softcover initially here in the near future - I believe, don't quote me on this, but I believe that they will let you still order the book at a later time, the mass-market version.
There's no PDF of the book. There will never be a PDF version of the book. It's supposed to come with a 5e conversion document for monsters and, I think, traps, and that will be a PDF. It's not out yet; I haven't gotten it at least. They said they're kinda testing the waters with that. I know The Fellowship of the Thing has said that they- they kind of hold this position of "No PDFs" to combat piracy of the digital documents, and I know Griffith Morgan, personally, believes the book should only be used in physical form, anyway. And I've seen on the Kickstarter and in comments of live streams that Griffith has been on expressing negative feelings about it, especially when it comes to piracy. People are saying they'll just take the mass-market copy, cut it up, and scan it or whatever. Personally, it doesn't affect or bother me. I prefer physical formats anyway. I don't really... Even if I get something digitally, I print it out myself, so I definitely much- would much rather just order the physical thing if I can than to print it myself, because if I print it myself, it's not gonna come out right anyway.
They also had- they had some hardcovers on hand from... So, the printing that they did was weird, in terms of they're call- what they call the printings. So, they had, I guess, technically two first printings, because they had a black cover and a purple cover, and the black cover, I believe, was for people who worked on the book. That's Griffith, Chris, probably Svenson, other people like that who actually worked on it. I don't know the details of the purple cover first printing. I don't know if it was Kickstarted or whatever. It was before I'd even heard about this thing, and they did that and they called that the first edition first printing of the book. Then, they did a first edition second printing of the book which had a cardinal, or red, cover on it. They're also printing new first edition second printing hardcovers that are also red. I'll talk about the difference between the original first edition second printing and the- what will be the new first edition second printing. I'll talk about the difference in a second. It's a little bit confusing, because there is a difference. I don't know if maybe they should've just called it a different printing or what. I mean, they look the same, so I guess that's all that matters.
This book is a- I mean, I'd call it a very fine piece of craftsmanship, and I'd say "craftsmanship" is exactly the right word to use. They, the Fellowship of the Thing, print this thing using one small, specialist print company, and then they send it to be bound at another small, specialist binding company. I believe all of that happens in Denver, Colorado. Everything about this book is handmade and very sturdy. They say this will be a book you will be able to pass on to your grand kids, and I believe them.
Now, my book- it does have a, I wouldn't call it a defect, but it has a flaw in the bottom of the spine on- around the back of the book... Mine's got a pretty bad tear in it, probably from shipping; it definitely looks like it was dropped on - I don't even know what it could be dropped on to do this, because it has a very weird type of shape to it - it looks like it was dropped on the edge of a box or something. Ideally I'd like to get it remedied, but I might have to wait until March or whenever it is they're doing their new print run for it. Like I said, there's a difference between what I have and what they'll be printing, so I'm not even sure if I'd like to do that.
The cover is really nice. It's like um- It feels very similar to how the original AD&D books felt. The spine is a little different, the style of it. At least when I had my orange spine D&D books, those spines were very square, whereas this one is a little bit more rounded. I'll try to get a good picture of what I mean by that. There's also a nice little ribbon that you can use as a bookmark. Even the ribbon feels very tough. It's thick, it doesn't- this isn't even dollar store ribbon, so that's nice.
Do you see how the spine is just a bit thinner than the book itself? Not a problem, but a difference, between this and the AD&D books.
When you open the book, there are these very thick purple endpapers followed by very sturdy regular paper. Now, this is where the differences come in. The quality of the paper is a little bit different depending on which copy of the book you get. I asked Griffith on the Kickstarter, and he confirmed it, that the cardinal red books that were the "Quick Ship" option, the ones that were left over from the first first [sic] edition second printing of the book, is on 80 pound paper. It's the only copy of the book, the only version at least, that is on 80 pound paper. He said they weren't able to source 70 pound paper when these books were printed, so they got an upgrade. Both the black and purple hardcovers, which were part of that first run, are on 70 pound paper. The new cardinal prints, which is what they're going to be printing in March... I believe it's March, I don't know, I keep saying March. I wanna say that's what they said. I just don't have it pulled up in front of me, but that- that one is also going to be on 70 pound paper, and that's why I'm kind of hesitant to get my spine problem fixed on this book, because I have... I mean, 70 pound paper- it's sturdy either way, but this is special paper. They're not going to do this again, so I'm kinda nervous about doing that.
The $65 softcover that was with the Kickstarter is going to be on 70 pound paper as well, and the mass-media softcover will be on 50 pound paper. Now, I'm quoting the creators here when they announced the mass-media version, but they claim that even that version will be much higher quality than what you'd get from DriveThru RPG, or Lulu, or whatever. I'm inclined to believe them, because I'm holding a very nice book. I wouldn't think they'd say the book is nice and have it not be nice, but I also don't have it, so I don't know for sure.
The other thing to note is that the hardcover and the $65 softcover are in full color, which only really applies, makes a difference, for the scanned images of the original dungeon maps and notes as far as I can tell. Like I said, I'm only on- 30-odd pages in, so there may be more that's in color, but nothing that I could tell just yet. The mass-media copy of the book will be black and white.
That pretty much covers what I have to say about the book so far. Like I said, it's not as much a review as it is a "here's what they put in the shipping box". I may wind up purchasing a mass-media copy of the book, so I don't make the damage on the spine worse, but I don't think it'll get worse unless I am reckless with it. It seems like something that I can... Don't drag it across anything that it can catch on or anything like that. I don't know, let me know what you guys think. If you want me to review it, I'll review, but, like I said, there's going to be a million people reviewing it, especially after they go out in March or whatever. I'm going to read this thing cover to cover before I even think about doing that. I don't know. Let me know. If you want me to review it, I'll review it, but I'm not really a "review guy". I don't what to- what to talk about, what people want to know about it.
As of today, Thursday the 22nd, there arejust over three days left to place pre-orders. Also, the character sheet for the included system will be available as a PDF with the 5e conversion. I also forgot to mention in the video that I will not be sending any letters out next week or the week after, since I will be busy with Christmas and New Years travel and celebration. I will resume with a letter to be sent on Thursday, January 5th.
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