What is the Embrace of Pain? (A Brief FAQ)

What is the Embrace of Pain?

The Embrace of Pain is intended to be a fan-created Sourcebook for Star Wars Saga Edition Roleplaying Game. It is intended to cover the New Jedi Order, Dark Nest, and Legacy of the Force series of novels from the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Why are you doing this?

It had become increasingly clear over the last year that Wizards of the Coast would not be designing a sourcebook for the era. With Wizards' recent announcement that the April publication of The Unknown Regions would be the last book published for the line, it became increasingly clear that if there was going to be adequate support to run New Jedi Order campaigns in Saga Edition, I was going to have to step up. Within a week of Wizards' announcement, we put together a team to do exactly that, and work has commenced.

Who is the design team?

We're basically a bunch of folks from the d20 Radio forums for the Order 66 Podcast, the only podcast dedicated to discussion of the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG (and an Ennie Award winner at that.

For those familiar with the forums, we are myself (Darth ObiWan), Zrissa, madoule, Imbasel, Revan_the_2nd, Cyril, and watanabe2k

We are a team of diverse talents united by one common theme, a love of Star Wars Saga Edition.

As for my own experience, I have been a player and GM of RPGs since 1979. I have played in and run games as diverse as old-school D &D AD&D, Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, d20 Modern, Traveller: Fourth Edition, GURPS, 3rd Edition/3.5 D&D, Paranoia, and all three d20 versions of Star Wars, including Star Wars Saga Edition.

I was also a writer and designer for the following books for Traveller: Fourth Edition:
Milieu Zero sourcebook (both the hardcover and softcover versions), Psionic Institutes, Pocket Empires, Alien Archive I, and the unpublished adventure: The Vilani Hypothesis.

How can I help?

We are not currently soliciting for writers, game designers. We've got a good sized, manageable team, and I'm not comfortable adding any more, although this is always subject to change.

We may have need for additional artwork.

We will solicit for playtesters as we get closer to completion. We are not soliciting playtesters at this time, however.

How much will it cost?

The cost is nothing, nada, zip, zero, bupkus. It will be free.

The final publication will be in .pdf format. We don't have a license to produce this (which is why it is considered fan material), and we have no desire to wind up pissing off George Lucas, a man we respect and admire deeply, or Wizards of the Coast, who in our opinions did their finest work on Saga Edition.

While we're on the subject of Lucasfilm, and Wizards of the Coast. This book will be a derivative work based on works copyrighted by Lucasfilm and Wizards of the Coast, based on trademarked and copyrighted material that is wholly owned by Lucasfilm Limited and its subsidiaries. This is fan material only and is not, in any way, intended to be a challenge to said trademarks and copyrights. With luck, maybe it'll sell a few more novels for you guys.

More to come on this one.