Howdy LunarSquid amigo!
How is progress going? Any more news to bring?
Its like battling a Lernean hydra. In the process of copying over the material to the new format and everything is going slowly but surely. I'm happy with the new layout (should have a God preview up on Sunday/Monday for everyone to see).
However, its slowly starting to dawn on me the book is an absolute monster and I think I could crazily be looking at upwards of 500 pages. Which may mean the best thing to do is split the book into 3 books (which I sort of already did).
The 6 Chapters are:
1. Divinity
2. Magic (includes Magic Items)
3. The Epic (Campaigns)
4. The Kosmos
5. The Monstrous (new rules for really big monsters)
6. The Bestiary
x. Appendices
So 1-2 are Player material, 3-4 DM material, 5-6 the Monsters.
Its currently shaping up to be C 1-2 = 144 pages, C 3-4 = 128 pages (144 if I add the Appendices which are mainly for DMs), C 5-6 = 228 pages. None of that is counting the opening 14 pages (credits, contents, intro, glossary etc.).
My goal at this juncture is to have Chapters 1-3 completely finished by Christmas (chapters 4-6 are half finished already but need brought over to the new format. Currently I am able to get 15-20 pages finished per week (a combination of copying stuff over to the new format, finishing, polishing and editing where needed, etc.)
Yet while all that looks like smooth sailing to the finish line, inevitably something crops up, I get stuck on something, I am in two minds on something (like the art style for the 7th-dimension), one of my artists is dragging his heels on turning in the last dozen pieces (for which he has already been paid), five other artists I am trying to license work from, have not yet replied (trying to track them down across multiple social media apps), the main colour artist (who is doing amazing) I am working closely with I need to give feedback and that soaks up 3-4 hours every other day to get things right, I'm doing some of the paintings (after Midjourney) again another 3-4 hours work a pop.
In a nutshell, take a look at the credits in the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual. Then imagine one person was stupid enough to think he could easily do virtually every job and that idiot would be me. On the flip side to that though, I know I have got something special here. The design is good. The mechanics are solid and simple. The art is awesome. The ideas are cool (in my opinion).
Some days I just look at what needs done and think to myself "you bloody idiot"...then I snap out of it, because if it were easy, it wouldn't be worth doing, then I just get on with it.
So we will see how I get on over the next two months and whether I can finally start to turn the tide on this behemoth of a book.