# You have only hours to wait...



## Morrus (Jul 15, 2011)

We just signed off on the final copy of the first adventure.  The only thing keeping it out of your hands right now is that actual time it takes to upload it everywhere it needs to go.

So expect to see _Island at the Axis of the World_ within hours.


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## mort655 (Jul 15, 2011)

I believe if I had a bit, I would be chomping at it.


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## ridingsloth (Jul 15, 2011)

I'm wearing out my F5 key. Maybe I should cut back on the coffee.


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## Falkus (Jul 15, 2011)

Glee!


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## Morrus (Jul 15, 2011)

ridingsloth said:


> I'm wearing out my F5 key. Maybe I should cut back on the coffee.




I said hours, not minutes.


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## benfromidaho (Jul 16, 2011)

This is like Christmas, I can't sleep!


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## Colmarr (Jul 16, 2011)

Unfortunately, I cancelled this week's session 24 hours ago.

Oh well, this'll give them 7 days of anticipation.


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## Morrus (Jul 16, 2011)

Sorry guys, I tried to do this last night but something's up with the server and EN World is running really slowly.  I couldn't get on last night.

I'm uploading them right now.


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## rushtong (Jul 16, 2011)

Morrus said:


> Sorry guys, I tried to do this last night but something's up with the server and EN World is running really slowly.  I couldn't get on last night.
> 
> I'm uploading them right now.




Thousands of people constantly hitting the F5 key might have been a factor there


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## Morrus (Jul 16, 2011)

Finally!  It's in the articles section!


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## OnlineDM (Jul 16, 2011)

Huzzah! Downloaded!


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## Morrus (Jul 16, 2011)

OnlineDM said:


> Huzzah! Downloaded!



Be sure to let us know what you think!  We're excited and nervous at the same time!


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## OnlineDM (Jul 16, 2011)

So far so good! I'll post an extended review on my blog once I've had a chance to read the whole thing. 

For now I thought I'd share something I liked from the early pages (spoilers ahead, of course):

[SBLOCK]When I read the following on page 2: 







			
				The Island at the Axis of the World said:
			
		

> The duchess plans to assassinate her brother during the launch of the Coaltongue, lay the blame on Danor, then attack Axis Island and reclaim it as Risuri territory.




All I could think of was Prince Humperdinck of The Princess Bride: 







			
				Prince Humperdinck said:
			
		

> I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped.




Given that this is from one of my absolute favorite movies of all time, that's a good thing in my book.[/SBLOCK]


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## benfromidaho (Jul 16, 2011)

YEA!  I've got my copy downloaded.  I read through the first few pages before I have to head off to work, and it looks stellar.  I can't wait to get through the whole thing on my lunch break.


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## Is_907 (Jul 16, 2011)

Just read the intro and started into Act One. Really good stuff so far!

When does this come out in print? I love PDFs but if I run this I'd want it bound and in my hands!


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## Morrus (Jul 16, 2011)

Is_907 said:


> Just read the intro and started into Act One. Really good stuff so far!
> 
> When does this come out in print? I love PDFs but if I run this I'd want it bound and in my hands!




The PoD version generally lags behind the PDF version by between 4 days and 2 months, depending on what random dice rolls the people at RPGNow make.  I've never been able to discern a pattern! 

But it will be.  The _Player's Guide_ and _Campaign Guide_ are both already available in print, and they look gorgeous.


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## Falkus (Jul 16, 2011)

That is a very good adventure; I love it. I cannot wait to run this! Just a few months until I can get the time and location to pull a good sized group together.


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## Frostmarrow (Jul 16, 2011)

Looks fantastic! I must read it all. Already I've found some real gaming gems. I love how the skill challenges are broken down into playable sub-chapters. The prophesy was a nice touch and the jig was a funny addition.


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## Karmic_vegeance (Jul 17, 2011)

I did notice one thing: During the encounter on the RNS Coaltongue, various relevant terrain features are said to be marked by letters on the map - but those indicators are not present on the maps presented. It's still pretty easy to intuit where they are, however, so it's not a crippling issue. Also, the early social scene "The Crowd" prior to boarding the Coaltongue is marked as a Level 15 Social Encounter, rather than Level 1. 

Other than those minor editing issues, I'm quite fond of the non-standard monster design and encounters in the adventure - and I'm very glad that there's a solution to the whole "party encounters high level NPC/possible enemy, sucks to be you!" situation that seemed to pop up every so often in WotBS.


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## Marius Delphus (Jul 17, 2011)

The letters are there, but tiny—if you're using the low-res PDF, they're almost entirely obfuscated by the loss of resolution. It's something I noticed late in the production cycle and didn't have time to do anything about.  If it helps, the "W" markings are on the Berth Deck, and the other markings are on the Engine Deck.


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## Karmic_vegeance (Jul 17, 2011)

Ah, so that's what those little squiggles were! It didn't help that I ended up lowering the resolution even _more_ in order to use the maps in Maptool.


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## Obryn (Jul 17, 2011)

This is pretty remarkable.  Great job to all involved - extremely professional and extremely ... well, awesome.

-O


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## Colmarr (Jul 17, 2011)

+1 to everything said above. Very pleased to see my name in the playtesters.

Any chance of having the map jpgs posted in the subscriber area, [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]? I believe you've already posted most of them in this forum, except the Coaltongue.

And [MENTION=8701]d20Monkey[/MENTION], any chance of those pixels-per-squares you said you'd post over on the Fantastic Maps blog?

Can't wait for next week, and apparently neither can my players. Sent an email about 4 hours ago asking them to confirm their availability for next week. I've had 4 affirmative replies already, and I normally wouldn't get 4 replies _at all_.


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## gideonpepys (Jul 17, 2011)

Colmarr said:


> Very pleased to see my name in the playtesters.




I forgot about that.  I'm there too.  Wow!

Just got to subdue my excitement now until September when our campaign can start.

IMHO, this really is the best adventure to have been published in the 4th edition era.  Well done, guys.


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## Morrus (Jul 17, 2011)

gideonpepys said:


> IMHO, this really is the best adventure to have been published in the 4th edition era. Well done, guys.




High praise indeed!


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## gideonpepys (Jul 17, 2011)

And I'm not prone to hyperbole.

Seriously, since the release of 4th edition my players and I have gamed exclusively in 3E settings that I have converted on the fly: Monte Cook's Ptolus, primarily.

Our campaign has been on the go for three years, but for almost all of that time I have been keeping a look out for a product I could switch to in order that I could cut down on my prep time.

No product until Zeitgeist (other than the WotBS - but it wouldn't be 100% accurate to claim that as being of the 4th edition era) has caught my attention, but I really did not expect the execution to be anywhere near as close to my own sensibilites as it is.

It is also cleverly structured and mature in tone, which is a real breath of fresh air.


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## ridingsloth (Jul 18, 2011)

*A quick review*

Sadly, RPGNow won't let me review a product unless I buy it from them, and I can't find it on Paizo.com, but I wanted to review the first adventure. So! I'll do it here. 

*Warning: this review contains minor spoilers.*

This book, like the Player's and Campaign Guides before it, is simply beautiful. The full color page design makes it pleasant to read, the illustrations do a great job of bringing the unique world to life, and the maps are detailed, clear, and interesting. I'm a huge fan of having so many maps on so many different scales. We've got the World Map, a map of the titular Island, several City-level maps, and a panoply of tactical level battle maps. The battle maps are particularly well thought out, with helpful annotations for elevation that make it much easier to understand where things are relative to each other. 

The handouts, particularly the NPC handouts for the PCs are a stroke of genius. It is obvious that a lot of thought went into this campaign from the very beginning. Having a simple way to keep track of the cast for both the players and the DM is a tremendous time-saver, and will spare me a lot of frustration when I have to remind the PCs for the third time who they're talking to.

This first adventure was a real pleasure to read for me too, on a DMing level. Each scene is tagged with various descriptors that make it obvious how it should be approached like "social", "tactical", "real time", or "montage". Again, it's clear that a lot of thought went into making each encounter and challenge both interesting and unique. Of particular note, just looking at Act I, we have a minor investigation that makes use of a very nicely designed extended skill check with a hard time limit, and a set-piece battle with a plethora of modifiers, counter-modifiers, environmental hazards, unique items, and a ticking clock. These are the kind of well thought out encounters that make running a game like this a pleasure. That a series of possible outcomes and alternate solutions, complete with real repercussions, were also detailed makes my life that much easier, and deserves a huge thanks.  

Length-wise, I think this adventure looks about right. That is, I think that my playing group should wrap it up just in time for the second one to be released. Or about 3 months time playing 4 or so hours a week (with, no doubt, several weeks off in there). Only time will tell! I sure hope so, because my players are excited about this game in a way that they haven't been for months or years. There's just something about a steampunk D&D world set in Central America with strong philosophical overtones that they find compelling. 

My only real complaint is that the battle maps are pretty low-res when I try to pull them out of the PDF to print. It'd be nice if nice big JPGs of these maps were available. 

On the whole, this adventure is everything I was hoping for and, honestly, a good bit that I didn't know to hope for (but will now find sorely lacking in other products). Bravo to the entire team for putting together a really top-notch product. Game on!

*****


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## Morrus (Jul 18, 2011)

ridingsloth said:


> Sadly, RPGNow won't let me review a product unless I buy it from them, and I can't find it on Paizo.com, but I wanted to review the first adventure. So! I'll do it here.




Thanks for the awesome review!

I uploaded it to paizo.com at the same time as I did here at EN World and rpgnow.  Unfortunately, paizo.com has a manual approval process by Paizo staff, so the release there always lags behind by a few days.  But it'll appear soon enough!


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## Rugult (Jul 18, 2011)

Morrus said:


> But it'll appear soon enough!




Wait no longer!

paizo.com - ZEITGEIST Adventure Path #1: Island at the Axis of the World (PFRPG) PDF


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## Ajar (Jul 18, 2011)

I bumped my ENWorld sub up to silver once my friends roped me into DMing Zeitgeist for them. I've been poring over the PG and CG to get ready, and started reading the first adventure last night. I'll post some more thoughts once I've had a chance to read the whole thing, but I'm going to have to be diligent in my prep -- our first session will be on the 30th, and I'm going away this weekend! I want to make sure I lay all of the right groundwork from the very beginning, to try and get them involved in the story and, hopefully, thrill them with the revelations down the road. 

We'll be playing remotely, using Google+ hangouts for videoconferencing, plus some kind of virtual whiteboard/tabletop when we need to move tokens in a fight. I think I'm also going to put the setting maps up on the whiteboard when we aren't in combat, just for context. 

I don't know much about my PCs yet, since they're still digesting the background materials. I was thinking I might suggest a Google+ hangout devoted to collaborative character creation. We'll see!


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## OnlineDM (Jul 18, 2011)

Argh! I'm actually going to be putting together MapTool campaign files for the ZEITGEIST adventures, but I don't have time to get to work on them yet. I'd love to have them done for you, Ajar, but it's exceedingly unlikely to happen before the 30th, unfortunately.


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## TheAuldGrump (Jul 19, 2011)

I did some trumpeting about the release on a few forums.

So far, I very much like what I see.

The Auld Grump


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