William Ward as RPG Editor

Howdy folks!

I just wanted to take a minute and introduce William Ward as our new RPG Editor.

For the last year or two, we've been chipping away at a tabletop RPG based on the Baeg Tobar setting. Scott (Colby) and Daniel (Gooden) have been working hard at putting together the basic premise for the RPG and writing out the meat of the book. But, for what we have planned, we wanted to bring somebody with a little more experience with RPG's into the fray.

William will be taking over the development of the rules system (something we're still not quite set on, but we are working on it) and the development of supplemental RPG material once we get the core book wrapped up. William will also be heading the development and execution of a Living Campaign based on the world of Baeg Tobar (which I am rather excited about).

I have known William for some years. He has contributed a variety of content to Baeg Tobar over the last few years, both conceptually and story wise. The main one that people might remember was the webcomic Stoneteller. He has since contributed another short comic that we haven't made available yet and a lot of good advice.

Outside of Baeg Tobar, William has been on the comics scene for quite a while and has had his work appear in the British small press books Futurequake and its manga offshoot Mangaquake as well as the Diamond solicited anthology Fiendish Fables. Most recently, William organized, edited, and had a story in the Fablewood Anthology. You can order and find out more about Fablewood at http://www.fablewoodcomic.com.

Welcome to the team, William!

Baeg Tobar Fantasy Fiction Website to Begin Publication on October 2, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Baeg Tobar Fantasy Fiction Website to Begin Publication on October 2, 2009

Lawrence, Kansas (September 21, 2009) – Baeg Tobar (www.baegtobar.com) announced that it will begin publishing web content in a variety of forms beginning on October 2, 2009.

The site tells the story of Baeg Tobar, a preindustrial fantasy world where music is magic. The land's young nations seem poised to pull themselves out of the primordial expansionist ooze to become lasting institutions, but a mysterious threat from a parallel realm of immortals threatens to end it all.

"I'm very excited about the launch of this project,” explained Jeremy Mohler, owner and Art Director of Baeg Tobar. “We have a huge amount of content we are planning to release and what I believe is a unique and interesting way of publishing that content. It is my hope that people will enjoy not only the complex stories but the amount of detail that we're including to really flesh out the world."

“The Torn God,” a web comic written by Daniel Tyler Gooden and Scott Colby, illustrated by Alan Gallo, and colored by Jeremy Mohler, tells the story of Boruin, a mercenary with a mysterious past who suddenly finds himself the focal point of the battle between realms. Pages one through three of “The Torn God” will be available at launch. Subsequent half-pages will be published every Monday.

Readers can learn more about Boruin and his cohorts in “The Unmade Man,” a novel written by Daniel Tyler Gooden and illustrated by Scott Godlewski. Chapter 1 of “The Unmade Man” will be available at launch. Subsequent chapters will be published every other Friday beginning on October 16.

Launch content also includes eleven fully illustrated Resource Guide articles providing encyclopedic information about the people, places, and things that appear in “The Torn God.” A new article will be published every other Wednesday beginning on October 7.

“‘The Torn God,’ as our master storyline, will rip across Baeg Tobar ricocheting off every important nation, race and detail on the book,” said Content Editor Daniel Tyler Gooden. “What’s extra special is the wealth of deeper stories that will unroll along side of ‘The Torn God’ to expand in detail what the comic touched. Short stories, flash fiction, sequentials, guide entries, table-top games, online games, all coupled with fantastic artwork, will allow the readers to delve as shallow or deep into Baeg Tobar as they may wish. I hope they go deep. Baeg Tobar is astounding down here in its depths.”

Baeg Tobar is a premiere purveyor of online fantasy fiction focused on delivering an immersive experience through a wide variety of media. For more information, visit www.baegtobar.com.

Contact:
Jeremy Mohler
jeremy@baegtobar.com

New The Torn God Pages

Hey folks,

Well, we've had a bit of a shift on the production of The Torn God. Shannon Potratz, who was going to be doing the comic has gotten entirely too busy to continue work on it. However, he's not leaving us! Rather, he'll be moving over to work The Unmade Man. He'll be contributing an illustration per chapter per week. We're all looking forward to seeing what he comes up with!

Regarding The Torn God, Alan Gallo has stepped up to take it over. You may remember Alan working on The Rise and Fall of Pileaus, which he did an exceptional job on. We felt it only right that we move him over to take over The Torn God as well. Below are a few of his pages so far!
And please be sure to go over and check out our brand new forums!

Forums now live!

Hey folks,

The new Baeg Tobar forums are now live and active! By all means, please head over and say hello!

Thanks!

The Torn God News

Well,

We've had a very minor set back, lately. Shannon Potratz, who was our artist on our planned webcomic, The Torn God, has decided to step down. Instead of working on the webcomic, Shannon is going to be working on developing new artwork for our first full length novel (which will also act as a prelude to The Torn God), The Unmade Man by Daniel Tyler Gooden. While we're sad to see Shannon go (because he was doing some really spectacular pages for The Torn God), I think that this new arrangement is going to work out beautifully.

That being said, Alan Gallo, the artist on our print comic, The Rise and Fall of Pileaus, has graciously stepped up to take the reins of The Torn God. Below are some of his first set of layouts:

Also, it looks like I will also be taking over the colors for the webcomic. We've got a bit more work to do before we can relaunch, but, I think we're in good shape!

And we have another new artist involved in the project - Scott Godlewski. Below you can see his version of people from Norrington. Great stuff!

I'll keep you posted as we work more out! Relaunch is looming closer!

BT: Realms, The Unmade Man, Toaaho

Howdy folks!

Well, we are still making progress on the development of Baeg Tobar and things are finally starting to come together. I have just seen the first incarnation of the Baeg Tobar: Realms MMO turn-based game. It's nearly playable and I'll annouce here when it is ready to go into a Beta test, at which point I'll definitely be needing help testing it out!

I've also been in talks with my good friend and fellow artist Kennon James about doing new artwork for the Unmade Man, by Daniel Tyler Gooden, the first novel we are going to make available at launch of the new site. Below you can see some of his artwork for one of the characters in the story, Toaaho.
More to come soon! Thanks!

Jer

First three weeks of short stories scheduled!

We want you to find something new on Baeg Tobar every day of the week. Some days it'll be a new half-page of The Torn God; some days it'll be an encyclopedia entry about a person, place, or thing relevant to the world; some days it'll be a new chapter from a novel deeply exploring the ins and outs of the world; and on others it'll be a new short story that relates to something happening in The Torn God.

We'll be releasing one short story every week. Our first three are written, edited, and ready to go:

"No Matter How You Hide Her..." by Alana Joli Abbott describes the local reaction to the appearance of The Torn God's and The Unmade Man's Boruin, Wraethe, and Pile just before the historic confrontation that sets them on their journey.

"Shadevengen" by Mark Adams introduces readers to the Black Queen and an ancient order of Royal Shadows dedicated to the protection of the Imperial family.

"The Black Queen" by Scott Colby (yours truly) expands upon the story of the Black Queen and offers a glimpse at politics in Deos following the death of Emperor Pileaus.

I've got to say, I'm damn proud to be three weeks ahead of the game already. Holes in the early schedule are quickly becoming few and far between. If all works out as planned, we'll soon be an entire two months ahead on short fiction!

Many thanks to all of our hardworking authors. 2009 should be a great year for Baeg Tobar!

The R&FoP Previews...

Hey folks,

Good news! Alan Gallo has completed the pencils for the first full issue of the Rise and Fall of Pileaus! Now, it's just a matter of my finding the time to start coloring it and see about how best to approach publishing. We've got a few ideas, so I hope to be able to start talking dates in the not so distant future. 2009 should be a very interesting year for Baeg Tobar.

Anyway, here are the pencils for the first two pages. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

News and Shuen Taishu Concept Art

Hello folks!

I thought you all might like to have a bit of news and maybe another bit of artwork for the project. We're slowly moving forward on our various projects and I hope to relaunch Baeg Tobar sometime in the first quarter of 2009. Granted, nothing is set in stone, but if things continue to proceed as they currently are, we should be in good shape. As of right now, we have several projects in production, those being -

1. The Torn God, our primary webcomic which was written by Daniel Gooden and Scott Colby and illustrated by Shannon Potratz. This will be free online for everybody to read.

2. The Rise and Fall of Pileaus, a comic that we're planning to distribute through print, also written by Daniel Gooden and Scott Colby and penciled by Alan Gallo. I'm looking at coloring this book myself.

3. A revised, edited, and newly illustrated version of The Unmade Man, written by Daniel Gooden.

4. Numerous short stories written by a variety of contributors that will tie into the main webcomic, The Torn God, and expand upon the world as we move through the main storyline.

5. Baeg Tobar Realms, a massively multiplayer online game. The game will be a war game that takes place in the Shoro and will pit players against each other to become the dominant country in the region. We'll have several versions of the game, one which will be free for all to play and also a subscriber only version.

6. The Baeg Tobar RPG, which will also be a print product that we hope to release sometime late in 2009 and which will be fully illustrated by me.

Those are just the main projects we are working on right now and I can say with some confidence that things are moving forward. Slowly, but surely.

In the meantime, here is some concept artwork by Caleb Prochnow of the Shuen Taishu. These are the massive creatures that the ocean going cities of the Shuen reside upon. As you can see, Caleb did a rather amazing job on this creature - it is unlike anything I have ever seen and I absolutely love this design. It'll be a lot of fun to see it in action!
Keep checking back for updates! I'll let you all know more as we make more progress!

I hope you all have a great holiday! Thanks!

Jeremy

More on The Torn God and an Open Call for Writers

The Torn God is Baeg Tobar's main storyline - it's the tale around which we're basing everything else we do. Current plans call for the release of one comic page per week, augmented with one short story, one novel chapter, a map place, and at least one entry from the Resource Guide.

What does all that mean for the reader? It means if you meet a new character in The Torn God, you get to read more about him in that week's short story. It means you get more information about the setting through the map place and the Resource Guide. It means you get to learn all about the past of our main character, Boruin, through weekly updates to his first novel appearance, The Unmade Man.

It means we're going to have a ton of related content throughout the site, and it means you're going to want to come back everyday to see what's new.

Jeremy's already teased you a bit with an art preview, so let me whet your appetite a little more with the introduction to the first chapter of The Torn God:

Emperor Pileaus is dead. Lesser factions battle to improve their standing as the Empire struggles to right itself under the guidance of an inexperienced regent. Freed from its decades old fear of the Emperor’s stern hand, a continent wracked by war and expansion tilts even further toward chaos. Those familiar with the otherworldly source of this new discord are few and fearful.

And yet, despite the strife, business is still business, and the business of war booms loudly as ever for experienced mercenaries like Boruin and his crew. The Empire’s border with Ommany is where the money is – but it’s also the focal point of the continent’s most devious machinations, as Boruin discovers when he’s incorrectly charged with the murder of Emperor Pileaus. Luckily for Boruin, the runes on his arm and the library in his head make him more than just some common merc...

I'd also like to announce an open call for short story writers. Prose production is chugging along nicely, but adding a few more writers would help us all sleep a little better at night. Writers will be given a choice of topics relevant to the events of The Torn God. Stories should be 3000 words or less. Payment is $15 per story. We've got the first ten months or so of story ideas planned, so due dates are still somewhat flexible.

I'd like to mention one added bonus: since I started working with Baeg Tobar, my writing has improved considerably. I can say the same for everyone who's been with us since the beginning. We aren't going to just take your story, edit it, and be done with you. We're going to welcome you into our community and try to help you become a better writer. And we're going to pay you for it!

Interested parties should email me at scott@baegtobar.com. Please note that your first attempt to email me from a particular address will get caught in our spam filter; simply follow the instructions in the automated response to prove you're a real person.

More updates to come!

Art and News!

Hey folks,

Well, it has certainly been quite a while since we last updated the blog, but, that's about to change. We're going to work diligently to keep this thing better updated - I know it's been quiet and I keep saying that we're working on a lot of stuff in the background to get ready for an entire relaunch of the project. It's hard to believe when there is nary a word to be heard out of the project, isn't it?

Anyway, I just wanted to show you a sample of what is to come. This is a pin-up for our first print project, The Rise and Fall of Pileaus.
The book is going to be penciled by Alan Gallo and colored by me (Jeremy Mohler). We've got 15 pages completely penciled and just waiting on me to color, which I plan to tackle in late November/early December.

Aside from that, Shannon Potratz is busy working on The Torn God, our web comic, and it is coming along quite nicely as well. Shannon is doing all the pencils and colors for that and it is looking quite sharp as well. Here is a preview of one of the pages he just completed.
I'll be posting up some more artwork in the following weeks as we draw closer and closer to the relaunch of the project. Please stay tuned!

Also, just as a quick note, we now have a variety of Baeg Tobar related imagery available as wall papers for your mobile devices (cell phones, PDA's, etc). You can download them here - http://www.playphone.com/Outland-Mobile/

Thanks!

Baeg Tobar News

Hello folks!

It's been a while since I updated things, but that doesn't mean we haven't been extremely busy. We have a LOT of interesting stuff coming together for the project (I know, I keep saying that but failing to post anything - all I can say is be patient, it's coming) and while it's going slow, we are making steady progress. I can't say how excited I am at some of the stuff that's happening behind the scenes right now. I'd love to show you all, but I don't want to give away too much too soon.

What I can say is that we just signed a rather large contract with Playphone to distribute all of our artwork as wallpapers for mobile devices. That's just one of the many things we are putting together for the relaunch of the project.

Thanks!

Jer

Changes in Baeg Tobar.

Hello folks!

Well, the first thing you'll notice is that the main Baeg Tobar website has been replaced with this blog. It may not appear like it is forward progress, but let me reassure you that it, indeed, is. And while there hasn't been much, if any, activity on either the website or the forums lately, allow me to also reassure you that we are far, far, from dead.

There has been allot of behind the scenes activity going on lately. Namely, I have acquired a new business partner (please allow me to welcome Matt Jacobs to the project), whom I have been diligently working with to create a sturdy plan for the future of Baeg Tobar. So, 2008 should prove to be a very interesting year for the project. Just to give you all a few hints at what we're working on -

- We have a MMO game in the works that you will all be able to play for free on our website.
- I am working with Scott Colby and Daniel Gooden (both long term contributors to the project) to create and develop one central, ongoing, storyline for the world. This will be done in the form of a web comic on the site, which like the game, will also be free to read and will feature weekly updates.
- Tons of new art from a dedicated team of artists, myself included.
- I am in talks with a publisher about doing print products of Baeg Tobar material, both comics and a table top RPG.

Plus, we have a number of other things lined up that I'm not quite ready to talk about just yet. Just know, things are looking good for the project in 2008.

That being said, we are planning to relaunch the project in the first quarter of 2008 with allot of new content and, of course, past content that you all know.

I'll be keeping this blog updated weekly with new bits and pieces about our progress.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a new piece of art from one of our creative team, Jeff Wamester. This is a sketch of Zho Xio, an Eashue "Legendary Hero" from the Shoro -

You can see more of Jeff's artwork at - http://www.stonegazepress.com and http://w4m1.deviantart.com.