EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE / TEKUMEL is the obvious leader in the same feeling of saturation in "alien" with varieties of humanity in competition for a world. It has has a similar path of being lost and regrown and had a modest success in its rebirth and representation. Modest is good.
NUMENERA has a lot of the flavor - saturation in a world of humans gone strange with time and the lost sense of history or technology. Big in discovery. And very much a 21st Century inheritor of the great art mantle set by Miles Teves when most small press game art was from buys in ball point pen and notebook paper when they were supposed to be paying attention to class. Really great art. They have posted several free previews and just did another one that might be of interest.
But JORUNE has been away so long, I wonder if the audience can find it again. Part of it is, I'm sure, my complete crap skills with promotion. But what would draw people to it if not just nostalgia?
Part of it also looking at the fourth title out, the fifth title in prep, and several others at various stages of completion. I have a grand total 12 subscriptions, with seven single copies. Sales through DriveThruRPG is less than a dozen copies of everything combined. You can't sustain a viable product with seventeen sales. (And a LOT of free copies.)
There is the matter of the vacuum. Four products, less than a dozen copies sold of the titles combined, with a half dozen people making a comment. No actual feedback.
Frustrating. I go through this kind of doubt from time to time. I think it is part of a healthy periodic self-assessment, and it becomes more important when you are spending a great deal of time dealing with a world that doesn't exist. Necessary, even. It is a Dreamtime, completely voluntary Dreamtime – it does not have the spiritual truth that the word draws itself from. But it is there and has had a number of healing qualities, and other values. For a long time. For me.
But I wonder of about for other people.
But I wonder of about for other people.
Fortunately, I don't have all of my eggs in the Jorune basket. But there is a passion I have for Jorune than any other game world. I have other fictional settings that appeal to me. Only one really called to me in gaming - pulp, the era between the wars, and all the window dressings that go with it. Some fiction I want to write, some of which is lost colony flavored like Jorune, and other that is much more about religion, and social commentary.
But I still would like to see Jorune find its audience. that isn't happening, even with the Yahoo group, the Facebook pages, and some fairly high level, intelligent correspondence with a few people.
Yet.
That word stays there, too.
Back to work.
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