I worked on the AvV campaign saga today. The outline is not yet finished, but its scope is within sight. Consider this:
8000 words per adventure (x) 3 adventures per level (x) 20 levels per adventure path (x) 10 adventure paths = 4,800,000 words to tell a story that covers 120 years of alternate history.
I won’t be writing all that myself, fortunately. Once the outline is done, I’ll start hiring freelancers to help develop it.
However, at a production rate of 1 adventure per week, I could produce a full adventure path in a little over a year (60 weeks). So it would still take 12+ years of actual time to produce the entire story. And the reality is probably more like 20 years… and I’m already 47…. The final product would be a 10 volume set of hardcover adventure books. Each volume would be roughly 450 pages and cover 20 levels of adventure. Each adventure path would overlap and link together in a larger epic saga that spans the time from Alexander’s death to the end of the Second Punic War.
As of right now, I need at least three more months of planning and research before I can say for sure what this project will be. In the meantime, some aspects of it are already in development. Even if this entire project never comes to fruition, there are still parts of it that can be developed, such as the crime dramas in Athens or the Siege of Agrigentum that I am working on. Neither of those stories are the beginning, however. To start at the beginning, I’ll need the entire outline done, and that’s still a few months away.
