Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Content

Greetings Readers!

Starting today, with the first strip of Chapter 4 of A Chronicle of Thieves, Chronicle will officially be making the move to providing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition content.

If you followed us in the past, you may have seen content produced for Pathfinder and wonder why we made the move to Dungeons & Dragons and specifically 5e. The truth is that Dungeons & Dragons has always been the rule system of Chronicle. It began as an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign and evolved into a 3rd Edition campaign. Pathfinder, in my eyes, was always seen as an extension of D&D especially when I found it hard to convert my already written content to 4th Edition. That being said, I don’t have that problem with 5th Edition, as I find it easy to create and convert content for 5e.

So, what can you expect from the D&D content? Well, each week there will be some piece of game material that accompanies the strip. It may be a stat block for a cast character, NPC or monster, it may be a new subclass or subrace, it may be a new magic item, or it might even be a one-page encounter.

This week, we’re starting off with something basic, the Brotherhood Guards. These guards bring a bit of muscle to back the investigators of the Ebon Path like Algernon.

These will all be collected under our The World of Chronicle section. If you have ideas for the types of content you would like to see, feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

We’ll see you next week with our first cast member stat block for Kereth!

The Chronicler Returns.

A familiar face walks in and sits down next to the fire. This face is older, with a few more lines and a bit more greying at the temples and in the beard, but it is him. How can this be? He disappeared almost two years ago! Some say he died, some say he burned out and walked away, and some say that he has been imprisoned in a troll’s den these past months. Whatever the case, he has appeared again, ready to continue his story and tell new ones.

He looks over at you and says, “Now then, where did I leave off.”

Your eyes are not deceiving you! This is a brand new post in the The Chronicler’s Notes! I have been gone for some time and have a lot of catching up to do but I am indeed back and ready to get back to it.

First off, let me say thank you to all of you who waited patiently and supported me while I was away. I never stopped thinking and writing about Chronicle, but life got in the way of producing a weekly comic strip. Let me answer a couple of questions.

So, what specifically happened?

Well, lots of life changes. The first was that I got a new job (again) that required a lot of focus as I got into the groove there. My children started school and suddenly we had homework, Cub Scouts, and piano lessons at night! Finally, there was my health. I was finding it harder and harder to stay awake at night to even be able to work on Chronicle. I would literally fall asleep with my stylus in my hand and wake up two hours later with no progress to speak of.

So, what changed?

The good news is that most of this has righted itself. My new job is great and I have lots of co-workers who support my comic. My kids are getting older and becoming more self-sufficient. They’ve also figured out that I’m a comic artist and want me to draw more. My health - well, I’m losing weight and have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. I’m getting it under control, but there’s still a ways to go.

I started writing for Meeple Mountain, a tabletop gaming news site and that stirred the creativity a bit. Go give them some love, they helped me get back on track and are great people.

Also, I just got back from GaryCon XI where I was able to talk to so many wonderful people about my work and they were genuinely interested and wanted to check it out. With that kind of energy boost, now is the time to get back into it.

So, what can you expect from Chronicle?

• First, weekly strips as often as possible. I can’t guarantee there won’t be a gap, but there won’t be another hiatus if I can help it.

• Second, I really want to put out more of the RPG material that I’ve written for Chronicle. I have converted most of it to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition and want to share that with people.

• Third, new stories! I have a few ideas for Chronicle stories outside of The Chronicle of Thieves. Which leads us to the big one…

• Chronicle turns 20 years old this year! This all started out as a self-published comic book back in 1999 and has been building ever since! To celebrate, there will be some 20th anniversary material showcasing Chronicle’s roots. More to come on that down the road.

Starting today, there will be a new strip each week and it will begin with the “lost last strip of Chapter 3.”
I actually drew this last strip before I headed off to interview for my new job and I never got around to publishing. That was quite the cliffhanger to leave you guys with!

Come back again next week for an all-new Chronicle strip with some surprise guests!

See you then…

THAN

Chronicle Lives!

A Chronicle of Thieves, Chapter 3 returns next week, just in time for the second anniversary of Chronicle! Stay Tuned for more updates!

Chronicle in the New Year!

Greetings Chroniclers!

It's the new year and time for some updates!

This week we finish up our interlude, A Tough Crowd in Toryavik! I hope you've enjoyed this little story introducing two of our new characters. Kereth and Pav will be making an encore appearance later this year!

January 30th is the First Anniversary of Chronicle! To celebrate, we'll be kicking off Chapter Two of Autumn's story, which now has the official title, A Chronicle of Thieves! To get ready for this, I will be taking a few weeks off to get a few strips ahead. In the downtime, I will be posting up some concept art and sneak previews of things to come. Make sure to follow me on social media to catch some of this!

I also want to thank everyone who stopped by in 2014! Our final page view count was 39,837! Not too bad for a little fantasy comic/art site! We had 17,993 unique visits and 14,095 unique visitors! I know that if I had not faltered in my updates in the back half of the year and did just a bit more promotion we would have hit 50,000. My goal for the next year is to hit 100,000 page views. I know we can do it guys!

Some of you may be wondering what happened with the other material like the Character Codex and Fun Art Friday. Basically, after I got a new day job my evening schedule changed and I had to cut back on things to keep the comic going. I hope to get back to those features this year because I really do love drawing things besides my characters. It will just take some time.

Keep an eye out for some site changes. I will be revamping the archive soon and making some other cosmetic changes.

That's about it! I look forward to Chronicle in the new year and I hope you do as well!

Take care, 

Than

Chronicle Returns in Two Weeks!

The first chapter of Chronicle is finished!

With the Haven Thieves' Guild thoroughly dismantled, what will Autumn do now? What happened to Elias and the Adventurers? Who made it out of the Brotherhood's raid alive and are Thalin and Elysia doomed to prison... or worse? Find out soon!

Chronicle will return in two weeks with a new corner of our world as we are introduced to a couple of new characters in an interlude tale called "A Tough Crowd in Toryavik."

In the meantime, I will be posting up preview sketches and artwork on tumblr. If you follow me on social media (and why aren't you?!) you'll get those updates as well.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who has supported Chronicle. We're averaging about 150 page views a day. That's a tiny number on the internet but to me it's huge. That means people are reading it. Every retweet, every share, every reblog, and every +1 really means something. It's a lot of work to get a weekly strip out when you have a full-time job and a family. So whenever I see someone share my work woth their friends it tells me that it's worth it. So, thank you all very much!