Client: John Wick Presents
Project Scope: Book layout. Card deck layout.
Project Description: A 208-page hardback book for roleplaying in 7th Sea. Two 54-card decks featuring heroes and villains for the game.
The first sourcebook in the 7th Sea line, Heroes & Villains included eighty of the one hundred four characters designed for the Deck of Heroes and Deck of Villains. The sourcebook was based on the existing trade dress (designed by me), with additional design challenges, primarily with the client requesting full-page character sheets for the various people presented in the book. Decks and sourcebook are printed in full color as physical and pdf objects.
The decks involved creating a template for the backs with abbreviated statistics for the heroes and villains, abilities that changed during the course of the project. The writing staff had limited space to work with, originally 70 words for history, but eventually rewritten in character count instead of word count. Room had to be left on the back for character name, nation, (an optional) secret society, basic statline, a list of goals, and a history/bio section. The front had to convey artwork, name, an in-character quote, and heroic/villainous subtype.
We had not developed a statblock for 7th Sea in our trade dress treatments prior to this book. Again, our writers were constrained with a very small word count for filling the column. A choice was made to use page references for some character aspects and full text for others.
Packaging for the card decks was created with multiple rounds of revisions and templates from the printers. Physical decks were shipped with the 7th Sea Booty Box, a Kickstarter-backer perk that offered the two decks, a deck of tarot-sized cards, poker chips, and dice. Packaging for each element was created by me, as was a GM Screen that was released alongside the Booty Box.
