In
my 35+ years of D&D gaming, I've spent most of that time as DM.
And, I've never run a game not set in my own campaign setting. So,
Avremier has undergone that much playtesting.
Having
often wished to have been involved in the early days of the game, it
was probably inevitable that some kind of effort at an Avremier homage
to the "little brown books" would at least be attempted. It is no secret
that the Avremier 0E project was intended as a personal thing. Some
neat nostalgic books for me, my players, and a few gaming friends. Maybe
a print run of ten or twelve copies. I was writing, illustrating,
editing, compiling, printing, and binding them myself. Being as lazy as I
am, the idea of larger printings was beyond comprehension.
But,
I shared the project on my Facebook wall. The response genuinely
stunned me. People were quite literally throwing money at me (through
PayPal) for a book I never intended to produce for purchase. The first
print run quickly expanded to thirty copies.
The
Avremier supplement was not something I'd considered marketable. It was
an homage to 0E Greyhawk. It was entirely written as an overview of my
own personal campaign setting. Who would want a vanity publication of a
setting they'd never heard of, published by a nobody like me, for a
ruleset that was obsolete more than thirty years ago? Lots of people.
Yeah - I was flummoxed. At the time, I was only peripherally aware of
the OSR. I had to start my own LLC (with a Facebook page). I ended up
doing a second print run. People "in the industry" were starting to
notice. 
Avremier
was the first of a nostalgic five-volume homage. Today, the fifth
volume is on-target for a mid-year release. Every volume pre-sells out.
Retailers are carrying copies for sale. Soon, the Mothshade Concepts DriveThruRPG store will open to the online public. I have no idea what
to expect then. But, I do have plans.
This rambling mess will be concluded in Part Three.
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