Over the past few years, the pdf releases have begun to show their age. While they were acceptable facsimiles when originally released, they don’t stand up to too much scrutiny when using more modern graphics cards and monitors. The decision was made to completely revamp the existing pdfs that contain graphic elements with better quality, higher-resolution scans. However, using “raster” graphic formats will always result images that don’t scale well when zoomed. This is particularly apparent in line-drawings and in images which contain text.

Enter the svg format, which instead of storing data as a raster image, stores it as a vector. This allows for a number of improvements over the original files:

• Black-and-white images now scale perfectly, even at maximum zoom. No more blockiness or ugly grey ‘wisping’ around the lines;
• Text has been replaced with actual type and can be highlighted; it also zooms perfectly;
• Non-standard text has been replaced with specially-created fonts to enhance the legibility.

The following documents have been updated to take advantage of this improvement in quality:

• Combat Heroes series (Black Baron, White Warlord, Emerald Enchanter, Scarlet Sorcerer)
• The Skull of Agarash
• The Magnamund Companion
• The Lone Wolf Poster Painting Book
• The Lone Wolf Anniversary Calendar
• Legends of Lone Wolf Vignettes
• Lone Wolf Replacement Artwork
• Games Master #4 (Lone Wolf-themed articles)

Also improved is the compilation of the Lone Wolf Club Newsletters, which has been completely revamped page-by-page to enhance readability by replacing virtually all text elements with actual type and implementing a comprehensive bookmark system to help you find exactly what you’re looking for across its 400+ pages. Note that only the complete compilation is now available; we have discontinued the 37 separate Newsletter documents.

The upgraded Lone Wolf Club Newsletters particularly benefit from the use of vector graphics. Wherever possible, images taken from the original books have been replaced with high-resolution vector versions making the Newsletters the best quality that have ever been. The quality of Combat Heroes, too, is much increased, and the four books are now much more user-friendly.

The intention is to make use of higher quality SVGs in the Project Aon editions of the books, but we are looking into upgrading the webpage format (from xhtml 1.0 transitional to the more modern html5) in order to do this more easily, so we currently have no ETA for that, or for pdf editions of the actual books.

The Story So Far…

You are Dorst, retainer and personal guard to Baroness Coryene of Gadorvo, a city in the Republic of Palmyrion. You have faithfully served the Baroness and her family for twenty-seven years, ever since you were given shelter at their chateau one cold, rainy night in the late autumn of the year MS 5050.…

Although you visit the shrines to the Goddess Ishir along with the Baroness, who has grown from a gawky tomboy to a beautiful noblewoman while in your charge, you have never before partaken in any form of prayer, devotion, or worship to the Moon Queen. Yet just these past few weeks, you have found yourself waking in the night, restless, troubled by dreams you cannot recall, save for a pair of glowing red eyes that glare at you malevolently from a face covered by a metal helm. Several times now you have beseeached Ishir for her protection, yet she does not listen, despite the Baroness’ assurance that Ishir will never turn away the prayers of anyone in need. Why would the kind Goddess abandon you after many years of faithful service to her worshippers?

And yet there is a reason, one that you cannot remember. For you are Dorst. But you are not Dorst.…

Attention fellow Kai

A full and unexpurgated report of the last twelve months’ activity of the elusive and secretive “Aon Project” has been leaked into the wild. It lists their achievements and experiments during 2011, and even projects their work over the coming year, though we all know how inaccurate those forecasts usually are.

On no account must we allow this information to be ignored or censored. To that end, I have placed it online, at great risk to myself. Hopefully, they won’t be able to find me before this information gas gone global. It is linked from this secret URL:

http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/ProjectAonAnnualReports

Be sure to publicise this, fellow Kai, before this secret brotherhood steal back the secrets of their nefarious schemes. Their secrecy knows no bounds, and they will stop at nothing to hide their very existence from the world.

What was that…? I’m sure I heard something downstairs…

—
Simon Osborne
(Project Aon)