D&D Licensed Tools: Morningstar!

This has appeared on WotC’s website:We are excited to announce our newest licensee, Trapdoor Technologies. Trapdoor is working on an integrated toolset and rules knowledge base to support the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Combining rules, character sheets, and adventures together into a clean interface, Trapdoor’s goal is to create tools for Dungeon Masters and players that will allow for fast and easy management of their game. Known for now as Codename: Morningstar, the tools will have a limited playtest at Origins Game Fair.To learn more about Codename: Morningstar, Trapdoor Technologies and how to participate in the upcoming beta, visit codenamemorningstar.com.There’s nothing at the site quite yet, but it looks like we now know a little more about WotC’s plans for online tools! Origins Game Fair is this week, June 11-15, so hopefully we’ll hear more soon! [43 comments]There’s a test login box here. You won’t be able to do anything with it, but it shows something’s happening! Screenshot below. If you go to trapdoortechnologies.com that’s what you get. Trapdoor technologies describes itself thusly “Trapdoor Technologies is a Boulder, CO-based pioneer in enhanced digital publishing software. Our flagship product, The Story Machine, is a scalable, automated, cloud-based publishing engine offering integrated interactive features for digital books, documents, and periodicals. Published for tablets and smart phones running iOS and Android, our interactive digital applications are focused on simplicity and leveraging how people actually learn, explore and play.” Their “cloud based” previous work and the login box (below) seem to point strongly towards an online suite of tools, rather than downloadable tools, but it’s too early to tell yet. Perhaps it’ll be subscription based like DDI for D&D 4E, but again that’s just conjecture right now. For all we know, behind that login screen is a downloads area!Trapdoor Technologies and its The Story Machine product seem to be absent from the web. It was founded in 2009 by Christopher Mackey, and has under 10 employees. Mackey has a personal website called Dragonsford which indicates that he’s clearly a gamer, though the site looks very old.They have an imprint, Trapdoor Books with a number of titles available, and an Android app. Their Facebook page talks a lot about e-books as apps (they sell this one on iTunes and a bunch more) and says “At Trapdoor, our goal is to build a publishing platform specifically designed for 21st century needs. We have reinvented the book to be a living companion in the quest for knowledge and inspiration. Its our belief that stories are not linear, but instead a multipath composition of insight and creativity. To us, how your story is told is just as important as the story itself. New paradigms require an open mind, and it is only through an open mind, that the imagination can become truly unlocked.” Their Google+ page says “Trapdoor Publishing Technologies, Inc. develops software to enable book publishers to efficiently and economically create Enhanced eBooks that can be distributed to any readers iPhone, iPad and Android mobile device, including the Kindle Fire and the NOOK to better connect authors with readers.Our team has decades of software industry experience serving vertical industries, like book publishing, and in solving complex technical challenges regardless of industry. Team members software credentials span enterprise, SaaS, iPhone, iPad and Android mobile apps, middleware and database solutions, among others. We know how to collaboratively build, deploy, and support software applications for customers.We also understand book publishing. Through our wholly-owned imprint, Trapdoor Books, weve managed the key workflows and business processes confronting every book publisherparticularly for digital publishing. Trapdoor Books serves as our R&D laboratory, helping us to improve our publishing software and workflows. We benefit by close interactions with authors, and their loyal readers, to better understand how best to design, develop and deliver Enhanced eBooks.”Thanks to Vicente Cartas for helping dig up this info!