Going forward

 Play A bit of follow up on the last While the be thing is still in editing (slowly because I find editing my own work akin to using a cheese greater on one's own flesh but far less rewarding), the 'scribbling phase' is done.   That being the case, aside from some tweaks as play testing and any landmines from that are revealed (being, you know, the point of play testing....) the content as such is a set thing.   

About that - Sub-ether Zero zero is a MONSTER.  I toyed about with calling it a mega-zine for a bit but I can’t quite bring myself to do that. (ya’ll remember this started out as a 60 page zine idea right?  No? Well it did. But enthusiasm is a powerful thing. Now it’s a doorstop,) so … be aware we are now talking about something more book length. It is a hot mess of space fantasy horror high weirdness.  The tribes of space, citizens and worlds of the imperium, and...

There’s a lot in there. 

 So I can talk a bit about what I want to do next. 

-         Abandon hope ye who do not wish to keep up with bouncy free text ramble -

     First I still want to do the zine! 

     So between stuff written for the zine/ashcan when it was still of reasonable length, and bunches of other stuff, cut content and lots cut from the book above and beyond, I’ve got about … a lot of extra stuff.   Much of which is interesting but I just can’t justify packing into an already overweighed thing.  So if I do these, these are each going to be themed and will kind of drill down deeper into the setting established in Sub-ether Zero zero.  Each should have (at least) several articles, scenario seeds or full adventures, a full class, a worlds of the imperium article, and likely some critters as I do love to make monsters.

AS stands I’ve got two short (one might even say…zine length.  Go ahead, laugh.) maybe issues and by theme, seven clearly sketched out, SHOULD I even decide to go this route.  (This route which, you know, I do keep thinking is going to be easier than is.  All of this aside from the actual writing part is new to me so I am going slowly. But as I do prefer to learn what and how as I go this is preferential if tedious.   Maybe not confidence inspiring but honest – and I’m doing this for me anyway. )

 Poor Nethermancer’s Spellbook

The cursed tome.  Indulgent and so pro’ly something to put on the backburner - esp since I have to start from scratch on these (the 17 or so I had of these were lost in January’s hard drive failure and EVERYTHING was lost in the subsequent two computer fails. 2018 has exacted a rough toll) but the Poor Nethermancer’s Spellbook would be just that, 50 (space or on topic themed) spells for DCC.  Not sure when this would be in the cards, but it’s still something I’m thinking about.

Galaxies Black
Something I’ve mentioned to a few of you individually (Mostly you Chris!)  But want to mention is Galaxy Black - a campaign generator and kind of a follow up Sub-ether Zero zero.    It started (back in the mists of time of mid 2011) as an attempt to do an SF version of the Ready Ref Sheets, so it also has the advantage of being a wholly anachronistic follow up.  As it stands the thing that prevents this from being ready for prime time is my sake of completeness – and in this case that completeness is part of the point of the book.  Ideally the thing, when done, will help, inspire, or aid you in creating a horror themed science fantasy campaign setting, by choice or random roll, from the critters up to worlds, sectors, polities, and gods.  (You might get the impression I have a hard time doing things small.)

It’s being written, has been “being written” since 2011 and will pro’lly take a few more years to finish if we’re honest.  Assuming I don’t die first. 

Which, you know, that heart attack thing has reminded me is a distinct possibility.

Other stuff

I had a thing for the GFA that being internetless for six weeks utterly prevented me from getting in.  I’ll drop that somewhere, at some point, pro’lly with a bit less edited profanity than would have been the case.   It’s a follow up to my hex from last year (2017).  I don’t think anyone but +Jarret Crader has seen the thing (tho the copy I shared out was BLOATED and pre first hard drive crash) – an extended patron write up and a load of magic items and monsters.

Other stuff

But not worth mentioning.  None of this covers things I have done/did for other folk or may be under contractual obligation to do. This is all just my stuff.   

Yeah I know I'm doing this all in the wrong order.  Bite me.  It ought to be my tag line – “Oh no, I run a shoddy, no budget operation.” J

 Stuff is done when it’s done, not before, not later.  Any attempt on my part to say otherwise has gotten smacked down by the universe so I shall do no such thing.   That said, all irons are in the fire right now.  Aside from the process of living life itself, I have no other commitments on my time from here on out, save what entropy, anxiety, and Mr. Death can get out of me.

More Sub-ether blather.

I’ve had but a small number of informal pick up playtests so far; nothing earth shattering but success is not always measured in Epic Amounts.  Honestly being able to run a game without being an anxiety ridden mess is victory enough.  2018 has been rough.  (Living with anxiety as a constant companion makes things like playtests interesting.  The knowledge that any time that any social situation could theoretical go immediately south because of your Own Damn Brain can harsh any mellow under the right circumstances.  Much fun.)

The best thing to come out of it and, if I’m honest, one of the best things anyone’s ever said to me came out of it though.  A play tester said it was like an “EC comics version of Warhammer 40K.”

That’s an IIIIInteresting take.  Wrap it up though, I will happily take it.  

I have a deep and abiding fondness for the original WH40K Rogue Trader and there’s a bit of that love in this book, but if there’s a warhammer comparison I would say the Empire is more like the Old World / Empire of Warhammer Fantasy than it is the Imperium of Man.  THAT I would call an apt comparison.

(That said, could you run a 40K DCC game with it?  Yes. At the least it’d get you started.  Ya’ll are a clever bunch though and can – and do – wing it all the time.  I’m not worried.)

It’s a ‘serious’ toolkit/setting book in that you could pick it up and run some (I think) pretty kick ass DCC space adventures with it in the course of whatever a normal campaign is for you without a massive tonal shift save maybe smudging a bit closer to horror than DCC genuinely hews.  With the proviso that my stuff tends to run to the surreal and horrific anyway….though it is packed with little funny bits (well, I hope) because I like to remind you all not to take this more seriously than we have to.

 It’s a GAME. After all.   A thing we do for fun. I hope it doesn’t take you out of the text too much.

Besides, we could all do with a little more amusement nowadays I think.  

But I apologize for nothing. Ultimately, this is a thing that’s been trying to get out of my head since I was five or six.  Yes, of course it’s self-indulgent but who else is going to indulge me? 

Enjoy your fantastic space horrors

A Real Update and some design blather

 Playtesting has been leaning this way for a while but last weekend nailed it.  So in part I have spent this week (to a limited degree, there’s been a lot on my plate not related at all to gaming) tearing the psychic powers up and redoing them.   

This grates but it makes for a better (by far) end product - also I have lost my proofreading and layout slave to the wilds of a summer semester and a move for the next month so any thoughts I might have had about dropping this in the next few months. just went twip so there’s no great temporal pressure as is.   I do have an awful lot of free time on my hands tho.  (See prev.)  Which, at least in itself, is good as I’ve now been at this thing long enough that I’m wanting done with it.  

So far the best thing to happen in playtesting by far was the apprentice wizard smiting a bunch of space pirates with The Means of Production.   I think the causal spell needs tweaking. (Could I possibly vague that up for you? Yes YES I Could. Don't tempt me.) 

I’m at a point though where the extra time is good for being able to make little playtest kits, which is a good thing.  I’ve got two stable casts of pregens (the low level party and the 0 level party) which represent a decent enough spread of what’s in the book so far BUT still keeping many surprises.  A couple of classes, all with varying levels of new mechanics, some simple, some not, and then lots of other moving parts.  Testing them all one at a time though, which is very beneficial to the process but tbh kind of tedious.

ANYWAY

This is kind of a lengthy update so far, but that’s because it’s been a long time in coming and also because I’m about to start packing everything up for a move (end of the month) so I want to push this while it’s still current.

So what’s in the damn book?

Right now?  The ad copy would sound like this

3 character classes

5 levels of psychic powers

Psionics

Patrons

Alien creatures, parasites, needle guns, gods and

Loads of Undead

An alternative system for Chargen for the Judge (or the players) to populate the star lanes with.

The Free Tribes of Space

And the roiling multicoloured madness of the the Sub-ether

Life and death in a collapsing universe,

ΞΞ  Sub-ether Zero zero 

Or some sort of marketing soundy bullshit like that.  But an accurate if wildly unhumble assessment. 

AlSO RELEVANT

Once set up in the new place I should have space and time (!!!!) sufficient to start a serious playtest game of some kind going.  I have not run a game online in a long time (2004) and I’m not sure how I would go about it BUT if there’s interest here (be it hangouts or some other means/platform) I think I’m ready to start throwing this at folk in a big (well bigger) way.

In the highly unlikely environment where someone would be similar levels of both masochistic and anti-captialist as to contemplate a servile role as “sawbuck compensated proofreader”, please contact this office immediately. :P

So some playtester feedback / inspired FAQ

So this started as a thing to answer some questions and took on a life of it’s own.  So…putting it here.

So some playtester feedback / inspired FAQ

So Saurids - are they supposed to be dragonborn?

Um...they can be if that’s an archetype that works for you and your table. But more to the point they were intended to call to mind the large, leathery reptilian alien of the golden age, oft an enemy, sometimes an ally, mostly it should be admitted, on the more lurid covers of some of the pulps.  

Also various conceptions of upright dinosaur people, and bluntly, fading memories of playing a mistress race troll in someone’s one off runequest 3e game in the mid-80s.

If there’s a thing I wanted to callback to it would definitely be the Klegs from Judge Dredd, with maybe a helping of Gorn on the side.

In-universe, while the draco forms probably tinkered with their evolution a bit early on, there isn’t any other hard link between the two.  Unless you want there to be of course.  I know I beat this into the ground but it’s your game.

What about the insecivroids?

Those are actually named after my own childhood mispronunciation of Insectivorid, the species that Bug (from the classic Bill Mantlo micronauts comic) belonged to.  

By name it can be (probably) inferred that all of them were uplifted from a common species that primarily consumed other insectoid life forms.

What’s the deal with Manifesters? (Psions)

A question I never anticipated honestly.  Bu tI get it a lot.  I like the idea that psychic power is, since it’s grounded in your biology, in your neurology, that it burns you out as you use it.  Also since it drawns more on your own inner power reserves rather than (at first) things from elsewhere it really does a number on you...but on the flip side you can offset that by using a psionic device or through other technological means.

But of course as they increasingly draw from other places - other universes and planes to call upon and fuel their power, it draws those places closer and affects things on other, maybe more subtle levels.

And one of those levels is the one that lets them use their kind of gimped powers to break the universe, recharging power cells and stuff that on a low key sort of level can make any PC party near invincible.

Which is, again, by design.  I wanted psychic powers to be a distinctive thing and a distinct unique (or so) take on psi powers BUT also to compliment divine and chaos magic as it exists in the dcc core.

Are there any other classes?

Yes.  I’m working on a Field Scientist class (which is meatier than you might think), a Gunfighter, and one or two others.  There’s another branch of psychic powers I haven’t let out the bag yet and a class to use them. :)

What’s the class?

Still in flux but right now imagine if Jedi had different, warring schools, like in Golden Harvest or Shaw Bros films.  Honestly at the moment it’s hewing a lot closer to a psion as martial artist than any kind of jedi thing but there is a group of them that specialize in energy blades.   

I’m also still tinkering with a dedicated Navigator class.

There may be some surprises in the Legion book too.

Legion book?

Well, the first issue of the zine.  Um.  When I started all this, there was going to be an inaugural sort of ashcan, and then some zines to build up support for a book.  

Obviously I tossed that out on like day two.  But that was the idea.  Anyway, unless there is just no interest at all when Zero drops or some other explodey plan thing happens I still plan on doing the zines, or at least the issues I have planned.  The first one is going to be the military SF one;  lots of weapons, and general starship troopers action. Yes with battlesuits.

But if you are looking for a coherent design philosophy from me it's this - meticulously plan step one.  Step two, ignore step one and all it's works in favor of the cool thing You Just Wrote Seconds Ago.   Step three, wing it. 

I’d say there’s a step four – profit, but I’m almost certainly going to give all of this away for free or as near as.  We po’ kids need cool toys too.   

And now a word about the Zero Levels

Before you get down my gullet for the “overpowered’ zeros realize that most of them will not be starting with weapons of any kind.   That means they aren’t proficient in ANYTHING til level 1. Impose that shit.

Also the weapon charts reflect the HD loadout of the galaxy around it.  IT will likely not be the problem you think it is.

In any case I find that in practice roughly three Sub-ether zeros equal about four from the core book so it balances out IMO.

Anything else?

It’s not a setting…

IT’s a toolkit book that has some setting elements* but it’s up to you to decide how you want to use them in your game.  That said you can pick it up and use it verbatim *as* a setting….provided you like filling in details on your own and as you go.   You could (and should) regard the material that *is* in the book as examples because as presented that’s what they are.  Of course I’ve put a lot of work into those “examples” but the point, as indeed, is the point of almost all my game writing, is to fire the imagination of the Judge and their players; if I have inspired or suggested ideas, then my job is done. Everything else, to me is gravy.

You see one of the best ways to counter the Forgetten Realms effect, where every minute detail has been categorized and extrapolated to death, is to not put but a handful of facts down and let the Judge and their players do what they will.

But that’s always my M.O. I make things to inspire stuff for you to do at your table.  Use this book and it’s contents literally HOWEVER you like.   Change what you want.  Hack the thing and use it in some chaos fueled Bunnies & Burrows/Top Secret crossover (tho if you do that TELL ME ABOUT IT)

There are over a million worlds in the imperium and more added every day. Add your own. 

*with every passing day however this becomes less and less the case