Just in time for your funky Halloween games

                                 

Splinters are dangerous things, dangerous to the unit-individual in particular. A single encounter with the wrong alternate version of an element from the past or unpleasing present can unseat anyone; any general, any arch mage, any high and mighty personage, person of state or member of the power elite.

Just one.

Tread carefully, reflections in infinite glass lead mostly to madness.

 Splinters - Sailing Across the Seas of Probability 

Is your guide to the infinite worlds of the ominiverse, from Splinter universes both like and unlike your own, true parallels, and the outer branes of the spiral vortex, this expands the cosmology for your Galaxy Black game and  provides a bevy of new possibilities for the die-hard DCC enthusiast.

 

There is a strong Appendix N tradition of people from here being drawn to otherwhere, it’s almost founded on it.

Dead people who have escaped the Underworld, pirates from the south China sea 75 years after world war 3, secret assassin-surgeons of 18^th century Free France, all in one party.

Interdimensional media trade

The Gatecrashers Syndicate

 

Take your game to the infinite

 

--- Crack the mirror here  ---

Q&A Splinters – Sailing on the Seas of Infinity

 At Dreaming Gynoid we love the rebels - 

Things I think you should know about the Splinters book

It is in many senses a Book of Worlds.   Some parallel some fundamental some very very esoteric. Some may sound familiar…some few may even be familiar but most of this Is not something you’ve seen before.   

So, let’s Q&A this shit.  Trust me I can hear these coming.  Relax.

We have Control. 

What is with al this rampant Christianity in this book?  Huh?  From You?

So look, Satan and Lilith are cited in the core book  -that means, Dark Lord willing, they are free to use on the table and Fair Play. 

So yes I’s there, so is my usual metric ass loads of faithful and remixed Greek Mythology (that’s a thing for me, if you maybe are  unaware of ……me at all)  which mix pleasantly in a nice post classic Milton-Faust stew.  

Hey if it came rom Blavatsky it’s the D&D cosmology.  Which isn’t this – this is DCC – but I can do similar things to get a particular effect.  

In Any case, for those who care about such things, this continues with the Book of Scarlet Abomination and some of my non-games work as doing double duty as a work of esoterica. 

In this case, the whole Splinters book and by extension one can infer the underlying cosmology of all of my DCC books then, is one of (to quote my darling spouse)  “Total Gnostic Bullshit” albeit mixed heavily with a highly feminist spin on all things rabbinical and apocryphal. 

There are no long winded speculations on the nature of Sophia (well there is but you won’t recognize it as such) but it is  HEAVILY implied that Adam was made from the rib of Lilith who then fucked off as she had better things to do than stick around in this walled garden. 

Nothing really earth shattering but Statements of purpose and intent nonetheless. Workings. Sigils. Whatever the kids call them these days.  

It’s all Art To ME.  

Is this a Judges book?  A players? Book?

There aren’t a lot of actual Supplement type books for DCC (by design) so I have cut this weird little niche out here where that’s basically all I do.   Traditiaonlly my assumption has always been it’s he Judge reading the book (at least) which is as much for economic reasons as anything else.  I do like to give players stuff though even if I despise the sort of 3e era of “Constant Stream of Player Stimulation” splatbook bloat. Ew. 

Let me put it this way

There are a bunch of weird zero levels in this book

There is a strong Appendix N tradition of people from here being drawn to otherwhere, it’s almost founded on it.  I thought it would be an interesting way to get across the different alternate worlds by making them sources of zero levels to be whisked away to wherever the Judge wants.

At a con sometime someone REALY should use this book to spawn Zeros for a game of Intrigue At the Courts of Chaos.     Dead people who have escaped the Underworld, pirates from the south China sea 75 years after world war 3, secret assassin-surgeons of 18th century Free France, all in one party.  A fun headache for any Judge who has run that one before. 

Big ups to this by the way, one of my total faves of the whole DCC line as it’s just so unexpected on every level.   And you can remix it ENDLESSLY

(Someone gave the Egg to Tamarah once.  MISTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE;  the Lords of Chaos wee amused…and quite pissed) 

The adventure I have planned as he follow up to the Patrons of the Fairy Chaos book is heavily influenced by Courts of Chaos in that it’s a fish out of water scenario at a wedding of cosmic entities…all of whom have agendas  IF I ever finish it.)  

Anything else you want peeps to know?

While I’ve thought about this as my Big Moorcock book to a certain extent  (Though parts of Galaxy Black really fit that appellation far better) I should have to say that postproduction this is even more my Big Zelazny book.  

Both Amber series, the Dilvish books, even some obscure stuff like a few items from Unicorn Variations and Eye of Cat.   (Obscure stuff I’m not lifting anything here.  But I am shameless about showing my references. It’s part of the game’s tradition AFAIAC;  DCC stealth elevates the whole hobby every time it goes on about its sources IMO- EMBRACE THE LITRACHA)

Also this by itself paired off with the DCC rulebook makes for a wicked weird basic urban fantasy hack.   I think if you glance at the right angle you can see Numinagents from there.  (another place you can see bits and bobs of both Numinagents and its twisted companion Nomads lay int  creature makers in the Judges Guide.  Deliberate plug. 

Maybe somewhere down the road I will take this and the Fair Folk books and bits and pieces of other things (lots from the Tammy book) and make some strange Coraline/Labyrinth/Neverwhere/Newford /Under London type Urban Fantasy book thing for DCC.   

That would need to be a really pretty book though. I wouldn’t feel right otherwise

Anything else?

Yeah I really want to run a magical girl type game lately I don’t know why.   It may involve gemstones or dinosaurs or both if I’m feeling saucy.  We’ll see what happens.  This is pretty much me trolling for willing victims. 

Also, it’s not in the book but your DCC characters  _really_ should have not problems finding the world of Etherscope or something very much like it if they go playing bout the stuff in the Splinters book at all.   The clever reader will see it.  That was a great book. 

IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL IF SOMEONE DID AN  DCC UPDATE 

SPLINTERS sailing the seas of infinity 

 releases the first week of November 2021 

Sub-ethernat ranked patreon backers will see it substantially earlier however. 

Patron Design Tricks - For those stuck on designing a patron I share this

I love designing patrons, they are (among)( my favorite thing about DCC - one day I am going to run a variant without clerics and no wizard magic other than patron magic but give that to all the classes.   

But anyway. I do love patrons and I love designing them, though the latter was not always true.  Patrons often appear deceptively easy to create fully until you sit down and realize you either do not have enough for a full patron or you need to whittle it down to a more focused single thing.   IT can be a real challenge, especially when you are creating new original material and so lack the yardstick of a more familiar thing.   

Even then, executing an end result that anyone wants to play with ever is almost a second skill set.  I used to have a much harder time breaking down patrons and making their design nay good – especially in sorting out What (of the idea) goes where? 

Then at some point I recognized that they are all legendary, in the folkloric sense.

 What do you mean LEGENDARY?   Here’s what I mean - Once I realized that the one defining element in the game world  (within the fiction) that ALL patrons have in common is being Legends, then designing them became easy and a lot more fun.   Taints? You become like them. Cool.  Do they have curses they are laboring under? Now you do too.   Spells? Well, what is the legend’s story? What is the legend? 

The three spells are what happened in the legend.  You tell the story by describing the spells and their effects.  

Its’ a neat medium to work in and I love writing mythologies for things.  So it’s been bang on for me ever since.

Remember, the patrons you create are your (fantasy)’ settings folklore.  Build from there.

 Of course, you can call me on this as Through the Walls of Mistand Thorn contains no less than FIVE patrons, all very Fairyland themed (well psychedelics horror show Fairyland, _I_ wrote it)  and give me the what-for on my patron design. 😊 

now available Through the Walls of Mist and Thorn

now available from the Dreaming Gynoid.... 

Through the Walls of Mist and Thorn

Patrons of the Faery Chaos

A book of modern fairy, their rulers, what’s left of them, and how you can serve their many whims o’ vain and mortal child…..

5 Ladies of the Chaos to act as Patrons for your DCC game!

A comprehensive and immediately useable trip to Fairyland

Now available from DrivethruRPG  

and the Dreaming Gynoid Store 

The Gun Bat of the Taurochs

Endlessly inventive in their comparative low tech way of developing tech with which to raid imperial settlements, outposts and bases along the Rimward frontier in Pegasus, the most recent wave of Tauroch incursions brought with them an apparent new invention of one of their war smiths[1]

 

The Taurochian Hello

The Taurochian Gun Bat is, quite simply, a high end, hand tooled, hand machined steel composite bat (of the baseball variety) …with a pair of slug throwers embedded along one side with a pressure trigger and a bumper plate.

So yes, they hit you with the bat, but that bat then fires twin bullets into you at point blank range.

 

Gun Bat – melee,  1d6(bashing) +2d4(x2) on a successful hit as the person who was just smacked with the bat also had two .26 caliber slugs fired into/at them

Gun bat misfires or jams on a Fumble.  Requires two rounds to reload and be ready again to fire slugs

 

In fact, many of the more adventurous Taurochs have gotten into something of a friendly (?) competition with one another, customizing their Gun-bats to very Over the Top levels.  It started when one Tauroch huntress mounted spikes on the end of her bat for when the gun bat ran out of bullets, or she did not have time or temperament to reload. 

Eventually, a raider trained for most of a sideral to master fighting two weapons style with these absurd firearm cum sports gear weapons.

Rumors of a double ended spiked gun bat AND an equally absurd Gun-bat nunchuku are probably total dregg but those war bulls do like a lot of Bhlatt so anything is possible.  

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zHegXvEwdI

 (Inspired by this video here.  Worth the – quite ludicrous – watch.)

---

[1] In fact, there are an emergent caste of Clerics of Mu moving amongst them, who are being called to “join the Imperium” – though the aspect of Mu speaking to the Taurochen clans is rather less specific as to what “join” might entail. 

 

Fling yourselves against seems to be the current general usage.

Goblins?

Learn more about the little blighters here 

 

HOLY AGENTS! Agents of the Gods in the Empress Imperium

While the Imperial church is huge with millions of sentients in its direct service and countless billions more under it’s sway,  there are only a handful of clerics in the imperium at any given time.   Within the Imperial Volume, those of the faithful who work miracles and regularly wield the power of their deity are called Agents; Agents act with the broad legal authority of their God, regardless of what station they previously occupied within imperial space.

A copy of the DCC RPG rules, in particular the Cleric class, (DCC RPG p 28) will be required to make sense – and complete - of this variant.

Agent of (God)  - a dedicated Cleric variant for Galaxy Black

Galaxy Black V The Imperial Book of Common Prayer

When Is the Future?

 

The Might of the Holy Hexad of the Empress Imperium 

Crusade for Starfire

Invoke the Empress

Get caught up in the affairs of the Old Gods

The endless manipulations of the Angels of Man

Fight the return of the Lords of Ignorance.

 

Godmakers

Create your own gods your own pantheon

Chose which among them to fall with the demonmaker

Create a cult around them to aid or oppose the Holy Mother Imperial Church. 

Call on the Gods and Take The Stars for your faith

 

The human race is gone but humanity lives on, it’s culture and genome infecting a million worlds.

Nothing is ever forgotten Even in a Collapsing Universe; the struggle of Law and Chaos goes on.  
What is Galaxy Black?

Galaxy black is a science fiction and space fantasy toolkit for your DCC RPG game. A lightly gothic semi-humorous fantasy of the space future that was, and could still be, one day. With magic, bright colours, and deep implications. For everyone.

With Galaxy Black you should be able to fake your way through your favorite SF

franchise without any problems at all – from golden age space opera to grotty modern post-cyberpunk, from the gutter to the stars, and all points in between.

Galaxy black is also, for those who want it, a setting, showing one example of how using all the elements in the book (and there are a lot of them!) together can work, using a traditional golden age Galactic Empire as a model.

Galaxy black is generators! Make worlds, cultures, aliens, gods, and technology, use the campaign frameworks and adventure generators to inspire or map out a whole adventure, a whole campaign!

Fully compatible with the DCC RPG and its many spawn, available from Goodman Games.

Galaxy Black V The Imperial Book of Common Prayer  

Now Available from the DreamingGynoid store and Drivethru RPG

 

DUTY FREE NOW FOR THE FUTURE

Technology to Exceed the Golden Age!

The Might of the Empress Imperium is founded on the doctrine of Imperial Parascience

Within it all that is possible is allowed.

Program your Immortality

Fire up the Sleep teacher

Become a different species

And dive into your Navitank

Scrounge your flat and grab your cash it’s time to go shopping voyager. 

The human race is gone but humanity lives on, it’s culture and genome infecting a million worlds.

Nothing is ever forgotten Even in a Collapsing Universe; the struggle of Law and Chaos goes on.  
What is Galaxy Black?

Galaxy black is a science fiction and space fantasy toolkit for your DCC RPG game. A lightly gothic semi-humorous fantasy of the space future that was, and could still be, one day. With magic, bright colours, and deep implications. For everyone.

With Galaxy Black you should be able to fake your way through your favorite SF

franchise without any problems at all – from golden age space opera to grotty modern post-cyberpunk, from the gutter to the stars, and all points in between.

Galaxy black is also, for those who want it, a setting, showing one example of how using all the elements in the book (and there are a lot of them!) together can work, using a traditional golden age Galactic Empire as a model.

Galaxy black is generators! Make worlds, cultures, aliens, gods, and technology, use the campaign frameworks and adventure generators to inspire or map out a whole adventure, a whole campaign!

Fully compatible with the DCC RPG and its many spawn, available from Goodman Games.

Galaxy Black IV Economics, Equipment, Gear, & Technology,  Space Trader Nick’s Coreworld Consultant and Frontier Survival Supply Catalog (Third Quadrant,  957^th Sidereal)  

Now Available from the Dreaming Gynoid store 

and Drive Thru RPG

 

Going to be trying to jam out the rest of the final stuff on volumes IV and V of Galaxy Black today with the aim of getting them off to Goodman for approvals by tomorrow night.  That leaves the Judge's guide which I am penciling in for a probable November release and *fingers crossed* the Space Girl's Guide by February.  HOWEVER, the SGG is pretty much a pure setting book and I am to make it not terribly dependant on the other six if anyone just wants the setting materials in a grab and go way.    But I will have the whole book out (Vol I - VI) out this year dammit.

DG004  Galaxy Black IV Economics, Equipment, Gear, & Technology,  aka 

Space Trader Nick’s Coreworld Consultant and Frontier Survival Supply Catalog (Third Quadrant,  957th Sidereal)

should round out the "Players' guide" end of things.   At release or shortly thereafter I aim to have a Player's Bundle going up on Drivethru that will consist of Books I, II, and IV - everything a player in a game using all of these rules might possibly need beyond the DCC core.

Once the Judge's guide is out there will be a corresponding Judge's  bundle on Drivethru as well, as well as a Galaxy Black complete bundle obviously.

Once the SGG drops that would be added to the bundle or another one made with that inside.

Those of you waiting patiently for Sub-ether 03. have my sincere apologies and I thank you for that patience.   I am not quite ready to pin a tail on that yet. Irritatingly it is still 95% done.  Previously I had indicated that the adventure material ran over so much that part of it was going in the subsequent issue. At this point I think it more likely that since it's been delayed so long I'll just release a super long issue.  The Sub-ethrae have always been more periodical shaped supplements than actual periodicals anyway, so this shouldn't be too much of a stretch.    Sp likely Sub-ether 03 will be about 170 pages with a long multi part adventure that breaks into smaller capers and heists and a star whale's worth of setting material for the Hollow moon of Saxus.

Xposted to our patreon as well as our FB feed. 'pologies for those of you getting this three times today. 

The Empress’ Hands

 

The Empress’ Hands are an unofficial “body” not-quite established at the very end of Martel I. initial (mortal) reign. There have never been very many of them, and (depending on the Judge) they may even be completely conjectural, save for their creation in times of crisis or not at all. Each are highly skilled, elite operatives of an individualistic and self-guided nature, excelling in their fields of activity, chosen for a combination of loyalty, expertise and ‘vision,’ a sense of how close the Empress (and subsequent Empress’) conception of the Imperium is understood or grokked by the Hand in question.

Analogous entities exist across all o science fiction – Harry Harrison’s Special Corps, Mara Jade and (especially) Shira Brie from the Star Wars Legends continuity, and (especially) the SPECTRES from Mass Effect are but a few relatively obvious examples.  

Not exactly right (too white) but close

Here is an example - Col. Scarlet 

Designer’s Notes - Some funny Ideas you can get from head canon

Designer’s Notes - Some funny Ideas you can get from head canon

 WARNING Big big dollops of Space Fantasy Heartbreaker on this one. With Sprinkles.

If you are looking for insightful analysis or useful materials this post may likely not be for you.  Imma just going to blather.  I hope it’s faint shades of entertaining.

 

I was trying to describe a particular NPC’s appearance – she’s a humanoid alien (one of the Myricor in Galaxy Black terms) and came ultimately to describe her “species” (after repeated questions)  as “functionally a human ethno-type that we just have not seen yet on Earth.” 

Which say, rather like all the aliens in original Star Tre[1]k.

Which brings me to the head canon. 

When I was first super into Traveller (this was original LBB Traveller c. 1984)  a major difference I found between my friends who played it and my own conception was that in my head the age of Earth’s First Contact, which see, the First Imperium, looked an awful lot like TOS Star Trek (and I mean…an AWFUL LOT).  The whole idea of humans making first contact with…..other humans is basically on brand for how the aliens (most of them) appeared and acted – central casting and exiting stock characters & costumes is a good way to save money on an expensive drekking sci fi show in the mid- 660s  after all.

 

Fun fact, this tiny piece of ancient head canon (not terribly contradicted by GURPS Interstellar Wars, which I thought was a fine book and VERY on brand for OUT Trav) was plucked like a delicate cherry for ingredients when I was figuring out the history and rationale for the sample/default universe as depicted in Galaxy Black.  In the Empress Imperium the “first Empire” is thought of in quasi-Arthurian terms, but someone from our 2021 Earth would notice mostly how everyone has these colour coded uniforms……

Lots of little things like that accumulate when you are weird kid who absorbs and internalizes and dissects all media she encounters as a juve. After a certain point it becomes accurate to say that the setting in Galaxy Black, most especially as it’s depicted in the Judge’s guide and it’s companion the Space Girl’s guide could pretty accurately be described as

Gwen’s Great Big Head Canon Universe of Things

(which of course you know better as – in marketing terms – THE COLLAPSING UNIVERSE) 

DAMN Count Baltar was a sexy Klingon[2]

 

When I watch the Mandalorian, especially the fist season, I often get the sense that much of the initial concept of he show came from John Favreau’s head canon of what all of Boba Fett’s doodads did when he was a kid.  I don’t know that this is true but regardless I feel a strangely deep kinship with this guy I’m never likely to meet on this basis – the ability to realize important symbols and images we played with as a child as an adult in one’s work is joyful and powerful and you can do some amazing things with it.  

 

Or putting it another way….I have the SRD up against the wall and we’re making out and oo….. (I’ll stop)  Like I said, great big dollops of Space Fantasy Heartbreaker on this one. With Sprinkles, chocolate and peanut butter chips, little mints, a banana and a whole mess of cherries.

---

[1] Well all of the remaining pulp fiction racist stereotypes and caricatures anyway.  I mean TOS Klingons are basically invaders from the Planet of Yellow Peril FFS.  Just like their fictional ancestor Ming the Merciless who is let’s face it Space Fu Manchu. 

[2] Said yes with full awareness that yellow face is just as horrible as blackface. Both are abhorrent & disgusting.  This is NOT an endorsement of any kind, simply awareness. Like a lot/most of early SF tit’s problematic af.  Being mindful and aware of facts never requires you to not talk about something, however. My statement about John Colicos’  Klingon-ness stands.   HAWT.  More so on DS9 in full proper makeup. 

Venture Seed - the Compassionate Hand Society

 The Compassionate Hands society

– ( registered imperial charitable organization)

A multidisciplinary professional organization founded during the late Reconquista period by a Holy Courtesan, a Psychic Healer, and subsequently endorsed by the then Agent of Holy Exterre and a high ranking member of the Empress cult.

Membership is by application and is not common;  applicants must be a member of one of the “compassionate professions” – a healer, geneticist, maternal, courtesan, doctor, or the like  Prospective members must demonstrate a life long and intense commitment to the furtherance of their fellow life forms and that of the imperium.   Many applicants are invited to apply after the society or it’s members hear of an especially valiant or noble act of healing or charity; members in good standing can recommend people for invitation. 

Devout clerics of gods of healing and especially those of a nurturing aspect may find themselves receiving an invitation should they reach level 2 or higher in imperial space.   

DCC characters who help stop a plague or viral infection or some other medical achievement of that scale may find themselves receiving an invitation to apply.  Membership in this society does not recognize character class – a Field Scientist is as much a potential member of this organization as a Psi Healer, Cleric, or anyone else.   Membership is more about “achievements & intentions” – if you are the White Healing Wizard, no one will care that you serve Thrice!Angry!Click!Click The-Scion-of-Our-Destruction when the guns come out so long as you take care of people and do good works the rest of the time.

The organization is well funded, insulated from much of imperial authority, and very powerful, albeit indirectly.   On occasion, even now, it has included even imperial criminals and those opposed to imperial rule – provided they are first responsible for their fellow sentients. Non-citizen members can functionally act as citizens while acting as members of this organization, and sometimes especially gifted healers will, if poor, find themselves recommended into their ranks under the aegis of “sponsoring compassionate and instructional travel”

It is not unknown for the Society to assemble crisis teams, composed of dedicated volunteers, to travel to especially troubled worlds – an adventuring band could include several members and the security detail that keeps them alive in hostile DMZs, plague zones, areas overrun with the Un-dead and the like.  

Post-colonial Imperial Kind – additional Being types for Galaxy Black

Being a compilation of various clades, species, and other dedicated populations with minimal distribution across the Imperial Volume.  

 Additional Being types for Galaxy Black (free pdf download)

 

Citizens of the Imperium : Beyond the Zero

 – a few pregens that are NOT zero level scrubs

Now that Galaxy Black I Characters and Classes has been out for a while I thought it would be a good idea to drop a common set of public use pregens.  All of them have seen a fair bit of use in playtesting and many of them have turned up as examples throughout Galaxy Black and it's associated Sub-ether publications so they should even be broadly familiar to you.   One of them has appeared as a zero level character, sans character sheet, in the very first Sub-ether. 

As time goes on, I will add more to the mix.   Remember as always you can bring any character type from any DCC book without really any problem;  (That Damn Hot Dog Suit gets around you know?) 

Citizens of the Imperium : Beyond the Zero – a few pregens that are NOT zero level scrubs

 Reminder note To the Player   Once this is your character, make them, any sex, any gender, tweak their traits, do whatever you like to the finer details to make it your own. Or jettison the details here entirely and run with whatever.

Galaxy Black III Star travel and the secrets of the Sub-ether

 

Now Available from the Dreaming Gynoid store  

and

 Drive Thru

Galaxy Black II Magic, metaphysics, and psychic powers is available for ansible transmission citizen!

 

So what is in Galaxy Black II?  A  full psychic tradition, inspired by Moorcock, Le Guin, Oromo, and Dick but also Charles Fort, Madame Blavatsky, plus Al Bester, Elfquest and the Tomorrow People

 Magic – the most immediately applicable to your DCC game; the imperial magical tradition, new arcane affinities, bizarre powers of illusion and necromancy. 

 Metaphysics – A detailed variant of the DCC magic system providing a flexible third metaphysical tradition, psychic powers.  This is presented with a host of rules and options to exist alongside the Wizard and Clerical abilities and is of comparable flexibility and potency. 

 Psychic Powers – finally, a starting selection of psychic powers from level one to five are presented in full detail

 

Fold Space, Defy Time, Bend the Stars to your will

 

 The human race is gone but humanity lives on, it’s culture and genome infecting a million worlds.

Nothing is ever forgotten Even in a Collapsing Universe; the struggle of Law and Chaos goes on.

  
What is Galaxy Black?

Galaxy black is a science fiction and space fantasy toolkit for your DCC RPG game. A lightly gothic semi-humorous fantasy of the space future that was, and could still be, one day. With magic, bright colours, and deep implications. For everyone.

With Galaxy Black you should be able to fake your way through your favorite SF

franchise without any problems at all – from golden age space opera to grotty modern post-cyberpunk, from the gutter to the stars, and all points in between.

Galaxy black is also, for those who want it, a setting, showing one example of how using all the elements in the book (and there are a lot of them!) together can work, using a traditional golden age Galactic Empire as a model.

Galaxy black is generators! Make worlds, cultures, aliens, gods, and technology, use the campaign frameworks and adventure generators to inspire or map out a whole adventure, a whole campaign!

Fully compatible with the DCC RPG and its many spawn, available from Goodman Games.

Now Available from the Dreaming Gynoid store and Drivethru RPG

Drive Thru 

Dreaming Gynoid store

Designer’s Notes: A funny thing happened on the way to the Shaolin monastery

 Designer’s Notes:  A funny thing happened on the way to the Shaolin monastery

 

The three electronauts meet in secret but no longer in privacy = one among them, the last to arrive, does so astride a majestic robotic flying horse that squawks, plays music and seemingly farts glitter and rainbows;  the mage themself has a shaved head and an elaborate tracery pattern inked into his skull

These are members of the electric college.   They seem quaint and somewhat hard to believe, but they are in fact quite successful illusionists who use a fusion of cybernetics, technology, psychology, neural hacks, and actual illusion magic to foster a sense of wonder in the mundanes around them. (This is their stated purpose and calling – the kindling of wonder)

So understand their larger than life personas are quite intentional and very deliberate. It is part and parcel of their calling as much as it is a badge and manifestation of their Art.

They are one of the greatest forces for good within the Imperium today.

 

 

Galaxy Black II Magic, metaphysics, and psychic powers should be out by the time you see this.   While it incorporates several new spells and magical traditions (as above) the major thrust of the work is the introduction of a variant magic system for psychic powers in DCC (two of them actually, one plays nicer with DCC as written)

 Several of the disciplines in Galaxy Black have a scattering of details given for the monastery where it is easiest to learn such a thing.  Why was this done? Several fold.   The credo of DCC is Quest For It and in the Collapsing Universe it is no different.  I envision most starting and low level psions, in-character having a list of places they would like to go and train, rather like the characters in a martial arts film[1].   But like everything else in the game it’s a story hook, a neat thing to dangle in front of the PCs or Always keep them moving.   Like any destination in galaxy black there are bound to be complications on arrival – some worlds may regard their disciplines as ancient cultural practices and expect you – and those with you – to demonstrate courage (or whatever they value on that planet), others will be literal monasteries and you may be waiting at the foot of the mountain before they have room for you or find you worthy.  Some may be more like universities or secret training academies a la Traveller’s Psionics Institutes.  No two should really be much alike save for advocating the practice of one or more psychic disciplines.  Part of the flavor of the psychic material in Galaxy Black is a deliberate callback to old Shaw Brothers films, modern Wuxia, and everything in between.  

 The assumed default “voyaging” style of game play that I think most people will take to works best when you have a destination in mind and don’t’ mind the time it takes to get there. And it may take some time……

 

  Remember in Galaxy Black, every voyage should be long and weird, and often an adventure unto itself.  The destination will always have unforeseen complications. Often very awkward or unpleasant ones.   Travel between the stars is fraught with peril and not for the timid.  Each voyage should be memorable for some reason.  Each destination even more so. No one should ever think of a world they have visited as simply a stream of numbers and letters in an index somewhere.  They should befuddle, amuse, frustrate, and challenge.  Always,

Some good examples extrapolated from actual play 

“The trip from High Arcturus to Goth, where half the crew died, and we had to journey into the underworld to get their souls back…while in transit. I remember that. My confiscator has to eat a non-replicated pomegranate once a year or they will rot from the inside.    But I don’t show up on life sensors now if I don’t want to.”

 Or

“Yasmin? That’s the planet that turned everyone permanently yellow right?“

“The apparent luster of semi-pearlescent amber jade.” 

“So yeah yellow….”

“I guess that was the favorite colour of the High Patriarch when they ripped us apart atom by atom and rebuilt us to “cure us of infection.”  But yes to summarize, yes we all got turned an identical shade of bright yellow.  Inside and out.”  

 

"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

-         Q

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[1] Which reinforces the DCCness of it all. In universe, people journey to these exotic psychic academies and monestaries and train for decades to learn the one discipline.  A PC breezes in and in weeks or months picks up this one also.   Leveled characters, i.e. the PCs, should stand out as being implicitly larger than life.