Appendix G

Appendix G
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Showing posts with label Galaxy Black. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Galaxy Black. Show all posts

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Orgonne Adepts!

 

Orgonne Adepts – Imperial era martial artists

Intuitive brawlers and Imperial martial artists

(Autonomics specialists)

Psychic Practitioners of Imperial Internal Medicine techniques, involving biofeedback, mind over body, and other autonomica functions.

The Orgonne Adepts are one of the many classes contained in the back half of the Space Girl's Guide. Backers have already seen the WiP; there should be one more WiP copy going out here before we go to final; goal is to get this out before the end of the year, but the book will determine. :)

Get the class here (pdf opens in new window). 


All the work done so far on the SGG (and this post in particular!) is only made possibly by the support of my patrons! 

Dreaming Gynoid’s magnificent patrons  - 

Syreeta Muir, Evlyn Moreau, Dyson Logos, Mamading Ceesay, PiaLaMode,  Robert Edwards, Tore Nielsen, Beckett, Christopher Tamm, Charlie V, and Martin Costa

We could not continue without your support, thank you!  


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Monday, February 19, 2024

"Stay a while, stay....forever!"

 The data-lich has destabilized the orbit of OSS DRB MR-997S/a1 and it is hurtling in-system.    The mining robots, the maintenance droids and the sentinels have all been repurposed, retasked, and where needed, reprogrammed entirely.   The asteroid has been cleared of all other personnel. (he believes) and it is under lockdown.

Send in the Legionnaires.


 This situation presents itself as especially suited to a mixed group game – one where only one or two Legionnaires are available and must make do in a co-opted civilian system ship surrounded by randomly involved imperial subjects; the PCs vessel can be the one coopted, or they can be aboard station when the emergency starts.

At this point, you may as well just go whole hog and rip the original game completely off (if you have a copy of GDWs ASTEROID! Go Get It Right Now)  For the rest of you, you will need maps. Four to eight depending on party size and how long the Judge wishes to drag this out.  Somewhere on one of these maps exists the physical architecture for the station computer hosting at least -part- of the Datalich’s consciousness. 

There are many handy map resources available on the the Wireless Fabric but I will suggest from (playtesting) experience that  Dyson’s  index card maps are especially useful for this. 

Download Asteroid OSS DRBMR-997S/a here. 



More (a LOT more) about the Imperial Legions can be found in the latest issue of Sub-ether, a special military SF issue. 

Buy Sub-ether 04 directly from the Dreaming Gynoid patreon,


Buy also from the Dreaming Gynoid itch.io store,


or from our Drivethru rpg storefront.


Hail the Empress! 






This variant and post were brought to you by Dreaming Gynoid's magnificent patrons, without whom none of this would be possible!  Special thanks to all of our patrons -

Evlyn Moreau, Dyson Logos, Mamading Ceesay, PiaLaMode, Robert Edwards, Tore Nielsen, Beckett, Christopher Tamm, Charlie V,  and Martin Costa. 

We are only able to continue with your support, thank you!  Thank you to all of our patrons, past and present. 

Monday, February 5, 2024

BOUNCE! Rules for small tactical wargame-looking engagements just like mom used to make

BOUNCE!
 rules for small tactical wargame looking engagements just like mom used to make

Each armor gets assigned a movement rate in hexes.  This is it’s “bounce” rating.  Lit.  rapid high end movement in armor.   Each major weapon gets assigned a range…in hexes.  Provide a hex map with stuff on it.  Go. They are playing GEV before they know it

Terrain rules should be super simple. 
Mountains imperial forces – Light bounce rating reduced by one; Jump ignores terrain 
PL 4-6 forces bounce reduced to 1.  All forces AV increased by one. 
Hills ignorable terrain by imperial forces, reduces bounce rating of PL 4-6 forces by half. 
Organic Wet (Bog, Swamp, Marsh) bounce rating reduced by 1; AV increased by 1 
Heavy High Vegetation (Forest, Jungle, AgBramble) bounce rating reduced by 1 
Road imperial units increase bounce rating by 1. PL 4-6 armor/infantry double bounce
Urban bounce rating halved save to evacuate out of Urban hex, AV increased by 1
Vac rules (which mean little unless a suit breach happens)
-Light (Imperial) troops have an effective bounce rating of 1 in Vac.  Jump troops have their full bounce rating. 
Liquid rules
- Imperial units can choose to traverse over the water or underneath it.
- over water increases movement by 1
- under water movement and bounce rating decreased by 1; AV effectively increased by 1

Unit type (by armor, assumes Zero level) 
Light
Garrison AV 1 DV 3 bounce 2
Scout AV 3 DV 3 bounce 4
Attack Infantry AV 2 DV 4 bounce 3
Jump
Battle armor troops AV 3 DV 4 bounce 5
Tact Assault      AV 3 DV 5 bounce 6
Command Armor AV 4       DV 5 bounce 6

Attack Value – derived from bab+1.
Defense Value – derived from AC
Those with force fields or death countermeasures will have a second DV
Bounce rating – by armor, in hexes per turn 
Each hex = 1 mile or so Each turn = 1 minute or so

When using with actual leveled characters.  
The BAB addition will make them gross.
Those with multiple action dice take second action, section action =AV-1, a third action die also but at AV-2 
Other armor DV = AC/6, round up. 

Click here to get the full PDF including three pages of statistics for sample opponents.

This variant and post were brought to you by Dreaming Gynoid's magnificent patrons, without whom none of this would be possible!  Special thanks to all of our current patrons -

Evlyn Moreau, Dyson Logos, Daniel, Mamading Ceesay, PiaLaMode, Tore Nielsen, Beckett, Christopher Tamm, Charlie V,  and Martin Costa. 

We are only able to continue with your support, thank you!  Thank you to all of our patrons, past and present. 

Sunday, January 14, 2024

Sub-ether 04 is live. Legions of the Imperium are now available.

Don’t mind those sonic booms rolling through the upper atmosphere. Everything is under control. Imperial Control. The Legions are here.



Sub-ether 04

Special Military Sci Fi issue!

Diverting a bit from Galaxy Black’s usual criminal hijinx, we explore an alternative to normal gameplay – the Imperial Legions.

Special Legionnaire chargen, see if you can survive boot camp at the Dour Yard.

Legion organization, history, orders of battle, culture, traditions, slang, and Legion scenarios – from one line suggestions all the way up to whole military campaigns.

Full military mission & campaign generators.

More Black Angels references than you can possibly stand!

Military weapons and armor; military tech; many examples of Imperial Legions at a variety of scales, aaaaaand we do horrible horrible weepy things to DCC combat.

In non-Legion content we have a deeper dive into the pervasive reach of the elder space gods, the Angels of Man. Here also, one of their abandoned creations, a full character class – the Muzikatauri

Brightly coloured genecrafted centaurs and masters of song and the magic of the noosphere; a unique take on Bards and other music-magic based classes.

Inspired in good measure by the Titan books by John Varley and at least somewhat, My Little Pony (yes you read that correctly).

We have First Contact! Tables in the Space Alphabet, and a marvelous little tourist destination, a Saurid planet in the Satrapies in Worlds of the Imperium. Travel to Korvell and get a stylish hole drilled in your head at Zonder’s Trepanation Parlour.


Throw tacnukes at Designated Targets. Study your World Invasion Protocols. Eat a faceful of CF.

151 pages of tongue in cheek anti-colonial action. For Galaxy Black and any DCC RPG characters you are even less attached to than usual.

Come join the Imperial Legions, heroes. Come and die. 


DreamingGynoid Patreon store link


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Drivethrurpg storefront


Monday, January 8, 2024

FUNGICIDE - a Legions of the Imperium article (for Sub-ether 04)

\\\FUNGICIDE!!! 

A sweep and clear of some minor consequence for three to five fire teams of Imperial Legionnaires, levels 0-2


Background

An old, nay ancient threat now but seldom encountered.

First contact it is said occurred early and again late in the First Empire.  Many wars.  As with the progression of time and the collapse of the universe, the pace of change for some civilizations is too much.  Sometimes even elder civilizations fall.

Their kind scattered too well.  Throughout the local group they came seeking mineral and material resources while bringing their fell gods and eldritch science-sorceries. They archeologie’d upon the Primordial Ones, much as the Imperium would later do.   They made war on their many enemies. But for many many millions of years, the star fungi, once commonly called the Migoh (once, the Migoux Plague; there were many wars) are threadbare.  No longer mighty empires spanning many galaxies, so much as many increasingly isolated settlements, running down, pondering the swelling of the stars and the end of times. Increasingly their religious proclivities demand their attentions. 

Many of that which they once served was long ago freed to Stalk the Galaxies once more.   Their own civilization weathered the experience, but it was a destructive period. The eldest brains of the modern era’s star flung settlements are led by councils of brains from this time. 

An Imperial deep survey vessel charting the Rim detected the telltale signs of gravitational lensing in a nearby star cluster.  Investigation led to an unmitigated fail of a  first contact situation.  Unlike most, this one ended in the disintegration of an imperial vessel.

You are the first responders. 

In some imperial variations, the Great Fungal War is about to begin……

download Fungicide here for absolutely nothing



Mi-go illustration  By Khannea SunTzu - Artstation.com/khanneasuntzu - "I drew it in pencil. I own the full rights.", CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5569619

check out more of their work here https://www.artstation.com/khanneasuntzu


Thursday, October 6, 2022

Patrons of the Known Galaxies: Ur-Noo-Polis

 

Patrons of the known Galaxies

Ur-Noo-Polis (Urnopolis)

The spirit of City

 This thing that haunts the Ur-metropolis seems a contradiction, an ill wind, or oily elusive shadows?  A long serpentine wind winding between buildings and threading its way into even the most hidden spaces.

Possession of Splinters Sailing on the Seas of Probability will greatly enhance the utility of this patron, but it is by no means essential.  

 The Ur-city, the Omnimetropolis,  is known by billions of names throughout the omniverse. The “All-City” is a reflection of the First City and of course of all cities in some sense.  A concept so important in the Collapsing Universe that the Noosphere emanation of the concept of City has long since become self-aware, hungry, and watching.   All cities are it’s body and equalmuch it’s memory.  City transcends time and space, and many Great Cities of Legend, seem to reincarnate in other times and places under names more fitting to their new environments. Through all of these places, from Los Angeles to New Chicago, Myris Ithil, the City of Brass, or transcendental Urath, through each window, into each home and business and office and street does the All City’s Sentience watch, self-absorbed, obsessed with the parasites that live within it and make up the greatest body of its spiritual energy….

Ur Noo Polis is both aiding and malevolent.  It will help but it may require you to allow an innocent to be murdered, both the act and your complicity, sacrifices to the All-City.

Tap the Urnoplis and Invoke the Spirit of the All City here 


This post was brought to you by the best people on earth, my patrons.

Special thank yous going out to

Beckett Warren, Charlie V, Christopher Tamm, Dyson Logos, Evlyn Moreau, Mamading Ceesay, PiaLaMode, and Tore Nielsen

Thank you for your support!


 


Thursday, September 1, 2022

Cutting Room Floor - Psychic Insights of the Noosphere

 

Cutting Room Floor

Psychic Insights of the Noosphere

 - Splinters – Sailing Across the Seas of Probability

 

Both Book II (https://dreaming-gynoid.itch.io/galaxy-black-ii-magic-metaphysics-and-psychic-power) and Splinters (https://dreaming-gynoid.itch.io/splinters-sailing-the-seas-of-infinity) may be useful in understanding and utilizing this material;

However, Book VI https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/372544/Galaxy-Black-VI-Judges-Guide-to-the-Collapsing-Universe will be essential to proper use of either spell, esp. the second.

 

“Slow your mind.  Here we cultivate deliberate thought and eliminate reactive thought.  Stop thinking.  Stop reacting to things.   Let go of meme-thoughts.  

With stillness we begin.”

 

During Psion training,  as the nascent psychic’s training evolves their mind and inner eye, they repeatedly test their psychological fortitude; Would-be psychics confront their repressed nature, their shadow, and learn to transcend their own dualities. 

At the end, a period known as consolidation begins, whereby the adept fuses and overlays their conceived inner world with the physical world outside.   Until they complete this process they cannot leave the temple or training space as Manifesters.

As psions develop their inner eye (gain levels and grow in power) their orgonne or inner self, their Subtle body, becomes very powerful, slowly the planar energies they commonly channel will become like unto a series of tiny capillaries running to them at all times.

Most psychic disciplines  (and especially those of third level or higher) are powered by transplanar energies; most commonly what is called variously orgonne/kundalin/the yang realm/positive material energy, though there are exceptions.   Possibly  at some point in the distant past this was not always the case save perhaps as a (faintly) emergent quality however that’s now changed for other reasons.

However, the medium through which almost all psychic activity seems to flow primarily will always bee the Noosphere, the Plane of Thought.

CHANNEL THE UNIVERSE HERE

 

This post was brought to you by the best people on earth, my patrons.

Special thank yous going out to

Beckett Warren, Charlie V, Christopher Tamm, Dyson Logos, Evlyn Moreau, Mamading Ceesay, PiaLaMode, and Tore Nielsen

Thank you for your support!

 

Xposted to Patreon and Blogspot

Cutting Room Floor articles are literally that – pages of material that in whole or part were removed or did not make the final cut of a release, sometimes complete, sometimes very briefly stated.   

(Blame my good friend T.R. Williams for the title, as I ripped it off from him whole cloth) 



Thursday, August 4, 2022

Paying Charon’s Toll - Magic of the Forgotten for Galaxy Black and the DCC RPG

 

 Paying Charon’s Toll

two new spells for

Splinters – Sailing Across the Seas of Probability

 

This post was brought to you by the best people on earth, my patrons.

Special thank yous going out to

Beckett Warren, Charlie V, Christopher Tamm, Dyson Logos, Evlyn Moreau, Mamading Ceesay, PiaLaMode, and Tore Nielsen

Thank you for your support!


 QUEST FOR IT.

For those few who can find and would dare (and yet could survive) a confrontation with the Prince of Black Waters will find that their steadfastness, their sincerity, and their determination……or perhaps their deceptiveness, their craftiness and sense of trickery will be put to the test.  

Charon themselves can teach the Memory of Nothing…if you can convince them.

The foolhardy attempt to learn it themselves by sipping of the Black Waters of Nothing.

If you would know the secrets of the Wyls, the Wild Women, or any other of the Forgotten you must penetrate the black waters and seek beyond into the Erasure itself, but beware!  Those who enter the Erasure and do not return are lost forever. 

ENTER THE BLACK WATERS HERE

Xposted to Patreon and Blogspot 

Isle of the Dead: Third version, 1883

Arnold Böcklin

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-isle-of-the-dead-arnold-b%C3%B6cklin/0wFgMTIQ3kZCpg?hl=en

Thursday, August 5, 2021

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 Batmelee,  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.

Thursday, July 15, 2021

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


Tuesday, May 25, 2021

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. 

Thursday, May 20, 2021

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.  

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

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.


Sunday, April 18, 2021

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



[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.