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…..
A comprehensive and immediately useable trip to Fairyland
Now available from DrivethruRPG
and the Dreaming Gynoid Store
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
[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.
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
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
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, 957th 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 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.
Here is an example - Col. Scarlet
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.
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.
– a few pregens that are NOT zero level scrubs
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
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.
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)
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.”
-
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.
One
nation
One
sky
One
Empire
Both Galsxy Black II Magic, Metaphysics and Psychic Powers and Galaxy Black III Star travel and the Secrets of the Sub-ether ready for release; just waiting on approvals from GG. Thank you all for your immense patience with this project!
The next installment , Galaxy Black IV Gear (Space Trader Nick’s
Coreworld Supply Catalog 957th Sidereal) Will be a little bit longer in coming as I
need to go back through all the numbers and make sure they sing (it’s a very
pixelbitchy book). More than any other
save perhaps III, Galaxy Black IV will be a fairly self-contained book for
those wanting to pick and choose. The imperial book of common prayer (which is functionally
our Deities and Demigods book) and the Judges Guide to the Collapsing
Universe will round out the year.
Somewhere in here Sub-ether 03 will drop.
Many years of deep studio work are finally paying off and we
couldn’t be happier.
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tiny little company, if you like
what we do or just want us to stay around, consider supporting us on
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