Monday, November 5, 2012

Upcoming: Anthros of Endara, More Work on Black Tokyo Unlimited and SUMOOOOOO!

So what have I been working on?

Well, for the last couple of weeks I've been doing some serious revision work on Black Tokyo. I've already just about doubled the word count of the world information found in Black Tokyo I-III, and will be adding tons more content. Since I decided the Amakaze will be major villains for the setting, this has spurred the creation of a whole bunch of new plot hooks and interactions with the other factions. I will likely do something similar to the Affiliations from Otherverse America, to reflect the different major patrons for PC groups in the setting.

Right now, if the game master wants their group to be backed by someone, their options look something like this.

The Amakaze can either be backers for a morally grey team of 'shadowrunners' or can be major adversaries. If you're working for the Amakaze, you'll be well funded, have tons of magical gear, but will be sent on lots of black ops and artifact recovery missons, and get betrayed by your backers sooner or later.

If you're working for Police Section Seven, expect to be over worked, jumping from mission to mission with little chance to breathe, making do with substandard equipment and whatever magic you can beg, borrow or steal.

If you're working the Chrysanthemum Seven, by contrast, expect to be equipped with cutting edge, Ghost in the Shell type tech, including some cyberpunk tech. Everything's still fairly mission driven though.

Project GILGAMESH is home to freaky, monstrous anti-heroes using horrible bio-tech culled from the body of a slumbering god- a kind of Guyver, Neon Genesis Evangelion feel.

If you're working directly for the Imperial House of Japan, you're the 'big damn heroes' of the setting- paladin-esque good guys.

Of course, you could have a group sponsored by one of the 'magical high schools' in the setting: Clovers Academy, the Hanging Academy and the Monster's Juku. Tonight I want to write out a magical elementary or middle school, in case players want to skew younger. The elementary school will have a frilly, girly, shojo feel to it, thought it might have a bit of lolicon undercurrent. Why not?

Anyway, I figure that each prefecture and each backer represents a different 'feel' a different genre, of not just hentai, but anime in general. I figure that will open up tons of design space, and give the setting a much greater versatility, as well as making it more interesting for me to write.

I'll put up some previews in another few days.

So what else is going on? Well, I'll have the last art on Anthros of Endara soon, and that will go up. I'm also waiting on an Amanda Webb piece, which I'll use to illustrate a 10 pager Expanded Occupations: Sumo PDF. That one will focus on expanding the Athlete starting occupation into a full mini-campaign, with tons of info on sumo, both in the real world and in Black Tokyo. I came across tons of good info in my research for BT Unlimited, but it's a bit too specific and too wordy for stand as a part of a larger book, so I'll break Expanded Occupation: Sumo into its own short PDF. I'm looking forward to it- it's a fun little book, so research heavy that it could almost be considered non-fiction. Very cool.

Look for Sumo and Anthros of Endara soon, plus some more cool stuff before the end of the year.
CHRIS

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