New City, New Projects

Okay, I've moved to Kerrville TX. Don't know where Kerrville is. Don't worry, nobody else does either. It's a little suburb about an hour north of San Antonio. It's the kind of small town you see in horror movies rather than modern reality, and I'm still tripping out that I'm up here. It's like a town from a Steven King novel. Anyway, I'm settled in and doing some writing.

I finished the Eleusinian Covenant and Otherverse Armory sourcebooks and they should be out fairly soon. I've been doing additional work on Pirates of the Bronze Sky and that's coming well. From the rough notes and outline I was given, I've built up a pretty coherent world and it's getting tighter and more fully realized with every line I write.

Anyway, talk to you later,
CHRIS

Pirates of the Bronze Sky

So I'd been waiting for Louis to announce it formally on his blog.... I've been named as the Head Weasel in Charge of the new Pirates of the Bronze Sky campaign setting. The image to the right is the cover, and hey: pirate tits!

So what is Pirates of the Bronze Sky about anyway? Over the last week or so, Louis and I have hashed out the major politics and ground rules of the setting. The campaign is going to a bit more swashbuckling, high-adventure and somewhat lighter than either of us are known for. Unlike Obsidian Twilight, which is basically D&D meets Zombie Hell, or Otherverse America which is all about religion, bigotry and civil war, Pirates will be a bit more cheerful, a bit more optimistic.

The basic tag line is this: Imagine the American Revolution taking place on floating islands drifting above an enormous gas giant planet. Simple and very, very memorable. We've got some really cool ideas for the various factions, and new races. Louis has already previewed two of the new races for free here:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=81094
and right here:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=82189

I've started up on a third race, as yet unnamed that will basically be a kind of sentient air elementals, which fits nicely with the themes of wind, freedom and movement I want to build into the setting.

Right now, the setting feels very cartoony, which to me is a good thing. Cartoons like He-Man and comics were my introduction to fantasy; I was introduced to them years before I ever read Tolkien or played D&D. It's going to be a fun one to work on, especially giving each nation in the setting its own distinct feel. One of the things we want to do, since this is a setting at war is make your character's nation as important as his or her race, if not more so. The different factions are a mix of historic cultures, some fantasy elements and just plain WEIRD, all thrown into a blender together and set on frappé.

There will, despite the obvious fantasy elements like sky-pirates, 4 armed rhino men and living wind, be recognizable and surprisingly correct bits of Revolutionary era and Golden Age of Piracy era history thrown into the mix, which will give the history pendants among our fans, and I know they're out there, something to digest.

Anyway, more on this as it develops, and I'll post updates and previews fairly regularly over the next couple of months.

CHRIS

Here's a new piece from Amanda. It's illustrating a fairly standard Lifer character wearing a new piece of gear found in the Otherverse Armory, my next sourcebook.

“Baby Bones” Smartcloth
This expensive product of the nano-tech revolution is worn by any Lifer street rescuer who can afford or steal it. Outwardly a simple cloth bandana worn over the nose and mouth, the smartcloth acts as a chemical filtration unit, protecting the wearer from poisons, gasses and bio-war agents. Nano-computers and imaging software also takes a real-time X-ray snapshot of the wearer’s skeletal structure, and displays a high resolution skeletal façade on its smartcloth surface. The end result is eerie but practical, perfect for Lifer culture.

Any character wearing “Baby Bones” smartcloth receives a +6 equipment bonus on FORT saves against inhalation toxins and disease.

“Baby Bones” Smartcloth
Size: Tiny
Weight: Negligible
Purchase DC: 16
Restriction Rating: None

I'm previewing the Smartcloth and the related image here first and foremost because that is one kick ass image. I know that I'll get some use of it too, and it will become one of the definitive Lifer cultural illustrations.

Anyway, just wanted to show off some cool new art and let you know what I'm working on next.
Blessed Be,
CHRIS

Freeform Anthro, Black Tokyo II, Guns of the Otherverse and Two Dozen Projects for Louis

Right now, I’m working on several projects. On the work for hire front, my Two Dozen Dangers series for LPJ Designs has gone over amazingly well, and I’ll be on some free material for Louis’ blog, in the same vein. We’ve got about a month’s worth of daily content in the can already and more on the way.

I’m going to be putting out a tech book for Otherverse America which consolidates all the gadgets and weapons found in the setting’s various sourcebooks in one place. I’ve been considering a revamp and rerelease of the core book, but instead, I’ve decided to focus on several ‘core’ books each covering a discrete subject. Sexually Transmitted Future will expand on the Softlings and Fluxminx from the APEX sourcebook, as well as revamp the genetic engineering rules. The Otherverse Armory will be the main tech book, but also has a lot of cultural context and content inside, details about the daily life in the setting.

My favorite sci-fi settings have insane levels of detail and color, and while I’ve always had that for Otherverse America, the more I write the sharper the world comes into focus for me. Every product I put out for the setting suprizes me a bit, because it takes my basic idea of “abortion + military sci-fi” and twists it a little bit more, makes it a little bit deeper. Each time I sit down to write, I go a bit deeper into the Choicer neighborhoods and the Lifer Enclaves. I see it a bit clearer, and frankly I get better at this, and I hope that you as readers notice that too.
I’ve been having a lot of fun putting these two books together, and can’t wait to get the final art so I can piece the releases together and get them out.

In other news, in what will be a very welcome bit of info for some fans here, Black Tokyo II is coming together. Look for a PDF release around Halloween/Samhain. Tentacle rape is back on the menu, boys!

Finally, I’m finally revising and re-jiggering Freeform Anthropomorphica. We’ve found some sweet new art for it, and at the same time we’re gathering resources for a possible POD release, I’m revisiting the rules and cleaning them up. I originally wrote it for D&D 3.5 and converted it over to Pathfinder at the beginning of that license. Looking back on the manuscript, I can tell it was an early attempt at a modified ruleset, and the conversion wasn’t as slick as it should have been. I’m fixing that up, and adding a lot more world information to the re-release.

(I spent all last night going through and making sure all the anthro races had a +2 net ability score modifier. The original 3.5 based draft had a +0 net modifier, so converting everything over, and hunting down the last few references to Hide checks took a couple of tedious but necessary hours.)

Look for at least one campaign setting in the rebuilt FA, and maybe several mini-campaigns, similar to the mini-campaigns presented in the WOTC D20 Future sourcebook. I’m still trying to decide if one world or multiple small worlds would be a) more useful to you, the buyers, and b) more fun for me to write. Drop me a line in the comments: do you want one mid-sized to large campaign world in FA or several smaller mini-campaigns you can expand yourself?

Finally, I joined the 21st Century and got a Facebook page, over to the right of the screen. Go friend me.
Blessed Be,
CHRIS

Number One Again

Hey, I just stopped over to RPGnow and noticed that a work I did freelance for Louis Porter Jr. is at the top sales slot, and a follow-up piece is also in the top 20. Thanks to everybody who bought a copy of Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts, as well as everybody who picked up Two Dozen Dangers: Poisons. I've got a Traps supplement on deck next in the line.

Also, Mark just put up Beggars & Bandits, a fun little sourcebook about Goblin PCs. Go check that one out two, and see if I can get three releases in the top 20!

Also, expect a short Lifer sourcebook soon. I'm also putting the finishing touches on a few longer Otherverse America releases, not to mention a couple of Psi-Watch supplements.

Talk to you later,
CHRIS

Random Comic Book Thoughts

Okay, I found that image over at Jim Lee's deviant art page. He did that in 10 minutes on a graphics tablet. Ten minutes. I try to draw and something similar would take me about three hours and would look absolutely shitty in comparison. Ten minutes! Seriously, I'm amazed, and I've got that image as my desktop wallpaper right now.

I read Blackest Night (DC) finally. My review: not fuckin' good. Seriously, I've been reading DC for 20+ years now and the story was all but incomprehensible to me, and I can only imagine what that mess would of been like for a first time reader. The art though, was AMAZING. Ivan Reis did amazing work. The story seemed like it was an excuse to create a bunch of awesome variant costumes of major DCU characters to sell toys rather than show character. In that sense, it worked well. Reis' designs for the Black Lanterns, Orange Lantern Lex Luthor and some of the others are really cool, and his art reminds me alot of Jim Lee's... which as you can see from the image heading this post, I consider a VERY good thing. So even though the story was crap, the art more than redeemed it, and I can flip through those issues and be entertained.

Still, the story.... I've shit out things better thought out than this non-sense. The whole 'zombie superheroes raised by a necromancer' has been done before. I remember a great LOSH story from the 5 Year Gap era about Mordu doing that. Story was done in 5 issues of the series, had genuine repercussions, was creepy as hell and made sense. Blackest Night was the exact same thing, but MADE NO SENSE!

First and foremost the main villain of the piece was the least original thing I've ever seen. Now, he's a necromancer raising superhero zombies so I can't expect much originality, but come on: His name is Necron, he's a big zombie Satan thing with a scythe that wears all black. Skeletor had a more compelling and original design than this dude. Plus, I don't actually think he was sentient, but more on that later.

It also seemed like the 'rules' for zombies kept changing. First the black rings raise the zombies. Than it's revealed that Necron can control anyone who has ever died and come back... somehow. Never really explains that one. And then Donna Troy gets bit and starts turning. Is that how it works now?

Also, the whole point of the story was to bring back a lot of dead Silver Age heroes at the end of the whole mess, which means displacing and often killing the more racially diverse successors to their names currently holding the job. I think Comic Alliance did a great post about the racial politics about this, and I sorta discounted it up till now. But seriously: you completely fuck up the new Firestorm, kill off his girlfriend in a really, really horrific scene, and replace him with the old white-guy Firestorm.... who by the way actually killed the girl while zombified. And in the end the zombies are driven back by the White Power of the White Lantern Corps... which is composed mostly of resurrected white superheroes. Seriously, are you fucking JOKING? Did nobody in the DC office catch the unintentional subtext to that one?

And while we're on the subject of bad writing, lets forget that during the middle of this huge zombie invasion, the heroes would stop, pause and have heart-to-heart and slightly snarky dialog about the nature of heroism. Seriously. Fucking stop it, Flash. Just go punch a fuckin' zombie, you asshole. And the Purple Lanterns. A bunch of self-righteous space Communists who can supercharge the other lanterns so they can hurt the zombies... which talk mostly in gibberish. Seriously, take your NOK, NOK and shove it up your utterly boring ass.

And where the FUCK did all these other lantern corps come from anyway? Since the beginning of the DCU we've got the GLC. Then the Sinestro Corps form, and I can sorta buy that, a rival army staging a galactic rebellion. But now there's Red, Purple, Blue and Orange (but I really think that's just one guy).... it's getting ridiculous at this point.

And the end. Aside from the rise of White Power! (HEIL!)... the hero's plan was to resurrect the Anti-Monitor to stop Necron? Seriously, that's your idea. Necron doesn't seem all that bad by comparison: he just wants to kill everybody in one universe and make them zombies to... eat God or something. By comparison, A-M successfully destroyed millions of entire realties and ate millions of alternate Gods. By that scale, Necron is a chump. It's like ressurecting Hitler to chase down Osama Bin Laden. It just isn't going to fucking WORK.

What did I like? The art, as mentioned. And the Atom gets some great lines. His explanation of how the Black Lanterns' rings worked, and the structural similarities between dead bones and dark matter was kinda chilling. I've always liked Atom and his amazing levels of sheer COMPETENCE, and they're on full display here.

I also kinda got the idea that Necron isn't really sentient. He can talk, sure, but I don't think he is genuinely intelligent. I get the impression he's more like a virus. He uses his preys' emotions to replicate the black lantern rings (as he did by having Zombie-Firestorm feed on Jason's emotions) so he can create more zombies/vectors for infection. Necron can replicate himself endlessly from any zombie in his horde, and his whole plan seems to be simple exponential spread, until he destroys the host body... in this case the "host body" is the entire universe/God. I kinda like the character more as some kind of cosmic HIV rather than a thinking being.

Anyway, what I've been up to work wise:

I just finished the draft for Sexually Transmitted Future, the meta-porn sourcebook. It's about 40K words, and the Eleusinian Covenant sourcebook is about 30K. I'm waiting for art to trickle in on both of them.

I've got about 4K words of a short sourcebook about Lifer street criminals/cyberpunks done, and will be expanding that one, maybe out to 10K or 15K words. Expect this book first, because I can illustrate it exclusively with stock art.

Just last night I finished a 3K race splat about Goblins as Pathfinder PCs. It's fucking HILARIOUS. I wrote the thing entirely in character, and I'll be laying it out tonight or tomorrow. Expect it by this weekend if all goes well.

Blessed Be,
CHRIS

Lots of New Stuff

Okay, I just finished up some freelancer work for Louis. Two of my projects: Blood & Sand: The Gladiator Sourcebook and Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts are on sale at RPGNOW.com. Nice fun, quick projects- I'm especially pleased with the gladiator sourcebook, it's some really well researched fun gaming inspiration, and I convinced Louis to go with an amazing piece of classic art for the cover.

Right now, I'm waiting on some art and once I have it in hand, I'll put out my Eleusinian Covenant sourcebook. Expect that one to be around 40 pages.

After that, my Otherverse America meta-porn sourcebook will be out. I'll be revisiting and revising the genetic engineering rules from Otherverse America, the same way I released Psi-Watch Unlimited Edition. The changes will be minor overall, but include a lot more flexibility and clean up some design problems. Since that sourcebook will include the genemod rules, expect it to be a much fatter sourcebook.

In the mean time, I'll probaly release a few more short fantasy, Psi-Watch or Galaxy Command supplements, to keep fan interest up and the money rolling in. If any body has any suggestions for sourcebooks they'd like to see, let me know.

Finally, I'm thinking of setting up a kickstarter for a re-released, art heavy version of Freeform Anthrpomorphica. I'll have to ask Louis, who has some experience with such how it worked out for him, get his advice.

Blessed Be,
CHRIS