The Tiny Parvulians

I’m happy to announce that Imperium Chronicles is now available on the Your Games Now website. For the last year, my game could only be bought on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.com (and its affiliates). Starting this week, however, my empire is growing a little bit bigger. Of course, if YGN could make their vendor application a little more idiot proof, it would make my life (as the before mentioned idiot) a lot easier.

Home Worlds is approaching the home stretch. I’ve pretty much added all the content that’s going in there and now I just need to do some finishing touches and have the Editor read through it for grievous typos. In my mind, I guess I’ve already moved on to the next project, but I still haven’t decided what that’ll be.

I was thinking about Lilliputians the other day. Well, technically I was thinking about a race of tiny humanoids living inside robots. Since I was a kid, even before watching Dr. Who (i.e. Daleks) and certainly before seeing Men in Black (i.e. the Arquillian living inside the corpse at the morgue), I’ve been fascinated about creatures living inside machines. Then I started thinking about the machines themselves and I was reminded of the Mechs in the Gundam series. I asked myself: “What if the people in Gundam were actually very small and their “gigantic” mechs were really human-size? So, I came up with the idea of a race of small creatures (maybe 15 cm tall) that interact with other races by walking around in machines. Basically, the Mechs allow the race (who I’m calling Parvulians, based on the Latin word for small) to interact with other races without fear of being stepped on or tucked away into someone’s pocket. My wife even suggested making them extremely boastful (like most tiny men you encounter). ;-)

Btw, here's an image from Home Worlds. It's a Dark Psi psionic that turns your hands into the claws of a bear:

Creative Juices

The creative juices are flowing again (ewwww), so I came up with two new ideas. The first is a supplement I’m calling Weapons of War that features new weapons, weapon modification rules, and military vehicles (including grav and hover tanks). I’ve been thinking about the mod rules and some new weapons of destruction, but it’s only been recently that I considered adding tanks to the game. For the tanks, I think I’ll be using the same basic “slot” mechanic that I’ve used for robots and starships. I don’t want to go too overboard with them, however, so there’s probably only going to be three sets of chassis (light, medium, and heavy) and three sets of turrets (small, medium, and large). It’s early days, though, so we’ll have to see.

The second idea is for an adventure module called The Ovid Incident. It starts with a cryptic message that reads "Mayday, Mayday ... [static] ... impact ... [static] ... micro singularity ... [static] ... losing containment ... [static] ... please help us ... [static].” Upon investigation, the characters trace the message back to a moon base where mutants and a runaway retrovirus have run amok. The characters must search for survivors and discover what’s gone so terribly wrong.

The Home Worlds module is also coming along. I’m working on the second half right now, which covers Dark Psionics. Right now there’s 26 new psionics that characters can choose from, mostly divided into two categories: metamorphism and so-called Death Magic. I’m hoping these new psionics will satisfy my players’ need for a darker side of the mind. ;-)

The Alpha Totem

The final home world I’m working on right now is called Septu VII and unlike the others that came before it, this one is shared by two of the major races: the feline Akiak and the canine Vogars. The planet, like its two main inhabitants, is a world of contrast: in the northern and southern latitudes, the climate is cold and snowy (kind of like the forests of Siberia). Along the equator, however, the weather is much hotter and desert-like. With that in mind, I envision the Vogars like the wolves of northern Russia and the Akiak like the ancient Egyptians (who actually worshipped cats). Since cats originally came from the desert, that also fits nicely.

Religiously, the Vogars have a shaman culture that values protective spirits called totems (similar to the Indians of the American Northwest). Each individual Vogar has his own guardian spirit, and each Vogar tribe/pack also has its own totem. All of the Vogars, however, have a supreme spirit called the Alpha Totem (like the alpha dog). This spirit protects the entire race.

Below is an image of Septu VII (click to enlarge) and the Vogar flag. The flag is split into two parts: the bottom white area represents the snow, including the footprint of a wolf. The upper part is black, representing the night sky, including the moon and a star:

Path of the Blade

I released the Basic Rules LITE (for free) about a week ago and already it’s been downloaded over 150 times. I’m glad for that, but I wonder if those who downloaded the free version realized just how much more is in the regular rules. I mean there’s a lot I took out that people won’t see unless they buy the full version.

This week I also took another stab at the cover art for Pool of Memory. I posted the image on the Facebook page, but I wish I could’ve done a better job. I see the stuff in other games and wish I had that level of artistic talent.

Today I’ve been writing about the Draconians and something they call the Path of the Blade. It’s a code of conduct similar to Bushido. The Dracs aren’t samurais per se, but they do follow the same ideas of honor and courage. Their planet was invaded by the Imperial military two hundred years ago and the Draconians have attempted to rebel at least eight times since then. The Dracs view the Imperials (and especially the Humans) as barbarians because they don’t follow the Path of the Blade. I’ve also written of a Draconian legend about a two-headed dragon whose one head is good while the other is evil. The legend incorporates the idea of good and evil being connected, and that you can’t have one without the other.

Here’s an image of the Draconian home planet and their flag. Notice the flag features a fist (symbolizing their struggle against Imperial occupation) and a volcano (symbolizing the mountain in which the two-headed dragon lived):

Basic Rules LITE

Another week’s gone by, during which I found myself sucked into a side project (instead of Pool of Memory). Basically, I have a free product called the Imperium Grab Bag that people snatch up like hotcakes, so for a while now I’ve been thinking about offering something a little more substantial for free. That got me thinking about having a “Lite” version of the Basic Rules that people could download. This is actually pretty common: there’s a GURPS Lite and a d20 Traveller Lite, for example.

What is a Lite version? Well, mostly it’s a stripped down edition of the regular rules that introduces people to the game system who might otherwise pass on buying the full version. The trouble lies in how much or how little of the full version you’re going to include. If you keep too much, then there’s really no reason for the person to buy the full rules. If you keep too little, then the person might think your rules have nothing to offer. So, with that in mind, I’ve spent the last several days stripping out stuff from the full Basic Rules to create a Lite version. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, however. For one thing, I had to make sure that I removed any references to things I’ve taken out. I also had to make clear to the reader that there really was a lot more in the Full version that they were missing out on, and thus suggesting that, if they like what they saw, they should buy the regular rules. To that end, I included a little chart (similar to what software makers use) to compare the free version with the pay edition (click to enlarge):

Anyway, I’m hoping that I’ll have the Lite version ready this week so I can post it on DriveThruRPG by the weekend. It’s all a big gamble since there’s no guarantee that anyone will actually buy the Full rules after downloading the free version. Nevertheless, I’m hopeful it will help sales so I can be rich and famous like all the other Pen & Paper game authors. ;-)