Evolution of a Supplement

NOTE: For people in Kansas, please use the title “Immaculate Changes by the Big Guy.”

When I first started work on my current supplement, it was entitled Pool of Memory and was going to be about five home worlds, weapon modifications, and a set of new abilities called Dark Psi. Early on, however, I decided to move the weapon mods to a different supplement. After going through the proofreading process, however, I also realized that there wasn’t enough content, so I added more information about each home world and added a section of racial abilities (one per race with each home world). I then changed the name from Pool of Memory to Home Worlds, since that seemed to fit better. After adding more content for each home world, I reached the point where the Dark Psi (and the racial abilities) just didn’t fit anymore. I had very nicely painted myself into a corner. After a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that I needed to pull the abilities out altogether and just focus on the home worlds, including the addition of more content like NPCs and encounters (similar to Chapter 10 of the Basic Rules). For those paying attention, this is NOT the best way to write a game supplement. In fact, it’s quite possibly the WORST way to write a game supplement. On the other hand, this only gives credence to my belief that the world would be a better place if it was run by robots and not people (or at least not people like ME). ;-)

Soooo, instead of publishing Home Worlds this week, it’s going to be a while longer. However, I do have my other product, Cardboard Citizens II, which is just about ready to go, so I’ll probably be publishing that within the next week or two.

On another front, I’ve been taking more notes about The Ovid Incident, my next adventure module. I was doing some brainstorming last week and came up with some more ideas. It’s still only in the planning stages, and hopefully I can plan a little better this time around.

They Drag Me Back In

As it turned out, I really wasn’t done with the content for Home Worlds. After going through the new sourcebook, I realized that each planet wasn’t fleshed out enough. I spent the last two weeks adding more details for each world, especially the geographical regions. I also added a few more cultural tidbits for some of the races. Now, finally, I think I’m getting close to the end and I’ve given the current draft to the Editor for proofreading.

In the last couple of days I’ve been doing some preliminary renders for the Ovid Incident adventure module. The adventure’s about a runaway retrovirus and the grotesque mutations that occur at the lab where the virus was developed. So, I’ve been messing round with different character shapes and textures in Poser. I’m not sure how good the results are at this point, but there’s lots of time to fiddle with it.

Lately I’ve also been thinking about doing some creative writing (with the Imperium as the background). A while back I wrote the beginning of a short story called Ramus, but never went beyond the first few pages. Over the last week, however, I’ve been putting together an outline and some character ideas. In the original story, Ramus was a human, but my recent work on Home Worlds got me thinking about having him be a Dahl outcast who’s dabbled in Dark Psionics. I’d like to tie the story into an adventure idea revolving around the Dökk (the Dark Dahl). I only hope writer’s block and a lack of time (due to my other projects) won’t keep me from writing the story.

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: