The Star Warriors Setting

Some time ago, on a Blog not too far away...

[plays loud orchestral music]

Years ago on the Blog From the Sorcerer's Skull, the owner "Tray" came up with a neat little pulp space setting that takes place in the far-off Azuran System called The Star Warriors.

At first it comes off as just another Star Wars-inspired setting with an evil regime (the Authority), a battle between an order of heroic mystic space knights (the Star Knights) verses an order of evil occult space sorcerers (the Dark Star Warriors) with a supernatural element that is the source light and dark magic (The Enigma Source and Anti-Source), and with some wild west added for flavoring. But when you really look at it, it was inspired by the Vega star system from the Green Lantern comics and the Micronauts' Homeworld from the Marvel comic, as well as a number of obscure '80s toy lines, like the Lords of Light, Power Lords, BraveStarr, etc. (The 1980s was a sea of obscure cartoons and toy lines.)

 

(Although, it should be said that after Star Wars cough lightning in a bottle, just about everyone wanted to create "the next Star Wars", so the '80s was full of wannabe Star Wars films. And the cartoon-toy craze of the 1980s was due to the successes of Star Wars mechanizing.)

At first, I tried to come up with comprehensive background details on history, customs, costumes, military ranks, etc., as well as stock NPCs both good and bad, but it quickly occurred to me that it was too much detail for a sandbox. Having a good foundation is fine, but I still want the setting to be open-ended enough to make it malleable, without binding myself into a straitjacket. Nor do I want to front-load a butch of powerful NPC heroes to steal the player-character's thunder. After all, if the setting already has powerful heroes in play, what is the point of the player character.

That is the charm about the setting. Even with how fantastic the Star Wars setting is, the glut of background information ("canon" and "legends"), as well as the limitations placed in the well-established setting, makes it hard to run as a role-playing setting. The Star Warriors is a rough outline fresh for adventure and individual world-building. I take whats there and add my own flavoring to the stew, in service to my own games. I see this setting as a place where you'll find 17th century pirates as space-pirates in rocketships; Barsoomian-like people going through space in elegant Spelljammer-like ships; space gypsies; space-elves that look like the nymphish woman in an old Leiji Matsumoto anime; a backwater barbarian hero who is applying his/herself as a great space adventurer; and so on and so forth. Pure kitchen-sink fantasy... IN SPACE!!!

You can find more info about the setting here, here, here, here and here.

Here are my ideas:

NEW ORGANIZATIONS

THE CONSORTIUM
This large, powerful corporate conglomerate is the Authority's principle ship and weapon manufacturer. Both entities believes that they are more pivotal to the stability of the Azuran system than the other, buy they are so inescapably codependent off one another that nether side can get control of the other without undoing them both. But that does not stop the scheming and power-plays. The corporate leaders live apart from the common people; in the an orbiting space station above Omicron, the Sky Follower — once a splendid garden park open for anyone to enjoy.

AUTHORITY ENFORCERS
Enforcers form the backbone of the Authority. Covered in black armored spacesuits and armed with lethal weapons and training, Authority Enforcers are fanatically loyal to Authority High Command. They are soldiers who also serve as law enforcement. The most elite become the infamous Night Watch Enforcers — the Authority's covert commandos and secret police. Good citizens of the Azuran System would be wise to not cross Enforcers as the Authority does not tolerate dissension!

FREEDOM FIGHTERS
Although treated as a monolithic terrorist organization by the Authority, Freedom Fighters are individual insurgence groups with their own leadership, goals and... methods. They range from small bands of scrappy rebellious youth, to well-armed fleets ships and guerrilla fighters; from noble renegade Star Knights, to heartless desperadoes. Without a great leader to unite them, each group bravely and desperately fights a hopeless battle to brake the iron grip of the evil Authority.

ELYSIA'S RESISTANCE FLEET
Formed form the survivors of the conquest of Elysia by the Authority, they form a scrappy but well-disciplined and well-armed fleet. They have a good number of warships and fighters, and with the right planing and strategy, could take down an Authority's armada head on, but with limited resources, it would be a pyrrhic victory at best. They lack dedicated troops and are dependent on allies for ground battles. When confronted with Authority Enforcers, all they have are technicians and pilots with sidearms.

THE WAYFARERS
Travailing in old but well-decorated rocketships, these spacerborne free-spirited vagabonds are a mix of tramp traders, grifters, entertainers and mystics. They are not trusted by civilized people and the Authority see them all with suspect. People seek them out for their fortunetelling abilities, to acquire rare and exotic (and often illicit) goods, or to take in their exotic performances. Their strange music and dance are said to induce an unearthly ecstasy! Whilst there are those who want them to settle down, the wild heart of a Wayfarer will never allow it.

SPACE PIRATES
In the chaotic reaches of the Azuran system, space bandits pray on helpless merchant ships and passenger liners. Pirates are feared through out the Azuran System! A few Captains are bold enough to dare strike Authority supply convoys. Vary few pirates are noble, as most are just in it for wealth. Although seen as nothing more than a fairy tale by hopeful youth, there is a legend of a roguish Space Pirate Captain who is driven by revenge and justice to defeat the Authority.

THE BLACK STAR PIRATES
The most infamous Space Piratefleet in the whole Azuran system! Their brutality is the stuff of legends and nightmares! While most Space Pirates would keep prisoners for the sake of slavers and ransoms, they have been known to kill off whole ships of crew and passengers, including on luxury ships full of rich passengers, from time-to-time as a stark reminder to the Azuran System that they are a force not to be reckoned with. As they have a robust trading center for slaves and stolen goods at the well-guarded space fortress on Skull Rock, they are the most well-equipped pirate fleet in the Azuran system. The bounty on an individual Black Star Pirate Ship is enough to buy a small moon!

NEW WORLDS

Omicron: The Industrial Planet
This ancient planet is covered in layers of urban expansion. Once the economic center of the Azuran system, the collapses of the Solar Alliance brought an era of warring corporate feudal states within Omicron that help gave rise to the Authority that filled the power vacuum left by the Alliance. Through the Authority, the corporations coalesced into a single corporate entity: The Consortium. The upper-levels are made up of Consortium-controlled businesses, while the mid-levels are made up of Consortium-controlled communities, both enforced with a heavy hand by Authority peacekeepers. The lower-levels are a lawless den of scum and villainy out of the reach of the Authority. It is infamous for bing the birthplace of the system's worst criminals, bounty hunters and guerilla fighters. But much of the population of the lower-levels are just poor, desperate people. The people of this world are historically hardworking, industrious and practical in nature. Before the collapses of the Solar Alliance they were also a fairly easy-going and philanthropic people, but now they are cynical and aggressively militant. The whole planet is a powder-keg of political and economic discontentment, just waiting for the Authority to loosen their iron grasp on Omicron.

(This world is located at the one of the unnamed planets near Authority Prime, Elysia and Computronia; see first link above for system map)

Skull Rock: The Space Pirate Hideout
The notorious Skull Rock is the hidden base of the dread Black Star Pirates. It is a large hollow asteroid within The Outer Belt. Time and time again, attempts to destroy Skull Rock ended horribly for Authority fleets thanks in large part for the dangers of navigating The Outer Belt, as well as the ambush tactics deployed by the pirates. Smugglers, slave merchants and Wayfarers are often welcome to the Grand Trading Hall of Skull Rock. The bounty in Skull Rock could buy a whole planet!

(This asteroid is found outside the "ring of life" that makes up the solar system; see first link above for system map)

Old-School Cyberpunk (and Nostalgia)

For some years now I have been rally into Cyberpunk-genre gaming, mostly out of '80s and '90s nostalgia.

I grew-up in the '80s, will all the cheesy cartoons, comic books, and blood-n-boob filled action & horror films that came with it. On top of that, being from the San Fransisco Bay Area, I was exposed to the Puck scene, the Hip-Hop scene, sci-fi/fantasy/comic/RPG conventions, and bootleg "Japanimation" more-or-less at once. It was neat, but I was mostly in the background as a child too young to really understand a lot of it.

I started to come in to my own as a young teen in the '90s. By then, I was into heavy metal, discovering a lot of legally made "dubbed" anime (before then, you had to rely on bootlegs having subtitles or own a magazine that lists the translations) that came of the OVA video market, and I was running my own D&D games. The '90s anime market had a wide range of genre, but the one that really stood out was cyberpunk, with titles like Akira, Appleseed, Battle Angel Alita, Bubblegum Crisis, Ghost in the Shell, etc. (Much of it was inspired by American films from the '80s) Back in the '90s, I mostly played D&D, Battletech, 1e Gamma World. My first exposure to cyberpunk gaming was Shadowrun (2e). It was classic cyberpunk mixed with fantasy elements. I never liked that combination. By the time I discovered SR, the Tolkien elements of fantasy — elves, orcs, overly-useful magic, etc. — was wearing thin on me. All I wanted was a pure cyberpunk game and I was unaware of Cyberpunk 2020 or ICE's Cyberspace. It felt like everyone was playing 2e AD&D, Shadowrun or Vampire, without much variation.

I finally discovered Cyberpunk 2020 in the mid-2000s. The site that really got me to looking into CP2020 is an old site called Datafortress 2020 by Deric "Wisdom000" Bernier. It is a great resource of CP2020 that helps expand upon the setting, often using anime and images found across the internet.

With Cyberpunk 2020, I found the rules to be... well... Dull. In a nutshell, it was basically "Roll a d10, add relevant attribute, skill and any other adjustment vs a static Target Number." With rules, I want something with more pizazz with the game mechanics, as well as a focus on actual role-playing. On top of that, it also had a "Humanity Cost" for getting fitted with cybernetics, with the ultimate cost being Cyberpsychosis: A mental infliction that turns a character into ether an emotionless introvert who balls-up in the corner and withers away, or a mindless berserker that must murder-fuck EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING!!! I was never a fan of this rule. I see it as a cheap game-balance mechanic to limit the amount of cybernetic a character have at one time. To me, the best limitation to what you can have installed is power and maintenance. That is, some of the more powerful cybernetics would require a lot of power. You might have to use some of the internal areas of a cyber-limb to mount batteries, while a whole cyborg body would require portable motor! Maintenance goes without saying. Its silly to think that you get your right arm replaced and it would stay as good as a natural arm: A cyberarm cannot mend its own cuts and brakes, and you still have to keep it oiled and what have you. If anything, you should be able to mount any number of cosmetic, superficial cyberwear, like any fashionwear, sensory-enchantments, the Mr. Studd™ sexual implant (yes, this is a thing), Skinweave, etc. After all, being able to go "full cyborg" should be an achievement into itself, and not something that is relegated to a murderous corporate attack-dog.

And yet, I still really like it! The game gets "Cyberpunk" right! The chrome, the fashion, the scene, the punk! You can never downplay the fashion or the "punk" enough. Its high-tech lowlife adventure! Cyberpunk took a lot form other fiction and it is better for it. You'll find a lot of great content with it its rulebook and supplements. The art is great. Although, its a shame that is mostly black & white (the cyberpunk future is best viewed in that punk-n-blue neon-back-lit "bisexual lighting"), and a number of the more risqué artwork found in the French language editions was altered or expunged from the English edition, which is a big no-no, as cyberpunk is supposed be erotic. Another great part of CP2020 is that due to people getting disenfranchised by the mega-corporations (aka, the only employers in town), they avoided becoming homeless rats in the urban war-zones by coming free-roving families called the Nomads. Beyond "The Sprawl" of the big cities, fly-over country is an endless landscape of dead farmlands, suburban ruins, old decayed roads, lawless gangs of bloodthirsty raiders, the Nomads trying to survive in the wild countrysides of North America. Basically, Cyberpunk 2020 goes into Mad Max territory.

In this game, you can freely sample classic cyberpunk novels, '80s sci-fi action films, '90s cyberpunk anime, post-apocalyptic biker films, and even the stranger cyberpunk films of the '90s. You can watch Bladerunner, Freejack, and Crime Zone for the urban backdrop, Robocop (1 & 2) for the corporate backdrop and corporate-controlled media, Mad Max (The Road Warrior, Beyond Thunderdome, and any number of their imitators) for the Nomad communities, Liquid Sky (and Patrick Nagel's art, and Jem and the Holograms) for the fashion, '80s punk for the rebel Rockboy scene, Hackers for Netrunner scene, Strange Days for the directive stories, and so much more!

Mind you, I'm still not a fan of the rules, and I will use a system that will strike my fancy. In the past I'd use Dream Pod-9's Silhouette system. Right now, its something more cobbled together from a number of different rule systems. I will ape content from Shadowrun, Cyberspace and any other cyberpunk game I can find. I find the Cyberpunk 2020 setting to be easy and available.

Unsurprisingly, Cyberpunk 2020 is going to see new life with the upcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt RED and tabletop RPG Cyberpunk Red by R.Talsorian Games. Here is the tailer for the video game:

Comic Review: Nevermind the Gap

When it comes to comic books, I like the odd and obscure. Unless it is cleaver and character driven, I generally avoid superhero comics. Instead, I tend to focus on offbeat stuff most comic book shops would throw in the bargain bins or among the "underground" shelf. Although, the internet is a great place to find offbeat comics. There are countless websites devoted for any aspiring comic artist/writer to throw their creations out in the digital world! Most people would not think too much of their work, some others would be put off them, while an unknown number of people would deeply enjoy them for whatever reason.

Nevermind the Gap is something I quite enjoy. It is about a girl and technician who live on a small, futuristic town. As a sci-fi, it likes to boast the high-tech toys, and tries to tackle social issues. In this world, people live among androids. Their CPUs are built on quantum computing, so they are complex enough to allow for human emotion. Throughout the story, you see how the robotic people develop, interact with their fleshy neighbors, and deal with robotic mortality. One of may favorite toys they have, is a cloth that can turn invisible and can appear as other clothing. (As a role-player, that would go great in a style-obsess cyberpunk setting.)

Beyond the sci-fi themes, much of the story is about romance. This comic is vary sexual! It deals with nudity in a casual way, but I don't see that as offensive, nor pornographic (in fact, I take offense to people calling casual nudity "pornographic"). It also deals with sex in a casual way - which is vary much pornographic. =P

Don't get my wrong. I do not like in-your-face smut, and I will get annoyed if a story is nothing but mindless fucking! Porn on the internet is like dirt you get on your shoes: it can be found everywhere, and you'll find a lot of it even while just strolling. And yet, this web comic somehow stays tasteful, and even funny at times. While a porno uses a "plot" to motivate otherwise normal (relatively speaking) people to fuck like tomorrow will never come, the sex in this comic is used to serve the story, and it is not the main focus of it.

The artistry of the characters are nice, in a semi-manga style. (The artist originally wanted to make them look cartoony, but had second thoughts, which was a good choice.) The backgrounds are not the best, but that is a major handicap for the artist. At times, you really have to keep an eye out for little details or read the author's annotations, as you might read the next page with no idea with what just happened. The pacing is slow, and the comic has a fairly good run (350+ pages). As much as I liked to story, I felt disappointed by the ending. Overall, I was quite hooked, but your miles will vary.

I could pour-out more texts about how good or bad the comic is, but I think I said enough for people to make-up their own minds about it. So if you like a smart and romantic sci-fi, and not bothered by nudity and sex, then check it out.


Say tuned for my next comic review, where I review a web comic that is smart and romantic, without being sexual.

The Metamorphica

 Last week, I ordered The Metamorphica from Lulu.com (here is the free copy, and here is the printed copy), and it came in yesterday. When I found out about it two weeks ago, and download it, it was something that I had to get, as an electronic copy dose not compare to a physical copy (dead-tree editions are good, but I would settle on the file, if I had an e-reader to read it from). As far as mutation/super-power lists go, this is the most extensive and versatile! This book is not bound to a single rule system, so it can be used in nearly any system, if you don't mind adding the rules for each mutation. Thankfully, many are superficial traits with little or no barrings to the rules. They are written like the descriptions from first edition Gamma World, but expunged of all mechanics, save for range and duration, and even still, they are listed on random tables. And there are lots and lots of random tables! The entire mutation list can be rolled by a single roll of a d1000 (like a normal d00/d% roll, but with an extra die for the hundreds), or rolled by categories, using more exotic rolls with bonuses in increments of hundreds (see below). The categories are:

1-200 Body: Form (d200)
201-400 Body: Function (d200+200, or d400 for both)
401-500 Mind: Behaviours (d100+400)
501-600 Mind:Cognition (d100+500, d200+400 for both, or d600 with all above)
601-700 Psychic Powers (d100+600, d300+400 with mind, or d700 will all above)
701-1000 Supernatural Attributes (d300+700, d400+600 with psychic, or d600+400 with psychic and mind)

Body: Form are the physical mutations that effect how you look, and makes you appear freakish. Body: Function are the physical mutations that effect how you use your body, but dose not always effect how you appear. Mind: Behaviours are the mental mutations that effect the way you think. As they are neurological impulsion and insanity, they can be used on normal people who have been exposed to stress... or eldrich forces! Mind: Cognition are the mental mutations that effect who your brain works. They work like natural talents or mental disabilities. Psychic Powers are paranormal mental mutations that provides control over other minds and physical states. Supernatural Attributes are paranormal abilities you would find with superheros and mythological creatures. The master table is easy to read, and notes the page numbers in a clear but subdued way. This method of indexing is a big plus.

Naturally, you will not find a 200-sided die for sale (as if the 100-sided gulf ball was not bad enough), but you can workout your own system of rolling. For example, you can roll a d200 by replacing the d10 for the '10s' with a d20. Something like a d300 (and no d30 at hand) you can roll d% normally, but with a d3 multiplier die (1 = +100; 2 = +200; 3 = +0 - the highest roll always gives nothing in this method).

Following this big list, there are a useful notes and charts in the four appendices. The first appendix has additional tables for this or that. This is great if you want to come up with strange, new creatures, or to full in some details from the master list, if you don't want to choose your own bodily form. Appendix 2 is good for making mutants, with an appearance change table, beneficial and detrimental mental and physical mutations, quick physical mutant features, and quick superhero powers. Appendix 3 has notes and a few tables for making a character by genre. They include lab-experiments you would see in an old B-move or video game, comic book superheroes, Gamma World-styled post-apocalyptic mutants, and the demonic aberrations you'll find in the old Realm of Chaos books from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The last appendix has notes on making mutants by genotype. This includes Beastlings, Demons, Mutant Hordes, Mutant Plants, Uplifted Animals, and Xenobiology. The book ends with three pages of bibliography, that helped made the book. Naturally, most of these are role-playing books, but a number of them are works of fiction, with a good number of them being by H.P. Lovecraft.

The cover has an evocative image of a medusa-like woman, with tentacle-hair in place of snakes, and white all around. The interior art is simple, minimal and seem to serve as bookends for a chapter to fill what would otherwise be empty space. They are a mixed bag of styles, but are otherwise OK. The interior layout is simple, and without a lot of fancy fonts or decorations (boarders or fancy headers). The book is a softcover, digest-size book. Without rule content or a lot of artwork, the book packs A LOT for a 154 pages.

The Good: This is a highly indispensable supplement for any post-apocalypse science fantasy, superhero, space opera, pulp-horror, sword & sorcery, and mad-science themed games or settings. It is also well laid out. You would find more mutants than you'll know what to do with them!

The Bad: The lack of rules means you'll have to do a lot of paperwork, if they are not covered by the rules of your choice.

I can not highly recommend this book enough!

Browncoats Rejoice!

W00T!!! Firefly is back on television...

...well, on extended cable. The Science Channel - known for their hard-science programing, narrated by Morgan Freeman, and some middle-aged Japanese professor - has picked-up the long canceled sci-fi western. I could still watch it on Hulu.com, but my vid-quality sucks, and I can't play all the episodes there (one or two of their episodes are damaged or something).

If you can't tell, I really like that show. It was like Joss Whedon read Han Solo at Star's End ten times, with some white-knuckled westerns in between (or something like that). Even if you don't like his other shows - like Buffy or Dollhouse - he is good for dishing out interesting characters, as well as good character developments and interaction. The local environments are colorful, the ship has a nice lived-in feel, lots of moral ambiguity, and it has the sort of western-styled pioneer environment that I like in a good sci-fi.

The FOX network where fools for crushing this show. It was the first meaningful sci-fi program in a long time. They hated it, sabotaged it, and did their damndest to kill it before it could even develop even a small following! It was the sort of "space western" that got me into classic Star Trek and hoped for in Enterprise, and the sort of roguish cast that made Blake's 7 interesting. Star Trek: The Next Generation had a lot of fans - even fans who go as far as to make the show's overarching ideology their personal philosophy - but they can keep their happy-go-lucky future world! It is a universe divorced of our human nature. A culture that enjoys Shakespeare, but could never truly appreciate his works. That is the cheerfully optimistic world I wash my hands of! The FOX network pride themselves for being the "edgy network", but that was a long time ago, and they no longer have the vision or foresight to see 1 inch from them, nor 1 second ahead. Their executives maybe the poster-boys for German-styled eugenics, that ruins anything they touch, but those bastards can't take the sky from me!