A Star Warriors Summary

Along with a new text block for the noble Star Knights and the nefarious Dark Star Warriors, here's a list of the posts I've done regarding this mini-setting so far:

The Azuran System - A map and brief gazetteer of where the action takes place.
STAR WARRIORS! - the introduction to the Star Warriors Universe.
The Bad Guys in the setting.

The Grim Frontier

After seeing The Revenant this weekend in all its visceral frontier glory, a setting idea occurred to me: Take the resource management of the dungeon and combine it with survivalist horror in an American-ish (though ahistorical) frontier setting: The Grim Frontier.

The bullet points:

Elements: Potentially easy death, resource management, and some horror elements beloved by many old school gamers; an evocation for modern audience of the strangeness or alienness of new environments through use of Roadside Picnic-esque zones elements (like my random tables for those); possible implication of post-apocalypticness of the level of The Gunslinger. The wilderness as an area of unsettled reality like the Weird of the Hill Cantons or the West in Felix Gilman's Half-Made World. Ancient mounds, giant skeletons or mummified dwarfs borrowed from the real folklore of the West; vaguely late 18th to first few decades of the 19th level of technology, probably with low magic.

Differs from: The Weird Frontier (more emphasis on horror and resource management, perhaps, hence the "grim"); Fantasy Western (earlier time period than the classic Western); Fantasy American Frontier (not specifically the American continent with the attending ethnic groups, political, and religious struggles).

Inspirations:
Film: Black Robe, The Revenant, Man in the Wilderness, Aquirre: The Wrath of God, Ravenous.
Comics: Manifest Destiny, Pilgrim.
Books: The Gunslinger, Roadside Picnic, Half-Made World and The Rise of Ransom City.

People of the Land of Azurth

Here's an excerpt from a reference I'm making for my players: A catalog of the NPCs they've encountered.

Aura: Princess of the Cloud Folk and daughter of King Cumulo. Like her father, she was held captive in the dungeon beneath the Cloud Castle so that Zykloon could insure the Cloud Folk’s loyalty.

Calico Bonny: The seldom-seen queen of Rivertown’s ramshackle flotilla red-light district, "The Floating World." Her palace is the Queen Azura where she also runs a cabaret. Most of her dealings are handled by her representative(s), Fleur.

Cheape, Aunder: A merchant from the northern Country of Yanth. One of the captives freed from the Cloud Castle’s dungeon, made it out of the ordeal alive and presumably returned home.

Cumulo: The boisterous King of the Cloud Folk. He was held hostage in the Cloud Castle’s dungeon by Zykloon to ensure the cooperation of his son, Prince Thunderhead, and the rest of the Cloud Folk with the giant wizard’s commands.

Fleur: A series of lissome, serene (or perhaps disinterested) young women who serve as the intermediaries for the reclusive Calico Bonny in her dealings.

Gladhand, Yrrol B.: Mayor of Rivertown and the self-appointed patron of our heroes.

Gritz, Lumpley: The Vagrant-ambassador of Lardafa, the City of Beggars. For weeks, he had been in Rivertown awaiting an audience with the Princess Viola (and panhandling to make ends meet), when he and his attache, Mister Jipp, were kidnapped by the Burly Brothers and held for ransom. After he was freed, he got his audience, and left to return to Lardafa.

Inkwell: Mayor Gladhand’s harried chief clerk and accountant. 

King Kuel: The unflappable, Fagin-esque mentor of Waylon and his childhood band of thieves.

Llailogan: A hermit and druid living in a cabin in the Enchanted Wood. He acts as the Wood’s protector, but was tricked and drugged by Ursa so that he wouldn’t interfere in her schemes.

Man in the Metal Suit: On level “L3” beneath Castle Machina, our heroes encountered a man-shaped constructed that they discovered had an old man pierced with various tubes encased within. They delivered to him a velvet bag containing tiny metal sculptures, apparently game pieces of some sort. The man seemed to be playing again with a person never clearly seen whose voice emanated from a large lens of some sort.

Mister Jipp: A well-dressed and (when moved to do so) well-spoken monkey who attends the Lardafan ambassador, Lumpley Gritz.

Nimbus: A callow and not terribly bright youth of the Cloud Folk. 

Pryce, Hyram: A merchant from the northern Country of Yanth. He was one of the captives freed from the Cloud Castle’s dungeon, made it out of the ordeal alive and presumably returned home to resume his rivalry with his more successful brother, Loward.

Thunderhead: Son of King Cumulo and Prince of the Cloud Folk. He enlisted the help of our heroes in freeing his father and sister from the dungeon of Zykloon.

Tubbs, Leakey: Captain of the keelboat Venture that transported our heroes from Rivertown to Ianthine.

Waylon's Childhood Bandmates: Wendle (a raccoon folk jug player), Herv (a human bass player), Emmy (a Renert singer and washboard player).

Woggin: A muscular Frox thief held captive in Zykloon’s dungeon beneath the Cloud Castle. He was freed by our heroes and aided them in their attempts to steal back the magic mirror containing the light of the Whim-Wham Stone.

The Galactic Great Wheel

Looking at my Azuran Sysem map and its conspicuous shape, an idea occurred to me: the AD&D "Great Wheel Cosmology" adapted to a science fiction setting. I've sort of toyed with that idea before in a science fantasy multiverse kind of way, but now I'm thinking more classic space opera in the vein of the things that inspired Traveller, but a bit more Vancian--as is appropriate to its AD&D roots.

So here's the pitch: Sometime in the future, an early spacefaring humanity encounters a gate and gains access to a system of FTL via hyperspace (or the astralspace) and gets its introduction to an ancient, galactic civilization with arcane rules and customs a bit like Brin's Uplift universe. At the "center" of the gates is Hub, a place with a gigantic neutral territory station--like Babylon 5 on a grander scale. Hub connects to all the various worlds. Here's a short sampling:

Archeron: A war world, possibly one where a decadent civilization has kidnapped warriors form different times and worlds to battles for their entertainment.

Baator: The world of beings who (like the Overlords in Childhood's End) look suspiciously like devils from Earth belief, and indeed act very much like them, destabilizing worlds with Faustian bargains somewhat like in Swanwick's Jack Faust.

Beastworld: A planet where many animal species share a group intelligence.

Carceri: An environmentally hostile ancient prison planet.

Limbo: A world in an area of reality warping "broken space" where hyperspace spills in leading to a graveyard of ships.

Mechanus: Robotic beings out to bring order to the galaxy via assimilation. A somewhat (maybe) more reasonable Borg.

Pandemonium: A world only inhabitable in subterranean caverns, but even those are swept by winds that generate infrasound that can drive humanoids insane like the titular Winds of Gath.

Wednesday Comics: 8House: Yorris

I've discussed 8House here before. It's an anthology series conceived by Brandon (Prophet) Graham. It's stories all take place in the same universe ruled by 8 magic houses. The first story (still unfinished) was Arclight. The second, Kiem, is a science fiction tale about a soldier whose mind inhabits the dead body of her twin brother, asked to transport a mysterious item.

The third is Yorris by Helen Maier and Fil Barlow. It's a fantasy that tells the story of  the titular young noble woman who has the ability to see the astral creatures invoked and impowered by the emotions of others--particularly her houses ritual curses cast against their enemies. When Yorris sees what she believes to be an astral assassin at her families ritual, she's thrust into a wider world.

8House has been great so far. Well were checking out. You can see a few sample pages from Yorris here.

Star Warriors: The Bad Guys

The two "bad guy" factions in the world of Star Warriors. The baddies behind the scenes:

And the more mundane threat:

Theriospheric Transfigurations

Erik Jensen has released his first compilation (don't let the "41" in the title fool you) of material from the Wampus Country setting. For the uninitiated, Wampus Country is an old school D&D setting that with an early American frontier veneer, and a somewhat humorous tone. It's sort of The Hobbit, if Bilbo were Davy Crockett and the dwarves were talking dogs in nice hats. Maybe.

Any way, Theriospheric Transfigurations is a collection of animal themed spells material (mostly spells) with a Wampus-y tone, but entirely usable in any old school setting. So long as its a setting where punny creations like a diseasel (a weasel that's a magical carrier of plagues) or the spell Fancify Rat (gives a rodent a snap set of clothes) might be appropriate. Which is to say: almost any, by my reckoning.

I've had the pleasure of playing in Erik's Wampus Country game and he's an inventive DM with a perfect ear for this sort of material. So head over to Rpgnow and pick it up. It's Pay What You Want, and well worth it!