I'll be using this post to keep a collection of link to each entry of my ongoing play-by-blog of The Isle by Luke Gearing. Feel free to read along, vote in the most recent entry's poll to help decide what our character does, etc.
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Cloud Empress: Land of Cicadas by worlds by watt
I'll be using this post to keep a collection of link to each entry of my ongoing play-by-blog of Cloud Empress: Land of Cicadas. Feel free to read along, vote in the most recent entry's poll to help decide what our character does, etc.
In a bold step forward for both cyberware and team management across the galaxy, MEMOS recently debuted Second Self™, a minimally-invasive brain implant capable of creating a secondary self within a single mind—a self with their own memories, job titles, skills, and personalities.
With Second Self™, a crew of four becomes a crew of eight, capable of handling twice as many employment objectives and working in an exponential array of personalities. Second Self™ crews are able to work twice as long (on average) between shore leave periods when compared to traditionally-Selved crews.
Second Self™ is a 5.5”x8.5” bifold pamphlet detailing a cutting-edge piece of cyberware, capable of creating two unique Selves within one body. This implant can be taken at character creation, implanted into an existing character as part of an employment arrangement, or even purchased outright for those wealthy enough to do so. It has the potential for some huge implications at the table with some particularly fun dramatic moments mixed in there when things go wrong (or you need to use your Secondary Self to rescue your Primary Self in a moment’s notice).
You can download it now over on Itch.io FOR FREE: HERE!
This is obviously hugely inspired by Severance which I’ve been having a lot of fun with and more loosely inspired by Mickey 17 which I loved. Enjoy!
It was basically a professional obligation for me to go see Alien: Romulus on its opening weekend.
Short review: Cool. Though I wish directors would make a new alien horror movie instead of new Alien movies.
Lemme tell ya, I might have designer brain disease, but this movie really is a series of problems for a sci-fi adventure, haha. My favorite thing about this movie was the smart, player-skill level problem solving the characters came up with. I was actually impressed. The film made me want to put my friends through the same ringer, and write up a similar scenario.
So I did.
When in Rome is a 20pg Mothership RPG adventure module with two player handouts, obviously heavily inspired by Alien: Romulus. I started last weekend, and released it yesterday. (What’s wrong with me, right?).
That is: writing, playtesting, Mothership 3pp approval, peer review (thanks Josh Domanski, Christian Sorrell, Iko and Allen Hall!), hiring Brandon Yu “Chaoclypse” for the sick art, revising and putting into layout.
So yeah, this module is basically an adaptation of the film, but it does have some very notable (read: legally distinct) differences.
It's free for the next five hours, and I would love to hear what you think, and how your PCs fare on Caesar/Augustus.
Click here to download the module on itch.io. Note that I’m still working on the plaintext file and VTT asset updates. I would love to hear what you think, and how your players’ crews fare on Caesar/Augustus.
I worked on this son of a bitch for 8 years (on and off but lets pretend it was 8 years straight), and there's still more work to be done, but it's fucking out!!!
Play as poor punks in Blister City, the first and last city on Mars, in the year 2251. Join up with your friends, and enact bloody revolution in a city where life is miserable, because rich assholes have deliberately made it so.
It's 90% setting guide, and designed to be played with your favorite cyberpunk games like
Cybermetal 2012
Cy_Borg
Cbr+Pnk
Through the Void
Eclipse Phase
Hack The Planet: Cyberpunk Forged in the Dark
Don't have a favorite cyberpunk game? Play the included rules lite game instead!
Anyway I'm wildly proud of this game, and I hope folks that find it enjoy it.
Our starting party will be a Courier, a Magician, and a Lordling! Screw Sellswords! No one here likes them apparently (literally not a single person, not even me, voted for them)!
I rolled all three characters randomly across the board, as is Play-By-Blog tradition. That said, let's take a look at our crew!
THE COURIER: "Senior" Stone (they/he)
(I'll be typing this up in a little character keeper for upcoming entries, but for now, here's my handwritten sheet! Sorry for my bad handwriting! I have little patience for legibility.)
Stone is a rough-n-tumble courier in their final year of being a teen. They just recovered from a broken arm for a few weeks in Tack Town, and are eager to get back on the road. With a new, still-unnamed crew at their side, they are confident about this next job, if for no other reason than they'll be more targets than just a lone courier this time.
Stone is the party's provision carrier, being a Courier and all. They currently have 3 days worth of Provisions for the entire party (the max they can carry).
THE MAGICIAN: Boto "The Penitent" (she/her)
Boto is a full-grown Magician and practiced arcane healer, looking for something new and exciting among the, frankly, boring fields of the Breadbasket. She just finally learned more about an unknown spell after a few weeks in a backwater village, convincing the townsfolk of her trustworthiness. She's dying for some adventure, and this job looks like it could be just the thing.
THE LORDLING: Iselbraid "The Judge" (he/him)
Iselbraid is a Lordling of some renown but few achievements. After romancing (and angering) several members of the Royal Court, he's taken to the surface for a bit, looking to earn himself a valorous tale or two before returning in the fall. Hopefully they'll be some new members of the court that catch his eye by then. He's still convincing himself that this whole bit of adventure is the right decision, but he doesn't know how long he can get by off of smooth-talking alone.
OUR STARTING GOAL: Hunt a fleshthresher in the Breadbasket. The components fetch a decent exchange in trade, plus there's a local farmerling group offering to aid you considerably if you are able to make the fields around the fleshthresher save for them to harvest.
Fleshthreshers are ancient and deadly automatons, responsible for protecting the automated farm fields of the World Before. We'll need to explore the region or possibly chat with some locals and see if we can get a tip about any known Fleshthreshers in the area. Scout crews frequently gather in Tack Town and head out in search of food, working to gather undetected by the field automatons, so its reasonable to assume some may have a worthwhile lead, if we can find them.
OUR STARTING LOCATION: Tack Town (B18), the largest city in the lowland wastes centered at the heart of the Breadbasket.
"There isn’t an adult Farmerling who has not spent a season in Tack Town and only badly misplanned Farmerling children are born outside its crumbling plastisteel walls. The Lowland’s last city is filled with a jumble of hard shell tents, ancient dwellings, and tack-shaped rolling campers resistant to the unearthing Imago."
"Many make their way to the cafeteria, waiting to taste today’s sweet-meat soup; milky bone broth infused with cardamom and honey. Farmerlings high on mushroom tonic gulp down bowls of the stuff, stumbling past a parading Lordling and nir guards. The Lordling finds few eyes meet nir gaze and the Farmerlings that do bite their thumbs in anger."
"In the market, travelers buy handfuls of seeds with their winter savings, preparing to make their way back to ancient farmlands. There is no singular day of departure, just a growing feeling that it is time to move on. Folks trickle out, four or five at a time, and only the old and unwell stay behind preparing Tack Town for its next winter."
It is here our adventure begins, but first, we have a choice.
What is Our Approach?
Explore Tack Town for Fleshthresher leads
Trade for weapons in Tack Town (arm the unarmed PCs)
Explore the Breadbasket (Travel to B12)
Explore the Breadbasket (Travel to B13)
Explore the Breadbasket (Travel to B14)
Explore the Breadbasket (Travel to B19)
Explore the Breadbasket (Travel to B23)
Explore the Breadbasket (Travel to B17)
Voting ended onJun 9, 2024
(As always, sound off in the comments in you've got another approach or a specific thing you'd like to see the characters do/investigate.
Thanks for joining me for character creation! Next entry will dive into the adventure narration proper and we'll see how these characters explore the world, what events trigger, and more. I'm happy to have y'all along for the ride! - Christian)
My first Play-By-Blog (of Luke Gearing's The Isle) just recently wrapped up, and now, we are getting the next one going with Cloud Empress: Land of Cicadas! If you missed our run through The Isle, you can find all of the entries here.
Recently, I ran a poll to see what folks were interested in for this second Play-By-Blog and the voting was an exact tie between Cloud Empress and Mausritter, but since I'm the one doing all the writing, I was the tiebreaker and chose Cloud Empress and its hexcrawl, Land of Cicadas, as a new twist on the Play-By-Blog format and because the game has a set of solo rules in which you create and play as an entire party, not just a single character.
If you aren't familiar with Cloud Empress, here's a quick description straight from the game's product page:
Cloud Empress is an expansive, Nausicaa-inspired fantasy campaign setting for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. Cloud Empress places you in a world ruled by the patterns of giant magical cicadas. Cloud Empress creates a new Earth, thousands of years in the future inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Hiromu Arakawa’s Full Metal Alchemist.
The full rulebook for the game is FREE over at DriveThruRPG.
Land of the Cicadas takes this world and opens it up across a large hexmap, allowing us to explore the Lowland Wastes (Cloud Empress's take on a farflung future American Midwest) during the summer of the Century Brood and 29th Expedition (an ongoing military incursion from the Cloudling cities).
If you missed the last Play-By-Blog, here's an idea of how it works:
I write up the situation, NPCs, and more, just like a DM/GM.
You vote in the poll to help decide the party's next course of action.
I roll the dice, resolve actions, and write them up in the next entry.
So on and so forth for the rest of the adventure!
With all that said, let's get into Party Creation, vote on our first decisions, and get this whole thing started! Thanks for coming along for the ride.
We'll be generating 3 characters for our starting party. For the sake of our first poll and the number of base Jobs available in Cloud Empress, I'll take the top 3 most popular results and roll up a character for each (unless the All Random option wins the entire poll, in which case all characters will then be randomly rolled). So if Sellsword gets 8 votes, Lordling gets 4, Magician gets 3, and Courier gets 2, I'll roll up a Sellsword, a Lordling, and a Magician.
For variety's sake, we won't double up on Jobs (unless All Random is chosen, in which case it would be possible to get doubles of a Job within the party).
In Cloud Empress, there are 4 different Jobs available to characters:
Sellswords can handle themselves in a fight, but long to find a home. The long lost fighters and gritty mercs of the Wastes.
Lordlings are groomed to lead and strike fear into those around them. Strange and privileged, they stand out among the Wastes.
Magicians sacrifice their bodies to cast dangerous spells. Esoteric but powerful. There are no old Magicians.
Couriers are scrappy travelers who’ve witnessed the best and worst of the world. The salt of the chalk-covered Earth.
After we have our characters, we'll get our starting location and our initial job - the focus of our travels across the Land of Cicadas - from the Solo Procedure tables. Then, we'll be off!
So, what'll it be?
Sellsword
Lordling
Magician
Courier
All Random (d4 rolls to determine each character's Job)
My first Play-By-Blog (of Luke Gearing's The Isle) just recently wrapped up, and now, we are getting the next one going with Cloud Empress: Land of Cicadas! If you missed our run through The Isle, you can find all of the entries here.
Recently, I ran a poll to see what folks were interested in for this second Play-By-Blog and the voting was an exact tie between Cloud Empress and Mausritter, but since I'm the one doing all the writing, I was the tiebreaker and chose Cloud Empress and its hexcrawl, Land of Cicadas, as a new twist on the Play-By-Blog format and because the game has a set of solo rules in which you create and play as an entire party, not just a single character.
If you aren't familiar with Cloud Empress, here's a quick description straight from the game's product page:
Cloud Empress is an expansive, Nausicaa-inspired fantasy campaign setting for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. Cloud Empress places you in a world ruled by the patterns of giant magical cicadas. Cloud Empress creates a new Earth, thousands of years in the future inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Hiromu Arakawa’s Full Metal Alchemist.
The full rulebook for the game is FREE over at DriveThruRPG.
Land of the Cicadas takes this world and opens it up across a large hexmap, allowing us to explore the Lowland Wastes (Cloud Empress's take on a farflung future American Midwest) during the summer of the Century Brood and 29th Expedition (an ongoing military incursion from the Cloudling cities).
If you missed the last Play-By-Blog, here's an idea of how it works:
I write up the situation, NPCs, and more, just like a DM/GM.
You vote in the poll to help decide the party's next course of action.
I roll the dice, resolve actions, and write them up in the next entry.
So on and so forth for the rest of the adventure!
With all that said, let's get into Party Creation, vote on our first decisions, and get this whole thing started! Thanks for coming along for the ride.
We'll be generating 3 characters for our starting party. For the sake of our first poll and the number of base Jobs available in Cloud Empress, I'll take the top 3 most popular results and roll up a character for each (unless the All Random option wins the entire poll, in which case all characters will then be randomly rolled). So if Sellsword gets 8 votes, Lordling gets 4, Magician gets 3, and Courier gets 2, I'll roll up a Sellsword, a Lordling, and a Magician.
For variety's sake, we won't double up on Jobs (unless All Random is chosen, in which case it would be possible to get doubles of a Job within the party).
In Cloud Empress, there are 4 different Jobs available to characters:
Sellswords can handle themselves in a fight, but long to find a home. The long lost fighters and gritty mercs of the Wastes.
Lordlings are groomed to lead and strike fear into those around them. Strange and privileged, they stand out among the Wastes.
Magicians sacrifice their bodies to cast dangerous spells. Esoteric but powerful. There are no old Magicians.
Couriers are scrappy travelers who’ve witnessed the best and worst of the world. The salt of the chalk-covered Earth.
After we have our characters, we'll get our starting location and our initial job - the focus of our travels across the Land of Cicadas - from the Solo Procedure tables. Then, we'll be off!
So, what'll it be?
Sellsword
Lordling
Magician
Courier
All Random (d4 rolls to determine each character's Job)
My first Play-By-Blog (of Luke Gearing's The Isle) just recently wrapped up, and I'm looking to get another one going! If you missed it, you can find them all here.
The basic premise is: I write up the descriptions of events and roll all required dice but you, the readers, choose the big actions via polls. It's a fun blend between Choose Your Own Adventure book and Play By Post. We'll decide on the type of character(s) we'd like to have as the PC/party (depending on the system) and then jump into the adventure.
So, my question today is: Which of the following options would you like to see for PBB #2? Is there another good system/adventure I'm not considering?
My first Play-By-Blog (of Luke Gearing's The Isle) just recently wrapped up, and I'm looking to get another one going! If you missed it, you can find them all here.
The basic premise is: I write up the descriptions of events and roll all required dice but you, the readers, choose the big actions via polls. It's a fun blend between Choose Your Own Adventure book and Play By Post. We'll decide on the type of character(s) we'd like to have as the PC/party (depending on the system) and then jump into the adventure.
So, my question today is: Which of the following options would you like to see for PBB #2? Is there another good system/adventure I'm not considering?
There's an official Fallout ttrpg. I've read it. It's okay!
There's also, completely fanmade, After The Bomb.
And I want to put After The Bomb on your radar, because it's very, very good.
ATB uses a simple d20 + stat system, with bonuses from gear and perks factored in. You have a HP track, which burns at both ends from radiation and damage, and also a survival track that breaks pieces of your equipment whenever it depletes. Rolls are player-made, and the system spends a lot of time in that osr headspace where it cares more about the choices the players make than how they built their character. The game's currency is Junk, and you spend it repairing your gear and crafting consumables.
Levelling up is surprisingly rich with choice, and fights and obstacles are tense and deadly. Again, the core mechanics are simple, but they use this simplicity to push complex choices towards the players. You see a piece of valuable Junk floating in a bog. Do you go in and take a point of radiation? Risk coming back later? Waste your own Junk fashioning a contraption to try and get it out?
After The Bomb comes with its own sandbox campaign set in Minnesota, plus a *lot* of GM support for stuff like factions, monsters, and basebuilding.
It's a gem in our current pre-apocalypse, and I strongly recommend giving it a look.
Full spread art by @helenacore depicting Early Graduation's opening field exercises!
Greetings Tacticians!
Tactician of Ahm's Monthly Update #2 is finally here! With it comes the early access version of the setting book, The Ahmian Almanac, which features its first sample region of Ahm, showcasing the style and structure of setting book I am hoping to create with the Almanac. The book will feature lore and locations, of course, but it will also feature more in-depth maps, new NPCs, unique equipment, a complete new Class, and more! I want to create a book that it as much a sourcebook chock full of new things for GMs to bring to the table as it is information about the world of Ahm and inspiration for adventures.
Thanks you so much for the continued support of and engagement with the game! I used more of the raised funds to commission more art from Helena Santana including a new, full-spread art piece for Early Graduation (at the top of the post) and a piece of Dekkin Von Lopesbane character art (also for Early Graduation). Plus, I've worked with Jean Verne on a second preview spread (see above) of our planned look and feel for the game's final layout, this time utilizing some of Helena's awesome art from Monthly Update #1!
Because of my delay of this update (it was originally slated for last month) and the update overall being smaller than I originally was hoping, I am delaying this month's price hike on the game so if you enjoy Tacticians of Ahm now is still a great time to get on board! Tell your friends to do the same! Next update, the price will rise by $5 USD and that will continue apace (barring unforeseen delays like the one I suffered this last month, of course).
Lastly, I recently ran the opening two hours of Early Graduation over on The Weekly Scroll. Check it out if you'd like to see the game in action and see how I run it as the GM!
PATCH NOTES - v0.8.3
Tactician’s Textbook
Clarified Conditions to apply until the end of target’s next Turn (as opposed to confusing wording regarding Rounds).
Renamed “Shield” Condition to “Ward” to avoid having the same name as a shield, the piece of equipment and updated relevant uses throughout the text.
Ward condition now explicitly blocks all damage AND any/all Conditions while in effect.
Updated Mage Ability - Barrier to include “May be cast on self (1 target maximum per use)”
Added clarifying text to Shields in Equipment section: “(does not block Conditions)”
Added clarifying text regarding applying multiple Conditions to a single target: “A target may suffer one or more different Conditions at the same time. If a target currently has a Condition, they may not be affected by that same Condition again (nor does it add turns of effect to the current Condition) until the current instance has ended.”
Gamemaster’s Guidebook
Added Boar (EL1) to Bestiary
EARLY GRADUATION
Added a massive new piece of art from Helena Santana to the title page, depicting the Tacticians sparring with Imperial Army soldiers during the Field Day exercises!
Added Boar (EL1) to “BATTLE: Wolves in the Woods” and adjusted combatant numbers at various party sizes to more accurately reflect typical intended difficulty.
AHMIAN ALMANAC (NEW!)
Lake Traecine region added, includes the following:
5 Major Points of Interest: New locations for your Tacticians to travel to and explore!
20 Calls for Aid: Adventure hooks and strange happenings across the region!
1 Class: New classes, accessible only to Tacticians who prove their worth!
11 Abilities: New combat skills, taught to those favored by a certain faction!
2 Enemies: New combatants, unique to the specific region or faction!
2 Relics: New guarded/lost pieces of equipment, be they mundane, magical, or corrupt3d!
2 Factions: New groups, wielding political, cultural, or magical power!
1 Shop: A New specialty establishment carrying new and rare items!
4 Characters: New NPCs for your Tacticians to meet, interact with, and fight alongside!
More detailed (placeholder) map of the region with travel paths!
I haven't posted anything here for a long time, but hey, I am actually doing some art for the Cloud Empress – the ecological science fantasy TTRPG inspired by Nausicaa, Fullmetal Alchemist and Dune (among other things), and right now is the last week to back it on kickstarter! Don't miss out on it!
