100 More Facts About Mother Stole Fire

 Sequel to a post I wrote nearly four years ago on the dot. Been away for far too long.

1. There are seven dogs in the world whose loyalty is so great that death will not claim them. They remain by the graves of their companions, aged but immortal. The eldest of these is a red wolf who, judging by the grave goods found within the cave, has kept his watch for nearly 45,000 years.
2. Lilu cuisine has a culinary tradition of extremely flavorful food in very small portions, born of having to make do with very little.
3. The oldest living mortal being in the world is a tree named Great Tuung, estimated by wizards to be 2.9 million years old. Several other similarly ancient trees are known - Pando, Old Jikko, and Kalavay have all reached a million years.
4. Hespermontane theater loves stock characters and audience interaction. There's a very porous fourth wall and a lot of improvisation involved (since established characters have established behaviors, riffing on those traits is a necessity to keep the audience interested).
5. One of the greatest honors for a storyteller is the adoption of one of their creations into the wider stable of popular stock characters. Sometimes the character will have their creator's family name appended to their own.
6. Abolitionism was not unheard of in the Second Empire, but its supporters never grew beyond controlled opposition in the senate. Some slight restrictions might get passed every few years, enough to mollify them with a functionally-identical status quo.
7. Wheelchair-bound Goa is the patron god of those with physical and mental disabilities, as well as Tubalkhan’s nephew and one of his workshop assistants. “Give a man what aid he needs, hand him his tools, and let him work as he knows best” goes the saying.
8. The proper name for the third gender in the Longhouse Culture literally translates to “they are always running back and forth” - a reference to their original social function as go-betweens for the men and women’s lodges.
9. A common Belt story: A ship is hit by a sudden storm of such intensity that the weatherworker cannot prevent the ship from sinking. But they are able to weave a spell of wave-marching, and the crew proceeds to walk to the nearest island by its power. While clearly exaggerated into folktale (the distance walked, power of the spell, and number of crew are well outside of reality), there is precedent for fishermen whose canoes capsize making their way home by this method. "If the ship sinks, we will walk to shore!" is a common refrain of the 'Belter Spirit'.
10. As there is little economic impetus for sex work in the Hespermont, pornotekton is more accurately treated as a religious vocation
11. The four most renowned of Tubalkhan's named hammers are Thunderer, Ringing Bell, Iron-Shaper, and Chain-Breaker.
12. Lady Rust is the third sister of the Black and White Queens of Tanniclen; she departed for Pelai during the War and hasn’t been seen on this side of the ocean since. Her sisters don’t talk about her and she’s been dropped from the wizards’ historical records, so it’s fair to presume that the parting was on bad terms.
13. The following historical and pseudohistorical personages exist in MSF with only minor alterations of name and circumstance: Boudicca, Hubaba, Zheng Yi Sao / Ching Shih, Gilgamesh & Enkidu, Enheduana, John Brown, Benjamin Lay, Adolphe Sax, Fred Rogers, Emperor Norton.
14. To "throw the book" at someone means to solve a problem, usually one caused by an officious and equivocating person, through unexpectedly direct means; the phrase originates in a popular Pelaian folktale of a cruel magistrate undone by the hero simply beaning him in the head with a law codex hard enough to knock him out.
15. The city of Qhauya hosts a yearly celebration of the ousting of the wizard-king Bahg, wherein young men dressed as the tyrant are released from the cathedral after morning services to be chased down and hauled back by the townsfolk. The last contestant to be returned gets to open the ceremony the following year, and is given Bahg’s actual (if disenchanted) hat as a trophy until then.
16. A Hespermontane meal: rice and beans with corn and greens, smoked cavy, and a pumpkin-based chili sauce.
17. Municipal gadugi (volunteer collective work teams) are the backbone of Hespermont communities; they’re responsible for trash pickup, snow removal, public space maintenance, community events, festival preparation, and so on.
18. The guilt that comes with addiction is prime feeding ground for demons; treatment entails robust ritual support from the community and focused support from friends and family.
19. The many small island and fleet nations of the Belt are tied together by a complex and longstanding series of treaties and agreements. If a party violates these agreements and oversteps what is considered acceptable hubris, it is now one’s appointed duty to invoke the Trickster Wind and divest them of their wealth; this invocation of swashbuckling piracy as spiritual practice Is the driving counterforce to historical invasions of the Belt by continental powers, and the source of the invaders' repeated failures.
20. In Hespermontane languages, "our ancestors" is always used in the inclusive first person, regardless of where the speaker or audience is from.
21. A prayer to Tubalkhan: "Praise to you, Father of All Peoples, for you teach men and women to make things well."
22. "tok-tok" is a filler particle marking a pause in speech to collect one’s thoughts. An onomatopoeia for knocking a smoking pipe against a wooden block to remove the ashes, originating with ceremonial tobacco during lodge meetings. May also be used as a nonspecific measurement of time.
23. Neckties are only really fashionable in Dis, as the image of wearing a noose as a symbol of one's employment is considered a non-starter outside of Hell.
24. A common insult accusing the target of being an unskilled or inconsiderate lover is derived from the name of a mythic hero notorious for declining an Amazon war-queen's flirtations out of fear of emasculation, and has thus become synonymous with cowardice and poor moral character.
25. Preserved corpses are prime targets for malicious spirits, and so there is a common cross-cultural taboo against embalming or mummifying the dead. The body must be returned to the earth through burial or cremation. 
26. Cheap clay vessels are often stamped with “shatter, and return to the earth".
27. The association of cats and witchcraft goes all the way back to Hecate, who is commonly portrayed alongside the nekomata triad of Pangur Ban, Cait Si, and Greymaulkin.
28. Parliament of Birds vs. Magnaclowder is still taught in the legal schools of the Dragon Republics as one of the Five Landmark Cases. While not a full cessation of hostilities, the final ruling of the nine-year-long suit does severely limit the number of birds any given cat might catch per year.
29. The largest heist in modern history involved the theft of 941 tomes from the private library of the wizard Thanagar the Illuminated. The culprits were never identified and the local government declined to investigate, claiming that since the theft took place on the wizard’s property it was outside their jurisdiction. Facsimile copies of the stolen texts, supposedly derived from “newly discovered original manuscripts” began public library circulation the following year.
30. Red Heron is the largest of the  “in-between” / open clans (those that may be joined without marriage or an internal recommendation); the bulk of its members are migrant workers, immigrants, and those who have for whatever reason left their home clans.
31. Competitive pepper eating is a common display of machismo / nonviolent way to settle disputes in the Belt.
32. Nut allergies are rare, thanks to common use of peanut / tree nut paste in baby food.
33. The alchemical quest to turn lead into gold is not undertaken to produce gold, but to destroy lead. Even in distant antiquity it was known as a worthless and dangerous metal, and in several ancient law codes the knowing usage of lead is classified as centumicide - the legal equivalent to the murder of 100 men.
34. Alchemist’s Gold: a dull, mottled, copper-colored metal that retains the softness and low melting point of lead while losing its toxic interactions with living bodies. It’s useful in nearly all the ways gold is useful, though generally considered ugly. Metalworkers specializing in it are called dunsmiths.
35. Always knock before going to the bathroom at night; there might be an akaname in there, and you wouldn’t want to startle them. Scum lickers might be gross, but they’re ecologically important!
36. Communities will sometimes string the year’s weddings together during the spring or summer and stretch out the collective celebration for days.
37. Spells to aid with sleep compose one of the oldest and most common schools of magic. While nearly all of the traditions began as lullabies for infants and small children, they have diversified radically in the ages since and variants exist for the elderly, couples, oneself, the sick and the dying, and so on. The nonsense words used by many of these songs are occasionally believed to be the remnants of archaic languages by scholars who get a kick out of making non-falsifiable claims.
38. The Maid was once asked what she would do after the War. She responded that she would return to the woods behind her family’s farm, find a fallen tree to sit upon, and listen to the birds and insects for a while.
39. Violence is considered wholly against Tubalkhan’s nature. Even in those stories where he participates in a battle against demons, he’ll be depicted as supporting the other gods, overseeing evacuations, protecting mortals, or aiding the wounded.
40. Two popular saints: Ndoni, patron of lost objects and the people who have lost them; Damhnait, patroness of the mentally ill.
41. Monopods are found on a few small islands in the Belt. These sagani are not fond of company, and hide their homes through illusion, weather magic, or thought-clouding.
42. In antiquity, it was believed that the Astomi tribe from the mountains south of Janashkut could live on smells alone. This has never been true, but they have cultivated myrrh trees for as long as they appear in the historical record.
43. Tomás and Tama are extremely popular railway gods, acting as the twin patrons of engineers and stationmasters, respectively.
44. Regardless of region, buildings are immaculately designed for temperature control according to the needs of the local climate. It’s just good architecture.
45. Hippopotami can and will fight, kill, and eat demons. Those that do so regularly gain a pronounced red and black coloration.
46. The city of Gran Laguna, casino-ridden den of sin and vice, is under the de-facto control of the cetacean mob and its kingpin, the  Dauphin. He’s got city government eating right out of his flipper, so take care not to stick your snout where it doesn’t belong when you head down to the marina for a day at the races.
47. Some popular games: chess, hanafuda, tarocchini, tafl, rummy, kōnane, Wizard’s Hand.
48. Lacrosse was used as a way of avoiding conflict in the old days; it would allow the war societies of the opposing tribes to blow off steam while their councils met to hash out the diplomacy while the matches went on.
49. Giant pandas exist, though not in the way you think. Their bumbling, helpless exterior hides one of the most cunning and vicious ambush predators in the known world. The original species is long extinct, and now only the parasitic mimic remains.
50. Red pandas, on the other hand, are clever little bastards much more like their bandit-masked cousins. 
51. Chocolate is predominantly consumed as a sweetened or spiced beverage; its candy form is a luxury.
52. Though the name and exact form differs, Pen and Tam can (and do) go out for pizza and ice cream; the former is any kind of toasted flatbread with toppings, the latter is typically eaten mixed with nuts, fruit, and spices.
53. Hespermontane sign language (“hand-speaking”) originated as an inter-tribal auxiliary language and has been used as the default communication for deaf persons since antiquity. Children are taught it as part of their schooling, and a modified form is used for human-elephant communication. 
54. Everyone knows that lions don’t lick their young into shape (only the shagga-cat does that), but this didn’t stop one philosopher from trying to document the process and getting mauled to death for his trouble.
55. The omnipresence of minor mending spells means that clothing and household objects can last for generations if cared for. Fashion trends tend to move slowly due to this
56. Sea serpents aren’t related to snakes at all, but are actually a surviving archosaur lineage from the age of dragons.
57. Tubalkhan is considered the father of the sciences for his careful observation, attention to detail, and use of direct experimentation.
58. Medicinal magic rarely provides an immediate cure to an affliction, as such a rapid change in bodily condition causes its own problems. Instead, magic is used for prevention, symptoms management, and gradual healing.
59. The traveling circus originates with migrant workers and monster-hunters; busking and talent shows are an easy source of extra cash during the off season.
60. Calico cats practice a unique school of magic among felines; human witches of particularly high experience and skill are often called ‘Old Calico’ accordingly.
61. There are no police, but there are detectives. All of them are absolute weirdos in their own special ways, both because the trade attracts those with unusual ways of looking at the world and because the magics used in evidence collection tend to further reinforce those traits.
62. Most city-states will have a robust civil engineering core in place of a standing military: wars are occasional, but the roads always need fixed.
63. Community fire and emergency aid teams are easily identified by their flame-resistant jackets, which are dyed a deep indigo.
64. Deer are semi-donesticated in the Hespermont, and commonly raised for meat in the place of cattle.
65. Acephavara is an exonym (“land of the headless men”) originating from stories of the Thandatra people, whose typically dark skin will often be broken with patterns of lighter color on the chest or back that resemble a face.
66. “Love potion”: a soup, stew, curry or sauce with no additional magical properties; used as a way to teach lovesick young men a useful skill, as well as the value of good food and pleasant conversation in courtship.
67. “Potion of attraction”: triggers an episode of disassociative self-reflection where the imbiber will see themselves as others see them, highlighting the habits and behaviors that make them so unpalatable as a romantic partner.
68. There are few omens on the sea worse than a thin (and therefore hungry) mermaid, and so sailors across the Mare call hard times “the ribs”.
69. War is an extremely efficient means of mass-producing angry ghosts; part of what makes wizards so dangerous is that they can and will use them to their own ends. 
70. The Ang-Ket trade league connects cities all along the circumference of the Mare Interregnum; it’s named after a type of circular fish trap (“ring” or “enclosure”).
71. There are seven planets visible with the naked eye: the sun and moon are cosmologically grouped with earth and not included in the count.
72. Intelligent life can be found on multiple bodies in the solar system, though sustained meaningful contact between any of them has yet to occur.
73. Blues music emerged during the hardships of the post-War rebuilding period, and has since diversified into several robust regional styles.
74. Nerve-linked prosthetic limbs (autobrachia) were first developed ~15 years ago, with many veterans of the War in the North volunteering as first-run recipients.
75. Saffron is relatively cheap and widely used - not because it’s any easier to harvest, but because of widespread small-scale cultivation. 
76. In cases where the cause is unclear, a low-intensity exorcism ritual may be used to determine if an individual is possessed by an evil spirit or suffering from mental illness.
77. The standardized system of weights and measures is base-12, and peacefully coexists alongside local nonspecific systems.
78. Apes (and similarly intelligent relatives of the other Thinking Peoples) have triggered debates of categorization for centuries: most cultures group them under “they can’t really participate in society, but they’re enough like people that killing them is still murder”.
79. Ngata Long-Tusk is an anomaly in the magical world: an elephant that practices human-style goetic wizardry. Has a tower and sigil tattoos and everything. Has not yet caused an international incident but it’s probably only a matter of time.
80. There is a variety of orca (or an orca-like magical being, the line is fuzzy) capable of changing their shape and taking humanoid or wolflike forms. While primarily associated with the northern amazons, they might be encountered all along the northern coasts and islands and they are regular visitors in the city of Redgate.
81. The whalers of Tin Jacobstown might be better thought of as a decentralized mercenary army, profiting off of the war between the illhevi and the other whales. The practice is sustainable only through staying on Orca’s good side through sacrifice and soul-pledges.
82. Ol’ Dunk: legendary sea monster, described as a gigantic fish with an armored head and fused, beak-like teeth.
83. There is a prehistoric Dayrdani method of exorcism still practiced in the modern day; it requires only a circle drawn in the dirt, the sign of the horns, and a series of prayers in an unknown and otherwise extinct language performed with overtone throat singing.
84. Jails are ideal spawning grounds for demons, and thus tend to be limited to the more tyrannical pockets of the world or the ruins left behind by such. In some instances they will reach a critical mass of suffering and transcend into a demonic genius loci, which will then attempt to lure in and entrap life from the surface to feed upon. If this can be prevented, the dungeon will starve and be rendered inert in two or three generations; if it gathers sufficient population, the demonic locus will become self-sustaining and specialized delvers will have to be called in to destroy its heart. The depths of Kulvakh tower were one such location.
85. Interpretation of languages is another keystone magical tradition with prehistoric origins, developing independently in many cultures across the world. A “talkabout” was the period where the parties’ respective cunning-men would speak to each other before official intertribal negotiations.
86. Without some means of cathartic release,  trauma and self-repression can develop into a form of demonic possession that will rot a person from the inside.
87. The town of Machaggan is famous throughout the Low Country for the giant orb made of lustrous blue-silver metal that floats above the central plaza. Its implications are menacing.
88. It was once thought that the Questing Beast would lead those it thought worthy to an elixir of immortality; in reality, their hunting strategy is to lead unwitting humans back to their den to be ambushed by their hatchlings.
89. The Dadu-Qon of the southeastern deserts say that their ancestors copied down a revelation from an angel; they have yet to decipher it, but believe that it will usher in a new age of peace and prosperity to the world when it is at last translated. A few fragments of the being are housed as relics, but the main crash site has not yet been found.
90. It’s said that killing the white stag is is the true sign of kingship in the Northlands; that no one has ever done it is subsequently the true sign that the Northlands needs no king.
91. All a wizard really needs to kill someone, when you get down to it, is eye contact for just long enough to trigger a fatal blood clot. Everything else is just theatrics.
92. The Megapharmikon was the pre-eminent medical text of antiquity and has remained relevant into the modern day thanks to its detailed anatomical diagrams and surgical procedures. The book’s author, the doctor-philosopher Eutukhos, wrote the text as a reflection on his 20 years serving as the surgeon-necromancer of a mercenary company.
93. In the old Longhouse Culture, a village’s chief served primarily as resource manager; great wealth disparity in one’s community was seen as a shameful display of incompetence, and from this came the modern social staple of the public fund.
94. Illuminated manuscripts look like that monk’s gravestone I saw in Kilkenny.
95. By some horticultural miracle, there is a popular strain of marijuana with a pleasant, woody smell. With the right preparation, it smells like the inside of a barbecue pit.
96. Divinatory practices can’t tell the future, but they do provide a framework for thinking about an event (past, future, or present) from different / previously unconsidered angles. 
97. The valkyries of the far north are said to be beautiful shield-maidens who usher the spirits of warriors up into the heavens. This is technically true, but only if one is looking at the proxy body and ignores the primary, which looks something like eight women fused together inside a gold-and-steel carapace.
98. Attempts to catalog the many types of tutelary spirit that act as playmates and protectors of small children have universally met with failure; there are simply too many of them.
99. One of the early confirmations of the world’s sphericality was by a Jantoo wizard who achieved enough height on his flying carpet while trying to catch a migrating phoenix that he was able to observe the curvature of the planet. The extreme cold and negligible air caused him to fall off and plunge nearly 20 miles: he survived the impact unscathed thanks to a spell enacted before he lost consciousness, with the unintended result of widely-visible and extremely funny physical comedy.
100. The Gray Witch saw the War of the Bull and the emergence of Hell firsthand, and since then has worked in secret towards a grand design: she believes that if Hell cannot be defeated then it must be mastered, and that she alone is the one able to bring all its demons to heel. She is opposed by the King of Wands, though his own motivations are obscure.

 

60 Years: Return Part 2

I hope you like math, because today is ROCKET SCIENCE DAY

• Part 1: Crew & Mission Generation 
• Part 2: Rocket Science
• Part 3: Mission Year 1 
• Part 4: Mission Years 2-4 
• Part 5: Wrap-up 

Our story stars JAXA’s exploratory rocket Hayashida and her four-person crew:

• Noi Shimada, Pilot; Callsign DEADLIFT
• Shin Zaha, Mission Specialist; Callsign HAMMER
• En Hajime, Callsign TOADSTOOL
• Fujita Avakian, Astronaut; Callsign TENGU

Their mission is to pile themselves into a pressurized metal can called the Hayashida and launch themselves at extremely high velocity towards the outer-system centaur asteroid 5145 Pholus to build an automated factory there.

6. Housekeeping

A few bits and bobs were left over from last session, so I'm going to deal with those first.

 

6.1 Responses

Andrew had some responses to Part 1 on Bluesky

• The game timeline splits from ours in 2015, when the real-world project started.
• Afrispace is indeed a leftover from that period.
• The problems with tables come from LATEX formatting issues. (I know nothing about LATEX, but if anyone out there does / knows how to make tables behave better, drop a comment below)
• The BSU colors were inherited from the boardgame but were given a greater importance in 60 Years, which has led to some conceptual breakage.
• Political Trends will be removed in the next update.

 

6.2 Bonus Skill Points (CR 119)

In a nice change of pace, the book aligns with a choice I was going to houserule: being able to spend the bonus skill points from chargen whenever I want instead of before I know what I need (CR 119). This is good, we love to see flashback mechanics to cut down on analysis paralysis.

A bigger issue can be found in actually spending those points on skills, because the section on buying and upgrading skills is confusingly written and needs another pass.

Proofing Note: The skill list doesn’t mention what each skill’s associated ability is. While most of them can be sussed out without much issue, it’s odd that this is left out, even when the only time it seems to be relevant is when purchasing a new skill (since the first point buy gets you skill = ½ the associated ability score).

Just as a demo, I am going to buy Fujita’s bonus skills, because he actually has all 6 of his starting points accounted for; his athlete service history means that he needs to spend 3 points on the Strong Arm skill before I do anything else.

His physical ability is 4, so the first point spent gives me Strong Arm 2, then two more points brings him up to Strong Arm 4. Science Specialists need 5+ in Prospect and he starts with 0, and we are…not able to meet the requirements. 3 skill points, even with the boosted first purchase, will only be able to get him up to Prospect 4.

So I will be ditching athlete and rolling again on the service record table: 3 gets me criminal conviction with a choice of assault or possession / sale of drugs or DUI. I’ll go with drunk driving, because if I had chosen drugs I would have had to roll a new character again since my faction is White.

Proofing Note: It’s possible to generate non-viable Science Influencer crewmembers. And probably other archetypes as well. Since this isn't funny a la characters dying during chargen in classic Traveler, it's best removed. 

6.3 Contacts (CR 116)

Everyone gets a free Emergency Contact, and then can purchase other contacts with skill points. I’m going to focus on Mission Control Contacts for now, since they can help us out with skill rolls and, unfortunately, they are also necessary for a couple mission types. I can't find where it says that, so I am going to hold off for now. The mechanical importance

7. Mission Builder (SI 68)

This Space Intentionally has an itemized list for mission components (hooray!), as follows:

• Source of mission (Done; it’s from our faction, White)
• Type of mission (Done; it’s a Science mission)
• Payload location (Done; Low Earth Orbit is the only option)
• Required payload specialists (Done: Engineer & Scientist)
• Payload: (Done: Refinery)
• Goal (Done: Industry)
• Destination (Done: 5145 Pholus)

So we have basically everything we need already figured out, though the refinery requires a bit of explanation.

Factories are used to extract resources from sites and build better ship parts. They require a refinery, a robonaut, a generator, and a reactor. You’re likely thinking “wait that’s four components why is the payload only one?” There is an answer, and while repeated several times in the text I don’t think it’s signposted nearly enough - the direct quote is on SI 70:

“...spacecraft are built using modular and re-usable components which means that the spacecraft will need to be rebuilt at a factory or turned into an outpost after it delivers its payload.”

Translated for layfolk: The intended gameplay loop is that you dismantle your ship when you arrive at your destination, then manufacture upgraded replacement parts (which you probably researched in transit).

In principle, I think this is cool. It’s one of those elements where realism adds a flavor that just doesn’t exist within the normal genre structures. But it is very clunky, and throws players directly into the deep end of the rocket components tables at the end of This Space Intentionally. But I think there's a potential ground that could smooth out this friction enough for everyone to leave happy. 

The premade rockets on CR 50 could be expanded into a flowchart; start with your basic rocket, then follow the line to 2-3 choices for each factory type you’re able to build, with those choices being functional differences ie “this one is solar powered” vs “this one is designed to deliver standalone modules” vs “this is an all-rounder”

The tables in the back of This Space Intentionally where all the rocket parts are located are already organized by premade rocket model, so the job is halfway done. Then all that analysis paralysis can be reduced down to “you need to spend x turns researching + y turns manufacturing, then you choose your new ship from the chart according to what factory you have.”

This would be a pretty happy medium, I think, between the crunch of the High Frontier system and something that would be more enjoyable for a general audience: you’re still making choices, but with more guidance and structure.

The starting rocket cards are halfway there: the Hayashida can be upgraded at an X class factory, which doesn’t help me at all with the mission I rolled since Pholus is a X-type site. Flowchart would help solve that.

If I decide to play more of this in the future, I will definitely be making something like this.

Anyway, back to the mission.

8. Plotting out the Mission 

Remember how I said there was a paragraph that took me 45 minutes to parse? It was this one on CR 206:

“Spacecraft movement consists of following a line on the High Frontier map and paying fuel steps to enter ”burns”, represented by pink shapes (circles or landers). You can stop on circles, zigzags (Hohmann intersections) or line intersections and change direction for free: a) on any circle including a burn; or b) by ending your move and choosing a new direction the following turn. You may also cross a zigzag or change direction at an intersection without a circle by paying for the equivalent of two burns mid-movement – you must stop on zigzags and intersections if you do not pay this two burn penalty. Each free pivot your thruster gives you allows you to ignore one of these two burn penalties and cross the intersection for free. A year passes when you stop moving.”

It also doesn’t contain the single-most important rule in the game, which is found in the middle of a paragraph in a premade tutorial mission in SI 27:

“You cannot enter more burns in a year than your net thrust.” 

To not belabor the point, that big confusing paragraph could be (and should be) cut down to:

• Your ship can burn fuel steps equal to its net thrust per year.
• You must burn 1 fuel step to enter a pink burn space.
• You may change your direction (pivot) for free on any intersection with a circle on it (if the circle is pink, you still need to pay 1 fuel step to enter.)
• Otherwise, you must burn 2 fuel steps to pivot at an intersection that doesn’t have a circle.
• You must burn 2 fuel steps to pass through a zigzag (Hohmann Transfer) on your route.
• You can bypass the cost of a pivot or transfer by ending your turn at that point on the map.
• Black circles are gravity assist flybys: they give you X free burns that must be used the turn they are received: only one flyby can be performed per year.
• A thruster’s afterburn stat gives you that much thrust for the year’s move for the cost of 1 fuel step.
• Some thrusters can provide you with additional free pivots.

 

Why do I suddenly hear Sburban Jungle when I look at this

I’ve highlighted the intended route on the map (the High Frontier mission planner is an absolute godsend and 100% the reason this is doable at all for me), and as you can see it’s a right bastard of a trip. 9 burns +  6 pivots + 3 transfers, but this will be cut down when I factor in my freebies. The Lunar and Jovian flybies will cancel out a total of 5 burns, and 4 of the pivots can be tossed because they have a circle on them, leaving me with (rough estimate) 4 burns, 2 pivots, and 3 transfers. We’ll shave off some more as we go, since we can’t do all of them at once.

The Hayashida can produce 4 thrust, plus 1 if we afterburn, at a fuel cost of 1 step per burn. This means we max out at 5 burns per year, though as you’ll see the actual number is going to be lower. With the refinery and crew module included, the Hayashida has a dry mass of 13, which puts us at a -1 thrust penalty and a 1 fuel tank / burn ratio at our absolute fastest.

The tyranny of the rocket equation is that you have to lug around all your fuel with you; as it turns out rocket fuel is real fucking heavy and so a huge chunk of your fuel budget is wasted hauling the rest of your fuel around. In-game, this is factored into your ship’s thrust and fuel efficiency: if your ship is above a certain wet mass (ship + fuel), you’ll take a penalty to your net thrust (can make fewer burns per year) and be able to make fewer burns per fuel tank.

From this I now have to work backwards to figure out how much fuel I need to get to Pholus.

Commentary: Incidentally, this section is an excellent illustration of why it was extremely silly to add a crucial fuel-based plot point to The Last Jedi. Star Wars ships run on “spaceship go vroom”, the moment you try and treat it like actual space travel even a tiny bit you bring in a thousand new and complex questions.

8. It is, in Fact, Literal Rocket Science

So the book doesn’t include much guidance on how to actually calculate how much fuel you’ll need. It gives you the table to figure out your thrust and fuel efficiency at a given point and over time, and the game says you start with enough fuel to get to your destination, but to actually figure out the numbers I had to longhand it.

But in longhanding it, I did manage to cook up a decent, if basic, way of visualizing and conceptualizing fuel: It’s spell slots.

This is just the table on CR 208, the only difference being the addition of the tracking column.

I start with a dry mass of 13, which means I get a maximum (we won't need all of it) of:

• 3 burns at 1 burn/tank, 3+1 burns/year.
• 8 burns at 1 burn/tank, 2+1 burns/year
• 4 burns at 2 tanks/burn, 2+1 burns/year.

We’re going to need to stop somewhere along the line so we can use the flybies, so one more pivot can be tossed. At maximum (if we don’t make any other layovers), we would need enough fuel for 12 burns, which would put us right at Wet Mass 24. That’s enough to pencil in, and I can make a draft plan.

8.1 Year 1

Relatively simple, as far as rocket science goes: Low Earth Orbit into a Lunar slingshot and onward to the Sol-Mars L4, where we make a free pivot towards the Green Line (LEO > Enceladus)We end the turn merging on the Green Line, which will make that pivot free and allow us to use the Jovian flyby next turn.

• Starting Net Thrust: 2+1AB
• Total Movement: 2 burns, 1 free burn, 1 free pivot (end turn).
• Year-End Wet Mass: 22

8.2 Year 2

We stick to the Green Line for two more burns until we reach the Jupiter flyby, which gives us a whopping +4 gravity assist. We slingshot north, pivot left at the T (2 burn, cancelled out) pivot right for free at the next burn (1 burn, free), pivot left at the Sol-Saturn L5, coast until we hit the next burn (our last freebie). We afterburn this year, getting us to the next burn (1 burn) and call it a turn.

• Starting Net Thrust: 2+1AB
• Total Movement: 3 burns, 3 free pivots
• Year-End Wet Mass: 19

8.3 Year 3 

Now we enter a SuperEyepatchWolf-certified TERROR ZONE: three back to back Hohmann transfers. (Well, not that much of a terror zone, I originally thought it was six transfers because of the way the map parses pivots)

That’s six burns worth of transfers, and there’s one more burn before we reach Pholus. I’m still stuck at 2+1 burns per turn, so I’m going to have to split this up.

I can pass through the first Hohmann Transfer, but have to end my turn on the second.

• Starting Net Thrust: 2+1AB
• Total Movement: 2 burns (1 Hohmann transfer) + 2 free burns (turn end)
• Year-End Wet Mass: 17

8.4 Year 4

We spend 3 burn to push us through the last transfer and the last burn

• Starting Net Thrust: 2+1AB
• Total Movement: 2 burns (1 Hohmann transfer) + 1 burn
• Year-End Wet Mass: 15

We have some excess fuel, but that’s actually a good thing: the Hayashida can’t actually land on Pholus: landing requires net thrust greater than the site size, and Pholus is size 4.

BUT! We have our handy-dandy detachable crew module! Mass 1, Thrust 8, 8 steps per burn / Afterburn 2. I move one of our spare fuel tanks to the module, which gives us a Wet Mass of 2 and a net thrust of 9, which is more than enough to land on Pholus. Since landing on Pholus doesn’t cost me a burn, I don't have to worry about fuel steps.

We’ve done it (the planning stage, at least)! The Hayashida can reach Pholus in four years and her crew can safely land and build a factory!

FUCK YOU PHYSICS YOU CAN’T STOP ME. I’LL FIGHT GOD AND WIN.

I will leave things here and start the actual gameplay segment in the next post, but to wrap it up I’ve got some chunky additional commentary

  

9. Further Thoughts about all that the Rocket Science

I won't lie; it was satisfying to see it all come together. But there has got to be a better way of calculating this. A graph, a table, an equation, something.  Maybe there isn't and this actually is the most efficient way to do it - I doubt that's the case, but maybe. Aft the very least it needs to be way more streamlined and player-focused than it is, because it's the central mechanic of the game. 

9.1 The Alternative in the Book

The rules do provide an alternative, where the shipbuilding and mission calculations are elided entirely and replaced with a single roll of 1d6+1 years (CR 40). If I was going to play more than one mission, I’d take this option, but I don’t think it’s a satisfying solution: it doesn’t scale with distance (which is weird, considering that range bands are a recurring mechanical component of the game), which means you can end up with missions to Mercury and Neptune running the same amount of time and likely being far too long or far too short. 

I’m violating my “no homebrew” rule to introduce a minor palliative to this mechanic. The roll now varies slightly depending on launch point and destination; the “inner system” is not strictly defined in the book (at least not that I could find), so here I'm using the most reasonable option of “everything from Mercury through Ceres”.

• Inner > Inner: 1d3 years (1d3-1, minimum 1, if adjacent bands)

• Inner > Outer: 1d3, +1 for every Outer System range band you pass through, inclusive of destination. Back of the napkin calculations
• Earth > Jupiter 2-4 years
• Earth > Saturn: 3-5 years
• Earth > Uranus: 4-6 years
• Earth > Neptune: 5-7 years

• Outer > Inner: As above, but the Inner System counts as one zone if you're starting from Outer.

• Outer > Outer: 2d3+1

• Traveling between moons of a single planet is just 1 year.

9.2 Alternative 2

Ignore fuel entirely and just use net thrust and dry mass to determine how far you can go in one year. We have a wizard opening up a portal to the outer corona of Azathoth or something.

9.3 Alternative 3

Calculate wet mass as an abstracted +X fuel tanks per range band you’ll be traveling through. Burns are then used only as a way of calculating time, since you can still only travel equal to your net thrust. We only track fuel expenditure on a per-range band basis instead of per burn; -2 fuel tanks per band, every band. You’d have to break the total burns into both # of burns per band and each individual year, which is less than ideal

EX. Earth > Uranus band is 5 bands, if I say it’s 2 tanks / band the Hayashida would be starting at 23 mass, which is in the same range as my in-depth calculations. 

** 

So yeah, there we go; a shit-ton of number crunching and a plan to get from Point A to Point B. This was significantly less frustrating than Part 1, likely as a combination of getting used to the books, the method paying off, and this section being mostly pulled from board game rules that have had four editions worth of refinement.

Tune in next time to see it actually get played! If I don't get perma-distracted by Hades 2.

60 Years in Space: The Return

Artistbloomyk
This post isn't about Magnus, but god damn is this what my brain feels like right now.

**

• Part 1: Crew & Mission Generation 
• Part 2: Rocket Science
• Part 3: Mission Year 1 
• Part 4: Mission Years 2-4 
• Part 5: Wrap-up 

 

I think the stress of this year might be getting to me. 

Thanks to a couple years of updates, the play reports over at Worldbuilding from Scratch, and an interactive High Frontier map, I think I actually have the tools to play Andrew Doull's 60 Years in Space. I tried before, and I failed. I have returned for one mission, just to test it. Just to stick a harpoon in the white whale.

Lu and Tubalkhan help my categorically insane ass.

So as not to fall to hubris as easily as I typically do, I am going to do one (1) mission, and I am going to do it rules-as-written. This is to stop me from homebrewing or attempting to change systems I’m not fond of, which I had already begun to do while writing this introduction because I am a compulsive tinkerer. One mission, rules-as-written (barring house rules from I pull from WfS or anything that needs massaged while playing solo), we’ll see where we end up.

I will also be providing page number citations for everything I do, as well as marking particularly confusing rules or wording; this will hopefully be a useful resource for potential players / feedback for the author.

Book Abbreviations

• Crewed Rules (CR) - Core rules
• This Space Intentionally (SI) - Spaceship & mission builder
• A Facility with Words (FW) - Base builder spinoff game
• All Errors My Own (AE) - Social and mission control trends
• A Lot of Zeroes  (LZ) - Standalone far-future spinoff game

0. Setup

Since this is a default game, I’ll be playing  as a second-wave crew starting in 2040. At least one faction has already gotten into space and started building infrastructure at this point, so my faction is trying to catch up.

Commentary: 60 Years featured zoomed-in and zoomed-out playstyles (the latter is called Dollhouse Play in the text) - playing solo more or less necessitates dollhouse play, and most of the procedural elements are in support of it. For a game of this complexity, I don’t think multiple players is a particularly viable playstyle.

1. Space Politics (CR 28)

Space Politics is a color code that generalizes the Vibe of Current Events in Space and summarizes how people get into space. This will change over time, and will influence later trends and developments. It’s a background element with fingers in many pies, and I've got issues with it that I do not have the space to hash out here.

I roll 5 + 2, which means my starting Space Politics is Purple.

“Multilateral: Space exploration is regulated through a transnational body such as the United Nations, where member states and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) determine the regulations through diplomacy, lobbying and political grand-standing.”

Man, I wish my forecast for 2040 was that optimistic. 

Commentary: I like the idea of the BSU (Basic Social Unit) color system - it’s basically the Magic the Gathering color wheel, after all, and that’s the perfect alignment system - it breaks down completely in practice. You'll see what I mean later on.

Commentary: The space between the present and the game is elided out of necessity, but I do wonder if it’s enough. Two, potentially three of the five colors basically require alternate history to get to that point, and if we’re going that route 

Homebrew: Before I forced myself to drop homebrewing, I whipped up an easy alternate version of Space Politics that ditched the direct ideological affiliation in favor of a DEFCON style “how fucked is everything” spectrum, keeping the bonuses as-is.

• Red - Shit’s fucked 
• Orange - Shit’s bad 
• Yellow - Shit’s mid
• Green - Shit’s good
• Blue - Shit’s great

Colors were changed to be more instantly recognizable as a bad-to-good spectrum.

Commentary: I don’t understand what the Player Actions table is supposed to be, because it reads like a joke. You don’t need a table to give permission for people to drink water.

Proofing Note: The table for Space Politics is found on CR 28, at the tail end of the “Actions” chapter between the sections for “Timekeeping” and “ Trouble”; the Space Politics section heading is on CR 29, which doesn’t face the table. This specific formatting issue of tables not appearing under their own headings is going to be a recurring theme going forward.

Proofing Note: I don’t know why Space Politics is in the “Actions” chapter - Actions should be moved later, probably post chargen in skills, and Space Politics should be re-assigned to a currently non-existent “Game Setup” chapter that contains Space Politics, Mission Control, chargen, and the Mission Designer.

2. Mission Control (CR 37)

The book recommends players start as a national space agency for their first game, since it gives them high-quality crew (and is the only type of mission control to do so) plus a medium-quality spaceship.

Unfortunately the MCSU (Mission Control Social Unit, same color system as Space Politics) color for national space agencies is White, which is described as:

“White social units are nationalistic, conservative and family oriented and rely on limiting personal freedoms because of their moral beliefs but also in rewarding hard work and limiting the role of the state.”

Which is an extremely persuasive argument for never playing as a national space agency, on top of being kind of a mess of a contradictory description; if the society relies on limiting personal freedoms, it’s using the apparatus of the state to do so. That’s like, the whole point of conservatism: the people in power use the systems in place to hold on to power and keep anyone else from getting it.

Here we introduce the issues with the BSU color system (and there will be more): it lacks the variety and nuance available in the MtG color wheel and pinholes groups into a classification that is both reductive and contradictory.

Homebrew: I think that Mission Control’s color and type should be separated, giving players options of a Green National Military or a Red Launch Contractor. This issue will return later

Anyway, doing this rules-as-written, so I will just have to deal with it. I’ll go with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) because then I can amuse myself with making dumb anime jokes.

I also get a Mission Control subtype (roll 5, +1 for Purple SP), which gets me Trade Association.

“Trade association: The national space program is run by a professional association which makes different parts of the space program compete with each other but rarely if ever withdraws support for any part. Professional sports franchises are an example of a trade association.”

I honestly don’t know what to make of this, because the whole point of professional sports is going around in circles accomplishing nothing and that feels like a bad fit for a space program. This table is purely for flavor, though, so it doesn’t actually matter on the grand scale.

2.2 Other Starting Factions (SI 11)

Figuring out who else is in space requires switching books to This Space Intentionally, though the procedure itself is simple: roll 1d6 for the four other BSU colors, and on a roll ≤ 1 + the Era number the faction exists.

Proofing Note: Eras are always referred to by their name rather than their number, which gets unwieldy to remember.

Anyway, the only faction to get a 2 or lower is Green, so they’re going to be our First Wave Faction. First and Second Wave factions use the same mission control tables we do.

I roll a 6 for Regional Bloc, then 3 for Free Trade Zone and get ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). We don’t have to do anything else with them for now.

Commentary: Third Wave factions are described as “come[ing] from a much wider pool of potential real world organizations that follow this second wave” and then not included in any of the books - instead we’re told to email the author to get them. I have no idea why, since they could be put up on itch as a demo product for free until they are fully incorporated.

Commentary: Something I really, really like about the game is that other factions exist in a sort of quantum state where they’re doing their thing in the background and you don’t need to worry about them unless they overlap with what you’re doing. That is an extremely good way of limiting scope to manageable levels.

3. Spacecraft (CR 40)

There is an extremely complex build-your-own-ship system in 60 Years, inherited from High Frontier - thankfully, the book also provides six premade ships, two for each quality level, on handy printable cards. I roll odds, and end up with a 360-tonne electric rocket. I’m going to call it the Hayashida, because of course I’m going to.

Proofing Note: The premade ship cards start on CR 51 - The heading on CR 40 does not include a page number, only saying that they’re at the end of the chapter.

Proofing Note: The spaceship cards have criteria for upgrading, where you flip the card over upon hitting certain criteria - “Flip after X years at a Y class factory you helped build.” I don’t know how these relate to each other. Can I just upgrade whenever it's 5 years after launch? Do I have to park the ship at the factory and wait 5 years? Does the factory have to exist for 5 years?

4. Mission (CR 41)

First we roll d6 to find our mission type: 6 gets me an Industrial mission, so I bop on over to that subtable. There are some modifications to the second roll depending on my loadout: since my ship has an ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) 2 (lower is better) raygun (pew pew), the modified roll is 2d6-1, minus my ISRU of 2. I got 1+3 on the roll, minus 3 for the mods, back down to 1, which marks my destination as 5145 Pholus.

Wikipedia Dive: 5145 Pholus is an asteroid on one hell of an eccentric orbit - 91 years long, 8.8 AU at the short end and 31.9 at the maximum, crosses the orbits of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The bosses are sending us out to the fucking boonies with this one.

Mechanics-wise, though we don’t have to care about this part just yet, Pholus is a Size 4 site with Hydration 4, and can support a C-Class factory.

Proof Note: Probably best to add asteroid serial numbers for added clarity i.e. that they aren’t moons.

4.2 Determining Claim (SI 142)

Since we’re a second-wave crew, we have to roll to see if our mission site has already been claimed by another faction - this involves jumping books to This Space Intentionally again to a table with unclear directions: I’m operating under “roll Xd6 equal to Era #, add hydration, subtract Heliocentric Distance Modifier, compare the entry on the table to your target, if the criteria match then another faction is already there.”

I roll a 6 + 4 for hydration, -5 for distance; 5 on the table gets us a crewed Glory mission with inbound and outbound hazards.

Houserule: If the roll on this table doesn’t interfere with my mission, I'm going to give the faction a claim on a site that qualifies. 

In this case that’s going to be an unmodified d6 roll on the Glory destinations table on CR 42: 4 gets me Comet Wilson-Harrington for Green. They might have done more missions elsewhere, but quantum will elide that for now.

Wikipedia Dive: 4015 Wilson-Harrington is a comet about 4 km across with a rather small 4.25 year orbit that occasionally brings it relatively close (0.4 AU) to Earth. Solid pick, Green.

Hazard rolls are just a plain 1-in-6 for non-player factions, I roll two of those and…that’s a 1 and a 6. Green’s mission to Comet Wilson-Harrington is a catastrophic failure with all lives lost, though they still maintain a claim on the site.

Proofing Note: This table needs relabeled, “Claim Level” makes it seem like it’s measuring “How strong is the claim” when that isn’t a mechanic. This is more of an “NPC Mission Simulator”

3.2 Crew Module (CR 44)

So the last part of the ship is the Crew Module, where my astronauts will be living. It’s placed here, rather than with the rest of the spaceship section, because the Crew Module Builder heading is located inside the mission tables. There’s 3.5 pages of mission stuff, then half a page of crew module stuff, then another full page of mission tables, and then the table you roll on to determine the module.

Proofing Note: If keeping things in a coherent order would result in lots of whitespace, fill it with images, sidebars, or other fluff, or just keep the whitespace. I'd rather have stock images and whitespace than poorly-positioned tables.

I roll a 4 on the table, which means my module has Mass 1 / Rad-Hardness 4 /  Thrust 8 / Fuel Consumption 8 per burn / Aftetburn 2, ISRU 4, and has both a buggy and its own propulsion system.

5. Crew

Now, at last, we get to character generation. The placement here, after the ship and mission are already settled on, isn’t really an issue but I do think it wouldn’t hurt to move it back to after the Mission Control section.

Since I’m using a standard 4-person team, their roles are already set: I’ve got a Pilot, a Mission Specialist, a Payload Specialist (Engineer), and a second Payload Specialist specific to my Mission Control type. National agencies give us a Science Specialist.

Each role on the ship has two archetypes to choose from, which provide a character with their age, stats, skills, and service history. These are all pre-set, though you can adjust them later on with some point-buy.

Since my characters don’t have names yet, I’ll be calling them HAYASHIDA-#.

Stats are listed in order Physical / Mental / Social / Capital - I'm not using the point-buy system for stats or skills, premades all day erry day.

Though even with the premades there are bonus skill points: this is a problem, and will be explained below. I'll figure those out later.

HAYASHIDA-1

• Role: Pilot 
• Archetype: Test Pilot (Space Plane)
• Age: 42
• Stats: 5 / 5 / 4 / 4 
• Skills: Pilot 6, Devops 5, Engineer 5, Teleops 4, Industry 4, Research 4
• Service History: Carries the ripcord of a parachute that failed to open (backup worked)

HAYASHIDA-2

• Role: Mission Specialist 
• Archetype: Robotics Specialist
• Age: 31
• Stats: 4 / 5 / 5 / 4 
• Skills: Teleops 5, Research 5, Engineer 5, Industry 5, Bypass 4, Suffrage 4, Devops 4
• Service History:  Pet robot

HAYASHIDA-3

• Role: Payload Specialist #1 (Engineer)
• Archetype: Political Appointee
• Age: 37
• Stats: 5 / 4 / 5 / 5 
• Skills: Antitrust 5, Negotiate 5, Industry 5, Recruit 4, Combat Ops 4, Engineer, Firearms 4
• Service History: Has futurist mentor as contact.

HAYASHIDA-4

• Payload Specialist #2 (Science) 
• Archetype: Science Influencer
• Age: 30
• Stats: 4 / 5 / 5 / 5 
• Skills: Research 5, Antitrust 6, Interview 4, Devops 4, Bypass 4
• Service History: Athlete

Commentary: I actually really like the archetype system here, as it’s a good amount of flavor for something that only has a couple variables. And, most importantly, it’s one page per archetype. And the service history bits are reminiscent of MoSh trinkets and patches, which I love to see in any context, but with a wider array of options: characters could have false teeth, or ADHD, or ethics complaints.

Commentary: Annoyingly, there are minimum skill requirements for crew roles, and not all archetypes meet the minimum requirements for their own roles, necessitating that you spend your bonus skill points to reach baseline competency. Nah. Absolutely not. It's not a bonus skill if it's required, that's just a premade template that starts with fewer bonus points. If players are going to need to buy the skill anyway to play the game, it should be wrapped into the premade archetype.

5.1 Ranks (CR 80)

Rank is one of those things which is likely to come up more when playing this game zoomed-in, which I don’t plan on doing particularly often. It barely applies for White BSUs, since a character’s rank is literally just their position or just “Astronaut.” Its main purpose is for when you have multiple players and one of them pulls rank, which isn’t relevant to dollhouse solo play.

5.2 Parents (CR 83)

We have to calculate the Capital rating of each crewmember's parents by rolling 2d6, treating the crewmember's Capital as a third roll, and then picking the middle number. Then you use the difference in those two numbers to derive if they're still together or not.

Anyway. H-1 and H-4's parents have matching Capital scores, which is "Parents remain together financially despite different demographic backgrounds", and we a new nationality and ethnicity for a random parent. It doesn't specify which table to use here, but the other option of mixed-background parents says to use the Colonist Nationalities table on CR 100 so I'm going with that.

H-1's father is from Turkey, H-4's mother is from Tanzania. 

H-2 and H-4's parents remained married; H-2's father and H-4's mother have capital ratings of 2, which means that they were economic immigrants to Japan: H2's dad was born in Morocco, H4's mom was also born in Turkey. 

This is all for roleplaying purposes, but in this case the weird roundabout dice finagling ended up with an interesting result ie apparently this timeline involves Japan really loosening up immigration to avoid demographic collapse and gets a lot of migrants from Africa and the Eastern Med. That's actually really cool, I like this section a lot more than I thought I would.

5.3 Siblings (CR 83)

1d6-1 four times, take the second lowest for # of siblings; lowest result +1 is your position; middle result of 3 rolls of 1d6-1 indicates age gaps between siblings.

H-1 and H-2 are only children, H-3 and H-4 are the youngest of 5 and 4 children, respectively. I rolled for age gaps, but it doesn’t matter. This isn’t like bonds in Delta Green, there’s no mechanical aspect to these characters, they’re for fluff purposes and roleplaying when you’re at the zoomed-in character level.

5.4 Disposition (CR 84)

These are tied to like, a family-level BSU and I don’t know why. It’s just a d6 roll for “how did you grow up”. probably shouldn’t be named “disposition”, it’s too close to outlook and philosophy.

H-1 & H-4 were basically latchkey kids, H-2 had issues with authority, H-3’s parents were disciplinarians. 

5.5  Callsigns (CR 84, table is on CR 86)

Instead of names (since there are so dang many cultural backgrounds astronauts come from), the game gives everyone a two-word callsign as their main identification. Despite my evergreen adoration for a good ol’ Delta Green style “Agents HODAG, FLATWOOD, and DOVER walk into a bar armed to the teeth”, the sauce is not here with the list. Rolling on the d666 table I get:

• Turnover Scale
• Patient Vector
• Geyser Albedo
• Force Rocket

Patient Vector is good, but the rest aren’t hitting. Force Rocket is fucking fantastic, but that’s because it’s incredibly silly.

I think that part of the issue comes from the usage of themed names, but the themes are aspirations, computing, engineering, physics, planetology, and rocketry - appropriate to the setting they may be, but most of them lack oomph. Legendary swords might not be space focused, but it gives you Caliburn, Dhulfiqar, Hrunting and Nandaka and that’s an upgrade from Humble, Map, Fin and Plume.

A good callsign helps evoke the characters qualities, even vaguely: if four astronauts are only going to be named Sparrow, Magpie, Falcon and Vulture, players would have something to work with even with no other indicators of personality.

Homebrew: Single-word callsigns better, but there needs to be a better list. Or just Shipname-plus number.

Since I haven’t filled out the demographic details yet, I’m going to hold off on names. When I actually get to them, I am probably going to do what I usually do, which is look up sports teams from that country and start grabbing names. Or in this case, more Dorohedoro and/or Dai Dark references.

5.6 Outlook & Philosophy (CR 85 & CR 88)

Andrew informed me on Bluesky that these elements were getting replaced in the next version, and since I’m not going to be zoomed-in much at all I am not supremely attached to them. They’re more fiddly than they’re worth, and I’d rather just use one of the many disposition / personality tables I have lying around. 

I am, however, going to use this as an opportunity to illustrate why the color system doesn’t really work as written.

The Green crew philosophy is Liberal - 

“Liberals usually embrace freedom of choice in personal matters, but tend to support significant government control of the economy. They generally support a government-funded “safety net” to help the disadvantaged, and advocate strict regulation of business. Liberals tend to favor environmental regulations, defend civil liberties and free expression, support government action to promote equality, and tolerate diverse lifestyles."

If we move up to the Mission Control BSUs (CR 37), we get

“Green BSUs are cooperatives, unionized or socialist organizations…[they] are socialist and collectivist with few restrictions on personal freedoms but an overall expectation that a person will sacrifice some of their economic gains for the state."

But if we look over to the Green mission control type (CR 39) it’s “Regional Organization”, the provided table is for Regional Trade Blocs, with the options

• The European Union
• MERCOSUR (the Southern Common Market)
• SACU (South African Customs Union)
• GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council)
• CAN (Andean Community)
• A Free Trade Area (NAFTA, APTA, ASEAN, ALADI, CISFTA, SAARC)

If the Gulf Cooperation Council - consisting of  Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates - qualifies as a socialist organization that defends civil liberties and freedom of expression, I’ll eat an entire hat.

When rolling for social / political / mission control trends, higher numbers = better results, lower numbers can lead to some real Mothership horrorshows. The BSU colors exist on a linear spectrum,, where you get a flat bonus / malus ranging from -2 to +2 on a 2d6 roll, or -2 to +7 on 1d6, which are ordered as follows:

• Red (Authoritarian)
• White (Nationalist)
• Green (Liberal/Leftist)
• Purple (Centrist)
• Orange (Capitalist/Libertarian)

SpaceX and Lockheed Martin, as Launch Contractors, are Orange factions; within the mechanics of the game, space-society is better off under the purview of Lockheed Martin than anyone else. 

You know, that sterling paragon of human rights, Lockheed Martin! Lockheed Martin, who is currently raking in immense profits as their products are used to slaughter civilians in Ukraine and Palestine, that Lockheed Martin! Lockheed Martin, a company whose entire existence is predicated on the mass production of ghosts and corpses!

That Lockheed Martin.

The MtG color wheel works because it’s based on vibes and association: scale it up, scale it down, apply it to whatever, it’ll work in the same way a horoscope works - because it’s not linked to anything real. A fascistic hellhole and a fully automated communist utopia could both be white/black. The set’s main villain and hero could both be monoblue. You could have a green vampire and it would be a noteworthy departure from the norm, but it wouldn’t be impossible. 

If you link the color wheel to something specific and real, it’s going to fall apart because reality is a contradictory morass of bullshit and nothing in the universe has nice neat gameable divisions. The one thing that doesn’t have exceptions is the rule that there are always exceptions.

Homebrew: As with the Space Politics, I think the best option here is to use a nice, generalized "how's shit at home?" defcon scale. Disconnect them from mission control types so every type can be every color, and adjust the political trends that change your MSCU color to more general "shit gets worse / better back home" instead of explicit adoption of new forms of politics. Folks can imagine what that entails, especially with the trends doing heavy lifting.

Homebrew: Honestly, Purple and Green should probably have their political trends switched. Or maybe political trends can also be from adjacent columns. Or maybe political trends can be dropped, or maybe they need a total overhaul. I don't know, I like the political trends the least of the three types and find them the least interesting by far.

 

5.7 Sleeping Arrangements (CR 89)

An optional bit to determine who’s bunking with who. The section says it’s not necessarily a sexual relationship, but with the way the section is actually written that feels rather flimsy. There’s some MCSU-specific stuff, but I don’t think it adds much even to this already-optional section. 

I would normally ignore this, since I’m going full zoomed-out play, but I’ll do it for illustrative purposes.

You have to roll 1d6-1 at [-] for every crewmember, representing # of potential arrangements. Then you roll for the intended recipient of each potential arrangement. Then any reciprocal arrangements are kept and the rest are ditched.

Crunching the numbers: H-1, H-3, and H-4 have earthside partners, though H-1 and H-2  have a thing going while on mission. 

Since my BSU is White, I then ignore basically of that, because White factions mandate relationships at home, and intra-crew ones are not permitted. I don’t know why this comes after the roll. Anyway, H-1 and H-2 have a thing and mission control doesn’t know.

5.8 Nationality (CR 98)

With the crunch out of the way, we start on the demographics fluff. I don’t know why this is after we calculated the crew’s parents’ economic bracket, since normally you want to go broad > focused with this sort of thing. But I digress. 

“Crew and mission control contact nationalities will match the mission control nationality on a 2D6 roll less than or equal to the nationality mix number determined by the mission control or faction BSU. In the Crewed Rules, this will be 2 if the mission control or faction is Red, 3 if White, 4 if Green, 5 if Purple and 6 if Orange.”

I think the bolded bit is an error, because as-written it means that crew in Red factions have only a 1-in-36 (2.77%!!!!) chance of being from the org’s nation of origin, despite being the space fascist BSU.

So I flipped the roll, nationality matches if you roll higher than the provided number. All four of my crew rolled over, so everyone is from Japan.

5.9 Ethnicity (CR 105)

Three options available here for Japan: Hisabetsu Buraku, Japanese, Ryukuyan. While I would love to have Golden Kamuy in space, Ainu is not an option. None of my crew get an ethnic minority.

Proofing Note: The tables are found after the Gender and Pronoun sections, despite the headings being before them.

Proofing Note: Several countries (DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania) on the nationality table are appended with “AfriSpace”, a term that appears only on this table and a minor faction blurb for Somali Pirates In Space (apparently not a joke). Digging around Wikipedia I was able to find two hits for “AfriSpace” - a defunct satellite radio company that abandoned that name in ‘92, and an early proposed name (~2012) for the African Space Agency (founded in 2023). I can only assume this is a remnant from a draft written before the founding of the ASA, that was probably aiming for an org related to the East African Community / proposed East African Confederation / Federation. Though the EAC doesn’t include Ethiopia or North Sudan, and otherwise includes Burundi, Somalia, Rwanda, and Uganda.

 

5.10 Languages (CR 105)

Since none of my crew are Ryukuyan, they all speak Japanese.

5.11 Gender (CR 101)

This is actually the table for determining sex, and it includes several neat sci-fi options that are unavailable until later eras. My pilot is a lady, the other three are dudes.

5.12 Pronouns (CR 103)

This is the table for “public pronouns”, i.e. what everyone goes by in the public sphere according to broader social conventions influenced by space politics. The idea is that every time the game moves into a new era, you roll on this table to see what pronouns everyone uses.

I rolled a 6, +3 for Purple space politics is 9: they / them / their / their / themself

"…indicate a willingness to engage with preferred pronouns without adopting a gender inclusive interpretation. They-singular allows for private gender expression which does not publicly intrude on others: if gender is publicly expressed, then the preferred pronoun will be used instead of They-singular. The individual can choose whether their public pronoun is their preferred pronoun.”

I get what the intent was, but I don’t think it works at all.

The primary issue here is that it’s entirely dependent on Anglophone conceptualizations of how gender and language intersect. Many languages from all over the world don’t make gender distinction at all in pronouns, or the distinction isn’t male / female (usually animate / inanimate).

ex. Modern Standard Chinese only has a difference between he / she / it (animate) / it (inanimate) in writing, and that was only introduced after increased contact with Europe: in speech, they’re still all pronounced identically, tā.

This table then kinda smooshes together 

• How crewmembers identify themselves (the pronouns themselves)
• General cultural attitudes towards gender (the descriptions)

And some of these descriptions are pretty goofy, ex:

“Hehe or sheshe [...] pronouns are used by gender anxious societies to stress the differences between genders. In some instances, the number of hes and shes may literally match the number of X and Y chromosomes the individuals has (especially where XYY and XXX chromosomal individuals are idealized; 1 in 6 ), but usually one of the pronouns is used to indicate the individual’s gender presentation and the other the “biological gender”, whatever that means. If the Space Politics is White, mixed gender pronouns are discriminated against”

There is no natural language that even comes close to this, to the point where it reads like a parody; the social element is just “cultural anxiety about non-conformative gender presentation”, it doesn't need to be exaggerated to this extent to get the point across.

TLDR if this is going to remain in the game, I think it should be split into two tables: one for the broader cultural attitudes (modified by space politics) and one for character-by-character expression (modified by MCSU)

And with that, we're basically done with setup. Next post, the Hayashida sets out on her great voyage to frozen asteroid in the ass-end of nowhere.

 

Cue the Outro Music

I have definitely, 100% missed some bits. Comes with the territory, and the layout doesn't help.

But. Through a combination of book updates and me just reading things enough for them to start making sense (wait until we actually get to space travel, it took me 45 minutes to figure out a single paragraph.) have put this in the realm of actually potentially playable.

It is still an immeasurably frustrating game, and its frustrating because it scratches an itch that no one else is scratching. I am the target audience for this game. "Hard-science procedural space exploration solo rpg" could only be more me-coded if there were magical neanderthals in it, and you know what I've read ahead in All Errors and there are definitely neanderthals!

But it's just the highest-friction game I've ever done read. Having to switch between multiple books to set up a basic game, having to constantly flip back and forth because tables that aren't where they're supposed to be or because sections aren't in a logical order, having to reread single paragraphs five, ten, twenty times because the directions don't parse...all of that is absolutely maddening. And I am not going to be one of those people who comes out the other end and says "but it was all worth it", because it absolutely isn't: the complexity of the game is friction enough, the basic task of reading the book and understanding the game rules shouldn't be this hard. Tables should go under the appropriate section headings and no reasoning known to man or beast will convince me otherwise. I desperately wish this game had an open license or a SRD.

Regardless. The white whale is in my sights.

The Expedition 33 Review Post

Belsprout

I am going to spoil the shit out of this game. There's your warning.

**

Expedition 33 opens with a moment of sublime cosmic horror.

Across the sea from the city of Lumiere, there is a Monolith. On the Monolith's face there is a golden number, radiant. At its base, an enormous woman made of stone sits with her head bowed and her arms wrapped around her knees. Thus the horizon remains until sunset of the gommage day, when the Paintress rises from her seat, wipes away the number, and everyone of that age in Lumiere vaporizes in a cloud of flower petals. 

A new number is painted, one lower than the last, and the Painter's returns to stillness. Lumiere sends out an expedition the next morning, in desperate hope that they might be able to cross the sea and the shattered continent beyond and stop this.

All of them have failed. This year is Expedition 33, but it’s not the 33rd Expedition: the numbers count down to match the monolith - no one older than 33 is still alive in Lumiere. The gommage spares no one. No one has a fucking clue why it happens.

Within the first few minutes of the game, as main character Gustav is walking his ex-girlfriend Sophie to the harbor for her own funeral, you have a conversation with an NPC about preparations for the “Final Generation”, when there will be no more adults at all. It's that sort of game. It's a game about art, and death, and grief, and the end of the world, and the arbitrary, unknowable horror of a universe that will inevitably kill you for no fucking reason and how all you can do is fling yourself in desperate hope into the void that is the future and it is a video game about wanting to stab God in the fucking face. Who knows if it will do any good,  but you’re tired and sick and that bastard has killed everyone you have ever loved and they’ll kill you too and you just have to hope that you can get in knife range.

It's so fucking good.

Mechanically, graphically, narratively, musically, certified banger on every single front and this is grading it against a year packed with incredible releases. Do you like JRPGs at all? Go play it. Took me 42 hours, sidequests included, and I saw most but not all of it. Good size, leaves you satisfied but not exhausted.

**

I can’t be, and refuse to be, the only one who sees the parallels between Marika and the Paintress. I can’t say if there was intention behind the similarities but damn is it close: goddess with golden hair and a fucked-up stone body breaks the fucking universe in grief after the death of her son.

**

 
Naming a favorite track is impossible, so I will have to just shout out the funky fresh bassline in Rain from the Ground. The feeling when it transitions into the electronica during a perfect parry sequence is absolute peak.

**

I lied. My favorite track is Paintress. Wait, no, Visages. God there are so many bangers on this soundtrack, it’s nothing but bangers.

**

Lune was my party lead from go - you can settle into some excellent bread-and-butter 1-2-3 combos with her. And she’s just a cool character. But also because she doesn’t make any noise when she sprints.

**

Monaco teaches us all a valuable lesson: Blue Mage “get powers from monsters” is a good mechanic, and it should be featured in more places.

**

The dialogue in the game is excellent across the board - naturalistic in ways that many comparable games aren’t.  It doesn’t feel stilted or performative, and the comedy swings way above its weight class when it wants to. Verso and Monoco in particular have some fantastic banter. 

**

Esquie is a perfect marshmallow friend, Sciel is everyone's favorite bi icon, Renoir is one of the most menacing motherfuckers to grace a screen in a good long while. 

**

I love how weird everything is. Set design, monster design, the landscape itself. They use “the world is a painting” to fantastic effect. Yeah! It should be weird and surreal! It’s a magic painting! Just have some big abstract-art headed bronze colossus wading through the ocean and name it "Sprong"!

**

Gestrals - the model maquettes with paintbrush hair - are such a good type of goblin. They love fighting, but not out of anything as petty as malice or greed or ideology; they just want a good tussle. No harm no foul if they die, they’ll just be reborn at the sacred river.

It’s hilarious, until it also becomes deeply sad as you find out that resurrected gestrals don’t retain continuity with their previous selves; they’re similar, but not the same. And the damage done to the Canvas has backed up the resurrection line, where there aren’t enough adult gestrals to look after the newly-resurrected one.

**

I loved how each character had a dedicated combat gimmick but shared in the same skill unlocks - the amount of build variety you can pull off is probably the greatest I have ever seen in an RPG. You can break the game entirely and wipe endgame bosses before they even get a turn in, if you want to.

To elaborate there: everyone has three slots they can equip primary skills in, which give them a stat boost as well. If they go through four fights with a skill equipped, that allows every character to add that skill (with no stat boost) to their list of secondary skills (the only cap here being your number of skill points). Everyone is able to use every skill, and the key is finding the build that works with their core combat gimmick.

**

I’ll admit, I was taken by surprise when Gustav gets merc’d at the end of Act 1. They got me, and I thought “yeah, okay, it’s that kind of game, I see what you’re doing.”

And then they hit me with that trick again with the end of Act 2 and just kill everyone.

**

As for the endings, I picked Maelle’s first, then went back and did Verso’s. The latter I find more narratively fulfilling but morally monstrous, the former a hollow victory. I appreciate that there’s no good ending, but there’s the feeling that there could have been one. Maybe, if Gustav were alive, he could have brokered peace with Real!Renoir or Real!Clea. 

Verso’s ending sees him committing genocide; Maelle’s sees her losing herself in a sea of puppets. Neither of them - or any of the other Dessandres, really - see the inhabitants of the Canvas as people. 

I normally don’t like narratives where characters meet their creators. They either turn into farce or tread a repetitive existential crisis. No need to relitigate it when Conan figured out in Queen of the Black Coast: “If life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me.”

Here, I feel better. Because the encounter with the gods leaves the very clear lesson that they will destroy you as collateral in their own squabbles. Even the ones that seem to care about you. The game ends on the same note as it begins: raw cosmic horror. The gods will kill you en masse for arbitrary reasons you have no context for - and once we get the context that your lives are all collateral damage in their squabbles amongst themselves, it just makes it all worse because the you’re not just dying for unavoidable and pointless reasons, you’re dying for petty and stupid and selfish and completely avoidable reasons.

I’m convinced that the party was well and properly dead after Act 2: Maelle didn’t resurrect anyone, she just made puppets based on her own memories. The wave at the end of the Verso ending is Maelle trying to assuage her own guilt with a mirage of her dead friends going “it’s okay, we understand”. 

The game starts with the characters going "fuck the gods", and ends with the player going "man, fuck the gods."

**

There is so much to say about this game and it’s been a couple months, so it is extremely difficult to focus and summarize my thoughts. All the same, game good.

Let’s Build a PIE Conlang 3: Hello Hubris My Old Friend

Part 1: Introduction and *h₁n̥gʷnís
Part 2: *wódr̥ and *péh₂wr̥

This is the extremely predictable post where I eat a little crow. The project as I had been building it up in the last two installments (and many, many pages of notes in between) became more stressful than fun and its time for a refresh.

In my infinite eyes-bigger-than-stomach wisdom, I got it into my head that I wanted to do this on doubleplus hard mode and try recreating an earlier stage of PIE that contained all the theories that I thought were interesting: it shouldn’t take a certified genius (which I am not) to point out that it’s really fucking difficult to reverse-engineer a coherent predecessor to a barely-functional theoretical model, and twice as hard to do that out of random parts that don't really fit together in the first place. With Frankenstein-like enthusiasm I created a shambling monstrosity that sparks no joy; time to put it out to pasture and chalk it up as a lesson learned.

So this post is going to be a step back and re-orientation, hopefully. Bear with me as I talk myself through the steps. Maybe writing it down for other people to read will make all the pieces fit together 

What Went Wrong

Scope creep! One slightly idiosyncratic choice (keeping consonantal laryngeals) invited friends (every other theory that made enough sense for me to go "yeah, that makes sense, I like it") and then they invited even more friends and suddenly this house party is out of control. I forced myself into greater and greater leaps of logic and wild justifications to keep all the plates spinning.

Rabbit-holing and what-if-ism took their cut as well; the issue with infinite fractal complexity is that it is, indeed, infinite - you can toggle and adjust forever and accomplish nothing, eternally trying to get it just right.

What to Do Now

First step is backburner the project (done) and re-assess (what I’m doing right here). I've got a decent shot at actually finishing something for Cursed Conlang Circus 4 this year, so whatever I choose to do with this particular project will be later on down the road.

Option A) Toss out everything and go back to basics with a nice, bog-standard post-Anatolian IE language with minimal hypotheticals. No going backwards in time, no major divergences from the standard reconstruction, play it by ear and see how is shakes out.

Option B) Take all the wacky theories I liked and apply them to an original conlang where they can co-exist in harmony, instead of forcing them to fit into the reconstruction.

Option C) Scuttle the entire thing and chalk it up as a wash. If I return to it, I return to it a good ways into the future.

All of these are viable. For Option A, it's basically a reset to where I was at the beginning of the year, tooling around with sound changes and going more on vibes than a concrete plan. For Option B I could easily just generate new roots for the wordlist I am already using and work from there. Option C is easiest, and the more I consider it probably the wisest. I've considered picking another protolanguage to evolve from, but I have a sinking suspicion that I will end up in a similar spot if I try that. It might just be that this particular methodology doesn't work with my brain, it might be that I am just under so much god-damn stress both external and self-inflicted that it just won't compute. 

 

What was I Trying to Do

Same as it was in the beginning: evolve a unique Indo-European branch with a signature language. The why is because it's a fascinating subject and I'm terrible at actually sitting down and actually churning out words, so having an already-extant word list & grammar as a starting point helps (this is called an a priori conlang, in the biz). It does lead to analysis paralysis via sound changes (boy does it ever), but it does dangle a nice big carrot labeled "you can transform Thing A into Thing B and it'll probably feel pretty satisfying when you do".

Exactly what this would look like has changed over time, which may very well be part of the problem; "do a thing" is not a particularly concrete goal. In its most recent form, I wanted to evoke the aesthetics and sounds of Ithkuil, Klingon, and the Caucasian languages - uvular consonants, lots of secondary articulations, few vowels, etc - for vibes reasons, because I find PIE as reconstructed to have a vibe-kinship with those. But I ended up kinda falling away from that - ditching the Klingon retroflexes and Ithkuil's ludicrous consonant clusters - so I don't know how useful it is as a goal anymore. I have a vague target phonology (see below) that I can achieve without keeping the laryngeals around (and, for the sake of my own sanity, should.

Damn it I forgot to put θ on there.

Vowels are 90% likely to just be a / i / u / ə. 

Theories I Want to Keep

• *e and *o were more like *ə~ɛ~æ and *ɑ
• The laryngeals were originally **ʔ/x~h, **χ, **ʁ, and later became *h, *x/ħ, *χ
• The plain velar series were back enough to turn into the uvulars *q, *ɢ and *ɢʰ

 

Dealing with the Laryngeals

Fuck 'em, too much trouble. The traces left behind are:

• Vowel-coloration and lengthening, as standard. Sometimes they will get nuked without lengthening, per a few varied sound laws.
• Proto-Balto-Slavic style "acute" glottalization of preceding vowels (which will later migrate to consonants to form the ejectives.)
• Will be deleted between consonants if it doesn't cause illegal clusters; will vocalize into *e *a *o if the result would otherwise be illegal.
• Will vocalize into *e *a *o when at beginning of words preceding a consonant, per Greek Triple Reflex.
• Cases where that's the unknown laryngeal *H will just be dropped, cause I can't be assed.   

 

Final Notes 

The advice is always step back and take a break when dealing with burnout, and that is something I have never, ever been good at. This shit doesn't turn off; it's why I still have over 300 pages of notes and drafts on gdocs alone. It just accumulates like pressure behind a damn. It certainly doesn't help that it's September 2025 and it's been a dogshit year even when you don't factor in The Everything.

Ah well. This project, at least, is going to get backburnered for now. Get it out of my drafts.