Unicorn Meat Is Live!

 

Rowan A. (Mon)

At long last, it is here.

Unicorn Meat is now available for purchase.

It has been a long and winding road, full of many ups and downs, but at last we have arrived. What else more is there to say? Likely something, assuredly there's something I can say - I do love to chatter on about things I have written - but for now, I think I will bask in the "job is finally done" stage.

A great many thanks go out to a great many people who helped me along the way - Rowan, Gus, Jarret and Fiona for their parts in putting it together, the playtesters who ran games during development (thanks, Martin and Mike!), and all the folks who offered their encouragement and support during the process (thanks, TLN and Emmy!)

Do let me know how it goes; find me on discord, yell at me on twitter, dump a comment down below. I'd love to hear the play reports / see coloring page maps / read reviews and all that.

The time is neigh, the center cannot hold, the rough beast has reached Bethlehem.

Exalted Funeral (Print+pdf)

 

Itch.io (pdf)

 

Drivethru RPG (pdf)

State of Affairs, Jan 2022

Looking forward to the rest of the year, I wanted to work out where I stand with my larger projects - both those I am actively working on and those that are still purely hypothetical. I am a terrible judge of project management, so writing it down and letting other people get their eyes on it is as good a method as any to get my thoughts in order.

Many thanks to Layla for always being down to talk shop.

Unicorn Meat

Barring catastrophe, it'll be out in the next few months. You can hold me to that. 

Lighthouse

Lighthouse has been stuck for a while now, but the plus side of that is looking back at what I've already made and reassessing.

The primary current issue, I feel, is that while anticanon is great and all but it does leave something to be desired if you want focus. The material is pulling in opposite directions - both big and small, both specific and general - and that does me no favors when my design thru-line is "Delta Green, if it was Disco Elysium". Can't have Disco Elysium without Revachol.

So to that end, I think I am going to focus more on the (very loosely sketched at the moment) sandbox setting of [REDACTED], and developing it more. The Field Guide posts are great, but they aren't enough to hang a game on, and I think they're a part of why this has stalled out.

I had originally envisioned the Underworld as a dedicated depthcrawl aspect, but on review that unbalances everything. Instead I will be adapting my card-based expeditions from Unicorn Meat for delves, so that it's not just dumping a megadungeon in a game that's not about that.

Sisters of the Sable Maid

I still have very little for this, but I do at least have the ideas. A hack of Yokai Hunters Society for MSF (as that setting fell away from being a traditional D&D setting years ago) where you play as the Sisters of the Sable Maid and you go fuck up demons. Nice, simple, specific, actionable answers for who you are and what you do.

Two goals I have set for this project

• A "multiple moving parts" character creation in the spirit if not the mode of 5e - give people a series of simple, flavorful choices to make about their character.
• A greater focus on combat, but making it fun. The vision in my head looks more like JRPG combat, for whatever that is worth. 

Mothership Compilation

What it says on the tin: a compilation and expansion Mothership material that I have already written, plus additions that will naturally emerge from the editing, plus the posts I have been sitting on for ages, into a toolkit and resource book. Would contain tables, character options, gear, planet / sector generation, a planet gazetteer, and probably a couple shotgun scenarios. Half done already.

Assortment of loosely-sketched Mothership adventures

This is where this exercise starts going down rabbit holes, as I only just have ideas and nothing practical for these. Hopefully I will be able to run some this year and flesh them out. So far they are

• Introductory "wake from cryosleep on a spooky ship, learn the ropes of the game as you get it back into working condition" scenario.
• Investigation of a murder, and a datademonic possession, players as exorcist and support crew.
• O'neill crawl above a rim world crawling with devils. Re-visiting my Road to Pandemonium post for setting material
  

Mother Stole Fire and Other Stories

A collection of revised / adapted / expanded versions of the fiction pieces on the blog. Simple enough in concept, but if I know my perfectionist streak, and I do, this one is likely to be a long haul.

The Dog Gospel

Another compilation, this time of revised blogposts and fleshed-out slush pile ideas. I specifically want to make this a "binder book" - that is, everything is no more than front and back of a single page, so that the entries can be printed out in whatever combination one wants, then hole punched and put into a 3-ring binder and plugged into a game as one sees fit. Again, this is another half-done idea, I just need to get a proper workflow for actually doing it.

Post 400: DOG GOD DELUXE

 

click here for the goods

 

SALVE ITA EGO SUM CANIS

DOG GOD has returned, almost a full year since its first installment. Volumes 1 and 2 have been properly scanned (no more shitty phone photos!) and compiled with the material I had made for Vol. 3 (which I had made enough of to bleed over into a fourth if I wanted), resulting in a handsome 52 pages of magazine cutups for your inspiration needs. 

I promise nothing but jank (all befitting the name of DOG GOD, of course), but I am happy with the end result. Cutup and blackout are woefully underutilized in this sphere, and hopefully this might inspire folks to recycle some of their old magazines. I'd love to see some DOG APOCRYPHA floating around out there.

DOG GOD is here. All hail DOG GOD.

 

**

 

I had been planning on a reflection post, since 400 posts leaves a whole lot of material to look back on, but to be very up front about things 2021 has not been a particularly good year, personally or creatively. A thousand thousand little stresses have built up upon each other and been compounded by the total loss of any sense of the passage of time. Periods of burnout seem to come more frequently and with greater intensity. My drafts folder becomes a graveyard, my words slabs of lead dropping lifeless to the ground. I cut trenches in the earth trying to push the boulder uphill. Attempts at running games fizzle out on contact. On a good day, it feels like I'm just treading water. I find myself asking "What am I doing? Why am I even doing it? Is it even fun anymore?" with alarming regularity.

Now, before I get too far down the rabbit hole, this is not my first time with hobby burnout and past experience should help in averting the worst of it. I've still got products that I care about (and some of it is, quite good I think.), but the pacing, for the time being, is due some shake up and some refocusing. Unicorn Meat will happen, I promise, and it's not like I'm going to run out of draft ideas any time soon.

When your brain tells you to slow down and take a break, take a break.

 

A Tower Unto Heaven

Joos de Momper

I wrote this for a flash fiction assignment back in college, during the middle of an obsessive bout of  Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and during the early days of my tiptoeing around the blogosphere. It wasn't (originally) meant as a gameable text, but when you go about channeling roguelikes it happens anyway.

Troika and Into the Odd feels like the way to go, here, with a nice pointcrawl / Ynnian depth system to make the megadungeon more managable. I do have a page of notes describing how I'd do an OSR version of it from a year+ ago, which I have at hand but have not applied directly to this just yet. Those plans can be saved for a follow-up post.

A Tower Unto Heaven

You are alone.

The world dies around you.

A Tower rises unto Heaven

At its roots:

The dead

The scavengers

Those consumed

Those who linger

And you

Salvation waits at the top.

Characters

• Jackal – Starts with the 9mm and the Duffel. Unlocked by default.
• Zealot – Starts with the Tower Shield, the Inscribed Axe, and the Homemade Shotgun. Unlocked by a massacre of the enemy. 
• Ferdinand – Starts with the Embedded Bullet and the Tome of Kings. Unlocked by lifting not a hand in violence.
• Running Boy – Starts with the Package. Unlocked by witnessing a disaster. 
• Sickley – Starts with the Troubling Cough. Unlocked after meeting the Coagulation in the Runoff. 
• Anchorite – Starts with the Book of Forgotten Prayers. Unlocked by finding a hidden place. 
• Duster – Starts with the Tattered Headscarf, the Bullet-Sprayer, and the Sack of Coins. Unlocked by extensive patronage of the Bazaar. 
• Armiger – Starts with the Tarnished Saber and the Cannonade. Unlocked through an act of treason. 
• Deserter Hua – Starts with the Assault Rifle and Little Min. Unlocked by finding the Old Phonograph.
• Bookburner – Starts with the Pile of Ashes and the Handful of Embers. Unlocked by destroying a sign of false hope. 
• Sentinel – Starts with the Guardian Module and Attendant Drone. Unlocked by awakening the heart of the Tower. 
• Evangelist – Starts with the Good Book. Unlocked after finding the truth. 
• Burnt Man – Starts with the Charcoal Heart and the 0K Mind. Unlocked when the gods are challenged. 
• Angel – Starts with the Smiting Rifle and the Nimbus. Unlocked when the rest are dead. 
• Spiral (Hidden Character) – Starts with the End at the Beginning and the Beginning at the End. Unlocked by descending.

 Items

• Old Can of Beans – A scavenger’s meal. It will keep you alive a little longer.
• Handful of Screws – There are points on the skull where they might be twisted in, to pry the mind open. 
• The Nuclear Gospel – “And lo, I saw a rider upon a glowing glass horse, and the rain was like fire…” 
• Lost Days – A grimy stuffed toy with a limp neck. Still smiling. 
• Tattered Flags – Pulled from a ship stranded on a dune. They spell an unknown word. 
• Occam’s Razor – One cannot afford to make undue assumptions when shaving. 
• Holy Woad – The zealots wear it as a second skin. Blood and fury are mightier than any armor. 
• Snail-Shell Necklace – A trinket of no outward worth. 
• Bloody Hands – Survival comes at a cost. 
• “For the King!” – An ancient dirge, inscribed in wax and tattered parchment. 
• Gold and Sulfur Fiddle – A gift, from the dark man at the crossroads. He’s dying. 
• Crown of Teeth – The authority of a decayed queen rests on your brow, a hive for errant enamel knights. 
• Homemade Sutures – Make do with what is available. It will have to be enough. 
• Rust – There’s no telling what it once was, but it might still have some use. 
• Joker’s Deck – 52 cards, all wild. Draw one, and see what happens. 
• A Song from the Moon – Pulled from an Angel’s holy lungs. 
• Right Hand Stone / Left Hand Stone – Two parts of the same whole. One leads, and one follows. One supports, and one undermines. 
• A Punctured Mask – The remnants of an unlucky scavenger. Will you avoid their fate? 
• The Machine Code – The rune-voice of the Tower. Learn its mantras, and speak with metal and stone. 
• Melting Lantern – As it gives light, so it dies. The puddles it leaves glow for a time. 
• Waterlogged Enchiridion – An ancient manual to beasts and beings. Some knowledge might still be discerned from the smeared pages. 
• The Professional – Spend a single bullet for a single death. Be clean and competent. 
• Great Macahuitl – The weapon of an ancient demigod. It can barely be lifted. 
• Plastic Jug of Water – Mind the worms. 
• Cracked Black Pyramid – The blue fire within has died, but the channel to its master remains open. 
• Taboo – They hold power, and release it when broken. Once broken, never returned. 
• The Last Mammoth’s Legacy – A vast and trunkless leg of bone, from an antique beast. 
• Sack of Whitefire Grenades – Let them burn. 
• Heretic’s Heart – It is still warm. Let its power become yours. 
• Head of a Dead Man – It will show you safe passage. It feeds upon flesh, though it has no stomach. 
• What Came Back – Draw upon the power of a soul without rest. 
• What Remains – Shape the form of a body undying. 
• A Piece of the Tower, Upon a String – A remembrance.

Enemies

• Organelles – All that remain are their knotted innards, stumbling in the dark.
• Botflies – Their hosts are barely discernible now, so great is the infestation.
• Black Lung – They exhale the pollution that cooks in their bellies.
• Ambergris-Eater ­­­– When a whale carcass washes into the shallows, they feast with their bone-needle mouths.
• Black Pyramid – Slaves of a greater master. They possess a three-lobed eye of blue fire.
• Censorite – No eyes to see offense, no ears to hear it, no tongue to taste it, two hands to remove it.
• Shadows on the Wall – Shades burned into the very stone by calamity.
• Urchin-heads ­– They carve out the skull and use it as a home. They play in tide pools.
• Celestial Beast – The twelve zodiac species. One can see stars inside their bodies.
• Consumption Drones – The advertisements linger for longer than the product.
• FOD – You want FOD? You get FOD. FOD all the time. FOD for you and you and you.
• Remnants – For some, there is no desire to go on, but no will to die.
• Shades – A heavy-shadowed soul becomes trapped in its own mindless repetition.
• Plague Rats – The fiercest grow to the size of men, bloated on their hordes of siblings.
• Tithe-Takers – Coin makes the gods happy. Their rigid smiles clink and clatter.
• Guardians, Wardens, Protectors – The Tower’s defenders, long silent.
• Copper-Eyes – Bullet talismans tied in their beards, their lives bought for two coins.
• Deathly Merchant – A corpse-medicine seller. He is reluctant to part with his wares.
• Decidui – Leafy servants of the seasons. Their fruit carries the cost of eternal life. 
• Tooth Folk – They traded their queen’s gifts for jagged shards of honor. 
• Shrine-Shield Maiden – They carry the homes of their small gods on their backs. 
• Muddie-Worms – Take care to remove the burrowing eggs each night upon the flats. 
• Whitecap Janes – Their fleshy scalps are a common bandit fashion. 
• Chimeric Mongrel - Years of genetic mastery meets generations of inbreeding. 
• Water Bandit – Dirty jugs of life, stolen and sold. Each one flies his own brand banner. 
• Painted Cherub – A faceless clay servant, bright-painted and giggling 
• Crag Scaler – It plunders the skeletal nests of cliffside birds for what eggs might remain. 
• Scrapling – Children of the old machines, cobbled together in factory wombs, suckling at electric teats. 
• Aborted Ascendant – Not all pilgrims reach the divine. Those who fail are pierced with red spears, and wander the path as warnings. 
• Divine Parasite – The wombs of the gods are barren and riddled with cancers. 
• Thronekeepers – Since the Tower’s creation they have served at the foot of the Throne. To the end of the Tower, they will still serve. 
• Stone-Breaker – Slow of mind and scarred of hand, they carve out quarries for blue-eyed masters. 
• Savings – What is shaved off a product when the first cuts are made. 
• Feastbringer – Longing for guests, it uses what ingredients its body can provide. 
• Whitesmith – A worker of metal, coated in ash and dust. Flames burn behind its goggles. 
• Color Catcher – A collector of shades no longer seen, emotions no longer felt. 
• Sister Executor – Behind the rusted mail and mask of rags, there is a rare kindness.

Bosses

• Inside-Out-Man – He is left vulnerable by an ally scorned long ago.
• Dappled Woman – She dances in the forest glades, oblivious in her joy.
• Ten-Knives, Wasteland King – He wears on his belt the knives that failed to kill him.
• Maid of Autumn – Kindly young death, adorned in dry leaves.
• Lady of Spring – Heavy with verdant growth, what she births she then consumes.
• Lord of Summer – A brief respite from the cold, a weakened spate of heat.
• Miser of Winter – Offer what blood you owe to the turning of the year.
• Tank-Killer – Her rifle has 110 notches scratched above a red ribbon.
• Wheel of the Cosmos – The measure of the world had gone askew, the pace slowed.
• The Dark Fiddler – Keeper of a moonlit crossroads.
• Master of the Frozen Waterfall – He trained so long that the blood in his veins is now ice. He will not move from his vigil.
• The Archivist – Long hours wasted stain her face with ink. She pastes together what has been lost, to no end.
• Conductor of Choirs – Once, the red sky might be rent asunder at the raise of a baton.
• The Organist – It might rise from earthen dreams to play ivory keys and pipes of stone.
• Urchin Chieftess and Harem – The tribe is strong, but the children grumble and bicker.
• Merchant of Merchants – All men pay him tribute, in blood and water and bullets.
• Cloud Keeper – A shepherd of the sky, a shaper of winds, a mourner unto the dawn.
• Scab and Clog – Twin killers, sifting through sewage for treasures and baubles.
• The Highest Elder Trees – The council of roots nears completion, a declaration may come. Perhaps too late.
• Tornod the Slate – He carries a shield torn out of a mountain, and the weight of ancient sins along with it.
• Greater Black Pyramid – Its child herds fly over the land, to seek an ending.
• Lost Delta Strider – Its lonely cry echoes over the mudflats, and goes unanswered.
• Aggressive Advertisement Unit – Mad without its missing, mindless half
• Conjoined Septuplet – Father was proud, mother had certain other opinions.
• Cadaverous Queen – Even in exile, she does not begrudge hospitality to travelers.
• Migratory Memetic Host – The brain is a womb for embryonic ideas, but it seeks a wet nurse.
• Ancient Core Overwatch – The oldest metal grandfather, waking from his dreams of war.
• Lynching-Clock – A machine-tower, frequented by those with no time left.
• Grand Arsonist – When the fire grows bright enough, hot enough, he will at last see.
• Overseer of Zygote Storage – There is a plan. There is a plan. There is a plan. Senior Shield-Mother – Wrinkled and bent, she watches her few remaining students with pride and sadness.
• Sister Superior Executor – She does not wish to do this.
• The Throne Beneath Heaven – The end. The goal. Finality.
• The Iconic (Hidden Boss) – You are the last. He was the first.

NPCs

• Cruel Tai – A bent old man on a wheeled throne of IV drips and waste bags. The bandit clans stay far away from his hollow, except to offer tribute.
• Baba Clink, the Merchant – A master merchant, whose domain is as wide as his waist.
• The Coagulation – A mass of sick and abandoned flesh.
• Man in the Hot, Dark Room – An unknown force.
• Alice, the Witch – She’s always up for a game of cards. A thin pale line runs across her neck.
• The Chorus – A trio of shrouded beings, watching progress from afar. They will occasionally stop their commentary to pass off a bauble to a traveler.

Soundtrack

Departure (Main Menu Theme)
Dealer in Arms and Legs (Bazaar / Shop Theme)
A Moment of Peace (Secret Room Theme)
A Moment Shattered (Secret Room Combat Theme)
Brutality (Miniboss Combat Theme)
The Deed Is Done (Post-Boss Theme)

Coral Dream (Reef Theme)
Knee-deep (Runoff Theme)
Moss and Stream (Deep Woods Theme)
Frozen Dust (The Waste Theme)
Death March (The Long Road Theme)
Skirmish (Outer Ring Boss Theme)

Abandoned Knowledge (Archives Theme)
Star Turning (Zodiac Halls Theme)
Pre-Order Bonus (Consumption Incursion Theme)
Antibody (Sentinel Overwatch Theme)
Under Gods’ Eyes (Temple District Theme)
Further to Climb (Heights Boss Theme)

Gone (Sky Cemetery Theme)
Notes of Moonlight and Fire (Choir Theme)
Without End (House of Years Theme)
“It’s Cold Here” (Apotheosis Theme)
From On High (Summit Boss Theme)

Devil’s Fiddling (Dancer’s Depths Theme)

A Tower Unto Heaven (Final Boss Theme)
Clouds, Be My Home (Credits Theme)

Endings

You have died. Your bones remain in the Tower’s cold halls.

*

He put a crown of scrap on his head and called himself a king.

A squatter in hallowed halls. A tyrant whose domain died long before his ascent.

*

The Throne grants many powers, but it cannot reverse death.

Her flame of revenge went unsated, and slowly starved.

*

He witnessed the cosmos bloom before him.

He had come looking for answers. He found all of them.

*

He placed an offering, wrapped in brown paper, at the foot of the Throne.

His task completed, he vanished, and left his memorial in the snow.

*

The air was thin here, and it was pure.

He danced with the sun, blind and mute.

*

For the first time, he wore no shackles.

He shaved off his beard, and was reborn.

*

His service never wavered, to the very end.

He had fulfilled his father’s orders.

*

“Min…Min, look. We’re going home.”

She held her daughter close, trying to keep her warm.

*

Truth might be changed by fire, or so she thought.

But what then, when truth is but ash?

*

Soon, she had forgotten everything.

Passing fancies filled her eyes and ears.

And she was happy.

*

Perhaps now, it would be set right. Perhaps now, order might be restored.

It called out to its ancient comrades: Come to me, old friends!

Corroded stone and long-dead metal answered with silence.

*

Finding one’s gods often leaves one disappointed in what lies beneath the masks they shed.

Their true form is in the journey.

*

In his final moments, he forgave those who smote him.

For generations, he would be hailed as a saint.

*

Now, it waited, to see if the cycle had been broken.

*

Time is but a snake eating its tail. A journey ever repeated, without end.

How many had failed?

*

You have replaced the first to climb.

You are worthy to sit the throne.

A Tower Unto Heaven is yours. 
 

Magnus Archives Referee Starter Kit

Saphizzle

As something of a follow-up to my previous post on the matter, I'm doing more Magnus Archives stuff. Everything below has been statted up for Mothership. (For folks visiting for the first time, Mothership is PWYW so I will not be going in-depth on mechanics to save time and space. It's also a great game that you should read and play)

There are giant unmarked spoilers.

The Institute

The Magnus Institute (founded 1818, motto VIGILO OPPERIO AUDIO) is an academic paranormal research organization located in Chelsea, London, UK. The organization employs several dozen individuals, and its single building contains an extensive (though private) library, artifact storage, and archives of statements provided by the public. In the public's mind, the Institute is a dusty and obscure holdout of head-in-the-clouds academic occultists and crazy people with ghost stories, if it is thought about at all.

Sister organizations exist in the United States and China, being the Usher Foundation in Washington DC and the Pu Songling Research Center in Beijing.

Characters

Jonathan Sims

The Archivist

Resident cynic and paranoid. Decision-making skills often leave something to be desired.

Stats: Strength 30 / Speed 30 / Intellect 45 / Combat 35
Saves: Sanity 40 / Fear 40 / Body 35 / Armor  35 
Skills: Research +10%, History +10%, Languages +10%, Beholding* +15%
Stress Response: Gain 1d5 Stress every time Beholding is used.

Martin Blackwood

Archival Assistant 

Brews decent tea, writes terrible poetry. Tries to be everyone's friend. Not nearly as cowardly as he seems to be.

Stats: Strength 25  / Speed 30 / Intellect 40 / Combat 20   
Saves: Sanity 40 / Fear 35 / Body 30 / Armor 20
Skills: Research +10%, History +10%, Art +10%, Harmless Demeanor +15%
Stress Response: Gains 1 stress every time a companion fails a Fear save.

Tim Stoker

Archival Assistant

Ladies' man. Man's man. The man in general. Has got no patience for paranormal bullshit.

Stats: Strength 50 / Speed 30 / Intellect 30 / Combat  35 
Saves: Sanity 35 / Fear 30 / Body 30 / Armor  30 
Skills: Research +10%, Athletics +10%, Bar Fighting +10%, Flirting +15%
Stress Response: Can make a companion roll for Panic instead, 1/session.

Sasha James

Archival Assistant

The only actually competent one. Tends to remain behind the scenes.

Stats: Strength 40 / Speed 30 / Intellect 40 / Combat  35 
Saves: Sanity 30 / Fear 35 / Body 30 / Armor 25
Skills: Research +10%, Computers +10%, Official Connections +10%, Going Unnoticed +15%
Stress Response: Successful research rolls heal 1d10 Stress, 1/day.

Melanie King

GhostHuntUK

Failed Youtube star turned archival assistant. Constantly spatting with John. Mean streak. Scarily good with violence.

Stats: Strength 30 / Speed 30 / Intellect 35 / Combat 40
Saves: Sanity 35 / Fear 35 / Body 30 / Armor 25
Skills: Social Media +10%, Athletics +10%, Ghost Lore +10%,  Close-Quarters Combat +15%
Stress Response: After Panicking, all attacks are made with advantage until the end of combat.

Basira Hussain

London Metropolitan Police, Section 31

The detective. Forever putting the pieces together. Very close with Daisy. 

Stats: Strength 30 / Speed 35 / Intellect 45 / Combat  40 
Saves: Sanity 50 / Fear 45 / Body 30 / Armor 30 
Skills: Police Training +10%, Forensics +10%, Research +10%, Occultism +15%,
Stress Response: Allies gain 1 Stress when Basira fails a Sanity save.

Alice "Daisy" Tonner

London Metropolitan Police, Section 31

The resident hunter-killer. Fixes problems.Very close with Basira.

Stats: Strength 45 / Speed 40 / Intellect 30 / Combat 55
Saves: Sanity 25 / Fear 40 / Body 40 / Armor  30 
Skills: Police Training +10%, Intimidation +15%, Violence +15%,
Stress Response: All allies must make a Fear save when Daisy Panics.

Elias Bouchard

Head of the Magnus Institute

God, this man is the worst. You know that boss who tells you nothing and expects you to know everything? This fucker, right here.

Stats: Strength 25 / Speed 35 / Intellect 45 / Combat  35
Saves: Sanity 45 / Fear 35 / Body 30 / Armor  25 
Skills: Smooth Criminal +15%, Beholding* +20%
Stress Response: Can ignore a Panic roll 1/session.

Gertrude Robinson

Prior Head Archivist

Currently busy being dead. 

Stats: Strength 25 / Speed 35 / Intellect 50 / Combat 35
Saves: Sanity 50 / Fear 40  / Body 20 / Armor 35
Skills: Research +10%, Little Old Lady +15%, Night at the Opera +15%
Stress Response: Can reroll a Panic response 1/session.

Gerard Keay

Goth Sorcerer

Just for once he'd like to go somewhere, anywhere, where he doesn't get dragged into this shit.

Stats: Strength 35 / Speed 30 / Intellect 45 / Combat  35 
Saves: Sanity 30 / Fear 50 / Body 30 / Armor 35
Skills: Occult +10%, The Dread Powers +15% 
Stress Response: Will start blasting heavy metal music for 1d10 minutes on a failed Fear or Sanity save, deafening everyone else.

* "Beholding" indicates drawing on the power of the Eye to gain information either through compulsion of another party (ie a question they cannot resist) or through simply pulling the information out of the universe.

planetsandmagic

The Powers

Do not treat the Powers as typical Lovecraftian old gods. Imagine fear translated into metaphysical forces, constantly shifting and reacting, combining and conflicting. Most are very, very old. Some predate humanity. Some are new. Some are evolving. Some slouch towards Bethlehem to be born. All will overlap.

Each Power may manifest in a great many forms, as different as the hand from the stomach. The books seem to be the most stable, and can provide some functions usable to humans (often at great peril - the Powers are not controlled, they are fed and channeled.)

A Ritual is the means by which a Power, through actions of human servants influenced by it, can overpower all the others and reshape existence according to its nature, so that it might more fully manifest.

I took some liberties here, filling in gaps so that all the Powers get equal representation as far as usable goodies, as well as drawing some of the "true names" from this reddit thread. (Translation: some of this is lies I made up that will be marked with an * and get replaced when/if better information comes around.)

The Web / Mother of Puppets / I-Am-Not-In-Control*

Wheels within wheels, spinning and weaving.

• Followers: A few solitary actors that tend to draw large groups of people together as prey. Most notable of these being Raymond Fielding, of the halfway house on Hilltop Road.
• Monster*: Jorogumo
• Not actually an anime spider lady.
• Is actually a bootleg VHS tape with three episodes of a show about an anime spider lady, with shitty bootleg subtitles.
• With legs.
• Hits: (20) 5 / Speed: 80 / Instinct: 30 / Attack: 1d10 bite
• Special: I Need to Know! - Upon being bitten, the target must make a Body save every day to resist wasting all their time on an internet rabbit hole trying to dig up the source of this show and the location of any other tapes. Nothing else abnormal happens, until the starvation and dehydration set in.
  
• Artifact:  A zippo lighter, engraved with a spiderweb. Always seems to be on hand when you need it.
• Book: A Guest for Mr. Spider - Readers will be unconsciously drawn to an abandoned house, knock twice at the door, and you can guess the rest.
• Aspects: Drawing things together into danger, webs, spiders, traps, loss of control, manipulation, the film industry.
• Ritual: None. The Web draws others into action against each other, and so prefers the world-as-is.

The Eye / Beholding / I-Am-Being-Watched*

I SEE YOU.

• Followers: The Magnus Institute, whether they like it or not.
• Monster*: Infestation of Eyes
• They grow like barnacles in the corners of the room and hidden nooks outside, blinking away when you catch sight of them.
• Hits: NA / Speed: NA / Instinct: NA / Attack: NA
  
• Special: And I Get No Privacy - Those affected by an Infestation of Eyes will become insistant that they are transmitting information to a hostile party. With each failed Sanity save (1/day), gain an additional point of Stress (starting at 1, cumulative).
• Artifact: A stone eye in a velvet bag that shorts out CCTV and other electronic observation.
• Book*: Bird Watching for Dummies - The reader will find themselves watched by a string of increasingly exotic and numerous but otherwise mundane birds.
• Aspects: Panopticon, loss of privacy, perpetual observation, the revelation of secrets.
• Ritual: The Watcher's Crown. Nature unknown - it has never before been attempted. Would clearly have something to do with the Archives. Potentially centers on complete knowledge / mastery of the other Powers.

The End / Terminus / Moment-Of-My-Death*

Death needs no introduction.

• Followers: Those undying avatars of the End go about the world as reapers of souls, and may only quit their task if beaten at a game. They are terribly good at games.
• Monster: A Corpse
  
• Hits: 0 / Speed: 0 / Instinct: 0 / Attack: 0
• Special: "The Moment You Die Will Feel Exactly the Same as This One" - If approached, the corpse will momentarily animate and whisper the above phrase to the investigator. Character is now incapable of fear and can no longer make Fear saves, but their Sanity save is reduced by half.
• Artifact*: One tablespoon of black hole, suspended
  
• Book: Book of the Dead - The skin of the freshly dead is inscribed in Sanskrit, dried, and sewn into the book. Their spirit then resides there, and may be called forth by the reader.
• Aspects: Death, dreams, complete and irrevocable ceasing.
• Ritual: None. It has no need of it, as the difference between a universe where everything dies and one without life is academic on the grand scale.

The Stranger / Something's Wrong* / I-Do-Not-Know-You

If I'm me, and you're me, who's the real me?

• Followers: Fake people, hordes of them, made of wire and plastic and sawdust, pretending to be human, culminating in the freakshow of Nikola Orsinov's Circus of the Other.
• Monster: The Anglerfish
• A pale figure bobs in the shadowed alleyway. "Can I have a cigarette?"
• Hits: Speed: Instinct: Attack: See below
  
• Special: Drag Into the Dark - A swift tendril lashes out from the shadows and will drag the victim into the dark on the next turn. A successful Strength check will grant an additional turn of resistance. The tendril may be cut easily. If the target is taken out of sight of their fellows, the character is lost, and will be encountered some time later as a doppelganger.
  
• Artifact: The hide of a gorilla,taken from Carthage before its destruction. the oldest piece of taxidermy in the world.
• Book*: Metamorphosis - Something about the world is drastically different when you wake up next, and no one else seems to think it unusual. It changes every morning, and keeps getting more outrageous.
  
• Aspects: The familiar made wrong. Circuses and dancing. Skin and costumes. Taxidermy. Absurdity.
• Ritual: "The Unknowing" - A dance hosted by a Mechaical Turk in a wax museum. All participants ought bring a new skin from home.

The Desolation / The Lightless Flame / There-Is-Nothing-Left*

Some men just want to...you know the rest.

• Followers: A small band of cultists dedicated to destroying the lives of people who have unrealized potential. They're all a right buch of assholes, believe you me. More than willing to directly attack the servants of other Powers.
• Monster: Jude Perry
• Short, muscular Asian woman with short hair and a back tattoo of a man burning. Is probably getting off on all this.
• Hits: (4)40 / Speed: 30 / Instinct: 40 / Attack: See below.
• Special: Flesh Like Wax - No save. Jude can melt and reshape her own flesh or that of someone she is touching.
• Special: Unbearable Heat - 2d10 direct contact, 2d10 / turn radiating.
• Artifact*: A briefcase filled with the charred manuscripts of brilliant works never written.
• Book: A small red book containing prayers and rituals of the Sumerian demon Asag, training one in the ways of Desolation.
• Aspects: Sudden, catastrophic loss of what is and what can be. Fire without benefits. Pain.
• Ritual: "The Scorched Earth" - What it says on the tin. Requires a messiah born and baptized in fire.

The Buried / Choke / Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe

It is all pressing down, there is no way out.

• Followers*: As they rise in the cult's ranks, they move to smaller and smaller cells. Eventually the cell is packed with dirt and only the breathing tube remains.
• Monster: Lost Johns' Cave
• Hits: (1)5.972 × 10^24 / Speed: 0 / Instinct: 100, Attack: It's going to squish you. You have 1d10 hours to live.
• Special: Veins of the Earth - In lieu of character death, the referee may elect to change the game entirely by bringing in material from the book of that title by Patrick Stuart.
• Artifact: A rough coffin, chained and padlocked, engraved with DO NOT OPEN. Within is a carved stone staircase, leading deep into the earth.
• Book: DIG - Compels the reader to dig downwards, by whatever means are available to them.
• Aspects: Being buried, drowned, overwelmed - by earth, water, debt, etc. Claustrophobia.
• Ritual: "Sunken Sky, Forever Buried" - A pit opens up in the earth. It is ignored by everyone, but everyone still walks down into it and lays still.

The Flesh / Corpus* / I-Am-Meat*

Meat is meat, meat is me.

• Followers: Famine-thin, grotesquely fat, malformed with misintent, or all of the above. Don't tend to see humans as that big of a deal compared to any other animal.
• Monster: Some Pig
• It ate all the other pigs. It just keeps getting bigger. I think it just ate a clown...
• Hits: (2)50 Speed: 10 / Instinct: 30 / Attack: Get This Pig Off Me or 2d10 bite
  
• Special: Get This Pig Off Me - The pig tackles an individual and pins them to the ground, dealing 2d10 damage per turn and not moving without some serious force applied to it.
• Artifact*: Three garbage bags filled with human fat. Those near have a mild compulsion to start eating it.
• Book: The Boneturner's Tale - Allows the reader to remove the bones and reshape the flesh of both themselves and others. Has a tendency to make other books bleed.
• Aspects: The grotesquity of the body, cannibalism, repurposed Eucharistic symbolism
  
• Ritual: "The Last Feast" - The feeding of thousands of tons of meat to a pit beneath the ruins of an ancient gnostic temple.

The Lonely / Forsaken / There-Is-No-One-Here*

I'm so lonely, Mr. Lonely, I've got nobody...

• Followers: The Lukas family and associates. A paradox, where the social ties of family and religion are inverted and sterilized, drained of any connection or warmth.
• Monster: An absence of a thing, far out to sea. It demands sacrifice. It doesn't exist. Get off the ship before it gets here.
• Artifact: A chunk of space debris harvested from Point Nemo.
• Book: A Disappearance - A quick glance may render someone invisible and undetectable for a time. Longer than that risks wiping them out of reality entirely.
• Aspects: Isolation, being forgotten, being left behind, fading of social ties.
• Ritual: Whatever it is, the Lukases aren't telling us anything. That is very, very dangerous.

The Vast / The Grand Scale* / It-Is-Too-Big*

Enjoy sky blue.

• Followers: Occasional lone adherents like Simon Fairchild or Michael Crew, who tend to tend to take some bizarre enjoyment in feeding people to the sky.
• Monster: If you want to try and fight the sky, be my guest.
  
• Artifact*: A sealed jar containing air from the ISS. Is always further away from you than you think.
• Book: Ex Altiora - Generates an intense feeling of vertigo that the skilled reader may turn on others. Stinks of ozone.
• Aspects: Open space, incredible size, impossible heights, open ocean, man's insignifigance.
• Ritual: Unknown.

The Slaughter / Kill Kill Kill* / We-Are-Turned-Into-Corpses*

YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS! RIP AND TEAR!

• Followers: Those who delight in death, who seek to do violence and to inspire violence.
  
• Monster: The Piper
• The War itself. No taller than a man. three faced - one to play its bone pipes, another to sing its dying screams, another to vomit forth soil and blood. A tattered coat atop a burned and flayed body. A panoply of arms weilding weapons, raised in supplication, saluting.
• Hits: (3)100 Speed: 50 Instinct: 70 Attack: Death by the Bullet x2 (as any firearm), Death by the Sword x2 (as bladed weapon), The Whine of Daemonic Piping
  
• Special: The Whine of Daemonic Piping - Target must make a Combat roll. If they succeed, they must save vs Sanity or will be led off to No-Man's Land on the next turn.
  
• Artifact*: A stone caked in the blood of a Sahalanthropus. Deals 10d10 very messy mDMG. 20 ft AOE.
• Book*: Knee Deep in the Dead - Inspires immediate and brutal violence in all present, growing in radius and intensity until the book is inevitably torn asunder.
• Aspects: Unthinking, indiscriminate violence. The music of combat. Approaching pain.
• Ritual: "The Risen War" - The lost ship Nemesis rises from the deep to take on more men broken by war. Once abroad, they shall fight each other to the last until the ship is destroyed in glory.

The Corruption / Filth / I-Am-Unclean*

There is a wasps' nest in my attic...

• Followers: Patient Zero, Typhoid-Mary types, the sources of particular pestilences.
  
• Monster: Jane Prentiss
• Was once a cashier in a new-age shop. Now, an object lesson in trypophobia in a tattered red evening dress. Filled with worms. Oh god, so many worms. 
• Hits: (3)30 Speed: 40 / Instinct: 60 / Attack: See below
• Special: Wormsign - Prentis brings her swarm with her. If unprotected, Body save to remove the worms before they burrow too deep, taking 1d10 damage. Failing is 5d10 damage / turn. The swarm in any given area has (1)100 health. A CO2 fire extinguisher acts as flamethrower against worm swarms.
  
• Artifact: A medical scalpel covered in virulent infection vectors that cannot be cleaned.
• Book: A Journal of the Plague Year - Rots everything in its presence, to the point of collapsing buildings.
  
• Aspects: Filth, decay, disease, corruption, insects, fungus, worms, unclean-ness.
• Ritual*: "Unclean, Unclean!" - Sacrifices are bathed in maggots, offered to swarms of rats, worked to death building a landfill pyramid upon which will be broken open a lab sample of smallpox.

The Dark / Mr. Pitch / I-Cannot-See-It*

Most of everything is dark matter - light is a fleeting aberration.

• Followers: The People's Church of the Divine Host, a cult that fragmented and went into hiding after the disappearence of its leader, Maxwell Raynor. Symbol of a closed eye with four vertical lines (eyelashes). Love them some creepy rituals.
  
• Monster: The Thing in the Dark of the Night
• It goes unseen. It is perhaps the size of a bear.
• Hits: (5)25 / Speed: 40 / Instinct: 60 / Attack: 4d10 mauling
  
• Special: Something Wicked This Way Comes -  The Thing's approach will be heralded by every light source in sight burning out and all water going stagnant and brackish.
• Special: Shroud of Night - All attacks made against the Thing are at disadvantage.
• Artifact: A wardrobe that no light may be shone into.
• Book*: The Book of Black Pages - A sort of scripture, that may summon forth a darkness no light can penetrate and summon forth the entities that lurk within.
• Aspects: Darkness, blindness, secrets, the unknown, stasis, dark water.
• Ritual: "The Extinguished Sun" - Involves a pilgrimage to Ny-Alesundled by one Mr. Pitch, to see the solar eclipse there.

The Spiral / It is Lying / It-Is-Not-What-It-Is

Where did I leave my copy of Uzumaki?

• Followers: The Spiral does not have followers proper: instead, those exposed to it will eventually become extensions of it, or rather, it will become them.
• Monster: Michael, the Distortion
• Something that looks not entirely unlike a person. Blond, curly hair. Always looks like its seen through a distorted window. It doesn't have a name, but can call it Michael, or Gabriel, or Helen. The arms are too long, and the fingers have too many bones in them. Can just pop out of nowhere. Makes you feel like you're going mad just talking to it.
• Hits: (4)20 / Speed: 65 / Instinct: 65 / Attack: 2d10 waggly-knuckled monstrosities
• Special: Man Upon the Stair - The presence of a Distortion triggers 1d10 stress / turn.
• Special: A Door to Nowhere - Doors cease having the usual effect and may open anywhere, or nowhere, or may appear and disappear as willed. The other end might be an endless paradox-fractal hallway, another domain of the Spiral.
• Artifact: A Ming vase glazed with blue fractals. Items of the possessor's regular go missing, and no one else will remember there being anything at all.
• Book*: Untitled book of asemic writing - Reader's capability for symbolic thought is broken down and replaced with an alien logic.
• Aspects: Loss of ones' senses, the unreliability of memory, disassociation, the twisting of things
• Ritual: "The Great Twisting" - The construction and opening of a labyrinth door in Sannikov Land.

The Hunt / Pursuer* / It-Is-Chasing-Me*

Perhaps the oldest of all. Now think, you're set to hunt and kill to your heart's content...

• Followers: Devoted entirely to the chase and terribly good at it. Some of the few who can permanently kill an avatar of another Power.
• Monster: Vampire
• A pale imitation of a human. There are not many, they do not feed often.
• They cannot speak and do not have lungs. They will still make themselves understood.
• They do not think, not more than an animal does. Human actions are all imitations.
• Burn terribly easy if they have not recently fed (or if they have not had time to digest).
• Hits: (3)15 / Speed: 45 / Instinct: 30 Attack: 2d10 claw or 1d10 piercing tongue
  
• Special: Exsanguination - After a successful tongue attack, the vampire will drain 4d10 damage worth of blood on its next turn if it is not removed from the victim.
• Artifact*: The bullet that will kill the last elephant.
• Book: The Stalwart Hunter's Almanac - The reader shall be injured in the manner that they read (Unless they can fight off the assailant)
• Aspects: Pursuit, chase. The animal fear of the predator.
• Ritual: "The Everchase" - Explorers seeking impossible places, forever hunting and being hunted in the depths of the jungle. Due to the nature of the Hunt, this ritual can never reach its conclusion.

Extinction / The Terrible Change / The-Future-Without-Us

A Power yet to be born.

• Followers: None yet, thankfully.
• Monster: Les heritiérs ("The Inheritors")
  
• We do not know what they look like or what they do, only this: "There is nothing done in the history of humanity that deserves the things that come after us."
• Artifact: A thumb drive containing ushankasdespair.exe - Seventeen hours of a man eating a computer and weeping and you have to watch the entire damn thing.
• Book*: Shadow of the Anthropocene - Contains the histories of those alien civilizations that will follow humanity, and the unhappy endings of each one. Adds and removes entries according to some sort of quantum uncertainty.
  
• Aspects: The destruction of the world we know and its replacement by another we have no part in. Mankind's self-obliteration.
• Ritual: None, yet. Given the nature of this Power, its normal manifestations have the potential for catastrophic ends. Some of the other Powers and their avatars are willing to set aside differences to stop it from ever emerging.

Project Updates for 2019

With the new year of 12019 upon us (Holocene Era calendar for life), here's some of the stuff I've been working on and hopefully will be working on in the future.

Unicorn Meat

(This is a module about an abandoned backwoods factory farm for unicorns that has gone full True Detective / LISA the Painful)

The first draft of the module is complete, but first drafts have a way of revealing to you that completion is a fair way away. I've got potential revisions all written down and ready for addition once the mental batteries recharge.

The main change will be one of framing and focus. All of the playtests so far have been about a adventuring party happening upon the events at the farm, and this has brought with it issues of motivation and confusion of what to do. To address this, I feel that a switcheroo is in order: "carvergirls attempting to escape the farm" gets bumped up to the primary hook, while "adventurers from the outside" gets bumped down the list.

All the rest is just cleanup and reorganization of what I've already got down, with a bit of expansion where needed. With the carvergirls bumped up as the primary player option adding a Nightwatch class and their spells is going to happen.

There's a ways to go, but I'm excited. It's gonna be great.

The Great Discape

(This is a weirdo setting of a bunch of strange places on the back of a giant whale.)

I haven't forgotten about it.

The Danscape, while loads of fun to play and run,was a bit of a big, unguided mess. Setting was so big that it might as well not have existed or could have been a single planet, maybe even within walking distance. The 100-long list of species went mostly untouched and unused. It's all diluted, and in the heat of the moment it is too much for a DM to use adequately on the fly.

I had some thoughts of paring the setting down, perhaps adding the Wanderers as the main races, but that didn't come to fruition.

Because I've already got a project with "scape" in it already. (Draft here.)

After some feedback from folks and a good time of thinking, I've got some notions of combining the two, so that everyone is far less confused about everything.

Some ideas and edits that have taken hold.

• Cutting down the number of major regions - already done in the draft, down to 14.
• Adding a list of minor regions (which will include abridged versions of those cut)
• Consolidating the places of note from Danscape to Discape.
• The Discape itself is made of dead gods, because why not?
• There is no off switch to the K6BD influences.
• Filling out the Discape with some more random tables.
• There was that huge race table made for the Danscape. I don't think it will be added in, but I'll figure something out for it.

One of the advantages of jumping from half-baked project to half-baked project is that you can occasionally bake an entire project out of the pieces.

Mother Stole Fire

(This is my "default" fantasy setting)

Broad-view plans for all this is to make a sort of setting gazetteer, in the vein of Chromatic Soup. A map of the Olen River Valley adventure region and a series of background equipment kits have been sketched out and I've got a decent short list of  pre-existing posts to polish and throw together.

Untitled Post Apocalyptic Project

(This has yet to be made)

There is in my head the shape of a game. An apocalyptic game, but after a revelatory apocalypse rather than a destructive one. Fit for fighting monsters and paranormal investigation, but more in the vein of Hellboy and the BPRD than Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. Something that scratches the Degenesis itch more than a hack can.

If Hellboy + Dreamlands + Esoteric Enterprises + Degenesis + Warframe for some fucking reason sounds like a good time to you, this is one to keep tabs on.

Games I Want to Run

Got plenty of stuff on the docket for this year, but the main plans are:

• Mothership - Got plenty of stuff to use already and I can't wait to get started.
• Warhammer 40k via SWN - Using John B's excellent little hack, I can finally knock 40k off the bucket list.
• DCC - Want to try a longer campaign on this one, I've got plenty of material for it. Once my copy of Chained Coffin comes in that'll definitely see some use.
• Other stuff - Who knows? There shall always be more opportunities.

Unnamed Mothership Setting: Solar Gazetteer

Jakub Rebelka

Part two of my Unnamed Mothership Setting.

Planets were generated using Mephit James' repurposed Traveller tables with some extra aide from the Stars Without Number and Red Tide tags. Distances between stars came from Space Engine which is terribly helpful in general.

For the sake of space, I'm not going to detail every single planet that was rolled up. There are a whole lot of indistinct dwarf rockballs and asteroids out there, so unless there's something particularly interesting about them, they shall be elided. Planets will be listed in order outwards from their sun, with the orbital region in parentheses. Moons will be listed in italics under their parent planet.

Some Handy Terminology

• Epistellar - Really close to the star.
• Inner - Close but not that close to the star.
• Outer - A sizable distance from the star.
• Terrestrial - .02-5 Earth Masses
• Helian - 3-15 Earth Masses
• Vesperian - Tidally locked 
• Pelagic - Ocean world
• Bathypelagic - By God that's a lot of ocean
• Panthallassic - Even the sky is ocean.
• Gelidian - Frozen 
• Pelagic-Gelidian - Frozen crust surrounding subsurface ocean.
• Post-Gelidian - Cooling tectonic world, subglacial oceans.
• Cytherian - Venus-like
• Arid - Mars-like
• Amunian - Terrestrial ammonia worlds 

 

Sol - G2V

Home sweet home. Even the posthumans still have a certain fondness for it, living out in the Oort cloud or in micro-Dyson-swarms. Every major body in the solar system has been settled by this point, though much of the activity has moved outwards towards Jupiter and Saturn: interstellar ships are much more likely to stop off at Callisto or Titan, with their goods launched towards the inner system via mass driver. Venus is home to thousands of aerostat nations, Earth is coming out of centuries of environmental reclamation, and Mars is heavily para-terraformed.

Proxima Centauri - M6V

The closest star to Sol and the cultural hub for spacers. All three planets and their orbits have been heavily settled and para-terraformed. Most of the system population is transient, but those who stay on permanently are a proud and stubborn community - corporate interests rarely reach far into Proximan doings, co-operatives and mutual aid organizations flourish.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Gargarin	Rocky vesperian	Epistellar	0	Complex single-celled
Armstrong & Aldrin	Binary rocky dwarfs	Inner	0	No
Shen	Arid Methane	Outer	0	No

For visitors overwhelmed by the thousands of cantinas, hostels, shrines, and spaceports around Proxima, pay a visit to Clever Lu's in Shen orbit. It's got work, people, talk, drinks, whatever you're looking for.

Alpha Centauri - G2V / K1V binary

A prime example of what not to do. The original colonization attempt collapsed under incompetent leadership and construction by the lowest bidder, leading to a period of violent anarchy then replaced by a militaristic corporate-fascist police state. Over 60% of the system's habitats were built with faulty water purification and filtering systems (using proprietary hardware and legacy software from a defunct company with no documentation) that cannot be fixed without completely replacing them. The native environments of both Onwards and Prosperity have undergone catastrophic mass extinctions via industrial exploitation.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Upwards	Panthallasic Helian	Outer	3	Single-celled producers
Onwards	Pelagic	Outer	N/A	Large macroscopic
Prosperity	Arid	Outer	1	Complex global ecology +potential proto-sapients

Barnard's Star - M4.OV

Barnard's Star has a single shining attraction: the planet Dorothy is a tropical paradise.  Some combination of the planet's air, water, and temperature triggers the human body to purge itself of stress and toxins. Locals have the highest non-augmented life expectancy in human space and some of the best health. The artificial islands of the planet are held up as a poster-child of environmentally-non-invasive colonization. Generations of such good living have made themselves manifest in the local population with a borderline-dangerous naivety of life outside the system and a complete disregard for measuring time.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Dorothy	Pelagic Gaian	Inner	1	Large macroscopic
Alice	Amunian	Outer	0	Single-celled producers
Lirazel	Saturnian Dwarf-Jovian	Outer	1	No

Travelers might also wish to explore the bizarre daydream-cultures of Wonderland Arcologies of Alice and all the court machinations of the Chess Queens.

Sirius - AOmA1 + White Dwarf Companion 

With empty Epistellar and Inner orbits, the few bodies orbiting Sirius are cold and empty. Hardly befitting their namesakes, but the Dog Star needs its pack.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Gelert & Guinefort	Binary icy dwarfs	Outer	0	No
Hachiko	Arid Methane	Outer	1	No
Laika	Cthonian Jovian	Outer	4	No

Most of the system's settlements are in the business of mining and volatiles. Of note are Lonely Glow, a partially-abandoned debtor's prison on Hachiko, and the feral autofactory General Product Production Installation 113 in Laika orbit.  

Epsilon Eridani - K2V

An economic powerhouse and the third most populated system in human space. Originally settled by ships of the Indian-Venusian Diaspora, it has since expanded into a bustling, diverse, and all things accounted for not terrible place to live. All major worlds in the system have been settled, and the few posthuman habitats seem to be oddly fond of the human population, inasmuch as they can be.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Matsya & Kurma	Twin burning terrestrials	Epistellar	0	No
Parashurama	GelidianGaian	Inner	3	Simple global ecology
Rama	Campian (Hot, wet) Gaian	Outer	0	Complex global ecology
Krishna	Amunian	Outer	1	Complex multicellular
Buddha's Belt	Dust Ring	Outer	N/A	N/A

Of note to scientists is the extinction of any life on Parashurama outside of the subglacial seas due to swift cooling of the climate. Digs have revealed an extensive fossil record, and the planet is oft cited by those believers in ancient alien civilizations.

Ross 128 - M4V

Currently entrenched in a gamelike civil war of ritualized combat, fought in daily one-on-one combats broadcast openly, backed by an elaborate system of points and territories. The religious tension at the root of the conflict appears to have originated in political demographics that jumped over into belief systems. Dozens of minor faith-parties have emerged in the cracks, starting their own proxy conflicts.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Radamanthus	Chlorine Vespirian	Inner	0	Single-celled producers
Aeacus	CryoNebulous Helian	Outer	2	No
Minos	Arid Ammonia	Outer	0	Complex multicellular

The majority of the system's settlements are in orbit around Aeacus, save Charon City on Minos, home to the Silicon Sepulchre - a library of memories and experiences from over half a billion androids from across human space.

Tau Ceti - G8Vp

With so little in the system, Tau Ceti is a more of a stopover location than a destination. Hou Yi and Chang'E are both settled, though not heavily. Of note are reports of unexplained freak geology below the clouds of Chang'E and the Hou Yi biotech and agritech industries - the system is the sole supplier for a panoply of exotic genengineered foods.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Paris & Helen	Binary hephaestan dwarfs	Epistellar	0	No
Hou Yi Chang'E	Arid world with Cytherian companion	Inner	0	Single-celled producers / No

Luyten's Star - M3.5V

Contains almost nothing of note or importance. The very definition of a filler M-type.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Lean	Jovian with icy moons	Inner	4	No
Lurch	GeoNebulous Helian	Inner	2	No
Lacrimosa	Bathypelagic	Inner	N/A	Single-celled producers

Weitown: A small settlement that mines volatiles from the moons of Lurch. Serves as a stop-over and refueling depot for interstellar travelers. Founded by ex-corporate soldiers abandoned without pay or pension. They aren't particularly fond of company, which leads to conspiracy theories of hidden wealth and dark secrets.

More Cowboy Bebop

82 Eridani - G6V

The Red Ash Plague (named for what it does to victim's skin) has crippled the system, and after years of work no one has been able to find a cure or an origin. it comes and it goes in cycles that follow no pattern, it is survivable one day and lethal the next. it has made the locals secretive and withdrawn, communicating with outsiders purely by masked broadcast and hiding their scarred faces.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Moriarty	Thetusian Helian	Inner	1	No
Holmes & Watson	Cytherian + Pelagic	Inner	0	No / Single-celled producers
Adler	Arid methane	Outer	0	No

There is a running reward of a hyperelite's ransom for any clue to the cure or origin of the Plague, posted by the eccentric and short-sighted trillionaire behind the catastrophically failed Baker Street  adventure habitat. The habitat is still there and technically still in operation, the owner is still technically alive, the androids technically still keep to their roles but all have fallen into disrepair.

Delta Pavonis - G8IV

In the grips of a humanitarian crisis after a meteroite slipped through the detection net and struck Laozi, crippling the planet's infrastructure. Resettlement of refugees to Diogenes orbit is underway, but there are not enough ships and not enough space. With the loss of Laozi's solar farms, food production for the entire system finds itself in precarious position.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Laozi	Rocky Terrestrial	Epistellar	3	No
Diogenes	Neptunian SubJoviam	Outer	2	No

The Lamp in Diogenes orbit serves as the governmental hub in the system. it is currently overwhelmed with desperate people looking to flee the system and the government's philosopher-parliament is overwhelmed.

Gliese 581 - M3V

Founded by Proximan anarchists driven out by the Centauri Wars, the system is the keystone world for autonomists in human space. In order to remain as independent as possible from capitalist interests the system does keep tight watch on who enters (especially with Gliese 667 so close by).

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Eat-the-Rich	Arid	Inner	1	Complex single-celled
No Gods	Thetusian GeoHelian	Inner	4	No
Liberty	Arid	Inner	N/A	Large macroscopic
No Masters	Hyperionic Geohelian	Inner	1	No
Responsibility	EoGaian	Inner	N/A	Complex global ecology

If one is feeling social, visit Lalu Lilalo's, in No Masters orbit. It can provide whatever entertainment you can want or need, from hanafuda to fighting games to just making friends with strangers / having sex with them.

Gliese 667 (Fu Xi / Nüwa / Shennong) - K3V / K5V / M1 trinary

The first two stars of this trinary circle each other closely, and so have cleared out their orbits of everything but some asteroids and a few rocky dwarfs. Gliese 667 C (Shennong) orbits A&B at a much greater distance, allowing it to maintain a stable system of its own.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Huangdi	Halcyonic Helian	Epistellar	2	No
Leizu	Chlorine Vesperian	Epistellar	N/A	Single-celled
Zhuanxu	Twin Cytherians	Epistellar	0	No
Dì Kù	MesoGaian	Inner	2	Multi-cellular
Tang Yao	Cytherian	Inner	1	No
Great Shun	Arid Methane	Outer	5	Building Blocks

Despite its position, the system is second only to Sol in terms of population and economic output. It has little love for spacers and Company loyalty is strong. Asteroid kowloons filled with unfortunate poor pepper the region. A wide-spread crackdown on the makers of anti-government / anti-corporate VR interactives has, as of yet failed to dredge up the underground master-artist "CC540".

Fomalhaut - A3 V / K5Vp / M4V Trinary

Fomalhaut A is the only star of this trio to be settled thus far. Multiple dust rings make travel in the system difficult, stripping unprotected ships bare from friction.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Atargatis	Arid terrestrial	Inner	1	Single-celled
Oannes	Pelagic-Gelidian	Outer	1	Small macroscopic
Dagon	Saturnian Dwarf-Jovian	Outer	3	No

The largest settlements in the system are Ahab on Oannes and Jonah in Dagon orbit, operated by rival family-owned companies. They've taken the system's economic downturn in stride, using the high unemployment to hire raiders to harass their competition's ships.

Arcturus - KOIII

A great curiosity among xenobiologists: a system where an old and expanded star has consumed or expelled all but two of its worlds, and both of those worlds are as overflowing with life as Earth in its prime, with multiple species on the cusp of sapience? A coincidence that ought be too good to be true.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Tormance	Rocky vesperian	Inner	0	Complex global ecology + potential proto-sapients
Alppain	Bathypelagic	Outer	0	Complex global ecology + potential proto-sapients

For the protection of the local environments most of the population lives in orbit (Main stations Maskul and Nightspore), though small settlements do exist planetside. The initial colonists were of an esoteric neo-gnostic sect that has grown only stranger in the time since, often overlapping with the scientific demographic.

The word "uplift" is not bandied about lightly. It has a tendency to spawn riots.

comelms

Trappist-1 - M8V

A xenobiological grail: five planets with life, potentially with the same point of origin. Its distance from other major worlds has kept it at a relatively low population. It is home to  variety of exiled and heterodox religions, most being splinters from the Titantian Catholic Churchs, the displaced Martian Cathars, the Buddhislamic Fellowship, the Techno-Presbyteriat, and the Old Orthodox Xenodeists.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Anthony	Cytherian	Epistellar	0	No
Augustine	Burning terrestrial	Epistellar	0	No
Benedict	Vesperian	Epistellar	0	Multi-cellular
Scholastica	Arid methane	Inner	1	Complex single-celled
Hildegard	Amunian	Inner	0	Single-celled
Dominic	Post-Gelidian	Inner	1	Single-celled
Francis	Pelagic-Gelidian	Inner	0	Complex multi-cellular

The primary settlement is Subiaco on Benedict, which is run by the ever-patient remnants of the officially-dissolved Jesuits.

Zeta Reticuli - G3-5V / G2V binary

A lively and populous system, famous for the heterocultural communes of Le Guin, the Domes of the Living Dead on Herbert (kill rabid flesh-eating gene-engineered clones for the entertainment of the streaming audience), the android-run habitat of Positronic in Brackett orbit, and Rocketman's Repose around Bradbury, the memorial of every known human to have died in space.

ZR-A

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Brackett	Cytherian	Inner	0	No
Verne & Wells	Dwarf Binary	Inner	0	No
Le Guin	Xeric Gaian	Outer	0	Complex global ecology
Herbert	Arid ammonia	Outer	1	Multi-cellular
Bradbury	Poseidonic SubJovian	Outer	2	No

 

ZR-B 

With little of interest beyond resources and some xenological studies, few ever visit Zeta Reticuli B. There are no permanent settlements in-system - automated fuel depots and comm buoys will be your only company.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Barney & Betty	Binary Rocky Dwarfs	Inner	0	No
Niburu	Panthallassic Helian	Outer	0	Large macroscopic

Upsilon Andromedae (Titawin) - F9V / M4.5V binary

Located in a relatively unpopulated region of human space, Titawin serves as a sort of regional hub for explorers and travelers. It is home to the storied Academy of Astrogation in orbit around Majriti.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Saffar	Hot Jupiter	Epistellar	0	No
The Dancers	Six Companion Dwarfs	Epistellar	0	No
Samh	SuperJovian	Inner	2	No
Majriti	SuprJovian	Inner	3	No
Salt	Arid	Inner	N/A	Large macroscopic
Zarqālī	MesoJovian	Inner	2	No

Upsilon Andromeda B is known to have a epistellar Vespirian orbiting it. An exploratory expedition is currently being crowdfunded and selection of the membership is underway.

Mu Arae (Cervantes) - G3IV-V

Home to the most Earth-like planet yet found, the system is a home for wanderers, dreamers, fools, and scientists (or so goes the stereotype). Corporate interests from Gliese 667 are present and active, but have been barred from interfering with La Mancha in any way by the initial settlers - no permanent surface colonization has yet been made. Like Titawin, the system serves as a hub for exploration further out beyond the Frontier Margin.

Name	Description	Region	Moons	Life?
Dulcinea	Hot Sub-Jovian	Epistellar	0	No
Rocinante	Water-rich Dwarf Jovian	Inner	4	No
Quijote	MesoJovian	Inner	3	No
La Mancha	Continental Gaian	Inner	N/A	Complex global ecology
Sancho	MesoJovian	Outer	1	No
Cardenio	Arid Methane	Outer	0	Small macroscopic
Dorotea	Arid	Outer	1	Multi-cellular
Marcela & Grisóstomo	EoGaian / MesoAmunian	Outer	0	Simple global ecology / Small Macroscopic

Map of Relative Locations

If distances seem weird, it's the Z-axis at work.

Trip Table / Distance in Light Years

Click for bigger version.

Yes, I Would Like More Planets to Add to This

• Gatecrashing, plus exoplanets featured in Farcast, Seedware, and H-REP.
• Expedition, Wayne Douglas Barlowe. The Discovery Channel adaptation is good too.
• Halo. That first game is unapologetically an Aliens ripoff and it's great.
• Known Space, Larry Niven. Creepy weirdo author, but he made some nifty space places.
• Hyperion, Dan Simmons. Damn, I love this book.
• Warframe, especially the new Fortuna expansion.
• All of Chris Tamm's space posts and Michael Raston's Blasphemous Roster.