Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

Sci-Fi Pulp: Tessa Coyle, Science Police

Posted by Grim Jim on

This is an early first draft of the first part of this story, you can find it and the rest of my neo-pulp stories in the collection Pulp Nova, available at Lulu.

Boop-dee-dee-beep-deep-woop, boop-dee-dee-beep-deep-woop.

Tessa groaned and wound the sheets around her head, hoping the noise would go away, but it wouldn’t, the clamorous ring of her TeleBand just keep going and going, the greenish light of its screen flashing as it strove to get her attention. She fumbled her arm out of the mummified cocoon of her sheets and groped for her glasses on the bedside fresher, fumbling them onto her face and falling with a thump onto the floor as she writhed like some bizarre linen caterpillar across the floor to the Teleband.

Cold metal and worn leather were felt against her fingertips and she sat up, the sheet falling around her slender, shirt-covered body as she hit the answer button and squinted through the thumbprint on her glasses at the tri-d, metal face that appeared, hovering, over her wristband.

“Maam.”

It was Robur, her partner, a 41st interation 124C model Metalman, not very lifelike, but an effective partner and a good ‘man’ to have on your side in a fight.

“Robur… you do understand that humans have to sleep right? I have to get eight hours natural a week rather than hypersleep or I’m no good to anyone.” Tessa pulled up the hem of her nightshirt and wiped the lens of her glasses so she could see more clearly. He was just a Metalman, he wouldn’t care about a little flashed skin.

“I am sorry maam but Captain Newton was most insistant that I contact you. We have a Code Prometheus incident at the BioVat facility on the corner of Gernsback and Capek. The proctors are containing it at the moment but they want Science Police on site as soon as possible.”

Robur’s voice became more and more annoying the longer he spoke for, that grating buzz of an artificial voicebox was especially irritating before coffee and breakfast.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can Robur. Have the proctors set up a perimeter one block around BioVat and deploy Mag Screens for containment. I’m on my way.”

Tessa slapped the TeleBand and cut him off, stepping up out of the cocoon of sheets and peeling off her nightshirt.

“Lights!”

The daybulbs glowed dimly and slowly built up to full brightness as she crossed the room to get her uniform. She paused a moment and wrinkled her nose at the sight of herself in the mirror. Short curly hair, Buddy-Holly glasses, a figure so slim and boyish that if it wasn’t for the way her hips moved everyone would think she was a man. She was strong though, despite being slight, flexible and fast and – most importantly – brilliant. They’d wanted her to go into research, her parents, but the Science Police was where it was at, safeguarding the advances of others and protecting the city from the terrors that lay beyond the dome.

Tessa pulled on her foil cap and stepped into the ion shower. There was a hum and a tingle as the electric stream and a gust of air blew away the top layer of dead skin cells and she hopped back out, pulling on her uniform. Royal blue trousers a size too big for her, a black blouse and white tie, her gunbelt with its ionic pistol and her long white lab coat. Lastly she strapped her Science Police band to her other wrist and checked herself in the mirror. It would do.

Tessa threw open the window and stepped out onto the balcony, pressing the button on her TeleBand to summon a police disk. Below her the whole of Science City Zero was laid out, a glittering panorama of lights and sounds, the shining beacons of cars, planes, disks and balloons. The spires of the banded towers, the web of their skywalks and transit tubes. Above it all the great arch of the dome, the night sky barely seen beyond it, only The Moon bright enough to compete with the scintillating, kaleidoscopic glow of the city.

The disk arrived, swooping up to her balcony on dim pencil beams of force. Tessa leapt aboard and swept down over the city, heading as fast as she dared towards the incident.

***

Tessa swept down out of the sky and jumped from the disk, leaving it to flit its way to another appointment with a sudden surge in velocity. Fishing in her pockets she popped a caffeine and a breakfast pill from her dispenser and strode purposefully up to the line of proctors, waving to Robur as she did so.

“Ah, greetings Maam.” The Metalman waved to her, his chassis gleaming beneath the daybulb streetlights, all burnished blue-steel and armoured rivets. He was surrounded by proctors in their heavy armour, lightning guns in their hands as the finished establishing their perimeter.

“Report?”

“The cordon has been thrown around as you requested, the incident appears to be contained but there is ongoing violence within the BioVat building. Spy-Ray examination reveals several unidentified hominid-like forms and several scientists inside, perhaps hostages. There’s interference from the fires and electrical shorts, so that information is only seventy-percent accurate, for which I apologise.”

Tessa turned to the proctor captain, looking up, her neck aching as she looked into his faceless helmet.

“We’ve surrounded the building with ten megawatt energy screens and have deployed three units in a cordon around the building, there to back you up should things go pear-shaped maam. Captain Newton has ordered us to cooperate fully, but we’re only to enter at your behest.”

Tessa popped another caffeine pill, she had a feeling she’d need it. As she swallowed she unbuckled her holster and hoisted out her ionic pistol, checking the charge and the settings, nodding to Robur to do the same.

“What do we know about BioVat Robur?”

“Independent biological research and development company maam. They research into synthetic life but their bread and butter is creating synth-men for biological experimentation.”

“Brainless clones for medical research… who’d attack a medical facility?” Tessa scowled and marched up to the line, gesturing the proctor on duty to take this screen down when they went through. Robur pulled his own pistol and stood beside her.

“Three, two, one…”

The crackling screen faded out with a low buzz and the two ran forward, the light slap of her All-Stars contrasting with the heavy clank-clank of Robur’s feet. He wasn’t exactly stealthy. The screen came back up behind them, sealing the area behind an impenetrable screen of force and they slammed up against the wall, either side of the door.

“Ready?”

Robur’s steely head nodded, once, the glow behind his eyes intensifying and then he stepped around, kicking the revolving door out of its housing and sending it sliding violently across the foyer to smash the reception desk to smithereens.

Inside it was chaos, full of smoke, fires burning here and there, showers of sparks as cabling burned and shorted. The ground was slippery with a pinkish goo and the cause was readily apparent. Deformed, cancerous, muscles ballooned to ridiculous proportions, the synth-men had broken free of their containers. Twisted, like hairless gorillas, veins pulsing, rage in their eyes, the handful in the entrance turned their incoherent anger on the interlopers and leapt to the attack.

“Does not compute!” Robur cried with what sounded like genuine anguish. “Synth-men have no brains… no conciousness!”

“Worry about that later!” Tessa darted inside, sliding on a slick of the pinkish goo and ducking under the tree-trunk arm of one of the synth-men. Her ionic pistol hummed in her hand as she twisted, sliding on her bottom across the chequered floor and firing, a blue beam of coherent electricity striking the synth-man and hurling him to the far wall with the stink of ozone and bacon.

The remaining synth-men bounded and leapt, roaring like jungle apes as they moved. Tessa scrambled out of the way as one landed on the spot where she had just been. Thanking blind chance that she was as small and slight as she was. Where it landed the floor cratered, muscle so dense it must have weighed twice as much as it should and been in unspeakable agony, crushed by its own muscles. Robur shot the other out of the air deftly with his pistol, playing his beam across the creature’s chest until he was sure it was still.

By then the third had gotten its meaty paw upon Tessa and had her by the ankle, hauling her upside down before it’s face, ape-like fangs bared as it roared, spattering her glasses with spittle. There was a crash nearby as Robur slammed into the remaining synth-man before he could recover, bearing him down to the ground and pounding his neanderthal brow with fists like hammers while Tessa twisted and struggled.

Blinded by the spit she felt its other hand grasp her around her head, the span of its fingers sufficient to pluck her cranium from her spine as though it were plucking a grape. She tried to calm herself, to remember her scientific boxing lessons and then she lashed out with all the strength she could muster, slamming two of her knuckles one side of the synth-man’s head and the butt of her pistol the other, just between the ear and the jaw.

The creature roared and dropped her, she landed awkwardly on her shoulders and back, upside down, lifting the ionic pistol and blindly firing between the creature’s legs. The roar became a howl, high pitched almost beyond hearing and this time the ozone stink was mixed with burning hair as the thing dropped like a felled tree.

The bone-crunching noises of Robur’s fight also came to a halt and he strode over to help her up.

“Are you alright maam?”

“No thanks to you. Why didn’t you attack the one that had me?”

“I knew you could handle it maam, within a ninety-three percent probability anyway. Taking the remaining problem out of the equation seemed the best course of action.”

“There’ll be others, we need to get to the lab where the spy-ray saw the scientists.”

They nodded to each other and ascended the stairs two and three at a time, heading back through the offices, blasting left and right as more of the synth-men emerged from the side rooms, blinded by pain and rage there was nothing they could do but put them down.

“This is monstrous, whoever did this is a sociopath.” Tessa growled as they stood back to back, blasting away at the tide of muscle that dogged their every step, climbing over the bodies of dead office workers and the remnants of destroyed desks as they finally got back to the factory doors.

They burst through and slammed the metal doors shut behind them, standing on the gantry that lead to the control chamber, beneath them a sea of tubes, many of them broken, filled with the pink plasm that supported the synth-men growth, but there was only one inside. A brute bigger than any other they had seen, towering over the cowering scientists in the control room.

“Hold the fort Robur, I’m going to get the scientists.”

The Metalman nodded and slid his arms through the handles, bracing back against the door as it rang like a bell, massive fists hammering from the other side, roars and snarls of frustrated as the iron and steel of robot and door refused to give, though it began to dent.

The hulking synth-man turned, one eye massive and yellow, larger than the other, one whole side of its body larger than the other. Clumsily it turned and loped towards her as she marched towards it, ionic pistol raised.

“Science Police, surrender to impartial justice!” She gave the warning, even though she knew it couldn’t understand. The body of a monster and the mind of a newborn.

Predictably, it ignored her and began to run, a lopsided lope towards her.

Behind her Robur channelled his own power into his chassis, electrifying himself and the door, shocking the synth-men hammering on the other side to death, his whole body arched and glowing, heating up from the power coursing through him.

For her part Tessa kept marching on the giant synth-man, depressing the firing stud on her pistol, the blue coruscating light struck the creature full in the chest, burning its flesh, charring its skin, but still it kept on coming, teeth bared, marching into the ravening beam as though walking into the wind.

Tessa stared, disbelieving as the massive creature came closer, closer, closer and reached into the beam, burning off one of its own fingers to snatch the pistol from her hand. It grinned in triumph as it crushing it like a drinks can in its maimed fist but Tessa didn’t miss a beat, swinging her leg back, then forward and planting the very toe of her boot into the mass of dangling flesh between the things legs. It grunted and she grasped, and pivoted, using its own off-centre weight to hurl it from the gantry to plummet to its broken-necked doom amongst the shattered tubes below.

The fight was over, the scientists in shock and useless as witnesses. They called in the proctors to guide them out and put out the fires, that left them free to look over the control room without interference. It was a wreck, a mess, evidence was hard to come by in such a disruption of blood and wreckage, but they divided it up into sections and went through it methodically, despite Tessa’s aches and pains. This was where a Metalman came into his own, they couldn’t experience boredom and his mechanical precision was an inspiration.

It was Tessa that found it though, breaking open the feeder mechanism to the MONOVAC she ran her fingers down the mass of punch-cards and felt the hard edges of newer cards inserted into the sequence.

“What do you make of these Robur?” She plucked the newer cards out of the feeder, tucking torn pieces from her notebook into the gaps to mark the spaces.

The Metalman took the cards and fed them into his universal slot, shuffling them like a stage magician as they flew into his slot and his tubes and switches cogitated with a noisy flickering, digesting the information.

“They’re plasm codes maam. I am no expert but according to my interior library these sequences relate to muscle, bone and nerve tissue growth, including brain tissue. I conjecture that…”

“…someone introduced a little Mr Hyde into our mindless Doctor Jeckylls.”

“Indeed maam.”

“So then, there’s no question.”

“None at all maam.”

Tessa tossed the remaining punch cards angrily onto the floor, spilling them everywhere, kicking the pile so it fell between the slats in the gantry and turning back to Robur, stabbig her finger into his impassive face.

“Sabotage!”

Pulp Sci-Fi: Ace Slamm – Space Bastard

Posted by Grim Jim on

This was an early draft of the first part of the story. You can buy all my neo-pulp stories collected in Pulp Nova from Lulu.

Ace slumped over the chipped formica of the counter and gripped another full glass of scotch in his scarred and meaty fist. He was a great bull of a man, swaying slightly in his drunken haze and running his hand through the thick beard and tangled locks of a man who’d spent a long time in space. His battered flight jacket bore a faded RAF roundel on the back, and his denim was worn thin from frequent use and stained with oil. Low on his hip hung an Eliminator pistol in a worn-smooth holster, but nobody in The Proxima Bar seemed to pay it any heed.

A gloved hand smacked down on Ace’s shoulder, startling him, making him spill a little of his scotch over the filthy bar.

“Mein Herr, you are Englisher, yes? I recognise zer badge on your jacket. Royal Marines, ya?”

Ace grunted and started licking the spilt whisky from his fingertips, giving the German a sidelong glance. The German and his two friends behind him, grinning and muttering to each other. That was all the response he gave them, not a single word otherwise.

“Kriegsmarine.” The German said, pointing to himself and his friends. “Picked up your mess on Gelida, ja? When you broke and ran?”

Ace tossed back the scotch and spun the squeaking stool around, setting his jaw, grinding his teeth until his jaw muscles bunched, staring deep into the German’s eyes with an unwavering stare. The big blonde man wilted slightly under Ace’s drunken glare, but couldn’t back down in front of his friends.

“Run and hide. Like little girls. While we fight and die, like men.”

Ace sized him up, ignoring his words and his fruity accent as the German regained some of his courage, puffing out his chest like a strutting cockatoo. Huffing and puffing as his friends laughed behind him, her jabbered away like it meant anything. Ace ground his teeth harder, and then with the power and speed of a tiger, he pounced, lashing out with the glass in his hand and ramming the base of it into the German’s big mouth.

Teeth crunched, glass shattered. The barman studiously ignored it all, turning away and intently polishing his glass. The man choked on blood and shards and fell back, clutching his ruined mouth with both of his hands. His friends were stunned, standing there with their mouths open as the stream of invective had cut off in an instant.

Ace wasn’t above kicking a man while he was down and slipping from the stool, reared back his steel-toed boot and drove it with uncaring force deep into the bleeding man’s crotch. His eyes bulged near out of their sockets – at least he was distracted from the ruin of his mouth. He toppled with glacial slowness, sideways onto the ground as Ace jabbed a finger at the other two Kriegsmarine.

“Want some, you crumbs?” Ace finally spoke, his voice like someone gargling gravel.

One of the Germans turned and ran, his tail between his legs; the other one grabbed a bottle and smashed it against the side of the table. Ace sighed and clenched his fist, but before the two could join battle, a burly, blond-haired man smashed a stool over the top of the German’s head, and he went down like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Could have handled him.” Muttered Ace, turning back to his drink.

The blond muscled up to Ace and offered his hand. “Damn, Mister, but you can fight. Put ‘er there. I’m Bang Donnybrook. These are my friends, Gail and Professor Quartus.”

Ace didn’t take his hand, but he turned his head and gave all three of them the once-over with his steely eyes.

The blond was a big, broad man, but too clean-shaven and picture-perfect to be a veteran, though he had a couple of scars here and there and clearly thought of himself as a capable man. He was grinning with his perfect white teeth, hand still thrust out, trying not to look insulted that Ace hadn’t shaken it, but he was.

The Professor was a mischievous imp of a man with strong Semitic features and a wicked, mirthful intelligence behind his eyes. A slide rule was tucked into the pocket of his patch-elbowed jacket, and he managed to exude, all at once, the confident intellect of a genius and the louche arrogance of a hop-head. “Given your skills…” He said, smiling at Ace’s snubbing of his blond friend, “…we have a proposition for you. If you might be interested.”

Ace considered, licking the taste of the scotch from his teeth as he turned his eyes on the last member of the trio. She was a raven-haired beauty with a great rack, hidden away though it was in a severe professional woman’s dress. Maybe a reporter or something? Nice gams too, skirt hugging them like a glove. She shifted a little uncomfortably under his eyes, and it was clear by the wrinkle of her nose that his ragged looks and brutal nature disgusted her.

“Say your piece.” Ace rumbled, setting his haunches back on the worn barstool and signalling the barkeep for another glass.

“We’ll need you sober.” The woman, Gail, sniffed, tugging her purse tighter to her body.

“If he says yes.” The professor remarked with a snort of laughter.

“Let’s hear it. Once I say yes, I’ll be sober on your time.” Ace grabbed the glass and held it, waiting to hear what they had to say.

“We need a pilot.” Said Bang, the blond giant.

“So hop a passenger ship. You don’t need me.”

“We’re going to Dyzan.” The professor said, leaning forward in an arch, in a conspiratorial whisper.

“In the post-war chaos and with the civil war going on there?” Ace stared at the trio like they were retarded. “Why the hell would you want to go there?”

“That’s our business.” Said Bang, trying to reassert his leadership and dominance over the Professor, who was clearly his intellectual superior. “We’ll pay you well.”

Gail opened her purse and stepped forward, showing its contents to Ace. Gold glittered inside, and more, the unmistakable lustre of Gelidan sapphires and the golden gleam of a Dyzan slave harness. Perhaps not a King’s ransom, but at least a Prince’s ransom, more than enough to risk the war-torn planet Dyzan, Earth’s hidden twin behind the sun, the exotic and deadly world that had invaded the Earth and brought an end to the war, until they were overthrown. The last thing Ace wanted to do was go back there; he’d killed enough of the Dyzanian people to last him a lifetime. Then again… money and even though Bang and Gail wore matching rings, she wouldn’t be the first married woman he’d seduced away from her husband – if he managed it.

Ace stroked his stubbled chin and downed his glass. “I’ll do it. My ship’s in the dock. We can leave whenever you want.”

They were in a hurry and grabbed their bags, all but hustling Ace out of the bar and then letting him take the lead, barrelling down the crowded street in a drunken swagger and shoving people out of his way, swearing like a sailor as a jetpack swooshed a little too close overhead.

Even drunk Ace could tell they were on edge, and that put him on edge. He could tell they were being followed as they made their way to the offshore private spaceport. It was a rusting hole, but Ace couldn’t land at Manhattan Spaceport any more, not after that ‘incident’ with the customs patrol.

Paranoid as years of war and betrayal had made him, it didn’t take Ace long to spot the men who were following them. Trenchcoats and hats, they couldn’t look any more suspicious if they were trying to. Ace took a roundabout route and, turning a corner, wheeled around. “Hide.” He grunted to the trio and turned back, peering his head around the corner.

The three men were walking abreast with grim intent. Ace wasn’t the type to take any chances and drew his eliminator, thumbing the safety. The sleek and deadly blaster hummed in his hand, and he stepped out into the alley, levelling it at the man in the centre.

There was a whip-crack of annihilated air particles as he depressed the firing stud. The ravening beam lanced out and struck the man full in the chest, burning a glowing hole the size of a football through his chest and melting the bricks behind him.

To their credit, the others didn’t scream, didn’t run; they drew their own weapons and sprang to the sides of the alley, their hats falling from their heads, revealing the polished domes and horseshoe moustaches typical of imperial warriors from Dyzan, some remnant of the Emperor’s guard intent on revenge, perhaps. Their golden fist-guns cracked and sparked, invisible bolts of energy striking the wall behind Ace and exploding the brickwork into red-glowing fragments.

Ace calmly stood as the bolts struck around him, dialling the Eliminator’s emitter to maximum aperture and levelling it down the alleyway, thumbing the firing stud for a second time. There was no snap-crack this time; the dispersed energy was nowhere near as powerful. He kept the stud down as the air shimmered beneath the beam’s power. Scraps of paper burst into flame, paint peeled. The men from Dyzan screamed as their clothing smouldered and caught, lighting them up as human torches. Ace calmly paced towards them, narrowing the aperture as they screamed and rolled on the ground, playing it over them like a hose until they melted like candles thrust into a hearth. Finally, the last, bubbling scream came to a halt, and he took his finger off the stud.

Almost immediately, he sprang to a ready stance again, a whirl of black robes ducking back around the corner out of sight, an enemy he had missed. A skilful one. All the more reason to get away and all too good an indicator that there was much more to this than the trio had told him. Wasn’t that just his luck?

Sci-Fi Short Story: Mass Production

Posted by Grim Jim on

The frame descended from its cradle and set down upon the ground in an easy, loose-limbed stance.

Unnaturally still, it was a foreboding presence, even without a controller. Sleek and deadly, its blank eyes stared out into space, and its matte surface seemed to blur its edges into the shade of the dimly lit room.

“This,” said the Tech-Sergeant“, is a model M-33 teletrooper. State-of-the-art Marine issue with sealed armour and amphibious capability. The chassis will withstand sustained assault rifle fire and can deflect a .50 calibre shell. It has a responsive neural-network interface that allows it to learn how you operate, and vice versa. The camera array has a threat recognition and alert system with a 360-degree field of vision, thermography, low-light and penetrating radar overlays. It’s about as strong as three men, and the on-board fuel cells can keep it operating in the field for twenty-four hours without resupply. With a backpack fuel pod or standby mode, this activity profile can be considerably elevated. Each unit is armed with built-in bladed weapons and an arm-mounted sidearm fed from a hopper containing a hundred rounds of nine-millimetre shells. It can be armed with a variety of weapons, but the standard issue is the MR-2 modular assault system. One of these babies sets back the Alliance military fund around fifty million ameros. Any questions?”

The slouching wiseacre at the back of the pack stood up straight and raised his hand. “If these things are so fucking badass, why aren’t we winning, Sarge?”

There were gasps from the other inductees, but to their surprise, the tech-sergeant didn’t bawl the guy out; he just reached across himself and idly itched at the stump of his left arm with his fingers and then fixed the mouth with a thousand-yard stare.

“Because, son, raising a kid to fighting age and handing them a century-old AK-47 only costs about a thousand.”

#RPG #Art – ZelArt Scholarship Winner Announcement!

Posted by grimachu on

And the winner is (after many trials and tribulations)…

Morgyn McDonald!

Morgyn’s piece depicting a sexy, smoky genie or djinn is now available for purchase (to support next year’s scholarship) at RPGNOW.

Don’t forget, you can also support the scholarship by buying other scholarship supporting art. There’s even a megabundle of the first 100 pieces.

You can also support monetarily during our year-end funding drives, or by donating art to be sold to support the scholarship.

Who are you? Where are you from? Where can people find your work?

My name is Morgyn McDonald, I am a 22 year old Métis Canadian Graphic Artist living in the Greater Toronto Area.

Where did you hear about the scholarship fund?

I was scrolling through my Twitter when I saw a friend of mine share your grant and I immediately jumped at the opportunity.

What made you take the leap to enter?

As a creator who has only recently started trying to get into the industry I feel like I am scrambling to apply everywhere for every opportunity I can get to gain exposure. I just want as many eyes on my creations as possible, you know?

Can you confirm that you’ve received the money?

Absolutely! Everything went smooth as butter and I received the grant without a single issue via PayPal. Thank you so much for this opportunity!

What do you intend to spend the money on?

RENT. Oh my gosh, rent and groceries is all it can go to at this point. I am trying my hardest to get my name out there in hopes someone might need my brand of imagery in the world of digital art and design.

Will you help us spread the word next year?

Absolutely, I would love to share the chance!

If people want to contact you to commission some work, how can they do it?

My email is MapleBaked@hotmail.com and my username is @Sokawahtik on Twitter.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I would like to encourage new artists to seek out chances to join competitions, draws and contests whenever and wherever they can. Any opportunity to share your creations is a chance to make waves! Luck and light to all.

My email is MapleBaked@hotmail.com and my username is @Sokawahtik on Twitter.

Machinations of the Space Princess: In the Wild Roundup! [1]

Posted by grimachu on

GunslingerThe PDF version of Machinations of the Space Princess is out and the backer print versions are in the process of heading to their future owners. Meanwhile, I’m starting to get reports from the wild of people ‘doing stuff’ with Machinations of the Space Princess.

Which is rad.

Here’s some of that radness.

This lovely chap is running a really cool soviet-themed game and writes up their sessions as a comic strip. Bonus points for using Dust Tactics figures!

Chuck Thorin spews wisdom about how awesome the game is HERE.

Dorkland did a playtest, leading up to release. Some of their feedback I actually used! You can see/read that HERE.

Flattering comparisons to a comic book HERE.

Pulpwood has been doing some Mass Effect conversions HERE.

There’s a rather in depth video review HERE which I enjoyed listening to!

We’ve also had some rather nice review type comments like this one:

Hi James, and Satine –

I just picked up a copy of Machinations today. It’s a masterpiece! I love everything about it.There’s too many delightful things to list, but it has everything – style, flavor, tight mechanics, rampant character options. It’s the first game I’ve seen that could handle something as pulpy as Flash Gordon, as scary as Aliens, as political as Dune, and as operative as Star Wars, all with aplomb. 
 
It’s definitely the best RPG I’ve purchased in the last year. I hope it’s a smashing success for you all!
 
Cheers,
Alex
Or this one at RPGNOW
 
I was curious about how the author would approach the mechanics of old school D&D and still apply it to a modern, futuristic sensibility and I was pleasantly surprised to see it was very well done and looked very playable. Cheeky and light-hearted at its core, the game looks like fun to run and even more fun to play. Specifically the alien character creation is brilliant. There is enough detail to make it interesting and it’s simple enough that you won’t be upset rolling up a new character once yours has been sucked out another airlock. The spaceship rules look great! I can’t wait to jump in and build a few ships.  Psionics looks like a lot of fun as well.  There is also a really well thought out section on running games and playing games that has some really good advice, but without being too preachy or taking itself too seriously. 
A sense of humour is a must for this game to be enjoyed.
So whatcha waitin’ for? Buy the muthafucka already!
 

Machinations: Fundraising and Rewards

Posted by grimachu on

So, Satine’s back and we’re talking about rewards.

Now, I don’t have the resources or profile of someone like Monte Cook and people are definitely hitting their Kickstarter/IndieGoGo exhaustion limit.

Hopefully there’s still enough goodwill out there and I’m not asking for as much as many projects because I think we can squeeze a great deal of quality out of a more reasonable amount of cash.

I’m not going to think ahead to stretch goals, that’d jinx it, but we’re thinking up extra reward levels and options.

So, here’s a thought. Why don’t YOU let us know what sort of rewards you might like on this project and how much money you’d heft out of your pocket to get it. We’ll see what we can do about it making them – or something like them – a reality in order to wrangle money out of you!

FUND IT!

IndieGoGo: Machinations of the Space Princess – Sexy, Sleazy, Swords & Sci-Fi

Posted by grimachu on

FUND IT

The Machinations of the Space Princess fundraiser as part of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure fundraiser didn’t fund but there was sufficient interest to warrant another look.

MotSP will set its sights on the world of sleazy, sensual pulp Science Fiction from the likes of Metal Hurlant, creating a universe of heavy metal space opera (rather than rock n’ roll).

Rather than a single adventure and some ideas, MotSP will be a FULL GAME.

MotSP will give you ALL THE RULES you need to play.

MotSP will BULGE AT THE SEAMS with adventure ideas and toolkits to help you create and maintain your game and produce ideas.

MotSP will include fantastic art by Satine Phoenix.

MotSP will take your gang of wandering space-reprobates from the strip clubs of Proxima to the feudal planets of the Black Cluster. The glass spires of Imperial Space to the wastelands of scrap-worlds.

MotSP will take you from confronting elemental evil to delving the crypts of long-dead civilisations across the known galaxy.

MotSP is planned to include:

  • Expert, Psion, Scholar and Warrior classes.
  • Extensive rules for creating humanoid and inhumanoid aliens or robots as PCs or monsters.
  • Expanded skill & combat rules.
  • Cannon fodder rules.
  • SF gear.
  • Starship combat.
  • Psionics
  • Hints, tips and toolkits for the GM and players alike.
  • Basic rules for creating stars, planets, cities and adventures.
  • A full game background.
  • A sample adventure.

Why should you back us?

Satine is a fantastic, up-and-coming illustrator and associated with I Hit it With my Axe and D&D With Pornstars. This project will give her a real chance to stretch her artistic legs and show off.

I am a full time RPG writer and author with a lifetime love of science-fiction comics, novels and fantasy art. If you’ve ever looked at a Tim White or Roger Dean illustration and been inspired to set a game in what you see, we have something in common.

I have a proven track record of producing great games in PDF and POD as well as selling through publishers such as Cubicle 7 and Chronicle City. I have worked for Wizards of the Coast, Steve Jackson Games, Cubicle 7 Entertainment and others and won an Origins Award (along with my writing partner Steve mortimer) for my work on The Munchkin’s Guide to Powergaming, the book that spawned the card game.

If nothing else, you’re guaranteed an amusing read with great art and that HAS to be worth a few bucks.

NOTE

All funds donated will be used whether the project hits its target or not! If you’re donating, you’re actually donating! Whatever amount up to $1,000 is raised will go on art from Satine. Past that number we’ll start to reveal and trigger stretch goals and the money will be split 50/50 between art and payment to me for my time/effort (and driving lessons!)