Progress Update

Tweet

I know I’ve been lax at updating things here over the last year or two. In part this is because my primary focus has been my day job working in a library. During the pandemic my writing took a back seat for many reasons, the primary one being the amount of energy that went into serving my community as well as closures of branches that added a higher volume of work in our location. As things have been returning to a pace more in line with what we experienced before Covid-19, I’ve been able to decompress a bit and pick up my writing pace to more than a snail’s crawl of a few hundred words a week/month.

I just finished the rough draft of Chapter 3 of Codex Caelorum et Infernorum, am starting to do the writing for Chapter 4, and working on the outline of Chapter 5. At some point I will take photos of my outline process to show you how I break down my chapters as it can be a bit involved with the index cards I use to flesh out the ideas behind each outline entry.

Tweet

Introduction to “A Thousand Dying Stars”

Tweet

War, peace, wonder, despair.  The struggles of the human condition remind us how terribly mortal we really are.  There is so little we have control over that we agonize over holding on to the precious few bits of agency any of us can truly claim.  As a species, we are as beautiful as we are vicious.  We have achieved so much only to wallow in misery for what has yet been reached.  We glimpse possibilities in others that give us hope, a sense of purpose, longing and desire turned to jealousy.  The past is painted in radiant tones, romanticized until it enfolds us in comfort.  The future, meanwhile, is filled with the terror of the unknown, impenetrably dark, and messy. 

We have seen our future.  We’ve let a handful of men and women show us the way forward only to pull back and embroil ourselves in petty squabbles that threaten our very existence.  We stand poised on the cusp towards life amongst the stars and waste our potential when the wonder that is humanity turns against itself.  All the while, we languish like a man dying of thirst near a spring as we’ve tasted a few sweet drops of nectar and lament the absence of that precious substance.  We wish to be Icarus but willingly punish ourselves like Tantalus for entertaining dreams and flights of grandeur. 

The universe is impossibly close and few of our kind have walked in it like the gods of yore.  This is the future as we imagine it to be once we leave the terrestrial cradle for good.  Undoubtedly we will have advanced to the point where we wield power that would feel godlike to our forebears and commonplace to our progeny.  All of our wondrous accomplishments and we will still be the frail, flawed creatures we are today.  The predatory nature that drove us to the evolutionary pinnacle lurks forever behind our eyes.  War brought on by desire, jealousy, and despair will keep us from reveling in the wonders around us and a heartbeat away.  Our imagination is a gift and a curse.  What was once marvelous to our ancestors is commonplace today.  Why should the future be any different? 

This is the universe of A Thousand Dying Stars.  It is filled with many of our beliefs of what the future holds walking hand-in-hand with the dark, unintended consequences of those same myths we have spun for ourselves.  Humanity has seeded the stars, met new species, and fought like hell to mold the future in our own ideological images.  Thousands of worlds explored and still plagued by the same failings and shortsightedness.  To make matters worse, we have lost our way home—figuratively and literally.  Earth is missing and people everywhere who care about the subject, regardless of culture and faith, believe that someone’s hiding it as the prize for uniting humanity into a single empire, a feat no one has ever managed.  War and peace, wonder and despair until we find ourselves and maybe learn who and what we really are. 

Tweet

Content from “A Thousand Dying Stars”

Tweet

Like a lot of people, I suspect they’ve had more important things to do in the last 16+ months since I’ve written anything new here, but this is just a quick note with some copy/paste of work I’ve been doing for my space opera setting. It’s progressing with the system-free setting guide clocking in at 40 pages and 23,000 words. I know that isn’t a terribly fast pace but the majority of the effort has been in designing the game mechanics using Fate as the base engine. The Professions alone come out to 16,500 words and another 38 pages.

Several other sections of this project are coming along and they range somewhere between 10-20 pages apiece as well. Some of the systems used in Rose City Knights, my expansion of the Venture City rules, have been designed for use in both games and beyond, especially if you look at some of the galactic- and dimensional-spanning superhero stories from franchises like DC and Marvel.

Below is one of the psychogenic professions you’ll find in A Thousand Dying Stars. The design is meant to invoke fear as much as a desire to have this sort of power over others that everyone’s wanted at some point or another.

Profession: Sifter 

Some psychics use their powers to uncover stolen secrets, others use those same abilities to steal those very secrets for their own personal gain or the organizations they work for.  These telepaths are adept at investigations and espionage missions, making them highly sought after.  Sifters have a knack for pushing past the mental blocks people use on themselves as much as to keep telepaths out of their minds.  Depending on their personalities as much as their talents, sifters may gain information without the target ever knowing they were there. 

Aspects 

Seen Things You People Wouldn’t Believe, Tainted by Darkness, Can Use Some Alternative Therapy, Nasty Headaches, Nose/Eye Bleeding 

Skills 

Great: Telepathy or Investigate 

Good: Deceive or Rapport, one other 

Fair: Provoke or Will, two others 

Average: Any four 

Stunts 

I Want to Know What You’re Thinking: When attempting to intrude on another’s mind, you’ve learned to use brute force to bypass resistance.  You get a +2 to Telepathy to overcome your target’s Will to keep you out. 

Tell Me What’s on Your Mind: After gaining access to a target’s mind, you’ve learned subtle suggestions to get people to reveal what they really believe/feel without any strain on either party.  You get a +2 to Investigate to create an advantage to look through a person’s thoughts for a specific event or knowledge on the topic of your inquiry. 

Cloud the Mind: Some people don’t take kindly to having their memories being viewed like someone’s personal video library.  You’ve learned how to obfuscate any traces of yourself in their minds.  You get a +2 to Deceive to overcome their Will to create a Fair (+2) memory block of you in their attempts to remember ever meeting you.  If you succeed with style, you add +2 to the difficulty to overcome the obfuscation. 

Causal Correlation: You can link memories together that don’t have anything to do with each other when you are looking through someone’s mind.  By spending a fate point you can use Deceive to create an advantage that makes a target believe that seemingly unconnected memories are part of a sequence of events. They might think it’s an epiphany on their part, but is a result of the trigger that is the advantage created.  If you succeed with style, you can add another memory to this sequence. 

Tweet

Reluctant Hero

Tweet

Reluctant Hero

You weren’t supposed to be here, and you still can’t grasp why you.  You expected to live a quiet, comfortable life.  If you had it your way, you wouldn’t be.  Somewhere along the line your friends and neighbors figured out you were good at solving problems and you’ve been asked more times than you want to count.  Every time you get close to your dream something always causes you to be pulled into what should be someone else’s business.  Mostly because it seems nobody else will do anything about the situation and it’s going to either annoy you or you won’t be left alone until it gets fixed.

Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Perception

Tool Proficiencies: Two of your choice

Equipment: One set of artisan’s tools (one of your choice), a set of common clothes, a token of gratitude from a friend or loved one, and a pouch containing 10 gp

Unchosen Path

Before you got pushed into the heroic life, you did your best to not draw attention to yourself or any talents you had.  Something or someone intervened and discovered you weren’t as ordinary as you claimed.  Choose or randomly roll what drove you onto this path.

d12Unchosen Path
1I couldn’t stand by and just watch someone suffer.
2I got tired of listening to people whining.
3I saved someone by accident.
4When I had power, I abused it and hurt someone; I need to atone and prove my worth to them.
5I realized the village was losing a resource and I fixed it.
6I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, it prevented a tragedy and made me an enemy.
7I made a promise too costly to break.
8I was conscripted to do a job and covered for others so we wouldn’t be punished.
9No one else wanted the job.
10The town made me the leader because they thought I was wise.
11I stole something from an oppressive bully and had to leave home.
12People mistook me for someone else.

Feature: Skepticism

Fixing other peoples’ problems large and small has taught you when someone’s trying to pawn off their work.  You are now wary of people requesting aid because you know there’s better choices and the chance it’s a con job.  As a result, you tend to pause long enough mulling it over that most liars give away their game believing you figured out their act.  The people you help are likely to do you favors in the future.

Suggested Characteristics

Reluctant heroes come from just about any walk of life, but they all have one thing in common: they didn’t ask for this life and they’d love nothing more than to let someone else take up the duty.

d8Personality Trait
1I’m afraid people will realize I’m a fraud.
2I realized the error of my ways and don’t want others to make the same mistakes.
3I get angry at people who remind me of who I was.
4When people ask me to lead, I feel uncomfortable but do my duty.
5I’m always working.  When do I get to rest?
6I’ll let others step up before I do.
7There’s no need to thank me if teaching you makes you go away.
8I’ve become resigned to my fate, but I won’t be quiet about how I feel.

d6Ideal
1Atonement.  I want to be a better person. (Good)
2Duty.  I help others because it needs to be done. (Lawful)
3Greed.  Hey, turns out people willingly give me money.  (Evil)
4Freedom.  Go away, please. (Chaotic)
5People.  Those I help will eventually help me. (Neutral)
6Self-Aware.  If I can find out why me, I can accept myself. (Any)

d6Bond
1I want to be able to forgive myself.
2My community needs my help.  When I’m done, I can rest with the comfort of friends and family.
3I have a home waiting for me when I finish my last quest.
4Someday I will get to return to obscurity.
5When I’m strong enough to defeat the villain who made me take this path, I will go back to my old occupation.
6I owe a debt I can never repay.

d6Flaw
1I caused the problem I fixed that led people to believe I’m a hero
2I’d kill someone to be left alone.
3I ran away because I refused to accept my fate.
4I hate being the champion of other people.
5Nothing angers me more than people who will not solve their own problems.
6I drown myself in vices to forget I am someone’s hero.

Variant Reluctant Hero: Antihero

Instead of being reluctant, you fully embrace your role as a hero with a mean streak.  You aren’t nice and you don’t pretend to be.  You just want to get this over with.  If it helps others while helping you, hey that’s not a bad deal.  People grudgingly accept your help even if you are gruff and insult them while fixing their problem.  You might not even take the reward just to avoid further entanglements.

         Rather than two tool proficiencies, you know a language of your choice likely used with seedier elements of society.  Instead of artisan’s tools, you can choose another set of tools or gaming set.

Tweet