Blog Roadmap: May 2019

April was not a bad month for the blog at all.  We've added three more patrons (a special shoutout to Shinanoki, if they don't mind), and while our views did not exceed last month's, they came close.  For a quiet month, it wasn't so bad.

Personally, the month was richly rewarding and also very difficult. I've been the sickest I've been in my life (and I'm still sick: this is the flu that never goes away), and I've been hard at work helping my wife with our new baby girl, and celebrating my son's second birthday!  April is a busy month.

I took my free time to play with a few ideas, especially the idea of a more explicit dive into a conspiratorial take on Psi-Wars.  It's always been there, but the more I look at it and the more I explore it, the more I think it's a necessary addition, or at least, a necessary clarification.  My patrons seem to agree, given how much weight the Elite Knight got in the poll.

The patreon polls for the topics of the month have a theme: Technology as Magic, so I'll touch on that in a broad post (or three) outlining Techno-magic: using ultra-tech as magic, the dangers, the pitfalls, some tips, musings on the themes and narrative options it creates and some specific examples.  The Psi-Wars request is essentially the same: the Deep Engine, the Eldothic "Techno-magic" element to the Psi-Wars setting.  I've got a lot of it worked out already for the full Patreon post I did some time ago, so it's a matter of cleaning it up and expanding a few elements.  Expect to see both of these this month.

Some men in black masks visited me in the night, and quietly pointed to GURPS Action 2, then to my Psi-Wars wiki, and nailed a note written in blood to my wall: "Campaigns begin."  I think the Secret Council's message couldn't be more clear: I need to collate the rules I've been working on for so long into a cohesive place so people can use them.  I've begun, but given the strain on my time, I don't know how much I'll get done.  We shall see. Hopefully the Secret Council will be pleased.

Our signature artist is almost finished with the Slavers portrait, and I think it's turned out quite well!  Expect to see at least a Patreon preview of the Slaver race soon, and with luck, a full blog post.

I haven't forgotten the vehicles we were working on.  The next set is the Alliance, and I currently have 4 ground vehicles and 2 starfighters.  I suspect I'll have them all done soon enough, and will begin to reveal them one by one on the blog soon.

That should be it for May.  I don't know how many of these priorities I'll manage, given that I go back to work, my son isn't going to get less rambunctious and my daughter is still quite young, so my wife will be tired and in desperate need of sleep and help, but in between moments, I'm sure I can get some things written.

See you then and again, to all of my patrons, thank you for your support.  You make this possible.