I'm terrible at advertising my Patreon/Subscribestar pages. In part, it's because I'm not really doing this for the money, and I feel like I'm sending around a collection plate every time I post advertisements for it, and that's not really the intention. It feels awkward. I also tend to go long periods (though rarely more than a month) without posting to them, as I'm busy with the wiki or setting up a playtest, which is still content, just not exclusive content, but I think this turns some people away.
Sometimes I create burst of content that ends on Patreon and/or Subscribestar and then I don't advertise it, because most of my backers are on discord and see it, and because I'm lazy so it doesn't always get on the Blog. Even so, perhaps you're interested in supporting me or in seeing this content, but you want to know what you're getting, so I thought I'd draw your attention to it.
I've been working on material for the Undercity Noir playtest, set on Kronos, and this has created quite a burst of content, mostly focused on psychic powers, assassins, exotic weapons and hackers. All of this is available on the $3+ tier except for a poll which is available to anyone. Of course, anyone who subscribes gets access to my entire back catalog, if there's something in there that interests you.
Patreon or Subscribestar?
Chances are, if you're thinking about subscribing, you're thinking Patreon, and that's fine. But I also have Subscribestar (both because some of my backers asked for it, and because keeping all of my eggs in of one basket is not especially resilient). The chief problem with Subscribestar, though, is that I currently only have 2 subscribers, and I need 5 before they'll let me pull my money or do other things. So if you have no preference, if all things are the same to you, consider Subscribestar, though note that it's slightly less convenient as it doesn't use Paypal. I will probably run a recruitment drive later this month to see if I can persuade enough people to sign up or swap over to start pulling my money from it. If you'd rather Patreon, though, that's fine. I'm honestly glad to have anyone.
If you're interested in joining either service, you can follow the links in the "So you want to support this blog" sidebar, or you can just click through on what interests you and I'm sure the site will help you figure out what you need to figure out. If you'd rather just give me some money for one-time access rather than set-up a long term relationship, hit me up in discordn or e-mail me and I'm sure we can work something out.
The Content Update
New Templates
The Psion Template: If there was ever a place with an excess of psychics, it's Kronos, with its weird spires and alien population. Psychics in Psi-Wars are closer to the characters from Push or to low-key X-men than the classic depiction of Force-wielders of Star Wars, and so I felt a template exclusively associated with them would be a nice way of emphasizing it. I created the Psychic Power-Up packages in part to support them. This content likely won't be exclusive for long, as it's winning a poll for being released to the wiki.
The Assassin Template: This is from all the way back in Iteration 4, I believe. The idea of the Assassin was always to be a space ninja, closer to the Action 4 Ninja or Weapon Master than the Action 1 Assassin. The problem in Iteration 7+ is that we need proper martial arts for them to explore, and exploring that has been much of my focus for the past few months. Thus, I've been preparing for this particular template. It still needs more work, mostly in tightening up the martial arts, so it'll be awhile before this gets on the wiki, but you can check out the rough draft of it now.
The Mechanic and the Hacker: I've been tinkering with expanding an idea I introduced before (but many people seem to have missed, so it might be worth revisiting) with half-cost "sidekick" templates for niche concept that don't fit full adventurers. I'm also toying with "Cross-trained" skillset packages, and we needed a Hacker skillset that someone could slather over the Criminal template, so I worked on that too. You can find previews of both at the link.
New Martial Arts and Weapons
Awhile ago, I pondered how best to handle melee weapons that weren't force swords. See, run-of-the-mill vibro just doesn't cut it. The exotic weapons of the assassins would need to occupy their own niche, or they would need to be extraordinarily powerful in some highly specific way. The overwhelming consensus on my discord agreed with this, so I've been brainstorming a variety of weapons and martial arts that the assassin could deploy when engaging in the brutal art of murder. These aren't complete yet, mostly rough drafts and thoughts, and when they're finished, they'll end up on the wiki, but for now, if you want to see them in advance, here they are. They're especially useful if you want to play as an Assassin.
The Nuclear Knife: the poison-metal blade of Dungeon Fantasy inspired my first weapon. I thought as I read it that it sounded a bit like polonium, but nobody would make a knife out of polonium, right? Well, why not? The Blight Blades of Acheron draw inspiration from that idea, but slather on some space-fantasy-tech radiation powered by both the metal and energy cells within the blade to create a unique weapon that is fantastically lethal, and as dangerous to the wielder as the target.
The Ceramic Katana: One reason I struggle with non-melee force swords is physical swords, especially the katana, occupy a legitimate place in the sci-fi settings, but how could they possibly compete with a force sword? Arguably, they couldn't, but there are some possible niches they could exploit that the force sword couldn't. This explores more than just such a weapon, but also explores what might happen if you take the tactical math of Combat Calculus and Shineido and apply it to the ancient art of Kendo.
The Monowire Whip: This isn't really a new weapon, as it's just there in GURPS Basic. However, it's a weapon I have previously discarded as "not very Star Wars." However, Psi-Wars has evolved into a setting that can support more cyberpunk tropes, and so I think the monowire whip could fit well. I've come up with a power-up martial art inspired by (but not the same as) Monowire Mugging from Pyramid #3/9.
The Killing Arts of the Umbral Rim: Iteration 6 features "Janura," a Keleni assassination technique inspired by the real-world Sicarii, Assassin's Creed, and elements of the Keleni culture. All it really needed was an update to a power-up structure. While I was at it, I thought I might return to Reaver's Hand, a set of power-ups I made when Christopher Rice's patreon special dropped. The style that came out is pretty different from what he did (my power is different too), and I think this one is still evolving, as I stumbled across some interesting ideas, and received some interesting criticisms, while working on this one. You can find both at the link.
Setting Material
Mithna Zatharos: Ages ago, I had a poll for "the Fourth Mithna," a noble house of the Ranathim. Mithna Temos won, and is on the wiki now. But I really wanted to explore the Witch-Kings of Kronos, as they would really fit into the adventure I was prepping. I came up with my own material, a "false Mithna" that used sorcery to steal the secrets of aristocracy from the other Mithna of the Ranathim Tyranny. This one is a little complicated, and you'll need some knowledge of the Deep Engine to fully understand it.
Release the Balloon People: Christopher Rice has a regular poll, "Release the Balloon People" where you can vote on a Patreon special and have it released on his blog. It's a nice concept and I love the name, and it's especially appropriate for Psi-Wars as most of the backer material are previews rather than exclusives, so this is more about getting material out sooner than later. This is open to all Patrons, so if you're curious what you can get for $1, this is where you start. But act soon! I think the poll ends in the next couple of days.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.