Five Years of Psi-Wars

 It's a new year, so time for a new retrospective!

Oh, and yes, I did get my Wordpress Blog unsuspended.  I'm debating whether it's worth leaving it there.  On the one hand, it's all already there.  On the other hand, eventually I'd want to pay for that.  And do I want to pay for it given the hiccups I've already seen? I'll keep my eye on it. As a friend suggested: given the various stresses in my life, it might be better to worry about what relaxes me (writing posts) and maintain my energy for what needs my attention most (my family, my work) and once that eases up, then I can focus on the proper migration. 

Out with 2021

So not so long ago, Joe Biden made a gaffe where he suggested that he thought the year was 2020, and I gotta say, I feel that. I'm aware that dates have changed, but I feel like time has slowed to a crawl and I've been living the same year over and over again.  My little girl has celebrated her first two birthdays in lockdown, and didn't recognize our church the one time we actually got to go again. So on the one hand, I feel like time has stood still.

 

On the other hand, I can clearly see Psi-Wars has made a lot of progress.  A surprising amount of progress, in fact. As I review my project reports (handy for this), I see that we've added extensively to both the wiki and created numerous backer releases (more than you see below, because so many turned eventually into wiki entries)

A lot of these were done in service to Undercity Noir and expanding Kronos (the Menhiri were technically a 2020 release) which, despite my lack of posting on it, has recently finished its 7th session and maybe now the players will get around to the actual heist bit!

 All in all, I managed 2 and a half, nearly 3 releases her month, not counting blog posts like reviews or the Generic Space Opera Bestiary posts.

2021 Wiki Releases

• The Outcast Background
• The Slave Background (with two of its three lenses)
  
• Criminal Organizations
• Bloodsiders and their Mythology
• The Psion Template
• Psychic Vampirism as Power-Ups
• The Assassin Template
  
•  The Gossamer Art
• Keleni Blade Fighting
• Reaver's Hand (the Psi-Wars version)
• Seven Vector Swordsmanship
• General Gear got a big update
• As did Melee Weapons (mostly the Psi-Blade)
• And Cross-Training (especially for the Hacker)
• Galactic Federation Remnant Culture
• Dream Control
• Probability Manipulation 
• An Updated Alien Races page with 
• Slavers
• Karkadann
• Keverlings
• Krokuta
• Vithanni
• Nehudi
• Sathran
  

2021 Backer Releases

• Arkhaians First Draft (SubscribeStar) (Patreon)
  
• Mithna Zatharos (SubscribeStar) (Patreon)
  
• Daemons of the Deep Engine (SubscribeStar) (Patreon)
  
• House Mistral (SubscribeStar) (Patreon)
  
• The Ongoing Phoenix Cluster poll
• And numerous previews that got folded into proper wiki entries (though I'm still missing the Blades of Acheron for Assassins)
  

The State of Psi-Wars

We're five years in, and the perennial joke is that I said this was a "quick and easy" way to build a setting.  Of course, the more people want me to add, the more time it will take, and I have numerous requests for more material. So, as long as there is work to be done, I'll keep working.

That said, I mentioned this in Undercity Noir: I find myself on pretty good footing at this point.  Tinker Titan Rebel Spy and the Tall Tales of the Orochi Belt were both cut short because I ran into spots where I really didn't have enough material to move forward. I don't have that with Undercity Noir: I've had to fake some things and add some new material (hardly rare for a playtest) but I'm able to get pretty far on all the material I have.

I also notice that I've begun trending towards filling in small little niches and worrying about things that I've never approached before, like adding the Psion Template. This suggests to me that we're reaching the end of the "basic" phase.  I think I have a few more things to round out: we need the last couple of templates (Commando, Spy, Mystic) and backgrounds (Humble Origins, Sequestered), some additional details on the less well-developed parts of the galaxy (the Umbral Rim, the Arkhaian and the Sylvan Spiral), and some good "hot spot" details, like a deeper discussion of the war between the Alliance and the Empire, and some civilian vehicles and we'll be done.  Will that be finished this year? Well, I had initially guessed yes, but as I look at the amount of work I finished last year, and look at what I still need to do, I suspect we have a few more years yet. But for the core basis, I think we'll be finished, or close to, this year.

And In With 2022

So what do I have planned for 2022? Well, I've been building up quite a backlog of material on the Umbral Rim. If last year was driven by Undercity Noir, this year is driven by Wanderers of Dhim (or its successor game, as that one is running into trouble).  So what I have sitting in files of various states of completion are:

• Lithian Culture
• The Technology of Rath Industries (Slaver Tech; Including 3 capital ships, 2 fighters, two corvettes, one shuttle, one contragrav skiff, and two ground vehicles, a variety of blasters and some personal armor)
  
• Orion Arms Tech
• The Slaver Empire (this one turned out to be a lot more involved than I expected)
  
• Slaver Cartels
• About 8 example Cartels
• The Ogres of the Umbral Rim ("Matra")
• Lots and lots of additional Gaunt material
• "Lava Drakes"
• Sorcery
• More Generic Space Opera Bestiary entries (the "Carnivorous Plant," the Megepredator, and "Space Dragons" )
• Several Keleni-inspired space animals (the "Feather Fox" and a giant snail)
  

And, of course, eventually I'd like to bundle up all of those generic space opera bestiary entries into actual space monsters and start releasing a Psi-Wars bestiary.

I expect Undercity Noir to wind up soonish (likely just a few more sessions), and then I'll run... Undercity Noir! But for a different group, and I'll start publishing a double set of game notes, session by session at that point.

Finally, we'll continue on with the Phoenix Cluster, and we'll likely have a few new polls.