Monthly (sort of) Musings from LunarShadow Designs
Late pledges, Vinca and Building the Dyson Eclipse: Shan
It’s been a while since the last newsletter. Zine Quest started, finished and I crashed. Hard. Meanwhile the world kept turning, kept burning and now we’re into May, with summer and UK Games Expo fast approaching.
The Words We Leave Behind: Late Pledges Still Open
Late pledges on The Words We Leave Behind remain open while I continue development of the main text. I’ve been working away on version 0.5 of the game and let me tell you this - there have been a few times since the kickstarter where I’ve wished for the ability to time travel so I could go back and just hand myself the latest wip. This current version of the game introduces a series of major changes, both mechanically and structurally with Approaches, the biggest and most important change, having caused me some serious writers block over the last couple of months.
But it’s been worth it. v0.5 has just gone out to backers and I can confidently say it’s improved the game significantly. The Approaches streamline play while adding extra depth to the choices made by the players. Sitting alongside those is a brand new set of fantasy inspired Incursion prompts. Testing those have been great fun and next time I run a fantasy game I’ll be using them to do initial world building.
If you want to see all of that ahead of the launch then head over to the kickstarter, late pledges will remain open until just before we go to print. It’s also the only place to get many of my other zines at my pre-kickstarter prices, rising costs have forced me to put up my prices so jump in while you can.
This month I read… This Frog is Ruining My Dungeon Crawl and Vinca
My latest train reads covered 2 very different games. I’m not going to spend much time on the dungeon crawling frog - it didn’t click for me at all and I’m not entirely convinced I understand how the game is meant to play. It either needs more depth and details or I totally misunderstood the rules.
I had a similar reaction to Vinca at first. This is a lightweight, one shot game about a group of quarry workers and the stories of their lives and loved ones back home.
Until it isn’t.
The game is GMless initially but needs a facilitator to guide play and transition it into the second half of the story. It’s this second half that grabbed my attention with a true WTF moment. It hits hard and shifts the tone of the game considerably. That’s about all I can really say without diving into spoilers and ruining the impact. This is very much a game where you need safety tools in place and to have trust at the table.
It’s rare for games to evoke such a visceral, emotional reaction just from a read through so it’s special when they do. The last one that achieved it for me was Blood Feud which lands a very different sort of gut punch.
If you want to see what I’m talking about you can purchase Vinca from the always awesome Beyond Cataclysm, who stock a massive range of indie games.
Building the Dyson Eclipse:
Shan Planetary Table 1
Random tables are one of the staples of open-ended settings, providing the GM with ideas and inspiration for locations, individuals and events to populate their world with. They also make writing lore and setting details easier - if it’s interesting enough to add to a table then it’s a detail worth keeping. I’ve been thinking lately about how to develop the wider Dyson Eclipse setting and decided I would start with Shan, the planet around which the events of The Kandhara Contraband are set. This will eventually be a collection of 6 tables for a d66 roll. Each will include a location, individual, job, secret, event and organisation supported by additional description of the world and the people that inhabit it. I’ll be releasing each of the tables in subsequent newsletters as part of my goal to put together more small, quick releases before they get rolled into an expanded and updated edition of The Kandhara Contraband later this year.
Location - Jarl's is a small street diner that outlasted the original sponsors of the habitation dome. Its single room fits a kitchen workstation and a single communal table. There are only 3 things on the menu. Two staples that haven't changed since it opened while the third is thrown together from whatever Jarl could get hold of in the last shipment. Sometimes it's inspired, others… less so.
Individual - Kroger Tal is an overseer at docking facility 39 and responsible for coordinating the shipping schedules between processing facilities. Rumour has it that he was fired from his former position aboard the Kandhara Orbital Station after being caught taking a bribe. He claims to be in possession of a set of one time override codes for the station mainframe. They're available, for the right price.
Job - Mine group M7X5b are mid-contract and need to let off steam. They're looking for someone to help them break their planetary curfew and smuggle them into orbit for the night so they can blow their earnings on stimulants, alcohol and gambling aboard Kandhara station. They've got 2 days until their next shift, make it memorable.
Secret - Less than 10km from the Scar a trio of bodies lie hidden under a hastily arranged camouflage tarp and scattering of dirt. They've been dead for three weeks and the slow process of desiccation has pulled the skin tight across the tissues that have only just started to decay. Their overalls identify them as surveyors for the Limestar Co-Operative but no-one has been reported missing by the group.
Event - You were only there to collect a shipment but then something exploded in the entrance and all hell broke loose. Now you're stuck underground with a dozen despondent workers and a malfunctioning atmospheric generator. The scans say there's energy readings coming from a cavity 20m to the east. It's not on any of the tunnel maps but surely it must lead back to the surface.
Organisation - The Centre for Stellar Astrology. Superstition dies hard, even for a civilisation that has crossed the void and settled a distant star system. The Centre for Stellar Astrology is a fringe organisation that believes the fortunes of humanity can be divined from the movement of the stars and planets across the sky of an inhabited world. It maintains observatories across the system, which are fed to the central institute on Shan for its clergy to interpret. The centre is funded through private donations from a myriad of individuals from the general populace all the way up to Habitat governors. Shol Agusti, the ultimate beneficiary, is a recluse with interests across the system.
Links Round Up
If you use Affinity Publisher then you need to check out this Unofficial manual - it’s the most in depth guide for that software that I know of and honestly, it’s a little overwhelming to see how many features the software has that I just didn’t know existed before now.
The hardest working font in Manhattan - I’m not a font nerd by any measure but this was an interesting deep dive into the spread of one font to the point that it became so ubiquitous its origins were all but forgotten.
The Gamers: Attack of the Pwns - The latest instalment of the long running Gamers series is crowdfunding right now, continuing the story of the original fantasy characters as they continue to fight the Shadow and his minions in the real world. Check it out and help get it over the line.
The Wrap Up
That’s it for now. Next month might see a return to a regular newsletter, or it may not. If you’re attending UK Games Expo at the end of May please swing by the UK TIN stand to browse a great selection of indie RPG from designers across the UK, including my own Numb3r Stations and Project Cassandra. I’ll be working on the stand on the Friday afternoon and Saturday morning and am always enjoy getting the chance to say hello to the people that have supported my games over the last few years.
Craig
LunarShadow Designs