Today, I’m going to be sidetracking slightly from talking about games to talking about the people who make the games, and why you, dear reader, should be paying attention to what’s going on in the government because it impacts you and those creators.
Month: July 2017
On Setting Secrets
Today’s topic is the presence of official secrets in game settings, and when having them can be, if not a bad thing, something really obnoxious. This isn’t the regular small mysteries that provide room for games, mind, but when a developer has a secret or a mystery which comprises a significant chunk of the setting.
Aethera Campaign Setting: Life On Ice
Today we’ll be dipping back into Aethera’s icy world of Orbis Aurea, starting with the inhabitants of the place. One might think a frigid planet like this would be relatively unihabited, but when things live in the void of space a little permanent glaciation isn’t going to stop anyone.
To Be A Hero
All too often, when characters get generated for a game, we end up with a group of relatively valiant but paranoid murderers, ready to go for their weapons at the first sign that their suspicions about pretty much everyone might be accurate. We have a derogatory term for the worst of these, the people whose first, last, and only method of resolution is killing anyone that might be a foe, but less so for the less extreme versions. And yet these are the heroes of the game, most often.
Stormlands: Empire
So today I’m going to talk a little about how it is that the known lands of the setting have no empire anywhere on the map. This isn’t uncommon in fantasy settings, but there’s actually a reason behind it here.
Aethera Campaign Setting: Orbis Aurea
Today I’ll be heading to the outermost planet of the Aethera system, the icy water-aligned world of Orbis Aurea. Home to okanta and giant, as well as immigrant humans, infused, and Paragons, this chill world is as strange as any other in the system, and unique in a few ways. So let’s get started, shall we?
The Village of Westhaven
Today, after a discussion with my wife on our way home from the city, I will be presenting a bit of information for the Land of Storms, about the village of Westhaven, last stop on the road west before the Dragon’s Teeth mountain range. It’s also, coincidentally, the closest thing to Fire Mountain that most folks would recognize as a village.
On Starfinder
Today, I’m going to talk about Starfinder – not because I have any more insight than anyone else, but because I want to talk about what I hope. It’s heroic fantasy space opera, of course I’m interested in it – not so much the setting, but the hope for a swashbuckling-capable sci-fi setting that isn’t burdened by the weight of things that choke a lot of other systems that have tried to do this.
Describing a Setting
Today, I’ll be describing more of the world I laid out the setting concepts for previously. Tentatively titled The Land of Storms, it’s going to be the cohesive background for future fleshed-out Patreon work even as those pieces will be intended to be able to be used with minimal effort in any setting.
Aethera Campaign Setting: Atheer-Ohn
Today, we’ll be visiting a fleshed-out location for Seraos – Atheer-Ohn, an erahthi research station which has some dark secrets woven into it. It was founded when the erahthi saw the humans of Akasaat fielding the Infused, and some among them decided that they only way to see victory was fighting fire with fire – or aetheric infusion with aetheric infusion, in this case.
Renegade Octopus 