When worlds collide! or share a barycentre for a while

I've not done a funky link set for a bit so here are some recent crossover posts, or more intricate combinations of theme, you might not have seen.

• JD at The Disoriented Ranger pondered design and play in light of the OSR
• Zhu Bajiee statted up some Tékumel miniatures for third edition Warhammer
• Stelios linked Oldhammer to the OSR and will do a third edition readthrough
• The Beat Ronin reflected on growing up and changes in approach over time
• Von showed the making of a Black Legion warband with Realm of Chaos
• Jonas at Deathworld Adventures played GW's Inquisitor with action figures
• Trey at From the Sorcerer's Skull sketched a superheroic science fantasy
• Wayne R. at SIU listed classic modules, with work by Raggi and McKinney
• Early D&D player Cyclopeatron converted a Menoth Avatar for Warmachine
• The Alternative Wargamer scratchbuilt a YG-4210 for FFG's popular X-Wing
• Nathan at Corehammer compared past GW artist Ian Miller to HP Lovecraft
• The Secret Sun looked at the evidence for Lovecraft having a secret source
• Tim at The Other Side wrote up Mary Poppins, as both witch and time lord
  

There's a lot more weirdness going on, especially in the upper three blogrolls on the left.
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40K OSR? (22)

It's been yonks since the last 40K OSR? update.

Not sure what a 40K OSR? is? If you know what a 40K is, and an OSR, you're pretty much there.

If you're part of it, feel free to use Colonel Kane's logo, here to the right, and consider linking to a superb example: their Tales from the Maelstrom.

Since that last update, they've set up and run a multiplayer Rogue Trader game, posted the photos and mused on the nature of old school.

And there's been plenty more going on too, for various systems and scales, and none.

• Mutants and Magic outlined a Mutant Future-WFRP blend - Weirdhammer.

• Jack at Tales of the Grotesque posted stats for various Tyranids in WFRP.

• Zhu Bajiee looks at a possible origin for the Tyranids in M.A.R. Barker's Tékumel and possible examples of UK politics appearing in the hobby...
  

• ... and SandWyrm at The Back 40K GW being a public limited company.

• Relic at Lead Space found a source of Epic-scale counts as Tyranids and looked at building up a Crimson Fists force for NetEpic over one, two posts.

• Fictive Fantasies posted two draft expansions for Fictive Hack (pdf), first for space marines then for genestealer cults, plus a scenario and playtest. 

• DarthMeer at The Heralds of Ruin took us all the way up to Kill Team v1.6.
  

• Col. Gravis released a possible IG bike and is crowdfunding field pieces.

• James at Warp Signal posted on the Ratling Project, a major reimagining.

• Master Bryss posted the second part of creature feature for sixth edition.

• TJ Atwell did Iron Warriors and Night Lords in Dark Future's bits series, ...

• ... Davey at The Marienburg Gazette uses this set for plague marines ...

• ... and smiler at Brush of Fumbling just posted a list of skirmish options.

• The guys at Spiky Rat Pack have been producing too much superb work to list - just go and look at it - but one piece, the Living Coffin, ties in with...

• ... the pic-heavy Arkke Retour series at Tears of Isstvaan on a return to the Yggdrassilium tree, for more INQ28 gaming with John Blanche and friends.

• Paul Schaefer mentioned a Necromundan Caves of Chaos at Talysman's.

• Unite All Action showed some great Necromunda Van Saar conversions.

• Lasgunpacker discussed the scope for normal life in the 41st millennium.

• John Bell - The Retired Adventurer - posted a map with lists for the Tellian Sector and psyker and warrior packages for 40K in Stars Without Number.

• Krisken at Scratchbuilt 40K has posted once, twice on a land raider build...

• ... Ansu at Farseer with a Brush once, twice, thrice a card Leman Russ, ...

• ... John Hanan III at Zorcon's Word once, twice the fairly rare arvus lighter...

• ... and Unite All Action - second mention - once, twice a cool Ork trukk, ...

• ... plus Rictus at Recalcitrant Daze finished the immense Ork kopta karrier.

• Andrew Lotz brings the warlock titan in line with the phantom at Apoc 40K.

• Phil at The Shell Case looks at getting back into 6mm Adeptus Titanicus.

• At Dropship Studio Carl gives advice on weathering Epic-scale vehicles...

• ... and Sigur at Tale of Painters converted up a 6mm Hunter anti-air rhino.

• J. D. Brink of Chaos Theory has a way of reintroducing shooting modifiers.

• Finally, The M42 Project has posted a lot more, including an introduction. 

I've probably missed a huge number of posts so feel free to leave links in the comments.

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Universal soldiers and a past and future polycosmos

Thanks to John Till and Chirine ba Kal I recently found Bronze Age Miniatures. They have some real gems in 32mm, but the models that stand out for me are the three here.

They're up as 'space adventurers', but beyond maybe the trousers and a possible pistol on one hand they could be in many times and places. Are they sci-fi, fantasy, modern?

For 40K they could cover hive gangers, mercenaries or renegades, or some unknown faction, and they'd probably fit Infinity too. They could be D&D adventurers old school or new. They'd also work for pseudo-historical gladiators and Earth-bound post-apocalyptic.

Lightly armed? Maybe that facewear could be a kind of mandiblaster or banshee mask.

It makes me wonder...

Why do so few producers make near-universal models? Or, rather, what happened to the wide-open worlds of the past, the '60s, '70s and '80s? Have our minds closed..?

Webs in worldbuilding

Science In My Fiction has a post up with the title Spiders In Space: Our Constant Companions. This may not be The Drune's post at ix on Space Spiders, or any of Needles' incredible creatures at Swords & Stitchery, but it's intriguing nonetheless.

It makes me think of the end of this article, when the subject turns to Biosphere 2.

Reading it all as a worldbuilder and games designer, there's a challenge - how to evoke or enable these evolving webs, with potential for unexpected niches and cracks? For me it also ties in with the idea of minus level characters, via ckutalik's image of ripples.

Can a game system represent or suggest an ecology in a simple way? The posts here on growing a tabletop say I think it can. And it seems to me a set of supplementary mechanisms like this could make a sandbox more of a living, breathing space, increase the fun through naturalistic development, greater immersion. Does it burst your buds?

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It's life, Lalei, but not as we know it

A quick update on the Humanspace Empires playtest being run at Spaceswords & Glory, where the tension's rising fast.

There's an intruder on the ship, one of the interdimensional Mihálli. The Deeds of Glory is now being locked down and a security team with a plan is moving to intercept, cautiously.

Down on the ice planet, at the site of the former research station, unknown beings are closing on the shuttle. Warbots are prepared, air tablets in and weapons made ready...

We've got a half dozen or so players. I'm guiding Payákár, a compassionate eight-limbed alien armed with a mighty Z-ray energy rifle - phasers on kill, shoot to stun - and bearing a secret. A mystery influence.

 

You can read up on the events so far and all follow the action through the posts and comments, and there's general info on the project here. If it's new to you, Humanspace Empires is a pulp science fantasy roleplaying game by The Drune at ix, reviewed here.

I highly recommend checking out the second of the two games as well, at Ancient Astronauts, an exploration of a future Mars. The escape in the van just hit a snag...

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Interactive express elevator

Payákár is on the away team, and on board the shuttle for the wild ride down to the surface of Ice Planet Nine...

Which means the real action is starting at Spaceswords & Glory, the blog hosting one of the two Humanspace Empires games being run online. If you haven't heard yet, HE is a pulp science fantasy roleplayer by The Drune at ix, reviewed here.

You can read up on everything that's happened so far and follow all the action through the posts and comments.

There's some more general info here, with a brief summary of the second of the two games, Ancient Astronauts.

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Flash Fearsdelayed & taken over - Haak

A little late, my tale for Flash Fearsday at Lunching on Lamias, at 140 characters.

I'm not prey, I'm predator! At least, I was.

But it watches from its eyrie.

I feel that eye, not meat - mechanism. It wants to improve me...

I got a bit carried away, and worked up a new creature for Hogintu, as well as some background on the time technology and space elevators.

The rules are at the bottom, also using Humanspace Empires.

Here, puss, puss, puss...

Yep - we have bugs of all kinds for the science fantasy game Humanspace Empires. So I've thrown down a gauntlet with a Doctor Who clip, from the late-'80s seventh Doctor story Survival.

Ray Rousell described the cat in the clip as evil and The Angry Lurker is no fan; it's not so often they agree on anything... Cats it is then.

Here, puss, puss, puss...

Cats were common to a majority of homes on the world of Hogintu before the Bluing, across the strata of class, caste and clade. There were breeds of all kinds, many purely ornamental or engineered with a calming, charming psychic aura. When the civilisation dragged itself down into the dust a number survived, reduced to eight lives perhaps, their residual instincts seeing them good in the harsh new circumstances. The large feline creatures now stalking the dark nights of the Cerulean Sphere keep their own pets...

They call him Swarm Breaker

So we now have snakes, beetles, spiders, ants, gigapedes and worms, both large and small, and some of these not even fully in our reality.

Humanspace really isn't looking like a space for humans who are squeamish.

Unless, born of a stray NetherWerks comment at the home blog ix, you find the man they call...

Suwár 'Debugger' Tar, 'Swarm Breaker'

An arachno-mutant turned from the hive, now a renowned underworld hire.

Born on the post-apocalyptic world of Hogintu, Suwár was adopted young by nekrobra smugglers when he showed an exceptional talent for charming. He was attacked on a run by space spiders and partially transformed, serving his arachnoid masters loyally before a dimensional distortion brought about by an unrecorded weapons test severed the connection. Discovered by a super-scientific explorer team, he was interned in a research establishment, before escaping into the underworld with other test subjects.

Do the skrabs scrabble?

The response to the nekrobra was encouraging so here's a second creature of blue Hogintu, or the Cerulean Sphere as it will now be known thanks to the ever-inventive Justin S. Davis.

I've statted this one using Humanspace Empires too because I like the approach, but it would suit any generic sci-fi or fantasy setting, and is easily converted to other OSR systems.

Hush! Do the skrabs scrabble?

The skrab is a small blue insectoid creature apparently unique to Hogintu, and swarms wherever the cobalt sands drift, even deep within the ruins. It is an aggressive creature with a lightly-armoured, bulbous body and scurries rapidly on a dozen spindly legs, the forward three of which are needle-like and used for skewering its prey. A swarm brings down larger victims through the individuals attaching themselves and using their weight to topple and pin, all the while stabbing at vulnerable points until the victim succumbs.

The creature is of relatively recent provenance and in the short time since its appearance skrab populations have fluctuated dramatically for no clear reason. The skrab is seen as a mixed blessing, for when the skrabs are scrabbling, the nekrobra is rare...

Skrab

No. Enc.: 1D6+6

Alignment: Neutral

Move: 150' (50')

Armour Class: 6

Hit Dice: 1

Attacks: 1

Damage: 1D6 + pinning

Morale: 12

A skrab making a successful attack will also attach itself to the victim, who must then pass a force test or be brought to the ground. At the Referee's discretion, larger potential victims may require multiple skrabs to achieve this. If additional skrabs are in combat with the victim, all but one will now pile on. The victim has its armour class increased by one point for each multiple attached and the combat continues as normal, with all participants fighting. The victim may attempt to free itself in each subsequent round by making one force test per multiple; if any are failed, the victim remains pinned by all.
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The Cobalt Cobras of Hogintu

The new miniatures in the Warhammer Tomb Kings range haven't been universally well received. Again, technically superb models have arguably less than superb concepts.

There's a flavour here at Subject to Stupidity of the case against, and also in potentially offensive language here at FightingFantasist. At Musings of a Smurf, here, there's an argument against even the detail on the latest GW minis, or maybe against the major games in their current form. CounterFett is doing his best here to find uses for the new parts in 40K, and Dark Future Games here has Thousand Sons space marines in mind.

I want to help too, and I have something in mind for the necropolis knight build, i.e. the cobra-like snakes with skeleton riders. By doing as little as removing the rider, there's something to work with. Filing off or filling in detail would also make them less obviously ancient Earth culture and more fantastical or alien. The heads are not very snake-like, but that could be fixed with greenstuff, and a compromise would be keeping the basic head structure and going wide and flat over it. They are pretty good giant serpents all in.

But I'll assume you don't want to make too many changes. Here's a possible use almost as is, riffing off the silliness and references, with one or two more thrown in; no prizes for guessing. I've statted them for Humanspace Empires by The Drune at ix with ideas from this post and inspiration from Mutant Future. The idea isn't aimed specifically at the Humanspace setting, but should suit generic pulp sci-fi or fantasy.

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Review - Humanspace Empires Playtest Draft (2/2)

The second part of the two-day review looking at Humanspace Empires, a new game by The Drune. It's currently in its Playtest Draft and available to download free at ix.

If you haven't read the first part yet, Humanspace Empires is a pulp science fantasy roleplaying game set in the sumptuous and complex Tékumel universe, a reimagining of the famed Dungeons & Dragons development Empire of the Petal Throne (EPT).

Yesterday we had the design context, the key terminology, some D&D history and an introduction to the setting; today we look at the pdf proper, and the very special ruleset.

Review - Humanspace Empires Playtest Draft (1/2)

Here's a game review in two parts, for the Playtest Draft of Humanspace Empires by The Drune, free at ix.

Today we'll have the design context and introduce the setting, and tomorrow a proper look under the hood.

If you've not heard of it yet, Humanspace Empires is a pulp science fantasy roleplaying game set in the sumptuous and complex Tékumel universe.

It's a reimagining of the famed Dungeons & Dragons development Empire of the Petal Throne. But just as EPT was much more than a new D&D in space, Humanspace Empires is far more than just another retro-clone.