I took a break from D&D this weekend to dive back into my "Legacies" gnostic-fantasy setting - this time taking it forward in time to the "Age of Steam". In addition to an updated version of the Itunes playlist i posted up here a year or two ago, i now have a pretty comprehensive history/timeline written out, not to mention a very lovely map. ( Read more... )

 I just watched the pilot for Scifi, ...err SyFy's new series Caprica, and i'm liking the feel of it: kind of looking to shape up as a mish-mash of Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde ( Read more... )

As Vernor Vinge's Singularity concept underlines, you cannot predict the future with any accuracy, but in writing SF, while trying to include the future, you had better not forget to also include the present! So here is a list of a few developing technologies that i think cannot be ignored when attempting to picture a future society.

But first, a ( Read more... )

My group is starting a new, more traditional, 4e game - including extra characters to round the party out to 4, and possibly some minions later on - and we're doing so in a new setting (as created by the Jonas). We're planning to start small and work our way up, but the basic tenants of the world are already in place ( Read more... )

 I have to say, i do really love the idea of Black Ops Social Services...

..playing them would really be a fun twist on the standard "modern-day fantasy investigators" / Bureau 13 / Delta Green / X-Files game! ;)

On an almost related topic... Judd has some good insight over here. I like to keep this strongly in mind when burning up my own fantasy ( Read more... )

Aliens are so hard - I haven't done anything like this in 5 years!

From the library of the Imperial Orion Xenological Institute:

Species: Tsianii (The Children, lit. "Child-itself-being-many Ones")

Primary Government:  Zesdenmeri (The Free Trade Alliance, lit. "Freely Gifting Friends")

Classification: Expansionist

Xenobiology: Diverse. Individuals span ( Read more... )

 I'm setting the Aliens game in a far future science-fiction setting i like to call "Commonality Space" or "Commonality's End.

This is actually just the latest incarnation/revision of a universe with a long and turbulent history on my writing desk and in my gaming. The whole kit-and-kaboodle originated from the setting i helped write for a GURPS ( Read more... )

 So here is my thoughts on a song list for my Legacies of the Past setting. Yeah, it is kind of eclectic, but that's my mp3 library for you!

S1: The Downfall of the Ancients

• Angels & Agony - Opening
• VAS - Inamorata
• Visions of Atlantis - Pharoah's Repentance
• Nightwish - Sahara
• VAS - Beyond Despair

Geography 101

The action for A Legacy of Blood begins in the Barony of Hochwald, far to the north of the seat of the king's court at Fahrensee. While not a cold land, the barony feels the touch of winter far more strongly than the more poplous lands down south, lying as it does under the shadow of the great Eisenwand mountains to the northeast. The ( Read more... )

In the Legacies setting mages, sorcerers, witches, wizards, and practioners of all kinds, past and present, have always organized their understanding and practice of the sorcerous arts into "schools of magic", each with its own traditions, philosophies, and rites of passage. Some schools were actual academic institutions, with teachers, classes, ( Read more... )