Moe Lane's Blog, page 649
October 23, 2021
Working on Spreadsheets for TINSEL RAIN.
Short version: I gotta up the budget for having my books edited. As in, it is a matter of personal honor. Alas, that will absolutely push the publishing schedule for TINSEL RAIN back to the end of December 2022, so if I want to publish it earlier I’m gonna need to track down alternate funding*. That probably means another Kickstarter, in 1Q 2022.
Alternatively, I could sell a few hundred more copies of my books between now and the end of the year. That would do the trick too, hopefully. I don’t like going too often to the Kickstarter well.
Moe Lane
*This is a capital problem (not capitalism, mind you). The money is coming in at regular intervals, but not at optimal ones. Businesses handle this problem with commercial loans, but I would have to be insane to get one of those. No, seriously, I would have to be insane and the bank would have to be just as insane to go along with it. Hence… crowdfunding.
Preliminary Thoughts: Hectatia.
This may be the next Patreon RPG world. It has potential.
Patreon!
Hectatia
Think of it as the… well, it’s not the anti-America. Hectatia has more open foulness than America — it takes a unique combination of ignorance and awareness to be able to laugh at that statement, by the way — but the land is hardly an uninterrupted bleak wasteland of dead things and jagged skies. Hectatia is more of a reflection of America, or an occult counterpart that has steadily drawn closer in appearance to our land via some obscure application of the laws of contagion and similarity. There are many correspondences between America and Hectatia; and it seems that every day a new connection between the two lands forms. With every new form, it becomes easier for people to travel from one land to the other.
The few aware of the situation — on either side of it — do not consider this to be entirely good news.
The inhabitants of Hectatia are human, or mostly human, or at least are descended from humans (except for the ones who were made by humans); they speak comprehensible versions of English and Spanish, and use clothes and equipment that closely resemble contemporary America’s. They have a representative government, federalism, a written constitution, political parties, and the concept of universal rights. Hectatians live in cities and farms, towns and suburbs; they listen to music and watch television. Truthfully, ninety percent of the time their country is just like the United States, if you squint.
It’s that last ten percent, though.
Book of the Week: DANSE MACABRE.
I know that Stephen King is somewhat of a jackass, these days; but his 1981 work DANSE MACABRE is an extremely useful look at the contemporary horror genre, and we are overdue for somebody to write something similar for our own time period*. It’s the old problem of separating the art from the artist. I mean, even I can be a slight jackass, sometimes.
No, really.
Moe Lane
*No, not me. I do not come even close to having The Knowledge necessary for such an endeavor. Ken Hite? This is your moment.
Tweet of the Day, How Do You KNOW It Was An Elephant, Officer? edition.
Because that area? I hear there’s a lot of meteor strikes in that area. Real… concentrated ones. Let’s not just assume it was an elephant.
Suspected poacher trampled to death by elephant in South Africa https://t.co/W96hpz3nJF
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 23, 2021
Besides, I recognize the elephant in the photo. It was at a party I was at that night. You should be looking for another elephant. …Meteor cluster. I mean, meteor cluster.
Via @CalebHowe.
Moe Lane
PS: This has come up before, yes.
October 22, 2021
In Nomine Revisited: Sebhil, Balseraph Demon of Rule 34.
I’m really tired tonight, so I went and pulled various horror-flavored stuff from my to-be-converted In Nomine files and… converted them.
Sebhil-Google-DocsDownload
This material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games.
In Nomine
is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games
online policy
.
In Nomine Revisited: Robigus, God of Mildew.
I think this was an actual Roman god.
Robigus-Google-DocsDownloadThis material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games. In Nomine is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy .
Zaroff, Impudite Demon of the Most Dangerous Game.
This required very little re-editing! Shocking, really.
Zaroff-Google-DocsDownloadThis material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games. In Nomine is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy .
October 21, 2021
Tweet of the Day, And Then The Murders Began edition.
I mean, seriously. Just go ahead and order the sea demon tribes, or the energy leech, or maybe the cannibal cult hiding in the engine room. It’ll save everybody valuable time that they could instead use to try to flee.
EXTREME: Royal Caribbean is planning for what it calls the longest and most comprehensive world cruise ever. Passengers will be onboard the Serenade of the Seas for 274 nights – that's nine months! https://t.co/eT7JXb9q9L pic.twitter.com/98skcRbg8b
— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) October 21, 2021
Some notes for next month’s GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND.
I should have written this out when I wrote the short story, honestly.
Company Name: XHum
Founded: 2095 AD
HQ location: Reagan City, Jefferson colony
Employees: 150,000
FTL Capacity: Yes
Base Capacity: Yes
Purpose: Commercial exploration and exploitation of the Dead Worlds, with an emphasis on salvage archeology
XHum was founded in 2095 by American and Hong Kong entrepreneurs. Corporate legend asserts that the founders (Claire Hedwig and Talia Sung) bribed S/CI to transport themselves, selected employees, their families, and considerable amounts of technological and industrial equipment to Jefferson Colony. The new company rapidly expanded, eventually dominating Jefferson’s orbital and system infrastructure. In 2102, XHum was the first extrasolar megacorporation to successfully pass the criteria needed to operate in the Dead Worlds. The company openly operates on six Dead Worlds, and has grey bases on a dozen more.
The megacorp’s official purpose is to find alien technology, figure out what it does, and reverse-engineer it. It does as much work as possible on-site, both because it’s more efficient and safer for Jefferson Colony that way. Unofficially, XHum smuggles alien artifacts, just like everybody else does. The revenue streams from both are roughly equal.
XHum is considered the gold standard for working conditions in the Dead Worlds. The megacorp takes the position that human beings actually are its most valuable assets, so it is careful to provide its bases and ships with ample supplies of good-quality equipment. This includes weapons: just because there’s no sapient aliens out there doesn’t mean that the Dead Worlds are safe. Plus, training new people is expensive.
