Moe Lane's Blog, page 83
April 3, 2025
Spent the afternoon on layout edits for the Fermi Resolution Worldbook.
Basically, we were fiddling with the new text for the Fermi Resolution Worldbook (that’s the preorder link) to make it fit on the page properly. Said text are mostly quotes from various people mentioned in the book, including a couple that I wanted to add on my own. We are pretty close to having all the work done! It is most exciting.
Anyway, here’s some of the pithy comments that’ll hopefully be in the final version:
Demons are a Christian thing. That’s why their priests are the best at getting rid of them.
Lucas Coltrane (elvish Adventurer, 2650 era)
Demons are not a ‘Christian thing.’ They are what good Christians must fight.
Fortitude Taneidi (human Great Fleet Chaplain, 27th Century)
Demons die when you stab them. Especially if you call on the Magdalene to help you drive the blade home.
Liza Skullcrusher Lupator (orcish legionnaire, 2835 era)
You gotta be careful. Tons of critters out there got changed by magic. Some got smarter. A lot smarter. The problem is, most critters still can’t talk like we do. You gotta figure it out by how they act… or if they’re wearing hats. Anything wearing a hat isn’t a dumb beast.
Oh, yeah: ‘smart’ doesn’t mean ‘nice.’ A bright critter can be a real mean one.
Nora Alfafor Salvager (halfling scout leader, 30th Century)
The city of Victory has been an excellent long-term investment, paying dividends of both money and information. Indeed, what little we know of half the world comes courtesy of their sea traders. Also: by simply existing, Free Canada prevents the Glorious Union from corsairing its way throughout the Pacific Rim. More cannot be done until the Universal Dominion is no more – yet another reason to win the War.
Miss Serenity Mehrotra (Greater Hershey commercial agent)
Pelgrane Press’s call for playtesters (Boundary of the Darkness).
Thinking about it, thinking about it:
Pelgrane Press seeks playtesters for Boundary of the Darkness, the Trail of Cthulhu sourcebook of dread investigation during England’s age of Enlightenment.
It presents two exciting campaign frames, ripped from the broadsheets of the 1770s:
Via Ken Hite on Facebook. The limiting factor here is time, as in “I have a lot of projects to work on, including my own adventure for the Fermi Resolution Worldbook.” (That’s the preorder link!) I’d like to playtest, but I also like to sleep, and see my kids.
Still… thinking about it, thinking about it.
MULCH!
That was my morning! MULCH!
MULCH! pic.twitter.com/j3qZYEeT1X
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) April 3, 2025
Getting the MULCH! Bringing the MULCH! home! Carrying the MULCH! badly! Spreading the MULCH! Listening to my waist muscles start screaming about all the MULCH! I was carrying! Getting MULCH! in my shoes! Getting MULCH! on my shirt! Taking ibuprofen to take away the sting from the MULCH!
MULCH!
April 2, 2025
The FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH Apple TV trailer.
I know that FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH is an Apple TV movie. It’s also a Guy Ritchie movie, so yeah: I’m gonna watch it. I also admit to being curious as to just how much Ritchie liked NATIONAL TREASURE.
#commissionearned
Kind of mixed feelings, right now.
On the one hand, I dislike tariffs*. On the other hand, I don’t like how the gaming and independent fiction industries talked themselves into using products and services from the People’s Republic of China, despite the fact that the PRC’s supply chain is corrupt and unreliable at best, uses wink-and-a-nudge slave labor at worst, is run by people who are ideologically opposed to several core principles of Western society, and is about as ecologically friendly as a guy spraying out chlorofluorocarbons from his extra-leaded gasoline-powered mobile throne while directing a Soviet-era hydroelectric project.
And on the gripping hand? This has been a possibility for about a year, a certainty for four months, and a ticking package for weeks. There’s a lot of people out there suddenly blinking on how their books’ profit margins have just taken a huge (and frankly inevitable) hit, and it’s all I can do to not shake them while asking, Why did you not plan for this situation? I publish with Amazon and DriveThruRPG for reasons, and this is one of them. They’re not immune to tariffs, but my per-book costs with them aren’t going to go up by a half next week, either.
I guess I just don’t get why any of this is a surprise.
Moe Lane
*Just accept that I do, please.
#commissionearned
04/02/2025 Snippet, BOOT.
Time to get into this one, apparently.
…
Saratoga National Historical Park, State of New York
(Saratoga National Historical Park, State of New York)
3054 AD
Ghosts are worse than dogs, when it comes to waking you up suddenly. You think a cold nose is bad? Try an entire spectral hand. Worse, the specter it’s attached to will know exactly what it feels like to the living, but probably won’t care.
Still, it worked. I went from fitfully unconscious to ten-ten alert in nothing flat, to find… Sergeant Louis, hovering above me. “Sorry, sir,” he intoned. “You’re needed on the Camp Ground.” I reached for my glasses, but Louis had already materialized enough to hand them to me. Which meant that whatever was going on was serious. Ghosts don’t solidify themselves for no reason.
“This a quick matter?” I asked my adjutant-bodyguard as I stamped my feet in my boots. “Or is it a dead one?”
“It’s a dead matter, sir. There’s a problem with a walk-in. Some of the others, well, they’re not real thrilled he showed up. They don’t want him here, and things are starting to get loud.”
Patreon!
My one exception to April Fools Day shenanigans.
When somebody comes up with a joke product that would actually work. That’s always cool.
Medieval fantasy ratfolk book cancelled. Introducing "Shadowtail City," our new "verminpunk" open sandbox heist game featuring gene-spliced rat-human cybermutants in a post-apocalyptic neon future. Run the Cheese-Grid, hack into NIMH-Corp databases, plant viruses with Fievel.exe,… pic.twitter.com/lk3fmyqUee
— Aeres (@AeresChronicles) April 2, 2025
Best of April Fools: Warhammer Tactical Rock.
— Grummz (@Grummz) April 1, 2025pic.twitter.com/w554JNbxcI
My fortunate art accident.
I was making an animated gif for my Patreon banner (we’re past the proof-of-concept stage, and now I’m just tweaking it), and this popped up at one point of the process. I thought Affinity Photo could handle a gif, and it turns out that it cannot:
…I kind of like it, though?
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