Moe Lane's Blog, page 870
July 31, 2020
ENnie Awards tonight!
Didn’t know many of the games, but Absinthe in Carcosa (The Yellow King RPG) and The Labyrinth (Delta Green) both definitely deserved their awards. Good times on the Gen Con panels generally, although I forgot to point out to Ken Hite that Emperor Norton would make for a particularly pathos-horrific Tattered King*. Maybe if it comes up again organically in tomorrow’s panel…
*He’s doing a San Francisco supplement for TYKRPG! This made me simultaneously cheer, and groan. Cheer because it’s gonna be cool, and groan because there goes my Hastur Mythos steampunk concept right down the tubes… ach, well. His is gonna be awesome.
SpaceX continues on with space corvette tests.
Oops, did I type out that in the title? I meant ‘space tourist vessel.’ Silly me:
SpaceX just fired the engine of its latest Starship prototype, paving the way for a test flight in the near future.
The company conducted a “static fire” test of Starship SN5 today (July 30), letting its single Raptor engine blaze while the vehicle remained tethered to the ground at SpaceX’s South Texas facilities, near the village of Boca Chica.
Via Glenn Reynolds. I mean, what possible non-civilian use could there be for a vehicle that can support up to a hundred people for at least a week, with an operational range that can stretch all the way to lunar orbit? …Yes, I’m joking. But am I?
Moe Lane
PS: No, I’m fine with Space Force having rocket-frigates to play with. Like, obviously. Come on.
@PelgranePress is doing a GUMSHOE Community Contest.
Details for the Pelgrane Press GUMSHOE Community Contest here. Interestingly, I have something already in mind for both Ashen Stars (gritty reboot of 1960s science fiction series) and Timewatch (time travel). One of them is even already written down! So, no reason why I can’t put them both together for this…
A good full month for FROZEN DREAMS.
Sales have dropped down over the last week, alas – but between Amazon (buy it here), Backerkit pre-orders (take advantage of the preorder store here before I get rid of the specials), and Smashwords (get non-Mobi formats here – and it’s on sale, too!) I’ve hit my target number for the month. I’ve also saturated the market at this point, probably, but starting tomorrow the next two books get prepped* (and, of course, the RPG worldbook will get playtested, and the audiobook is in final review). So, hey, successful month all around.
Moe Lane
*Short story collection and novel. Trying to figure out how many stories to put in the former.
‘Job Along the Borderlands’ short story is up on Patreon!
The Tom Vargas story was rapidly becoming a novella. Job Along the Borderlands is a Fermi Resolution story that will appear in the short story collection, mind you. So: feedback is welcome.
Patreon!July 30, 2020
Preliminary sketches, the FERMI RESOLUTION RPG worldbook cover.
I have to keep reminding myself that it’s OK to show stuff like this off. This is just the preliminary pencil sketch; there are a couple details that need to be tweaked, and obviously the final is going to be in color. But Ben Fleuter here hit all the notes that I wanted hit. I’m really happy with the way it’s coming out.
So, Gen Con Online!
Gen Con Online: I bought some dice, bought a couple of shot glasses – this is still a heck of a lot cheaper than what would have happened if I had actually gone – and have signed up for some sessions. I’ve signed up for Pelgrane’s session tomorrow at 2 PM and a character sheet design seminar at 4 PM, and will be doing the SJG panel at 2 PM Saturday. I’d also do Ken Hite’s and Robin Laws’ panel at 5 PM, except that it’s… oh, it’s only an hour, so it won’t interfere with the game after all. Yeah, I’ve just signed up for that one, too.
How exciting, no? Usually at cons I go to the merchants’ room, play or run a few con games, and drink. Well, I suppose I could drink beer during the sessions, but it’s not really the same, you know what I mean?
Moe Lane
PS: I can squeeze in more sessions. Except for Saturday morning. But suggestions welcome, sure.
07/30/2020 Snippet, TRADE NEGOTIATIONS.
Well, this story is in the can. Gonna go through it again tomorrow, then put it up on Patreon for this month’s short story (the expanded worldbook is this month’s RPG offering, and I feel no need to apologize for that. I tripled its size!). Then we can work on August stuff. I have a plan…
Patreon!At that moment, something warned Jimmy about the ball; he was never sure whether it was magical senses or Adventurer’s instincts, but he suddenly jerked his hands away just before the ball started to glow with a green, crackling light. The two jumped back as the ball fell back onto the table. Which promptly started to smoke, a little.
“More security measures,” Jimmy snarled. “Time to run.”
“Thirty Seconds, milord,” said Leo. That was an Adventurer’s thing, enough to stop Jimmie in his tracks. Leo said, quickly but clearly. “I know why the ball would not accept you; I think I can send the message myself. Is sending it worth it to the War?”
You have to think fast during a Thirty Seconds. “Yes,” said Jimmy, “But it’s high risk.” Dominion counter-intrusion measures were often vicious; they had gambled that the diehards hadn’t put them in place for this mission, and lost. The smart thing now was to run away, a lot.
“Less risk for the crew if I do this,” said Leo. “Trust me, milord.”
“Do it, then,” said Jimmy. “Do I stay?”
“Oh, HELL no,” shouted Leo as he turned to the crystal ball. “Get outside as quickly as you can.”
FROZEN DREAMS audiobook away! …to backers, at least.
If you backed FROZEN DREAMS at the ADVENTURER level or above, you should be getting your email link to the Dropbox link to the audiobook files right about now. It’s a big one — which was a shock to me, and it shouldn’t have been. I mean, it’s a collection of hours’ worth of audio files. Those are going to be big, period.
Next up: sonnets and adventure for the game. And all other the stuff I gotta do. One project is to get the new manuscript ready for alpha reader by September 1st.
