MOTHERSHIP CLASS: Goblin!
Plus: Recent Releases and More Cool Stuff!
This month’s original article was a weird departure for me, and honestly, I think it needs more time in the oven if it’s ever to see the light of day. With that in mind, this month is articleless but has a fully-intact Freebie (a new Mothership 1e character class teasing my upcoming adventure zine GOBLIN PLANET), info on my recent releases, and a More Cool Stuff section! - Christian
FREEBIE: New Mothership Class!
I have been slowly continuing work on my upcoming Mothership adventure zine GOBLIN PLANET. This much expanded sequel to THERE IS A GOBLIN ON THE LOOSE IN ICARUS STATION is an open-world, player-driven adventure in the style of Dead Planet and Desert Moon of Karth.
While I don’t have an ETA just yet on when you can expect to pick it up, I do have this teaser player class (a version of which will be included in the final adventure)! Play as a goblin, born of another dimension, aiding a human (and android) crew! Create chaos!
The Trauma Response for this class is a fun one I think, as it incentivizes you to keep your Stress levels high in order to keep yourself alive, only spreading further chaos and panic to the rest of your party, likely making the overall situation much much worse (but much more fun/memorable as well). Of course, everything here is subject to further playtesting and is likely to change before the final version appears in GOBLIN PLANET. In the meantime, enjoy!
Note: Part 2 of last month’s Freebie, Five Chambers in the Hill Beyond the Vale, will be coming in the next Missive!
NOW AVAILABLE: FIREDROP
FIREDROP is now in stock and ready to order! In FIREDROP, you play as a Soldier dropped from low orbit to fight hordes of superflea’s infesting the planet. Each mission is unique, with its own objectives, Siphonapterian nests, and extraction point. Your job is to complete the objective and, if you can, extract with your life intact. To aid you in battle, you will have a number of clone reinforcements available upon your death as well as high impact firepower like sentries, orbital bombardments, and more.
The final print version of this hex n’ dice wargame brings with it the v1.1 update that includes full professional editing by Jarrett Crader, Phases of Play to make it even easier to track turns at the table, hyperlinks/bookmarks in the digital versions, and more. Plus, the soft touch laminated covers make this one a really nice book to hold in your hands.
NEW UPDATE: Tacticians of Ahm
Monthly Update #2 for Tacticians of Ahm, my TTRPG of streamlined tactical combat in a digital fantasy world, is live! The single biggest addition is the 26-page, early access version of the setting book, The Ahmian Almanac, featuring a new class, new factions, new locales, and more!
You can get the game in its current early access state (including the core rulebook, Early Graduation starter adventure, and The Ahmian Almanac setting book) for just $20 USD and get all future updates including final art and layout for no additional cost!
The Ahmian Almanac is a setting book focused on adding as much new stuff for players and GMs to use at the table while exploring more of Ahm. There's lore and setting, but also loads and loads of stuff to fight, find, buy, learn, and more! It's a sourcebook with a setting!
In honor of the Mothership 1e box sets getting out to folks, all MeatCastle GameWare titles are now 20% off over on my shop for the rest of the month! Goblin on Icarus Station, The Bloodfields at Blackstar Station, Ultimate Badass, and more!
Check out the entire MCGW Mothership catalog for 20% off HERE!
MORE COOL STUFF
Prepare for Write-Off, my stretch-goal adventure for You’re in Space and Everything’s Fucked! is now available as part of Found Transmissions, the game’s pay-what-you-want expansion zine! Print copies are still in the works, but you can grab a digital copy now to check out this corporate horror misadventure putting you in the shoes of deep space theme park service workers when chaos breaks out at the park. Plus, it’s got stunning art and layout from the great folks at Dinoberry Press.
Aaron King is running a pre-order campaign for new print editions of all of their various “bootlegs” (games directly inspired by another game or property). This includes the incredible Speedrune (Runequest), After the Bomb (Fallout), and Spice World (Dune)! Aaron is one of my favorite game creators in the indie space and any and all of these games would be welcome at my table any day.
The Panic Table recently continued their Mission Control series of Mothership third-party creator interviews with watt of Cloud Empress fame! I genuinely think watt is one of the most interesting and conscious creators in the TTRPG space right now (and did even before my work on Cloud Empress) so it’s a worthwhile watch. Plus, the production values over at TPT continues to be absolutely killer.
Liminal Horror recently launched its own digital resource library (a huge archive of all the first and third-party releases for the system)! It’s been awesome to see just how much great stuff is already out there for LH, and I hope more and more systems keep getting these kind of sites in the future.
I recently ran the opening hours of Tacticians of Ahm’s starter adventure Early Graduation over on The Weekly Scroll. It was a really fun, tight session with great characters that I’m excited to see more of in the future as we, hopefully, continue the search for Dekkin Von Lopesbane!
If you don’t already have Space Penguin Ink on your radar, I encourage you to check them out (and keep doing so regularly since they have a new release or two at least once a month). Recently, they’ve released Resonant, a Mothership 1e adventure from Amanda P and Tony Tran, as well as At the Mutants of Madness (for MCC) by Forrest Aguirre, Bradley McDevitt, Brandon Yu, Jarrett Crader, and Stella Condrey.
Kate and I drove about two and a half hours north of St. John’s a few weeks ago to enter the path of totality for the recent solar eclipse, and it was incredible. Despite thick cloud cover, cold temperatures, and biting wind, we were able to catch a break in the clouds at the exact moment totality occurred, and I was able to get a few worthwhile shots (like the one above). Worth it all for those few minutes of astronomical brilliance. Plus, this photo was even shown on the local news!
In 2017, we traveled to Kentucky to the point of longest totality and that was also a breathtaking experience. I took some photos back then too, including one that I used as the cover photo of Tunnels in White, my Liminal Horror adventure.
The next mainline Liminal Horror release, The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow, is about to hit Backerkit in around a month and from what I’ve seen so far, it looks great! Loosely inspired by the classic DnD adventure N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Hungry Hollow looks to be really taking a whole new spin on a great core premise, and it has an absolutely awesome team working on it.
Robotic Topologist recently released a minimalist but very capable solar system generator, perfect for your sci-fi home game or even your own publications. I imagine I’ll make use of it myself in the future.
I got a fun little play report for another chaotic session of someone bringing THERE IS A GOBLIN ON THE LOOSE IN ICARUS STATION to their table. I’ve read dozens of play reports for this adventure at this point and every single time, they put a huge grin on my face.
You can find the adventure, in all its chaotic horror comedy glore, HERE!
My Play-By-Blog of Luke Gearing’s The Isle recently concluded over on Tumblr after 22 weekly entries! I had a lot of fun bringing this module to life in this way and experimenting with a different form of play than I had experienced before. Using the community votes to guide the character was really interested as it meant even I did not know how it was going to turn out.
Thank you so much for reading all this way and for your continued support. - Christian
Super excited to put more goblins into my MoSh campaign, I'll let you know how it goes!