Sorry Folks, no Santicore PDF

Crappy news; I can't keep up my commitment to getting the Secret Santicore PDF document created in time for the holiday season. The combination of moving overseas, obligations to clients and family, and my old man dying on the weekend has unfortunately gotten the best of me and I can't see any realistic way I can get it done. So I have to let it go.

I want to thank Chris, Dallas, Erik, Mike and Trey for all their excellent wranglework so far, you guys have been awesome. Thanks also to the various creatives who were willing to stump up their time for layout, illustration and editing, it would have been champion. Lastly thank you to all the Santicorians for their efforts in creating their gifts. Rest assured that everyone involved will have their creations delivered to their lucky Secret Santicorian. If you want to make any changes to what you've created by all means do so, just let either myself or you wrangler know. 

It sucks, and I wish I could make it happen somehow, but no.

Sorry, Jez.

Art from The Magnificent Joop van Ooms

The Magnificent Joop van Ooms has been out for a little while now (with what I think is THE BEST RPG COVER ART OF THE YEAR by Jason Rainville) and I'm able to show some of the interior illustrations that James Raggi asked me to do. I figure it's also a good time to post a couple of the pieces that didn't make the cut.

Joop van Ooms, Giles de Rais, and Henry VIII.

Amsterdam Killers. 

The next few pieces cover stuff that was mentioned in the book; late in the production it was decided to drop the page count, so these ideas - some close to the mark, some a little off - were left unfinished. 

A statue from Joop van Ooms' collection. The steaming whatever from the eyes was a little too magical, and the space was gobbled up with copy following the page drop so it didn't get reworked.

Joop van Oom's working prototype of Da Vinci's helicopter. James wanted something alot smaller and flimsier; I liked the idea of the characters lifting off from some ravenous crowd of heretic burners.

A rougher sketch of Oom's golden cannons opening fire. With the drop in page count this wasn't needed anymore and wasn't developed further. I did envision the sky full of Da Vinci choppers. Woulda been silly but cool.

Porphyry : title page and more

Two more pieces for Kyrinn S. Eis' upcoming release.
Both big, time consuming illustrations, but totally worth it.

I sense something, something I've not felt since...

Illustration by Paul Shipper

....well, since 1981. Back when I was 7, in the golden era after Empire Strikes Back and before the release of Revenge Return of the Jedi, back when I was in the middle of an epic Star Wars maelstrom, of toys and cards and afternoons full of action figures, of lunchtime re-enactments of the Battle of Hoth, of coloring books and endless drawings and recording cassette tapes of me reading my Empire storybook, stealing bubblegum cards off other kids and losing my whole collection when my parents found out... and through it all, this awesome sense of anticipation, knowing that it was only three years to go till we found out what happened to Han, till we found out what Jabba the Hutt looked like, till we found out if Darth Vader really was who he said he was...

...and I guess it was something similar, if a little less heartfelt, to how things were in 1999, pre-Phantom Menace. The anticipation for the prequels, how awesome they might just be. Lucasfilm sure knows how to make a good trailer; the Menace previews only stoked that fire.

And we were totally burned.

Despite how disappointing Phantom Menace and its sequels were, there is still much to admire about them. The production design, the creatures, the costumes, the choreography of the duels and space battles (take a look at all the duels across the entire series, the Maul v Jinn and Kenobi sequence is second only to Luke's confrontation of Vader in ESB). Technologically the prequels were outstanding. Organically they were awful. You'd think the guy who preached to us in our youth about technology and the dark path would have listened to his own lesson, but it wasn't to be.

And then this Disney thing rocks on out of the blue, and the promise to return to Star Wars on the big screen... and there she is once again. That sense of anticipation.

Knowing how disappointing the prequels were, how can I justify the feeling? Easy. The revisionist touch of Lucas will be gone. His circle of yes men will (hopefully) be gone. Fresh blood will be spilled on clean slates. And while they're at it these are the things I hope they consider when going about creating the new series:

• Don't pander to the fans: dropping the Jabba the Hutt scene into the reissues of A New Hope was bad enough - apart from being poorly done, it destroyed the foreshadowing of Jabba's presence throughout ANH and Empire... but worse, dropping Boba Fett into that scene, and have him totally break the fourth wall with his knowing nod to the camera? Awful. Please don't do it. Every cutaway to some throwaway EU character is a waste of time and pace. Star Wars fans will flock to this no matter what ends up on the big screen; use that opportunity to show them something awesome, different, revolutionary... something that builds on what's gone before, without obsequiously kowtowing to it.

• Drop the creative incest:  I'm not talking the Luke and Leia smooch. I'm talking the inverted nature of the prequels bending over backwards in attempts to link them with the originals. Annie built 3P0? Urgh. Yoda and Chewie were BFFs? Groan. R2 had jet-engines? Why the hell didn't he use them in the originals? Each one of those heavy handed links and retcons destroys the plausibility of the setting and make the Star Wars universe feel smaller and smaller when really it should be gobsmackingly grand. Finding out about Luke's father was enough. We didn't need to know about Boba's family history as well (you'd think the lesson would have been learnt after they showed us Chewie's).

Bascially you have a whole frickin' galaxy of awesome to mess with. Please please please don't take us back to Tattooine again. 

• Give us mystery, not explanations: It's like a magician showing how he does it tricks. It kills the magic. We didn't need to know how the Force worked. And the clumsy way it was handled replaced mystery with confusion and disappointment. No more thanks.

• Less Jedi, more scum and villainy: And no cutsy shit like Ewoks or that double headed commentator from the Pod Race either (shudder). You showed us bodies burned to the bone in the original film. I was 4 when I saw that on the big screen. Seriously, I'm not scarred. We like bad guys.

• Give us complicated multifaceted characters, not cardboard cut outs: It really isn't that hard to do. Trust us, we can take it. We're not stupid and our kids aren't either. Han being badass and shooting Greedo before he even squeezed the trigger makes his evolution from cold hearted killer to good guy more powerful. Annakin in the Clone Wars series is waaaaay more interesting than in the prequels.

• Less whining, more banter.

• Get experienced nobodies to play the leads (especially if you're not going to give them much direction): Otherwise it's just the junkie from Trainspotting hamming it up alongside the girl from Leon and mister furious vengeance from Pulp Fiction. At least with Hayden we had no idea who he was, and, like Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford when we first saw them, they had no cinematic baggage along for the ride.

• Get seasoned hacks to anchor them in support roles: It worked with Sir Alec and Sir Christopher, and let's be honest, you frickin' owe it to Mark Hamill to resurrect his acting career after it was sacrificed on the altar of Skywalker (seen Slipstream? he was good in that). Obviously it's going to be about the Skywalkers anyway, so seeing Luke go all Unforgiven would be cool (and it's ok to pander to the fans on that one point).

• Less is more: There's a reason the actors from the prequels complained about excessive use of greenscreen. They hate it, and it shows on the big screen. But if you're going to insist on it, take the time to get it right (like Peter Jackson did).

• As much as you'd like to blow gazillions on the effects, blow it on the script instead: Seriously, get the best. I'd much rather an awesome story with great dialogue, plot, and characterizations instead of MOOOOOOAAAAAARRRRR CGI. We know Lucasfilm has effects in the bag. Disney and Pixar have some amazing writers on tap. Pretty please, use them.

So yeah, I'll be there in 2015 with my then 7 year old and 5 year old boys, full of anticipation that this will be the start of something golden, and as long as Disney does these things, these new Star Wars films should totally rock. And honestly, what I've thrown up there isn't that hard to do, especially when you have the bank balance to back this up and the audience that Star Wars guarantees.

So please don't stuff up... otherwise you'll end up with things like this...

SECRET SANTICORE 2012: Off and Racing!

All the requests are in, and all have been given to their Secret Santicore, so I get to suck daiquiris and club seals for a few weeks til they start rolling in.

PORPHYRY YOU IS GOING DOWN.

MUTANTOR!!!! : Design ideas

Some design ideas for MUTANTOR!!!....

--- Make everything in the game unstable and under constant threat of mutation. The right combination of random will occasionally bestow characters with the ability to change the world around them. Not just the characters' freaky powerz, not the abominations that roam the land, or the twisting land itself, but the fabric of reality, and of the game. When that opportunity comes, the player chooses how much of their character they're willing to risk and sacrifice in order to change what they want. No idea if this would suck or be awesome.

--- Where possible get the players to do the rolling. I do like this idea. I know it's nothing new, but I'm intrigued by it. Less work for the GM is always good in my book.

--- With the "players make all rolls" thing in mind, instead of making constant calculations for each roll, simply rate each situation to see if the character is at an advantage, a disadvantage, or it could go either way (need catchy terms there). Then take that idea and using the roll 3 dice and pick one mechanic that I've been working on,:

If the character has a clear advantage, roll 3 six sided dice and pick the highest.
If the character has a clear disadvantage, roll 3 six sided dice and pick the lowest.
If the character is roughly matched, roll 3 six sided dice and pick the middle.

It makes it really easy for the GM to make a snap call on the difficulty. Where it may encounter issues in the lack of bredth. A good swordsman against a peasant has the same chance of finishing them off as the greatest duelist in the world. In a rules lite game that... could work. In something more detailed, not so sure.

It'd be pretty easy to add a greater disadvantage: roll 3 six sided dice, and you only score if you roll a double or triple. And maybe if you're a a great advantage you could choose one of the 3 dice rolled and reroll it and hope for a better result.

--- The Arena. Going way out here, but say MUTANTOR!!! enters the world as a box set... it would be cool to have inside say the lid of the box is where all the dicerolling gets done. If it ISN'T player rolls everything, but player vs GM rolls, then the aggressor would roll first and the defender rolls second, with the option of hitting the aggressor's dice if they're scored a good roll. And with say the Greater Advantage idea above, instead of rerolling one of those dice, instead they get to add a fourth dice to their roll and can try and hit either any of their own duds, or try to hit their opponent's dice to alter their result. There's something really combative and bastardly about this idea... could be a lot of fun....

.... unless you were playing this online. There would have to be an alternate option for non-physical rolls (well non-shared physical space).

---- OH GODS. an RPG popup book. that would fuck online piracy....

DARK SUN : Altaruk

The freetown of Altaruk, from my Dark Sun campaign. I checked a fair bit of the source material too before designing it so alot of the names are legit.

The only thing different about my DS campaign was I set it prior to the hoohaa that went down at Tyr, and that I made the lizardlike Dray a playable race. You can't have this killer Brom critter on the cover and then tell the players they can't be one:

Dark Sun. Definitely my favourite official D&D setting.

DARK SUN : Beyond Altaruk

From my Dark Sun campaign a few years back.

SECRET SANTICORE 2012!!!

Secret Santicore 2012 is here! From now til midnight Friday 14th September, Santicore will hear your pleas for succor and do his damnest to deliver! 

Everybody who wants in click on the link below and fill out their request for some specific brand new campaign material--a new race, a location, a one-shot adventure outline, a random table, whatever. The idea is to be as specific as you need to be, but not too greedy (ask for a page or two of material). 

Then I'll mix all the requests up and send them back out to the people who entered. Everybody gets the requests that weekend of the 14th-16th, and then they have til midnight Sunday 30th September to write up something matching the request and email it back to me. Only two weeks?! I hear you say? Last year everyone had two weeks and everyone delivered on time (nearly).I UPDATE: make that MIDNIGHT SUNDAY OCTOBER 7TH. I can be a little flexible, but do try to meet that deadline so that the frothing team of Santicore's Little Helpers can sink their chiseled fangs into it and ensure your gift can be included in the collected PDF that (Santicore willing) will be released just before the holidays kick in. And if you can't wait to share it til then, put it on your blog or wotnot.

Bewdy!

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REQUESTS FOR SECRET SANTICORE HAVE NOW CLOSED, SORRY.

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• Be as specific as you need to be, but don't get greedy. Asking for a d20 table is cool, and a d100 table if you're lucky. but a d1000?--better let your Secret Santicore know that going that extra 900 miles is optional. Asking for a structure is cool, a whole mega-dungeon isn't.
• If you just want art or a map, that's cool too. This year thirteen artists and cartographers have been awesome enough to help out and I'll make sure your request goes to one of them.

• The original requester's name and e-mail address will be on the request unless s/he specifically asks otherwise.

• One request per person. Santicore likes the taste of people who break this rule.

• All human undertakings involving interactions between strangers involve a capacity for misunderstanding and idiocy. Secret Santicore is a gift horse. Do not look it in the mouth. No bad-mouthing people for what they ask for or provide. Serious and simulatory requests may get gonzo answers, gonzo requests may get serious answers, c'est la vie. If you're worried, try to be specific in your request so you get something you can really use.

• If you commit to something - a request, or helping out behind the scenes - then find you can't come through with the goods that's perfectly okay, life happens, as long as you let me know as soon as you know. 

• None of this stuff should get used commercially unless the person who wrote it gets paid.

• While Secret Santicore sprang from the loins of the OSR DIY movement, there's zero reason you can't request something for your sci-fi/supers/horror/whatever-game. You don't have to request D&D-specific stuff. I bet anybody could handle a sci-fi or super request--but just be aware that the pool of people responding to your request will be the pool of people who read Playing D&D with Pornstars and act accordingly.

• This is Open Content.

• I reserve the right to completely fuck this up, but will try very hard not to. If I get swamped with requests, it might be a little late. I'll do my best.

• On the tiny chance that I get absolutely hammered with a bazillion requests I'll have to limit the numbers to some arbitrary figure, based on what I think is possible to deliver within the time frame available. If it's just too big, I'll make sure that your request gets delivered via email, but I might have to limit the numbers on what goes in the PDF. Will reserve judgement on that one.

• Don't post your request in the comments below or email it to me. Use the form. Or Santicore will suck your neurons out your nose.

• Still got questions? Email me on malignicant at gee male dawt calm.

The Artist and the Assassin

More artwork for Porphyry: World of the Burn

Plus a new commission from Trey at Sorcerer's Skull