Woke up this morning...

 ...with two quotes in my head.

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks"

and

"That's no moon..."

 

I suspect that there is a crossover fanfic or fan-vid idea in there somewhere, but not one I think I'm going to write. If anyone else wants to, please feel free, but as usual a credit would be nice.

Another RPG Bundle Offer - Space: 1889 (Ubiquity edition)

This is one that interests me for fairly obvious reasons - one of the driving forces behind Forgotten Futures was my experiences writing for the original Space 1889 RPG. The Ubiquity version uses a different and hopefully better rules set, and has some new material didn't accompany the original game:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Space1889

"Originally published by GDW in 1988, Space: 1889 is a proto-steampunk science fantasy RPG that sends your ether flyer to the swamps of Venus and the ancient canals of Mars for civilized adventures out of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and H. Rider Haggard. GDW and its licensees produced a dozen Space: 1889 RPG supplements (all still available as scanned .PDFs from Heliograph, Inc.), miniatures and computer games, audio dramas (two of them still available from Who North America), and, later, three series of ebook novels from Untreed Reads.

This offer features the new Clockwork Publishing edition of Space: 1889, licensed by designer Frank Chadwick and funded by a successful July 2013 Kickstarter campaign. The Clockwork edition uses the easy and fast-playing Ubiquity rules system created for Hollow Earth Expedition (featured in our December 2015 Ubiquity Bundle).

We provide each ebook complete in .PDF (Portable Document Format) and each audio track as an .MP3 file. Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these books have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their ereaders, tablets, and music players.

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) goes to this offer's designated charity, UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency.

The total retail value of the titles in this offer at launch is US$80. Customers who pay just US$6.95 get both titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $35), including Clockwork Publishing's complete 260-page Space: 1889 rulebook (retail price $25) and composer Ralf Kurtsiefer's complete soundtrack Music of the Ether (retail $10), with 18 DRM-free .MP3 audio tracks of atmospheric music for Space: 1889 game sessions.

Those who pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $16.95 to start, also get our entire Bonus Collection with four more titles (retail value $45):

• Marvels of Mars (retail $10): A two-fold sourcebook spotlighting the lost technologies of the ancients as well as the monsters that fight to survive in the unforgiving red sands.
• Venus (retail $20): A big planetary sourcebook full of jungles, swamps, lizard-men, dinosaurs, and colonial zeppelins.
• Space: 1889 Gamemaster's Screen and NPC Booklet (retail $10): Useful charts and tables, plus a 32-page booklet of nonplayer characters for every situation.
• London Bridge Has Fallen Down (retail $5): A search for a missing scientist's ether flyer leads to the oldest city of Mars, and then deep into the Isidis Desert in search of the Empire's best-kept secret.

At least one more title will be added at some point after the launch. When a title is added after launch, ALL customers who previously purchased the bundle automatically receive the newly added title, REGARDLESS of whether or not they paid more than average. This is their reward for buying early.


I'll be very interested in seeing this - Space 1889 really needed a drastic overhaul, and this sounds like it might be what was needed. I'm certainly going to be downloading stuff. Whether or not I actually need it is another question - if I was to run Space 1889 tomorrow I'd use Forgotten Futures rules, back before Forgotten Futures I ran quite a few sessions with Call of Cthulhu rules. I'd imagine others are using Victoriana rules, GURPS, etc. For the most part I suspect I'll be more interested in the adventures and source material than the rules, but it'll be interesting to see if the rules fill in some of the gaps of the original game. At a first glance everything looks very good, with a lot of illustrations and fun stuff. It looks like you get a lot for your money, but as usual I have to point out that I'm not buying this stuff - if you have to pay for it your mileage may vary.