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I now have a new short-ish GURPS PDF up on Warehouse 23:

GURPS Vehicles: Transports of Fantasy

(Yeah, it seems to have been a little while. Been doing other things. Still, I’m quite fond of this one, even at just 32 pages.)

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Hmm, I didn't follow up the previous post. Well, The Wars of Atlantis did appear (and still looks nice). But anyway, the other significant thing is the appearance of Transhuman Space: Bio-Tech 2100, my latest TS product, as a PDF from Warehouse 23 - an extended analysis of the place of biotechnology in the world of 2100, in both historical and game-mechanioal terms. Other stuff is still waiting. Print buying can evidently be a big job these days.

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Just in case anyone was wondering, yes, my writing projects continue.

• I've just turned in the first draft of another GURPS project. As usual, I can't talk titles, and I don't know how long this will take to filter through the several stages of the publication process... And the first draft came in seriously over-long... But anyway, it should be interesting when it eventually becomes a saleable PDF.
• The Discworld RPG is completely out of my hands, and moving forward rather slowly - but I gather it's definitely still moving, honest. I'll be running one of my demo scenarios at Stabcon this weekend, actually.
• The Wars of Atlantis is still scheduled for release on the 20th of this month - but I've now got all my comp copies, and they look very nice indeed.

Small, But Perfectly Formed

The wait is over; The Small Folk is out.

What's it about? Well, here's the blurb:

The Small Folk have been lurking on the margins of human society since before the dawn of history, but we humans don't tend to notice them. They're really good at hiding from us. They're also good at arguing, picking fights, sulking, and splitting up into cliques. But they're tough, clever (on their good days), and armed with an array of startling magical powers.

The Small Folk is a game of wainscot urban fantasy, built round the popular FATE rules engine. Take your pick of seven different cliques, from aggressive goblins to oh-so-superior brownies and technophile gremlins (or the cliqueless, because some people just have to be different), and an array of skills and magical powers, personalise your character with aspects and stunts, and get out there and get underfoot.

Oh, and watch out for cats, rats, hawks, mousetraps, and your neighbours.

 Some History, For Them As Are Interested

Ten years or so ago, I wrote a chapter for Guardians of Order's Dreaming Cities, an urban fantasy sourcebook for their Tri-Stat system. It was quite well reviewed, and some people seemed especially to like my chapter. Then GoO went broke, and the rights to the chapter reverted to me.

Over the next few years, I dabbled with various ideas about what to do with this material, and I eventually plumped for self-publishing. So I looked around for an Open Gaming License rule set to use for this purpose, and plumped for Fate, and specifically the "Free FATE" variant. After I'd plugged the system and rules together, filled and sanded the joints, and applied a layer of varnish (with the aid of some very useful peer review), I had a 116-page book which I could sell as a PDF with a reasonably clear conscience.

Then, well, stuff intervened for a while. But in due course, I commissioned Steve Stiv to do me a cover (and got a little bit of really good interior art out of the deal as well, because Steve is a great guy), and sorted out a business arrangement with Warehouse 23, and now, here it is. Yours for $11.99.

For Those Who Prefer Paper

 Although this is basically an electronic publication, just as an experiment, I had a few copies printed off by Lulu,  and I've now sold some of those on to Leisure Games. So they should be available from there soon, if not already.

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Hmm, I've got quite a lot of stuff coming along nicely at the moment, but not much about which I can be very specific. Maybe worth trailing some teasers, though...

Most of it involves Steve Jackson Games, which I guess won't surprise anyone who knows my work much. I turned in yet another Transhuman Space manuscript a little while ago, and that'll be working its way up the editorial to-do pile at the company right now. Meanwhile, the new edition of the Discworld RPG has finally escaped from the last stages of layout polishing and preparation, and so far as I know the cover design is about done, so it's basically waiting on things like print scheduling. Look for it later in the year (and look for announcements from the company for more direct news of The Process). And on top of that, I've just today signed a contract for another GURPS project, which hopefully will turn into a small string of PDF publications... But I can't say very much about that yet.

Which all comes out sounding a bit too cagey, so I'm pleased to be able to point out that one of my other projects has now been officially mentioned in public, so I can confirm its title: The Wars of Atlantis, from Osprey Books. That link goes to its Amazon page, mind you, as Osprey won't be putting it up on their own Web site just yet. And the cover will probably be different on the published book, I gather. Anyway, this was fun to do; let's just say that five parts Plato, four parts Diodorus Siculus, one part Internet lunacy, and a pinch of Athanasius Kircher's cartography, turned out to make quite a spectacular wartime epic (with an apocalyptic tragedy at  the end, naturally).

And the thing I recently said was Coming Soon is ... still coming soon, honestly. The writing, art, editing, and layout are all done; I just have to sort out the business arrangements for putting the thing on the market. Which hopefully won't need more than a few more days.

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2015 begins well, with my new Transhuman Space product seeing publication: Bioroid Bazaar. Excuse me while I quote from the official blurb:

Transhuman Space: Bioroid Bazaar completes the job started in Transhuman Space: Changing Times of updating relevant game templates from earlier Transhuman Space supplements to GURPS Fourth Edition, this time covering the setting's genetic marvels and half-human monstrosities. It also gathers a couple of Fourth Edition templates from other supplements, and features a few new designs, including the disturbing Leonardo and Bingmayong bioroids and the tragic J7-S53 "upgrade." ...

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Oops, I almost forgot to note - I had a fairly substantial article in last month's Pyramid, entitled "Dungeons of Mars" - the subject matter being crossing dungeon fantasy over with planetary romance.

And on a more substantial note - while one of my short Transhuman Space supplements moves through the production process towards publication, I've just signed a contract for another.

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As something of an inevitable sequel to the immediately preceding post - e23 has now followed up GURPS Castle Falkenstein with my own GURPS Castle Falkenstein: The Ottoman Empire, which by the way is dual-statted for GURPS and the original Castle Falkenstein rules.

 

Like most Falkenstein game material, this book entangles a fair amount of authentic 19th century history with a lot of rather gonzo steampunk high fantasy. The difference is that I was working with the history of the last years of the Ottoman Empire, which got rather gonzo in its own right, by most rational standards, as well as being as depressing as a lot of history when you look closely. Ottoman Turkey really was an archetypal totally screwed-up ancient empire on the slide. That makes it an interesting place to visit, but you really wouldn't want to live there.

 

The book itself is almost interesting in its way, because it follows the original Castle Falkenstein standard presentation style of including a lot of first-person setting fiction. (That's not Steve Jackson Games' house style, but the book was originally written for R.Talsorian. The Designer's Notes explain.) Come to think of it, Ottoman Empire may represent the single largest work of fiction which I've ever had published, interwoven with the games stuff. Which is probably either cool or sad. Very possibly both.

I did have some fun deciding what to put into the "Cinema" section of the bibliography, I must admit.

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I nearly forgot to note ... I've just been away for a week (photos on Flickr and notes here to follow), and I got home shortly after Steve Jackson Games' e23 managed to surprise me very slightly by putting another of my old  books out in PDF form.

GURPS Castle Falkenstein was a little unexpected in this context because it's about a licensed third-party setting, and the company needs to renegotiate things with the IP owner to get those books re-released as PDFs. However, it may be less surprising that the company managed to negotiate an expansion to this license than would be the case with many; unlike, say, Conan (not one of mine, but one which recently made a similar, more surprising GURPS/e23 reappearance), Falkenstein was licensed from another games publisher, who'll have a realistic view of the possibilities, and who won't have many other uses in mind for the IP.

Anyway, it's a book in which I take a little pride, and it's a chunky volume with some nice art. (I should also point out that it was a collaborative effort - the one book I've done with the admirable Jim Cambias.) So I'm happy to see it out there once again.

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The signed contracts for GURPS Alchemical Baroque went in the post yesterday. Yes, this is my chapter from GURPS All-Star Jam 2004, updated for GURPS 4th edition and very slightly expanded for e23 publication. Hopefully, it'll move along fairly quickly now, especially as the first draft is already done.

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For those who are keeping count - I've now delivered final drafts of all four of the new Transhuman Space: Personnel Files manuscripts on which I've been working.

Other stuff is in hand, but not contracted yet...

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For those attempting to keep track of my work - latest news of many of the e23 projects I've got in hand or completed is that they're waiting in the queue for review and (especially, as it seems) production time and effort at Steve Jackson Games. More on some of these (fairly) soon, I hope.

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By way of a follow-up to the previous post, I should say that the first draft of the 10,000 words of fiction was completed and uploaded by the contracted date - a little while ago now, actually. No feedback yet on that.

Which left me free to tackle the editing job - specifically, Cities on the Edge, by the esteemed Anders Sandberg. And despite a slight delay in my receiving the actual contract, that was delivered by the agreed delivery date (i.e. yesterday). So, assuming that we can keep this moving forward, the restarted Transhuman Space line should acquire a nifty book on cities in 2100, complete with Stockholm as a developed example. And now I'm waiting to see how some of my own, slightly less substantial efforts progress.

Hmm. Somewhere on my personal to-do list is a set of notes on Stuff I'd Like To See Proposed For Transhuman Space. Maybe I ought to put that together this week.

Oh, and GURPS Thaumatology can now be said to have paid out its advance. Which is nice.