Let's get cooking!

Okay, so I lied.

I didn't get stuff up by Saturday. That pesky "life" thingy got in the way!

But, I have a quickie preview for you today. I am working on a product line called "The Campaign Cookbook". It is essentially a GM's tool for figuring out all sorts of things for your game. Each entry will be 1, 5, or 10 pages, and each one will focus on a simple item. Perhaps you need an NPC, or a villain to plot your players' doom. Perhaps you need a map of a castle, or an apartment building, or a Quickie Mart. Perhaps an explanation of orbital mechanics might help you out of a sticky spot, or you need to know how a brewery works. Or maybe you just need lists of names of various ethnicity.


The Campaign Cookbook will have all of these. And they will all be system free.

That's right. System free. No rules. Only ideas. These will be tools to help get a campaign or a game moving. It will cross genres; the adversaries might be dragons, or Deputy Marshals, or drug kingpins, gangsters, gang-bangers. sorcerers, televangelists, evil space pirates, angry gods, or nearly anything else!

Organizations from knightly orders to the Starfleet of Regulus will be covered.

There will be items for horror games, sci-fi, modern, fantasy, sword and sorcery,campaign settings, lined adventures, the list goes on and on.

Again, the actual game mechanics will still need to be supplied by your GM, but at least he might have a better idea of what to work on, right?


So, the preview... remember that? It's for one of the Entrees for the Cookbook. It's a setting called "Aeronauts of Jovian Skies". Doesn't that sound cool?

Anyway, it's a Victorian-era Steampunk-ish setting that takes place on another planet. What I present to you here is a short fiction piece that might give you an idea of what to expect! Hope you enjoy!

Aeronauts of Jovian Skies [excerpt]

The sails were full-bellied, the wind strong and clean. The Archimedes sailed on, fast as lightning, smooth as silk..

But not as fast nor as smooth as her pursuer.

“Captain!” came the bosun's voice from the crow's nest. “She's still gaining! Five hundred yards aft and a bit to port. She's losing altitude too, sir! Now only twenty yards above!”

Damn! Captain Eustace Delacroix did some rapid fire thinking. “Get down here!” he bellowed up to his bosun. As the older man scurried down the ladders, rat-lines, and shroud lines, Delacroix checked his handlebar mustache to make sure nothing was out of place, adjusted his flight helmet and goggles, and threw his white silk scarf over his shoulder. The mush shorter, and much less dashing, bosun Mackey came to a huffing stop before his debonaire captain.

“Orders, sir?” Mackey gasped, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. Delacroix spoke quickly and quietly

“I want a couple of the lads to sling below and attach the sprayers on the water valves. While they are doing that, run up the oil temperature and give the old gas bag a good bit of heat. I want the forward sails opened another four notches, but have the men ready to furl all sails on my command.” Mackey nodded, used to the rapid fire manner Delacroix  issued orders in a crisis. “You go below, but stay near the horn. When I give the word, I want you to dump half the ballast. Don't give me that look! I know that's money down the clouds, but that can't be helped! We can't spend money if we're dead or our cargo's stolen, right?” Mackey nodded.

“That's a good chap! When you get below decks, inform the gunnery crews to stand by the arc-cannon, as well as the scatter-guns! Make sure that everything is ready on my command! Go,” he said, patting Mackey hard on the shoulder. “You've got three minutes! Oh, and for goodness sake, make sure the condensers are running on full before we hit the clouds, man! We'll need to replenish the ballast sooner rather than later.”

“Aye, sir!” And with that, Mackey saluted, turned and started yelling out the captain's orders.

If everything went as Delacroix planned it, they might just get out of this with their ship, cargo, and skins intact.

The captain looked aft again, keeping an eye on the trailing ship. It was the Blackhawk again. The Black Scourge of the Skies she was called around here. Her captain, the beautiful but highly dangerous Red Kat, was renowned for her daring raids and attacks throughout more than four hundred thousand cubic leagues. Delacroix had no wish to be her latest conquest... although she had been his.

Perhaps she was still angry with him for leaving her in that delicate situation, what with her clothes missing and all...

Delacroix checked his pocket watch, and once again checked the Hawk's course and position. Right on queue, the captain could feel the vibrations in the deck as the boiler below started simmering a bit more harshly. The ship lurched forward and upward as the for'sails were opened wider and the balloon above their heads began to lift them higher.

Looking behind, he saw the Blackhawk's crew scrambling to respond to his sudden maneuver. With a laugh, he lifted the horn tube mounted next to the steering column, put it to his lips and blew hard. He could almost hear the shrill tweet from below as the whistle sounded. Holding the tube to his ear, Delacroix heard Mackey call back up to him.

“Now, Mackey! Drop the ballast!”

A sudden spray of water jetted from the bottom of the airship's hull as the precious water ballast was vented. The Archimedes lurched quickly into the sky, putting more distance between them and the pirates. The cloud layer above was close; it was storm season here on Jupiter and the clouds hung low.

The sudden boom of a cannon report broke the air as Red Kat vented a bit of her frustration via gunpowder. The shot fell several yards short and the ball sailed far below Archimedes' keel. That woman!

It didn't matter though, not now. In a flash the ship was surrounded by a think envelope of water vapor cloud. With a quick bellow, Delacroix gave his men their orders. All the sails were quick- furled or dropped, ready to be raised as soon as the men were able. Pushing and pulling on the throttle, the captain told his engine crew to throw the engines into a full reverse.

The Archimedes came to a rapid halt, both in altitude and forward momentum. The captain quickly silenced the engines, and hushed his crew. He tweeted the horn tube twice to signal for the gunnery deck, his gunner's mate swiftly answering the call. The whole of the ship went silent, every eye peering through the enshrouding mist trying to catch a glimpse of their erstwhile pursuer.

Delacroix's eye was the sharpest today, as he caught a glimpse of the Blackhawk rising slowly directly abeam, right in perfect broadside position. With a very quiet word into the horn tube, he gave the order to fire.

Lightning shot forth from the arc-cannon, and round after round of bullets were let loose in a fusillade of shot from the Gatling guns in their fire ports. Canister shot from the eight-pound guns tore holes in the Blackhawk's sails and gasbag, while men on deck fell to the repeaters. Several large chunks of hull were blasted away, to fall into the deep sky ablaze as the aelictrical guns poured raw lighting into her.

The Blackhawk quickly lost altitude, and Delacroix released some of his heated gas to do the same. He was skillful enough to keep Red Kat's ship in view for some time. He did not order a second volley.

Pulling out his spy-glass, Delacroix ascertained that while damaged, the Blackhawk was not crippled and doomed to plummet into the fiery depths of Jupiter's lower atmosphere. He espied the Red Kat herself standing on the command deck issuing orders to her crew and personally tending to the wounded. Crew men were already busy with patchkits for the punctured balloons, and the fires were already extinguished.

Pulling aelictrical loud-hailer from its cabinet, he called to his recent lover.

“Better luck next time, my dear! Do be careful, won't you? I do hear that the air-whales around here don't take too kindly to the smell of burning wood!” Kat stood and stared at Delacroix for a moment before making the most atrocious rude gesture and yelling up at him. The captain laughed and issued his own orders to make way.

Mackey, who was on deck once the action was over and had heard his captain's words spoke up.

“Are there really air-whales around here, cap'n?” He looked very nervous.

“No, Mackey, there aren't. At least... I don't think so. Take us home, my lad. I'm off to my quarters for a quick wash. Tell Singh to have supper ready in three quarter's of an hour, would you?” The captain turned and headed below to his sumptuous cabin. He smiled as he went over the battle in his mind. The plan had worked. By rising so quickly and then halting forward momentum, he had fooled Kat into coming too far forward. The sprayers made it look like more ballast had been dropped, and so she thought he had been at a higher altitude and so his own gun crews had been able to hit her ship hard.

He knew his own crew wondered why he hadn't blown her from the sky or at least raided her vessel. It simply wouldn't have been the gentlemanly thing to do. Besides, even if Kat was not a gentlewoman, she was certainly fun to have around. And even if she threw horrible curses and foul language at him after the battle, she was still smiling that beautiful smile he so adored while she did it.....

Jupiter does force the most strange combinations of people. That it did.