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.
