For Your Perusal – A Sample From Space Pirate Alice Black, Blood Tribute

I’ve done all I can for my first solo-adventure book, Space Pirate Alice Black, Blood Tribute. It’s gone through the editor, the Amazing Mel, and currently the Incomparable Xenotropos is finishing up the Art and Layout. I’d be lost without these ladies.

As it stands I am proud to present a sample of my book. This is just a snippet of what I will eventually sell on Lu Lu, Indi Press or wherever.

Note: This sample is not indicative of the final layout. Think of it as a slice of a rough draft. The final book will be much longer and more polished.

Note II: I’d consider this book mature due to violence and alcohol use. However, there’s nothing pornographic in it. PG 13 I suppose.

As for what’s involved, Blood Tribute is a story where you play a feline space pirate who chooses to steal a particular treasure, how you go about it will determine the fate of trillions. The adventure’s meant to be a dark, high-action, Space Opera where your choices will lead to failure or one of four victories. It’s not merely a ‘go to this page’ sort of solo-adventure, you also use dice for extra zing. Specifically you use Evil Hat’s  open game license Fate system. Go visit them, look at their Kick Starters, invest and buy their stuff, they’re awesome.

If you have feedback please comment, I’d love to hear from you.

Space Pirate Alice Black, Journey 1: Blood Tribute

While waiting on development for Knights of the Hidden Sun I found there was very little on my plate. For two years I ‘d been writing my game and now I had nothing to do. On a lark I looked up the old Fighting Fantasy Novels I used to read as a kid and discovered they are still being produced and going strong, check it out here.

Furthermore, Fighting Fantasy (aka Wizard Books) was doing something cool with its licence. They had kindly provided templates for fans to make their own Fighting Fantasy  fan books, they were even holding contests to see who could write the best FF fan book based on various themes.

I had to try and so wrote The Blackthorne Ogre  for their Valentine’s Day contest. I didn’t win but I had hella fun participating.

Being the vain sort I regularly Google myself and the things I write. As such I was lucky enough to stumble upon this, a glowing review, by Stelio on RPG Geek. This made me feel all kinds of awesome. So much so that I wanted to write another Book.

This time the book’s my own, a non-Fighting Fantasy space opera featuring my favorite open source rules set.

I plan to publish it very soon.

What It’s About

In Blood Tribute you play the part of space pirate captain who, out of desperation,  chooses a prize whose theft will result in the death of trillions. Over the course of the the game you decide how best to find, secure and flee with your plunder. Along the way you can choose to be dastardly or redeem yourself.

The story takes place in a galaxy where hominid Wolves rule as warrior lords over other Canines, Trolls and Hares. Your character is a feline captain who leads a crew of freed slaves to fight against the tyranny of the Wolf Houses.

Okay I admit, this was inspired from watching hours of  Talespin as a kid and I’m a rather shameless fan of Disney’s Treasure Planet. This book though has absolutely nothing to do with either of these properties.

While the setting can be seen as cartoonish the story’s rather dark. Your character is a villain as are the Wolves you prey upon. I found the real trick to writing this to be making the main character act like a plausible pirate while at the same time leaving room for plausible heroics. I believe  I’ve done an excellent job but ultimately it’ll be up to the reader to decide.

I’d rate this a mature for violence and alcohol; there is no pornography involved.

To add randomness  and gaming goodness I’m using a very simple version of Evil Hat’s Fate System. For those familiar expect the Skill Ladder and Aspects to feature prominently.

As for the book itself its 50 Sections/88 written pages. There are four different endings aside from the ones involved in losing a critical test or fight. I just finished the book’s second draft and am now sending it to an editor. Once that’s done it’ll be sent out for art and layout. After that I’ll look into where to publish it.

I hope this wets your appetite and thanks for checking in.

Back On The Horse

It’s been over a year since I last posted.

Why?

Laziness.

Despite this I have updates on my recent work:

Knights of the Hidden Sun

It’s been in development for a looong time. The reason for this is Malcolm’s other commitments, White Wolf work. That being said Malcolm was kind enough to invest in Geoff Garbowski (of Exalted Fame, yay ) to finish the rest. This has gone incredibly well. Very, very soon KoTHS will be developed. After this is editing, and type setting which should go muuuch quicker. I’m looking forward to getting this out, holding a published book I authored will be awesome.

If you don’t hear from me after Hidden Sun’s published it will be because I exploded with joy.

Space Pirate Alice Black Journey 1

I wrote a Fighting Fantasy Amature adventure for Wizard Book’s Valintine’s Day contest. You can find it here. I didn’t win. However, I did get this amazing review. It blew me away, so much so that I’ve decided to write my own for self publication. Enter Space Pirate Alice Black Journey 1. It’s a 50 section Book where you play a feline space pirate who takes a villainous job in order to keep your ship, freedom and crew. So far I’m at 48 pages. I’m thinking it’ll be over 60 by the time I’m done. I plan to release it in parts for free and sell the compilation on LuLu. It’ll be a solo adventure book using FATE rules.

Fun, no?

I the meantime I plan to keep blogging.

Expect updates, reviews, alignment game stuff and other goodness.

Chall