I was putting dinner together for my players when The Wife asked, “Sandwiches? Again? Aren’t you worried they’re going to get tired of this? Don’t you want some variety in your menu for game night?”
I blinked in confusion. What? Not want sandwiches? No am make sense.
Of course, The Wife is the same person who in order to determine what we should have for dinner will ask me what I had for lunch. As if it is somehow relevant! If I had tacos for lunch, I’m still good for tacos at dinner! Same with Thai food, pizza, or… yes… even sandwiches.
To be on the safe side, I asked the guys about this.
Look at all those bonus dice for the players, and only three complication chips for the GM.
If there’s one thing I suck at in my games, it’s predicting run time.
Back in April, I thought I had one, maybe two sessions left in the first season of my This Empire Earth game. We’ve run two games since then and I still think I’ve got two more sittings before the curtain falls.
I’ve prepared two scenes to wrap up this season of the story and lead into the next. Neither has occurred yet. But we’re so close!
A sure sign that the conversation at a management conference has exceeded its “best by” date is when the topic turns to “What management book are you reading now?’ You know the books I’m talking about, right? Craptastic fare such as Who Moved My Cheese, The One Minute Manager, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Ugh.
I absolutely hate management books. I read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. It was given to me eight years ago and it’s served me well since. I really don’t need another management book. I tend not to waste my time with them.
When asked, “What management book are you reading?” I decided to answer honestly.
I woke this morning to find new artwork in my inbox for my homebrew SciFi setting, This Empire Earth. The latest item features the Ikati, the empires answer to cat-people.
Those who have dealt with an Ikat or two will report that you never know when one of these guys is going to flip out, do something that doesn’t make any sense at all. And sometimes? Sometimes you know when it’s about to get dangerous. Their eyes go black…
Artist Jake Ekiss does all kinds of wonderful stuff. I’m thrilled that he does some of it for me!
The Empusans are a race of insects resembling large Portuguese Praying Mantis’. Very large. Like ten feet large.
The Empusans are an old race, their history ranging back more than a hundred millenia. By contrast, they are incredibly short-lived living for only ten to fifteen years before succumbing to old age.
They have no interest in pursuing longevity science as the humans have, yet they are a race of scientists. Their technology is centuries beyond what other Imperial cultures have developed. Their science, their technology is overwhelming.
More than one historian has observed that it is indeed fortunate that Empusa science has never been interested in tactical applications. It is difficult to imagine how even the mighty Imperial fleet could have withstood a war machine powered by Empusan design.
The Empusae are a peaceful people. They are not pacifists by any stretch or cowards, they simply see no point in warfare. It has been many thousands of years since war was waged on the Empusan homeworld. Read the rest of this entry »
The Bigozians were the first sentient alien race to encounter humanity, even though the Martians were literally next door (oh yes, there are Martians… more on them later). And of course, the humans did not realize what they saw – or thought they saw – was from outerspace.
Bigozians are giant, burly humanoid creatures who generally average 2.5 meters in height. Bigozian’s have long, wirey fur covering much of their body with colors ranging from white to brown, black to blonde. Despite their shaggy coats, Bigozians are equally comfortable in either arctic or temperate settings. The Bigozian strength is fabled throughout the quadrant, but despite their great abilities as warriors the Bigozians have embraced the imperial ideals of peaceful trade.
They are renown throughout the galaxy as entrepreneurs, merchants, and salesmen.
The Bigozian people are an ancient race. Their civilized history extends back more than tweny-five thousand years. The inhabitants of Bigozi (Bee-goh-tseye) developed interstellar travel some 3000 years ago. This technological advancement came prior to their establishment of planetary unity. As they were still organized into large tribal units, their goal in space was to conquer more territory and seize resources enough to hammer their tribal adversaries. They fell to civil war. In their distracted state, they became vulnerable to predation from outside forces. Outside enemies led to unification, but they were not fast enough in pooling their resources to avoid the plunder that followed. Bigozi suffered a century-long ecological and financial dark age. They had only recently returned to space when they encountered humanity.
It has not gone unnoticed by Terran scholars that the Bigozians bear a fierce resemblance to the fabled SASQUATCH and YETI. Bigozian archival records have confirmed that expeditionary forces were mounted in the direction of Earth but were reported missing in action. It is unknown why the Bigozians failed to conquer or colonize Terra at that time. Certainly, the Earth was in no position to defend itself from an alien invasion some 2000+ years ago. Scholars have hypothesized that the Bigozian starships suffered some kind of equipment failure.
The Bigozians have withheld certain historic records documenting centuries of looting Earth treasures and trafficking in Humans both as slaves and cattle. Very few humans outside of Imperial halls of power are aware of this.
While it is not a secret, it is rarely discussed that Bigozians find human flesh to be a delicacy. No civilized Bigozian would ever entertain the notion of serving up a plateful of human, but one can dream.
Aaaah… the crackle of manfat in the pan!
Even more disturbing is the Bigozian fascination with sex with humans.
Relations between Earth and Bigozi are strong and positive. Bigozians are generally well thought of within the Empire
Naming conventions: Bigozian names generally follow one of two forms, either CVCCVCVC or CVCCVC.
Character Creation Notes|Bigozians start with the following abilities:
Start with d8 in Strength, d6 in Spirit, and d6 in Vigor
Always Hungry (minor or major hindrance, treat the same as Habit), the Bigozian has big appetites. Whether the hunger is for food, sex, or wealth, as a race Bigozians struggle continuously with the vastness of their wants.
This is the first of a series of articles concerning my homebrew SF setting originally posted at my personal site, EvilBastard.net, which I’m importing over here to IoM.
At the dawn of the 28th Century, the powerful hand of Imperial Earth stretches far across the stars touching the lives of countless humans and aliens alike. Humanity dominates the known galaxy, assimilating cultures and conquering any that would oppose its rule. It is a broad, expansive empire yet distant frontiers abound.
It is on one of those many frontiers that the first game in my home brew Sci-Fi setting will begin… but I’m getting ahead of myself. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing bits and pieces of what I have developed.
Today?
Today you get a peak at one of the alien races I have written up for This Empire Earth. Please note that the character generation rules were developed utilizing Savage Worlds. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been designing my homebrew SciFi setting for awhile now. I’ve worked on it solo and opened it up to sandbox sessions with my players. It’s turning into quite a robust universe.
The Empire is a big play ground complete with nobility and political intrigue, interstellar warships waging galactic scale battles, and merchants just trying to score a deal. The story I’m telling is a unit of Rangers out on the far frontier sorting out problems, enforcing the law, making a civilization where the wild things are.
Last month, I ran a prologue to the main campaign. I’m still learning Savage Worlds, a game I’ve played several times but have not ever game mastered. So, I thought a game absent a bunch of setting and campaign threads might be helpful to both me and the players. Read the rest of this entry »
After we wrapped up our sandbox brainstorming session on our race of cat people Saturday night, I led my players in the first portion of character generation. Over the last several years, I have made it a habit to lead character generation through email. It takes such a long time to make characters that its seems a better use of our time to do all that outside of game night so we can get right to playing. I’ve been mindful though that we’re starting a campaign and it would be nice to have the characters have some associated, common background before game play actually starts.
This past weekend, me and the boys got together for our last sandbox brainstorming session prior to starting the game we’ve been working on since last fall. We’re using the Savage Worlds system for our homebrew science fiction setting, This Empire Earth.
Saturday night, we gathered to brainstorm another character race and to begin character generation (which will be featured on tomorrow’s blog).
When I first came up with the idea for the TEE setting, I knew I wanted to include a race of cat people. Every group – including ours – has someone that wants to play a big cat-guy and I wanted to meet that need. Initially, I was pretty much set on ripping off Niven’s Kzinti. He’s done all the hard work and who doesn’t love the Kzin? Read the rest of this entry »
I was putting dinner together for my players when The Wife asked, “Sandwiches? Again? Aren’t you worried they’re going to get tired of this? Don’t you want some variety in your menu for game night?”
A sure sign that the conversation at a management conference has exceeded its “best by” date is when the topic turns to “What management book are you reading now?’ You know the books I’m talking about, right? Craptastic fare such as 
Just as excited as I can be about this.
At the dawn of the 28th Century, the powerful hand of Imperial Earth stretches far across the stars touching the lives of countless humans and aliens alike. Humanity dominates the known galaxy, assimilating cultures and conquering any that would oppose its rule. It is a broad, expansive empire yet distant frontiers abound.
After we wrapped up our 
This past weekend, me and the boys got together for our last sandbox brainstorming session prior to starting the game we’ve been working on since last fall. We’re using the