The Expanding Frontier

Creating Sci-fi RPG Resources

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State of the Frontier – End of July 2018

This month did not go as planned.  I had really hoped to get a little further along than I did.  I managed to get the three Star Frontiers posts from Death at Rosegard out that I had planned for the month but did not get as far along on the FrontierSpace Ghost Ship Osiris project as I had hoped.  I definitely made some progress but it was all behind the scenes and not anything that is in any condition to post here.  I’ve put the Sathar Assault Transport project on hold for now simply because I know that if I get started on that, it will draw in all my time and attention and I really want to get the other two projects done first.

A major part of the delay is the fact that I’m currently teaching a computer science class at the local university and that has taken up more time than I anticipated (and will continue to do so for another two weeks).  It’s the first time I’ve taught this particular class, and while I thought I was well prepared, there have just been a lot of things come up that have taken extra time to deal with and that has eaten up the spare time I had to work on these projects.

Another small part is that I’ve gotten distracted by another project that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now – create a complete index of all the Star Frontiers articles published in the Frontier Explorer and Star Frontiersman fanzines, as well as all the original “official” article published in the likes of Dragon, Imagine, etc back in the 80’s.  Once the initial compilation is done, I’ll be posting it here.  After collecting the articles from the Frontier Explorer and up through issue 7 of the Star Frontiersman (of 25), I have nearly 450 articles.  There will probably be about 600-700 once I’m all done.  Eventually I intend to put all of that into an on-line searchable database.  But that’s a longer term project.

And finally, I’ve picked up a commission to edit an upcoming FrontierSpace module by another author and working on the first part of that has eating a small slice of my time as well.  Despite that I am making progress and we should see some new material appear this coming month.

So what’s coming up?  Well, the very next item on my docket is an alien robot for the FrontierSpace adventure.  Although in thinking about that, I realized that I probably need to flesh out the alien race that built it first.  Once that’s done, I’ll have everything I need to finish one of the 5 sections of the Ghost Ship Osiris adventure and will get that all written up and shared with my Patreon backers.  So the plans for August are:

  • Alien race description
  • Alien robot description
  • Adventure section (first draft – Patreon only)

If for some reason I finish that early, I’ll probably continue working on the FrontierSpace adventure and mapping out the next part of the adventure (literally, I need to draw a map).  That section encompasses the PCs’ interactions with the Osiris mining complex.

So that’s were things stand.  One thing that has really stood out the last few months is that there is much more involved in generating content for others to use than material just for personal use.  I’ve always known this, but the work in getting the Death at Rosegard material ready to go has really driven it home.  I’ve been converting bullet points in my personal notes into prose and formatted text and realized it’s going to take a lot of words to get it all down.  But progress is being made.

That’s it for now.  Remember to always keep exploring and expanding your frontiers!

July 31, 2018 Tom Leave a comment

The Lesser Quickdeath

Here’s another critter that the PCs are going to have a run-in with while investigating at Rosegard.  It’s a variation on a Star Frontiers classic.

Image showing head, neck, and tentacles of the quickdeath
Quickdeath by Don Freeman
Lesser Quickdeath
Type: Medium Carnivore
Number: 2-4
Move: Very Fast (120 m/turn)
IM/RS: 8/75
STA: 100
Attack: 60
Damage: 4d10 bite, claws
Special Attack: Poison dart S10/T3, (RW 60, 10/20/30/40/50), attacks extra creature with maw (10 points damage)
Special Defense: Immune to needler weapons; ½ damage from laser or projectile weapons, 70% chance will remain unseen until within 100m
Native World: Sathar attack monster bred on Pale – all terrains

Description

The lesser quickdeath is a smaller version of the full-size quickdeaths which were originally released on Pale during the Sathar War and encountered on Volturnus.  Where the full-sized quickdeath is about 5m long, the lesser quickdeaths are only about 3m in length.  While individually smaller and less powerful, the lesser quickdeaths hunt in packs of 3-4 creatures instead of the solitary or breeding pair nature of the full-sized creatures.

While not as fast as the full-sized version (max speed is only 72 kph instead of 100 kph) they otherwise resemble their larger ancestors.  Its great legs resemble those of a jaguar.  They maintain the claws on their legs, keeping them razor sharp.  These claws are used to attack prey and for climbing.  Three sets of smaller, tentacle-like limbs which end in suction cups grow from the quickdeath’s sides.  These limbs are used to catch unwary prey and stuff the victims into the quickdeath’s digestive maw.  Any creature in the maw takes 10 points of damage until it frees itself (as if breaking free from a hold).

The quickdeath has a long, flexible neck that ends in a snout and large mouth.  It has four eyes which are mounted on retractable stalks near the top of its head.  The creature’s brain is located at the base of its neck.  When the quickdeath strikes, it retracts its eye stalks making it nearly blind.  With a successful attack, there is a 50% chance it will actually strike something other than its intended target if that object is roughly the same size as the target and within 2 meters of the target’s position.

The quickdeath also has a long, whip-like tail that can fling a poisonous dart once every four hours. It typically uses this dart as it first engages in melee to strike a secondary, more distant target if one exists.

The quickdeath’s hide is covered by a moist, reflective armor provides excellent camouflage making it nearly invisible until it approaches within 100 meters.  Ouickdeaths are constantly on the move, seeking to appease their hearty appetites.

The female can lay hundreds of eggs each year, typically burying them deep in the sand or soil.  Egg caches can contain up to 50 eggs (4d10 + 11). The first young hatchling eats the remaining eggs as its first meal, and then sets out to begin its lifelong search for more food.

Ouickdeaths are not native to Pale. The Sathar used advanced genetic manipulation to create them from a common type of cat found throughout the universe. During the invasion of Pale, they released hundreds of these in the area around Point True to terrorize any survivors outside the city. These lesser quickdeaths have only recently been sighted in the areas north and west of Point True in the last couple of years.  Originally thought to be adolescents, examination of recently killed specimens show them to be a fully grown subspecies.

GM Notes

There are still many full-sized quickdeaths on Pale.  You can use the normal stats for those from page 19 of SF0: Crash on Volturnus for other encounters on the planet.  However, the full-sized versions do not figure into this adventure.

The lesser quickdeaths are a newly bred version of the larger creature.  They have been bred by a former bounty hunter and recently released into the wild.  He originally was simply breeding quickdeaths as a “safer” way to collect the bounties on the creatures.  However, about 10 years ago, he had an encounter with some sathar on Pale and was converted to their cause.  He has been working on this new version of the creature since then and has been releasing them into the wild for only a couple of years.  The lesser quickdeaths are currently only found in the areas around his breeding facility.

Currently there are only about 50 lesser quickdeaths on the planet but their numbers are slowly growing and their range on the planet is increasing.

July 9, 2018 Tom 2 Comments

Planned Posting Schedule

An image of a calendarOkay, now that I have the basic outline for the three projects, it’s time to get started working on them.  I will most likely be jumping back and forth between the three projects, although my intention is to put a bit more effort into the Ghost Ship Osiris project simply because that’s one I’m working on with someone else and not just for the Patreon.  If you have preferences, let me know in the comments.

My plan initially is to spend at least 15-30 minutes each day working on something related to these three projects.  Hopefully that will translate into some sort of significant post each week.  In addition, there may be other small posts here and there commenting on what I’m working on.  The posts will typically be to present maps or materials created but may also include tutorials or descriptions of processes and how I created stuff.

I haven’t yet decided when I’m going to post but most likely the major posts will occur mid-week.  It might be spotty here the first few weeks as I get going but hopefully I’ll build up a rhythm as I get under way.  Any minor posts will occur as I think of them.  From the Patreon, I’m on the hook for at least one major post (>2000 words) a month.  If you took all three of the outline posts together, that would have hit that word count, but those don’t count.  That post will probably come in a couple of weeks, toward the end of the month.

May 14, 2018 Tom Leave a comment

Contacting Me

Iclassic brass rotary dial telephone would love to hear from you!  If you have suggestions, comments, or questions about any of the stuff I post or am working on feel free to reach out to me.  If you do want to reach out, there are quite a number of ways to get a hold of me.

The most obvious is to comment on the post here on the site you want to discuss. I’ll respond here as well and we can have a public discussion on the topic that anyone that comes after can read and learn from.  This works best for discussions specific to the post in question.

If you want or need a non-public discussion, feel free to e-mail me at tom[at]expandingfrontier.com.  I check my e-mail regularly so you should get a fairly timely response although it definitely won’t be immediate.  If you are a Patreon supporter at the Senior Advisor level or higher, you will also have a private e-mail channel to contact me at.  Those e-mails will typically get a faster response, or at least a higher priority in responding to them.

If you are a Patreon supporter you can always contact through Patreon or on the Discord server as well.

Beyond that, I’m active on social media in a variety of places and you can find me in those venues by clicking on the social media icons in the sidebar.  Twitter (I’m @dagorym) is probably best as I typically have my Twitter feed up on a side screen during the day but my phone will ping me when I get direct messages at any of the other locations as well.

So don’t be afraid to contact me.  I want to interact with those reading the blog and supporting me on Patreon.

That said, I’ll probably be off-line from now until Tuesday (May 8, 2018) as my wife and I are headed out of town for our 24th anniversary and for at least part of the time will be places where there is no internet or cell service.  I’m going to try to get a post queued up to post tomorrow but beyond that I’ll be back next week.

May 4, 2018 Tom Leave a comment

Some Example Content

After I posted my announcements about this site on my various social media platforms, someone asked about content samples.  The plan to post some examples was already in the works as part of launching this site so here we go.

Let’s start with this one, the image I’m using as my cover image on the Patreon campaign.

Collage of various pieces created for the Assault Scout Technical manual showing the range of items produced from sketches to deck plans to write-ups to 3D models and printed 3D objects.

This showcases a few of the bits that went into making the Assault Scout Technical Manual (link downloads the PDF) that I released back in Nov 2017.  The deck plans on the right fade from my initial sketches through different iterations to the final labeled deck plan.  Then comes the cross section created to show the relative positions of the decks in the ship.  Next comes a page from the technical manual where that cross section image is featured.  The yellow ship is the full 3D model of the ship based on the deck plans and the final image is the 6″ printed version of that model (1/333 scale) fading from unpainted to painted (with a different color scheme that the digital image).

I had posted most of the images used in this collage on-line in the process of creating them.  Here’s a few links to some of the posts with full versions of the images:

  • The unpainted model  – The image at this link is actually the 4″ one unpainted but there are pictures of all of the various sizes I printed including the 12.6″ (10mm scale) version of the model
  • A Star Frontiers logo I made (that I’m trying to get permission to make a patch out of) that used the painted digital 3D model used to make that cross section image.
  • The painted physical 3D model – This is actually the 7.6″ (6mm scale) version and is sitting here on my desk next to me as I write this.
  • The cross section image – unlabeled in this case.
  • The unlabeled deck plans

In addition to the Assault Scout Technical Manual, I also created a Sathar Destroyer Technical Manual (link is to the PDF) back in 2014 to describe that ship.

Here are a couple of other large maps I made, recreating the big poster maps that came with the original Star Frontiers boxed sets.  Unfortunately I can’t to link to the full files since I was asked by WotC not to and they own the IP

Original Port Loren map digitally recreated
This is recreation of a fan map of the Port Loren starport redone in the same style as the original map.
Space station map from the Knight Hawks box set digitally recreated.

Here’s a “family portrait” of many of the 3D ship models I’ve created (this one predates the assault scout model).  All of these models were designed to be used as tabletop minis.  Several are based on the old Star Frontiers metal miniatures and are replicas of them.

Family portrait of a number of digital models I’ve created

Finally, I’m going to link to you my collection of Two Sheet Locations on DriveThruRPG.  These are small four page write-up (the first 4 are free) that provide a map, location description, and NPC for use in your games.  The are mini versions of the types of things that I’m hoping to produce with this project.  The only reason that project stalled was that I reentered grad school for my Masters of Library Science degree and just didn’t have the time to keep producing them.

I hope that gives you a feel for some of the things I’ve created in the past and what to expect in the future.  In addition, you should check out my posts (published under my dagorym handle) on the Arcane Game Lore blog to see some the “behind the scenes” materials I’ve posted in the past.

May 3, 2018 Tom 1 Comment

Welcome to the Expanding Frontier

Welcome to the Expanding Frontier. This blog and site is dedicated to creating gaming resources focused on science fiction role-playing games.  I’ll be posting maps, locations, ships, vehicles, characters, and more that you can use in your games.  I’ll also be talking about the tools and processes I use to to create the materials.

I’ll primarily be focusing on creating adventures and all the bits and pieces that go along with that.  There will occasionally be other stand-alone or one-off projects as well.

A lot of the work I do is supported by may Patreon campaign.  Some of the posts that appear on the blog will be only available to Patreon supporters but most will be publicly available.  If you want to help support the work I do, just hit the “Become a Patron” button on the right and sign up.

This is very much a work in progress so don’t be surprised to see changes and updates to the site and the things I work on as time goes on.  If you have suggestions or requests, feel free to comment below.

 

May 1, 2018 Tom Leave a comment

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