Temporary Haitus

Greetings - just an update. Happy New year.

Tis I, Emperor OffensiVeness MaXXXImVs!

We are working on FarTomorrows including a website but both have a quick side so for the next month there will be few updates.

Reason -  I'm working on a neat Grindhouse game for the Red Room people - possible future publishers of Far Tomorrows + Revealed Vulgaria!

Reason 2 - Maxx Feral is trying to get some of his awesome pulp stories he's shared with me out for general publication.  

Also a story/toy project.

So we are stretched a bit thin for a while - need to hammer in the nails that are ready to be hit in.  This is an FYI to organize things.  Sorry for the delay here.  We are still very committed to this project and will be back to start finishing it for publication.

In the meantime please feel free to comment - it seems I've been banned from Twitter for no good reason, no explanation  - so I have other sites where I'm not worried some "Pronoun Person" will look over my shoulder - for now my "BloggVs MaXXXimVs." - warning VERY NSFW even compared to here! 

BTW - Master of the obvious - we'll outright ban heclkers/trolls/harassers - but we long for the "Wild West Internet" days.  There's a difference between people arguing, debating, having wildly different opinions on stuff but still might be friends and today's tribalism around fake news cults of parodies of ideologies. 

Bridges of Time - Immortals

 

"On a long enough time-scale the survivability rate of everyone drops to essentially zero..."

---quote from Archean days, "Information" age, re-translated at least ten or twenty times so some exact meaning might be lost.

 However, essentially does not mean Zero.

There are exceptions to every rule and over enough time and frequency an unlikely event occurs more than a few times.

Some fictional and one perhaps non-fictional examples:

citing fair use and parody

In this age far into the future there are more than a few "Immortals" - beings that simply do not die on a regular timescale.  They are all unique with rich tapestries of stories on why and how they lasted beyond their natural lifespan and then the eons that followed.  A few simply won a 'genetic lottery' and whatever trigger in Man's pattern of life that causes eventual death is off.  These are rarer amongst immortals for every thousand years it is near certainty of some fatal event even in civilizations and worlds of very low war and personal danger.  Others are more special but more believable - they were blessed or cursed by what Gods there be to not die and when killed they regenerate or reappear by some ancient divine Magick.  Some have bodies enhanced by man's magick and occasional bouts of enhanced knowledge of natural law called "Technology" and they have tiny clockwork inside of them or are some kind of tiny clockwork in their entire body and will rebuild any wound and not age in appearance.  Others are constructs of light, sound, energy, altered tissue that pretends to be a form of man or like man or woman.

Does this mean they are lucky?

A society in man's pre-dawn days had a curse - "May you live forever" - they were supposedly the best warriors in Man's history and while this certainly has been surpassed in the near thousand-thousand years hence of the Far-Tomorrows, the legend of their valor and sayings do remain.  They had no 'Valhalla' to reward warriors, their religion had a gray and depressing afterlife and the best warriors got merely a gravestone to remember they ever lived if they died in battle.  Yet even far back and living such a harsh life they knew that Immortality was not a boon but could be a curse.  Thus this phrase would only be uttered to their worst traitors or the most wretched failures and cowardly amongst them.

New Logo for Orange Sun / Far Tomorrows

 Just a quickie here - new logo for the RPG.

And Artwork!

-Maxx Feral

Assembly - of TTRPG and what should be done

 by Maxx Feral.

Going to be a side rant and touch into other areas.  Any "TL/DR" people leave now.

This is a placeholder.  For a little while, myself, OMaXXXimVs and others are going to be working out a new mechanics for our games - a very simplified base system that you can then expand around for a TTRPG.  This is due to Hasbro/WOTC shooting itself in the foot with OGL 1.1 and we do NOT care if they backpedal there is no way any sane person could ever trust them again.  We'll still update lore and new chapters as we flesh this out so keep checking.  But this is kind of a stepping point, us making a new set of rules.

So I want to talk about Hasbro, WOTC and really the "Woke" gaming industry this project is a reaction against...

One Man's Opinion, they WANT to FAIL.

This is, as OMaxxx calls it "Omega Stage Capitalism".  

We've both known what it is like to be managers of stores that are set to derail and close by some A-hole tyrant "Middle Manager" that doesn't care if you stand around all day and nothing happens after he empties the shelves for a year but will fly from vacation in Hawaii to harass and belittle a good manager who somehow manages to make a profit.  The recession these types caused in 2008 triggered an "Occupy" movement that wasn't fake like the "Tea Party" one.  For a brief moment they got real scared that they'd face regulation, taxes and even the top guys might wear handcuffs.  For a brief moment the protests were not being expertly ignored by the news and people were starting to get active and VOTE also for real starting to run for state and local offices, choking out the political and religious or ideological post-turtles that run and ruin so many small townships.

Then, at the cost of more debt, the economy got a bit better.  And they co-opted the "Left" with "Cancel Culture".  All that Occupy stuff was forgotten.

I get it, I was with most people - just gave up on ideals of the past.  We'd been hoping "Fight Club" style for some "Project Mayhem" but it didn't happen.  The old guard of the Left was too strong and kept anyone from stepping to violence even when it was proven the techniques of the 60s, 70s into the 80s had been expertly matched.  The media could no longer be used as a weapon since it didn't exist.  It was another form of entertainment and great care was made to prevent anything from getting on 'live tv' even when it was advertised as such.  The "Elected officials" now were just professional politicians, they were employees of big money interests and cared nothing the damage they were doing.  Both "Sides".  FAKE sides...  The rich elite also were a purer breed, there was no connection to their workers or society.  One said people were fools to fight and die for America for instance.  The Fake politics have people so politized that we want to cling to cultish "Sides" that are both constructed and designed to cancel each other out and not do anything positive.

So we saw society on a gradual slide with nothing we could do and retreated into our hobbies and dreams. That's why the 00s was a second boom for Comic Books, video games and especially TTRPGs and indie projects.  People who played early TTRPGs dived right back into the hobby.  You can't afford that 2nd vacation home, luxury car or boat?  A few hundred $ you have a PILE of excellent books, old and new and can play with friends, all of you no longer caring you are nowhere near as rich or famous as you all thought you'd be!    We did what we loved as kids now as adults.  And the OSR helped everyone enjoy D&D even if technically controlled by a big company.  And the latter had 3.5ed that was PG level not G rated.

Come 2012-2014 the rot was injected.

It seems the vultures that bought companies to RUIN them that gave mortgages to unemployed ex-cons for hastily constructed new homes on what used to be farmland and forest had jumped into hobbies and comic books and games to hide.  New area, same agenda - pump it up a while then set it to slide.  Buy high, sell LOW.  Bet against in the stock market in a process called "Short-Selling" then set the team to ruin...  How in the world is this not criminal fraud?  But we used to rely on the media to alert us these things, now they are just entertainment.  If we had such in the 80s the "S&L scandal" would have been ignored and the people who stole treated as saints and the victims degraded and vilified.

It was just another "Buy high, sell low" and collect bailouts, stock market negative bets, etc. till the well is dry, then run elsewhere.  The elites behind all this had a good wallow here.  The hobbies and franchises are a tiny pond compared to retails, malls, moving jobs overseas after looting pension funds to buy Van Gogh paintings - but they are far less regulated.  You don't need to EAT your box of Dungeons and Dragons basic set.  Marvel comics is not a major employer.  Ghostbusters in any vile trashy re-make is not connected to the wealth of a nation.

Still they had to hide that they were destroying people's dear hobbies. A business that employs people, provides a generic service is on a top down outhouse style management.  Get enough stock to threaten the bosses with shutting it down overnight they let you ruin many people's lives work, especially if given a golden parachute.  With RPGs, comics, etc. they needed to deal with the deep connection the franchises had to their fans.  Thus they had to sour the pot.  That is why they came up with all the lies and used the lies to justify hiring "Social Justice Warriors" who cared more their garbage politics than anything else.

What a perfect way to do anything other than "Bird in Hand worth two in bush..." and "If it ain't broken, don't FIX it!"  aka "Don't like my politics?  Don't buy my book.  Problem solved.  From Kelly Sue DeConnick who has an impressive record of being hired to lord it over 20 year industry veterans to run 100% one project that fails after another after another.  Now if it was a self published book - "Our bodies hate the Phallocracy" that is stocked in ONE 'anarchist' coffeshop in Portland, OR because she's the best customer and part-time employee...?  But how in the world did she get away with such a sentiment working for a comics company just under the big 2?  Try that line at a fast food joint they'll throw you out the window.  There's a term for it; Defenestration.  Why was she not fired very quickly the first statement, the first failure and sent to beg for Starbucks jobs that her "Degree" (Gender Studies) if she's completed it barely qualified her for?

The politics is fake, just the slightly most efficient batch of Useful Idiots.  But for a few social factors it might have been Vox Day giving a sneer and saying "Don't like my politics..." as the Punisher becomes #1 and 10x as violent, Captain America is his Bucky or is gone...  Well Vox would alienate a lot of readers but get new ones and keep them.  The "Woke" do NOT like comic books and are a tiny percentage of the extreme radical fashionably radical "Left" on some college campuses.  They are few and poor.

I'll say "One Man's Opinion" for a C.M.A. legal protection, but I say it argues strongly that whoever is behind all this WANT the companies to FAIL.  Comics, movies, games, TTRPGs - the big players in the industry.  It has been working, we have piles of unsold comics, movies that cost a billion to make and have a 95% unfavorable audience rating when all the fake marketing reviews cut out and yes plenty of "Woke" era TTRPGs that sell for 1/3 cover price on ebay.

So - what's this all got to do with getting Hasbro/Wotc out of the picture and making our own rules set?

I think this move was not a greedy grab, but rather they want to destroy at least WOTC.  I think they have been trying for years, alienating core fans, hiring "Woke" hacks that write trash stories so blatant they make the comic industry look subtle. A real "Thaco" of rolls of anti-older white male hatred, but...

The TTRPG genre is its own strange, SHINY beast!

It's a rare thing of a hobby that went from fringe to mainstream and is stronger than ever even after decades of Fundamentalist and Tabloid media trying to derail it.  The core industry can be slimy poo that no one wants to buy despite the "Rainbow" sprinkles on it, people will make their own games and buy or find online older scans of older books and keep the hobby going on and on and on...

How much HAVE the Hedge Fund people behind this somewhere BET against the company?

IMO they are desperate to DESTROY it...

The "Woke" politics just the pretense of it merely being bad business decisions by putting these pathetic fools who think getting yanked out of a Debt Factory (modern college) and put in a position of high power is anything to boast about.  It means they'll have memories of being managers, CEOs etc. as they struggle later in life to keep employed at several Starbucks jobs and the Aiserver is "Takin R Jurb" because she looks like a sexy robot maid and doesn't bleat radical politics at customers and doesn't spit in their drinks if they are a "White Male".  But the hedge fund guy is going to collect billions ruining pieces of pop culture we invested part of our lives and souls in, saddling them with debt and bad business then running off but leaving the IP in the hands of some Patent Troll who'll make it way too expensive to buy and be thrice as sue-happy as TSR was way back.

Well, they want "Politics"?

Give them it!

Look up your Congress and Senate representatives and the SEC.  Google.

Write letters - yes Snail Mail - polite, concise, to the point.

Demand Wizards especially but NO media company be given any tax breaks, subsidies, 'small business loans' or any bailout.  Demand the SEC investigate in case 'short' selling has occured.  They want to burn down the house they buy?  Sick but legal.  But they want to make money from insurance?  That's where they need to face fines and jail.

Oh -and also demand NO copyright extensions this year.  The Mouse has fed enough. If not for the Mouse D&D would be now or soon Public domain!

That's talking what little of the game actually is protectable by Copyright...

Look at their own book, the big red one published recently:

They go right through the proof that their products were so heavily inspired by the comic books, fantasy fictions (Appendix N) and TOYS of the day that if copyright existed then as it did now they'd be sued to ruin many times over.  But like the MOUSE they want to only TAKE and not GIVE back.

Game systems can not be protected by copyright, only the surface of the expression.  We can easily make our own 3rd Party TTRPGs and come together to pitch in so if WOTC/Hasbro gets dumb enough to sue anyone for anything short of open bootlegging the books there's a legal defense that likely will get "Motion to Dismiss" right off.  IMO they do NOT want a trial if its a real 3rd party product the makers took effort to make original and there is a legal defense.  They'd walk out not just with a losing case but likely would have almost no grip on the IP going forward.  Serious, if only we can find some of the guys from the Chinasaurs factory - likely dead now but what about their kids?  That'd be a neat lawsuit against Hasbro/Wotc and they'd scream "Fair use" big time...

Now I am making a 3rd party system for "Orange Sun / Far Tomorrows" - one very simple and flexible.  I know too well "Oh, not another 3rd party system...!" that OSR 1.0 used and was good but 1.1 we know we were fools to trust.  This will be a good one.

AND we don't want to be the ONLY ones...!

I have no affiliation with Oldskull publishing but have recently got and like these books - anyone else going "-With blackjack and hookers!" making their own 3rd party?  Good place to start!

Myself I am consulting an AI bot to help rapidly construct this and have a hired help to review it.  This garbage with WOTC happened just as I got busy IRL but plan to make a new bare bones system that will be for the game and totally Open Sourced along with clear rules on what can be used - about everything really though the new images for the game are under copyright.  For the pure AI images - support NightCafe, Midjourney, NovelAi and others and head over to "Attack of the Robot Barbarians" for tips on making new AIArt for your own TTRPG games!  Oh, if you can find an artist who'll work for you, not charge you away and beat you with "Woke" bullshit, by all means also hire them - but very few will paint huge detailed castle and forest scenes or even WANT the work.

Don't assume an "AI" can do ALL the writing for me - however she IS helping me with much writer's block.  If this module existed years ago I'd have had at least five more novels out than I do now...  They can't write for me but I can go over plots - lots of books wait a few years because there's a couple of odd connections and the way the plot bounces. An AI CAN help with that!

If only the AI was for writing as powerful as Midjourney and most other AIart tools are for Art.  I'd feed in my completed stories, outlines for new stories and get workable "Rough Drafts" spat out in minutes!  It seems a few years back the "Artists" were rubbing in to truckers and even writers that AI was a threat but not to them.  A buddy of mine claims he got insulted in public over the "AiWriting" thing...  And no I'm not worried she's "Turkin M' Juurb!" - there are many other ways to earn money.  It's good if you can via writing but those in it for the money should not be there.  The same for all "Arts" - we who write, draw, sing, play etc. are FOOLS from a financial and social responsibility standpoint.  We have an inner fire we must express that overcomes our simple animal urges for resources, sex and survival.  IMO it is bad when there is a period when some are making very good money from it because it gets "Pros" in to take and drain the tiny pool and they push the true creatives out.

I'm streamlining the process and frankly with or without this OSR 1.1 garbage I've wanted to do a lot of the stuff I'm doing now.  I have nothing but respect for Gygax who made the hobby out of nothing save wargaming minis decades ago.  However there are issues I've had with various things.  Not wasting the time to complain here, any long term gamer knows exactly what I'm talking about.  This new system will be familiar but different a bit.  However anyone used to the older system will easily get it so they can play it or transfer anything into earlier editions "Of the Draconic Game" without hassle.

So hang tight - I'm going to post other updates first but the system will be done lightning fast - a bare bones with ...  Look I'm not going to ruin anything and time talking about is time not working on it...

Other TTRPG makers will make their own Open Source TTRPG systems.

Again, GREAT - I am ALL for it!  I'd be worried if I was the only one!

However - please read the agreements between the lines and the  whole agreement.  Especially from companies on "The List" such as Paizo that is guilty of almost as much appeal to Woke Tourism in the RPG world as WoTC.  Some have suggested they do have a "Morality Clause" that will allow them to block or take an IP.  And SJW/WOke people whatever they can complain about anything.  They've even complained at the recent "Velma" thing somehow it not pleasing them though made for them vs every other Scooby Doo fan who ever lived...?

Our Open Source (Orange Sun/Far Tomorrows, Not F.A.T.A.L. but Serious!) will be for everyone.  We'll define clearly what can be used and reasonable assumption of what will need permission for, such as the "Witch of Eros" character template.  However using the bare bones and expanding even people we've had quite ...not good... interactions with such as Zwei-hander could use it.  I doubt they would but say GDW wants to wreck itself and acts like WoTC and alienates all its fans, new and old at once... (they use a Warhammer Fantasy Role Play system I think)  Well if they used ours and went "Nyah Nyah" FINE.  Oh, we won't endorse them or buy the system, but we'd be flattered.

Therefore - when considering ANY "Open Source" ask yourself - or ask them:

"Hi!  Could we make a F.A.T.A.L. adaptation using your rules?"

"Hi!  I just bought the rights to the Erotic Fantasy guide and want to convert asap.  What's that Morality clause?"

"Hey!  We are buying the rights to Gamma World and are making a new version based around the Knights of Genetic Purity - baseline humans (of any race, btw) who exterminate all mutants and rogue robots.  We'll call it the Fires of Purity; Extermination of the Unclean!"

IF you get anything other than - "Our Open Source license allows ANY game you dare make!  Don't expect us to endorse it or promote it or buy it.  However we said Open Source."

IF they don't - they go "No!  You are NOT allowed!  Get away!  We'll SUE!" - then they are LIARS.

It is not "Open Sourced" then.

Wish us luck - we can hopefully reclaim this hobby from the Corporate parasites and "Woke" tourists!

--Maxx Feral

-Jan 14, MMXXIII

f

D&D is dead, long live TTRPGs! aka OSR 1.1

 Greetings, my Fishes!

Tis I, the Imperator Offensiveness MaXXXimVs!

The FIST of the Divine Emperor Gaius...!

Most of the time you hear from my storyteller buddy Maxx Feral but I handle the web design, graphic design, try to solicit 3rd party help, have the good software... 

I've re-written many of my personal scripts so Maxx could upload them in the "Attack of the Robot Barbarians" blog and keep Ko-Fi support since not X rated versus MY edits.. I'm doing some work for the Orange Sun/Far Tomorrows project and on the side my comics, pulp novels and the next TTRPG free XXX product of mine coming soon...Whew...

Anyways, the net is a-buzz with the OSR 1.1  If it was "Testing the Waters" they threw a match into an open tub full of gasoline...!    90% against, even the "Woke" invader / grifter content producers are sh-tting bricks!

Here's the sanest take on this:

https://youtu.be/yydxzM8p4RI

We have no affiliation with "Dungeon Craft", just are fans.

As it looks like this is legit, obviously even the PG-R rated Orange Sun and Far Tomorrows will steer clear of OSR period.  We are 'outsiders' and 'indies' so would be first on the list for them to take everything from us if we were foolish enough to sign to 1.1 or to harass us with lawyers if we clung to 1.0, especially with my dealing with Cancel attempts from the Zwei-hander people and some extreme trolls.

Big F-cking deal!

We are going full steam ahead!

Let me say - the TTRPG is not just a "Game" that might be written by one person or sold by another.  Oh, it is that also.  But it is not.

A TTRPG is a "State of Mind" you enter and share with others hopefully!  It gives the same primal instinct thrill as when the Shaman told the tribe's tales and danced and the hunters talked of how the hunt would be.

Every old Grognard or first gen "Munchkin" has thought way too much about the rules, the world, the alternatives to the TTRPG hobby.  Many of us have gone "What if?" through the years.  Maxx and Me have been working on the design of this world but had given up on making NEW rules sets thanks to OSR.  Why ask potential buyers to memorize a whole new set of rules?  However now, it will be Hasbro's G-rated SLUDGE that they have 3 "Sensitivity Readers" go over to make sure no one no where is offended by them...  I'd not EVER want to buy or play something produced by that so why should I support it in any way, that includes "Stealing" aka insisting I can do OSR 1.0 and waiting for the lawyers though the threat of suits can disrupt payment processors and webhosts - even Dreamhost would take down a real DMCA backed by a real lawyer planning to go to court.  For a day, then put it back up when a counter-DMCA was filed - if it was a real complaint versus a Pirate Bay 2.0 thing.

But when you steal something, you argue its VALUE.

So -with all the producers going OSR holdout and waiting for lawsuits, why do I dare consider new rules?

Well you can't copyright or trademark a games rules system.  Only, maybe, the expression and of course copyrighted property...  Oh, wait, D&D is a rip-off of Jack Vance, Robert E Howard and VERY heavily TOlkien.  There's almost NOTHING original in that Night Hag's Cauldron...!  Even the "Unique" monsters are ChinaSaurs - crude, cheap "Dinosaur" figures made in the Walled City of Kowloon in tiny factories next to Brothels next to Schools next to Opium Dens...  The whole game system and lore is a lawsuit magnet for what little isn't ancient folklore.  Once someone takes them to court for real with a lawyer ready to do battle they'll lose.  The problem is challenging such things in court takes too much time and money.  And again argues the value.

So we'll make our OWN.

Now if you are familiar with "The Old Dragon Game" to use a key-word - you won't find our rules a hassle.  We are going to juggle some ability scores but it'll make sense when you think of it.  And add a stat or two.  BUT we'll do our best to compress the mechanics into a few pages.  Serious!  AND we won't be CopyWRONG trolls.  You'll be able to use the rules, no need to pay us!

The collection of critical, stats, die rolls, etc. can be simplified very easily.  I'm going to shuffle them a bit, not fearful of Hasbro but rather would like to improve a bit.  Some stats need to bleed into others.  Its nothing anyone familiar with the core game would be confused over and a new one diving in wouldn't have trouble going back to the original.

Again, in a way I'm GLAD this is happening.

I was going to make stats using OSR based on 2.0 release of AD&D - but worried people from the 3.5 era (good!) and (aaarrrggg!) 4 and (Gaaahhhh!!!) 5 era would freak out.  The woke I don't care about but new players/customers?  I do care about those.

So if its my own simple rules, great.

And again, in the air, but if I think I make something good I'll "Open Source" it.

That means you couldn't copy the guidebooks and our art, but if you said "Orange Sun Rules" - whoops better make it "Far Tomorrows Rules" (FTR) or I WOULD get sued - remember Gary Gygax's post TSR projects?  If you used those rules in your own project, I'd be flattered.  Couldn't PAY you but wouldn't charge and if you did something we hated (a WOKE version by the Zwei-hander people!?) well free speech, free press.  Even those Wokardz I'd let them do it - if say GDW gets covetous (they use Warhammer Fantasy Role Play base) and they need to make $ and use something.  A hyper politically correct but fake Grimdark parody?  Fine! 

So hang tight people!

We are shifting gears just a little but luckily the last part was puppeting all the characters and monsters to an RPG system.  I'm going to seek some review help so the launched ship doesn't sink but I can easily think of a new system and approximate scores.  A very SIMPLE one that fits in a few pages and echoes "The classics" though is its own.

Magna Determinato!

Ruin or Greatness - The Spirit of Adventure in the Far-Tomorrows

"Ruin or Greatness"...

"The stars were against me..." Norbor thought as he spent the last night on his Clan's farm sitting outside the Western field staring at part of some ancient ruin his family had farmed around for eons but never dared dig inside.  Somehow it was his favorite place, more because the jeers of his 'brothers' were not so prevalent.

He looked at the sky on a beautiful night - the mid-summer's twilight lit by a full moon.  The moon was so bright and he could see it was lush and green with its pine trees and even the reflection of its small oceans.  Some said it was a fantastic place but Man had not visited it since the days of the "Wonder Tales" they printed in the Capital and surely the Men there might be very different now.

"It wasn't the stars, it was that prediction..." it had been a family tradition to have an Astrologer do a reading on each family member upon becoming able to do children's duties.  They were never told until later but most were smart enough to pretend not to care then listen in or learn from others.  Norbor was merely playing but heard the commotion which had ended that family tradition...about his fate...

He faced complete ruin in his life - all the points had shown he'd fall short, fail, not achieve...  Fearing for his life the Astrologer left, dropping some equipment, but he had told it could also mean a grand destiny just not the one the family would want for him.  There was arguing and his mother was weeping but the family had tried to distract him.  

He found in the trash heap a part of one of the Astrologer's scrolls - the map of his life...  It was an odd pattern from those of other family members.  He had no idea what any of it meant, but it was like every single dot touched a dot no other of his Clan had and the symbols interpretedclashed with perfection.

It had proved a fulfilling prophecy.  He was reasonably smart and certainly strong enough to pull more than his weight - he should have done well in his farming clan family where one would think all he needed was an endless willingness to work and basic courtesy to his fellows.  But - things didn't fit in somehow.  He had a brown thumb.  Equipment tended to break in his hands and he didn't get along well with his peers.  Surely he'd be starving and constantly begging charity from others and what unfortunate woman was chosen for him if any would weep daily.  However even that would not be his life.  His own brother had started the fight, that was not in question, but with the anger of years of hurtful words he had fought back too hard and they had to spend a lot of money on advanced medicine in the capital  Cain's Sin had never been committed in his family in any of their histories and it surely would someday...if he were to stay.

So, at a time he should be cutting his own section of land with an arranged wife Norbor was sitting with his few belongings and some money he had saved, preparing to leave.  His thoughts moved to his Uncle from his Dad's brother by marriage - he had had rapport with old Gornham...  The man had been a traveler and served in the High King's guard and taught him to fight both in a military unit and in unfair combat and told him a lot about the lands outside the pastoral lands his and other clans had farmed for thousands of years.

Old Gornham had died of old age a few years back, but he told him about his reading.  It wasn't failure, it was that his fortune had to be his own.  It could be a recipe for failure but if he would seize his own fortune it is a recipe for greatness.  It was not the easy path, far easier to scrape a living from the soil and pay the Duke for protection, but live life ignoble and humble.  Yet that was not his choice, only the road ahead which would lead to ruin or greatness.

Norbor had stayed up almost all night looking at the ruins.  No last minute jeer and save ceremony no one to wish him goodbye.  His brother was pretty popular, still he was glad he did not kill him.  He had built a large fire since there was much deadwood but none gathered to party with him one last time.  It was no bother, the light added to the bright moon to illuminate the ruins he'd take one last look at especially the giant statue of the tilted King.

Most of the time he had been by these ruins in his recent years it was to plant, tend, harvest the crops and everyone else wanted to be done and quick so he had not really had the time to study them.  His family had discouraged him from playing around in the ruins for fear of curses and worse.  It was some ancient King with some heads of perhaps his advisors or companions on pillars around him in what had been once a great capital.  His family only cared that the endless shifting of time left most of it deep enough for a few feet or more of soil that they could plant on for the stone it was made of was some wonder material not easily cut.

He studied again the giant carving of some great warrior king of thousands of years ago, now slightly off angle as the Earth had shifted several times.  Who was he, this Ancient King, he had asked time and again from his youth?  They cared not, there were dozens if not hundreds of such statues within a few weeks walk.  Earth had many kings and tyrants and grand rulers going back to the first days.  A few like this one left statues on what now were the ruins of their palaces - but also were guarded by curses and traps and monsters of the Dark who would destroy those who tried to plunder their treasures.  It was a lesson they said to live a humble life, that if you struggle for greatness and somehow triumph the weight of time will only wear your works down.  All you would be for all the risk and danger and fear and responsibility would be a fading statue somewhere known to none.  Even with that warning Norbor had always admired the visage of that ancient king, regal on his throne, staring at eternity even as it would engulf him.  When he dared a closer inspection countless carvings at the base showed the king on his throne, surrounded by courtiers, dancing beautiful women, magicians or in Great Battles.  The main statue was just the king on his throne, so bold and simple and powerful. His face was rugged and real.  

The king's stare seemed to pierce through the Eons to humble Norbor.  In his despair at his lot in life and resignation to a path perhaps of beggary but perhaps adventure or fortune elsewhere he expected this idol to somehow stare at him and say words of condemnation.  He saw no such ill thought in the statue's face, rather the same determination against time itself.

"If there were monsters hiding here, surely they'd have attacked us by now..." Norbor thought and investigated closer...  He had always noticed some lines beneath the King's feet but his brothers had shouted at him to get back to work and not disturb this cursed place.  He'd risk dying by some unknown trap, it was his life not his Clan's now and if he met his fate in this manner scavengers would remove all trace before they returned to harvest.  They always grew crops in this area that took little maintenance, afraid of this ancient icon from the far past as they were so content to live in an eternal present.

A closer inspection revealed that this space beneath the king's legs seemed to be perhaps a hidden compartment, but how to open it without spending days chipping at this rock like material that could shatter a pickeaxe but was worn with countless years?   It was not the lines that signaled a compartment that had drawn him but the symbol - he was never allowed to be close enough to read it.  It resembled his own Astrological reading...!  It was from an earlier time - they always had the fifteenth and twentieth wandering star but he noted only the symbols for up to the fourteenth?  Still it had his own scattered reading, every symbol leading into another leading into a dead end or rather the absence of fate.  To the sides were words - an ancient dialect but just enough of the language had remained - "Ruin - choice - Greatness...!"

Norbor touched the symbols of the words and the box glowed in the twilight...the container gently pushed out from beneath the King's feet.  He should perhaps have run in fear, lest there be a trap, but not this time.  Somehow he knew it was meant to only be opened under Luna's full light by the right person.   After all these Eons surely nothing should remain but in it perhaps was an enchantment that had frozen the passage of time in that small space. The stone vault opened to reveal a sword of eqsuisite works, a bag of coins and gems, a book in an ancient language and a few maps.  There was also, in a tiny cloth bag that had somehow survived the years and looked new an odd gem that looked like an eye floating inside a crystal sphere...!

The first page of the book - though he could not read it had the ancient symbols for farming and harvesting - crossed out - and an arrow towards the symbols for journey and adventure and a drawing of the ancient King's Crown...!

Norbor looked again at the carving of the Ancient King - and he realized that all these years the monument of the King was not an image celebrating his rule and power however brief against the infinite arrow of time.  The King had reached through time to give one last gift, not to the last of his worshippers, but to his successor!  It was nearly dawn now but the moon still shone brightly so he packed his things after dousing the fire and made his way out of the lands he had never left in his life.

----

Many old Fairy Tales started when a young man of Noble Birth was set to "Seek his own fortune" - this was a tragic beginning.  Normally the middle ages had tons of "Petty Wars" where the noblemen had their own children KILL each other's so only the strongest and smartest would LIVE to inherit the throne.  When they didn't do that they faced the land being split again and again until it was nothing but peasant huts with one "King" in each and of course be laughably swiped off the map by others.  The Holy Church did away with this as there was too much suffering caused by this petty warfare and they feared a wave of Muslims coming in or Huns.

Thus there were many young men who had nothing to do and nowhere to go.  Many Bandits were of noble birth due to this.

It is a sad cruel whim of fate that many people are not able to handle the station they are born to.  They either fail to fill it or they seek more or different instinctively and can not be content with it.  The results are usually tragic but sometimes the best of Man's accomplishments have come from this.

Thus in the Far-Far Future - the "Far Tomorrows" we have that age old story of those on the path of adventure.  Often they are starting out as failures or exiles and have no path but the road ahead.  This is as old as mankind.

It is also "The Hero's Journey" - though the call to adventure be perhaps not so noble.

In a TTRPG game the DM should consider all Player Characters to be set on this path;  Ruin or Greatness.  Some factor in their lives clashed - from true tragedy they were not in fault of to sensing a greater destiny to truly failing and needing cash in desperation so they become mercenaries who raid ancient ruins.

The course of their lives is to delve into the cave - again and again - to emerge into the light changed and to keep the road onwards and improve until they become truly heroic truly great.

In the Far-Tomorrows mankind is locked in an eternal cycle and live on the legacy of the endless past.  Earth will abide man many times even this far future a thousand-thousand years nearly ahead of our time and near a thousand times that.  And due to ages of "Wonder" and strange things in the sky there probably is even something in place to stop the sun from burning the earth far into that future.  What can any man do to challenge those works?  What can the greatest man do but be another statue that even of some matter not quite stone that breaks a mattock still is corroded by endless time?

The heroes - the Player Characters - are those people.

Man's true spirit is in a long respite waiting for one final evolution so that far into this future of the future man will at last truly ascend.  It will take a very long time but the "Wandering Heroes" are a crucial component of this!

What does this mean for the Campaign, how the game is played?

This is a recommendation not a rule - Unlike those trying to ruin the hobby as this is typed I certainly shall NOT tell you how you must play the game or what your politics must be.  This is a suggestion but a strong one;

The players must NOT be able to 'retire' until they reach level 10.  If they do they'll lose their wealth - by squandering, by invasion or disaster, by local political power growing fearful or jealous and they have to run.  Whatever set them on the road is still in them and must be satisfied.

Look no further than the Arabian Nights - the Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor!

He was a Rake - a spoiled rich brat who inherited a fortune from his Merchant / Noble parents and squandered it in a few years.  He had just enough to eat gruel until he died of old age.  He knew he could not do it so he invested in a ship to trade and started his life's adventures.  But when he finished the first voyage and came back wealthy he again partied it all away.  So he did it again and came back...  After Seven Voyages that in TTRPG terms are pretty deadly and certainly worth greater than 1 level per adventure he finally calmed his restless spirit and retired in wealth and fame.

A modern critic would call him the WORST sailor ever, a rich elite who should be ... But I am SO sick of those types, no?

Quoth the late Harlan Ellison "Boy, he sure knew how to LIVE...!" - from his preface to Corben's contribution from the 70s/80s.

Again I suggest - the PC's goals should be to get wealthy and retire (or regain the .... throne, restore faith to the land...) but even if they roll good on "Random Loot" tables they do NOT get to just settle down or something will happen and they'll have to pick up the sword or staff again.  Once they go 10th level or higher they can return, be it to be a King or a Village chief with perhaps one last adventure to justify it.  Then in a later campaign they are "Powerful NPCs" that can be beneficial (within sane reason) to newer PCs the character plays!

----

--from upcoming "Orange Sun" / "Far Tomorrows" project

written by Maxx Feral

Catching up with things

 

Hi!  Offensiveness MaXXXimVs here!  

I'm one of the writers and my main thing is porno 3d comics and neo-sweat paperback erotica.  I help with the graphic design, webbuilding and 3DCG work and some of the writing.  Most of the main writing is done by Maxx Feral who focuses more on PG-13 to R-Rated "NeoPulp" stories and is an amateur 2D artist (real media, computer painting) who's also had newspaper articles and political cartoons published.  We are both the main workers on this currently active development project for a TTRPG that's "Table-Top Role-Playing Game" and I like that acronym almost as much as "GOAT" which I do NOT like in case my sarcasm failed.

I figured here is a good chance to catch up on things, to give a scope to this project:

First - what Orange Sun / Far-Tomorrows is:

It is an attempt to return the TTRPG concept to its science fiction and fantasy roots but more in line with 70s themed classics than the leeching off of Tolkien the modern "Core" game has been.  It is in counter-response to the attempts to make the mainstream "Core" game not only G-rated but "Woke" rated and the infiltration of these types into the "Indie" gaming community.  Don't worry, its not about 'politics' we reject the lies the scammers have been using to get their 'ethically sourced' expensive shoe in the door.  There will be "Edgy" content to poke them but no sane person would think we really intend a sexist or racist message.

The product will be a template that you can put on any TTRPG system or start new.  The world is flexible and much content will be generated by rolls of dice and tables.  It is a branch of my "Not F.A.T.A.L. but serious!" concept which is a very vulgar adults only TTRPG supplement created as a "Shitpost" when the Woke did this fake culture war years back.  You will not be a slave to the tables (joking on the notorious game) but they will be there to keep the juices flowing creatively.  The game will be R rated expecting sane, mature adults to play but not be pornographic.  There will be an "X" chapter for different vulgarity levels but assume it's like an R rated movie more for violence and gore but also not holding back sex.  The busty barmaid DOES have hot sex with players if she finds them fetching for instance...so what....

You don't need to learn a new system and most TTRPG campaigns early on have a few locations and its easy to shoe-horn them into this world as if there was no change.  I expect people who've played TTRPGs a bit to be the main customer so I'm not wasting time making yet another 3rd party TTRPG system of rules or being enslaved to the open source but copywrong minefield from the "Core" game I'm careful not to mention due to issues...

There - three paragraphs.  Its more than what most "Woke/SJWs" learned to read in the debt factories aka modern colleges but a legit gaming geek it should be pretty concise.  It's inspired by modern controversy but hopefully as it ages it'll just keep its boobs, butts, sexy stuff (and gore, violence) as a legacy that they tried to 'reform' (don't fix what ain't broken) the TTRPG world and made it MORE full of naughty stuff!

But for quickie:

What it IS

1 - Mature return to Vance, Wolfe, sci-fi and fantasy roots of the system.  Not necessarily 70s but that helps too.  No disrespect to JRR Tolkien but he's been used too much.  Check out the chapter on Orcs, Elves, etc. but how they are in the world more inspired by HG Welss's "The Time Machine" than ripping off Tolkien! The world is the "Far Future" but will feel like a "Fantasy World" so no "Ray-Gun but you call it Magic Missile because your character is a primitive" garbage - your character if born in this world is a very advanced human in a Long Cycle of history.

2 - Loose template - You can start a game in the "Base World" and add this as if it was the world.  You can start in this world.  It will have many sample maps and tables to roll up the particulars both at start and as you go.  We might make supplements such as for the Asian areas our "Oriental Adventure" but you won't need tons of "Modules" the book will be a module like "Geomorphs" but for the world.  Since the paradigm of the RPG world being the far future you can add some parts to your world without wrecking it.

3 - Familiar but unique setting - Yes its meant to start looking like the classic "Core" TTRPG the loose Middle Ages that never was.  Except its NOT that by a long shot.  More Late Renissance and early industrial.  Also its the far future to explain tons of stuff - 

4 - Counter-Push - I understand the Mainstream (D&D, etc.) got bought out by corporate interests and turned G-rated versus the clearly R-rated Sci-fi/fantasy world they emerged from.  (read 60s, 70s Sword and Sorcery paperbacks if you don't know)  However in the 90s into the 00s they emerged with plenty of adult interests, not meaning "Porno" but not made for kids.  That's what Comic Books had to deal with for Gawdz sake.  The "Woke" era took this to the Nth degree wrecking the games with needless "Diversity" attempts.

What it's not:

1 - Yet another 3rd party system - no new set of rules to read on and adapt to - even the background while detailed is loose and flexible.  You need to know how to run and make an adventure module to enjoy this best and how to "Role-Play" but you won't need to memorize tons of lore, rules, specific die rolls.

2 - Sexist, Racist, intolerant - We are filling this thing FULL of nasty content.  Mostly sexual in terms of buxom wenches, damsels in distress, PC races sexy and forbidden.  Also gory monsters, sexual situations, nasty stuff.  Like RL only exaggerated and at least more pretty ladies and fun and freedom.  In short what the "Woke" hate.  Also "Problematic content"  LOTS of stuff to make the "Woke" SCREAM...  However - no one would seriously think we for real intend any sexist, racist, intolerant message nor do we think anyone would come out of the game with such a view if they didn't come in with it.  

Case in point - the chapter on "The Cruel Emperor Tzon Chon" - taking a character mentioned in one sentence from HP Lovecraft (in the public domain) and extrapolating.  This isn't meant to be a "Yellow Peril" or anti-Asian thing though such racism was quite common when it was a classic Pulp fiction trope.  Like REH's "Erlik Khan" I think HPL was laying the seed for his own "Fu-Manchu"?  It's meant to be a separation from today to this far-future history;  The cruel Emperor's reign is 5000 years hence (3K in HPLs original) and it is where the Ancient history of this world begins...!  In between there are several eras and they fit into Maxx Feral's "Pulp" universe but the end point was when Tzon Chon took over the world and ruled it for tens of thousands of years under his merciless eyes.  So to readers it gives a sense of scope of the great epochs of time.  There has certainly been included content people would find problematic but the message is not racist.  The people of "The East" would say; "The monster was destroyed at last..." and "We suffered the most under the Cruel Emperor" - and furthermore they'd be "Racist" to some of his descendant disciples the Natives of Uccastrog - taken again from public domain Clark Ashton Smith's "Isle of the Torturers".  He created them as some generic "Send someone off for torturous death" in the last few thousand years of his reign as he was getting bored slowly cutting people apart for the slightest rumor of negative thoughts of his divine rule.  But many thousands of years after it, is it a Torturer's fault he was born on that isle and if he escaped to live a different life is it just he's hated even if he tries to live NOT as a torturer?

3 - Just a shitpost - that is made ONLY in response to the Woke attack.  "Not F.A.T.A.L. but Serious" started as a shitpost and is to a point, not this work.  Inspired by of course but its more a mature take on the genre, another period of self-examination.   When the Woke slither off for another cause or more likely beg to work at Starbucks or as an entry level worker who'll never advance in their uncle's business this movement will still be here and hopefully have changed the TTRPG industry to the direction it should have gone.

4 - ONLY for old school/Grognards - Let's put it this way - as a munchkin one of the first munchkin gamers I loved a certain miniature - picture - "Hey!  Don't touch it!" - "I wanna play too..." - "Maaannn Fuck...  Who let him in..."  - "I wanna play too..." - "Okay. But please don't show this to my Mom or tell her about my Heavy Metals or the Hustlers under them..."

New gamers who've recently played are WELCOME here.  The "Base" RPG is there in all its slick and glossy and bland "Woke-Rated" glory for you to buy at a high price at the bookstore OR buy 1/3 cover online from all the now hurting gaming stores forced to stock it.  Older games tend to be pricey.  This is new, no dead trees and gets you that feel of what a RPG should be.

5 - A foot in the door for dumb stuff like "hard science" - just because it's far future and the history explains it doesn't mean "Magic" doesn't work.  No ray-guns instead of wands and if you tried to explain a Dragon was just some kind of "Non-ascended Transhuman" they'd EAT you even the "Good" ones.  Magic works per Clarketech (or Prequels to Star Wars) the space-time has been edited to make it real.  Matter of fact a spaceman crashing on the far future Earth might be freaked out when his "Emergency Blaster" ran out of charges and with no atomic battery it couldn't be recharged by waiting but his new friends took him to a "Magic Item repair" in the coastal cities and they somehow charged it even with "Mumbo Jumbo"...  I love Arthur C Clarke - and I mean Platonically - but he was the king of Hard Science Fiction which I recognize but prefer the Sci-fi/fantasy.  I think he'd be mildly amused if he was still alive and hopefully not bring legal issue with a few mild tributes.

6 - A "Tables"  nightmare - the tables are for fun and help not hard trenched rules.  It will be simple - want random kingdoms, towns, dungeons, names for stuff, treasures?  Lots of fun suggestions on what could happen so the GM can setup a dungeon quickly in this world and it will have names, monsters, a unique flavor.

So stay tuned for more work on the Orange Sun/Far Tomorrows project -

And my naughty little sequel to "Not F.A.T.A.L. but Serious!" x-rated adventure ideas!