River of Heaven Art Direction
Fantastic Odysseys Issue One has not one but two pieces for River of Heaven—an adventure called Darius’ 7 and a rules article that upgrades character generation to the system used in OpenQuest 3.
It’s the first thing I’ve released for the game in about five years, and it feels like I’m coming out of a cryogenic deep freeze.
This is the art direction that I recently sent to Dan Barker, one of my regular artists. It’s both an overall set of direction regarding the setting and the specific pieces for the magazine.
As a bonus, I’ve attached one of the pieces, the work-in-progress street gang member (no.3 on my list).
Enjoy!
;O) Newt
Overall, River of Heaven is set in the 42nd century, a far future setting. Characters are “augmented” with nanomachine-powered bioware (think slicker cyberware than 2020 meat is metal).
The setting is where Science almost becomes Magic without becoming a science-fantasy setting. The original intent was that it was to be a hard sci-fi setting, but John Ossoway, the principal author, and I (who was mainly on system tinkering and Editorial) realised quickly that audience expectations meant that such a thing would not be much fun 😀
It’s almost a transhuman setting, but the Singularity has not yet happened. I’m considering using the tagline “Far-Future Roleplaying Five Minutes before the Singularity” 😀
RoH, as it currently stands, has two sub-settings that have their distinct styles.
Broken Sol – Old Earth, abandoned due to environmental collapse, where many desperate survivors live in post-apocalyptic conditions (think Mad Max with gas masks and hazmat suits). Then, in the rest of the system, there’s a combination of space stations/ orbiting habitats, a Mars split between colonies of the old school green uniformed US military and an emergent Imperial Chinese. Overall, this sub-setting is gritty and slightly gonzo. Otherwise, it turns into boring NASA punk, and if you’ve played Starfield, you’ll realise how tedious that is :D.
The Kenturan Hegemony – Centred around Alpha Centuria Prime, this confederation of planets/systems is where everyone else who left Earth on huge sub-light colony ships ended up. Its the opposite of Broken Sol, and currently enjoying its Bright Era. It’s that crazy melting pot of vibrant styles plucking all the best bits from past human history. There are Dune-like Noble Houses and Professional Guilds – so outfits clearly say that the character’s social status is a big thing. Or not if the character needs to be better or just trying to blend in the crowded masses of the Kenturian Hegemony’s megacities.
I need the following for Fantastic Odysseys Issue 1.
1. General River of Heaven “Citizen of the Hegemony” adventurer or “Freelancer” as I’m calling them now – to denote that they are not an indentured employee of one of the Guilds or Noble Houses. So you have a free hand here to develop the piece based on the Kenturan Hedgemony general AD above. They should be armed and dangerous with futuristic-looking weapons. RoH characters have augmentations, one step up from meet and metal cyberware, this is the 42nd Century, and work as a mix of bioware and nanomachines. This piece is to go with an article called “River of Heaven Hacked” which bring the current ROH rules, which are based on OQ2, up to OQ3.
2-4 are for an adventure Darius 7, an escape from Earth-type scenario set in the Broken Sol sub-setting. The trick here is while Ruined Earth is a very cyberpunk setting, the tech is very far-futuristic.
2. Darius. The dashing, lower-tier noble, handsome captain of the Starshine, a vast Step-ship, will be the character’s travelling base for the rest of the series of adventures, of which this is the first.
3. Blood Letter is a street ganger who operates out of an old Post Office (known as the Vault) and on acid-rain-soaked streets. They wear a bizarre mix of Postie uniforms, improvised weapons, and basic environmental protections (face mask/filter, acid-rain-resistant poncho).
4. A Banker of Heaven’s Vault – Wears a pinstripe suit, bowler hat and an elaborate porcelain mask. It has an obvious PDA and hand weapon (shock rod?). A data cruncher for Heaven’s Vault, a big old corporate building that has survived the fall of Earth and still has an uplink to the Moon.
Types of Duck
This is a preview of the sub-species of Duck, that referees and players will encounter in the upcoming The Feathers and the Fury. Expect more in the coming months as I prepare this book for release.
River Ducks.They live in the Land of the Five Rivers, which they say is the primordial birthing ground of Duckkind, where the Great Ancestors stepped out from the Cosmic Egg and diverged into the four main sub-species of duck. They live in small settlements along the rivers, and beside large ponds, fishing and hunting in the marshes that is their home. Reown for smoking swamp-weed in the form of cig-ars.
Lake Ducks. Descended from River Ducks who “stepped up from the swamp” and have settled around the edges of the Great Lakes. There they build towns on stilts. Unlike the River Ducks, they are civilised and smoke pikes -which their civilisation crafts.
River & Lake Ducks are the most numerous types of Duck Kind because they have thrived in their marshy, wet homeland, known as Duck Coast, a largely untamed wilderness with lots of room to expand. Human sages consider them closely related cousins in the duck family of sub-species.
Tober Ones. Pyramid Ducks who build a step-pyramid, called Tobers, with their nests (the basic family unit in all duck cultures) on its tiers to be closer to the gods. Every 10 to 50 years, burn the city pyramid to the ground after an orgy of sacrifice and destruction and then start again from scratch on another site.
Serpentines.They split off from Tober Ones after falling out over destroying the home pyramid and starting again. After they left their mountain homeland, they went south into deserts and then settled around the Great River -which they call the “Great Snake”. Even in modern times, they will happily embrace disgruntled ex-Tober Ones who decide to leave that culture and head south, calling them “Enlightened Ones”. Worship lots of animal-headed gods derived from desert creatures. While an early period of building magnificent pyramids with smooth sides and crystal tops is well behind them, they are master builders of giant stone temples and organised urban cities. This is just as well since fierce desert storms periodically bury their cities. Named after their fearsome snake-headed god, Sek-Em.
Tober Ones and Serpentines are less numerous and confined to their homelands, the mountains which define the northern border of Duck Coast, and the flood plain around the Great Snake River to the East, respectively.
The following duck types are rare, numbering less than five hundred.
Aerial Ducks.A recent offshoot from Lake Ducks, where a mix of crafting and buoyant (but tragically explosive) marsh gas, has created a whole group of explorer ducks rumoured to have their own flying city called Liberty.
Crusader Ducks.Originally from Tober One’s civilisation, made up of an underclass group who escaped the orgy of violence that saw the end of the first pyramid. Later joined by similar escapees after the end of the second and third pyramids. They travelled north and established an advanced utopian civilisation in an especially fertile area known as Green Lakes. Their hopes and dreams were crushed by the towering terror lizard known as Godzilla, whose corrupting breath turned the land into a toxic wasteland known as the Groglands. The survivors took refuge in the nearby land of Gatan, where they absorbed the local culture, reforming themselves as a Warrior Order modelled on Gatan’s Knightly Orders. [Note: this group is detailed in the out-of-print zine The Duck Crusade]
Beast Riders. An offshoot of the Serpentines, desert nomads who learnt the secrets of riding the giant animals found on the fringes of the settled lands. Have spread throughout the Duck Coast.
Here’s Jon Hodgson’s cover for the book. From the top Left, an Aerial Duck Navigator looks down on a group of explorers sponsored by Duck Coast Merchant League. From Left to Right, a River Duck Scout, a Lake Duck Scholar fishing from an egg-shell boat, and a Serpentine Overseer naturally taking charge of this great undertaking. They believe they have discovered a “Womb Tomb” from the days of the first Duck Civilisation, which will possibly have a prized Cosmic Egg within.
Tent Town
Into the Ruins is a sandbox adventure serialised in parts in the upcoming Fantastic Odysseys magazine. Issue one, in addition to introducing the ruined city, The Shambles, which is the main adventurer’s playground in a general introductory article, issue one also features part one of the sandbox write up of the adjacent adventure’s town, known as Tent Town. The write-up gives full stats for the main NPCs, their followers, typical townspeople, locations, treasures, and of course, a local rumours table. The following text is from the introduction, explaining how Tent Town develops over the saga’s timeline.
What is Tent Town?
This is a predominantly human settlement outside the walls of the Shambles proper. It’s built on the ruins of previous settlements that have grown up and then been wiped from the face of the earth by some force, such as raiders, plague, or even earthquakes of a magical origin. The cycle takes fifty years to repeat, with one hundred years between settlement periods.
Tent town is relatively new, being only five years old. It was founded when the Mound of Maia, a temple to the Earth Goddess, rose from the Earth, according to her followers. Cynics say it was just a case of treasure hunters rediscovering the temple and unearthing its’ entrance. Most of the homes are canvas tents, as the name implies. It’s a transient scavenger community, but a few wooden buildings serve as more permanent residences and places of business.
The town’s stability is currently threatened by Goblinoid raiders, known as the Children of the Wrym, from within the Shambles and internal struggles between the town’s religious and criminal elements. The Goblin raiders come from the adjacent Squares district within the city proper, just over the wall or through the gap (see page xx below). This area will be detailed in issue 2.
Tent Town after Year Five
Tent Town is a settlement during its early beginnings that will grow as the characters adventure in the Shambles.
Part of this is due to what is occurring naturally within the town as it gradually becomes more settled. As the tents are replaced with wooden buildings and Miko the Mason repairs ruined stone buildings. However, the characters’ actions here can profoundly affect the balance of power within the emerging town. Side with the Whitebanes, and one of their number will end up running the town. Conversely, the characters could be the force that, in a showdown with them, that will go down in history as a legend of the Founders that sees them wiped out in some mud-soaked fight outside their shop. Would Serevra Wellwish (of the Imperial faction see page xx) step up to fill the void and boldly proclaim the settlement part of the Empire, or would Miko the Mason quietly manipulate the town’s movers and shakers to rule from the shadows and give the illusion its all business as usual?
The town’s development and balance of power will also be affected as the characters go into the Shambles proper and bring back treasure that can be used to develop the town.
If nothing else, there is the question of the settlement’s proper name. Whitebane City, Serevaville, Miko Mansions or even named after the characters? Or is the town’s end, within the fifty year cycle (due to run out in forty five years) at the hands of some army or magical disaster an inevitability?
Why do People become Sky Pirates?
The following is from the upcoming Sky Pirates of the Floating Realms game, which I’ll post more about soon. It’s an OpenQuest-powered game that focuses on the adventures of Sky Pirates of various backgrounds and previous careers, using a streamlined version of OpenQuest. This piece from the character generation chapter explains why their characters became Sky Pirates.
There are many reasons why people become sky pirates, including the following.
1. Out of necessity. Many communities cling to small sky islands and don’t have enough land for even meagre subsistence farming. So, the more able members of these remote communities end up “fishing” in the sky lanes for food and other resources.
2. As a result of being exiled. Large, organised sky island communities tend to be highly organised and laden with rules and laws simply to survive. The threat of being cast out and abandoned on a distant floating sky rock is something that many lawmakers use to keep their people in line. Also, many communities will have an annual casting of the stones. Where two or more candidates for exile, people who have broken local laws or are simply intolerable in the eyes of their community, receive votes in the form of a stone with their name on it. The candidate with the most must leave the island for a set period (say ten to twenty years) or for life.
3. They are misfits. Like being exiled, but a choice rather than something being imposed upon them. Freethinkers, revolutionaries or out-and-out oddballs choose a life aboard a pirate ship, free to explore their ideas and be themselves.
4. Freed prisoner. Some Tyrants have Sky-Island Prisons, where those who break their laws or get on the wrong side of them personally end up. The prisons range from camps made up of huts or tents, where the inmates labour in the fields, to highly secure fortresses, where there is a daily schedule of lockdowns, exercise in the yard, and sessions in the workshop making crafted goods for the Tyrant’s enrichment. Fortunately, Sky Pirates often attack these institutions, driven either because they are an affront to the pirates’ sense of freedom or because they need to supplement their crew.
5. Promises of a life-changing fortune. Some people see it as a job and that they will either accumulate enough treasure over a career or have one big haul that gives them a post-pirate life of comfort in a villa in a big cosmopolitan sky city.
6. They were born into the life. Mum and Dad were crew members, and the character was practically weaned on deck. As such its all they know, and they often find it hard to relate to landlubbers and get lost when they have to deal with the large cities of the Sky Realms.
Is OpenQuest an OSR game?
Willfully ignoring OSR as a label for marketing purposes, here’s my take on whether OQ is an OSR game, which I intend to be the last word on the matter.
Short Answer Yes, but with what video gamers call comfort of living changes.
Long Answer
D100 fans leave its systems outside of OSR, because they see D100 as one continuous line of games, that they always played even when the major systems were fallow or out of print. They carried on playing them in one form or another.
I used to think this myself. D&D has and needs an OSR, not so good old BRP/RQ, etc. I can just dust off the old rulebooks and play the same game I played with my mates back in the 80s, which I know off by heart is so simple. Except that’s not the case after 30 odd years of game design innovation in the RPG sphere.
Thinking critically, I’ve concluded that OpenQuest is an OSR game using this definition.
Old – foundations of OpenQuest go all the way back to the 70s and RuneQuest. There’s also a good bit of British 80s TTRPG DNA in there via Fighing Fantasy Gamebooks (the first three books are my ur-texts for fantasy gaming), and Games Workshop – both thier presentation of RQ III/CoC/Stormbringer and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay first edition. It’s also very much a traditional roleplaying game.
School – It is a school of D100 gaming, related to but distinct from its peers.
Renaissance—or Refresh, as I prefer. OQ takes the opportunity to move on from some of the clunky aspects of 80s D100 rulesets firmly with two hands. This is where the comfort of life changes come in. These are mainly things I picked up from Indie Narrative games I was exploring in the 2000s when I first wrote OQ. Burning Wheel was a big influence here.
System-wise, the addition of modern concepts like.
- Fortune Points, which give the players a chance to grab narrative control at key points of the game
- Motives, which are narrative, hooks for the character’s personality and goals.
- Roll-once skill tests, the results of which carry forward until circumstances change.
- Failing forward is where you fail, but your character can pick themselves up and try again with slightly different conditions after waiting some time.
Setting-wise, D100 is now quite infamous for having Lore-heavy settings, something that recent releases for the current RQ I was happiest during my RQ 3 years (the 90s) where I was filling in the blanks or discovering the setting through play as the indie game designers would call it. So that’s what I’m aiming for with my publishing OQ settings. I’ve not got the time or inclination to write big tomes, but I’ve enough craft from my RQ3 days to present settings full of exciting game ideas, concisely and effectively 🙂
So there you have my take on the matter. OpenQuest is an OSR game bringing tried and tested old-school design into the future and making it fun again 🙂
Originally published back on my Fantastic Odysessys Patreon back in March. Read posts like this and more over
Fantastic Odysseys on ZineQuest now
Until the end of the month, Fantastic Odysseys, an A4 magazine supporting OpenQuest and related D100 games, is on Kickstarter’s ZineQuest.
If you back now, within the first two days of launch, you will receive the mini-zine The Terror of Fishstop Island.
Here’s the cover by Dan Barker.
Fantastic Odysseys Issue 1 cover by Dan Barker
Fantastic Odysseys
OpenQuest 3rd Edition is getting along nicely three years after its initial release. With a range of supplements (such as OpenQuest Companion and OpenQuest Dungeons) gradually emerging as support. This website has a decent amount of traffic, as does the SRD in both online and downloadable form, and the OpenQuest channel on the D101 Discord Server is nicely busy. But there’s something to my mind that the game is missing.
I tend to overwrite, and I have a ton of small bits of adventures and articles that don’t have an obvious home. Also, I’m missing doing Hearts in Glorantha, a Gloranthan Fanzine I published between 2008-2018. As well as being nice to produce a fanzine, it was a nice way to establish contact with new artists and writers.
So late last year, the idea of doing a zine in much the same format but for OpenQuest and related games popped into my head. I asked Dan Barker to do a logo. Earlier in the year, he showed me an illustration he was doing for fun, and my imagination came up with a short adventure to explain what the hell the monster was. So here’s the cover for the first issue.
Fantastic Odysseys Issue 1 cover by Dan Barker
ZineQuest, Kickstarter’s February promotion, is always fun to do. I’ve previously done Into the Shroud for Crypts and Things, and Grogzilla, a fanzine for D101 Games overall. So why not launch Fantastic Odyssey there and hopefully bring it to a wider audience?
But wait, the zine also has a Patreon! Well, everyone else seems to have a Patreon, so why not me? As well as allowing me to focus on getting the magazine produced and other bits of OpenQuest done and be paid a monthly amount in return for previews and exclusive access to drafts and blog posts, the Patreon lets me do stuff outside of the magazine, such as video and podcasts.
So overall, Fantastic Odysseys lets me
- Promote OpenQuest and Related D100 games that D101 is putting out.
- Link up with new writers and artists for future publications.
- Get stuff off my hard drive that fits the magazine format.
- Have a Patreon with Video, Podcasts, and other fun things for my supporters.
- Enjoy OpenQuest and other D100 during the long haul between full releases.
Here are those links again.
OpenQuest Dungeons now available
OpenQuest Dungeons is now available via the D101 Games web store. This supplement for OpenQuest, which is broadly compatible with other D100 roleplaying games, has advice, resources and three adventures to ease players more familiar with D20 fantasy games into the joys of OpenQuest. PDF is available now, with the printed version on pre-order to ship when I get printed copies back from the printer in a couple of weeks.
OpenQuest Dungeons, cover by Jon Hodgson
OpenQuest Dungeons, the Stuff
I’m on the last round of proofing before pdfs go out to backers and go to print proof at DriveThruRPG.com, but it occurred to me that OpenQuest Dungeons has a lot of new stuff in it for the game.
OpenQuest Dungeons contains:
- Five New Religions.
- Five New Spells.
- Describes in game terms twenty-six traps.
- Gives details of three non-human species as playable character options.
- Four new Ready Made Concepts.
- Eleven Dungeoneering Actions.
- Three new Dungeon Adventures.
- Thirty-two Non-Player character profiles.
- Six new creatures.
- Twelve stock non-player characters to use in encounters and as retainers.
The first printed version of OpenQuest.
I’m just putting the finishing touches on the book, and I expect the pdf to go to backers this weekend, then off to print proof on Monday, and pre-orders opening then, too.
New page SimpleQuest Releases
Slowly getting back into the swing of things, as the Summer holidays begin to fade, and some important family stuff is finally being resolved. OpenQuest Dungeons is with Dr Mitch for proofing, and I’m working on getting the SimpleQuest supplements (essentially OQ books, too 🙂 ) done.
SimpleQuest now has a release page here, so you can see where I’m up to with it as a game line.
OpenQuest 3rd Edition
The OpenQuest Quickstart
OpenQuest Quickstart Cover © Jonny Gray
OpenQuest Companion
