1879: Forthcoming and Previews

1879: Forthcoming and Previews

The Kickstarter for the London books launched yesterday, to provide art and printing budgets for Big Trouble in Little Soho, our first Plot Point Campaign adventure, and London, or The Haunted City, our first gazetteer. But what’s next, you ask? What comes after these fine volumes? What further adventures await? What guidebooks, what rules expansions, what what what?

Fret no more, dear friends, for in this post we shall reveal much, but of course not all. We are currently debating as to what the next pair of books will be. We have the following options.

The Companions

Of course, there has to be an 1879 Players Companion and an 1879 GM’s Companion. The Players book will include the high Tiers of the 1879 Players Guide Professions, how to build your own Professions, and some new Professions including the Gambler and the Engineer. We’ll provide some expanded mechanics on Differential and Analytical Engines, including the Lovelace Profession. New Magic mechanics, including how to design new Base Spells and KAVs, some examples of each, a Devices chapter expanding on Weird Science, and some new Secret Societies, not all of whom are magical in nature. The 1879 GM’s Companion will also have new Secret Societies, as well as expanded rules for Vehicles such as Airship Combat. We will expand on Death and Disease (so prevalent in these times). We’ll also tell you about the Dragons. What, you thought Hyrdofeay was the only one awake?

The Fort Alice Book

We’ve done an exploration of London. We need to cover what’s at the other end of the Rabbit Hole. We’ll talk about the Fort Proper, provide a map, and give you some more GMCs and Adventure Hooks. We’ll also give you a map of the town outside the palisade walls, all green lumber and fresh paint, going up faster than Silver City in the Nevada Territory, and the nickel tour of the place, including its more famous (or nefarious) inhabitants. Our tour will continue out to the ikhanda, the Zulu settlements nearby, and the regimental villages for three of the Regularized Colonials. We’ll also talk about the railyard in Fort Alice, and the airship yard three miles away (in case of hydrogen explosion).

The Saurids Books

The Saurids get two books at this point in the product line. Saurids of the Gruv covers the Prairie, Mountain, and Forest cultures, and the kistalmi. There’s sketchy coverage of the Aquatics, with very little being known as yet about the salt-water Saurids. We”ll include a grammar, a glossary, a syllabary, portraits of the various tribes, maps, and notes on their religions and cultural practices. A Mechanics chapter at the end will go into depth on atlatls, Saurid field tactics, tail fighting, and Saurid magic, as well as the Professions specific to the Saurids, such as the Hapatvnorefvos, or Sky Rider. PPC02 Saurids on the Grosvenor Express continues the adventure begun in Big Trouble in Little Soho. The party starts out going through the Rabbit Hole, which is a small adventure in and of itself, then journeys on through Fort Alice and onward. The story includes espionage, firefights with desperate outlaws, a conspiracy involving the Saurids, and the possibility of species war. At the climax, there’s a chase scene where the player characters have to catch up to a train, then board it from their airship. We’re debating pairing these in a Kickstarter launch, or pairing the adventure with the Fort Alice book. Please let us know which you’d rather see in the Comments, below, or on our Forums, or on Discord, or at our contact e-mail address.

The Samsut Books

With these two, the pairing seems more obvious. PPC03 Deathless on the Nile (working title) concludes the adventure of The Akkadian Connection. In it, the party escorts a Samsut noble back home, deep into the Edeesmatu, the Samsut homeland, where no Earthers have ever gone. Of course, there’s conspiracy, and politics, and the question of how the noble got so far from home in the first place. If the party survives the court, and being caught between rival city-states, and makes it back to British-held territory, what a story to tell it will be! Balance and The Knife: The Samsut Guidebook (working title) will delve further into the Edeesmatu, from its origins on Earth long since lost into legend, to the rise of the city-states, and then the discovery of the Naptam-napishtu, the Life-giver, that changed the course of the Samsut forever,. From this one divine artifact, left for the Samsut by the Anunnaki themselves, flowed the technologies that brought the Samsut their greatest triumphs, war with the Saurids, and their harshest lessons. We’ll explore how the Samsut live and die, or live on across generations of the lesser castes. Mana-powered technology will be detailed, from the control modules of the tarayshlamtu that turn dead bodies into useful, working resources once more, to the railguns and sky chariots that give the Samsut an advantage over the British in the border war to the north. As with the Saurids, we’ll include linguistic resources, portraits of the castes, the cities, and the hinterlands, and cultural and religious information for roleplaying. A Mechanics chapter will provide stats for Samsut equipment, Professions unique to the Samsut, and example characters.

Further Explorations

We have a series of further gazetteers planned. Here’s a partial list of working titles.

  • Berlin, or The Electric City
  • Paris, or The Fallen City
  • The Union, or the Lady Ag’d Before Her Time
  • The Confederacy, or the Postbellum South
  • Deseret, or The Hive of Heaven

We’ve got further adventures planned, for the PPC series, for other story arcs, and for standalone books. Some base their conflict around the reintroduction of magic to the world. Others are purely technological, or are politically driven. Our goal is to create adventures on both sides of the steam/weird line, and some that balance atop the steamweird demarcation.

We’ve also previously talked about mechanics expansions, like the Rails sourcebook. We’ve already got outlines and partial drafts for a Byrons book, a Great Game book, and a Magic book. We’d like to keep a second balance, that of roleplaying material and mechanics, in which we provide for enthusiasts of both.

So before you go check out how our London Kickstarter is doing, give us some feedback on what you’d like to see in the product line. Comments are open, we have a forum, and you can reach us by e-mail.