Science Fantasy - Tumblr Posts
Harpy design is getting along now. Started painting the tiny full body profiles, and am on 2nd layer of paint for the head profiles. If you look in the bottom left and right corner you can catch some bird tidd- aah inflatable display wattles..
‘Spacescapes’ by Steve R Dodd. Circa mid 1970s to early 80s
THEME: Space and Stars
This week's themes are all loosely categorized under space, from space-westerns, to space-fantasy, to some games entirely within their own genre.
Boar Beasts on A Barbarous Planet, by Z.W. Garth.
Boar Beasts on a Barbarous Planet is a 2-page Push Powered roleplaying game of boarfolk warriors surviving on a planet of swords-and-lasers, covered in hostile biomes and littered with the sci-fi tech of planetary invaders who couldn't cut it in this harsh world.
Players take on the role of warriors dedicated to protecting their sounder from the many threats that plague them, in this harsh, psychedelic world.
Push games use an interesting 'push-your-luck' mechanic, in which your can choose to re-roll and add to your roll in order to make a "weak" success stronger - but roll too high, and you meet disaster. In my opinion, it's an SRD that feels a little over-looked in the indie scene.
This game is meant to be brutal and violent, on a world that is difficult to survive. Your characters enter the story battle-scarred, and will leave the story worse, possibly even dead. This looks to be a game that’s full of prompts and roll-tables, so if you like random generation, I recommend checking this one out.
From Out of the Boundless Deep, by Scyllaycs.
From Out the Boundless Deep is a two-player game about a mech pilot and an engineer working on the starship the Boundless. The game follows the pilot’s dangerous missions off the ship, the engineer’s meaningful repairs onboard the ship, and the brief moments the two meet between missions.
This game has two players, and no set GM. If you want to be a character who’s interacting with a dynamic set of stats and risky endeavours, you can pick up the Pilot. If you like building and modding things to set up the two of you for future challenges, then the Engineer might be more your style. The Game itself is split into two phases: Ship Phase and Mission Phase, with each phase giving the player a chance to shine. A Tarot Deck will be used to provide benefits and drawbacks throughout the course of play.
This is a game where you can really explore the conflict and community between two characters, in a situation where they can’t always communicate in a way they’d like. It doesn't demand an epic storyline but definitely has the space for it. This is also a great game for two people who have different and complimentary styles of play.
Dead Belt, by A Couple of Drakes.
Dead Belt is played by building a Belter and taking them out into the Belt to scavenge randomly-generated starships, using things you already have laying around: a six-sided die, a deck of common playing cards, and a few tokens of whatever sort happen to be close at hand.
With a dozen unique ship deck plans, over 100 flavorful prompts, and plenty of character stats to help you avert certain death, no two ships will ever feel the same. You’ll board these derelict starships, navigate barriers, dodge threats, monitor your air-supply, and salvage as you go.
You’ll deal with all the dangers lurking onboard these starships, push your luck, and finally return to spend your hard-won booty to secure better equipment, improve your skills, pay down your crippling debt, and hopefully, maybe, eventually set yourself up to live out your dreams far from the Belt.
There are three ways to play this game: Solo, Co-Op and Rivalry. This means that in a two-player game, you can choose to either work together or attempt to sabotage each-other in a race for pay. This game is an homage to Cowboy Bebop and similar Space Westerns, with a lot of tantalizing options designed for duet play.
Vaults of Vaarn, by graculusdroog.
Vaults of Vaarn is a 48-page, black and white tabletop RPG zine, which presents setting information, a full game system, and character creation procedure for adventures in Vaarn, a vast blue desert that lies at the very end of time. The game is built on the chassis of Knaveby Ben Milton, with lightweight rules, speedy character generation, and gameplay that emphasizes creativity and problem-solving on the part of players and referee.
This game setting feels like a space opera smashed together with acid fantasy, with bright colourful descriptions of strange monsters, NPC’s and locations. It is a dangerous setting that is designed to work with OSR games, primarily Knave but I have a feeling it would be pretty easy to steal ideas from this for other OSR systems as well. If you’re a fan of big space epics like Dune or weird futures like Numenera or Gamma World, this game is probably worth checking out.
If you want to see what the community has created for this setting, I recommend checking out the submissions to the Vaarn Summer Jam of 2022!
Nibiru, by Araukana Media.
Nibiru is a science fiction tabletop roleplaying game, set in a massive space station in a neighbouring solar system. Players take on the role of Vagabonds; people who woke up in the space station with no memories of their past.
Nibiru tackles themes of memory, nature and artificiality through simple mechanics, evocative art and immersive worldbuilding.
This is a game in which you create your character’s backstory as you play, filling in pieces of memory as you explore a space station filled with strange inhabitants and abandoned or deteriorating locations. The way you write about yourself will also fuel your character progression, with rewards for creativity and turning some of your memories into tools that you can use as you play. The setting is unique, evocative, and has a lot of potential to tell a compelling and heart-wrenching story.
If you want to see a bit of the game in action before buying it, there is a Quickstart Guide available on DriveThruRPG!
Other Space Recommendation Posts
Star Trek (and its sequel)
Space Adventures
Space Westerns
Space Fantasy
This is fucking wonderful, it appeals to my love for fantasy and my love for science, I need a book showcasing the mermaid biology.
tired: mermaids are all women
wired: much like elves, merfolk are mistaken by sailors for being all women because they have long hair and are very pretty
I added this to another post but op turned off reblogs and blocked me for some reason, so I'm doing my own:
my TRANS GIRLFRIEND wrote an INCREDIBLE sci-fi novel that YOU can read for SIX DOLLARS
the story is exciting and compelling, and there are very intentional queer themes laced throughout the book. I had so much fun reading it, it was definitely worth $6. plus, you know, seeing my girlfriend smile would be nice too. if you like surrealist architecture, sibling relationships, and/or talking birds, give this a shot!
irredeamable development retrospective. Part 1.5: capitalism IN SPACE This one part will tackles an alternate setting for the Specter game we spoke of last time. It may even have come first in the development timeline, through it can be a bit difficult to determine exactly how and when ideas shifted so lets not worry about what actually came first. Much like shadow and light, this game was about a specter, possessing people, but just as the title says, the setting was more of a space-faring adventure where you would visit multiple planets.
It features much of the same races as shadows and light, though their exact appearance has shifted a bit, as everything would in a different setting.
Depicted here, we have Mars, a frozen desert planet with large scale mining operations and a bit of a western vibe. Humans and mitons are the main races here and were given stout figures and thick coat to fit the cold yet dry weather. Venus is now overgrown with a rich, volcanic jungle where countless comic plant are being grown and harvested. This planet is mainly occupied by goblin employees who take the place of the succubus from last game. Mercury was hollowed out and turned into a giant energy powerplant, with a massive solar panel attached to one side. Earth ...well i dont think i ever did figure out what to do with it. Its kind of just another mining planet. and finally we have the alien mothership. The home base of a group of invading alien corporations from the Alpha Centauri system. ....yes i know what it looks like, but its actually supposed to be based on their system having 3 stars (2 large and 1 small)
Aniway, the Centaurian species consists of long-lived and hyper-intelligent giant squid. Their technology is very advanced, especially in domains of communication, space travel and artificial life. Many of their servants (which i think included the goblins) are bioweapons that were specifically crafted to integrate into local populations and perform whichever jobs were needed for the growth of the company. There was never much of an actual story, so all i really got left are some blueprints of the solar system, now converted into some kind of space construct for the Centaurians to exploit.
Aniway, thats it for today, but next time we`ll be leaving all those specters behind and move into yet another setting. One that is not quite so cosmic, but instead rather....toweresque... To be continued in part 2: Ascending the Godlands
art by richard corben from "doomscult" published in "1984 almanaque" 1981
I love a good marriage between sci fi and fantasy
Artist: Michael Whelan
STARCRASH.
I watch this film at least once a year, I think it's eclipsed Plan 9 From Outer Space as my favourite/most watched film...
Oh my goodness, Ulysses 31! Now there is a blast from the past!
Mostly what I recall about this show is the one episode that featured this...
...as well as these critters...
Thinking about it, DIC Audiovisuel French/Japan collaborations were a big deal on TV when I was growing up (so much so that I picked up the set of The Mysterious Cities of Gold/Les Mystérieuses Cités d'Or when it came out on DVD), not to mention the Spanish/Japan collaborations of BRB Internacional (Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, for instance...!)
Other Odysseys: Ulysses 31
It seems so strange for me that many people do not know Ulysses 31, because back in France it is one of the most famous and defining productions of the 80s in terms of kid entertainment. It was one of the big nerdy things of the time, and a large influence on French sci-fi.
Ulysses 31 (French title, Ulysse 31 ; Japanese title, Uchu Densetsu Yurishizu Satiwan) is one of the most renowned results of this specific mediatic era in the 80s which saw recurring collaborations between France and Japan. This series is, as a result, both an European cartoon and a Japanese anime. It first aired during the 1981-1982 season, but it kept having regular re-airings all the way into the 2000s. It is a set of 26 episodes, each 26 minutes long (though the original airing was... very strange. If anyone is interested I'll share about it :p)
And what's the plot? Well if you couldn't guess by the title... It's THE ODYSSEY IN SPACE of course!
Science-fiction was the big obsession of both French and Japanese in the 80s, so of course they would settle to move the Odyssey n space. Remember: it was the post-Star Wars boom, the "after Kubrick's 2001" time, the era of "Captain Future", "Albator 78", "Cobra Space Adventure". We still have Odysseus trying to return home, encountering monsters and being persecuted by the gods... But we are in the 31st century, Odysseus' ship is a space-ship equiped with a helpful artificial-intelligence-computer, Troy is a space station, Odysseus tries to return to planet Earth rather than Ithaqua, and his journey takes him through space and different planets instead of islands of the sea.
Another quite major change: Telemachus is with Odysseus! Yep. Indeed, you see, Odysseus still has his entire crew... But they were placed into a suspended animation by the gods as part of Odysseus' curse. This was actually a way to limit the protagonists of the story, as there are only four people awake and sentient on the ship. Odysseus, his son Telemachus who accompanies him, Themis (who is an alien little girl Odysseus rescued from this version of the Cyclop, no relationship to the Titaness whatsoever), and Nonno. Nonno who is... he is supposed to be the sort of goofy, joking robot sidekick - you know the type of character, this typical chibified little mascot you find in every anime of the era, and that people either love or despise with all their guts.
Together, the four of them (who basically have a sort of family dynamic of a father, his two kids, and the pet) have to find back their way to Earth while escaping the many perils and dangers the gods throw before them... Because here's the fascinating thing in this take on the Odyssey: the gods are actual gods. They're not hyper-advanced aliens, they're not omniscient artificial intelligence, they are actual deities who just happen to rule over the entire universe instead of one planet. Or rather the entire "multiverse"...
Here is the starting plot of the series, the core of the first episode and what is recapped at the beginning of each ulterior story - and it gives you an insight at how this cartoon handles the original material.
The episode begins with Odysseus and Telemachus leaving the Troy space-station where they stayed for several years, to return home to Earth. However, during their travel, they get captured by the inhabitants of a strange and dangerous planet: a group of fanatical one-eyed monks. These people are actually a cult who worship a creation of the god Poseidon: a gigantic robot, the "Cyclop", which provides sight and energy to the fanatical monks... in exchange of child sacrifices. Odysseus rescues his son Telemachus, as well as two alien kids (one of them being Themis, the other her older brother Numaios), and destroys the Cyclop-robot before leaving the planet.
Unfortunately for him, the monks called upon Poseidon, who in turn called upon Zeus - and Zeus appears in front of Odysseus' ship. Zeus punishes Odysseus for destroying a sacred creation of the gods - and not only does he places Odysseus' entire crew (plus Themis' older brother) in a state of suspended animation, a sort of floating coma, but he also erases the road back to Earth from the space-ship's main computer... And then transports Odysseus' ship to Olympus.
Sounds cool? No. Olympus is here an alternate dimension filled with physical abnormalities and scientific horrors and other alien terrors. It is where the gods and their servants dwell, but it is also where they send all those they seek to punish or torment... And by Zeus' own words, Odysseus is now doomed to find his way back to Earth - which he can only do by reaching the outmost limits of the dimension of Olympus, the "realm of Hades", where a gate to his homeworld awaits him...
Quite a story, huh?
The anime actually takes a course typical of Odyssey cartoons: it adapts the key parts of the Odyssey (Circe, Charybdis and Scylla, Aeolus, the Cyclop, the Laestrygons, etc), but also throws in other elements from Greek mythology to pad things up (Odysseus encounters the sphinx, the minotaur, Nereus, and more), and also adds entirely new episodes which have absolutely nothing to do with Greek mythology whatsoever (and usually you can feel how different they are due to relying on anime tropes and random fantasy or sci-fi stories rather than, you know, Greek legend and Antique aesthetic - you even have a friggin' space adaptation of Count Zaroff!).
If you are familiar with the specific brand of science-fiction carried by things like Doctor Who, you'll find yourself upon a comfortable ground, a world where gods and witches coexist with alien plants, impossible planets, clones and hyper-advanced robots ; a world where Poseidon sends shark-humanoids in trident-shaped spaceships after Odysseus. However, the defining trait of this anime, and what a lot of people might enjoy with this loose adaptation: it is full on cosmic horror.
Already we are talking of Greek monsters transposed as aliens, robots and space abnormalities ; and of Odysseus' endless journey through hostile seas being turned into a desperate search for his home-planet throughout the empty darkness of an alternate dimension. Add to that how Olympus is a prison-dimension containing many people who are victim of the gods' unfairness or cruelty - even though they, themselves, turned towards evil measures or committed terrible deeds as a result of what the gods had them go through... The result is eepisodes that are either terrifying, or very much depressing (especially episodes like the Sisyphus or Circe ones, where these already ambiguous figures are even more morally ambiguous, pitiful in their fall and noble in their evil, antagonists Odysseus must battle but that he comes to admire and respect in their own ways). It's still kid-friendly though, so Odysseus always vanquishes the villain of the day, and his kids are never truly harmed, and the protagonists always escape by the end... But by gosh is everybody who is not a protagonist can have the worst and most miserable endings ever.
But then, you have to add the gods. They're the best part of the show - as in, the most horrifying. Remember when I said I don't mind pure villainization of the Greek gods as long as it is made in a way that makes sense and is aware of the original material? It's one of these cases.
In Ulysses 31's universe, there are no good gods. Athena is utterly absent, Hermes does appear but he doesn't give two shits about Odysseus as he was sent for another mission (dealing with Circe, which just happens to coincidentaly help Odysseus and even then in a way that deeply displeases Odysseus), and the closest thing we get to a benevolent entity is Hades - but that's just because he is a purely and entirely neutral force who is still massively terrifying. It tells you something that in this story, Zeus is turned into the main persecutor of Odysseus and teams up with Poseidon to cause the most terrible things to him (in fact, Zeus and Poseidon are so close they are basically almost one same entity). Even Aeolus is turned into an evil lord out of Dune who hosts for his guests deadly games using human beings as pawns.
But what is really frightening and cool in terms of design choices are how the big gods appear. The big three, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. The "minor" gods like Aeolus or others are depicted as just mutated and/or supernatural humanoids, as physical entities - but the "big" gods? They are... gigantic, empty-eyed Ancient Greek statues, half-translucid, floating into space, appearing and disappearing out of the shadows between the stars, with their voice booming through the silence of space and reaching people's ears against all physical laws. This, while being followed by some creepy synth music that traumatized an entire generation of kids. For those who were scared by the Southern Oracle scene from the Neverending Story, you'll get what I mean when I say enormous talking statues can be very disturbing.
In fact, in many ways "Ulysses 31" might be one of the darkest takes on the Odyssey and on Greek mythology I ever saw, which ultimately leaves you with a strange bittersweet taste in your mouth. Again, typical of a Doctor Who-like show: a cosmic horror story that ends happily, a space-travel tale where the heroes defeat the bad guys but with abominable implications for the kind of world they live in as a whole, and a story which despite being fun and goofy at time, is still a story where many people died or suffered dreadfully on the way. .
... You know, just your random kids classic that aired on children's channels on Sunday mornings X) Even some of the goofist, most ridiculous or childish episodes (like the one of the witch at the vacation camp for aliens - you'll know what I mean) always have at least one frightening scene or shot worth of a horror movie.
Okay well, since tumblr mangles image quality, here's the same stuff on DeviantArt.
Okay kids, strap in. Uncle Spy has some worldbuilding to lay on ya.
So the new Spelljammer 5e was announced a few months back, releasing in August (it's just turned June as I write this). Since then my friend and I have been gushing about it and planning some stuff around it, but one of the things that always struck me as disappointing about original Spelljammer was how... boring the Forgotten Realms solar system (Realmspace, where Abeir-Toril lies) was. It's much smaller than our solar system: eight planets, and only one of those is explicitly a giant planet (Coliar, said to be a "gas giant" but really more like a small ice giant). Two of them (Garden and H'Catha) aren't actually planets either, just constructs the size of dwarf planets. Two other planets are just ocean worlds, one with a sargasso sea around its equator and the other full of rocky atolls. Only two planets have any moons at all, to boot. Simply put: there's not a lot to look at, really. I'm hoping the new Spelljammer canon will retcon this and give Toril a larger, more varied solar system with more giant worlds and moon systems.
HOWEVER, there's another factor at play here. I made a character who's a space bard, directly inspired by all the filk I've been listening to lately. The problem is... a good chunk of that filk either A) uses names (planets, programs, people, etc) specific to real life space exploration and/or B) is rocketpunk instead of sailpunk like Spelljammer is intended to be. That got me thinking... I'd had a vague idea for a rocketpunk alt-Toril in the back of my mind for a while –a universe where the magical beings of the Forgotten Realms had reached the stars not through magicked-up sailing ships with atmosphere bubbles, but through magicked-up classic rockets– and this seemed like the perfect excuse to deploy that idea and start hammering it into a more coherent shape.
All of this added up to... well, something! Behold, my attempt to have my cake and eat it too: Terraspace.
This map was made using the template/assets developed by DeviantArt user slimysomething.
Terraspace is a fantasy version of our solar system within the wider Spelljammer setting where elves and dwarves and beastfolk all sing the rocketpunk blues. The Apollo Program exists as part of their history, but Apollo 13 was fine because of hasty Purify Air enchantments and some innovative abjuration. Dragons funded the Space Race. That sorta bullshit. Also, spiced up the solar system with a little idealism, as you can see; part of that was also me leaning into old Golden Age pulpy SF concepts like Jungle Venus and Pyramids of Mars. I don't thhhhhhink this counts as a new worldbuilding project,,, yet? Stay tuned I guess.
Another big chunk of my word count: the calendar that accompanies the above mythos! (Please don't mind the header image.)
FIRST WORLDEMBER ARTICLE DONE! This took me quite a while but it's nearly a third of my 10k word goal for the month.
Temoranity is the belief system of the Aurian people and one of the most prolific faiths on Sphaera.
Finally managed to make some simple bio./reference cards for my main OCs for my upcoming webcomic!
Not fully happy with Zephyr's wing design yet, but please give me your feedback and ideas on how to improve these going forward! Thanks!
Oh yeah, I overhauled my OC Zephyr to make him easier to draw and more bird-like to better fit his motifs more. Please enjoy.
(Greenhorne, who is 5’ ft for scale.) The False Knights are giant siege engine used by Knights of Magnus Puella like the Siege engines of Yore. This particular one is used by the Knights of Taeyong Adeul, and carries a tank, a small laser, and an arm for melee. This machine and its weaponry are powered by a source of energy known as “Auburn”, which is said to flow in every living being, with most treating False Knights as living beings because of this. They are technically automated, but listen to voice commands of special leaders who command these machines (not pictured).
Another image for the blog, as some may tell, it was inspired by Knights from 40k. Don’t ask why I put a mech in a fantasy setting, it’s my creation and I’ll do sad I damn well please. - Valentine.
Kill All Boneheads scene the second. End of issue 1
So listen, I ain't gonna lie to you, issue 1 is just *bad*. It serves as an introduction to the world yes but basically all it is is sitting you down and explaining shit to you and it doesn't even really do a good job at that, considering the Pisces twins break basically every rule of the central power system of the series. And like yeah there are people who break the rules, each heart basically has its own rules but there's still a pretty solid thru-line between most of them.
And for anyone who's gonna drop a "why is Pisces a set of twins instead of Gemini? Gemini is supposed to be twins" listen man, when I started this I didn't know anything about zodiac signs. I just knew Pisces was two fish. Honestly I chose zodiac signs kind of arbitrarily cause I wanted a set of mystical things with a defined finite number of members so I could have an actual end point for this comic, and JoJo already used tarot cards. 😭😭
Think of issue 1 as an expositional prologue and issue 2 as the proper issue 1.
Kill all Boneheads part the number of backyardigans in the first season (4)
I really wasted the non-heart-powered-Julian segment of this story. I wanted him to go for a while without a heart, cause I like scrappy chatacters punching above their weight class, but it takes so long to make this comic and I got impatient. I also established a set of tools and weapons for Julian that have yet to come back (and probably never will for reasons that you'll understand in a later issue). Reguardless this is the first proper fight in this shonen battle series that is actually of a quality I'm willing to share.
My Champion, 7-Talar.
Skip to 1:27 on John Barry's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service -main theme"