Nuketown

Game Day: Launching into the Weird

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 12:14pm

The year is 1936. and there are strange happenings afoot in the world. Corners of the map that remain unexplored. Creatures from out of legend that hunger for human blood. Artifacts of great power that could change the shape of the world. There are those who would exploit these strange things to rule over the world of man ... and there are those who would stop them. The National Exploration Society is comprised of the latter. Working in cooperation with the Gotham Museum of Art and Antiquity in New York City, New York, they travel the world seeking the weird, the odd and the priceless ... and to stop those who might use such finds for evil.

This is the setup for my gaming group's new Pulp Weird campaign. It's being powered by the Savage Worlds Explorers Edition rules (read the review or buy it from Amazon), which is a slim tome that nonetheless manages to pack in almost all the rules and information we need to run this particular game. The campaign's being run once a month through the summer, and will likely run 5-6 sessions depending on interest and time. I'm co-gming the campaign with my friend Erilar, who'll be kicking things off with tonight's first session

Libertarian Futurist Society

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 7:30am

The home of the Prometheus Awards, given annually to the best in libertarian science fiction. It also publishes a quarterly newsletter called Prometheus. Great organization, but its web site is profoundly underwhelming.

Antipodean SF

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 7:30am

Antipodean prides itself on flipping the minds of its readers through thoughtful short-short stories written by Australian writers. The webzine aims to show the world that there are such creatures as Australian writers, while also expanding minds.

Philadelphia Science Fiction Society

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Wed, 05/07/2008 - 7:30am

The science fiction organization for the greater Philadelphia region. PSFS holds monthly meetings as well as PhilCon, its annual convention.

Planet Magazine

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Mon, 05/05/2008 - 7:30am

Planet Magazine is a speculative fiction webzine that's been published regularly since 1994. Originally published quarterly, the blog switched to an ad hoc blog format in 2004.

Signs & Portents 56 - Free Download

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 7:30am

Mongoose Publishing's latest edition of its homegrown magazine Signs & Portents is out. Issue #56 of the role-playing/wargaming magazine includes "An introduction to 760 Patrons" detailing a new mission-oriented source book for Traveller, "Conan Combat Styles", two alternative campaigns for Babylon 5 Call to Arms, "Cthulhutech Spells" and much more.

Savage Heroes

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 7:30am

Savage Heroes is an unofficial fan site for Savage Worlds packed full of resources for the fun, fast and furious role-playing game. Of particular note is the "Conversions" section, which offers dozens of system conversions for everything from Alternity to Crimson Skies to Fading Suns.

There's also the exceedingly useful Savage Beasts fan supplement containing 64 pages worth of monstrous goodness for Savage Worlds and an "Adventures" section with a two dozen-odd adventures, rule supplement and errata.

System47 Star Trek Screen Saver

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sat, 05/03/2008 - 7:30am

System47 is a screensaver that simulates the famous LCARS computer interface from Star Trek: The Next Generation and its successors. Diagnostic screens run showing the layout inside the Enterprise-E while scans display information about astronomical phenomenon. It's extremely well done, and perfect for anyone waxing nostalgic about the good ol'days of Star Trek. Window XP and Mac versions (up to Tiger) are available, but unfortunately it doesn't run on Mac OS X Leopard.

Game Day: Mashing the Weird Pulp

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Fri, 05/02/2008 - 11:57pm

Our long-discussed, long-delayed Weird Pulp campaign should invade our gaming table sometime this month or next. The game will feature myself and occasional Nuketown commenter Erilar team-GMing a 5-6 episode campaign set in the mid-1930s. The Nazi threat is only just beginning to rear its head, and full-out war still hasn't broken out in Europe.

A group of adventurers attached to a National Geographic-style exploration society are racing around the world investigating lost ruins, battling unspeakable evils, and -- of course -- battling with fascists hell bent on world domination. The whole thing will be powered by Savage Worlds, which half our group fell in love with at GenCon 2007.

StarShipSofa Podcast Metamorphosizes

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Fri, 05/02/2008 - 7:30am

The StarShipSofa podcast (http://www.starshipsofa.com/) is metamorphosing into the StarShipSofa - The Audio Science Fiction Magazine, following in the great tradition of magazines like Analog, Asimov and Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Each week the StarShipSofa will deliver a full package of SF related audio material all free including audio fiction, fact audio essays, flash fiction and poetry, all by leading names in the SF field. Many many writers have agreed to let StarShipSofa narrate their works including Ben Bova, Joe Haldeman, Alistair Reynolds and M John Harrison to name a few.

There will be two shows per week, the Wednesday show, also know as Aural Delights will contain narrated audio fiction, fact and poetry and the weekend show will be an in depth look into an author's life and work.

This week (4/27/08) saw the first of the metamorphosing with the StarShipSofa's Aural Delights show. Fiction was provided by Kage Baker's fantastic story "The Likely Lad", there were two poems by Bruce Boston and Laurel Winter, both winners of the Rhysling Award for SF Poetry. Flash fiction came from a very short but very powerful story called "Repeating The Past' by Peter Watts, author of the SF novel Blindsight.