April: Cloud Empress Spores Galore

Luke Gearing, Bio-Drones and Cryo-Clones, plus Cloud Empress updates

Cloud Empress Update

The beginning of May is the last big push for Cloud Empress content rewrites before a second shorter development pass into copyediting. My editor, Roz Leahy, had dozens of fantastic notes I’ve been working to implement over the last three weeks. It’s going to be a stretch to fit everything I’ve written into two 50+ page zines, but anything that’s cut and interesting I plan on posting in future Cloud Empress newsletters and making available on CloudEmpress.com.

As a reminder, if you haven’t secured your copy of Cloud Empress, preorders are open at: https://cloud-empress.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

New Cloud Empress Content - Spores 

Mushrooms, fungi, and spores play a vital role in the world of the Hereafter. Farmerlings and Cloudlings cultivate spores for practical uses including; a resilient food source, living armor, poisons, and more. The rulebook will includes rules for ten popular spore breeds. When exposed to water, spores rapidly expand with a unique effect. Here's a look at the draft Spore table in the rulebook:

Luke Gearing Mentorship Retrospective 

From October 2022 to March 2023, I was Luke Gearing’s mentee (author of Gradient Descent, A Pound of Flesh, The Isle, and much more) in his RPG writing mentorship program. I am a huge fan of Luke's terse poetic writing and singular approach to RPG adventures. As part of the end to the mentorship, Luke and I wrote short retrospectives on the experience. Here's an excerpt from my side of the retrospective:

“Our weekly meetings alternated between discussing Luke’s writing process as a way of improving my own process, discussing published work we read, and reviewing my writing for Cloud Empress. I’ll talk about each three of these meeting types as a way of explaining my mentorship experience.

Writing 101

The start of our sessions was focused on topics like creating work time for writing, minimizing distractions, and writing in markup to keep a flow state. I’ve been writing for over fifteen years, but I still found a lot I could implement in my own personal practice. These sessions also gave me a sense of comradery and comfort with Luke early on. I have a much more consistent writing practice as a result of these conversations, which has been invaluable for the massive amount of Cloud Empress content due.

RPG Critical Reads

Critically reading and discussing a variety of RPG works felt like a breath of fresh air. The combination of creators supporting one another in indie ttrpg online spaces and a pervasive product-focused review format means I’m not exposed to or regularly participate in RPG writing critiques. A considered critique of written work feels important to my development as a writer but feels like an atrophied skill. We discussed older works I would have not been exposed to otherwise as well as titles relevant to Cloud Empress’ design goals. Luke was quick to warn me of problematic or harmful content in any titles he suggested. This shared critique process helped me better understand where Luke and my perspectives differed and aligned.

Writing Critique

I’ve participated in a few writing classes and programs over the last fifteen years and felt fairly comfortable having my work critiqued. Still, these previous experiences skewed negative to a fault. I’ve had former mentors say stuff like, “It’s not my job to tell you what you’re doing well,” and focus almost exclusively on weaknesses in my work. Luke, on the other hand, was encouraging and provided thoughtful praise. Luke asks questions and interrogates the unconscious defaults I chose in my writing. When Luke would ask me why I’d done something, often my answer was, “I’m not sure” or “so and so reviewer said they liked books that did this.” Over the weeks and months working together, I let go of the idea that I could combine all the best ideas from all the tweets and YouTube reviews I had gathered to make a perfect book. Instead, at Luke’s suggestion, I worked towards making Cloud Empress into a book that I fucking liked. I still think about my audience, but it’s a much smaller group of people I aim to please. I’m more comfortable writing work that goes against the consensus about how an RPG should be organized or written if it’s done for a good purpose.

During one of a few check-ins we had over the course of the mentorship, I mentioned that I struggle a bit with Luke’s idea that challenges bring out our best work. In our meetings, I started to realize that I was tending to fold or become overly agreeable when Luke would intentionally push on a decision I had made in order to discuss the choice. I don’t want to speak for Luke, but I think Luke gets energy in constructive and boundaried conflict. I know other folks like this. Folks who clarify their point of view when it’s interrogated or challenged — the problem is, I tend to accept and change very quickly based on feedback. At best, when I change quickly, the changes create growth and faster learning. At worst, I can be a bit of a people-pleaser. We discussed how “challenging” my ideas had a different impact on me than I think Luke intended. Luke was very open to changing communication styles. With a slight change in critique approach, I built even more self-confidence in my writing and protected my creative voice. It’s an example to me, just how generous the mentorship opportunity is given how flexible and receptive Luke has been to shake things up and do things differently to meet my needs.

Closing the Mentorship

Transitioning out of the mentorship has helped me claim a space as an RPG creator. I’ve only been working in the ttrpg space for about two years, but Luke’s openness with his own process and the explicit encouragement of my writing helped me realize there’s no secret and profound knowledge behind my favorite RPG books. I can see how the works I appreciate most take risks for reasons. Building and holding confidence in yourself as a writer is essential for assessing which risks to take. Failure is inherent to risk. The only writers who don’t take some hard knocks are those who don’t share their work with the world. Self-confidence is a limited resource though. It’s in the communities, friendships, and trust we place with other human beings that sustain the arduous risks to evoke, clarify, and create joy in those who read our work and live in our adventures for a time.”

You can find my full write-up and Luke's side of the retrospective on his blog.

Interview with Chris Airiau

With the release of Cloud Empress, and the Cloud Empress Creator's Fund (more on this next month), I'm eagerly waiting to see what folks create in the world of Cloud Empress. I don’t need to wait too long. Chris Airiau, an early playtester of Cloud Empress, has already been creating third-party Cloud Empress content. I interviewed Chris Airiau about Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones, his upcoming Cloud Empress expansion content, and 5 Million Worlds Press.

You recently kickstarted a very successful (in my estimation at least) Mothership module, Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones, a grotesque facility crawl inspired by Metroid and the Fly. I think we are both in a similar boat having made smaller projects previously and now have larger Kickstarter success on our laps. How are you feeling about how the Kickstarter campaign went a few months out? 

Thanks watt! I still feel pretty great about how the campaign went. I am just amazed by all the support the zine received, by backers and creators. Talking to loads of kind, helpful creators and following advice the best I could really did the trick. In hindsight, another aspect I think helped was launching on Day 1 of Zine Month. The promotion train is pretty exhausting, so I’ve been glad to get back to the creative part. But oh buddy, am I glad I listened to everyone who told me to add three months minimum to my fulfillment schedule. Life was slapping me around a bit, haha, but the manuscript is in the layout designer’s hands now, so still on schedule!

I’ve found myself more and more drawn to body horror and it feels like the Mothership community is this weird little space to appreciate body horror with other fans and creators. What draws you to write body-horror?

Ok, so I have some weird opinions about science fiction (sf) and the future. Basically, I think if our descendants ever travel the stars (big if), they wouldn’t look like humans. That’s amazing to think about. So yeah, body horror can be gross and freaky, sure, but it can also be empowering. That empowerment shows up in Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones in the form of the cryo-clones’ special mutation abilities. While the baddies are the ones utilizing the xeno-biotech in Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones, the titular body horror creatures aren’t automatic bad guys. I think these weirdos are pretty cool! But then I grew up as an outsider/weirdo who watched tons of TMNT, had Toxic Crusaders toys, and thinks the alien in The Thing gets a bad rap. So taken that way, exploring body horror is also exploring the wondrous possibility of the human body, which is fun.

Part of the Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones campaign was two third-party Cloud Empress expansions, ‘The Unseen City’ and ‘Circling Down the Snail’s Spiral.’ We haven’t talked about this so I’m interested to know what got you into Cloud Empress as an early creator/adopter?

Well first, I loved Hot Stuff on Shore Leave. Second, I dig science fantasy and Mothership. Already, easy sell. When I saw your early appendix-n for Cloud Empress, it listed some of my favorite books plus one book I’d never even heard of before: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. So, I grabbed those at the library, and was reading the series with Dhalgren, Earthsea, and Annihilation in mind.

The turning point from wanting to play/run to wanting to make something for Cloud Empress was realizing how much in common the game has with Hot Stuff. For me, Hot Stuff represents a hostile-yet-safe space focused on character development and interaction. That little zine packs a lot of humanity, and Cloud Empress takes those touchstones further. Playtesting Cloud Empress in October while reading Nausicaä, yeah, that started churning ideas in my head for this abandoned underground city.

What’s the pitch for The Unseen City and Circling Down the Snail’s Spire for those just hearing about them?

Surprise! It’s been upgraded from two pamphlets into a 16pg dual-faced zine.

The Unseen City: A Cloud Empress Biome x Circling Down the Snail’s Spire contains a new, underground Biome for Cloud Empress with an accompanying adventure as the flip cover, featuring art by HodagRPG (Twitter/blog). 

The Unseen City Biome is an abandoned, underground environment interconnected by Gate-magic and inhabited by Hereafter refugees, smuggler Courier guilds, and Mystling peoples. The Unseen City unfolds differently for each table, as a d20 generative point-crawl with random tables for settlements, guilds and Mystlings.

Circling Down the Snail’s Spire of Galak Achanti, a skyscraper-sized Imago-eater, the PCs chase the fugitive Dedaimia who seeks to unleash this creature upon the Hereafter. Inside each Whorl is a living world, and Dedaimia is opening Gates to new worlds as she descends to The Bastion.

We’ve playtested a few Mothership projects together, so I know you live in France. What has the process of publishing internationally as an American citizen been like? 

Have you ever seen The 12 Labors of Asterix? There’s a segment called “La Maison Qui Rend Fou,” loosely translating to “The Building that Drives You Mad,” which sums up my experience with the American and French bureaucracies pretty well. In all seriousness, the administrative maze of international tax law has been by far the most difficult part of publishing abroad. The indie ttrpg scene has been so incredibly supportive and encouraging that I’ve not had very few difficulties in getting physical games out to people. 

It’s true that with international shipping costs I don’t get the true indie “Zine Home Invasion” experience of receiving loads of boxes and hand-posting those to everyone. But then you have awesome people like Violet, Tony, Eryk and iko who are out there helping people like me get distribution.

As a new creator myself, I’ve been trying to define what success looks like so I know I’m heading in the right direction both creatively and as a business. How do you think about success as a publisher and creator? 

The indie ttrpg industry has this joke about everyone writing and reading games and adventures and never playing anything, right? So, I suppose the biggest success metric is hearing back from people who’ve read or played my games. This is admittedly something I could be better about too, and which I aim to payback to the scene in my substack newsletter with short play reports.

As a creator, one way I think you can tell what you’re doing is reaching people is when other creatives invite you to work on new projects. I’ve had a few people I admire approach me for some exciting work, which frankly feels pretty good especially because their creative visions are so damn cool, but I have to keep my mouth shut about those for now, haha.

For the publisher aspect, the work is a balance between the creative and business sides. It’s one thing to contribute writing to a project, and another to do the publishing work from promo to fulfillment. I’ve already got the Sleeper Crew Adventures “product line” starting with Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones. Thus far, I’ve managed to hold the balance and ensure the next Sleeper Crew Adventure is coming: a Mothership x Cloud Empress sidequel, Twisting of the Unseen City. If Sleeper Crew Adventures have continued demand, well that’s a success that lets me keep on making games, and take on new risks. Time will tell, but I hope to keep making game pamphlets, zines, and eventually books.

Speaking of books, the Cloud Empress project is my first time publishing other people's work in a "world by watt." I'm keeping the same name through this transition (worlds by watt), but I understand you've changed your publisher name. Can you tell me about your transition from a ChrisAir Games to 5 Million Worlds Press?

I’ve been self-publishing under ChrisAir Games, and wanted to create a broader publishing house for more diverse work: 5 Million Worlds Press, or 5MW Press. The impetus started when I worked on a 5th Quinquennial Interstellar Interdisciplinary Conference (TKG/itch) with 14 other creators. I had a ton of fun managing and editing this 16pg zine. I feel “ChrisAir Games” is too small an umbrella if I want to work on other game-adjacent fiction publications like that.

The name 5MW Press comes from my WIP space adventure ttrpg, 5 Million Worlds. My goal is to have a one-page mini-zine out in the world by the end of the summer, so keep an eye out.

Thanks so much for your time and sharing your work. Where can people find you online?

Thanks for having me! The best place for regular updates would be my new 5MW Press Newsletter on Substack. For updates on new games, follow me on chrisair.itch.io. If you’re still dancing in the burning house, my Twitter is @ChrisAiriau.

Preferred newsletter length?

This newsletter was a bit longer than in previous months. Do you prefer your newsletters bite-sized or enjoy longer reads? Share your thoughts in the comments below and help me make the Cloud Empress newsletter even better.