January: cicada patch, d100 table, Nirvana on Fire, oh my!
In this newsletter I share news about a Cloud Empress early bird bonus, d100 table, and an interview with Dave Kenny on Nirvana on Fire: Expanded Edition
January has been a whirlwind of a month so far and the excitement, hard work, and stress are bound to continue with only ten days until Cloud Empress launches on Kickstarter, Tuesday January 17th.
The early bird gets the cicada patch
I’m sending this January newsletter out a bit early, in part, because I want to let everyone know about the free ‘cicada patch’ I’ll be giving out for backers of physical pledge levels who support Cloud Empress Kickstarter in the first 24 hours.
The 3” cicada patch will then be available to all backers as a $5 add-on. As you may have seen in the Mothership 1E campaign, offering a bonus reward to early-bird backers has an outset impact on the overall project’s success. The first day is make or break for a Kickstarter.
Don’t miss out on the cicada patch by following the Cloud Empress prelaunch page.
Rulebook back cover d100 table
A good table is worth its weight in gold and Mothership is known for some epic d100 tables. In Cloud Empress, the world is littered with the junk of past dreams, greed, and failed civilizations. The back of the Cloud Empress Rulebook will have a d100 “What do they have? / What do you find?” table. This multi-use table should be perfect for scavenging, pickpocketing, or finding out what an NPC is carrying. Take a look at the current draft of the table below!
Dave Kenny interview, Nirvana on Fire Expanded Edition
I had the pleasure of chatting with David Kenny, author of Nirvana on Fire: Expanded Edition, The Cleaning of Prison Station Echo, Dying on Hardlight Station, and many other fantastic zines. Here we chat about updated editions, artwork, Buddhism, and the future of the Mothership community.
watt: The first edition of Nirvana on Fire was beautiful, but wow, the new Expanded Edition takes a very distinct visual approach that pays off in a big way (this book looks great). What considerations did you make when overhauling the visuals?
Dave: Thanks Watt, that’s kind of you to say. There has been a ton of positive feedback on the art and aesthetic thus far and personally, I couldn’t be more pleased. The truth is, ever since I wrote the original zine I’ve had my friend Jérôme Berthier in mind for the art. Back when Nirvana on Fire first came out, having a budget for art was a fantasy. But now, with the success of my previous modules such as Dying Hard on Hardlight Station, I was able to hire Jérôme to make the original text align with what I’d always dreamed it could be.
As far as developing the aesthetic itself, Jérôme and I spent some very fun hours hashing out our ideas for how his art would work with my words. Primarily, I wanted to make sure he kept it very Jérôme for lack of a more precise term. I wanted to work with him because I felt his unique style would be a perfect fit for the zine and I think we ended up with exactly that: Jérôme’s style and vision on the page as a definitive representation of the contents of the zine.
If your readers are curious, they can check out more of Jérôme’s work on his website:https://www.jeromebberthier.com. It’s worth checking out, his stuff is awesome.
watt: So in Nirvana on Fire, this space Buddhist monastery Siddartha’s Peace is in deep trouble (for several reasons). I’m a white American practicing Buddhist. Rereading the first version of Nirvana on Fire, I found some similarities to Zen Buddhism I have experienced, mixed with many other, personally unfamiliar, and speculative elements of the Neo-Buddhist sect featured. How did you create the neo-Buddhists of Nirvana on Fire?
Dave: First of all, it’s great to be talking about this with a practicing Buddhist. Though I am not Buddhist myself I have spent time visiting and meditating in Zen temples in Japan and those experiences were big influences on this module.
Secondly, you’ve really hit upon a big aspect of the changes for the new Expanded Edition. Though I liked the first version, for this new one I wanted to ensure that the religion portrayed in the work made sense and celebrated the history and culture it comes from while still retaining speculative, sci-fi elements. To do that, I hired James Mendes-Hodes as a cultural consultant to enrich the representation of Buddhism in the text.
With James’ help, I streamlined the Buddhist elements to give the background of the Neo-Buddhist faith a more firm and consistent foundation in Zen. We also incorporated more elements of Zen Buddhism into the beliefs and attitudes of the colonists and the approach of the Terraforming Tower AI, Bishamonten. Reading through the new, Expanded Edition, I hope you and others familiar with Zen will enjoy these updated and more fully ingrained elements in the text and that others unfamiliar with the references will find themselves immersed in a more wholly realized society whilst playing through the adventure.
watt: Writing my Mothership setting Cloud Empress, I’ve tried to treat my game a bit like a 0 edition, knowing that as more players engage with the rules and setting Cloud Empress will get better and better. What changes can players expect in the Expanded Edition? How did player feedback influence (or not influence) the changes made?
Dave: There are a lot of changes in store, a few of which we’ve covered above. However, a big one for me that came out of playtesting was the need for a town map. In the original zine, the tower had a useful flowchart map like the ones in The Haunting of Ypsilon 14 or Dead Planet but Siddhartha’s Peace was only a D10 table of locations. I think this short-changed the joy of exploring the colony and also made it tricky for players and Wardens to visualize spatially. We’ve rectified this in the new edition. Those that have checked out the Kickstarter will have seen the new town map Jérôme created. The new map brings the town locations alive in a way that will be both enriching for gameplay and much easier to run when played at the table.
watt: On the cusp of the Mothership 1E physical release, from creator to creator, where do you see Mothership/the Mothership community headed? How are you thinking about your work in the context of the larger 3rd party Mothership publishing scene?
Dave: I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few months and there’s one thing I can’t get out of my head that I read in a Twitter thread between game designers. The conversation was about how people keep coming up with new rule systems and new games when it would be great if more designers, rather than always chasing the new, supported their already existing games. As a creator of Mothership adventures, I’m applying this to my own practice to mean that I want to build out a richer world for my work by adding value to the games Magnum Galaxy fans already love. In practice, my plan for this year is to work on creating tie-in adventures to extend the worlds I’ve already created and weave a universe of games that my players can continue to explore. My goal is to write an adventure for every hook in Dying Hard in Hardlight Station and I’ve already got a few under my belt: Nirvana on Fire: Expanded Edition being one of them with more forthcoming this year.
watt: If you looked ahead two years, what do you think success would look like with Nirvana on Fire: Expanded Edition?
Dave: Success for Nirvana on Fire: Expanded Edition would look like boxes in people’s hands and especially open on their tables. It would be actual play reports on the Discord and questions in the 3PP channel. But most of all, it would be great stories shared by playgroups about that time they went into an AI-haunted Terraforming Tower and barely made it out alive.
Really cool table!