Rebellious bundle for the Sci-Fi horror tabletop RPG Mothership
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Status Update May 2024
7 months ago
– Fri, May 10, 2024 at 09:44:58 AM
Hey space folks!
A quick update this month, and the first of a series.
We’ve made serious progress and we’re getting closer to print.
TL;DR We’ll be locking orders and charging cards next week. PDFs will be fulfilled right after that. We won’t be charging shipping fees yet. The preorder store remains open for late pledges.
Here’s a breakdown of the last month’s activity and what’s coming up next.
Tuesday Knight Games has approved the PDFs of the submitted content (everything except the Campaign Handbook, and Augeo Lab which still need a bit of work)
The Campaign Handbook is being edited right now. Samantha Leigh, the editor, tells me everything is going smoothly.
While Sam is editing, I started working on an additional simple two page procedure for downtime, very much tailored for the ORU framework. The assumption behind that is: as the Handbook is meant to play campaigns, downtime activities might be useful. I’m pretty excited about that.
Print tests are being run right now. They’re taking a bit more time than planned. And that’s annoying. But as I’m printing other products with the same printer, I’m learning how thorough and dedicated they are. That’s why I chose them in the first place, because they are real printers, and they care about paper, ink, and printing, and that requires a bit of time. So in the end I’ve made peace with this delay, as it’s a guarantee for a better product. Print tests ETA is Monday May 20. I’ll shoot pics as soon as I get them.
Monday May 13: locking orders
Wednesday May 15: charging cards (you’ll receive a notification asking you to double check your card info)
We’ll be charging only for add-ons and preorders, we’re not charging for shipping fees yet.
Tuesday May 21: fulfilling PDFs. We’ll send you a brief reminder update when this happens.
The pre-order store remains open for late pledges.
I’m so excited that in just a couple of weeks you’ll be able to start reading / playing ORU material. Thanks again for your support.
Happy space adventuring
Iko
Satus Update April 2024
9 months ago
– Thu, Apr 04, 2024 at 02:01:26 AM
Hey folks
We’re getting closer to production! Files should be submitted to print early May.
Sorry this March update became an early April one, lots of things happening at The Lost Bay Studio.
The Campaign Handbook is finished, I’m doing one last editing pass, and we’ll send it to the line/copy editor at the end this week.
We had the first print texts delivered. These boxes/tests have been assembled manually by the printer, so they are not super square-ish. We’ve tested two printing styles: bright, and a more muted one. The more muted one is obtained by printing first a white layer of ink, and then printing the art over that white. I’m still undecided, and I’d love to hear which one you like the most.
The remaining files have been sent to the printer for testing.
Now that the Campaign Handbook is finished we can start the work on the GM screen and the Digital character keeper, that’ll condense the essential info of the CH.
One thing I’m really super excited about is Sorry to bother you, the NPC card deck. I’ve done a lot of card printing tests in the past few months for the other projects and I’ve found the specs that work well for this kind of project. Below are a few of my favourite cards.
We’ve started printing some of the legacy bundles (that were available in the upper tiers or as add-on), and I’m particularly excited about the box of the Mörk Borg one (the Wicked Wanderers Winter Bundle). Look at this! The art is by Ben Masnky who is also the author of The Cross Stitch, a zine included in the bundle.
That’s pretty much it folks. In the next update we should start discussing details about the final timeline.
Now back to work!
Iko
Status Update (late) February 2024
10 months ago
– Fri, Mar 01, 2024 at 02:13:57 PM
Hey folks!
Here’s a short and quick production update, but first let's share something cool.
Say "Hi" to Button Masher and Needle: respectively former Leisure Yacht repurposed by United Fleet Delivery rebel group, and its accompanying boarding barge. The illustration is by Rob Turpin and the ships' backstory and stats are designed in collaboration with the STATIONS. It’s a cross-lore experiment as the ships will be featured both in the Campaign Handbook and in An Infinity of Ships by the STATIONS. The rebels of the Outer Rim got cool ships!
Speaking of assault barges, we’ve been designing a fun and wild boarding procedure. It features a simple alternative system to the default MoSh boarding combat save. Imagine a crew of fearless rebels (you) boarding a ship equipped only with their vacsuits and a couple of lasercutters. Are they even gonna make it? If this kind of wild hijack sounds fun, the Shipboarding procedure is right for you. The Shipboarding procedure will be featured in the Campaign Handbook. Thanks to Josh Domanski's sweat and love, the CH manuscript has become a heavy tome. Look at this!
In the next couple of weeks we’ll be trimming it down a bit. then it’ll be sent to Samantha Leigh for copy and line editing, and finally to Walton Woods for proofreading.
Production
Next week we’ll be launching the production tests, plural. I wanted to do this earlier but I’ve been struck by a tough COVID which has slowed my schedule a bit. That said this won’t have much impact on the overall schedule, as we are a big team, and the others kept working on their respective tasks as I was hiding beneath blankets.
I’ve mentioned a few times that I value ethically responsible printers, vendors and processes. And as much as I want the products to be durable, this means avoiding whenever possible the use of plastic. Luckily our printer has lots of experience and they tell me that choosing the right combination of inks and papers can achieve almost the same result as lamination. We’ll do a full mockup print test, with two versions, one laminated, one unlaminated. Plan is to stress test the mockups (bend, use, fold) before making the final choice. I have to say though that the NPC cards will be laminated in any case. They wouldn’t survive much shuffling otherwise.
Timeline
Here’s a rough breakdown of the remaining timeline:
May: printing
Early-June: assembling
Mid-June: shipping to the US and UK fulfillment centers
End June: Charging cards
End June: Digital fulfillment
End June: EU fulfillment
Early-July: US, UK, and ROW fulfillment
Good news for EU backers: we’ll fulfill the EU from within the EU, which means: no costums! And possibly more good news, but I’ll update you after I’ve spoken with my tax advisor next week.
Retailers
We’ve opened pre-orders to Retailers, so if you run a brick and mortar store or web store and would like to carry the bundle, hit me up at [email protected] I'll be happy to send over a quote.
We’ll ship wholesale anywhere in the world, and the previous EU to EU shipping process applies for wholesale as well.
I don’t want to spam you folks, but I might do a mid-month update with some behind the scenes info (photos?)
That's all I got for you today.
Until next time, stay well.
Iko
Status Update January 2024
11 months ago
– Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 03:06:17 PM
TL;DR
We’re on track. Next month we’ll produce physical mockups/test prints
Happy new year, may it be filled with lots of happy playing moments!
Things are going pretty good. Pre orders are a success! 90% of you have filled the surveys, and we have a crazy amount of additional orders. I’m happy that quite a lot of backers snagged items from the ORU designer’s back catalog, like our best sellers: Magnum Galaxy Mega Bundle, the Unseen city, and the CY_BER Bundle.
Once again: thank you for helping us bring this project to reality!
As you can see on the Status Matrix, zines and modules are almost all completed. What’s left: a bit of copy editing on a couple of projects, and more writing and layout on Augeo Lab and the Campaign Handbook. I’ll expand on this below.
We are centralizing production as much as we can. Three vendors produce the bundle, sharing the load like this: patches, audiocassette, everything else.
Last week we held the first pre-production meeting with the main printing partner. I love those guys. They are super experienced and willing to support all our super precise and annoying requests.
Next month I should be able to show you the first printed mockups of the zines, and a blank mockup of the box.
Things are going according to plan and smoothly.
Status Matrix, so much green!
I’m not gonna lie, since we started working on the bundle roughly one year ago, the Campaign Handbook has grown considerably. This is why we need a bit more time to complete it.
The Handbook is a collective work, but it’s mainly the fruit of Josh Domanski's labor. Here’s a transcript of an encrypted transmission between Josh and the Outer Rim Alliance.
IKO: What's the most challenging part of writing the CH?
JOSH: Outer Rim Uprising is a project with a big scope. While the team has been working in collaboration for the extent, each project comes from the mind of different creators. So coming into the Campaign Handbook, the biggest challenge has been finding a way to make a connective through-line, to actually support building a campaign out of the pieces of the bundle. A random assortment of tables simply wouldn’t be enough, there needs to be connective tissue. So the fun is finding the best pieces to do this while staying in the confines of a zine.
Campaign Handbook WIP Table of Contents
IKO: What's the tool/part you're most excited about?
JOSH: I’m most excited to see what folks think of The Corporate Response. This is a new mechanic that emulates ways in which the corporations might respond to the rebellious activities of the crews, modeled after how Stress and Panic work in Mothership. In theory, it should set up a real nice sense of consequence, meaning your crews will need to be smart and pick their battles. Sure, you can spit in the eye of the corps, but you risk retaliation, and they have the resources to do far worse.
Fractal Worms by Evangeline Gallagher for the ORU CH
IKO: You’ve written a lot of horror, particularly for the contemporary horror game Liminal Horror, but it's the first time you write for Mothership. What's different?
JOSH: Well, the situation is a bit of a reverse for me! Mothership was my first “OSR” game and is directly responsible for starting the path that would lead me to writing and designing my own scenarios. Running Mothership is where I really started to unlock the secrets on making horror really land at the table. The Liminal Horror modules are based on those direct lessons. Sean McCoy’s Survive, Solve, Save article is foundational to how we write Liminal Horror modules and The Bureau owes its very existence to Gradient Descent. Science fiction has always been a vessel to explore contemporary fears and issues through a futuristic lens, so for me, I have very few issues switching between the two. Coming in to actually write for Mothership just feels natural at this point, though admittedly I think my writing for ORU is more based on a lifetime obsession with the rebels of Star Wars hahaha.
One last thing before I let you go: we have a new project launching soon. It checks so many boxes a Mothership fan would like: weird analog tech, unescapable facilities, cursed VHS tapes, immortals, body horror, crawling abominations, loadouts, intense combats, hard on the PCs: The Lost Bay RPG. It’s a dark fantasy game set in 199X where you play young folks with more than human powers, in a world infested by horrors.
It’s coming to Kickstarter in Q1 2024 and its team counts several ORU designers like Dave Kenny, Alfred Valley, Chris Airiau, Christian Sorrell/Meatcastle but also Samantha Leigh and Watt (Cloud Empress).
Backerkit Surveys incoming and Late Pledges
about 1 year ago
– Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 06:23:32 AM
Hey space adventurers. You’ll be receiving in the next 72 hours max an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. If you’re not familiar with the process let me highlight a few key points.
You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey link to respond. Answer the questions about newsletter subscription, fill your shipping information, and if you feel like it, snag a few cool add-ons.
You’ll have access to a ton of add-ons! All the individual items included in the reward tiers are available, as well as a selection of cool Mothership zines from the ORU designers’ back-catalog, including Nirvana on Fire by Dave Kenny, Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones by Chris Airiau, and a Retro Mothership Bundle by Marco Serrano.
You can go back to your survey and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts. And of course we’ll let you know in advance when this time comes.
It’s important to answer your surveys as quickly as you can, it helps us prepare for production and fulfillment.
Note that your cards won’t be charged right now, but next year, closer to the fulfillment date.
If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://outer-rim-uprising.backerkit.com
If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact support at https://outer-rim-uprising.backerkit.com/faq
