A View from the Bridge

It has been, by my own count, roughly a dozen years since the last of these editorials went up. I owe you an explanation, and a bit of an apology, for the silence.

Real life did what real life does. Work took over more than a few years. Family responsibilities piled up the way they tend to. And somewhere in the middle of all that, Paleotechnic Press went quiet, even though I never actually stopped working on it. I kept drafting articles, kept researching canon, kept reading through period material, kept sketching out scenarios and supplements, but I never had the stretch of time needed to finish anything properly or get it uploaded. A half-finished blog post is worse than no blog post at all, so I just let the drafts pile up in folders instead.

Then, this past year, I moved into a new home in Syracuse, New York. As anyone who has packed up a house knows, moving has a way of forcing you to confront every box you have been avoiding for a decade. I found several of mine, stuffed full of old notes, printouts, and half-finished manuscripts, sitting in the back of a closet. Some of it I remembered writing. Some of it I did not. All of it deserves better than a cardboard box.

So here we are again. I finally have the time to work on (and hopefully finish) some of what I started, and, this time, to actually publish it. My plans are deliberately modest, because I have learned my lesson about biting off more than I can chew. That said, after digging through the boxes and sorting the salvageable material from the scrap, some upcoming efforts will include:

1. Finalizing the Mars city route calculator, an interactive distance-finding tool I have been quietly building alongside everything else.
2. Finish and post the pieces that are furthest along, starting with articles related to a Martian railway venture as well as a Sky Galleons of Mars battle report, scenario, and short story.
3. Continue work on some old adventures that were parts of a campaign that I ran back in the day. One is a trilogy set on Venus, another is the middle chapter of a three-part campaign arc that grew out of Canal Priests of Mars, and a Wild West adventure that sends Buffalo Bill's touring company to Mars.
4. Get back to a regular posting schedule, real-life permitting.

Space: 1889 itself has not exactly stood still while I was gone. In fact, the most recent development landed right as I was writing this. Strange Owl Games, working under license from Ulisses Spiele, is currently running a BackerKit campaign for Space 1889: After, a full conversion of the setting to 5th Edition rules. Rather than rehash the old ground, "After" jumps the timeline forward a decade and puts players in the role of explorers rediscovering the inner worlds fresh, with new threats, new playable species, and a premium offset-printed rulebook to go with it. The campaign is already well past its funding goal and closes on August 7th, for anyone who wants to back it before then. I clearly have a good deal of catching up to do, and I will save a proper look at how "After" squares with the classic canon for a future post.

To anyone who bookmarked this site a decade ago and just never got around to un-bookmarking it, thank you for your patience, whether you knew you were being patient or not. To anyone new, welcome aboard. Either way, happy gaming.

~Joe

A View from the Bridge

Another month has cruised by and it is Halloween, where does the time go? At any rate, for this All Hallow's Eve edition of Paleotechnic Press' editorial page, I thought I would post short reviews of two, "new to me," RPG source books that I have recently acquired. But first, in "breaking news…" yesterday Chronicle City announced that their Space: 1889 reboot is now available as a download from DriveThruRPG (for those of you who missed the Kickstarter). The PDF looks very nice, but I prefer printed material (I know, I am so nineteenth century) so I will save my review until I get the physical book.

In the meantime, this past month I did receive a copy of Flying Machines of the Worlds 1902: Aerial Vessels for the Hive, Queen and Country Universe (©2012, Aerolyth Enterprises) from one of its authors, Terry Sofian. Flying Machines is a supplement to the Stars of Empire RPG. SoE postulates a Victorian world of 1894 where the colonial powers vie for control of the planets beyond the earth. If this sounds a bit familiar, that is because Sofian is also a fan of Space: 1889. Despite the high level similarity, there are several significant differences between SoE and Space: 1889. First, and foremost, is the existence of "The Hive." In SoE, the Hive is an extra-planetary organism threatening humanity's existence, and it serves as both a peril and a back-plot for the story arc of the entire game. The second big difference is that in the Hive, Queen, and Country universe (HQC) the timeline begins to diverge in the 1700s and Terry has spent a great deal of time postulating the effects of those changes over the course of the game's 150 years of "past future".

Flying Machines of the Worlds is one of several supplements to the basic SoE game. This particular supplement is truly a tome, weighing in at 256 pages! Written by Arun Rodrigues and Sofian, Flying Machines advances the Hive, Queen and Country timeline to 1902 when the state of aerospace technology has progressed significantly beyond what we traditionally see in the 1889 world. From the book's introduction:

The people of Hive, Queen, and Country have been flying since the 1860s, and had mechanical computers since the 1830s. By the 1900s aircraft have been designed for 40 years, and computation has advanced the state of the art by another 5-10 years. Thus, the ships of the 1900s are in many ways more advanced than the aircraft of the late 1930s...

The Flying Machines book is divided into 3 main sections. The first several chapters of the book provide background on the HQC world, but the bulk of the book is taken up by the ship designs and illustrations in the second section. The authors have detailed each ship in much the same way that Fred T. Jane detailed naval vessels in his series of "real world" books. Flying Machines is profusely illustrated, every ship class is represented by a number of different isometric views; perfect for modeling. The designs fully occupy 180 pages and there are ships of every size and type.  The types are broadly broken down into aerolyth (a elemental, anti-gravity, discovery), Fredrickshaven (lighter than air), and Cayley (dynamic lift aircraft) flyers. The book's last section includes the referee's "eyes only" information and a chapter on modeling an aerolyth flyer. The authors' attention to detail is commendable and the book is chock full of information. The ship designs are plentiful and many can be used with with Space: 1889 and/or Aeronef with little, or no, modification. Because of the later time frame postulated in Flying Machines (and the advance of technology) the ships would certainly be useful in any dieselpunk, or even pulp era, game settings as well. In fact, anyone interested in turn of the century aeonaval/SciFi, warfare will find Flying Machines a treasure trove of ideas.

The second supplement I picked up this month is Miskatonic University Library Association's Secrets of the Congo (©2009, Chaosium, Inc.). The book is a perfect bound, glossy-covered, book. The text of the supplement is a setting for classic 1920s Call of Cthulhu, although as the author suggests it may played in a Pulp or Gaslight Cthulhu style (ie with more heroic characters and improbable escapes). This volume is 134 pages with maps, handouts and photographs, in addition to the text. The book is well laid-out with clear text and quality illustrations.

This monograph is, first and foremost, a scenario campaign set in the Congo with additional information, rather than a sourcebook with adventures attached. The main scenario hook is that one character's uncle has gone missing in the Congo. He may have found something wonderful, or perhaps not, but if the uncle can be proven dead, a large inheritance will pass to the character. The first section of the monograph details the geography, biology and anthropology of the Congo, as well as the state of the country where the investigators find themselves. Notably, the text is sprinkled with quotes from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The quotes help to reinforce the backdrop of the Belgians colonial control of the area, but also the decrepit state of the colony. The text also provides some optional rules that will allow Keepers to resolve large scale battles (mass combat).

In addition to the primary scenario, seven Congo adventure seeds, two pages of useful notes for running the adventure, seven sample characters, and ten pages of handouts are also presented in the monograph. The final three pages of information in the book detail commercial flying operations in the 1920s, including factual information on flying boat use throughout the world.

Secrets of the Congo is equal parts Joseph Conrad, Indiana Jones, Stanley and Livingstone, with some Lemuel Gulliver thrown into the mix. It is a useful reference for any gamemaster, but I believe the background information will be particularly useful for an Earth-based Space: 1889 campaign. Production and content-wise Congo is a solid monograph, and despite its (relatively) high price (which may possibly be explained by the quality of the publication), it is a worthwhile addition to your game library.

The reviews out of the way, what is on tap for Paleotechnic Press next month? I have several articles queued up for publication. In no particular order, an interesting historical article on "future" naval warfare, another NPC, as well as several more old Space: 1889 articles, that I hope you will enjoy…meanwhile, as always, happy gaming!

~Joe

A View from the Bridge

Month three of Paleotechnic Press is under my belt, and I remain pleased with both the reception of the website and my progress in making it a useful tool for Victorian SciFi enthusiasts. 

Those who are observant will notice some changes to the bottom of the template. I added the Blogger and Google+ follower widgets. I am open to changing those widgets and welcome suggestions. I also added the poll widget and invite everyone's participation. To that end the first poll is about what kinds of articles readers would like to see. I've got several more old magazine (Challenge and others) articles that I have permission to use, as well as a few new ones including a campaign scenario for Ironclads & Ether Flyers that I ran back in the 1990s. But what types of articles are you most interested in?  Check out the poll and/or leave a comment.

I am also happy to announce that the PDF edition of Chronicle City's edition of Space 1889 was released to Kickstarter subscribers today, I hope that the physical copies will not be far behind (along with the other modules and sourcebooks)! In a tangentially related development, Brigade Games, in the UK, released a new model of a 2mm scale airship hanger, as a scenery item for their Aeronef & Land Ironclads lines of miniatures. The model looks like it will work well with the classic GameTech and Houston's Ships zeppelin models, so plans for a "build-up" article are underway.

Finally, following this editorial, I plan to post another "historical" article, The Influence of the Air-Ship on War (from an 1890s edition of the North American Review), and early next month should have Greg Porter's original Ships of the Line article up as well.  Continue to check this space for future developments, and happy gaming!

~Joe

A View from the Bridge

It has been a productive month for Paleotechnic Press (if I do say so myself). As  I mentioned in my last View From the Bridge post, I had planned to move the blog over to a WordPress site, but after much trial and error, I wasn't able to get WordPress to look (and work) the way I desired. Despite the small setback, I kept plugging away at the Blogger template, and I was able to fix several of the javascript and CSS errors on the existing site.  Long story short, I don't feel the need to switch over any longer.

I was able to make some other updates to the template as well, including addressing the menu bar items and adding pages with the lists of the out-of-production GameTech and Houston's Cloudships miniatures, designed for Sky Galleons of Mars. These lists can be found under the 'Miniatures' heading in the menu bar. Adding these pages was essentially a proof of concept exercise for me; they worked well, so over time I will add images of the Sky Galleons miniatures to the pages, as well as adding the legacy pages from my 15/18mm Victorian Colonial/VSF miniatures list and the 'Foreign Ships' line, useful for Ironclads & Ether Flyers, from Houston's Ships (and others, I am sure).  I am still trying to decide what to do with the 'Hot Article' slider at the top of the page (as far as content goes), so that is next up on my list of 'to dos'.

There are several more Sky Galleons of Mars articles queued up (in various stages of completeness). Based on my work schedule, my plan will be to provide a new post every 10 days or so. Next up (this weekend) will be Surprise at Clearwater a scenario and couple of variants for Sky Galleons of Mars originally published in Challenge magazine.

I also have a handful of 'historical' articles that I trust will be of interest to readers. These articles similar to the Ætheric Signalling and How a Ship is Coaled posts. I just have to decide if I should modify the articles to take into account Victorian Science Fiction aspects of the blog's subject matter, or to leave them completely as is, for historical reference...

To that end, your questions, comments, and short speeches on any aspect of the site are always more than welcome, as are ideas, stories and interesting sites. As always, happy gaming!

~Joe

A View from the Bridge

First things first...I imagine your initial question will be, "What is this website?"  That is a long story that starts back in 1995, when I found myself in a class where we were being taught HTML coding.  I distinctly remember the instructor telling us to pick a subject for our first design project that was interesting to us -- because we were going to be spending a lot of time working on the site, and she felt if we created a site we were interested in, we were more likely to follow through and "finish" it up.

I was actually taking this class for work and came up with several ideas about work-related pages, but in the end I decided to focus on one of my favorite games, Sky Galleons of Mars.  The instructor was right about one thing: the subject kept me interested.  But she was wrong about finishing up the website—websites are never really finished (even static content websites can always have more content added).

For about 6 years, I merrily went along adding to the website, branched out into a couple of different games/subjects, but like many people, real life had a way of rearing its head and messing with my well-laid plans. A child was born, a dog joined the family, a river flood destroyed computers, books, files, and basements. Another child joined the family, several work-related moves, and a separation/divorce followed.  So from 2001-2006 the website slowly faded into obscurity. When Apple, Inc. pulled the plug on its web page hosting, the site was lost, but not entirely.  There were back-ups (on various old machines and disks).  Then there is/was the Internet Archive's "Wayback" Machine with archived copies of the pages.  And there was always my love (and desire) to "finish" what I started.

I planned a new website, did layout work, and began creating CSS code for a more modern website design. But somehow real life always intervened, and the project got sidetracked. Then, over the past year or two, the original Victorian Science Fiction game to which Sky Galleons of Mars belonged, Space: 1889, started to make a comeback.  A new German version led to a successful Kickstarter campaign for a new English version. The game's author, Frank Chadwick, published his own Space: 1889 novel, The Forever Engine, which followed a series of Space: 1889 e-novels from Untreed Reads Publishing.  Life it seems, began to return to the Space: 1889 world.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was cleaning the garage and stumbled upon some of my old GameTech and Houston's Ship models, and I thought again about redesigning the website.  But I still didn't have much time between real-life responsibilities to give the website the complete makeover I had planned. I was just about to tuck away the ships when it struck me: why not recreate the website as a blog! If I could find a good template (I hope you like the one I found: "old paper") to use, recoding the old pages to be used as blog posts was certainly a lot less time-consuming than building a new site...

So here we are, my plans aren't too ambitious right now (just in case real life intervenes again)...

1. Re-code the 60 or so pages from the original website into the new blog format.
2. Customize the CSS for the blog template to make it work as expected.
3. Find (or write), and publish, some new VSF content (e.g., for Wessex Games' Land Ironclads or Oozlum Games' Martian Empires).
4. Complete 1-3 by Christmas 2014.

After that I have many ideas, but having bitten off more than I can chew in the past, I think the above list is good for a start!

For anyone reading this far, I would like to invite you to join me in this little endeavor. I'd love to read and see your comments on these posts, as well as feature your Sky Galleons of Mars-related, Space: 1889 writing, art, etc... on the blog itself.  Please drop me a note and let me know what you are thinking about.  In the meantime, happy gaming!

~Joe