May 2021 Update
almost 3 years ago
– Sun, May 09, 2021 at 09:20:23 PM
Here's how things are progressing with Beam Saber
- The Introductory story by Austin Walker is completed and edited. You'll find a teaser for it below.
- Takuma Okada has finished the microfics for the pilot playbooks, and there's a sample of them below. They are still working on the rest of the microfics for the chapters, squads, regions, and factions.
- Vincent Patrick has gotten me the first of the Region art pieces. No sample of that until they are all done.
- Just finished a meeting with Sasha Reneau about the layout and the rulebook should be finished by the end of June. The playbooks and reference sheets may be finished around the same time. An example of the reference sheets is below.
- I have commissioned Malachi Peters to make some spot illustrations for use across Beam Saber products (including an upcoming supplement that I've been working). Mal did the art and animation for the Beam Saber Animatic - Scarecrow Vs Tybalts.
- I have commissioned Cory McDaniel to make a few small illustrations to accompany the intro story.
Please note that those last two items were not paid for via Kickstarter, but from the digital sales of my TTRPGs.
Onto the teasers!
From the introductory story by Austin Walker:
Violet Viola could not wait until the explosions began to rock her mech. For the past 10 minutes, she'd been skating her AWV in a clean line across the snow-covered steppe, hovering across fields of frozen wildflowers and between low hillocks. Yet as peaceful as her surroundings were, inside she was a mess of turmoil and tension.
As a captain and designated ace in the DFS' 561st mechanized Infantry Division, Violet was plenty familiar with pre-mission jitters. But normally there were a half dozen ways to manage those. Re-check your AWV's diagnostics. Do some preliminary sensor scans. Crack a couple of jokes with the rest of the unit.
But this AWV—a stolen Norrish blockade breaker called the Neon Bolide—was a risk to pilot as it was, so the idea of poking around its internals wasn't particularly appealing. And jokes weren't on the docket: Keeping radio silence was imperative for this op. Besides, she was alone out here.
This was silent territory. The loud sort of silence, where the air pressure, the passive whine of your machine’s electronics, and the pulse moving through your heart, your wrists, and your thumbs becomes deafening. Maybe that's why she felt so tense. If not for the odd fox and the wavering shape of a distant starling flock, she would swear that she was the only living thing left on Earth.
She knew that wasn't true, of course. Any second now, Artillery Commander Ashton Brace—one of Viola's key partners on this operation and, complicating things, also formerly a "key partner" of hers in another way—would launch high-powered artillery rounds from a DFS forward operating base about 20 miles northwest of her current position. If Ash dialed it in right, they should slam into the ground just meters away from her AWV, lifting ice and earth into the air in a manmade hailstorm.
Maybe then, Violet hoped, she'd find her focus. She knew she’d need it.
Reference sheet previews by Sasha Reneau
A sample of the microfics by Takuma Okada
Ace
I trust Bert with my life, but he’s nothing special. I’m a little jealous of pilots with fancier AWVs, but at the end of the day, Bert does fine against them. Most of the time. I’ve seen some pilots pull off stuff I didn’t think was possible. It’s hard to describe the way they fight that’s different. Like, you know the way really expensive clothes just fit right on people? Not like the hand-me-downs I’ve got, clothes or AWV. Pilot and AWV moving together like one, like they were made for each other.
Note to self: See one of these, run the other way.
-From the journal of Keiko "Pitchfork" Tuesday
Bureaucrat
The Cenotaph isn’t exactly in the Myriad’s good books. Honestly, I’m pretty sure the higher ups hate us. If Bishop Finmal wasn’t looking out for us I’m pretty sure we’d all be out of a job. I feel kinda bad for that. Every time I see him those stacks of paperwork look taller, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of that had to do with us. He’s a good guy. I bet he does more good sitting at that desk alone than the whole Cenotaph. After all, if someone from another faction sends you a letter you’re gonna react differently than someone from another faction showing up inside an AWV.
-From the journal of Keiko "Pitchfork" Tuesday
Empath
I think I trust people less now, since I started being a pilot. I feel like before I usually thought the people around me had good intentions. Ever since I started this job I’ve been backstabbed by someone I saw as a father, front? stabbed? by one of my closest childhood friends. I’m so tired of being betrayed. But for some reason I keep trying. Once in a while, I can still get through to the other side. I save both of us from a fight we don’t want to have. Just when I think I’m going to give up on reaching out, someone shows me I shouldn’t.
-From the journal of Keiko "Pitchfork" Tuesday
Envoy
The worst kinds of missions, the absolute worst, are the ones where we have to dress up and go talk to people. You know what happens on those missions? I get stabbed. I get stabbed by someone with greasy hair and really white teeth. One minute they’re talking to a crowd of people and smiling way too big and then suddenly I’ve got a sword cane in my side because I had to jump in front of a VIP. The thing about these people is they’re usually not all that strong and also not great with swords? Still fucking sucks to have a sword stuck inside you!
-From the journal of Keiko "Pitchfork" Tuesday
A preview of the upcoming supplement Stardost Memento
