Far Beyond Humanity Weekly Update #14
Feels like I’m finally in the home stretch. Got half a section to complete, and a few things to shuffle around, but it’s now into deep corrections and layout.
I’ve already got a couple of Chapters back from a preliminary editing pass, and hopefully the rest will be done by the weekend.
Chapter 3 – Arcana – Horror
Got a chance to playtest the final version of the Horror rules, ended up finding a few interesting corner-cases and clarifications that completely mess up my page layout (grumble grumble).
I’ll write more about it in a separate post, but it was a great stress-test of the Prompting for Horror (i.e.: the Horror manifested in the first few minutes of the story when someone managed to roll a 1 on 2d6.)
Chapter 4 – Characters
Ended up going over the skills, and tweaking a few of the more problematic or niche skills. I’d appreciate it if folks could take a look there, make sure nothing stands out as being boring or useless or whatever.
The big addition to this chapter are the Reference pages, detailing each of the ten original careers and origins to aid in character creation. Some flipping back and forth will be inevitable, but at least initial decision can be made with all the info fairly accessible.
Interior Art
Whuff. Yeah. You probably noticed that after posting the first two images several months ago, there was nothing more. This is the thing I mentioned that was really ripping me apart the past few weeks. I was terrified that I would have to publish without them, and I had to go to some uncomfortable lengths to finally get them.
Situation arose because I’m a trusting idiot. Pro Tip: Always sign a contract, never do it verbally. And don’t pay the whole amount up front. If I could I’d time-travel to a year ago and slap myself upside the head.
But good news, got the pieces, and that’s the end of it. Maybe I can stop popping antacids every night. Whuff.
Carta Galaxia
With the book coming to a close, I find myself looking ahead. I’ve still got Carta Galaxia to finish, though the year of FBH has given me new perspective on the whole thing.
I think people would be best served by smaller, more regular releases. Instead of a big book of campaigns like I originally planned, I’ll be dividing it into 3 smaller supplements, each of which will tackle a certain kind of setting. Dividing into 3 books will allow more leeway in the way each book is structured.
– The Core: Heavy population, multi-faction politics and strife. Cyberpunk-ish style.
– The Divide: Two monolithic factions fighting for dominance, with a third supernatural power lurking in the shadows between the stars.
– The Edge: Loosely connected frontier worlds adrift in wild, lawless unexplored expanses of space.
So that’s this week. Hopefully the next update will be all about layout. (Speaking of which, I may be calling on volunteers to take a look/proofread the edited version after I do the layout pass, will post more next week.)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/atd0ygpwhur5yp6/AAB140jz3usjE3imwUkkCTLia?dl=0
Do it, Sean. Cut up the book as you need. Thanks for this!
I dig the idea of three smaller supplements! Sorry to hear about the art woes, Sean. And know that I absolutely volunteer as proofreading tribute!
I’m excited by all of this info. It sucks about the art woes but has a happy ending so that’s good.
Proofreading, yummy! As long as you have a workable complete version so we can talk about page-references in a consistent way. Adobe documents can be annotated, maybe it’s a much easier way to proof-read if I can make red marks and send the whole thing back.
Hi Sean, love the game, and I had a question about the Primal origin-
One of my players has a character that would be a really good fit for that origin but the species she’s created are small and quick, as they are prey on that world. Because of that, she’s a quick thinker and problem solver. Some of the advantages from the primal origin seem covered by the Rustic one. I would love to see the addition of different skills to reflect prey from Primal origins.
Hi Crystal Corrigan, super glad you’re enjoying the game!
For the Origin, I think that if Rustic better represents the character’s youth/society (tool-using survivors) then that should definitely be their Origin over the more “tooth and nail predator” of Primal.
The main thing to remember is that a single world/environment can allow for multiple Origins. A “Primal” world probably will have Primal origins, but can also easily have characters of Impoverished, Brutal and Rustic origins as well. Heck, an alien child who crash-landed on a Primal world might still retain their Forlorn origin despite being raised by the Primal/Rustic/whatever societies; forever an outsider.
Also, if the character’s species is a close-knit, high-population-density prey type, consider the Crowded Origin as an alternative is Rustic isn’t quite a right fit.