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Amid the fragments of worlds rules the science and flavor of 1930s Saturday morning pulp serials, for Slipstream is a realm of square-jawed heroes, ray guns, weird science, and rocketships. It is a realm where the morals are black and white, where good triumphs over evil, and where danger lurks at every turn.

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Introducing Dark City Games

We discovered a fantastic company at GenCon last year called Dark City Games. They make incredibly fun adventures and SOLO adventures for many different genres that even include paper minis and battle maps.

We bought every one they make and have enjoyed them greatly. We also asked the owner, George Dew, if he’d be interested in making his adventures under the new Savage Worlds license, and we were thrilled when he said yes.

The first of Dark City’s games is now up–the Crown of Kings–and we hope every single one of you will go get it and support Dark City so that more of their adventures will be forthcoming.

From the Dark City website:

Crown of Kings

At the edge of the world, hidden in the depths of an uncharted mountain, lies the “Crown of Kings,” an ancient relic of the ancient Great Empire. It is said that when brought to light by someone both steadfast and strong, the empire will rise again. This may be the work of generations of storytelling, but stories aside, the crown itself would be a find indeed!

Crown of Kings is a fantasy adventure for solitaire or group play with Savage Worlds. It is suitable for one to four players, age 12 and up. The game includes the adventure booklet, pieces and playing board. Ownership of Savage Worlds “Explorer Edition” is required.

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Last Rites is a modern ghost-hunting adventure using the d20 System. Also available for Savage Worlds.

The Nazis left their cruel mark on the world more than 50 years ago, and some of those wounds still bleed. Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis were enamored by the idea of using the Occult in their attempt at world domination. In their quest for power they conducted horrific experiments on the weak, but with the defeat of the Nazis and the freeing of the experiments? survivors, humanity thought that their evil would never rise again. They were wrong.

Your heroes find themselves the only ones willing to help a single mother deal with the terrifying hauntings tormenting her family. But before they can put them to an end, they’ll have to investigate their origins by spending an evening in the house themselves. If they dare.

The anniversary edition celebrates the one-year anniversary of Last Rites with re-edited text, revised layout, and totally new content. Page count grew by seven pages.

• Written for low-level modern characters, with suggestions on adjusting for higher-level campaigns.
• Fully bookmarked, plus a hotlinked table of contents page.
• Includes color cover, illustrations, and helpful sidebars throughout.
• Includes “printer-friendly” version with all artwork and sidebars removed.
• Uses the OGL Horror* ritual system (summarized in the appendix) and includes a brand-new ritual.

The 12 to Midnight website also offers free downloads of cool extras such as audio recordings of ghosts (known by ghost-hunters as Electronic Voice Phenomena), pre-filled initiative cards, and more.

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Pete Smith and Jaryd Wolfsberger have put together an awesome adventure for the Savage Worlds version of Hell on Earth. Never mind that Savage HOE isn’t out yet–just download this fantastic tale and nuke your friends until they glow!

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We like to occasionally shine the spotlight on some of our licensees. This is the first of a more in-depth look at who these companies are and what they’re doing.

Arbor Productions is a publishing company based in Baltimore, Maryland, specializing in role-playing games, interactive media and bringing the RPG experience to families and the next generation. Our staff is an interesting group of people who all share the same goal: producing fun and unique games that push the envelope of RPGs as we know them.

Previously known for the Autumn Arbor Campaign Setting under the Mutants & Masterminds “Superlink” license, Arbor Productions made the move to the Savage Worlds family in the summer of 2008. Now, in 2009, Arbor will be unveiling two of its three settings in print for the Savage Worlds system as well as print and PDF supplements. We begin with Dawn of Legends and then celebrate GenCon with Hardboiled. The third setting, War of the Dead, should see release in the final quarter of 2009/first quarter of 2010.

Dawn of Legends is our flagship release. Set to hit store shelves in late Spring/early Summer, DoL brings effect-based, Four Color comic book action to Savage Worlds. Utilizing an all-new effect-based powers system, DoL allows gamers to do all the amazing things seen in comics. Packed into the book is the detailed setting of Neo Earth, tips on creating a comic book saga, a Heroic Path to help you flesh out your character’s background, rules for making a Super Team, new uses for bennies, new edges and hindrances and over 100 powers plus the rules to create even more. Once DoL releases, support material will immediately be available on the Arbor Productions website. GM Screen inserts, One-Sheet adventures, adventure cards, props and a series of Plot Point Campaigns… all for free. Better unpack your cape and mask… the Dawn is coming.

Following Dawn of Legends will be its first supplement, Inside Solitaire. Ever wondered what lay behind the walls of the only Maximum Security Prison facility for super-humans in the United States? You’ll find out inside the pages of Inside Solitaire. A roster of over 60 villains, new Edges and Hindrances, rules for playing villains and creating villain teams plus the new Infamy rules all await you behind Solitaire’s walls.

Hardboiled takes the Film Noir genre and turns it on its ear by adding in the dark embrace of the supernatural. Set to debut at GenCon 2009, Hardboiled allows gamers the chance to take a step into the darkness by playing Patchwork Men, Succubi/Incubi, Vampires and Werewolves. But that’s not all, magic exists and everyone is touched by it. Most can manage to turn on a light from across the room or light a cigarette with their finger, but only the confident (or the insane) do more than dabble in sorcery. True sorcery is powered by souls so you’ll need to ask yourself: are you ready to sacrifice your fellow man?

In this hard bitten world, death is always right around the corner (sometimes literally). Death isn’t necessarily the end, though. When Death comes calling and says that your number is up, fate may sneer in your direction. Humans have a Lucky Number. If that number comes up when you die, you’re coming back from the grave… but not quite like you were.

Inside the pages of Hardboiled, you’ll find the lowdown on the city of Dashell, new edges and hindrances, rules for Soul Sorcery, tips on creating the Noir feel and our new benny mechanic: Slipping a Mickey. Life is hard and the streets are mean, are you ready? All of the same support we have for Dawn of Legends will be given to Hardboiled as well.

Prior to Hardboiled being released, Arbor will be releasing an adventure anthology for Hardboiled called Harsh Tales. Using pregenerated characters from our website, gamers will have four 8-page adventures to tackle, some Dirty Secrets (Hardboiled One-sheets) and a Harsh Tale generator. Get a taste of the hard life with Harsh Tales on PDF in February.

Harsh Tales II: Death and Betrayal will be our first print supplement for Hardboiled. Making use of video media, players will be able to view the very person whose murder they are trying to solve. In the vein of movies like 8mm and Black Dahlia, Death and Betrayal will push the interactive element of gaming to a new level.

And that’s not all! Arbor Productions is proud to announce the Families Who Game program. The goal of the program is to use role-playing games as a method for both bringing families closer and as an educational tool for kids of all ages. From social interaction to mathematics, problem solving to lessons of morality, role-playing games can be a teaching tool for them all. Families Who Game is not just an educational program, but a fun program to bring more interest to our hobby.

With the aid of our Dawn of Legends superhero setting, the Families Who Game program helps get kids away from the TV and involved with their families at the gaming table. Kids are invited to our booth at any Con that we attend to create a Dawn of Legends character of their very own and then use that character in an adventure ran by us later in the day. While making a character and playing the game, kids will be using mathematics skills and the game itself provides social interaction, problem solving and poses the question of right and wrong. The great thing is, they have a great time and do not even realize that they are learning!

Beyond that, there’s the Daring Kids Club- an email newsletter that kids can sign up for to receive monthly hero reports, including character bios, heroic tales, character art for coloring and nifty props for “fighting crime”. All that superhero fun, and it’s free! This is just the beginning for Families Who Game. We have much more in store like a series of Young Adult novels and coloring and educational books featuring heroes from Dawn of Legends. There’s more, but we have to have some secrets.

Arbor Productions is: Lee Szczepanik Jr. (President and politician in another life), Mike Dukes (Vice President: Creative Director and masked vigilante), Anna Lunsford (Vice President: Director of Operations and Gang Ring Leader) and John Polojac (Assistant Line Developer and Neo guru).

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Battlefield Press presents the long awaited campaign setting Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood for Savage Worlds

Welcome to Sherwood Forest, a place of myth and legend. In this exciting campaign setting written by Wil Upchurch and Marc Gacy, you will find everything you need for your Robin Hood Savage Worlds campaign setting. This book includes:

• Weapons and armor from the time
• New Edges and Arcane Backgrounds
• Gazetteer covering Robin Hood’s England
• Characters from Robin Hood Legends
• Feats of derring-do and archery contests
• Mythic beasts and faeries

This book is a campaign setting designed to be used with the Savage Worlds Core Rulebook.

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A Pinnacle New Year

It’s 2009, and it’s time to talk a little about what we have in the works. But before we do, let’s talk a little about release dates, why we’re vague about them, and what might happen to any of the products we talk about below.
Development

The first reason a project might be late is the most obvious–maybe a freelance author or artist is late, or maybe the manuscript needs work. We’re not going to come out publicly and say “Freelancer Bob” didn’t hit his deadlines, so we just push the project back, deal with it the best we can for everyone involved, and move on.

Often the problem is on our end. Our Plot Point Campaigns are extremely difficult to conceptualize and communicate, for example, and that’s often been a source of much head-banging and rewrites. We like them though, and what we’ve learned from the process should be apparent in future releases, like Deadlands: The Flood.

Once our manuscript is in good shape, the book goes into layout. That’s fairly straight-forward after a couple weeks of figuring out what you want and getting some basic elements in place. Here’s a sample from Weird War II that we’re working on right now: Weird Wars Sample Spread.

Weird Wars Nazi ZombieA quick glance at the sample spread shows you the basics. We’ve picked a header and body text font, and have a first pass at what sidebars and chapter headers will look like. What’s maybe not so apparent is working out the art style. The piece on the right here is one I absolutely love and am using as our “style” setter for the artists involved.

After the basics are in place, the manuscript gets another development pass in layout. This takes a while–often months–and may mean moving large sections of text around, rewriting something that doesn’t work quite right, or making changes based on the playtester’s comments–which come in right up until the “master” is done.
The Printing Process

We print large volumes of hardback, full-color books. That means we have to print overseas in the current world economy. Our printer, typically in Thailand, is fast but the books still have to be slow-boated over on an actual ship. Our books tend to land at customs in Los Angeles, go through 1889 pages of red tape, then go by rail or freight to Knoxville, TN, to our excellent fulfillment partners at Studio2. (Shane is in Arizona–the authors and artists who write and illustrate most of our books are spread out all over the world.)
Savage Worlds Supers CompanionBudgeting and Its Effect on the Schedule

Printing the large amounts we do in hardback and full-color means a tremendous outlay of cash. That means we carefully schedule when we release things so that we’re not over-exposed at any given time. Pinnacle and Studio2 are very profitable these days, with no debt, even while lowering our overall prices ($10 Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition, anyone?).

Savage Worlds Adventure DeckWhile we’re on the subject, lowering our prices is our second-highest goal (number one is making excellent games). That requires care, patience, and thoughtful planning if we’re going to keep making high-quality books like Solomon Kane, Slipstream, and Deadlands: Reloaded. It also means things are a little slower than we’d all like sometimes since we have to spread our releases out, but if we’re careless and start slipping, the first thing we have to do to recover is raise prices. You don’t want that and neither do we, so we’ll play the “tortoise” in this particular race and keep it slow and steady.
2009

So now you understand why we try not to talk about release dates until it’s on the boat back from the printer. At that point we know it will be 3-4 months before it hits shelves and we can, more-or-less, feel good about the date.

With those warnings in place, we certainly know we’ll release Weird Wars: Weird War Two this year, hopefully at Origins or GenCon. We’ll also have at least two of the Savage Worlds Companions out by then, and the revised Adventure Deck in print as well.

Necessary EvilThe Necessary Evil Explorer’s Edition is already in the warehouse and hits shelves in February. This is a great revision with updates to both the powers and the campaign itself, thanks to Clint Black, Piotr Korys, Joel Kinstle, and those who played the original. And it’s only $19.99 in full-color, so we’re really excited about this one!

Evernight has long been sold out and will be returning in the same format sometime in late ‘09.

The long overdue Plot Point Campaign for Deadlands: Reloaded, The Flood is at the printers and should hit shelves around April. We’re extremely excited about telling this story of the Weird West. It was a long difficult road to cast such an epic event in a way that wasn’t a linear adventure, but we think the extra effort made it work, and can’t wait to see what you think.

Savage Seas of Solomon KaneSolomon Kane continues to do well, so we’ve added more Savage Tales, area information, and Plot Point Campaign links to the upcoming The Path of Kane. And for the treacherous voyages in-between the far corners of the earth, we have The Savage Seas of Solomon Kane.

For those who are trying to complete their Deadlands: Classic collection, we’re slowly getting those books back into print via Print on Demand (and they’re already available as PDFs for those who didn’t know). Check the Online Store for these exclusives.

In addition to everything above, there are a number of adventures (both print and PDF-only), new GM screens, and a few other surprises on the schedule–one of which we’ll announce in about three weeks. You might even find some clues around our website if you look around a little…

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We present the full Necropolis 2350 setting book. Join the ranks of the Third Reformation Church and do battle against the evil hordes! Now is your chance to gain glory and fight the Rephaim in this futuristic horror roleplaying game by Paul ‘Wiggy’ Wade-Williams.

Necropolis 2350 contains:

• Over 40 new Edges and Hindrances for grunts and leaders on the battlefields of the 24th century
• A variety of new gear and vehicles utilized by the Third Reformation Church.
• An overview of the weapons and vehicles of the Union of Corporations.
• New powers for those of strong faith.
• Special rules for the Rephaim’s necromantic technology, including weapon stats.
• Specific setting rules, including artillery and air support, and minefields.
• A detailed adventure generator, allowing a GM to create missions with just a few die rolls.
• Full stats for dozens of allies and opponents.

Buy the full setting book here.

As we are releasing the full setting book this week we thought we would make some cool updates available at the same time so we present:

Necropolis 2350 Inquisitorial Missions
This update introduces two new Sacri Ordines and allows players the chance of more investigative missions.
Download here.

Necropolis 2350 Church Notes
Giving details of Church buildings and the various roles held by administrative and ecclesiastical members of the Third Reformation Church, this update is a valuable resource to players and war masters.
Download here.

Necropolis 2350 Demons
In this excellent background update you will find detailed information on the demons you will encounter in the world of Necropolis 2350.
Download here.

Necropolis 2350 Sheets & Templates
This five page pack includes all the burst templates and character sheets required to play in Necropolis 2350.
Download here.

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With Hero Lab 3.0 and d20Pro 1.14, you can create a d20 System character within Hero Lab and then import it into d20Pro with only a few clicks of the mouse. Characters created and validated in Hero Lab are seamlessly transferred to any campaign augmented by d20Pro’s virtual tabletop (VTT). “Building upon our alliances with numerous publishers, this partnership with MindGene represents the first step towards creating a collaborative software ecosystem for the RPG community,” says Rob Bowes, President of Lone Wolf Development.

This new integration allows you all the power and flexibility of Hero Lab’s character management engine, coupled with the extensive capabilities of d20Pro’s virtual tabletop, to run your regular game session. You can also take advantage of the hundreds of stock heroes and animals already included within Hero Lab, quickly importing them into your d20Pro game. Once imported, you can mix and match these creatures with those already in d20Pro. “This partnership emphasizes the core competencies of both products and establishes a new high water mark for what software can offer those who enjoy d20 based gaming,” adds MindGene President, Mat Morton.

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Note: Although all users will be able to view the new ’sample game system’ and any game systems created with the Authoring Kit, Hero Lab will operate in demo mode with those games unless you purchase the “Authoring Kit / Savage Worlds” data package.)

PLEASE NOTE! The Authoring Kit, and the Savage Worlds data files, are NOT YET COMPLETE. The documentation for the Authoring Kit still needs to be updated, and the Savage Worlds data files still need a few days work. However, after consultation with our beta testers, we decided that it was better to release this incomplete version, then update it later - that gives any users of the Authoring Kit an extra few weeks during the holidays to start learning it.

The d20, Mutants & Masterminds and World of Darkness game systems have not had any major updates yet, due to the fallout from the hack we discovered last week. These will be updated in the coming weeks.

As always, you can download Hero Lab 3.0 through the updates mechanism, or from our website.

If you’re interested in using the Authoring Kit to work on new games, you can find searchable work-in-progress documentation here: http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/

A new forum for discussion of the Authoring Kit has been created here. Please post any questions or comments about it in that forum.

Once again, PLEASE NOTE! The Authoring Kit, and the Savage Worlds data files, are NOT YET COMPLETE. More complete versions will be released in the upcoming weeks.

Happy gaming and Happy holidays!

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2009 Product Catalog

Phipps Studios has a big year planned and we hope that our fans will enjoy the products that we’ll soon have ready for release. Fan support is important to us and we’ll be releasing oodles of new information regarding the various products listed below as they come closer to release.

Savage Worlds Licensed Products
Black Hole
“In the darkness of space, there are a thousand ways to die.”
The universe is a cold and menacing place in the Stellar Cloak Galaxy. A million worlds view for supremacy over a galaxy overrun with terrifying Bugs, fascist powers, mercenary super-conglomerates, and other dimensional horrors. The player characters are Spacers that must make their way in this strange and unforgiving universe. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll make it a better place.

Black Hole is a setting book for Savage Worlds. It is a supplement that will provide all of the information necessary for stories to be run in the coldness of the Void. It is the first of a series of supplements set in the Stellar Cloak Galaxy.

Black Hole contains:

* New Edges and Hindrances.
* New Racial Templates for characters.
* A description of the Stellar Cloak Galaxy and dozens of new worlds to play in.
* The History of the Stellar Cloak Galaxy.
* An Antagonists section with a selection of pregenerated villains for Narrators to use.
* A storytelling guide for the setting.
* New Rules for Savage Worlds.
* New Equipment for Savage Worlds.
* A adventure generator for Savage Worlds.
Availability: Coming Soon for 2009.
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Has to be Done
“Do you have what it takes to do what has to be done?”

Welcome to the Conspiracy, Agent. The world is not as you know it. Aliens, eldrich horrors, highly technologized terrorist groups, and secret societies fill the world. The largest organization in the world is the Pyramid. An organization that is dedicated to the salvation of humanity from the forces of the inhuman. Dare the player characters face down the various threats that stand between them and world domination?

Has to be Done is a setting book for Savage Worlds. It is a book designed to provide Narrators with a setting, rules, and character creation guide for the playing of Weird Spy Fiction. It is the first of a series of supplements set in Shadow Earth.

Has to be Done contains:

* A host of new Edges and Hindrances.
* A Guide to the Pyramid and its Thirteen Factions.
* A description of Shadow Earth and the Conspiracy’s influence on various nations.
* The History of Shadow Earth.
* An Antagonists section with a selection of pregenerated villains for Narrators to use.
* A storytelling guide for the setting.
* New Rules for Savage Worlds.
* New Equipment for Savage Worlds.
* A adventure generator for Savage Worlds.

Availability: Coming Soon for 2009.
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Winterweir
“Where the clang of steel rings loudly and the blood of men flows freely.”

The land of Winterweir is a cold and unforgiving nation in the world of Teth-Ammon. A world that is constantly besieged by dark and nightmarish things from the Netherdeep and Far Chaos. A world where racial tensions run deep between the various peoples. A world where there is no obvious good and many accepted evils. It is a world desperately needing heroes, or at least people willing to kill the darkness.

Winterweir is a the first in a series of setting books for the world of Teth-Ammon. A campaign starter that provides an overview of the world and its many political conundrums. It gives all the information necessary to run a Dark Fantasy campaign in a world of horrors gone wild.

Winterweir contains:

* A host of new Edges and Hindrances.
* New Racial Templates for characters.
* A guide to new magical powers and how to create them.
* A number of new nations to adventure in.
* The History of Teth-Ammon.
* An Antagonists section with a selection of pregenerated villains for Narrators to use.
* A storytelling guide for the setting.
* New Rules for Savage Worlds.
* New Equipment for Savage Worlds.
* A adventure generator for Savage Worlds.

Availability: Available March 2009.

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Prometheus Games und
Assertpress Publishing fusionieren

Um das weitere Wachstum beider Verlage zu gewährleisten und die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit für die kommenden Jahre zu erhöhen, schließen sich der Prometheus Games Verlag und der Assertpress Publishing Verlag zur neu gegründeten Assert Publishing GmbH zusammen. Die GmbH wurde bereits in der vergangenen Woche notariell beurkundet und firmiert bis zur Eintragung beim Registergericht als GmbH i.G. (in Gründung). Ziel des Zusammenschlusses ist der Aufbau eines zukunftsfähigen Medienverlags, der neben Rollenspielen auch Spiele anderer Medien und fantastische Belletristik verlegt. Das Label Prometheus Games bleibt dabei jedoch für Rollenspiele und Brett-/Kartenspiele erhalten.

“Ich bin sehr froh, dass wir es geschafft haben, über unsere Messe-Kaffee-Kooperation hinaus, eine so starke Bündelung unserer Ressourcen zu erreichen. Die Zusammenlegung unserer beiden Verlage erlaubt es uns, unsere Marktposition weiter auszubauen und viele spannende Projekte wesentlich schneller als ursprünglich gedacht zu realisieren. Davon abgesehen ist die Zusammenarbeit mit dem Team um Henrike Buhr angenehm unkompliziert und sehr kreativ.”
Christian Loewenthal, Prometheus Games.

“In einem starken Team macht die Arbeit Spaß, ist es lustig, schafft man mehr als allein und man ergänzt sich gut! Und, ach ja, man teilt die Kaffeemaschine (nicht nur auf Messen)! Ein starkes Verlagsteam sollte außerdem noch kreativ, entschlossen und motiviert sein. Selten genug findet man Leute, mit denen man diese Voraussetzungen erfüllen kann. Ich freue mich wirklich auf diesen neuen, spannenden Abschnitt.”
Henrike Buhr, Assertpress Publishing

Hauptgeschäftsführer der Assert Publishing GmbH i.G. ist Christian Loewenthal, Verlagsleiterin ist Henrike Buhr. Die GmbH übernimmt mit sofortiger Wirkung die Geschäfte beider Verlage. Neben den beiden hauseigenen Rollenspielen Elyrion – Erbe der Titanen und Nornis, hält die Assert Publishing GmbH damit auch eine Fülle verschiedener Lizenzprodukte in ihrem Verlagsprogramm, wie etwa die Rollenspiellinien Savage Worlds, Opus Anima, Scion, Ratten, Funky Colts, Western City u.a. Bereits für dieses Jahr ist das Erscheinen verschiedener Kartenspiele geplant, u.a. Funky Colts oder Schäferstündchen.

In den nächsten Tagen kann es wegen der anstehenden Umstrukturierungen zu Darstellungsproblemen der betroffenen Internetseiten der Verlage kommen. Wir bitten vorsorglich schon mal um Entschuldigung und versuchen die Umstellungen so schnell wie möglich durchzuführen.

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Adamant Entertainment: 2009

Hey there– I wanted to give everyone a look at what we’ve currently got underway for 2009.

As some of you may have noticed, yesterday we released a print compilation of every d20 Imperial Age product, called The Imperial Age Omnibus. The book is not available in PDF (the individual PDF releases will still be for sale), and is exclusively available via our website. It clocks in at nearly 700 pages in length! A solid brick of Victorian-era gaming.

The reason why we’ve released this compilation is because Walt Ciechanowski, the Imperial Age line developer, is switching the line over from the now-defunct d20 Modern to the still-thriving True20. As Walt said in his recent announcement on several forums:

“Over the last several months we’d spent a lot of time and energy getting the Imperial Age ready as an OGL standalone. [...] Throughout this process, we hit a number of roadblocks. We considered consolidating skills, trimming basic classes, eliminating cross-class skills, fixing feats, turning some advanced classes into feat trees, replacing psionics, speeding up combats and NPC creation. By the time we’d completed all of that, we discovered something interesting.

The IA OGL was starting to look a lot like True20.

Not exactly, but there were enough similarities that we felt like we were re-inventing the wheel. Not only that, but True20 is still in print and has continuing support. Furthermore, using True20 allows us to start from the ground up, rewriting material so that IA is a cohesive whole rather than a collection of previous products stitched together.

After careful consideration, we decided to switch gears and move ahead with a True20 version. We feel that this will be the best version of the Imperial Age yet!”

After the release of the True20 version of Imperial Age this spring, we plan to concentrate on sourcebooks (such as the long-awaited Africa sourcebook) and adventures. We’ll also be providing conversions in these new releases for those consumers who play the original OGL version of the game.

In other d20-related news, I’ve re-started development on Adamant’s stripped-down cinematic rules-set, The Odyssey System, which we’ve described as our “Pathfinderizing” of d20 Modern — although to be honest, we’ve hot-rodded this thing so much, it goes much further than Pathfinder does from it’s original source. Folks interested in learning more about it should check out this thread at ENWorld.

I’m continuing with development, with a plan to release the system as a free “alpha document” in the late spring/early summer. It will be 100% Open Content (via the OGL 1.0), and we’ll offer logo files and such for publishers and gamer-website use. Our first commercial iteration of the system will be a second edition of Thrilling Tales, which should be available in late summer. If the rules system develops a following (and we hope it will), we’ll consider further uses of it — including an Odyssey version of MARS.

Speaking of MARS, a new version of the game, using the Savage Worlds system, will be released in Late February. We’ll be supporting this with adventures, supplements, etc. We’re considering the possibility of doing a version of the game using the FATE system found in Spirit of the Century and Starblazer Adventures, once we’ve satisfied ourselves that there’s enough of a market there to merit the expansion.

We’re continuing our support of 4E via our Venture 4th line — forthcoming products include continuation of our Warlock Pact releases with Pact of Blood and Pact of the Dragon Lords], a collection of Skill Challenges called By Skill Alone, as well as new creature collections starting with our Fey Folio. Our long-delayed second adventure, Against the Air Pirates, is also currently in editing, and should be released soon.

So what else are we working on?

We’re looking to branch into producing support for Mongoose’s version of the Traveller rules — and we’re starting with a doozy: Final Frontier: The Unauthorized Sourcebook to the World’s Most Popular SF TV Franchise, which is a serial-numbers-filed-off set of rules and guidelines that will allow you to play races such as the Logical Psions, face off against Swarthy Aggressors, enter careers which represent the various service devisions within the Fleet, and boldly go across the galaxy using space-warp FTL engines. This is currently in the draft phase, and not yet in editing.

Also in development for Savage Worlds is The AEGIS Project, a sourcebook featuring international intrigue, exotic technology, and furious action, inspired by such classic groups as SHIELD, G.I. JOE, The Thunderbirds, SHADO (from “UFO”), UNIT and more. Extra-ordinary threats require extra-ordinary agents, and in troubled times, The AEGIS project is there. An elite group of international agents that is ready and able to strike forth against the enemies of law and order by land, air, or sea. This, too, is currently in the draft phase.

Development is underway on Tales of New Crobuzon, our licensed RPG set in the world of China Mieville’s Bas-lag. We’re nearing the end of the initial stage (where it was all me), and getting ready to move on to stage two, where I open it up for the rest of the design team. We’re not announcing a release date yet — but we’re hoping to see it debut in time for Christmas 2009.

Beyond that, and you get into the seriously initial-stage stuff. Stuff which may or may not end up developing into Adamant releases… but for the curious among you, here goes. Things currently in the “initial notes” stage include:

* Support for Paizo’s Pathfinder and folks playing other 3.X edition OGL. (This will largely depend on what Paizo’s publisher license looks like — although given the amount of 3.X holdovers out there, we might consider doing some 3.X in any case.)

* A 4E version of Skull and Bones, the pirates-and-voodoo supplement we designed for Green Ronin in the early 2000s.

* A superhero game based on the FATE system, using a power structure similar to the classic Marvel FASERIP rules.

We’ve got some other licensed support which might occur — but I really can’t say anything about that until the papers are signed.

So there you go. A *very* long look at what’s on our plate right now. Well, at least gaming-wise. We haven’t even begun to talk about the non-gaming entertainment projects which we’re currently working on…. But this entry is long enough already!

Thanks for your continued support, folks. We wouldn’t be here without you.

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Pass through any of the black holes that dot the universe and you enter Slipstream, a pocket universe of shattered worlds. Slipstream is home to myriad aliens, but it is also their prison, for there is no escape.

Amid the fragments of worlds rules the science and flavor of 1930s Saturday morning pulp serials, for Slipstream is a realm of square-jawed heroes, ray guns, weird science, and rocketships. It is a realm where the morals are black and white, where good triumphs over evil, and where danger lurks at every turn.

Ruling over Slipstream is the diabolical queen Anathraxa and her horde of Hand Maidens, Primals, and Minions. All bow before her, paying tribute to avoid destruction. None have had the courage to stand against her forces, at least not until now. For this is the role your heroes will take-bastions of light against a dark foe! Strap on your rocket pack, charge your ray gun, and prepare to blast off on wild and exotic adventures!

Slipstream is a pulp science fiction Plot Point setting for the award-winning Savage Worlds RPG. (full color, hardcover, 160 pages)

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