CAVALIERS OF MARS

8 Day Countdown...
over 6 years ago – Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 04:18:18 PM

Greetings Fellow Martians!

We've entered the final 8 days of the campaign and I'm sure it'll be an exciting finish. Let's take a quick look at what we've accomplished so far.

With the support of over 730 fellow backers, if your base pledge includes the core book PDF, you'll receive:

• An evocative digital wallpaper
• CAVALIERS OF MARS core book (with a bumped up art budget!)
  
• An opportunity to buy a deeply-discounted EXCLUSIVE KICKSTARTER Cavaliers of Mars T-shirt
• The "Witch-Queen of the Shattered Citadel" setting & scenario supplement
• And more content: The City of the Towered Tomb - Part 1: Districts
• And more content: The City of the Towered Tomb - Part 2: Citizens & Outsiders
• and EVEN MORE content: The City of the Towered Tomb - Part 2: Words & Deeds
• Digital Postcards of Martian cities Illium, Vance, and Zodiac

All of that as a reward for your base pledge! The amazing news is that, with 8 days still to go, there's even more opportunities to add to that list!

We're closing in on our latest stretch goal - when we achieve $34,000 in funding, we'll be able to do another big bump on the art budget for the core book. Beyond that, there are opportunities to do another round of voting on some postcard ideas, add EVEN MORE CONTENT to the already amazing setting, and a way to convert some of these digital rewards to physical products, for those who are fond of filling your shelves with books.

BUT, to unveil these next stretch goals and expand this project even further, we've got to work together to keep the campaign growing. There are two ways to help out:

FIRST - Spread the Word! Boost the Signal! Add more Backers!  The more people we can get to join us on this mission, the greater the rewards for all of us. And, selfishly, the more people that are involved in this project, the more people there are to play the game with! I'm looking forward to re-reading the book in its final form, but I'm REALLY looking forward to sitting around a table and having some martian adventures with friends. 

So, let your friends know what we've got going on. Invite them to join in. Share the campaign on your social media. Talk about the game on message boards and at your game night. Let's keep working to grow that backer number!

SECOND - review your pledge amount. As noted, the base pledge is already giving some awesome things, but there are still some awesome higher tier reward levels available, and several add-ons that are well worth the extra expense. If your reward doesn't include the "PDF mini-games," I'd suggest reviewing these as an easy $15 add-on (just adjust your pledge up by $15 via the Manage Your Pledge button)

+ $15 for all 6 Rose Bailey Mini-Games:

• BLAZON, cosmic superheroes in a universe of Law and Chaos, inspired by Green Lantern and new wave fantasy. (38 pages) 
• Bright and Terrible, a game of swords and tragedy in the style of Michael Moorcock's Elric and Tanith Lee's Flat Earth. (24 pages) 
• Die For You, the game of monsters and feels, inspired by paranormal drama in general and the web series Carmilla in particular. (16 pages)   
• The Shadow of Golgotha, a post-apocalyptic feudal world ruled by a blood-drinking aristocracy. (32 pages)  
• Sharded, fantasy noir where death is not the end. (19 pages) - State Machine, android espionage inspired by Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell. (17 pages) 

These mini-games will be in the first wave of rewards sent out after the campaign wraps up, so you could be playing a fun, new mini-campaign in the next few weeks!

SO: Let's do the big push over these next 8 days. Spread the word! Invite others to join us! Review your pledge and rewards! And let's work together to keep unlocking cool expansions and bonuses to an already amazing game!

NPC Generator
over 6 years ago – Sun, Oct 08, 2017 at 12:42:31 PM

Hi, folks, Rose here. ^_^  

One of my favorite kinds of GM resources is the random generator. I love being able to roll a few dice and generate a character or an adventure. I enjoy the creative process that comes from random elements rubbing up against each other.   

Accordingly, Chapter 5 of Cavaliers of Mars features robust random generators for characters and adventures by Benjamin Baugh (author of The Kerberos Club and Monsters and Other Childish Things), which tie into the characters and locations in the rest of the book. As a demo, I've created a web version of the non-player character generator, which creates folks like these:

…Green Castlagarda, an idiot prophet from the Tomb Valleys in Chiaro with astrological tattoos (+Resolve, +Descriptor trait), who wants to make their broken heart into unfeeling stone (+Resolve, -From trait), but the injuries they are hiding will kill them unless they get help.  

…Prince Ariza, a laconic zealot from Surtur with a necklace of ears (+Resolve, -From trait), who wants to be the best they can be (+Resolve, +Descriptor trait, -Vocation trait) but the injuries they are hiding will kill them unless they get help  

…Gorgeous Delirachio, an insightful adept from Noachiq with the appetite of ten hungry Pale Martians (+Resolve), who wants to save their lover’s spirit from the cold hell between the stars (+Resolve, gain “Necroastrology” trait at d8), but their enemies conspire to destroy them, and any close to them.  

…Precious Redhand, an addict assassin from the Shanties in Arcadia with haunted eyes (-Resolve, +Vocation trait), who wants the respect of their distant mother (-Resolve, +Descriptor trait, +Vocation trait), but they need trustworthy accomplices.

Check it out at THIS LINK, and tell us your favorites in the comments!

Words & Deeds / Postcards / More Art!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Oct 06, 2017 at 04:52:55 PM

Greetings, fellow Martians!

After a day spent tentatively tiptoeing up to our last stretch goal target, we took a solid step across the line yesterday and passed the $32,000 in funding marker, and now have more than 700 backers working together to make this project flourish and grow.

This means that Words & Deeds - the third and final section of the City of Towered Tombs - will be added on as a reward for all backers who are getting a PDF copy of the Cavaliers of Mars core book.  

That also means we've closed the voting on our interactive postcard reward. The final tallies are in, and the three cities getting postcard images, which will be sent out to all backers who have selected a reward tier with a Core Book PDF, are: VANCE (with 32% of the vote), ILLIUM (with 27%) and ZODIAC (with 18%).

NEXT STRETCH GOAL - The City of Towered Tombs will add more words to bring the Red Planet to life, so let's work on adding EVEN MORE ART! If we hit $34,000 in funding on this project, we'll have the opportunity to increase the art budget and cram even more amazing illustrations into the Cavaliers of Mars core book. Let's make this the most beautiful book it can be.

BOOST THE SIGNAL - we grow funding (and add rewards) by inviting others to join with us on this mission to Mars. Keep spreading the word on social media. Keep commenting on message boards and other sites. Talk about the game in your podcast. Talk about the game to your gaming group. Just keep spreading the word and let's keep the community we're building around this game growing.  

I'm coming up on a long weekend - we're about to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Canada - so you know I'll be the guy telling everyone about this game around the table while eating too much turkey and pie. So, early apologies to my family. BUT - I also have ideas for some further upcoming stretch goals, and I'm just so excited to see how much we can achieve!

So: Spread the word! Keep the enthusiasm!  And let's keep this Kickstarter running full blast! And, hopefully - despite tryptophan-induced sleepiness - I'll be posting another "Stretch Goal Accomplished!" update soon!

- James
#MissionToMars

Closing in on next stretch goal; postcard city voting
over 6 years ago – Tue, Oct 03, 2017 at 04:29:38 PM

Hello fellow Martians!

As I type this, Mars is only a few days shy of aphelion – its farthest point from the sun. And, since the red planet is currently on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, it's about as faint and faded as it gets in our view. 

But I'm writing today to tell you about a couple of things that are closer and more colorful than our favorite celestial body.

CLOSER: We are rapidly approaching the target for our current stretch goal. At $32,000, we unlock Part 3 of the City of Towered Tombs: Words & Deeds. The final section in the supplement all about Vance, this will provide all backers receiving a PDF core book reward with background on the organizations and institutions of the Red Martian merchant city.

COLORFUL: Hitting the $32K funding mark is also the cut-off for voting on the three Martian City postcard subjects. The current leaders are Vance, Illium and Zodiac, but Battlehymn could make a move if enough new votes come in. Coronal and Foresight need all the help they can get. Please join us in the Kickstarter Comment section to let us know which 3 cities (of the six listed) you would like to see depicted in full-color postcard art.

Once we hit $32,000, I'll tally up the votes and pass that direction along to the team, and we'll unveil our next stretch goal. BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP to get there!

BOOST THE SIGNAL - we grow funding (and add rewards) by inviting others to join with us on this mission to Mars. Keep spreading the word on social media. Keep commenting on message boards and other sites. Talk about the game in your podcast. Talk about the game to your gaming group. Talk about the game with friends at NASA (you know they're hiding Martian secrets!) Just keep spreading the word and let's keep the community we're building around this game growing.

Currently, Mars is a distant and faded sight in the dawn sky. But each day brings it closer to us and makes it appear even brighter. Next year, Mars will be closer to Earth than it's been in the past 15 years. And RIGHT NOW - Mars is closer than it's ever been to your gaming table. 

So: Spread the word! Keep the enthusiasm! Vote in the comments! And let's keep this Kickstarter running full blast!

The Apprentice’s Tale Part 7: The Lost Places
over 6 years ago – Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 05:25:58 AM

As I was saying, during my recovery, we began to plan an expedition to the lost places. We traveled to Chiaro. We took up lodging in a tent city in Chiaro-that-is, but within sight of our goal: Chiaro-that-was. Chiaro-that-is is a reasonably hospitable place. Poor, but the basic necessities of life are available. Oases within the city space provide food, along with some yumocs raised for meat. We were just two more would-be tomb robbers spending our last chits on the chance of a fortune.  

At night, by blue flames, we would stare out at Chiaro-that-was, silhouetted against the stars. Staring out at what the First Martians left behind.

In that epoch, the world was filled with life. Plants, beasts, and sentient creatures all thrived and multiplied. The First Martians built grand cities along the azure seas, yet still pushed back the many-colored jungles only a little. They even built cities under the oceans, protected by crystal domes from the water and from the great leviathans of that impossible age.

In Chiaro, as in a few other places, they left monuments of unimaginable scale. Here were the pyramid-tombs that must have housed their kings, and sphinxes with their eyes towards heaven. Why they built on this scale is hard for those of us who remain to imagine, but I think they did so simply because they could.

Now, these places are abandoned. No throngs fill the city streets, no worshippers gather at the feet of the pyramids or in the eyes of the sphinxes. Many of the treasures of the First Martians lay untouched, as they have since times undreamt of. Not that that’s ever stopped anyone from dreaming of the treasures themselves.

The First Martians are so long gone that even their ghosts have likely scattered on the winds. Yet their treasures still have guardians. The tomb stalkers are strange, tripodal machines that move quietly through the ruins. Their voices are keening and creaking…I only heard them from miles away, and still the memory makes me shudder. They sweep the abandoned streets of all life, sparing the occasional beast only so it can chase intruders into their paths.

In Chiaro, I was told many times that those tomb stalkers visible within the ruins are only a fraction of their number. Many more, I was told, lie slumbering beneath the sand.

Of course, the ruins of the First Martians are not the only forsaken places on the Red World. Lesser peoples have risen and fallen, leaving their own abandoned cities and degenerate remnants. These so-called dusk cities lie empty, or are inhabited by small, cult-like populations who cling to the homes of ancestors they can no longer comprehend.

All of these lost places are tempting targets for graverobbers and treasure hunters, such as my master and I. We spent weeks in Chiaro-that-was, hunting for an untouched tomb, for a cache of relics no one had yet dared plunder. We carried blue flames to keep the tomb stalkers at bay…perhaps they worked.

Perhaps we would have found our treasure there. But one evening, as the blue star rose and we made camp, my master’s coughing was a little worse than it had been. His body seemed a little more bent than the day before, and it had seemed a little more bent the day before that. As the twilight dwindled, he told me stories about my father. I don’t know if they were true; I hope some of them were.

He talked, and he sang, a little feebly. Old soldiers’ songs, maybe learned on the steppe in his youth. He told me of the end of the world, of the days when the atmosphere processors would breathe their last, of desert winters that would last forever. He kept asking me to refill his cup; when there was no more liquor, I filled it with water. He didn’t seem to notice. And, as the ice of night fell around us, my master died. His final words were simple, affectionate, and then he closed his eyes forever.

I packed up our camp. I could hear the tomb stalkers, and had no desire to take any chances. In the icy night, I began my walk back towards the blue lamps of Chiaro-that-is.

And so, in the lost place, I left the man who found me.