Still floating

This map, all you need

and instead i create a radioactive paradise

So, after a holiday break the homegame starts back up and they all say "we want to play something wasteland, Fallout-esque, something with mutants all on one planet"

So, we rolled up Other Dust characters and a couple of mages from http://the-city-of-iron.blogspot.de/p/publications.html

and i came up with this.....

This is just a player map, it goes with this little bit of info on the places

FrenchPost is an ancient settlement dominated by a large Stone church on a hill above the River Red . for the most part it is a peaceful farming community but lives in fear of its neighboring enclaves and areas. Once a year there is a festival of St Armstrong in which several members of the community are exiled for a year and a day to go on pilgrimage (that is you player). mutant friendly
(church site, ancient hate hill beasts to north, ancient settlement 900 people tech 2 oligarchic )

To the East is the small community of Thorny Pines organized by a strict caste system of farmers and woodsmen who are very distrustful of outsiders and mutants. They are mostly formed of a reform group from Pharo Elvis who escaped to lead a pure and simple life farming
(caste based, splinter group, reform, tech 1,  200 people , tribal)

Pharo Elvis was once a great city along the River Man but is now a site of depravity and anarchy led by religious zealots who live in the waste of the city, there are rumors of great food supplies and demons stalking the night  (400 people, tech 1 , anarchy)

Far to the east along the stone road is the remains of a city known as Jax.  Little is known except there used to be a government city here where 6 great roads met and that now it is a land of degenerate cannibals . there are rumors of a large government complex in the area somewhere near a lake

The Port Rads Zone  is north of FrenchPost and is said to be a scavengers paradise and the radiation seems to be going away in the area.  but travelers report sightings of more and more hill beasts in the area from the north

The Pine Rads Zone centers on the remains of a large military base and rumors abound about strange lights in the night sky and aliens, but know one knows if that is true, what they do know is that the trees will eat you

Across the River Sacrament   is the land of the Iron Star, a pre collapse government whose borders are patrolled by robots that shoot on site and dont bother with questions.

Little is know about these western lands except for the occupants of Lunar a heavily fortified ruined spaceport whose occupants barter for lost tech, and grain in exchange for printed books and medicines (300 people, industrialized, tech savants, mutant friendly)

Far to the North are the savage lands of the Hill Beasts who lead raiding parties south in the spring of the year and the sunken swamp lands known as the SuckMucks where odd violent creatures are known to chop men in two with heavy claws and armored hides

Somefolks say that if you can get through the swamps you come to the sea and that many people live on metal islands and have fabulous technology, but thats just rumor, perhaps





So i guess we will play a little Other Dust with Wild Magic, no worries
i can still use a lot of stuff i used in SWN

Books i will be using are

ASE 1-3TotGaD 1-2CarcosaOther DustTheorems & Thaumaturgy

and watching 

D88 Whats in the Cryo - Stasis Chamber

On the Orbital there are a number of Stasis Chambers, who and what are in them is always asked by players when they find them, so i made a table. This is ment to be playable characters or henchpeople with an eye to ASE, TotGaD, LabLord, SWN,Other Dust, and my bizzare imagination . Feel free to do what you will with it

For some of the Mages i use the free  Theorems & Thaumaturgy.   


Roll two different colored D8, the table is broken up into tech levels and genres for ease of use, you will find the character class, brief description, and a little bit of equipment that might be preserves with them. all you need is a name (i make these up on the fly, and stats)

multiple use, this could be used as whos in the crypt, who is the stowaway, who is trying to kill me, anything really. If they are coming out of scientific or magical stasis i usually give them d4 levels and half hitpoints for a few days as being frozen hurts


Basic Shoot or Hit low tech guys and gals, assume most equipment is akin to burial goods

11. Ranger, Scruffy tattooed human of middle age dressed in leather buckskins and wolfskin hat. Equipped with hunting bow, 10 arrows, knife and a great disdain for being indoors and a mighty thirst for whiskey. last remembers being on the trail of some metal bear

12. Fighter, broken nosed and bruised mercenary, in chainmail with a greatsword. speaks a guttural ancient dialect of common and last remembers drinking and playing dice at a tavern. alcoholic and a bully to smaller people. fears magic

13. Thief , youngish female dressed in rags with the remains of a noose around her neck. remembers standing on the gallows and a storm on the horizon. excels in pickpocketing
and rooftop burglary

14. Fighter, tough leathery skin man in his 30’s, dressed in flowing red robes over half plate and carrying a matched set of scimitars, claims to have seen his God in a sandstorm and last remembers walking into the desert. does not drink or dance or laugh, silent most of the time with watchful eyes.

15. Thief, nearsighted locksmith with lock picking tools. dressed in homespun work clothes and with a balding head. has a uncanny knack with safes, locks, and traps. his last memories where of opening up a wizards chest a bright flash of light

16.  Ranger, stout woodsman with a large axe, dressed in plaid wool tunic and leather pants, smells of goats and sourmilk. claims that the last thing he remembers is the trees eyes opening up and the branches grabbing him

17 thief, adolescent child dressed in beggar's rags, has a cup with several copper coins in it, and will attach himself to the eldest party member and offer to steal for them. last remembers crawling into a warm box in a abandoned warehouse near the wharves. dislikes soap

18 fighter, fur and leather clad nomad with a spear and a hunting horn, claims to have been struck by a great light from the sky while hunting swamp rats at night.  will pass out at first sight of blood if save not made each combat, snores loudly while sleeping and eats with fingers



Basic casters in lab lord or equivalent tech level 2. i use T&T a lot here so you might want that download, OD is otherdust
21. scholar (bard or speaker OD), Older man dressed in toga, speaks in ancient dialect of common and has a large blank book, quills, ink and a thirst for knowledge. has a dagger concealed in his toga and a set of keys that he doesn't know what opens

22.  cleric, Shrunken faced cleric with a tonsure , dressed in robes of grey hues, will be clutching holy symbol and a scroll of cure disease when awakened. will think he is in a afterlife granted by his god and to have been rewarded for his service to that God. (choose random God)


23. mage, young apprentice with a random wand and random spell book, dressed in robes and skull cap, will have last remembered a spell casting that went horribly wrong and the learning faces of demons and burning ice, very crazy roll a madness and a random familiar in stasis with him

24. necromancer T&T young 11 year old boy with a stuffed teddy bear, he will be dressed in black clothing and mutter about revenge and “bringing them all back”  remembers legions of skeletons and the wailing of ghosts from a dark frozen place

25.  druid, Wise old peaceful Hippie with a love of psychedelic mushrooms and all critters great and small. carries a large petrified tree limb club and a bag of nuts for his animal companion squirrel that is in stasis with him under his robes. last remembers finding a blue mushroom


26.  vivimancer T&T crazy eyed middle age woman in a leather labcoat. has pockets full of vivisection tools and a large book filled with spells that look like lab reports. will cackle fanatically
during lightning storms and claim to have trained under a great doctor that created life. will tell everyone a monster shoved her in a box

27 elementalist t&t, pick your own element on this one.  Young girl with flowing robes and braids, armed with a staff and a bottled elemental (small) spell book is in the form of metal disks on a necklace. will longingly dream of planer travel to her chosen elements plane and remembers a great temple to her element overrun by other elements

28 witch/warlock  choose a gender, very cunning and seductive human dressed in evening finery, carries a small black book of spells, the true names of 1d4 random demons, a bag of salt, 13 candles, a piece of chalk and an attitude of disdain for mortals. smells of sulphur and only remembers a party after a banishing that must have gone horribly wrong


non humans tech level 2 and 3 still with a fantasy bent but some of them might be from alternate worlds

31. dwarf fighter, red mo-hawked, tattooed, and bound in a great chain which he will use to fight with since someone stole his axe. has a grudge about everything and will tell you about it right before he charges straight at any monster in sight. doesn't remember much, must have been that 113th pint of ale

32 elf thief, dressed in a black leather like rubber suit that has lots of zippers and pockets, armed with just a dagger and a black black heart. hates anything colorful or fun. last memory is of opening a bag of what was supposed to be gems. has 50 feet coiled silk rope, thieves tools, smoke bombs, a secretly hides a small brightly colored plastic unicorn that he talks too in total darkness

33 half ork assassin,  Ugly bastard dressed in a smart pinstripe suit and a fedora, carries a concealed pistol with a silencer, several hundred credits/gp in small bills/coins and a old subway map from somewhere you haven't heard about. likes pasta and vino, smells of garlic and cigars

34 gnome illusionist,  tiny man in a blue tunic and tall red cone shaped hat, with a smoking pipe, tobacco, a love of animals and practical jokes. HATES TROLLS, will berserk and charge them shouting obscenities

35 dwarf alchemist brewer , wakes up asking for a drink and clutching a recipe book of brews and explosives title “anarchists cookbook”  he is hell bent on getting back to his still and cant remember where it is. dressed in leathers with a sack of bottles, 3 beers, 3 whiskeys, 3 molotov cocktails, and armed with a large metal spoon (mace) pyromaniac, drunk, paranoid, hillbilly dwarf

36 elf blade dancer This female dressed in silks and carrying a matched sword and dagger will speak to few, and no males. she will seem to gracefully float in combat with 3 attacks with the sword and dagger.

37 fey sorcerer, This wispy wood elf girl will be clothed in green and brown silks resembling leaves and will have a silver sickle at her side. a practitioner of nature and trickery magic, she remembers the home tree being struck by lightning, but there was no storm, she will not touch iron or consort with foresters or industrialists. T&T

38 halfling cook, thief , a cooking pot for a helmet and a cleaver for a weapon, this barefoot hobbit is a lecherous glutton and will awake from stasis with a ravenous hunger exclaiming that he is the grand chef of thuria and only cooks with the finest ingredients. he will remember being on a hunting expedition with the prince and a blizzard snowed them in, he will say no more

tech level 3 archetypes characters gleaned from TotGaD and twisted for my imagination

41 cultist (mage)  Dressed in purple flowing robes with a bald head tattooed with purple tentacles this sour little man will often stare into the night sky and preach about the nameless ones and their return. A silver ritual dagger and a staff shod in silver at his side, his spell book looks to have been bound in human skin. he will say nothing about his origins except he is with those who wait.

42 big game hunter (ranger)  Armed with a large bore hunting rifle and dressed in khakis and a pith helmet this hunter remembers a great orange rhino charging from the bush . he is an excellent tracker and hunter with a full kit of wilderness supplies tuck into pockets and a great knowledge of the outdoors. he is terrified of mice and rats

43 monster slayer (paladin) Clad in full black plate mail and with a fiery mane of redhair, this young lady swings a great two handed sword and remembers being swallowed by the jabberwocky. her divine powers come from a consuming lust for killing monsters of any type though she will not harm a human unless pressed to save others

44 arcane taxidermist (vivomancer or necromancer T&T) dressed in a top hat covered with bits of fur and feathers, this older man rejoices in the dark fauna of the shadows and is a creator of life and unlife depending on your point of view. he last remembers falling into one of his own growth vats when a monster he created surprised him. armed with etched glass and copper spell book and a revolver and accompanied in stasis by a taxidermy owl and a preserved jackalope in a jar

45 condemned criminal (thief) a woman in a orange jumpsuit with the number 567 stenciled on the back and a shiv hidden in her sleeve. she will kill without hesitation and burglarize for fun over profit. pyromaniac, immune from mind affecting spells as she is pure psychopath. the last she remembers is being strapped to a gurney and a needle stuck in her arm

46 spy (illusionist) A demure gentleman in a tweed suit and wire rim spectacles
clutching a briefcase with encoded documents (spell book) and a garrote. he will say nothing about how he came to be here but will discuss the weather or how he takes his tea.  

47 spiritualist (TotGaD class, unreleased at this time) This hollow faced man dressed in a somber grey suit seems normal on the outside but is haunted by the dead. he will often stare into the darkness for hours. He carries a holy symbol and a revolver, a bag of salt, and a bottle of fine port. (use a cleric if the class is not available)

48 seductionist (bard) This fiery dame dressed in a short red cocktail dress carries a little black book (spells) a engraved zippo, cigarette case and the voice of an angel when she sings her sad songs. She will wake up startled and ask about the other people in the car, it went over the bridge, didnt it?



tech level 4 space explorers SWN CLASSES

51 exploration pilot, expert , Early deep space wormhole explorer dressed in a Vac suit with a smashed face visor, at his belt is a medical kit and a ray gun with a stun setting only. numerous astromaps on clear plastic surround him and he is devoid of any last memories. HATES AI’s and ROBOTS

52 high tech criminal, expert class, Young woman dressed in futuristic uni suit with nueral implant sockets and her hair in braids. She is wearing a set of low light goggles and has a blacknet hacked datapad .( Other dust reference, use as you wish) Her last memory is of entering stasis for a “job”

53 mindhealer , psion. This is a bald human female dressed in white robes emblazoned with a red seashell, she remembers being put in stasis in order to help others in the future. She is trained in bio psy and telepathy and carries a shock staff and several doses of healing in her bag.

54 frozen soldier, warrior, Red haired and bearded man dressed in tattered tundra camouflaged field uniform armed with a depleted laspistol and combat knife. remembers scientists throwing him in stasis after his base was overrun by space monsters.

55 astronav, psion, Wretchedly twisted by madness (roll a few random ones) after passing through a warpstorm this astronav has sockets and ports all over his bald head and is dressed in the traditional ships robes of orange. his last memory was of the colors of the storm and the leering demon faces made from nebulas. he awakens unarmed and restrained by plastic manicals

56  noble , warrior A gallant prince dressed in rich velvets and armed with a mono-rapier and laspistol who tells a sad tale of going into stasis with his true love, where is she now? he does have a large ornate key to the treasury of his keep and will promise large rewards for those that help him find his princess

57 life pod escapee , expert, clerical  A short little man with glasses, dressed in standard shipssuit, armed with a clipboard data slate with cargo manifests.  He made it to the lifepods and put himself in stasis when the aliens infested the cargo ship he was working for as cargo master. is he infected by alien spoor? or a pirate coward?


58 heretic psyker , This young man dressed in a odd collection of plastic sheeting and cording is elaborately decorated with tattoos and has a shagy mange of hair shaved into a spiral pattern on his head. when he wakes up he will savagly strike out with his mind at anyone looking remotely military and will tell you that he was “put away for the good of humanity”

tech level 4 aliens demi humans
61 space elf (psion) non violence.  Clutching a handful of flowers and with pointed ears sticking out from her golden hair, this damsel is a healer who will not shed blood in any way if it can be helped. She has no memories other than being held in the embrace of the world tree and seeking peace above all things. she will not speak to or around men

62 space dwarf (miner)  A burly short bearded man in a dirty jumpsuit with a cybernetic drill (d6) replacing one hand and forearm this stout spacer will regale the party with tales of asteroids full of rare ores and minerals. if asked why he is in stasis he will only say “lost a bet”

63 space ork (slayer OD or assassin)  Dressed in black rubber and ceramic armor, this tusked beast of a humanoid will growl at his rescuers mentioning nothing of his last memories except for “the beast in the night sky”. He fears bright lights and will stay to himself, though he is an efficient killer who will rip out and eat the heart of any beast he slays

64 space dwarf (expert)  Mirrored shades cover the eyes of this dwarf dressed in a ceramic mesh suit and carrying a datalab and metatool, he will ask about any salvage opportunities and bemoan the fact that the last thing he remembers is his exploration ship hitting that comet

65 space elf (biologist , expert  A stoic pointed ear elf dressed in exploration suit with a geode clutched in his hands, this space elf had just discovered a remarkable find deep underground when gas escaped the rock formation. his many pockets will contain survival gear and sampling containers

66 space ork , warrior heavy weapons)  Dressed in black rubber and ceramic armor, this tusked beast of a humanoid is wrapper in belts of heavy machine gun ammunition and screams in rage that his “Ghat” (gun) is missing and demand to know when it will be returned so that he may continue his one Ork war on the civilized planets, once calmed down he will ask for tea and be very refined. His last memory is of the inside of a giant robotic beast in a radioactive jungle

67 space lizard man, warrior  armored in a bronze segmented suit and carrying a mono axe, this reptilian humanoid loves flies dipped in honey and the splatter of blood from his foes. He believes he is in his own heaven for faithful service on the battlefield, he fears children of any race

68 exotic green girl, dancer expert Dressed in revealing flowing robes concealing a poisoned dagger, this green skinned dancer has a 3 in 6 chance once a day to hypnotize any humanoid male with her dance, right before she will want to plunge the dagger into his chest. She remembers being traded 27 times before she was put into storage for shipping offworld due to her fiery temper

mutants and others  

71 lycantrope http://untimately.blogspot.com/2012/12/were-creatures.html   Go to this blogpost, roll as needed.  This 1-2 child 3-4 woman 5-6 man person remembers nothing except for the last full moon. They will be dressed in rags and human

72 mutant cultist OD speaker Dressed in Orange robes, this elderly man will have D3 mutations from Otherdust  and will be a spokesman for the rights of mutants and the change in society that mutants herald. He has been placed in stasis so that he can communicate with later generations what will become commonplace if mankind continues to war among the stars

73 mushroom man A darkened chamber will reveal http://vaultsofnagoh.blogspot.com/2012/06/fungal-murderhobos-of-wilds.html when opened along with a starchart to his home planet, and he wants to go home

74 Space amazon swn warrior She has raven hair, alabaster skin, golden armor that reflects energy weapons on a 4 in 6, a chainsword, and a attitude of misandry.  

75 jungle cat girl  A jet black jungle version of a ASE 2-3 Moktar entangled in a net and roughly stuck in the chamber. while her communication skills might be lacking, that is made up for by her excellent skill in tracking and pouncing


76  holy warrior (tech level 4 paladin warrior) Dressed in reflective plate armor with a two handed mono sword, this older man serves the machine and worship of the machine, he can turn robots as a cleric of same level and has several schematics on him for servitors. also in the stasis chamber is a servitor skull that floats around when freed and serves like a familiar


77 samurai turtle man.warrior mutant    clad in both protective shell and shell armor this old turtle knows a thing or two about tactics and how to swing his Katana.  He loves pizzas and only communicates in haiku. his last memory was falling down an open manhole in some far future radioactive city

78 bird man , warrior mutant Wings folded around him in order to fit inside the chamber, this humanoid is covered in grey plumage and is in stasis with a laser sniper rifle with telescopic sights. He will remember being on a mission with his flock of elite warriors when a storm blew them off course

81 half ogre ,  large and cranky this half ogre with the mind of a curious child will be clutching half a teddy bear in his large hands and will answer to any name given him. he was orphaned on the battlefield and raised by kindly missionaries and doesn't understand that he is an ogre. he hid inside the stasis chamber when some aliens attacked the mission

82 mutant badlands survivor, opening this stasis chamber gives off a light dose of radiation and the girl inside is dressed in a hospital gown tagged SPECIMEN #39495.  She remembers wandering inside of a great space ship that went through a storm. roll 3 OTHERDUST mutations with NO stigmata

83 lionman Moktar from ASE 2-3   Dressed in a smoking jacket and wearing a green fez, this cheerful Moktar is a rare curiosity as he seems less savage than other specimens, but just as dangerous. He still has limited communication but seems more calm and refined. will stare at a mechanical clock as though mesmerized and prefers his raw meat with a dipping sauce and a tankard of wine

84 badger man mutant  “Did we make it out of the tunnel” he will say when revived, this mild mannered fungus farmer in glasses and wearing a homespun tunic will remember a earthquake and then darkness. In his pockets are recipes for d8 potions made of mushrooms

85 cybernetic bear. Its a grizzly with lots of metal implants and a laser sighting eyepiece. he doesn't talk but loves to dance and shoot things. when a gun runs out of ammo he will just use it as a club

86 savage half elf  Dressed in furs this pointed ear space elf is a mute savage with great skill of hunting, tracking, and setting traps. can not learn the use of tech 2 or above weapons or armor and will collect ears of foes as trophies. FEAR of robots

87 bullywug  A Sinister looking toadman who seeps a hallucinogenic slime (save or confusion if touched with bare skin) armed with a obsidian dagger and dressed in a loincloth. He can talk common he just doesn't like too and collects the eyeballs of his foes and strings them on a necklace. expert swimmer, breaths underwater, and only heals if immersed in mud

88 insect man ASE2-3  A Mantis man from ASE2-3 armed with a sack of grenades and carrying a sack of baby grunkies for food, though he would prefer fresher meat.  CLAUSTROPHOBIC and requires a swig of liquid courage to go underground. last memories are of the hive chasing a pack of feral humans down into a missile silo

some of these are underlined, those are what my homegame rolled as new starter character choices

We are off to see a Wizard, Perhaps

The Home Game meets tonight after the winter holiday break. they have 3 options presented for them,


They can stay on the Orbital and fiddle with the controls, theres not much left for them to fight there, so that will be tedious for a few of them. This might mean back to the planets surface and straight into level 2 of ASE

They can listen to the Planetband radio and pick from any number of juicy rumors, Orks in Space, Dwarves in Space, Bring me a Pineapple, or Hark a Void Dragon , all of which will eventually lead to something wild im sure


or they can crack some new characters out of cryostasis , I have mentioned Thieves guild based campaign, they have a spaceship, it could run out of gas somewhere backwater,

It will all be very interesting and include a D66 chart somewhere im sure

For the Next Year List

List of things i want to work on for the next year (sorta in order)

1. I have played through the orbital with both a home group and a online group, its mostly played through, now is the time to finish it and write it all down from the chickenscratch pieces of graphpaper its all on. that means typing up pages, redoing the maps and looking about for some art. It was important to play though it to tweek it as it was going.

Levels of the orbital, Botany, Starport, Museum, Entertainment, Habitation, Import/Export (Research), and command and control also finishing a thing on the factions and history and the new playable race, ORBITAL VERMIN

      

      2. ZEPPLINS AND AIRSHIPS, This has been stewing for some time and after much book collecting i think i have a plan to do some simple rules for a fantasy/postapoch bolt on ruleset for building and flying balloons and aerial towns that should be LL/SWN compatable

      3.  I really want to do a setting based around a jungle island ala a pulpy Doctor Moreau, setting that would be a WFRP/ASE/WWII thing, im sure its been done before but i have ideas and i want to have tigers and Amazons in my game

 

An Interview with Henchman Abuse on ASE

A couple of weeks ago, i kept coming up with questions about ASE with regards to my working it into my homegame and at the same time Henchman Abuse was posting teasers about the soon to be forthcoming ASE II, so i shot of an email and asked if i could put some interview questions togother and he said sure.
I also asked over at DoS if he had any questions that needed to thrown into the mix. I think we got some good questions together and even better answers so for your informational pleasure, i present......

(sorry about the formatting, it converted poorly from the doc. questions in black, answers in henchman blood red)

A series of questions about the world of ASE for Patrick W on the near eve of the release of ASE II.

When did you start playing RPGS, Have you continually played or had breaks. Do you gravitate towards being the GM or Player in your earlier groups before ASE

1980, 1981? Some time around then. The oldest kid in the neighborhood started playing, and had a bunch of us younger kids join him one afternoon so he could DM.  It was the Holmes basic dungeon - totally awesome and didn’t follow the rules at all. My hobbit died, and was brought back to life via animate dead, so I played the skeleton.  Once I got the Basic D&D set, I ended up being the DM 90% of the time, probably because I’m bossy.

When did the idea for ASE originate, has this been years in the making or rather recent

It was minutes in the making. As in one or two.  My friend Ted (who plays Mongo) had been bragging about being able to get Thundarr the Barbarian on his cable network, and I had just read Gene Wolfe’s Book of the Long Sun and had come across Blair’s Planet Algol blog and James’ Dwimmermount campaign on the Grognardia blog.  I had been running a Delta Green campaign, and after the fellows said they wanted some D&D instead, I just tossed all that together into campaign salad.

Are the session reports from home games, face to face over a tabletop or are they played online. How long has that group been together and can you tell us some about its dynamics?

It’s all home games.  During crappy weather we use Skype and Fantasy Grounds, but that hasn’t been necessary for quite a while now.  This particular group has been running for about 3 years now, it started with a Delta Green campaign.  Ted and Jim (Mongo and Gutboy respectively) have been with it the longest, and I’ve known them for around 20 years. Chad and Mike (playing Netal/Razoe and George) showed up later after the D&D campaign started - those guys I met at work.  Other guys drop in on occasion as well, but those four are the regulars.

What movies and TV shows or other media have played a big impact on ASE. If ASE had a appendix N of books and comics, what would be on that list?

The number one influence is Thundarr the Barbarian. I love that cartoon when I was a kid.  The whole idea of a post-apocalyptic earth was big back then, due to the Cold War, and the idea that life would go on after but be TOTALLY AWESOME was really appealing.  A whole ruined landscape full of remarkably preserved technology ready for any shmoe who walks by to mess around with!

The second biggest influence was the Planet Algol blog - great stuff there. I read that, and realized I needed gonzo, big heaping piles of gonzo, in my game.

As I mentioned earlier, Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun is another big one - wow, Gene Wolfe is so very good, he has an absolute mastery of the English language, his ideas are fantastic, and with the various Book-of-the-whatever-Sun series, his Catholicism informs his work without turning it into allegory.

Grognardia inspired me to make a big dungeon out of the whole thing. There aren’t really other Dwimmermount influences in there - I was walking off to gonzo-land and not looking back.

Other influences you can pick out: Doctor Who, Zardoz, HG Wells’ Time Machine, Lost, HP Lovecraft, Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, X-Files, Jack Vance

How much of ASE is currently completed, even in a sketchy mental form?  Does you know what's on all the levels, or are there still vast open spaces?

Not a whole lot.  I know that there’s a Lancaster bomber on level 8, that the players can use to go back in time to fight Hitler.  There’s also Dracula somewhere in there, the City of Under-Miami, and a massive complex devoted to rust monsters just to really irritate my players.

I’ve got a document named “ideas.doc” that I just toss stuff in when I think of it.  I go back through it when I’m working on a new level and cherry pick out the good stuff.  It has notes about the stuff I’ve alluded to in prior levels as well, just so I don’t forget things.

There is some excellent artwork in the book and previews for ASE2, are these artists in your local area or the gaming community. what has been the most challenging thing to illustrate?

I saw Brian “Glad” Thomas’s work on Dragonsfoot, and was just wowed - he does excellent action scenes, the expressions on his characters’ faces are awesome.  So I sent him an email and was stunned to find out that he was in my budget.  He did virtually all the art in ASE1, with the exception of a city piece by Andy Taylor (who was recommended to me by Brian).  In ASE2-3, Gustie of the Dungeon of Signs blog will be contributing a bunch of art too, and the player handout treasure maps.  He had been reading the session reports from my own campaign, and put up a drawing on his blog of the death of Netal the Elf that was just fantastic, so I sent him an email and he kindly agreed to do some work for me.  So no, nobody local.

As far as anything being challenging to illustrate, I’ve got no answer there - not only do I not illustrate myself, I really don’t provide any specification.  I tossed out a few ideas to Brian, and then let him do whatever he wants. I’m not an artist and don’t pretend to understand the process, so I just want to get out of the way. What he comes up with is almost always spot on. I did the same w/ Gustie, except of course for the player handouts, which have certain game functions they must meet.  I hope Brian & Gustie are happy working with my vague and nebulous specifications!

ASE has generated a lot of great publicity, and we have seen few detractors - beyond an occasional "too gonzo for me!".  Do you have any idea why this mega dungeon is getting this response as opposed to the more critical reception for some other larger published OSR megadungeons?

Hard question to answer.  I think a lot of this has to do with how many people are buying ASE1, and the kinds of people who are buying it.  As for how many, the answer is “not many” - there aren’t solid sales numbers out there for the other guys except for the kickstarters. The smallest of them, Barrowmount II, has outsold me by a significant number, and I don’t even begin to approach Dwimmermount.  What it boils down to, I believe, is that ASE1 is a niche-within-a-niche.  It’s an OSR product, which cuts your audience way down, and then it’s crazy gonzo science-fantasy on top of that, which turns a lot of people off.

So who’s buying it ends up being people who are really open minded and looking for something different.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that my customers are thus at the more creative and avant garde end of the spectrum, and more likely to pour some of that energy into doing things like blogging about their games, sharing the material they generate, and so on.  So I end up with an outsize share of positive attention.

I’m not implying that you’re not creative and awesome if you’re not interested in ASE1 (but why take the chance people?) - rolling your own campaign is of course the ultimate in creative expression.  I’m just theorizing about general tendencies here.

Or maybe people like it just because it’s kind of cool to play D&D with robots and lasers.

In a blog comment you mentioned in a comment that Level 5 (presumably in ASE III) will be effectively a wilderness within the dungeon.  Can you elaborate on that?

Part of level 5 will be standard dungeon - but there will also be Under-Miami.  Imagine a cavern miles and miles long - how many miles I don’t know, because I still haven’t mapped it.  But it’s got a significant chunk of Miami replicated within it, lots of art deco hotels, South Beach, etc.  And then roads head off into the subterranean jungles, full of dinosaurs (because dinosaurs are awesome), golf courses, volcanos, the Bay of Biscayne.  I haven’t really thought it out too much beyond “Hey, Miami Vice except underground”, but players will definitely be able to jack a Ferrari Daytona Spyder and joyride down Ocean Drive.  I expect it will be another Denethix + Land of One Thousand Towers, although with a few more encounter areas detailed so it’s not 100% rough sketches.

Mapping, how do you handle that for the publications, are the levels hand drawn first or just rough sketches?
is there any chance of seeing a side view map of the mountain one of these days?

I draw maps first on graph paper, usually before even thinking about what’s going to be in the rooms.  This is how the dungeon evolved after all - rooms are re-purposed over and over over the millenia.  It’s also a lot easier to avoid analysis paralysis when trying to figure out every room’s purpose in advance.  As I build up a backlog of ideas though, more parts of the complex have to be accounted for in advance, which slows mapping down quite a bit.  This is why megadungeons take so long to write - accounting for all the interdependencies and trying to make 100+ room levels somehow end up seeming slightly coherent.

I then scan the map, and drop it in Campaign Cartographer 2 as a background image, and do the publishable map.  I defined my own symbols to match the old-style TSR map symbols, which keeps the maps from having that obnoxious computer-generated look that those programs can sometimes add.

There will definitely be a side view map at some point, just for my own sanity.  I’m waiting to publish such a thing though, as once it’s done it is a constraint on future maps that I have to live with.

Are there plans to elaborate more on the surrounding areas as outlined in the first book, more wizards, cities towns? Is your focus more on the dungeon or the world, or does that change back and forth depending on players?

More wizards, absolutely!  There are a bunch more in ASE2-3, although they are more likely to be encountered as wandering monsters in the dungeon.  As for gazetteers of the Land of One Thousand Towers, absolutely not - I hate those.  They steal all the referee’s creativity and end up making “canon” out of a sandbox.  It seems very limiting to me.  It’s like the map in the Expert set booklet, that got turned into the “Known World” setting - it was just some flavor to inspire DM’s, and they could fill in the blanks, coming up with all kinds of awesome from these brief names on a map. Then, tons of books detailing each little bit, all the mystery gone. It’s incredibly depressing.

What I’d rather see is people make their own stuff up.  People seem to love the setting portion of ASE1, and come up with all kinds of things I’d never dream up.  Now, what would be cool is if people took all that work and published it or put it in PDF’s or however they want to distribute it and shared it out there.  I know I didn’t make the setting OGL, but if you have a hankering to publish something just ask me, I’m 99.99999999% likely to give you my blessing!

If people are looking for a bit more content, I did publish a loosely affiliated adventure “Fruiting Towers” in Fight On #13, and have a few more adventures in the wings that will eventually see the light of day.  But they’re not about defining setting, and it’d be a shame if people took anything in them as “canon” not to be contradicted.

what can you tell us about the development of the new classes that we have gotten a peek at on the blog, Scientist, Robot, Moktar, Insect Man? will there be more unique classes lower down?

I tried to be very conservative with these classes.  Since my only playtesting is my home campaign, and my players aren’t actually playing these classes, there’s limited playtesting with them - they only get play as NPC’s.

Scientist - this is a technology-themed spellcaster.  He’s got a bit more hit points, but his powers are more limited. He chooses them once and then he’s stuck with that choice.  I was definitely trying to avoid any kind of decision-tree where you have to plan a character’s life out in advance, so there’s virtually no dependencies between powers.  I was trying to go more spells here than feats.

Robot - these are like monks.  I love the whole idea where monks and assassins have to kill higher level characters before they can reach a new level, which inspired the bit where you have to get spare parts from a higher level robot. They have a fixed list of powers as they level, like monks, or they can use normal weapons.  They’re fairly tough compared to monks, but they will struggle to find healing while in the dungeon - they really need scrapyards to repair themselves.

Moktar - this is just a solution to the problem of first level characters dying a lot.  So it’s a fighter analog, with high strength but low dexterity due to buffoonish clumsiness, and a lot of hit points at first level.  That second level takes a lot of XP to hit though, so they don’t end up vastly more powerful than a fighter of equivalent experience, and they have deep communication problems with NPC’s as well

Insect-Men - this is an undead-fighting specialist.  They are immune to undead except for mummy rot (which I left in because otherwise all those Egyptian pyramids in the Lanthanide Wastes would be overrun with insect-men). So if you’ve got a deep and abiding fear of level drain, here’s your solution.  Because I _will_ be draining your levels.

As for more classes - I don’t know.  If I think of something cool, I’ll toss it in.  Maybe mutants would be cool, you could roll for a random mutation at every level.

You’ve suggested that the ASE has 8 levels total, how much of this content is done, and are you still feeling the inspiration and desire to create more ASE content? Secondly how has your approach to ASE and thoughts on it changed since between the publication of ASE I and now, on the eve of ASE II?

I was actually thinking 9 levels - the 8th level is just the last level with an entrance directly accessible from outside.  Levels 2 and 3 are done, I’m just going through proofreading right now - wait, I’m doing this interview now and NOT proofreading, so all delays in publication are now your fault - and then comes layout & publication. Level 4 exists as a partial map with a few notes sketched on it.  I do my best work at the last minute, by which I mean I wait to the last minute to do any work of any kind...

Yes, I’m still feeling the inspiration - this is my home campaign after all!  If I stop coming up with content, it all falls apart.

Since I don’t really plan ahead very much for what future levels hold, there’s not too many ways for me to change my mind on anything.  Well, in my “ideas.doc” I did see one thing - Giant Turkeys - that I have no idea what I was thinking and that will never make it into the dungeon.  There will be no Giant Turkeys.  That is not an awesome encounter.  Maybe somebody else could make it awesome, but that person is not me.  So that is the sum total of design changes I’ve made so far.

ASE has a fairly bright and cheery tone despite its deadliness and the more disturbing themes (slavery, cannibalism and wholesale drug abuse come to mind), is this purely a function of the dungeon’s gonzo elements or an intentional turn away from grim settings?

I couldn’t play a grim setting with a straight face - I just don’t buy it.  I’m way more “Thundarr the Barbarian” than “The Day After.”   So while everything is bleak on the surface, it’s all ripe with potential for endless awesome.  The terrible situations are always very volatile - the idea is that the players get to be the fulcrum of change, in whatever direction they want. So yes, totally intentional.







Thanks for taking the time to answer our little interview, and i hope everyone finds it as useful as i did.