Wild Skies: Europa Tempest Raising Funds Now

It's been a while. I haven't been idle, though. This has been a very busy year for writing so far. I have been working on a lot of projects at once in rather piecemeal fashion. I've had a couple writing projects on at any one time and I've also been doing a lot of research for ongoing and future projects. I aim to work through discussing all the things I've been up to over the next couple weeks.

The biggest thing in my writer's life right now is my long-time writing partner and I have decided to launch our own role-playing game company, write our own game system and start our own game line! This is huge news for me. We don't exactly aim to become market leaders, and we know it's a crowded market, but I think we have something no one else it offering. If you want all the details, quit reading this and head over to Kickstarter right now and check out Wild Skies: Europa Tempest. If you are like me and you want to know what you are going to find before you follow a link, I'll describe the project.

This has been a project long in development. Brandon, my friend, writing buddy, brother-in-law and all-around fellow nerd, cooked the basics of the setting up a few years ago. We wanted to play a certain anthropomorphic animals game, but the setting didn't quite suit us. We developed a new setting for that game's rules. We imaged a world where the First World War didn't end in an armistice, but in civil wars in all the combatants. The 1920s were complete chaos across Europe. Our game is set in the 1930s when things are more stable, but borders and governments are very different. I started with a map of every division line Europe has experienced in the Twentieth Century and starting filling in new country names. Brandon wanted “diesel punk” so big engines and well-muscled mechanics feature prominently. We've put in flying airships as well for a hyper-reality one of our friends called “historical steroids.” The fact that everyone is an animal allowed for so many animal jokes. One of our mantras for playing the game was never let the opportunity for a good animal joke pass. I don't know about other people but we love pirates who are rats, elephant security guards who never forget and a rhino and a tick bird who work together as an assassin team.

After playing several adventures in this setting, we moved on to other games, but we began to develop a set of our own rules to use with our new setting. Unlike some other rpg-systems, our game isn't focused on “winning” by dealing the most damage or earning the most XP. We've put the storytelling first and foremost. Our experience system rewards players for advancing the story lines they choose for their characters. We call this mechanic the Moral Compass. Character creation is point-buy for stats, two careers are chosen which determine the character's skills. The rolls in the game are percentile (D100) but skills are buffed by additional six-sided dice called Skill Dice. The more training, the more dice, the better chance a character can ensure a favorable result on the role. There are 30 animal types to choose from each with a unique mix of animal abilities. So, now that you know more about it, follow the link to get all the details and see some of the art we've already commissioned from the game. Help make Wild Skies: Europa Tempest a reality. You have our thanks.