It may appear that things have been a little quiet here at Mottokrosh Machinations HQ, but nothing could be further from the truth. In the dark depths of the Mottokrosh mind a plethora of pursuits have been progressing. So I thought it was about high time to give you a little bit of a sneak peek.
Hypertellurians
We're working on a revised edition of our flagship product, with two goals: to further improve ease of comprehension and utility at the table, and to add a starting adventure. A lot of excellent people have been looking closely at the book in the scant year since its release, and we want to incorporate their suggestions.
Improvements
First off, let me reassure you that there will be no rules changes in this new edition. Instead, we will fix a few things that could have been clearer, move a few things around so they make more sense in a straight read-through of the book, and expand on a few pieces that are currently overly terse. Not by a lot, but just enough to easily explain how to run things the Hypertellurians way.
Starting adventure
One of the questions we heard multiple times was why didn't we include a starting adventure directly in the core book? When it was released we had two adventures out, one of them also available directly here on the website. I'd hoped that would be enough, and I could get away without one in the book. Plus, a big part of the system is its ability to run existing modules from other systems on the fly.
But I underestimated the demand for an adventure that exemplified the tone of the game. And the convenience of having a full scenario together with the rules, all in one handy tome.
Naturally, we could have repackaged one of the existing adventures in the new edition. Heart of the Atom Isa is an especially good example of the tone that our game aims for. But where's the fun in that? So I set out to write a brand new one.
The new adventure is called Marvelous Voyage to the Viridian Moon, and it is a bit of an homage to Jules Verne's fantastical stories, perhaps with a little bit of King Kong thrown in too. All with our trademark bizarre and interesting characters and random finds. And all designed to be extra easy to run and reference at the table.
The adventure is mostly written, and it's currently being play-tested. Art has been commissioned and has started to come in too—see the cropped sneak peek pieces accompanying this post.
When and where?
The new edition will be a luxury product, printed on extra nice paper, with all the trimmings. We can't confirm anything yet, but we'd love to have it ready in time for UK Games Expo, but make absolutely no guarantees on that front. :D
One thing we do promise however, is that all existing owners of the current edition will get a PDF of the new edition for free. Additionally we're looking into offering an "upgrade" from the current edition to the new one at cost. More on this as we have it.
Conventions
We're aiming to exhibit at several more cons this year. Already booked are UK Games Expo at the end of May, and we have several others on the radar. Possible appearances might include Essen, The Kraken, RopeCon, and Dragonmeet, but more news on these to follow.
Woaden
And what about Hypertellurian's spiritual successor Woaden? Have you forgotten all about it? Far from it! Although we've made a renewed push with Hypertellurians, Woaden is still being chipped away at in the background. The erstwhile conditions have morphed into trauma and stress (and many trauma entries have been written), a first adventure has been play-tested, and several awesome pieces of art have come it. But I'm keeping those for upcoming Writing Woaden articles. :P
The plan for Woaden is still to keep developing it and writing about it on the blog, with the aim to release a quickstart later this year. In the meantime though, our sights are set on making our science fantasy RPG the best it can possibly be!
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