Devon Monk's Hell Bent

Hell Bent is Devon Monk's newest novel, a continuation of the setting from the Allie Beckstrom books that features supporting characters from that series in a leading role. Shame Flynn and Terric Conley have been promoted to the stars of the new Broken Magic series.

You don't have to have read the Allie Beckstrom books to understand or appreciate this book because they fill in the bits and pieces that you need to understand the story. That said, if you haven't read Monk's Allie Beckstrom books, I am very disappointed in you. You need to read them. Now.

I will admit that I have had trepidations about this book, since I first saw it announced. I liked Shame, as a supporting character, and Terric was never really developed enough to my taste to be a lead character. Of course neither really was Zayvion Jones.

Regardless, I picked up the book and gave it a chance. My trepidation did not go away immediately. I found the first half of the book to be slow paced and muddied by inconsistent characterizations of the leads. It seemed to me that Monk was having a difficulty with getting into the mindset, the maleness, of her characters, particularly Shame. The action and the characterizations did pick up around the middle of the book, and she seemed to be getting a much stronger read on the voice of Shame. It was still inconsistent, but it did better. By the end of the book her portrayal of the character did get legs, but it still seemed to be a bit of a struggle. The slowness of the first part of the book didn't bother me as much, the first couple of  Allie Beckstrom books could be slow burners, until she got a hold of the overarching plot of the series.

Shame's romance in the book is obviously setting the tone for the rest of this series, but it wasn't like there needed to be more reasons for the "heroes" of the story to chase down the bad guy. All of that was set up pretty strongly in the Beckstrom books.

Before thinking that I am only negative on this, I did enjoy the book as a whole. Once the plot settled into place and the new bad guys appeared on the stage, the book really took off. It wasn't as breakneck as the plots in the last few of the Beckstrom books, but it was still a good, solid, enjoyable plot. The new supporting characters of Dash and Dessa are well-fleshed out, even if Dash's full name is a bit silly.

I would recommend picking this novel up. Not as quickly as I would recommend the Beckstrom books, but it is still an enjoyable and diverting read. Hell Bent is an entertaining book, and I look forward to the next book and the further developments of Shame Flynn and Terric Conley.

I do include the book on my list of holiday gifts on our last Geeky Voices Carry vblog/podcast.

SuperFAE: An Approach For Super-Heroes With Fate Accelerated

This post is more along the lines of my getting some game design ideas out of my head, mostly before I forget them, and less about putting out something finished and playable. I like super-heroes, and I like the simplicity and freeform nature of Fate Accelerated. I like the idea of a more freeform approach to doing super-heroes in comics, because I think that it can be a better fit for the source material in a lot of places. I plan (hopefully) on fleshing this idea out more, but for now I want to get what has been turning over in my brain out of it.

Basic changes to characters:
1. Characters can have up to four (4) stunts for free.
2. Characters start with a Refresh of four (4).
3. Characters have an additional Origin Aspect.

These two changes should already make your SuperFAE characters feel more "powerful." Depending even on the power level of the characters in your game (Avengers-type characters versus Challengers of the Unknown-type characters, for example) you may want to increase the starting Refresh to five or six. This will help out if you want character's like Marvel's Thor in your game.

The existing High Concept and Trouble aspects help you to define who your character is, and where they are coming from. This doesn't change with a SuperFAE character. With these three aspects, you can give your character depth and personality beyond just a set of statistics. Think in terms of the Marvel approach to creating and utilizing a character. In that approach who the character is has as much of an impact on their story as the powers that they have. A Spider-Man-like character could be built like this:

High Concept: Troubles With His Luck
Origin: Bitten By A Radioactive Spider
Trouble: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!

Really, you can't make a FAE-based Spider-Man without utilizing the great Stan Lee line, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!" It is just too important to the character to not use. Could it be the character's High Concept? Sure. It could also work well in that slot, but putting it as the character's Trouble means that it becomes something that will definitely be bringing hardship to the character. Peter has a big date with an attractive lady for the first time? The Vulture is robbing a jewelry store right up the street. Which one of these will he choose?

Some would say that the High Concept is weighed more towards the negative, and that is intentional. The "Marvel Method" does play up the soap opera "aspects" of comics, and that means that bad things are going to happen. "Troubles With His Luck" can help out the character, it just means that it might do it in a way that may not always be the happiest of choices. That is pretty consistent with a lot of the happenings in Spider-Man's life.

Not everyone may want to play up the "hard luck" angle on their heroes, and that is a valid approach as well. I would lean on a more Marvelous approach only because I think that it would make for a better story. More "heroic" aspects for a SuperFAE character could be "Quirky Physics Professor," "Eagle-Eyed New York City Cop," "Crusading Defense Attorney" or "Driven Test Pilot." "Marvelous" High Concepts could be "Surgeon With Damaged Hands," "Driven To Stop Crime," "Reborn For A Greater Fate."

The important thing is that the three "main" aspects work together to create a cohesive character with a bit of depth. Look over characters from the Big Two comic companies and see how you could tease these three aspects out of their writeups. Check out DC's Who's Who or Marvel's Marvel Universe Handbooks to get to know characters, and figure out how they could tick in a FAE writeup.

Approaches
Fighting
Agility
Strength
Endurance
Reason
Intuition
Psyche

These are approaches that can be used as an alternative to the approaches in the core Fate Accelerated rules. Fans of the original Marvel role-playing game will recognize them. Most of them are fairly straightforward in their applications.

The available rankings for approaches under this alternative would be: one at Great (+4), two at Good (+3), One at Fair (+2), Two at Average (+1) and One at Mediocre (+0). If you prefer to use the standard approaches, then choose One at Great (+4), One at Good (+3), Two at Fair (+1), One at Average (+1) and One at Mediocre (+0). Because of the typically higher power level of comic book super-heroes, having a bit of a bump to the rankings of approaches will help.

Powers
Powers in SuperFAE are fairly freeform, as is the nature of Fate Accelerated.

Rather than a lengthy list of powers, it is up to the aspects of the character, the creativity of the player and the adjudication of the GM to determine what characters can do. Obviously, this method won't suit everyone, but who wants that? Fate Core has a section that talks about "rulings, not rules" guiding play, and this should be taken to heart when dealing with powers for characters.

Using a power works like any other action in the FAE rules. The GM may want to charge a Fate point for effects that are particularly power, but this is not required. The GM is allowed to veto any attempted power that does not fit with the description of the character, however it might be better to suggest an alternative that does better fit the character. The Origin aspect of the character should inform what is possible.

Attack powers can often be built around the Fighting approach. Mental/Psionic abilities can be Reason or Psyche-based. Enhanced senses should be Intuition powers. Endurance protects against physical attacks and Strength is for the great feats of strength that a character can try to pull off.

If a power is something that will be used often by the character, you might want to consider building a Power Stunt for them instead. A Power Stunt is like a signature power, or common use of a power, written up in the form of a stunt, that the character is likely to perform more often, and with greater capability. A Power Stunt will also always cost a Fate point to "activate." This means that as long as the character has Fate points, a Power Stunt can be performed. A Power Stunt can also be an exception to the rules, possible for that character.

Some example Power Stunts:

Because of my Mutant Nature, when I use my eye beams to Attack someone, I get a +2 to my Fighting.

Because of my Highly Evolved Brain, I can get a +2 to my Psyche when I Create Advantages in the perceptions of others.

Because I am The Woman Without Fear, I get a +2 to my Psyche when Defending.

Because I am The Strongest There Is, I can use my Strength to Attack instead of Fighting.

Power Stunts basically have three parts to them: mentioning a relevant aspect of the character, giving a +2 bonus and saying which type of action this stunt covers. Power Stunts are purchased for a character with their (up to) four free stunts, along with any other stunts that they might have.

There is more to come, I will add a couple of sample characters to this post, and maybe tighten up a few of the rules things, and I get a chance to dedicated a bit more headspace to this.

The Geeky Voices Carry Podcast

I have been remiss in talking about the podcast that I have been doing with +Stacy Dellorfano, +David Rollins and +Josh Thompson called Geeky Voices Carry. I have known the three of them for over a year now because of our weekly game by G+ Hangout, and a few months back Stacy suggested that we should give podcasting a try because of our "pre-game" talk sessions. After hammering things out, we eventually decided to give a bi-weekly schedule a try. So far, so good!

While there is a heavy RPG content to our podcasts, we try to keep it on more general "geeky" topics. We talk a lot about media: comics, television shows, movies and books.

If you haven't had a chance to check us out, the program comes in two flavors. First we record live via Google+ Hangouts and YouTube. This gives us some nice options for the recordings, including the ability to take questions from people watching us live. After that I strip the audio from the recording and upload the MP3 to the PodOmatic website.

If you haven't given Geeky Voices Carry a listen, here are the archives of the episodes that we have made so far.

Or in the "podcast" flavor from PodOmatic:

Check us out!

SelfMadeHero Teams With Pixies Frontman Black Francis For The Good Inn

SELFMADEHERO, the UK’s leading independent publisher of graphic novels, has acquired the UK and Commonwealth rights to The Good Inn, a book penned by Black Francis from the alternative rock band Pixies and Josh Frank, with art by Steven Appleby.

SelfMadeHero’s Managing Director Emma Hayley secured the rights from Molly Jaffa and Melissa Sarver at Folio Literary Management on behalf of Michael Harriot.

The Good Inn is a fantastical piece of illustrated fiction based on a yet-to-be-written soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t yet exist, which Black Francis has approached with the same characteristic eccentricity and imagination he writes a song.  The teenage hero known only as Soldier Boy escapes a devastating explosion at the French port of Toulon and sets out on a bizarre journey across France. Navigating past homicidal gypsies, combative soldiers and porn-peddling peasants, he takes refuge in a secluded inn, where he finds himself centre stage in the making of the world’s first narrative pornographic film.

Black Francis is the frontman of cult US rock band Pixies, whose songs have inspired musicians from Thom Yorke to Kurt Cobain.  Josh Frank is the author of the Pixies biography Fool the World. The book is fully illustrated by Steven Appleby, the Guardian cartoonist who has written over 20 books as well as having worked in TV, radio and musical theatre.

The book will be published as a hardback in the UK in May 2014.

Notes to editors
SelfMadeHero aims to publish works that provoke, entertain, inspire, and inform through the medium of the graphic novel. We are proud to publish ground-breaking and beautiful work by authors and artists from across the globe, from the quirky and humorous to the political and profound.  Its releases this year include The Park, Room For Love, The Man Who Laughs and Typex’s Rembrandt.

Killing Joke Original Art Raises Questions of Story's Intent (NSFW)

Did they really rethink this'd get into an issue of Batman? "Love that Joker" pic.twitter.com/g6KGKNaAgH
— Billy Hynes (@BillyHynes) December 1, 2013

This appeared up on Twitter today, and it is interesting because it adds an overtly sexual angle to the story, and The Joker's tortures of both Barbara and James Gordon. What was it that Alan Moore intended with this piece of art?

On the off chance that the art goes away from Twitter, here's another copy:

Crios RPG Kickstarter

Have an urge to take on a dragon in a Vickers? Want to be a goblin in the trenches of a war-torn countryside? Well, Battlefield Press has the Kickstarter for you with Crios, a new RPG featuring the Renaissance D100 system. From the Kickstarter page, Crios "mashes the fantasy genre with that of Earth's First World War."

"That sounds exciting!" I hear you say. "But what is it going to cost?" You ask. Well, let's cover that.

First off, to get your hands on a PDF copy of the rules, you'll be in it at US$20. To get a physical copy of the rules (in softcover, unless the hardcover stretch goal is met) will cost you a minimum of US$25 (limited to ten (10)), US$30 (limited to fifty (50)) or US$40. The higher priced pledges do have some extra benefits, however, like your name in the book as a backer or some additional PDFs (dependent on stretch goals reached).

Marada The She-Wolf Returns From Titan Comics

You may not remember this collaboration. Originally slated to be a Red Sonja story, Claremont changed the setting from the Hyborian Age to Rome, and Bolton changed physical details of the character. Originally published by Epic Comics, a new restored edition from Titan Comics.

FROM X-MEN WRITER CHRIS CLAREMONT AND AWARD-WINNING ARTIST JOHN BOLTON COMES MARADA THE SHE-WOLF!

The fantasy classic collected together for the first time ever! Featuring beautiful, fully-restored art, in depth features, history and never-before-seen sketches and artwork!

Titan Comics is pleased to announce the launch of Marada The She-Wolf by Chris Claremont (The Uncanny X-Men; Excalibur; Captain Britain; Fantastic Four; Gen 13, Sovereign 7) and John Bolton (Man-Bat; Shame: Pursuit; Books of Magic).

Hitting stores on November 12, 2013, comes the shield-shattering saga of Marada The She-Wolf – white-haired, blood-soaked swordswoman and mercenary, object of unearthly desire and descendant of Julius Caesar!

Chris Claremont is one of the best-known writers currently working in comics. His work includes The Uncanny X-Men, Captain Britain, Fantastic Four and Gen13. During his 17 years as X-Men writer, Claremont co-created characters such as Rogue, Psylocke, Mystique, Emma Frost, Sabretooth, Gambit and many more!

Claremont has written many classic X-Men stories, including those which are providing source material for this summer’s The Wolverine movie, starring Hugh Jackman, and summer 2014’s hotly-anticipated X-Men: Days of Future Past, directed by Bryan Singer and starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult.

John Bolton is an award-winning comic artist and illustrator. He has collaborated with some of the industries most prestigious comic writers, such as Neil Gaiman on The Books of Magic for DC Comics, Mike Carey on God Save The Queen for Vertigo/DC Comics and Clive Barker on Hellraiser. From the world of film Bolton has worked with Robert Zemeckis, Sam Raimi and Jonathan Glazer.

Descended of Caesar, and preceded by her legendary reputation as a warrior, Marada The She-Wolf follows Marada's adventures across the Roman Empire. Together with her magical accomplice, Princess Arianrhod, they battle evil demons, wizards, witches and unearthly terror! Check out the trailer here

Collected together for the first time ever in one deluxe hardcover and featuring beautiful restored artwork by John Bolton and never-before-seen sketches and artwork! This is the ultimate vision of the ultimate fighting fantasy female!

“I look through these pages and I’m reminded, most eloquently, just how gifted John Bolton is as an artist, how breathtakingly skilled he is at evoking character and event, how powerfully and also subtly he can present a scene,” says writer, Chris Claremont.

Marada The She-Wolf hits stores on November 12, 2013.


To keep up-to-date with news from Titan Comics, visit titan-comics.com or join us on Facebook or follow @comicstitan on Twitter. Marada The She-Wolf trailer on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eF7WNOv0HE.

About Titan Comics
Titan Comics is the new venture from publishing giant, Titan, offering the best original creator-owned comics, alongside new and classic graphic novels.

Launching in July 2013, Titan Comics has already captured the imaginations of readers, reviewers and retailers with its strong focus on quality, creativity and diversity of genre!

Each new release will also be available to read day and date on the iPhone, iPad, Web, Android and Kindle Fire.

To keep up-to-date with news on all these new series and future releases from Titan Comics, visit www.titan-comics.com.

Corporia Interview with Mark Plemmons

We here at Dorkland! managed to sit down at the (round) table with Mark Plemmons, author of the upcoming Corporia RPG that is currently being Kickstartered, for a few questions about the project.

Dorkland!: Starting off with a question I often ask people running Kickstarters – how has the experience been for you, so far? Anything good? Anything bad? Any tips for aspiring Kickstarters?

Mark Plemmons: So far, it’s been fun but exhausting! It’s definitely a bit like having a second job, since you have to spend time each day answering emails, working on the product, and handling other types of promotions. My main tip for aspiring Kickstarters is to complete as much as you can before the Kickstarter launches – this includes both getting the product nearly complete, and setting up all your promotional emails and contacts in advance. Gmail has a nice add-on feature called Boomerang that will let you schedule emails in advance, which is really nice for sending out press releases, so you don’t have to spend hours doing that on launch day.

DL: On to Corporia, why bring Arthurian fantasy to a contemporary setting over other types of fantasy?

MP: A common thread in Arthurian fantasy is that the King will return in the time of the people’s greatest need. A near-future ruled by mega-corporations where “might makes right” and the people are oppressed into wage-slavery is perfect for the return of a small group of individuals striving to bring back the knightly virtues of honor and chivalry. Of course, their return also brings back magic and monsters, which puts them in a quandary of fighting a war on two fronts and choosing moral compromises in order to make the best of a bad situation. It’s a natural fit, like peanut butter and jelly!

DL: The first thing I thought about while looking over Corporia was Shadowrun. What elements of Corporia might Shadowrun fans find intriguing? What separates Corporia from Shadowrun and other games or settings like that?

MP: Okay, confession time. I’ve always been more of a Cyberpunk player and, although I have some of the books and am slightly familiar with the setting, I’ve never actually played Shadowrun.  That being said, I’ll answer as best I can.

Both settings have magics and monsters, and as a member of the reincarnated Sir Lancelot’s secret special operations team, the Knightwatch, characters can go on ‘runs’ to retrieve relics, capture monsters, take down supernaturally-powered or mutated humans, do corporate espionage, and so on.

When talking about the differences, there are a few that spring to mind. In Shadowrun, magics and monsters are common knowledge, and the city seems very grim, gray, dark, and rainy. In Corporia, the corporations dismiss the magics, mutations, and monsters as cosmic radiation effects, holograms, or special effects, since they want to keep these arcane things secret until they can control them. The setting, aka “The City”, is mostly clean, white, orderly, and climate-controlled, with criminals and radicals relegated to certain districts, neighborhoods, and ‘slumburbs’ where the citizens can’t afford to pay for police protection. Except for the lack of freedoms imposed on the general population, it looks almost like a utopia.

Also, Corporia focuses on human characters; there are no elves, dwarves, or gnome character types, for instance. Finally, Hackers in Corporia can bring other player characters with them when they dive into virtual worlds, so no one’s left out of the action. There may be other obvious similarities and differences, but it would take someone more familiar with Shadowrun than me to point them out.

DL: A Dorklander wanted to know, did Matt Wagner’s Mage comic have any influence on Corporia? What other comics did have an influence?

MP: I do know that Matt Wagner wrote a comic book called Mage, but I’m afraid that’s the extent of my knowledge. I’ve read some of his other works, but never got around to that one.

The main comic book influence was Camelot 3000, a mini-series from the early 1980s, which features the Knights of the Round Table returning in the year 3000. Other comics that influenced the setting include Global Frequency, Hotwire, Stormwatch, Transmetropolitan, and V for Vendetta.

DL: Using photos for the artwork is an interesting choice. What were some of the design decisions behind that?

MP: I wanted Corporia to have a very modern design aesthetic throughout, and especially in the sections that are designed to look like in-game magazine articles, corporate reports, tourist guides, advertisements, and so on. Photographs fit this style well in a way that illustrations don’t, giving Corporia a very striking appearance that sets it apart from most other gaming products.


DL: The photos also appear to fit in with the book and subject matter very well. How did you go about achieving this? Are any of the photos shot specifically for Corporia?

MP: I spent a lot of time trying to find the websites of the very talented photographers and Photoshoppers whose work appears in Corporia. Many of the pieces were already in their portfolios and could be easily dropped into the layout, while others required some modification, either by modifying and layering two separate pieces or, particularly in the case of the illustrations and logos, often creating them from scratch.

DL: One of the core mechanics of the game is to roll 2d6 and choose the highest die (with more effects based on results). Why this mechanic?

MP: All player characters are powered by the Flux, which the corporations outwardly dismiss as cosmic radiation, but which is actually Chaos magic leaking from another dimension, breached when the old magics brought back the Knights of the Round Table. The player characters subconsciously manipulate this Chaos magic, allowing them an edge that non-supernaturally powered characters (who roll only 1d6) do not have.

DL: The REPP stat measures the celebrity of a character and seems to be a pretty unique element of Corporia. What is it all about? Why include it in the game?

MP: REPP in Corporia is a lot like the real-world Klout, a social media ranking of a person’s influence. In a world dominated by corporations, social standing and power is very important, and the REPP score gives characters a measure of where they fall on that scale. For example, it affects how an NPC corporate executive might respond to a PC’s inquiries (politely to a PC with high REPP, dismissive of a PC with low REPP), and how businesses treat high-REPP characters (such as upgrading their hotel room, giving them free gifts, or inviting them to exclusive events). It’s a particularly relevant statistic for the Lister character type (aka A-, B-, C-, or D-lister); this rock star, actor, or other celebrity can more easily infiltrate normally restricted areas, manipulate his or her fans, and so on.

DL: The spell system seems to be quite open-ended with its more free-form magic. What are the strengths of the system? What should players from more traditional systems know about magic when first experimenting with this system?

MP: Casting a spell is as easy as making any other ability check, and allows for a lot of creativity. The player just has to tell the Director (aka the Game Master) exactly what he wants his spell to do, and the Director sets a Target Number. Meeting or exceeding the TN means that the spell was successful.

Of course, there’s a framework around this to guide players used to a more traditional system. There are four spell disciplines for the Sorcerer character type (Holography, Kinesis, Metamorph, and Technomancy) and another four for the Witcher (Charm, Elemental, Perception, and Spiritism); the more points a character has in a particular discipline, the easier it is to beat those higher TNs. The rules also describe the basics of what you can do within each spell discipline, and provide at least eight sample spells (with TNs) as a basis to start from, along with ways to easily ‘power up’ the sample spells simply by increasing the TN.

DL: Lastly, what is the craziest (or coolest) use of magic in Corporia that you have thought of or seen?

MP: It’s a minor little spell, but I’m really fond of Charge, a Technomancy spell that lets characters increase a battery-powered device’s charge to 100% just by touching it. I’d love to be able to do that!


We here at Dorkland! would like to thank Mark for taking the time to answer our questions and, if you like what you've read here, then you may want to check out the Kickstarter where you can learn more and flip through a preview PDF to get a feel for the product.

Music Talk: Arcade Fire's Reflektor and Diane Birch's Speak A Little Louder

I haven't talked about music in a while on here, so I thought that I would mention a couple of new CDs that have come out in the last couple of weeks. In this post I am going to talk about Arcade Fire's Reflektor and Diane Birch's Speak A Little Louder. What do the two have in common? Not much, but they are two strong records. Let's talk about why.

It has been three years since Arcade Fire's last album, The Suburbs. I have to admit that I was a late adopter of The Suburbs, but it really grew on me. It was a haunting, in places, reflection on urban and suburban life in the early 21st century with cyberpunk dystopian overtones to it. Once the record grew on me, I would have thought that it would have been hard to top. The Suburbs has spent so much time in my car stereo that it might be getting grooves in it.

Reflektor manages to be a follow-up to a strong album without going back over the same ground again. Fans of The Suburbs will definitely find songs on this that they will like (mid-tempo slow burners like Afterlife, Here Comes The Night Time II and Supersymmetry are all reminiscent tracks) on this, but it is much more than The Suburbs II. Reflektor, the opening track, starts the record with the expected Arcade Fire flourish. It is a catchy and upbeat track that draws you into the album. This song is just one remix away from being a strong danceable track. We Exist follows up with the sort of indie pop/dance track that you would expect from Arcade Fire, and Flashbulb Eyes flirts with the lyrical approach that the band is known for, with a sound that fuses their normal sound with an almost Tropical vibe.

I was not a big fan of Arcade Fire before The Suburbs, but something about that album really clicked with me. On Reflektor, the band takes everything that I liked and cranked it up into a record that is probably going to be a favorite of mine for a while (at least until they put out something new that manages to surpass this).

Reflektor is a solid album, and a great follow-up to The Suburbs. If you haven't given this band a chance yet, you should check out this record. So far, this record feels like it will have the same infectious multi-listen groove to it that The Suburbs does, making me want to keep playing this disc. Definitely check it out and pick it up.

Next up is Speak A Little Louder, the third release from Diane Birch. If you have not yet heard Diane Birch and her soul-infused, almost Southern gospel approach, go back and get her two earlier releases The Bible Belt and The Velveteen Age (in collaboration with The Phenomenal Handclap Band). Be particularly certain to catch her infectious cover of The Sisters of Mercy's This Corrosion.

Are you back now?

Speak A Little Louder definitely has its ups and downs, and while nowhere near as strong of a record as her debut, The Bible Belt, it still is a showcase for Birch's great voice and piano playing. On tracks like Lighthouse, Love & War and UNFKD Birch is at her strongest on this release. Pretty In Pain and All The Love You Got all also both good songs. Birch channels her inner Ann Wilson to good effect in Frozen Over.

I am torn on this because, while Birch's singing is still excellent, it doesn't feel like the writing on this record pushes towards the potential of her voice. It is a solid record, but most likely one that will not be burning up any one's Best of 2013 lists. Give this a listen or two, and then go back to The Bible Belt for the good stuff.

Mark Plemmons' Corporia RPG Now On Kickstarter

Have an itch for corporate shenanigans and Arthurian fantasy but don't know how to satisfy it? Mark Plemmons does, with his new project, and recently launched Kickstarter, Corporia.

Perhaps the best way to describe the Corporia setting, from what I have seen so far, is to take Shadowrun, make it a bit less grimy, add more Arthurian fantasy inspiration, and update its near future setting to be more in-line with current projections and expectations of the future. To get a better feel for it, though, you can head over to the Kickstarter page and download a preview PDF to get a taste (it's the link right above the pledge levels image).

The rulebook is nearly complete (as the Kickstarter mentions) and I can definitely confirm this to be the case. Which, as I have mentioned before, is something I really, really love. But, the most important question, what will it cost you?

You can snag a PDF copy of the rules for as low as $15USD, however, that lower pledge level will not grant you access to the testing phase. To get access to the testing phase, and the rules soon after the Kickstarter ends, requires the next pledge level at $25USD. That level also gets you an additional PDF and any digital stretch goals that may be reached. To get a hardcover copy of the rules will cost you $50USD and also covers rewards from all the previous tiers.

We will have an interview with Mark Plemmons in the near future, so if you are interested in Corporia, its Kickstarter, or other knight-hacker-wizard-accountant related topics, be sure to tune in next time on Dorkland!.