A new month and a new update. It was a busy October and I have good stuff to share.
Art Donation
Pawel D. is perhaps Blue Planet's most supportive community member. He manages the BP forums, promotes the game across the Interwebs, and has contributed to Recontact with an excellent pair of campaign archetypes - hooks featuring horror at Proteus Landing and insurgency in the Northwest Territories. In addition, he is uniquely kind and generous. So generous in fact, that he is donating Blue Planet art he originally, privately commissioned for his own enjoyment, to Biohazard for use in Recontact - and it's stunning. I already previewed a couple images over on Twitter, so I thought I should include a couple here as well. The second piece is perhaps my favorite of the six he is sharing, as it evokes a hundred possible adventures every time I look at it. Thank you Pawel!
Archetypes
I've spent most of my BP work time over the past few weeks editing freelancer campaign archetypes. One of the best things about working with other authors - the reason I wanted the archetypes to be written by a diverse collection of creators - is that ideas I would never have had on my own are becoming part of Recontact. I am excited to include so many different voices and know their perspectives will make for a much more compelling Poseidon.
We've made our (stretched) goal of an even dozen archetypes, and I thought I would preview the list. We've put a lot of effort into making sure the scope emphasizes the range of stories that can be told in Blue Planet and I think we nailed it.
Argonauts - An homage to the first underwater sci-fi tale, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, updated with a few twists and relocated to Poseidon.
Azure - Slice-of-native-settlement-life against the backdrop of a changing Poseidon, where the lethal wildlife and the deadly weather are less threatening than the flood of newcomers.
Chrome - Ruthless politics and deadly espionage among the diamond glass archeologies of the Incorporate elite.
DSSD (DeepStar Salvage Divers) - job-of-the-week newcomer entrepreneurs trying to make an already risky living in the dangerous spaces between lumbering Incorporate giants - without getting stepped on or running out of air.
Field-Team Avalon - Poseidon offers the most significant scientific mysteries ever encountered by humanity, and the Haven Institute of Science and Technology Field Teams are on the sharp end of often dangerous, always compelling exploration and discovery.
Flood Tide - The original colonists fight to protect their home from Incorporate despoilers will change Poseidon forever...one way or another.
Newcomer - Slice-of-life in a newcomer colony, with as many challenges from political conflicts, supply shortfalls and interpersonal drama as from the weather, pirates and sea monsters.
Nightshift - Horror-tinged classic science fiction, based at the Proteus Landing research station in the frozen dark of the eponymous moon's very long night.
Operation Polypod - Grounded military action featuring GEO Peacekeepers caught between expanding Incorporate mining operations and the growing native insurgency - focused on the harsh realities of violent conflict and colonialism.
Red Sky Charters - Precarious, job-of-the-week hustle in the interstices between modern and traditional Poseidon, urban society and the frontier, Incorporate domination and gangland threat - buoyed by the acceptance of found family.
Shenley ERT - Previewed in October's update, this is the adrenaline-fueled, rescue-of-the-week operations of a GEO Emergency Rescue Team and its shepherding of the inhabitants of Poseidon's most remote frontier.
Trienos - An elite crew of criminals - the best of the worst - working, unbeknownst to them, for GEO intelligence and the most ruthless deep-cover operative on the planet.
