A new month and a new update. My teacher's summer break has come to an end and that's a bummer, but wow, am I pleased with how productive a summer it was for Blue Planet! I was able to work every day and keep pace with Rachel's proofing and Robert's layout. I feel great about how much we got done, and even though the start of school usually means a slow down for me, I am now in a position to keep production rolling smoothly along.
Waterworlders
This month's layout preview is the "Waterworlders" chapter, and it describes each of the major factions on Poseidon - the natives, the GEO, the Incorporate and the newcomers. Don't worry, the nereids have their own chapter. "Waterworlders" also includes a mostly new section on Poseidon culture, covering everything from family structures and the social perception of genetic modification to examples of social media personalities and generalized AR environments in 2199.
Per usual, a second, backers-only update will follow this one and contain a link to the draft file. If you find any errors to report, we encourage you to log them via this form.
Storm Surge Update
As promised, we recently resumed playtesting on the Storm Surge campaign, shifting to the Incorporate security arc of the intertwined trio of story threads. Per that intention, we created a truly despicable group of terrible human beings for the arc. They are in fact so bad that they were each variously "drummed out" of GenDiver's security division, only to find themselves "recruited" into a team of deniable special contractors who ultimately still work for the notorious Incorporate through various cut-outs and shell companies. The players ironically decided that their front company would be called Sunflower Industries. Accordingly, their handler is Mr. Seed and they each took on flowery code names:
Poppy - The team lead and true believer. Think Miles Quaritch from Avatar, but constantly justifying his actions with quotes from historical philosophers.
Foxglove - Doc to the rest of the team, this evil man is an expert field medic and a chemical weapons "enthusiast." Enough said.
Dalia - The socially detached remote operator who sacrificed a past teammate to save his combat robot (and best friend) Dandy Randy's "life."
Buttercup - A ruthless killer who simply likes cruelty. An evil version of Amos Burton from the Expanse - but more murdery.
Given the intent, I started our session zero by leaning hard into safety tools, and after making some truly awful paper people, we played the introductory scenario. I don't want to give away spoilers, so suffice it to say it turns out the characters are - quite intentionally - responsible for the precipitating event that was used to frame the players' other characters in the native arc. What I found most compelling about the session, however, was the ease with which the Recontact character creation rules allowed us to create such evocatively monstrous people.
Character Sheet
Another cool thing to come out of the playtest is that the artist who created the character sheet (and GEO/Incorporate logos in the images above) is playing in the campaign. As a result, he is getting some good, first-hand feedback about the character sheets. He is fine-tuning their design, and I am looking forward to sharing out the final version soon.
Current version of the character sheet - final playtest update pending...
Pledge Manager & Shipping Reminder
I hope it's not long before we have the Blue Planet pledge manager up. This will allow anyone who wants to upgrade their pledge to do so and allow the many folks who missed out on the original campaign but now want to get to Poseidon to hop aboard the wormhole express.
As an associated reminder, I am compelled to note that the pledge manager will also be how we charge for shipping. As you are probably aware, shipping has become the bane of small game companies, and I just wanted to make sure that - as shared during the campaign - everyone remembers that the plan is to charge shipping closer to the shipping date to best manage the actual costs. Thank you for understanding the economical reality.
