Red Sky Dead City - Chapter 3 - The Orchid and the Eleven Respectables (Patreon)

She was slain in later epochs by the New Sun, only begotten child of the Flesh God. Thus ended the Virgin Medusa.

Ash, plague, filth, hordes of desperate Tirsteen civilians, packs of feral shackleminds falling to ghouls, and the stench of the rotting Flesh God make the imposing corpse of Ebét an unpleasant place to stay. “Far better administer the newly liberated provinces from a new city,” says First Secretary of the Liberated Provinces Landalá, “Ulkhét, the old necropolis administration centre, will serve as a foundation. Further, it is so conveniently close to all these treasures rotting in the ground, waiting to ignite the engines of industry and popular progress.”

As Iksan soldiers, bankers, planners, investors, builders, and bureaucrats, move in to turn Ulkhét, the Great Diorite Port, into Iksinová ’ta Liberó, the City of New Iksan Freedoms, not merely a repugnant cargo port for mummified corpses, the old town swells and bursts beyond its old confines. This means creation, but also destruction.

New in Chapter 3

This chapter is a bit shorter than the last two, but we've still hit 70 pages by now. Part of it is the "loose" layout, because I'm saving space for editing at the end. Still, Red Sky Dead City has now gained:

• 30 events to spice up the aftermath of the conquest of the Dead City.
• Two new neighborhoods: the Tombs of the Eleven Respectable Professions, where the stench of failure meets forgotten cults, and the Orchid Barracks, where the last mad Ebéteen General howls while watchers from another time and space crawl through the walls.
• Enough equipment to bring the table up to 100, at last.
• A few new spells, several new curses and diseases, because this is a necropolis we're liberating, after all.
• Eight new full-color pieces of art.

What's Next?

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I'll do two updates with Red Sky in a row, and then two updates with Longwinter in a row. This is because it turns out to be really hard to jump from one world to another mid-write. I mean, it's doable, but ... dang, it's a killer. So, in a few days I'll post a poll for the Heroes and Metaheroes to decide on the next neighborhoods and the next pieces of content to add. I've got a few ideas, but ... hopefully you'll have more.

A few of the heroes over on the discord* have suggested I complete the Near Moon for the UVG. Yes, yes ... that's a thing I've been putting off forever. Argh! So that'll also be coming - a bonus update somehow slotted in the middle of everything. It fits into the UVG, but as a mile-wide moon-object floating a few hundred feet off the ground, well, you can slot it into any game.

The reason that's coming is ... because UVG is being edited and once Witchburner ships, I'm launching the kickstarter for that project. If all goes well, a fat chunk of the editing and layout should be complete by the time the kickstarter completes. I've got the ineffably magnificent duo of Jarrett and Fiona on the editing team—Fiona is doing some writing for Zak S's upcoming Demon City, and the list of things they've edited is epic: Mothership: PSG, Silent Titans, Macchiato Monsters (2nd printing), Marvels and Malisons (2nd printing), She Bleeds, Fever Swamp, and Troika!

The Editing is pretty intense ... here's a peek behind the Wizard's curtain:

for weapons: WEAPON NAME (DMG): TAGS, ₡COST
may read cleaner if that format is acceptable
also the guns don't list a magazine size which maybe is helpful
like i reload five shots does that mean the magazine size is 5?
DAMAGE TYPES should probably go on a reference sheet

In the background, Skeleton gets a polishing pass when I have a bit of time (less these days than I'd thought!).

And, sort of in between, I wrote a new thing. Here's a teaser chunk from it:

We stood, still as the unmoving man. Only Alisa moved, her stride long, her eyes hard. She touched three fingers to Viqor’s neck and told us he had not joined the ancestors, but that they rode him hard.

We lifted Viqor and carried him out of the Cave of Red and White, where the spirit walker ancestors keened in doom-laden chorus.

It's nominally for a game, but it looks like it might be a novella first. Oh, well. What can one do?

Thank you, heroes!

But how else to conclude than by saying thank you? There is no other way. I nearly forgot, it's been a long day getting Red Sky Dead City put together, but it's all good and fun and only possible because you are putting your support behind my writing and my art.

Without you none of this would exist. Not UVG, not Witchburner, not the beautiful horned youth of the Flesh God.

Thank you from the deepest pits of my inkwell.

—Luka,
Seoul, 21:19, Monday, 28 Jan 2019

*If you're new - there's a stratometaship discord. You can join it following some kind of automated patreon-integration thingy (or by messaging for the link). At some point in the near future I'm going to limit the discord to higher tiers by default, but I'll keep it open for those who ask nicely.

P.S. - yes, I'll probably find some glariing [sic] typos tomorrow morning, so there's a good chance I'll be updating version 3.1 tomorrow. Oh, well. Sic transit.