I Look Away and We're Over 400 O_O (Patreon)

Heroes of the Stratometaship!

We are now over 400. I ... wow.

We're also a kilodollar. Thank you. Thank you so much. I know I haven't posted much or enough or even regularly enough here over the last couple of months. But, I cannot overstate how important your support and backing is.

I started this patreon three years ago now, in July of 2016, and I frankly had almost no idea what to do or how to go about it. Your support since then has helped me discover an audience, sure, but also, crucially, you've helped me by showing there is an audience for the kind of art and writing that I love. In terms of product and production, I only really figured out the what and how of games last year, between March and April. But all of that was, well, thanks to your support and encouragement and feedback.

You truly are the best. So here's a little song by Colour Haze to mark that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWDzCol3jYk

Of Discord and Peace

It's time! I don't do it super regularly, because I don't want to be too annoying, but for everyone who's new, welcome to the stratometaship discord! Be kind, don't be mean, don't fight, etc. Here's the link: https://discord.gg/9DQs7Pj

I'll remove the link eventually, so if it doesn't work, just message me. Also, don't share it publicly, and so forth.

The reason I removed auto-join for miniheroes was because with the kickstarter I literally ran out of bandwidth to handle new people joining, and keeping up with the conversations. That said, all heroes of good cheer are welcome.

News From the UVG Layout Mines

The big news continues to be that ... I'm laying out UVG. Progress is ongoing and the end is now well and truly in sight (page 181 of 192 represent!). In fact, I'm facing decision points: do I keep the glossaries? All the appendices? Or prune them, mix them into the content, and get selective with them? I've made the decision to recombine them into the main sections wherever it makes sense, and release them as free .pdfs where it does not. This is going to be interesting.

This is an example. The other gates used to be in their own appendix, now they're a part of the High Road and the Low location.

UVG is now also getting a complete (if barebones) version of my SEACAT rpg system included, including character sheets (yay!).

Yeah, I trimmed this picture badly. It's from the character generation section.

In further news, I've started talking with a couple of graphic designers about outsourcing some of the layout on future projects (Longwinter, cough, cough), so that I can instead focus on the writing and art. This will almost certainly mean more content for you in the not-too-distant future. I'll let you know who I decide to work with ... although if you have someone you'd love to recommend, that's also great!

Finally, of Sword Dream, OSR, and Communities

I think it's great that we're inventing, remixing, inventing new terms and words for the things we do. For my own work, I'm going to stick to calling it psychedelic metal roleplay because that's a label I like for it.

That said, into what genre you decide to sort my work, well, I leave that up to you. And yes, I do think of the OSR as a genre, and the *Dream as a subgenre. Whether they will hold or not, time will tell, not me.

But of communities, I like to think of each (or both or one) of those genres as having multiple communities, some sharing more with one another, others less. Whichever communities you and we belong to, I can only make one suggestion: be kind, welcoming, and understanding that though our communications and relationships are mediated by the interwebs, we are all human, with human fears and needs and wants and hopes. I am exceedingly happy of the more-or-less community we have here and on discord, and of the support and kindness of everyone involved. 

I know this is sort of an inane thing to end on, but I think that an appreciation of one another's humanity, a kind demeanour, and a hopeful attitude to the good we can achieve together ... well, it's a good thing, and the way to go. These days I do notice a lot of calls for division and conflict, and those times I always think to myself, "but we're all just humans on this spaceship Earth together."

On that hippy call for, like, peace and understanding, humannn ...

Cheers!
Luka

PS - and a hi-res picture of the Gate in the Wastes to accompany this announcement. Consider this a limited cc license to everybody who is a patreon supporter of the stratometaship on this day of the 8th of June 2019 to use this image for personal or non-profit ways in any way shape or form you like. Enjoy!