Friday 17 September 2010

Shiney New Stuff

Cover of d66 Compendium - artwork used completely without permissionI stumbled across a notice about the impending release of this Compendium by Jon Brazer Enterprises a week or so ago. We had a power cut just before I could finish this post and I only rediscovered this draft a couple of days ago.

Going back to check my source material, I could not find the Compendium listed on Jon Brazer Enterprises' website nor on any of my usual gaming haunts. And then a link popped up on Facebook today, indicating that the Compendium was at the printers and almost ready to go.

If you follow this link to Jon Brazer Enterprises' website, you should be able to read a brief review of what's in the Compendium (hint to review writers: "stuff", while succinct, is not terribly helpful - "usefull stuff" is not much better) in the News and Blog section.

Basically, the d66 Compendium brings together in one place a series of d66 tables, such as JBE has been releasing over the last little while - tables for generating Aslan Female Names, Random stuff found in the Ship's Locker, Orbital Facility Names, etc - which give Referees another little tool in their tool box to help keep their games rolling when players suddenly ask, "what bar should we meet at?" or "what ships are in port?"

Website Update #8

President Viscount Marc Van Zaquerl of KamperelSlowly catching up - posted two updates to the Modeling Log of my
website, showing some figures I've finished, including some John Bear Ross HAMR Suites from Rebel Minis.

Also featured are further updates to the Library Data of my Traveller page, mainly resulting from work I've done on this blog.

Sunday 12 September 2010

Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals

Cover of Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals - image lifted from the Spica Publishing Site Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals:
A sourcebook for Mongoose Traveller
By John Griffiths, Richard Hazlewood and Daniel W. Hammersley


I must say first up, that my wife and I had the privilege of proofing an early version of Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals, and I have just spent the last week or so working on a final proof and edit for this book, the latest offering from Spica Publishing.

The ACER project started somewhere around the beginning to middle of last year and then dropped off the radar for a time. A couple of months back the project fired up again and before I knew what was happening, there was a release date. With the release immanent, John sent me an updated manuscript to proof. The timing was bad for me, but I finally got it done, dusted, and emailed yesterday.

The book as a whole is a very useful Referee’s tool. Alongside a collection of basic stat block characters, in the grand tradition of Classic Traveller’s 1001 Characters, there are 24 characters fully worked up as Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals as per the Mongoose Traveller rules, as well as a free trader and crew; a Detached Scout and crew; a PsiTac Team; six individual NPCs; and the crew of a mercenary cruiser and their mercenary platoon – a total of 62 characters plus a 40 strong combat platoon, as well as a further 48 ‘red shirt’ basic stat block characters.

So, very good value for money, well presented and available either through DrivethruRPG as a pdf, or via Spica’s Lulu store for a print copy – both links are on the Spica Publishing site, linked to above.