Item Seed: Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane.

winston-churchills-walking-cane-google-docs

 

Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane

 

This is the walking cane that Winston Churchill carried throughout World War II. As you might imagine, it can have a certain resonance, in the right hands. And if it ever ends up in the wrong ones, well, the pyrotechnics could be entertaining.  Also, messy.

Continue reading Item Seed: Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane.

Steve Jackson Games doing more with Amazon Createspace.

Basically, Amazon Createspace allows companies like Steve Jackson Games to release titles (in this case, GURPS titles) for softcover print-on-demand. They’ve already tried this with three existing titles: now SJG is going to try three more. If there’s enough demand, SJG will start assigning staff to convert more titles. There’s the faintest possibility of a suggestion of a hint that ‘even older titles’ might be made available, which could mean 3rd edition GURPS, or – dare I hope it? – In Nomine.

Continue reading Steve Jackson Games doing more with Amazon Createspace.

GURPS Skill: Astral Nap.

Blame this.

astral-nap-will-hard-google-docs

 

Astral Nap [Will/Hard]

Default: none

 

This skill is useless unless the user has some way to visit the astral plane (such as either the Astral Travel power or the Planar Visit spell).  A successful roll will allow the user to carefully balance his astral form so that it and his physical body are effectively ‘orbiting‘ each other; this allows the caster to stay in astral form for a total of eight hours without spending more FP/HP, or re-rolling.  However, the user may do nothing else except ‘sleep;’ he may not even lucidly dream.  Also, the user is hideously vulnerable while in this condition: no active defenses may be used at all, and any damage done will mentally Stun him for (20-IQ) seconds, noncumulative.

Continue reading GURPS Skill: Astral Nap.

Item/Creature seed: Squid-Helmets. [GURPS]

Blame this.

squid-helmets-google-docs

Squid-Helmets (TL1+2) [10/12 pt]

Squid-Helmets are what you get when somebody figures out during the Bronze Age how to successfully train a tree octopus so that it can be usefully worn on somebody’s head, then the species gets selectively bred accordingly over the next few thousand years. By the time you hit a medieval-equivalent Tech Level you’ll have something that’s simultaneously useful, and not a little bizarre. But not creepy — or at least no creepier than a domestic goat or pig. Squid-Helmets live about thirty years, if properly fed; the species is almost extinct in the wild*.

Continue reading Item/Creature seed: Squid-Helmets. [GURPS]

GURPS Infinite Worlds: Titanic-1.

titanic-1-google-docs

Titanic-1

 

On this world, the Titanic did not hit an iceberg and sink in the Atlantic, although possibly some of its owners might wish that it had. But that’s a backdrop to the real situation, which is this: there’s a lot of research to be done on Titanic-1 into the nature of timelines and divergence points, but unfortunately there are two broadly incompatible lines of research to be done.  And each line of research has its own bureaucratic partisans. …Really, it’s almost enough to make one wish for Centrum to show up. At least they can be more directly thwarted.

Continue reading GURPS Infinite Worlds: Titanic-1.

Caf? [TL 12] [0 points] [GURPS]

caf-google-docs

Caf? [TL 12] [0 points]

 

It’s not a typo and it’s not a transcription error. Caf? is the morning drink of choice in the Age of Miracles: the ‘?’ is there to establish that the stuff does not precisely fully exist in our dimensions. It tastes marvelous, and not in a mysterious way, either. Imagine a rich, but not overpowering chocolate-vanilla contrast with an aftertaste of banana that somehow is enjoyable whether or not you like those flavors and you’re not too far off. Caf? has clearly been designed with human taste buds in mind.

Continue reading Caf? [TL 12] [0 points] [GURPS]

Laser Mines (TL[7+3]) [GURPS]

For this one, blame my wife.  I think.

laser-mines-google-docs

Laser Mines (TL[7+3])

Yes, as in ‘big holes in the ground where you dig solid, raw laser light out of the walls.’  Sure, you could make laser beams by collimating light into a focused ray.  If you’re living in the 21st century AD, that is.  But if you’re a clear-eyed citizen of any number of the modern, technologically mature polities of the 23rd Century’s Solar System, you’d rather get your laser beams from a mine on one of Jupiter or Saturn’s moons. And yes, it’s real laser light, somehow.  Still usable, though! …Well, after a certain amount of refining into a crystal form, that is.

Continue reading Laser Mines (TL[7+3]) [GURPS]