I was talking about my FERMI RESOLUTION RPG to one of the con goers at Doxicon today, and I told him I’d put a link to it up on my website. Here it is! It’s not ready for commercial release yet, but maybe next year. Enjoy!
This story needs more action.
A search of the room revealed quite the collection of volumes, maps, and ephemera from Boston’s millennium and more of history, including a remarkable number of pre-Discovery maps of the Antiquity. Some of those did look like they were originals, but they were in excellent condition all the same. “I assume this was what he was using for his ghost hunts,” Curwin observed, and I shrugged. It seemed reasonable.
But there were no obviously arcane artifacts, except for the ones that any educated citizen of the Republic might reasonably have. We were looking for something more powerful than charms against toothache or lost buttons, however, and it worried me that we found nothing. Why on Earth had Shane gone down there? A ghostlegger would presumably know where he could set up his traps. His murder at least suggested that he had a reason for his actions.
It was Curwin who discovered our first real clue. “Hold up,” he said after a half hour’s useless searching. “Maybe we’re looking at this wrong.”
“We are certainly not looking at this right,” I admitted. “Go ahead. Even if you’re still feeling out what is nagging at you.”
I absolutely need to get going with this and the other story.
Derby Emi was surprisingly indifferent about Tobias walking all over her dust paintings. “Please wear the little boot-gloves,” she told him with apparent real cheerfulness. “You would not want to have the sand getting into your slippers.”
Tobias looked down. He’d never been a fan of abstract art, but he knew what he liked. He didn’t like this. In fact, he had secretly enjoyed watching Derby’s own footprints smoosh the floor design’s unsettling pattern into random chaos. “I feel strange, wrecking your, ah, design like this,” he lied.
“Don’t be, Commander,” Emi responded immediately. “That is why it’s on the floor. I may be forced to draw this, but I will have my own revenge.” A smile flickered, breaching above the surface of her face for a moment. “I have no desire to preserve it.”
I was originally going to do another 3K story (I’m halfway done with this week’s), as well as finish a couple of stories for the TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION 2 short story sampler (from the Kickstarter). But the way the schedule’s been working this week, that’s not viable. What I really need to do is just work on the sampler, and get it done*.
So I guess I’m doing that next week, instead.
Moe Lane
*Which, at the rate things are going, is only two stories away from being one of those novels that are really a bunch of short stories with the same characters and a narrative arc.
As everyone who is interested already knows, the Fermi Resolution RPG is mostly done. A buddy of mine in the TTRPG space may know a couple of people who would be interested in doing the layout work necessary to make it into something sellable. If I do that, the tentative plan then would be to funding it by trying out Backerkit’s crowdfunding platform, and see how that goes. I’ve heard really good stuff from people who have used it for direct crowdfunding, and certainly Backerkit’s customer service is excellent.
So keep watching the skies!
I have decided that I hate THE LAST DAYS OF UNHOLY TOLEDO because I don’t know who the heck my heroes actually are. So I’m going to do a quick 3K word story that establishes them in my head. If nothing else, this will make me far less cranky about the situation.
Dead Leemah
(Just outside of Lima, Ohio)
Nathaniel Smart-Mouth did not want to die. He certainly didn’t want to die in a monster-haunted dead city. Ruins were where stupid people died, starting with the ones foolish enough to go into ruins by themselves.
Unfortunately, he was not the only one with an opinion on the subject. The tribesmen who had chased him into Dead Leemah in particular had a burning desire to see his liver. He wasn’t entirely certain that they wouldn’t eat it after, either. The Ohio Marcher country was big enough to hide a lot of horror in the hard-to-find places.
A dumber man than Nat might have taken comfort in how the sounds of pursuit had been fading over the last fifteen minutes. A more optimistic one might have told himself that surely the tales of ‘Dead Leemah’ were exaggerated. Since he was neither, Nat instead kept moving, trying to stay alert but not anxious about whatever peril lurked ahead. Better the monsters ahead than the ones behind.
He hoped that wasn’t him being dumb and optimistic, either.
I’m not sure yet what to call this one. I had to drastically rewrite the premise, as it is. Fermi Resolution story!
Grimoire House
Boston, Massachusetts
2818 AD
The policeman led the way through the half-flooded tunnel, my balefire bobbing jerkily above him and tinting the ancient sub-way walls grey-green as we traveled. Under different circumstances, Lieutenant Curwin might have been most congenial company for a ramble through Boston’s underground passages; he was quite elegantly pale and wan, with the kind of mad-tousled ebony hair that the upper-class swells spent hours carefully imitating. Well. The human ones.
Alas, this was a commercial excursion, not an opportunity for a flirtation or two. Even if I was still unsure why I had been called in for a consultation with the Boston Department of Public Works. My fees are quite large, and not negotiable — and apparently not a concern to the city at this time. That last detail was all that Curwin felt comfortable sharing with me, and I must admit that it was sufficiently interesting to make me agree to accompany him. If I am not to be challenged in my work, at least let me be intrigued.
It was… not the best month, creatively. Had to push through a few times. Hopefully July will be better.
Anyway, enough whining!
Worldbuilding!
Everybody knew that the Carnivores had its blades pointed outwards these days, and that it now only sheathed them in the flesh of actual foes to the Empire. There was still a certain space given them in camp. There was no need to be antagonistic, was there? There were plenty of real enemies to fight, these days.
Liza still felt surprisingly relaxed when the two of them ducked into the set of linked tents that was serving the Carnivores as a command center. It helped that she had a truly guiltless conscience — Well, guiltless with regard to my loyalties, she admitted to herself. Mother Mary knows that I have plenty of sins to remember. It helped a bit more that she was on a mission for the Emperor himself. She might have lingering reservations about the secret police, but she recognized their commitment to the well-being of the Imperium Orci.
That didn’t mean that working with them was safe, but then: Liza had never been really safe once in her life. Why start now?
There could conceivably be a Volume Three of TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION, you know. If enough people like the first two, that is. Also: this name, I like.
The province wasn’t as far west as it was supposed to be, though. There was a large purple-green swirl along its western edge, looking unpleasantly like an infected boil on the province. “That’s ugly,” Liza observed. “Dominion stay-behind forces?”
“Worse,” Callie told her. “A Dominion mage. Oh, not one of their Archmages,” she went on, at Liza’s involuntary start. “If it was one of those, that spot would already be represented by a burned-through hole on the map.”
“Or maybe it wouldn’t be,” observed the Emperor. Liza noted that his tone was serious, for the moment. “Saint Anthony is important to the Imperium. It’s going to be the new capital, for one thing.”
Liza gave him a puzzled look. “Isn’t it a monster-haunted ruin, Imperator?”
“Yes! At least, I certainly hope so.” The Emperor laughed. “Monsters can’t threaten to tie you up in court for a decade unless you pay through the nose for the land you’re seizing. If they could, they’d stop being monsters.” He brightened. “Although then they can be taxpayers, which is always nice. — But no, all we have to do with Saint Anthony is just clean out the creatures. After we take care of the enemy forces that are really in our way right now.”
#commissionearned
