Eclipse Phase News

We're ten days out from the start of PAX Prime in Seattle and I figured I'd drop a little info for those who are attending. We will be with Sandstorm at the following location:

Room Number: 212 (2nd floor by escalators)

Address: Washington State Convention&Trade Center

      800 Convention Place

      Seattle, WA 98101

Floor plan can be found here

We will be selling EP Core, the GM Screen and Sunward and I'll have some of the stuff we had at Gencon including the Octomorph posters for sale and buttons to give away.

The room will be open from 10am until midnight Friday and Saturday and 10am to 6pm on Sunday.
 I'll be running games (or my GM helper monkey will) at the following times:
Friday - 11 AM&4 PM
Saturday - 11 AM&4 PM
Sunday - 11 AM
(6 players per game; may take up to 8 players, the games should take about 4 hours)

If you want to reserve a spot post in this thread. I know that we're already starting to fill up some of the games.
Also if anyone wants to see any of the specific scenarios I haven't 100% decided which ones I'll be running so this is your last chance to make a request.

When not running games I'll also be answering any questions people have or demoing the game for people who don't want to sit down for a whole 4 hour session.

Any other questions shoot em at me here and I'll tackle them.

"What the hell just happened here?" — Brian Cross.

Gen Con 2010 has come and gone, leaving us thrilled, overwhelmed, and exhausted.

The reception for Eclipse Phase at the con was exceptionally positive. To our own amazement, the Eclipse Phase Core Rulebook walked away with three ENnie Awards. We received a Gold for Best Writing, a sound testament to the great work and ideas put in by our talented authors (Jack Graham, John Snead, Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Davidson Cole, Lars Blumenstein, and Tobias Wolter). We also received Silvers for Best Cover Art (thank you Stephan Martiniere!) and Product of the Year. Considering that we were beaten by Pathfinder -- an unstoppable behemoth given its large fan base -- in both of those categories, we consider both of those to be absolute victories.

Beyond the awards, we received a continual barrage of appreciation from fans who loved the EP Core Rulebook and Sunward and couldn't wait to see more. We also sold (metaphorically and literally) quite a few new people on the game, and our sales numbers indicate we did quite well. At the end, our totals were 128 copies of Sunward, 89 Core Books, and 75 GM Packs sold. Thanks to our faithful booth volunteers for answering questions, explaining the game, and hooking new people!

Outside of the Exhibit Hall, we had 80 players participate in our scheduled games. Almost all of our games were full, even taking in extra interested players in many cases. We heard of a couple of players who finished one game only to jump in on another with a generic ticket. A huge thanks go out to Josh, Ryan, and Brandon for running these games and handling the overflow.

The five adventures we ran during the con will all be released as PDFs in the future, so if you were a player in one of these games, we'd appreciate your playtest feedback! Send any notes you might have on missing information, game flow, and suggested tweaks to info [at] posthumanstudios [dotcom].

The EP Seminar on Friday also had a good turnout, giving us an opportunity to answer some questions in-depth and provide some behind-the-scenes details to interested folks. We also took the opportunity to poll those present on their gaming habits, and were pleased to see that the majority gamed with a laptop, iPad, or netbook at the table, and over half used PDFs during game sessions and/or to prepare for them. A majority bought both books and PDFs, while next to none bought only PDFs.

We also held a productive freelancer meeting during the con, solidifying some of the ideas for future books. Likewise, Posthuman also had a session of pitching new game ideas (not just RPGs) to each other, most of which were quite good. In fact, it's going to be a challenge deciding which games to prioritize and pursue over the next year.

There is much more to tell, but too much to cover here. We gave numerous interviews, talked to a number of interested freelancers, socialized with old friends, made new ones, tore up a dance club, finalized some licensing deals, and over all had one of our best Gen Cons ever. We're sad it's over, but we're already looking forward to next year and future conventions!

We have an official street release date for the hardcopy EP Gamemaster Packs -- they will be in stores Wednesday August 18th! If you haven't told your FLGS you want a copy, now might be a good time to remind them so they can place the order.

• The Fermi Paradox and Phase Changes
• Technology's impact on hindering spycraft
• Predicting the future via web monitoring
• Clothing as speakers and microphones
• The perils of oxytocin

These and similar links can be found at http://delicious.com/infomorph

For those of you attending Gen Con next week, there's a lot going that we'd like to share with you:

First off, Posthuman Studios will be in the dealer's hall at Booth #2009 along with our partners, Sandstorm Productions, and their other partner studios like Wildfire, Closet Nerd, etc. We'll have the print release of Sunward: The Inner System as well as Core Rulebooks, GM Packs, posters, buttons, stickers, and t-shirts. For people new to EP, we'll be running demos at the booth. You can also stop by to get your stuff signed by folks who worked on the books.

If you're looking for some extra fun, we'll be running a game from our booth where agents can sign up to track down a renegade ego. You'll be sent on missions to get clues for tracking this ego down as they resleeve from morph to morph. Prizes will be rewarded for agents who succeed. Just stop by the booth and ask about our ego hunting game!

There are a number of scheduled EP games at the con for which you can sign up. Details here.

We will also be doing an EP seminar on Friday at 3pm where we'll talk about our upcoming plans for Ep and Posthuman Studios, answer questions, and ping you for feedback.

Friday night we'll be at the ENnie Awards hoping to pick up something from our four nominations!

On the night life tip, EP developer Rob Boyle, aka DJ Sprite, will be spinning hard EBM, rhythmic noize, and techno-industrial at a GenCon After Party on Friday night. We also recommend checking out these events.

If you haven't checked out the Sunward PDF yet, here's a quick taste of some more artwork. First up is the flexbot piece by Tom Garden:


Second is this scene of a situation about to turn ugly on Mars by Andrew Silver:



Funny how few pictures you see of male lovers in RPGs, eh?

Clicky to embiggen. You might also want to check out these pieces by Leanne Buckley and James Wolf Strehle.

Here are some Martian plot hooks I would have crammed into Sunward if Rob had let me ramble on for even longer...

• Workin' on the Railroad. As in the American West, railroads will be the key to opening up the Martian back country, and with it, the wealth of the planet. Heavy terraforming equipment, raw materials, and people all move most efficiently by rail. Sure, you can nanofabricate a lot of stuff in situ, but not everything. Railroads are big money, and the hypercorps controlling them play for keeps. Political intrigues abound where railroad rights of way are concerned, and there's a tension between the necessary upheavals of terraforming and the railroads' interest in creating transportation networks. Barsoomian terrorists don't mind targeting railroads when they think it will get their point across, and anybody who's watched Firefly knows that a train heist on a maglev rail system could make for a fun gaming session or two. What about the people building and maintaining the railroads? They're out in the high desert in isolated places -- in some cases not far from areas of past TITAN activity. And by the way, my teacher this week at Clarion West, Ian McDonald, has written two novels on Martian railroads. I hadn't read them when working on Sunward, but both are good inspirations for railroad-based plot lines on Mars. Desolation Road came out in 1988; the sequel, Ares Express, appeared in 2008.
• East Coast - West Coast. Martian oligarchs don't always act their age -- which can be a pretty bad scene when the parties involved are 170 years old and incalculably wealthy. While much of the conflict over money, power, and influence in Eclipse Phase abstracts into the realm of the digital, good old fashioned territorial pissing hasn't died out. To understand Martian politics, it's important to remember that the big Martian cities are sovereign states, as well. The oligarchs behind the scenes don't like attention, but they all know each other -- and they hate it when a rival plays in their back yard. Characters caught up in these struggles can have a very bad day indeed if they take a job from the wrong person.
• Space Elevator Murder Train. The Olympus Mons space elevator takes about as long as your average Transatlantic flight to get from Olympus to the counterweight -- and Mesh access is very limited during the trip. A lot can happen during that time, making a space elevator trip a great setting for the type of horror or suspense that works by having the PCs, a bunch of victims, and an antagonist confined in an isolated space together.
• Never Call Up That Which You Cannot Master. The Ma'adim Valles Pandora Gate opens many times each day on alien worlds. Mostly, it's investigatory teams that come back -- when they come back. But sometimes, other things come back. Security is tight at Pathfinder's installation, but if an alien life form gets loose, it's free in an isolated area of craggy Martian canyon land. And Pathfinder is really going to want it back.
• Unforgiven/Tombstone/The Quick&the Dead/Straight to Hell/Sukiyaki Django Western. Mars is a frontier world, and people living in the back country have -- very consciously -- adopted the styles of the American Old West. Never mind that most of the population is ultimately of Asian descent; for some reason, people still love cowboys. At the same time, the Martian frontier actually does have a lot in common with the Old West, from the limited reach of the law in isolated back country settlements, to the demands of survival in an arid, rugged land. With this in mind, GMs can have a lot of fun lifting plots from familiar westerns and deploying them on the Red Planet. Kimchee Western, anyone?

Enjoy Sunward, and have a good time on Mars! We've all worked really hard on this product, and it's awesome to finally see it in people's hands.

Image from Sunward by Hideyoshi.

As promised, we released 3 new digital products today! All are available via DriveThruRPG/RPGNow:

• NPC File 1: Prime
• Sunward: The Inner System
• Sunward Hack Pack

Enjoy! And for those who will ask--we don't have a street release date yet for when Sunward will be in stores, but we will have it at Gen Con!

• Anti-deception technologies
• A new map of Mars
• Lunar space elevator feasible in 7 years
• Touchable holograms
• Should we clone neanderthals? (a response)

These and similar links can be found at http://delicious.com/infomorph

Posthuman Studios has three kick-ass Eclipse Phase titles coming your way as PDFs on Wednesday, July 28th: NPC File 1: Prime, the highly-anticipated Sunward: The Inner System, and the Sunward Hack Pack! NPC File 1: Prime An electronic exclusive, NPC File 1: Prime presents over thirty original NPCs and some additional variants with a description and full stats; ready for use as opposition or player characters. Two files are included: One with all the NPCs in a typical layout format, and a second with half-page character sheets for each NPC. NPC File 1: Prime will be $5 and is Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) licensed. Sunward: The Inner System Eight days before its debut at Gen Con (yes, there will be a Sunward ... well, many Sunwards ... at Gen Con!), you'll be able to get your hands on the electronic version of Sunward! Sunward details the inner part of the solar system:

• Can you take the heat? Find out on Mercury, the Vulcanoids, or dive into the sun's corona with the Solarians
• A new star is rising on Venus, join in the intrigue as the Morningstar Constellation maneuvers for influence.
• Return to the cradle of transhumanity and explore the blasted, but not quite abandoned, ruins of Earth.
• Keepers of many of our cultural traditions, the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance stands watch over our shattered homeworld.
• A red storm is rising on Mars as the traditional masters of the red planet face an upswell of Barsoomian patriotism.
• The silent masters of the inner system, the Planetary Consortium, reach out to touch all with a velvet glove.
• Plus new Morphs, gear, and sample characters.

Sunward will be a 192 page PDF (with layers, a hyperlinked Table of Contents, a hyperlinked index, and internal hyperlinks) and will sell for $10. Sunward is Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) licensed. Sunward Hack Pack The Sunward Hack Pack includes the Sunward PDF and the following:

• Sunward Cover art and chapter-opening artwork as 150DPI images.
• Print-friendlier version of the Inner System Map, and Adobe Illustrator files for the original and modified map.

All you need to make your own contribution to the Inner System—Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) licensed!

Enjoy these new releases from Eclipse Phase, the Origins Award-winning and ENnie-nominated RPG of transhuman conspiracy and horror. Join us as we take the next bold steps into expanding the Eclipse Phase universe, continuing our journey outward into our dark future.

Eclipse Phase writer and sometime online marketing helper monkey Jack Graham (that's me) will run one awesome session of EP this Thursday, 7/22/2010, at Gamma Ray Games in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

It'll be at 6:30 pm. Please ping the game store on their Facebook page to RSVP.



Sorry for the short notice on this. I've been doing the Clarion West writer's workshop, and gaming, like sleeping, eating, and shaving my beard, has taken a back seat to writing sci-fi.

We'll be playing Doctrine, the scenario that I wrote for Gen Con this year. Secret Club Date! Sneak Preview! Holy Cats, Octomorph!

Hope to see some of y'all there.

Voting for the 2010 ENnie Awards is underway! Eclipse Phase is nominated in four categories--Best Cover Art, Best Writing, Best Production Values, and Game of the Year--and we'd appreciate your votes! The polls are open this week only.

If you're looking for some more detail, you can read my thoughts on our nominations or check out what Adam had to say.

While you're voting, please also consider Posthuman Studios for Best Publisher!

Polls: http://www.ennie-awards.com/voting/ballot.asp

Thanks for taking the time!

One last thing: if you're going to be at GenCon, the Posthuman Studios team is up for an ENnies Dream Date auction! we're giving away a signed copy of Sunward, the opportunity to put you or your character's name in an upcoming book, and our sweet devilish interesting company during the Awards.

If any bloggers, podcasters, or other new media journalistas out there will be at GenCon and feel like poking and prodding at me, Brian, Adam, and/or Jack, we'll all be there too and can make ourselves available for your examinations. We'd be happy to talk about Eclipse Phase, upcoming projects, Posthuman Studios, the game industry, transhumanism, and politics of various persuasions. If you want the juicy stuff, you are encouraged to buy us drinks. Just sayin'.

In all seriousness, we're starting to set our schedules for the con, so please contact us soon if you want to set up a  time!

Just finished a minor re-organization and update to the Resources page. We've provided a handy menu to the sections, moved the Quick-Start Rules to their own page (http://eclipsephase.com/qsr of course), and added a number of new links to fan-created material, among other changes. We're always interested in seeing the work of our fans--we like to see that Creative Commons license put to use--so if there's anything else out there we've missed, please let us know!

We have some other website updates in the works, including a re-organization of the forums, so stay tuned!

FYI, we'll be taking the EP website down for maintenance for a few hours tonight starting 11pm Central.

Here's a first sneak peek at some artwork for Sunward. First we have a siftrunner (a Venusian miner) in an arachnoid morph, illustrated by Aaron Miller.


Then we have this Direct Action mercenary in a Reaper morph, illustrated in record time by Stan VonMedvey:

Click the images for larger views.

• Nanotech appliances
• Your posthumanism is boring me
• 7 wonders of the quantum world
• Terahertz detectors
• Tracking location based on water isotope ratios

These and similar links can be found at http://delicious.com/infomorph

Edited to add: Whoops, Brian didn't tell me he was posting one today too, so you get two 5ftFs!

It's been a while since we've done one so here's some neat links to hopefully inspire you!

• P2P cyptocurrency, experiments in new economic models Bitcoin.
• Taranis Britain's new robot stealth drone (TITAN-rific!)
• Clothing made out of cultured cells.
• Using antimatter to detect earthquakes.
• NASA images of Daphnis one of Saturn's moons inside the rings.

And a bonus link to improving human-octopus relations: Octokiss!

In case you missed it we've posted a few links people may find interesting on the EP Facebook page:

Part 1 and Part 2 of guest blogging spots on AR and wearables from EP author Jack Graham

And an interview with Troll in the Corner from Origins of Rob Boyle.

In case you missed the news Eclipse Phase received 4 ENnie Award nominations. Needless to say, the team is honored times four. :)