Wherein your learned colleague considers the assorted goodies accruing to him to date as part of the Last Parsec Kickstarter for Savage Worlds.
THE ONE-SHEET ADVENTURES
Catch of the Day: In which the PCs visit a tourist fishing resort in response to a distress call. And in due course themselves become distressed. Nothing low cunning and violence can’t fix, I’m sure. Catch of the Day doesn’t seem linked to Eris Beta-V, but maybe it aligns to one of the other plot point campaigns.
Ghosts in the Machine: In which the PCs respond to a distress call from a mining station, to find the miners have locked themselves in a storage container. With good reason, as it later turns out. Could be used in the Eris Beta-V system, or elsewhere.
Untimely Discovery: In which the PCs investigate an anomalous sensor reading and find a situation with legal repercussions that could go on for some time, as well as things that shoot at them. Pshaw, they deal with that all the time. This one is linked into the Leviathan plot point campaign, yet to be released at time of writing.
THE MUSIC
Eleven tracks of music as background for your game. I don’t use music in my games, and if I did, I’d be more likely to reach for the Joe Satriani CDs. That’s a matter of personal taste and no reflection on the composer.
THE ARCHETYPES
Thirteen pregenerated PCs, ready to pick up and play. Here we have human and rakashan team leaders, a kalian pilot, deader and floran science officers, a heavily-armed and -armoured artificial being, human and insectoid scouts, serran and insectoid psychics, aurax, yeti and saurian security guards (red shirts not in evidence).
Since they’re all intended as JumpCorp team members, we can safely assume that members of all those races are to be found in JumpCorp territory, and co-operate at need. The rakashan racial enemy remains undefined.
THE GM SCREEN INSERTS
These are intended to work with Pinnacle’s customisable GM screen, which I would very much like to see in my Christmas stocking. However, if that fails, some cardstock, a laminator and some invisible scotch tape should to the job.
You have a choice of nine full-colour illustrations, most of which I like very much. There’s a panel with illustrations of all eleven playable races (the same illos used in the Archetypes download and the Science Fiction Companion).
Then we’re into the meat of it; abbreviated rules for combat options, dramatic tasks, interludes, chases, wounding, fear, NPC reactions, atmospheric and gravitational effects, salvage and trade.
I don’t generally go in for GM screens, because what the designers think I need to be reminded of and what I think I need to be reminded of are different; but this one I could see myself using, although I’d drop the atmosphere and gravity bits in favour of some real basics (trait rolls, wild dice, etc – not for me you understand, for the players) and notes on ship combat.
THE WALLPAPERS
Three different wallpapers for your monitor, in resolutions from 800 x 600 to 1920 x 1200, all presented as JPEG files. The first has the rakashan team leader and saurian security guard in a firefight (my favourite of the three, and one of the GM screen panels); the second shows a small spacecraft approaching a much, much larger one; and the third is the cover of Eris Beta-V, showing a spacesuited figure with some sort of artefact shooting at oncoming foes, against a backdrop of a ringed gas giant.
THE POSTERS
These are mock safety posters of the sort you’d find on JumpCorp starship bulkheads, all intended to be humourous, and some of them did actually make me snigger. These appeared as pictures in the Kickstarter update emails.
CONCLUSIONS
Mostly useful, mostly pretty, some will get used; I’m glad I Kickstarted at a high enough level to get all the PDF releases. There’s more to come, and I look forward to it.
Halfway Station 