Silverarm RPG Newsletter: #9
New Sandbox Murder Mystery Module for Mothership, Southern Gothic Space Horror, and Cool Blogs I've Been Reading
Howdy,
Welcome back for Issue 9 of the Silverarm RPG Newsletter.
I’m back home and ready. My sandbox murder mystery module for Mothership, Interloper is launching on Backerkit in a few minutes and I’m really stoked! Also I’m publishing ‘Til Death Do Us Part, Josh Domanski ‘s new southern space gothic Mothership zine available as an add-on in the same campaign. No posts on the Silverarm blog this time round but I’ve got some sweet RPG blogs I’ve been reading around the net that I’d like to share with you.
Launching Today! Interloper: Sandbox Murder Mystery Module for Mothership
Back It Here
Interloper, a rogue planet once hailed as a utopia, drifts toward its frozen doom between the stars. It was built up by media tycoon Thomas Forsythe as a haven for art and creation with the best of a hundred worlds. Now Interloper is just another unfinished and abandoned dream after a corporate coup. The sun is fading, and eternal winter comes for half constructed monuments to ambition and the few still living in their shadow.
Now, Forsythe has been murdered, and your crew is press-ganged by his sister to solve the mystery! Descend into the decaying grandeur of Interloper, uncover its secrets, and find the killer—before the blame is pinned on the PCs. Try to survive Interlopers' hidden dangers, solve the crime, or save its eccentric inhabitants—you'll be lucky to pull off one of them.
What's Inside?
An investigative mystery sandbox book that provides a web of interconnected clues allowing PC's to choose the leads they want to follow up on or catch the next podway off on a wild hunch.
8 peculiar Persons of Interest with varied motivations, opportunities, relationships to each other, secrets and jobs to offer.
25 varied locations across the five completed themed pavilions of the planned Hundred Worlds Festival- desert bound Karth, the waterworld of Mani, the mausoleum settlement of Lost Light, the impossible woodlands of Acadia, and the shining center of Interloper Hub.
3+ detailed and mapped dungeon locations from the submerged Underdome, to the dying Omega Tree, to the industrial Forsythe Bot Repair Bay.
A ticking clock pushing the investigators forward as dangerous developments loom over their closing time window of four days.
Plenty of plots and secrets.
Illustrations by Jacob Fleming.
New Mothership Zine: ‘Til Death Do Us Part
‘Til Death Do Us Part is a brand new space southern gothic horror zine by Josh Domanski (writer of The Bloom and The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow) for Silverarm and available as an add-on during the Interloper campaign. Dive into Enoch’s Landing, a space observatory and manor- once a shining symbol of progress, now fallen into decay. Within, your crew will be entangled in the desperate plans of the station’s last matriarch. Will they bring forth the salvation she craves or fall victim to the perils within? Check out a preview and an actual play on The Weekly Scroll.
Touchstones:
Magnetic Rose (1995) - Katsuhiro Otomo
Wise Blood (1952) - Flannery O’Connor
Beyond the Aquila Rift (2019) - Alastair Reynolds
Resident Evil Village (2021) - Capcom
Absalom, Absalom! (1936) - William Faulkner
The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) - Edgar Allan Poe
Raised by Wolves (2020-2022) - Aaron Guzikowski
Cowboy Bebop (1997-1998) - Hajime Yatate
Returnal (2021) - Housemarque
Nebula Parlor by Jantiff Illustration
Blogs I’m Reading Lately
Game Design vs Level Design- Knight at the Opera
In this blog post, Dwiz break down a common mistake in TTRPG discussions: confusing game design with level design. Game design is about setting rules and procedures—the "how" of gameplay. Level design, on the other hand, creates content—the "what" players actually do within those rules. It’s a “what we talk about when we talk about game design” type post" that I keep referring back to at least a few times a year. I generally prefer working on level design (adventure content) to game design (systems) but systems matter to the experience too and tend to sell better than modules so beware for some distant day when I finally make “my perfect system for my favorite style of game” TM.
Playing as a Ghost- Prismatic Wasteland
Late for Halloween but this is my favorite post on dying in the dungeon and keeping the game going seamlessly without pulling punches to avoid slight delay of rolling up new character and introducing them. Just let them play their ghost! Awesome take. Also provides specific framework for conditions needed for being laid to rest and references other blogs that have come to the same sweet afterlife idea. I want to play my own ghost more.
Former World of Game Design Employees Claim Tabletop Company Exploits Workers and Clients- Rascal News
Rascal News has been doing great work with investigative and in-depth journalism in the TTRPG sphere and it’s really filling an important niche. This detailed and engaging breakdown of claims definitely jives with my past experience working with WOGD as a client.
A Nest of Vipers: Navigating TTRPG Contracts and Partnerships- Uncanny Spheres
It’s really hard to make a living in RPGs and a big part of it is figuring out who to work with and how to work with them. Ian breaks down some pitfalls and things to look out for in RPG business partnerships and how contract in a detailed long form blog forged from painful and hard-won experience in the industry.
See ya soon,
Joel
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