#yazirian

[oldschoolfrp]

A mutineer has seized control of your ship's defenses, locked out all of the crew, and started the prelaunch systems. You have one hour to retake the ship or at least access its radio, or you might live out the rest of your lives on a hostile alien world with no chance of rescue. (Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes, Star Frontiers Knight Hawks / Alpha Dawn adventure by Ken Rolston, with Larry Elmore cover art, TSR, 1984)

[chronivore]

[aaronobrian]

I am happy that I have the honor of my art being on another cover of Frontier Explorer! https://frontierexplorer.org/article/issue-29-now-available

[chronivore]

Larry Elmore

Star Frontiers by Larry Ellmore

[astrofaction]

[empire-of-thieves]

Spelljammer 5e Review

I bought the boxed set for the new Spelljammer 5e product from WotC and here are my thoughts:

The set consists of three skinny books and a GM's screen inside a display box. The books are the Astral Adventurer's Guide, kind of a Player's Handbook for space-based adventures. Next there is Boo's Astral Menagerie, a book of monsters. The third book is an adventure called Light of Xaryxis.

The books are beautifully illustrated and contain mostly classic material for a very familiar feel. There are "new" PC races that are basically rehashed from 1982-era Star Frontiers. A blob race (Dralisites from SF), a flying monkey race (Yazirians), and an insectoid race that is basically a rehashed Thri Krin (called Vrusk in SF). Good on them for reviving parts of that classic game.

There is a race featured in Spelljammer before, the hippo race of Giff. There is also a mechanical race called Autognomes as well as a race of space elves. I did find the book very skinny. 64 pages -- come on. There were only 2 new backgrounds, 2 new spells, 3 new magic items, and no subclasses.

The rest of the Adventurer's Guide includes rules on spacefaring, descriptions of the various classic ships (pretty much the same as the original SJ boxed set) and coverage of a single space location, the Rock of Bral.

Next up, the monster book. This one again had only 64 pages. Some were NPC variants of astral elves, giff, the Star Frontiers races, and so on. Along with a fun variety of bad guys. While I grumble at such a small book, I did appreciate the high quality of these monsters.

The adventure book (also 64 pages) consists of a 12-chapter quest for 5th level characters, who reach 8th level at the conclusion.

Overall I liked the Spelljammer boxed set. It's beautiful, with great full color illustrations throughout. A bunch of it was rehashed and a lot of stuff is missing. Did the GM screen add a lot of value? Maybe some, but I would have rather have 20 more pages of character options -- feats? more spells? subclasses? More backgrounds?

[vintagerpg]

A couple years later, in 1983, Star Frontiers was re-issued in screaming magenta with the subtitle Alpha Dawn. Many things I have read suggest that Alpha Dawn is an expanded version of the original rules, but I’ll be damned if I can find any differences. Likewise, Lawrence Schick says in Heroic Worlds that Alpha Dawn was simplified for younger audiences but not playtested, making it a bit of a mess, but I don’t really see that either.

Anyway, let’s talk about Larry Elmore’s fantastic cover for a second (which, admittedly, you can see more fully in its glory in yesterday’s post).  I love love love this painting – it is probably the most iconic non-D&D piece of art TSR produced, and it stands its ground against a lot of the D&D art too, I think. I love that the dude looks basically like a Televiper from GI Joe, I love the fringe on the lady’s boots (so 80s) and I love whatever that monkey thing is (more on that in a second). It totally sells the drama and danger of being marooned on a strange planet. **chef’s kiss**

Star Frontier’s humans are cool, fairly obviously from Earth at some point (though that is never outright stated and they can live to be 200), but the game never explicitly says so either, which I like. There is something delightful about seeing recognizable cultural stuff from our world in a Star Wars-y setting (like the Scottish guy in tomorrow’s post) that gives me major Wing Commander vibes.

My favorite thing about Star Frontiers (and any sci-fi thing), though, is the aliens. The playable ones are WEIRD. Vrusk are long-bodied, insectoid capitalists, Dralasites are basically giant sentient amoebas with weird senses of humor and Yazirians are these maniac gliding apes. And the villains, the mysterious Sathar, are weird, buff worm creatures that occasionally ride dinosaurs. All of them make a distinct contrast to pretty much every humanoid-centric sci-fi thing of the period (and a lot after) and I love it.

Fun fact: all four alien species appeared with different names and modified abilities in Spelljammer!

[adventuresandshopping]

It's signed "Easley"?

Clyde Caldwell art for “Star Frontiers.”

[shipburner]

Monsters of d20 Modern: Aliens

It is close enough to Halloween that I feel justified in spending an inordinate amount of time on cataloguing and describing cool monsters in the style of @bogleech​ or @titleknown​. There are a lot of posts on the Internet about interesting monsters from various TTRPGs, but I’ve never yet seen one about the monsters from d20 Modern, Wizards’ d20 System game for heroes in a modern or futuristic setting. d20 Modern wasn’t just an attempt to run Die Hard or James Bond with the d20 System, though - it also provides models for modern fantasy campaigns. “Shadow Hunters” lets you do things along the lines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; “Agents of PSI” pushes the game into MK Ultra territory, and “Urban Arcana” is that “magic is returning to the world” trope we all know and love. The game also expands to d20 Future, which covers a wide array of sci-fi settings.

To populate these campaigns, therefore, Wizards provided stats for nonhuman monsters, a lot of which are really cool and imaginative and, since nobody else seems to appreciate them, here goes! This is the first part of a two-part post; this one focuses on alien beings, the next will focus on other strange creatures. Monsters presented in no particular order.

1. Gardhyi. These long boys originate in Alternity, but I found out about them from the Menace Manual, and I really like them as an alien. They’re not the Men in Black - the MIBs are a human organization - they simply resemble them. The gardhyi are, in fact, spies from an alien invasion fleet, chosen because of humans’ uncanny resemblance to their species. They have double thumbs and big toes, and psionic control over shadows, and I like them because they’re just as confused as we are about the Greys and the like. Their alliance had no idea that other powers were interested in Earth, and while I think they’re well-designed as an “almost human but not quite” alien, what really gets me is that they imply that not every other interstellar-capable species knows about all the others, which I haven’t seen in sci-fi before.

2. Bodak. The bodak is a D&D monster ported to d20 Modern, also described in the Menace Manual. In D&D, the bodak is simply a death-dealing undead creature, but d20 Modern expands on it to make a bodak the result of a Grey dying in an area or event tainted by pure evil. The fact that the Greys not only exist but have their own unique kinds of undead makes d20 Modern very special to me, and I really wish they’d expanded the “alien undead” thing further.

3. Fraal. Described in the Menace Manual, d20 Modern also gives us information on the regular, non-undead Greys. Not only do they tell us the species’ name for itself - fraal - they also tell us why exactly they visit Earth: it’s a grand sociology experiment to see how a culture develops when repeatedly contacted by extraterrestrial visitors. The fraal are powerful psionicists but ultimately not hostile to human life, and are one of the player species in d20 Future. I know that explaining the Greys kind of undercuts their “cool mysterious alien” factor, but I’m really touched that d20 Modern spent the time to make them a functioning people. Sure, they may not be “realistic” as aliens, but they’re a part of modern folklore, and I admire that Wizards had the guts to say “They may be overplayed, but we’re using them anyways.”

4. Yazirians. The Yazirians are originally from Star Frontiers, but show up as a PC species in d20 Future. I put them in here because they’re Wookiees with patagia. That’s badass.

5. Sasquatch. In the Menace Manual, it is revealed that Bigfoot is, in d20 Modern, the regressed primitive form of an alien species employed by the fraal as heavy laborers. This is the first time I’ve seen “Bigfoot is an alien” theories make sense and that deserves recognition.

Their modern form has big ol’ tusks.

6. Sesheyans. These are also from Alternity, but show up again in the Menace Manual and as PCs in d20 Future. I like ‘em because the “primitivist hunter-gatherer aliens just now adapting to interstellar life” are eight-eyed nocturnal gargoyles who think humans look just as freaky as we think they do rather than cat people or the like.

7. Rods. In reality, “rods” are photo artifacts caused by bad camerawork and flying insects. In the Menace Manual, however, they’re an invasive species that was introduced to the ecosystem when an alien spaceship dumped contaminated supplies in our airspace back in the ‘90s. They also dive-bomb psionic creatures like it’s Australian magpie season, which is why some areas of Earth are fraal no-fly zones. This rules.

8. Extraterrestrial Spider. d20 Future gives a template that can be applied to Earthly animals so you can use them as strange alien creatures. The sample art is this beautiful boy with asymmetrical leg and eye placement and an awful yonic mouth. This could totally be an alien creature in my book - it looks like a bad scribble drawing and that’s way more representative of otherworldly life than I think most sci-fi does.

9. Zeikune. These things show up in the Menace Manual with no explanation or ecology, only an unknown buoyancy method and a hunger for organs, and, also, art that depicts them as STARYU WITH A GUN.

Part 2 will be up yet tonight or tomorrow, depending on my mood.

[oldschoolfrp]

A Yazirian, a Dralasite, two humans, and a Vrusk walk into a bar (“Knight Hawks” by Jim Burns, from the world of TSR’s Star Frontiers, Imagine magazine, September 1984)

[chronivore]

[chronivore]

Someone say "Gamma Wold Adventuring Party".

https://ift.tt/3f6ERzz July 08, 2020 at 06:34PM +visit our fellow Goethepunk art page

[aaronobrian]

Creature Codex 13: Strong, Medic, Yazirian

[kayawagner]

Frontier Explorer - Issue 23

Publisher: Frontier Explorer

Hello Explorers!

Welcome to issue 23 of the Frontier Explorer.  This issue focuses on Clarion Station and all the things to see and do there.  As part of our Warriors of White Light challenge, we have a couple of articles detailing the home of the Clarion Royal Marines.  The other feature article in this issues is one detailing a conversion of the Star Frontiers races to the new FrontierSpace RPG.

We round out or relatively small selection of articles this issue with some of our standard fare including a new creature from the Jurak Hangna foundation (it’s Tik’s fault this time), a yazirian legend courtesy of Alex Stone, our usual comics and articles about holidays and “cursed items” in the Frontier.

The full article list for this issue is:

Frontier News

Grokh the White One

Clarion Station Expanded

Titan Rising: 2299 #16

Star Frontiers Races in the FrontierSpace RPG

10 Things on Clarion Station

The Ublax Allagi

Holidays in the Frontier

Cursed Items in the Frontier

The Escape Plan #2

Grab your copy today and as always, keep exploring!

The Frontier Explorer is now listed as a “Pay What You Want” product.  As always, the Frontier Explorer is free (and always will be) and you don’t have to feel guilty about just downloading it and enjoying it for free.  Please do.  That said, if you want to help support the magazine, the pay what you want option allows you to make a contribution. Think of it as a “tip jar” or donation plate.  Just don’t feel like you need to make a contribution.  If you want to be a regular supporter, you might consider supporting our Patreon campaign as that not only helps support the magazine, it gets you early access to some of the articles and to each finished issue about a week before it becomes generally available (details on Patreon are in the issue).

Price: $0.00 Frontier Explorer - Issue 23 published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[welcometoyouredoom]

[chronivore]