September's goodies
In a one-week period, I got a ton of TTRPG goodness. Four mailers came in, and I'd like to talk about each.
Fear of a Daily Planet and Atypicalfaux's back catalogue
Jordan Boschman's Zine Month project, Fear of a Daily Planet, funded over February 2025, and started arriving to backers over September. I was quick with my campaign pledging fingers, and managed to pledge as backer #1!
Fear of a Daily Planet asks what happens to a corporate printing operation that has never stopped for 1,000 years. The colony's denizens—like a number of us sickos—worship at the altar of print. The four factions grew apart over these 10 centuries; layers of history mixed with oppression and fervour. It's even got tech-priests! I'm excited to bring this one to my table soon.
Fear of a Daily Planet
A lost planetary colony built only to print employee handbooks for Etaoin Shrdlu Stellarcomms. Abruptly cut off from the company in its tumultuous switch to a fully digital infrastructure, the colonists were left on their own for the past 1,000 years.
I've also now got physical copies of Jordan's previous work. The Stone Flesh Gift and So You've Been Chump-Dumped make for fun Mothership adventures. The former is a 40-page module exploring an ancient, bio-engineered, living ship, full of body horror. The latter is a solid one-shot pamphlet involving a wrecked research ship, lab animals, and a super-weapon threat that cannot be reasoned with.
Daedalus Station and the Rimspace Racing League
Sean Murphy's latest banger, this project crowdfunded over Mothership Month 24. Daedalus is a pirate space station that's all about dangerous, high-speed ship racing, and the zine spends most of its pages detailing the ships and crew that participate.
I especially love the racing teams and their logos. My favourite is the Demarian Speed Cult, always moving as fast as possible. But honourable mention goes to the good boys of the Rottie Hobby Club. Check out that doggo!
Also, check out those great, gigantic patches!
Daedalus Station and the Rimspace Racing League
Conspiracy lurks within this mothership module detailing a racing-obsessed pirate station in the depths of the Rimspace.
Straight Arrows
RAC Computing crowdfunded this 64-page zine over Mothership Month 24. It's a completely wild view on every spread, physical collages that have been scanned in and used in digital layout. Straight Arrows is a campaign setting that thoughtfully approaches themes of addition, drugs, and a particularly insidious corporation, Arrow Biomed.
When this one hits my table, I think my players are going to love it. Toeing the morally vague line is a common theme in our games, and I can see them operating out of the planet Ithaca for more than a handful of sessions.
Plus, the extremely good vibechete "vibe check" sticker.
Straight Arrows
Kick down the door and drag your target out of whatever drug den they’ve ended up in. For a hefty price, that is.
Tumulus 04: Return to the Sea
Skeleton Code Machine / Exeunt Press have a lovely quarterly zine called Tumulus. This one is my last of the annual series I picked up at the end of last year. The production quality of these books is amazing—when I grow up, I want to make products that look half as good as these.
Past the very helpful reminders to resub for the second year's issues—go do that here—this issue explores ships, submarines, and the sea in general. It's a great set of inspiration; each issue has a unique theme, some roll tables, and sometimes a whole game between the covers.
Tumulus
a quarterly compendium of analog gaming inspiration, tools, design theory, and playable content from the award-winning Skeleton Code Machine.