Update #20 - *Please Read* Important Update - Backer Surverys and Moth Ponies!
about 6 years ago – Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 11:15:09 PM

Hello everybody!

Just a couple quick but important announcements:

Backer surveys will start going out on the night of Monday, September 24th. We wanted to have them out this week, but some things got hung up in emails and the like, so we've had to delay them just the one week. This will not cause any delays with the project itself.

Also, we wanted to remind everybody that for tiers with physical rewards, shipping costs were specified to be, and will be, collected post-campaign during the backer surveys. US shipping will be around $10, unless you choose to order a second copy of the book as an add-on during the survey. International shipping to other countries will be higher (likely around $30) due to the dramatic increase in cost associated with International shipping. We intend to lock in the backer surveys by about mid July next year, so you'll have plenty of time to make your shipping payment. If there is a problem with making the payment, please email us at [email protected] and we'll see what we can do to work with you on it.

Next, we wanted to make a shout out to author DualThrone for a generous, post-campaign donation made to bring the Lepidoquines (Moth Ponies) stretch goal, which was just missed out on during the campaign, to life for you all! As such, the Lepidoquine Race will be made available as a playable race in the core rule book! We'll have more info on that race to come down the road.

Thank you all so much for your support and understanding! And a big thank you to DualThrone for the additional donation!

See you all Tuesday for a look at the planet of Sphinxonia.

- Project Lead Spirit

Update #19 - Quick Combat Overview
about 6 years ago – Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 02:26:05 AM

Hello everybody!

I wanna start this post with a quick notice that since we are now through the majority of the Character Creation stuff and into the deeper mechanics, some of which are still being tweaked more heavily, our mechanics updates will be out every two weeks going forward, instead of every week. Our lore updates will continue to be weekly until we get through all of the playable races.

Now, without further delay, today we'll be doing a quick overview of the combat mechanics. There is a lot more to combat than can be expressed in a short post like this, but we hope to at least give an impression of how combat works.

And as always, this is just a preview and things may change by the final product.

Combat Overview

We'll walk through our combat mechanics in the order they should come up during a typical engagement. To start, let's set a basic scenario out on the table first:

"Berry Pop, a female Terrequine, is a scientist employed by a private exploration company. She is taking part in an expedition to an unexplored planet who's surface is thick with jungle vegetation. Her and her party have already landed and are well underway exploring the surrounding area. The five of them have since stumbled upon the nest of some unknown creature and are busy taking samples and documenting their findings when one of them hears a sound come from the brush. They all look to see a cat-like beast staring back at them, fangs bared. The creature, which was out hunting, had now returned to find unwanted visitors scouring its home, and it wasn't happy about it."

The beast, having snuck up on the stunned party at this point, is granted an opportunity to make the first attack by the GM. It leaps at the first of the scientists, pinning him to the ground and mauling him with its claws. For sake of simplicity, we won't look at this initial round of attack and damage, just know that surprise attacks can happen before combat actual initiates, if conditions are right.

Now, combat is considered to be started. All party members, including both the now-unconscious scientist and the attacking creature, compare their initiative. Those with higher initiative values go first, while those with lower ones go last. Berry has an initiative of 11. The order of everybody ends up being as follows:

Scientist 1: 13 Init.
Berry Pop: 11 Init.
Scientist 2 (unconscious): 9 Init.
Scientist 3: 9 Init.
Creature: 7 Init.
Scientist 4: 6 Init.

As you can see from this example, Berry's turn falls after Scientist 1, but before the remaining scientists and the creature. You also may have noticed that two of the Scientists share the same Initiative value at 9. Let's look at how this is resolved:

If two characters share the same Initiative value, look next at their Reflex value. The one with the higher Reflex value goes first, while the lower value goes after. If there is still a tie, then look at the base Agility Attribute Rank. Like before, higher goes first, lower goes second. If there is still a tie after this, then both characters are considered to be acting simultaneously.

So, both Scientist 2 and 3 have the same Initiative. Thus, we look at their Reflex values. Scientist 2 has a Reflex of 10, while Scientist 3 has a Reflex of only 6. Thus, Scientist 2 would end up going before Scientist 3. However, as he is currently unconscious from being mauled by the creature, his turn will skipped until his Hit Points become positive again from some form of healing.

Now, Scientist 1 takes his turn, but does not currently have any form of weapon, so he spends his turn moving behind cover to hide. Thus, we move to Berry Pop's turn.

Each character, on their turn, can either perform 2 simple actions, or 1 complex action. Here are a list of just some of the actions that a character could take:

Simple Actions:
- Movement (Standard)
- Attack (Standard)
- Use an item
- Reload a weapon

Complex Actions:
- Sprint (Double Move)
- Targeted Attack (Called Shot)
- Trade inventory with nearby party member
- Prepare Defense/Dodge
- Steadied Shot

This list is far from exhaustive, but covers most of the major options.

Back to our scenario, Berry Pop, having been through a number of these expeditions before where things went awry, has a pistol on her. She moves, up to her Speed value, to get into cover while drawing the pistol from its holster (drawing and stowing an equipped weapon is a free action). Once in cover, she takes a shot at the creature.

Combat checks are made using the weapon's relevant skill. For example, Berry's pistol is a ranged weapon and thus uses the Ranged Weapons Skill. As this is an Agility based skill, she rolls her D10 for Agility. This roll comes up as a 7. Her Agility Rank is a 3, and her Ranged Weapons Skill is a 2. This all formulates out as:

7 (Agility Roll) + 3 (Agility Rank) + 2 (Ranged Weapons) = 12

So, ultimately, Berry rolled a 12 on her attack roll. This value is compared to the opponent's Reflex stat to determine if it hits or not. The creature, being decently agile, has a Reflex of 11. Berry Pop's 12 is higher than the creature's 11, so her shot hits.

The next step is for her to roll for damage. Damage dice are determined by the weapon itself. A standard pistol (currently) has a damage of 1D10 + 10. This means that you roll a single 10-sided dice, and add 10 to the value rolled. Let's say Berry rolls a 4 on the dice. She then adds 10 to that value.

4 (Dice Roll) + 10 (Static Damage) = 14 Damage

Berry's damage roll ultimately tallies up to 14 Damage. This is not the final damage done to the creature though. The beast has a Natural Armour of 5 plus it's Grit Rank, which is 4. That means it has a total Natural Armour of 9. It has no additional armour bonuses.

The total damage dealt is compared to the total armour of the target, and the difference is the damage the target takes. If the armour value is greater than the damage value, no damage is taken. In this instance, Berry's total damage (14) is compared against the creature's Natural Armour (9). The difference between these values is 5, so the creature takes 5 damage, out of it's total 20 Hit Points.

This process continues around the rest of the scientists' and creature's turns, with all their varying actions. Once all them have had their turns, a new round begins, starting with Scientist 1 again, as he still has the highest initiative. This all repeats until the combat has been resolved.

And that concludes our overview of the combat in the system. It's a little lengthy read, so we applaud any of you who made it through all of that.

Next Tuesday we'll be taking a look a the planet of Sphinxonia. And a reminder that, as stated earlier in this post, our mechanics posts will be switching to an every-other-week schedule moving forward. However, the next one will be a look at some of the environmental hazards you might encounter across the galaxy and how their mechanics work.

See you there!

-Project Lead Spirit

Update #18 - The Twilightborne Race
about 6 years ago – Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 11:28:51 PM

Hello everybody!

Welcome to another lore update! This time we'll take a look at the Twilightborne race.

As always, things may get changed between this post and the final product.

The Twilightborne Race

Here's the current race page for them:

The Twilightborne are a race who's culture and history is steeped in intrigue and political deception.They are nimble characters who are able to move through the shadows with ease. Also, due to being a very aristocratic society with high social standards, they have a boost to their Allure attribute. However, their Courage attribute suffers a bit as thanks to The Great Game, they are generally very paranoid of others and anything that seems out of place.

They are also capable of flight, with their leathery wings, but most are no match in comparison to a Pegasus or Griffin.

The Great Game, every influencing them, also has raised them in intrigue, providing a bonus to either both Stealth and Sleight of Hoof or both Deception and Sense Motive.

They also have developed a style of melee combat that is swift and precise, allowing them to use their Agility attribute in place of Grit when making melee attacks.

Having evolved in a low-light environment, they are capable of seeing in similar conditions better than most other races. This also gives them an advantage when striking from the shadows. This allows them to automatically increase the damage dealt from the first attack made that hits while concealed using stealth.

The final thing they get as a playable race is their ties to one of the Four Houses. At character creation, you must pick one of the Four Houses (outlined below) to be aligned to. These Houses will give powerful additional benefits on top of the general racial ones, but you will be forever bound to The Great Game and it's tendrils. Every legitimate Twilightborne who is not part of the Imperial Family must, at birth, be immediately bound to one of the Houses. Of course, there are those born outside the usual scope of the Empire, so these Characters can choose to be unaligned, which loses them the bonuses the Houses provide, but they are free from the shackles that bind most other Twilightborne to The Great Game.

Here is a brief overview of the Four Houses:

House Dawn: Family members and courtiers of House Dawn are well trained diplomats and the most common house found outside of the Empire.

House Noon: A House who's members and courtiers are trained military professionals. Generals, guard captains, and head of Twilightborne mercenary companies .

House Dusk: The most magically inclined House in The Great Game that takes pride in producing top quality mages that make up the magical backbone of the Empire.  

House Midnight: The family and courtiers of House Midnight are trained assassins, spies, and criminal organizers of the realm. It is the only House that trains non-Twilightborne courtiers but it is considered a social taboo to mention them in civil discourse.

Now, just a little bit of lore:

The Empire of Harmony is anything but harmonic. Existing purely on the planet of Harmony, as a sub-state of the United Equus, it is a place most tend to steer clear of. After all, The Great Game of the Twilightborne is a mysterious political game of intrigue and deception not understood by outsiders.

Unless they were born outside of the Empire's grasp, every Twilightborne that's not part of the Imperial family is bound to one of the Four Houses that control the shadow government. The shackles of the Houses are more than just a concept, though. Every single Twilightborne that falls under control of one of the Houses must, at birth, go through a Binding Ritual. This ritual physically brands them with the crest of their respective house on the bottom of their hoof, and in the recent years with the advent of technology, a tracking chip implanted under their skin. This way, each house can identify and track each of their own members at any given time.

This Great Game has been part of their society since time immemorial, and has shaped so much of their lives that it's become ingrained into their very culture. Even those who leave the Empire are always bound to the House who's crest is on their hoof. And should two Twilightborne from different houses ever cross paths, even on the far side of the Galaxy, best to stay out of the almost inevitable contention that's sure to ensue.

Anyway, that'll be it for today's update on the Twilightborne. Thursday we'll be taking a quick look at the general mechanics for combat. Next Tuesday will be a bit of a break from the regular lore updates, and instead of going into a deep dive post we'll take a quick overview of the Goats of Goath. The regular lore posts will resume the week following that with the next planet, Sphinxonia, home of both the Sphinxes and the Zebras.

See you there!

- Project Lead Spirit

Update #15 - Campaign Finished - Backer surveys will go out in 1-2 weeks.
about 6 years ago – Sun, Sep 09, 2018 at 11:36:18 AM

Holy wow everybody!

The campaign concluded and we couldn't be happier with the final numbers! Overall, we raised $8858 for the project! That was almost a grand past our initial campaign's goal! We honestly can't thank you enough, every one of you!

With that number, you all have unlocked the second stretch goal from the $7.5k mark, too. That means the hearty Goats of Goath will be included in the core rule book as a playable race! We'll provide a quick peak at them at the start of next week, with a more in-depth look later down the road.

For now, we'll keep moving along with our regular updates, as well as the backer surveys. Of note:

The backer surveys will go out in 1-2 weeks after we've had a moment to catch our breath and to make absolutely sure everything is in place for them to be sent out.

Here is just a rough, tentative schedule of the next couple months to give you all an idea of where we're heading from here:

September:
- Backer surveys
- Resume commissioning of art resources
- Finalize logo design for pins

October:- Finalize remaining character creation mechanics (including the new races and their mechanics)

November:
- Begin working with backers of the Vice Admiral Tier and up on their NPC's (and race for the Fleet Admiral tier)

December:
- Finalize remaining core mechanics (just some other minor things, and tweaks will likely still be made throughout further play testing, but the remaining few mechanics should be solidly defined by this point)

There is a lot more that needs to be done, and this isn't every little detail of what'll be going on over that time frame, but it should hopefully give you all a frame of reference at least. Any deviations from this schedule will be announced through updates, but those deviations may happen on occasion.

Since this post is a bit off the regular schedule itself, the usual lore and mechanics updates will also be off schedule this week (so, Thurs/Sat instead of Tues/Thurs), and returning to their regular schedule next week. This week, we'll look at the planet of Harmony in our lore update, and the mechanics update will look at the basic character creation process.

See you there, and thanks again so, so much!!! You all are awesome!

- Project Lead Spirit and the entire Galloping Stars team

Update #13 - The Pegasi Race
about 6 years ago – Sun, Sep 09, 2018 at 11:33:43 AM

Hello everybody!

Today we'll be taking a look at the Pegasi race! And as usual, here's your disclaimer that this isn't necessarily representative of the final product. Anyway, one with the update!

The Pegasi Race

To start, here's the race page:

The Pegasi are an agile race, capable of flight. Their wings give them access to the Flight Skill. They are also seasoned fliers, though not the best in the game, giving them a +1 to their flight skill at Character Creation.

This may not seem like a lot of abilities, but they definitely make it up a bit with their Weather Manipulation ability. While the exact details for this ability are still being finalized (we'll go over them in a future update), they will function similar to Talents, and your Mana will be expended with each use (though, in a different way from Magic). There will be a set of predefined abilities, similar to Talents, but you will be free to come up with your own at the GM's discretion.

We are also still playing around with other ability options for Pegasi, but nothing else has stuck just yet. We'd love to hear from you all on this, so if you have any ideas, please let us know in the comments!

Let's move into a little bit of lore now:

The Pegasi are the second most numerous race on Equus, though their numbers are still much less compared to the Terrequines.

Their abilities have long given them very stable job security in very specific fields. Throughout history, they've served as aerial soldiers, as weather controllers, and as airborne messengers.  In more recent years, they've found a calling as aeronautics experts, widely prized for their inherent knowledge of flight dynamics. They are also often found in charge of airborne operations or on the front lines planetside as small and nimble aerial gun platforms.

We know this is a shorter update than usual for these, but with so much of the Pegasi's current abilities being wrapped up in their Weather Manipulation ability, there's not as much to reveal just yet. So we've decided that we'll make up for it by including the mechanics for Exploding Dice and the Criticals in the next update along with the Luck mechanics.

That post will come on Thursday. The next campaign post on the weekend will be the last weekly one and we will drop those particular posts to once or twice a month following the campaign. Our Lore and Mechanics posts will continue on a weekly basis, though. By the way, our next Lore update will take a look at the Sphinx and Zebra's home planet of Sphinxonia.

See you there!

- Project Lead Spirit