Zinc Cat
These massive metallic orbs are the most visible zeppelin-weapons of CREATU. They float from the North (and sometimes the South) and assault the innocent Monstru cities with their vile Dread Gas.
Most folks have seen them from time to time, and a pair of Zinc Cats floated over Spookane for 2 years… just watching… waiting.
Monster Commute RPG update
For the past 6 weeks I’ve been working with my friend Stephen Carpenter on the Monster Commute Roleplaying Game.
When I say it like that, it doesn’t sound all that impressive. 6 weeks is just 42 days… But, we’ve gotten a ton done in that time and worked on it almost daily. The game has more than doubled in size in that time.
Stephen is a game-designer and writer, and I met him in person this year at one of our events. He expressed interest in Monster Commute, and I couldn’t help but mention the Monster Commute RPG I’d been working on for the past couple of years. (Here and there.)
He asked if he could see it, and after a few weeks of mulling it over (I’m the mulling sort, evidently) I shared my progress on it. He said that he really liked it, and was interested in helping beat this thing into shape.
While there was some good initial structure there, the closer I got to describing how the Combat worked, the more “meh” I became. It’s not that I hate combat (I don’t) but I hate writing about it. I’m a world-builder, not a mechanics guru. Luckily, Stephen is both.
Working with Stephen has been a really great motivator, he’s dived into Monstru and dug in with both hands. He’s been learning more and more about Monstru, and he’s taking things that I’d already created (here in the comic) and applied them to the game.
I’m pretty sure that by now he knows more about MONSTRU than anyone who lives outside of my skull.
Stephen has also brought a wealth of ideas and fun to the game, and he’s a great second-set of eyes to the work that I’d initially done. We’re getting things more organized, and it’s starting to take on some recognizable form.
So far we’ve added:
- Lots of Pasts, Gifts, Faults, Skills and Stunts (The stuff Characters are made of.)
- Combat, Majik and world sections (Monstru is growing)
- Glossaries, including the Trucker Tongue Glossary
- A Town-name generator and a Character Name guide
- Gamemaster and Player sections
- Creature Catalog (Need more monsters though!)
- And tons more…
While we’re still miles away from releasing the game, I can tell you that it’s 113 pages long, and 45984 words. (It’s a text document at this point… it’s not ready for graphics.)
It probably won’t be ready for release until next year, though that is a good thing. We’re not trying to export some incomplete Drek to you; we’re making it really good. Plus, I’m really good at making new dead ends that need to be addressed and closed up.
We’ll keep you notified as things progress.
Stephen has been a fantastic collaborator, and I hope to continue working with him on other projects when this one is finished.
Next update: Next week.
- Daniel
