White Star Character: Kay'Lanna Dreen, Knight of the Rising Star

James Spahn's OSR science fantasy game White Star has taken off like a tramp cargo ship full of fugitive rebels trying to get to the Alderaan System. While I compose my review, I thought I'd share my first character; Kay'Lanna Dreen, Space Knight. While the inspiration for this character class should be obvious, the White Star universe I'm concocting is far less black and white than that one that took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Think more Dune than A New Hope, where the psionic Space Knights, products of a thousands-of-year-old breeding program, serve their virtually immortal masters who rule planetary fiefdoms as their elite agents and warriors. 

Dame Kay'Lanna Dreen

1st Level Space Knight of the Rising Star Order

STR: 8

DEX; 15 (+1)

CON: 12

INT: 13

WIS: 13

Chas: 12

AC  6 [13] (Using Dex Bonus for AC Option.)

BHB: 0

HP 6 (I always allow my starting PCs max HP)

Meditations: None

Equipment: Star Sword, Laser Pistol, 1 Energy Cell, Light Armor, Clothing (Common), Communicator. 15 Credits.

A scion of the Dreen lineage of the Rising Star Order, Kay'Lanna has just earned her knighthood and vowed fealty to House Salzor of Caldor. As a novice knight of House Salzor's cadre, Kay'Lanna has been assigned protection detail for Lady Almada's ne'er-do-well son Feldan as he leaps across Imperial space in search of adventure. While Feldan is brash and reckless, Kay'Lanna is a loyal knight and will do her duty to keep the party-boy lordling in line and out of trouble as he hones her own skills.

Coming Soon: The Expanse

There hasn't been a good science fiction TV series since Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his band of merry malcontents flew off into the sun after 14 episodes, and before that, Babylon 5. The various regurgitations of the Trek Franchise got boring after a while, as did the 87 seasons of Stargate SG-1. I never liked any of the surreal "mind fuck" series like The X Files, Lost, Heroes, or Fringe. Ronald Moore's rehash of Battlestar Galactica (Or as it call it "Lost... In Space!" Get it?) left me cold after the first season as it tried to be more symbolic and navel-gazing than entertaining. It's not that I don't think that sci-fi shouldn't deal with "BIG" issues, it's just that Hollywood ends up pandering to the lowest common denominator and ends up running back to ideas and conclusions that are safe and comfortable for your average American mass-entertainment-consuming dullard. (e.g. Prometheus. What should have been nihilistic horror gets mired in optimistic religious bullshit and spiritualistic bollocks. Then again, what do you expect from Damon Lindelof?)

That said, it looks like SyFy, in its recent effort to finally put add some actual science fiction to its repertoire of ghost hunting shows ("WHAT WAS THAT! WHAT WAS THAT!") and professional wrestling, are producing The Expanse, a 10-episode micro-series based on James S.A. Corey's series of novels. If you haven't read the series, do so starting with Leviathan Wakes! It's one part Firefly (i.e. ragtag spaceship crew of misfits), one part Game of Thrones (i.e. political machinations and conspiracy), with soupcon of The Walking Dead and a pinch of H.P. Lovecraft (i.e. body horror and ancient alien "Things-That-Man-Was-Not-Meant-To-Know").

 Finally! A return to the TV space opera in all it's glory! Pew pew pew pew...

(SW) First Nova Praxis PC: Janus

As the Kickstarter goodies for Nova Praxis: Savage Worlds Edition keep rolling in, I tried my hand at creating my first PC for this transhumanist sci-fi setting. It could be a very involved process depending on what sort of character you want to create, perhaps more so than creating a PC for Interface Zero 2.0. You get to create your PC au naturel then, depending on the character's "state" (i.e. Pure, Sleeved, or Sim) you then get to upgrade your body accordingly and there are a lot of great augmentations you can use to customize your PC's "sleeve." I decided to create a sleeved Coalition spy/assassin uploaded into a totally synthetic "cybersleeve." 

As usual, thanks go out to the folks behind HeroMachine 3.0 for helping me compensate for my lack of artistic talent.

Note: all stats in parenthesis are for the PC's sleeve.

"Janus:"

State: Sleeved
Rank: Novice

Bennies: 2

Attributes: Agility d8 (d8), Smarts: d6, Strength d6 (d6), Spirit: d6,Vigor: d6 (d6)

Charisma: -4; Cohesion: -3; Pace: 6; Parry: 5 (6); Toughness: 12 (6)

Skills: Athletics: d6, Fighting d6, Knowledge (Politics) d4 (d6), Knowledge (Security) d4 (d6), Investigation d8 (d10 with Agent Bonus), Notice d4+1, Persuasion d6, Shooting: d6, Streetwise d4, Stealth d8

Edges: Assassin, Scion of House Kimura

Hindrances: Habit, VR Pornography (Major), Malware Afflicted, Mean. 

Rep: 4, 1d4, Bump 6
Assets: 3, 1d4-1, Bump 4

Augmentations:

Sleeve: Alpha Cybersleeve Cost 5 (6 -1 for Scion of House Kimura Edge)
Customization: +1 Cost, Removed sleeve's Dubious Construction Hindrance

Hindrances Outsider

Apotheosis (Comes with Mindset, Mnemonic Core, Data Jack)

Agent (Beta) Grants Skill Increases in Knowledge (Politics) and Knowledge (Security)

Fully Synthetic: +1 Toughness, Ignore 1 Wound Penalty, Synthetic Biology, -1 Benny
Performance Enhanced (Agility)

Hidden Weapon System (Monoblade Dagger "Claws")

Gear: Beta Agent, Light Battle Armor, Light Coil PDW, Light Rail Pistol, Spider Gear Kit, Plasti-Rope Dispenser, ARID Tag

Whoever he or she was before hir Apotheosis, "Janus" is a mystery. This newly appeared contract killer prefers to keep their nearly all aspects of hir identity a secret. Janus prefers the anonymity of cybersleeves, even going so far as to adjust hir sleeve's vocoder to produce an entirely androgynous voice. Janus approaches hir profession with ruthless efficiency making hir not the most friendly of companions. To help compensate for the muted existence of life in a cybersleeve, Janus indulges in promiscuous virtual sex during hir downtime. Keeping to hir sexually ambiguous nature, Janus will often alter gender and and orientation; male or female, hetero or homosexual, it doesn't matter. Unfortunately, Janus menomic core has picked up a few annoying trojans and viruses during hir VR trysts, but, so far, nothing serious.

UPDATE: Realized I miscalculated on the skills and had to lose the Licensed edge to increase my Spirit, which meant I had to rethink my Gear and my sleeve's augments. Then I updated my picture.

Does anyone know...

...where I can purchase a bunch of these in the U.S.?

Properly painted and based, these Star Destroyers would be awesome for space combat games like Starmada or, my all-time favorite, Full Thrust. Please e-mail or post leads below.

Finished Hammer's Slammers Tanks

Finally! After a year's worth of delays and interruptions, I've finally finished my first platoon of 15 mm Hammer's Slammers blower tanks! The company insignia and unit ID decals were by Wargames Express. Once applied, I gave the models a second coat of gloss enamel then weather it with a drybrush of light brown acrylic paint to really give them a muddy, dusty look. Then a cost of Testor's Dullcote...

...and there you have it! These bad boys are ready to do contract work for Col. Alois Hammer.

Here are two tanks along with a couple of stands of infantry passing by some run-down shack on some backwater world.

Here's the whole platoon passing by another run-down shack on some backwater world. (Yeah, I know, they have markings for two different companies. I'll fill in the gaps as I get more tanks.)

I want to get another platoon of tanks, then get a couple of combat car platoons along with a few more stands of infantry (especially troops on skimers) and jeeps. After that, I'm going to start a few more detachments so I can try a few demo games of Pireme's Hammer's Slammers game in hopes of generating much-needed interest among my friends so they can build some units of their own.

15mm Hammer's Slammers

Right now I'm engrossed in 15mm science fiction armored combat, particularly Pireme's Hammer's Slammers rules. I've been slowly but surely putting together some armies to run a few games in hopes that I can convince some local players to take an interest and build their own forces. Below, I took some photos of some "official" Slammers vehicles from Old Crow Models and infantry from Ground Zero Games, last year. I've just finished applying decals to the hovertanks and once I finished weathering them, I'll post them here.
I've just ordered a couple of grav tanks from Old Crow that so I can create a detachment of Terran Starmarines. I hope to have them here before the holidays.