Small start-of-the-year update as we come to the end of the longest most hellish January of all time.
Basically writing is ongoing still, I have a deadline of getting my draft over to Chris Airaiu on February 9th for editing. Then hoping to get into layout vibes towards the end of February.
The first of the zine spot art has landed and is looking great. Here's some NPC portraits from Malachi Ward:
Logan Wolftraxx - self-styled ‘District Governor’ of Malvolio. Was rich but rapidly pumping all his money into making the district a success.
Bortheen - owner of Malvolio's extremely exclusive and secretive bordello.
Aros Mains - legendary fashionista, his flagship store is in Malvolio and clothing manufacturing in the wider Dream.
Some other bits of Mothership interest:
Chris Airaiu and Waco Matrixo - two of my MoshMo speed dials - have projects launching early next week for zine month. You should definitely take a look at these:
BLAME!/Halflife inspired shifting megastructures in Twisting Unseen.
Your players are parasitic worms vying for control of a scientist host in Cain Sun.
I also love the sound of this collection of worms-based horror from Terry Herc - I read The Troop last year and it made me think there's not enough worms-based horror in Mosh, so good to see both Waco and Terry taking steps to address this.
That's been a month already since the end of Moshmo25, during which time I've managed to get down from Inverness to Dragonmeet in London, meet a bunch of folks I've only previously met online and catch a brutal con-flu which I'm only just getting over now.
The update on Hippocrene is fairly short this month as it's mostly:
Finishing the script which sits squarely with me. After a lot of stop-start breaks I've got most of the day today and a full day tomorrow on this now, which I'm really excited about.
Art briefing is in progress. I've got layout templates from Lone Archivist that will work for most of the key spreads in the zone, and will be using these to put in my artwork brief to Malachi Ward for the spot art in the zine. I'm very excited to see what we get back here since he did such an amazing job with the cover art.
Patches have been ordered/paid for but not finalised yet. These are getting produced in the USA and I want to stall that order a bit until we're allowed to ship our goods to the TKG warehouse.
The Bonus Pamphlet stretch goal is ticking along well too. I've had the initial script for this through from DG Chapman, which looks like it'll be a fun 'who's got the diamond' jewellery heist in Hotel Mi Casa, one of the locations in the Malvolio district, the setting for Hippocrene.
I think that'll do for now.
Have a bangin' festive holiday when it comes, I'll catch you in January.
We're into the final day and a bit of Mothership Month 2025.
This one has really pinged by for me.
Last year I fired out these updates at least once a week, bright-eyed and full of sci-fi pith and vinegar. There was cheeky, choose-your-own-adventure style polls, hidden backer-only sections; the lot. This time I've felt more like a wizened vet, chewing on some kind of matchstick thing at the back of the room while others get the buzz of crowdfunding for the first time. A Backerkit version of that fisherman in Jaws, but not as useful.
I'll keep some more in depth updates on what's going into the module for my monthly(ish) updates as we go through development. This will be things like the workings of the Cult of the Hippocrene (think Eyes Wide Shut crossed with Needful Things), or more about the 4 individual modules that you can weave into a rollicking conspiracy.
Some bits of news:
Stretch Goals
Today we hit the 17k stretch of a FREE digital pamphlet for all backers, written by DG Chapman (Haunting of Ypsilon 14), and we've got one more left - 19K will net all physical backers a print version of the pamphlet. So tell your friends about the Hippocrene, or gift your mum a copy for Christmas (2026).
(Fun unofficial stretch goal: if we hit 20K I should be able to fix the hole in my roof that had rainwater pouring in through my office ceiling this morning.)
Cross collab
The other way to squeeze as much out of this project is to also back Waco Matrixo's Prospero Protocols, which Hippocrene is cross-collab'd with. Cross-collab is a cool feature from Backerkit, where if you get exclusive rewards if you back both projects. In our case, it's going to be a pdf pamphlet about the hunt for a cryptid in the area that will go on to become the Malvolio District, the setting for Drink From The Hippocrene.
It's not a competition by any means, but we've got 56% of our backers backing both projects:
So that's pretty cool - I think the zines fit together well and grabbing both will get you a bunch of cool stuff to run at your table. Waco wrote Decagone, so 'nuff said really.
That's it really.
Thank you all for your support as always; it is still pretty mind-blowing for me to get to be able to work on something as exciting and creative as this, and I really will try my hardest to make Drink From The Hippocrene the best zine about greedy, obsessive, rich cultists slowly descending into destructive madness that you have in your Mothership collection.
Cheers, Andrew
Angus is like 'my guy shuuuut uuuup wake me up when Overtime is over.'
Well, those first 48 hours of the campaign seem like about a month ago and also yesterday at the same time. Since we're into the quieter middle weeks I thought it would be good to recap where we are with our stretch goals, and tell you about a new one.
Executive summary
All stretch goals hit!
More art from our cover artist, Malachi Ward.
Audio assets.
An additional location.
A web app, in-game asset - the Haunted Boombox.
A soundtrack.
New stretchies:
£17K: free PDF bonus pamphlet module by DG Chapman (Haunting of Ypsilon 14, Another Bug Hunt).
£19K: the above module gets upgraded to a print version free to all physical backers.
In more detail
In typical Mothership community fashion you folks nuked all my stretch goals bar one in the first 48 hours, with the final one funding a couple of days later. So this now adds:
More art—More internal spot art by our cover artist Malachi Ward. Does what it says on the tin.
A suite of audio assets—exact details of what these will be are TBC and will become more apparent when we get to playtesting, but expect at least one of them to be creepy cultist chanting, probably heard from a distance, or through a vent.
A new location—Hotel Mi Casa will serve as a hub for activity in the new Malvolio district, owned by the self-styled governor of Malvolio, Logan Wolftraxx (more on Mi Casa in our new stretch goal below).
A web app—for use in the zine module The New Sound. Located in part inside Deth's Disco, Malvolio's premiere nightspot, The New Sound is a bit of a fetch quest, where the crew have to help a group of disillusioned ravers locate 4 cassette tapes, that, when played simultaneously from a special boombox, create a sound never before heard by mortal ears. The plan is to make a web app version of this boombox to be used in game. Definitely one of the more unusual stretch goals here!
One of the stickers found in our Physical Bundle tier
Soundtrack—still very much still TBC with this but my plan is for some theme tunes to accompany some of the locations, as well as longer atmospheric music beds. Not gonna lie, there's probably going to be something that resembles the track from the blood rave in Blade, too. New Stretch goal!
To celebrate adding the new Mi Casa Hotel location to the zine, I've added in a new stretch goal - a bonus pamphlet module written by DG Chapman! Sir Chapman is well known as the author of some of MoSh's most rite-of-passage modules like The Haunting of Ypsilon 14 and Another Bug Hunt. He also served time as editor for my first module last year, The Dose Makes The Poison.
The new pamphlet module will be a free add-on as pdf at 17K and a print add-on to all physical tiers if we hit 19K. I've been so slow to update you folks that we're currently sitting at about 16.2K already, so we're well on our way to getting that pdf already!
The pamphlet is designed to be a way to get your crew inside the exclusive, gated zone of Malvolio—a place that your (no doubt) rag-tag, scumsville players would have no business frequenting normally.
Here's the synopsis:
The Robinson Affair
Hotel Mi Casa is among the most exclusive and expensive accommodation available to visitors on Prospero’s Dream, frequented by the high rollers and kingpins of rimspace’s criminal underworld. Each new guest that passes through its doors brings with them a wealth of rumour and intrigue to rival their fiduciary prowess.
A wealthy patron has approached you with a proposition. Disguised as hotel staff, you will infiltrate the Swan in order to steal one of the most valuable treasures ever to pass through its doors, the Robinson Diamond. The fabled jewel is confirmed to be in situ at the hotel, in the possession of one of its current guests.
The only question left is, which one?
So sort of Ocean's 11—IN SPACE.
That's it for now. I'll be back with another update later this week.
Just a quick note to say thank you for such an amazing start to our Mothership Month campaign.
We’re already at 4x our funding goal, and bumped through no less than 4 stretch goals - this happened last year too… this year I thought I was being more ambitious but you folks have stepped up again.
So far we’ve got more art from Malachi ward, additional audio files to accompany the module, the addition of Hotel Mi Casa as a hub location, and a Haunted Boombox web app to accompany the module The New Sound (more on that in another update).
There’s still a couple of stretch goals outstanding, adding yet more art and a soundtrack to accompany your games. There might even be something else in the pipeline should we hit these remaining two soon.
And, if you backed at a physical tier there will be the exclusive 48 hour patch below winging it’s way to you too, sometime in 2026:
