Just want you to know things are still trucking along with Interloper! As the scope of the module and sandbox increased, region locations on Interloper that seemed wrapped needed to be changed and expanded upon with more detail and NPC's relationships need to be reflowed for a better investigation playground. This scope creep means more work and more time, but will lead to a better and more complete book at the end of everything. I'm expecting to go to print by end of September.
Layout, and comprehensive editing will kick off as soon as the manuscript is feature complete and so far the tariff chaos seems to have not caused crazy price hikes in printing costs or holdups with my US based printer but I'm keeping an eye on their production pipeline and building in time to accomodate any delays.
In the meantime I wanted to share the completed PDF version of the add-on module 'Til Death Do Us Part- a space gothic horror mansion module by Josh Domanski (writer of The Bloom and The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow). It's sweet.
Dive into Enoch’s Landing, a once shining symbol of progress now fallen into decay. Within, your crew will be entangled in the desperate plans of the station’s last matriarch. Will they bring forth the salvation she craves or fall victim to the perils within? If anyone wants the physical copy you can still include it as an add-on via the Pledge Manager.
Thanks for your support, I generally like to give a project update once a month and will aim to get back on that going forward.
I'm closing in on the final manuscript to submit to my editor and get into layout. Writing has taken longer as the book has expanded with additional location content and revising the webs of clues.
The central Thomas Forysthe murder mystery in Interloper forms a node network of clues that offers lots of directions to take the investigation. A compelling network of clues is real important on a mystery adventure that isn't linear or solved in a quantum state. It's not too different from designing a dungeon where it's good practice to provide looping and interconnected paths for more varied and interesting navigation choices. The clues act as "doors" between locations on Interloper. For an interesting investigation I've tried to ensure that there's always some clues that are easily found and interpreted to provide forward momentum on investigating, some that are more hidden to discover, and others with a more obscure meaning. Some of these clues lead to entirely different side mysteries and hooks.
I've found variety is also key to the gameability of a sandbox module, allowing players to zig instead of zag. As in previous modules, like Desert Moon of Karth, I've worked to make the world of Interloper more dynamic is filling it with plenty of interesting interactive content hooks in the form of the interplay between NPC's- want they want from each other and the crew as useful tools. Ideally, if your players never even tried to solve the murder, they still have a great time with the module getting up to other shenanigans as various clocks ticks down to doom and mayhem.
Currently we're still on track for a Q3 2025 release!
Here's some of the illustrations for the introduced modified bioforms roaming around Interloper from Francesco Zanieri, doomed to freeze as the planet drifts into darkness.
See ya soon, Joel
P.S: The 'Til Death Do Us Part zine is in final layout and digital versions should be released shortly.
Thanks so much for supporting Interloper and making this the most funded Silverarm project so far! We're on track for getting it to your doorstep Q3 2025. Will be quiet here until next update in February.
Here's the next steps: Surveys are already out and digital PDFS of already created products will go out by end of the month. I'll be sending out monthly updates to keep everyone in the loop and will be checking in to answer any questions you might have. I'm really excited to get this all wrapped up.
Also the preorder store is live for folks who missed the campaign or if you want any add-ons!
PS: Had a couple people ask, the Bastion of the Barren Five brochure adventure is the same as its' former working title Bastion of the Barren Six which was offered with our last Kickstarter. If you already backed that one, it's the same thing.
Thanks so much for all your support. We're getting near the final days and I wanted to share some of the great NPC portraits that Jacob Fleming has been putting out. Each of them has their own desires, relations, tasks for the PC's- and someone is a murderer. In designing Interloper it was important to me that the crews can approach the module without following some singular "correct" path of investigation and still have a sweet time. In a lot of the noir media that inspired Interloper there isn't a lot of black and white morality but a cast of characters covered in varying shades of grey. To achieve this feel I try to keep even adversarial or repugnant NPC's as potential people the crew might be interested in aligning their interests with as they try to solve the murder or get entirely swept up in other sidequests that draw their interests. Uncovering the web of connections and secrets between the inhabitants of Interloper is a investigative or social crawl that should provide some fun routes for exploration. The game is afoot! 🕵️
I'll try to keep the main updates limited to every few days to keep your Mothership Month email load down, but we've really been shooting up fast. At the pace this is going, this is headed towards being the biggest Silverarm crowdfunding campaign ever! Thanks an absolute heap for that, this has been a surreal week.
I've got a few more sweet stretch goals I'm going to throw into the ring but want to make sure they fit well with the production plan. Too many crowdfunding campaigns have been dashed against the rocks of their own wild success by adding too many new stretch goals to a wildly successful campaign and I would like to avoid that.
First one, if we get to 75k, we'll be releasing an Interloper Original Soundtrack album for your enjoyment.
Here's the soundtracks on Spotify for previous releases for Desert Moon of Karth, Abilities Considered Unnatural, Tide World of Mani, and The Shrike. Abilities Considered Unnatural isn't up on Spotify yet but here's a link to the album to peruse along with the rest. We're leaning towards a sort of brooding space noir sound with synths, pianos, and some guitar for this next one but specifics are still up in the air.
Early on we decided we wanted to move away from doing ambient looped longform audio tracks to play over the whole session with the module soundtrack. It seemed like that type of music was already well served by heaps of awesome creators like Tabletop Audio who specialize in that kind of diegetic environmental music.
Instead we went for maximum v i b e s for more of a movie soundtrack type experience that fits each module's mood. With previous albums I've heard from folks that dig listening to it on their commute, in the background while preparing the game for GM inspiration, or playing a select track or two as a closer or opener in their session.
These boppin' albums are the result of the hard work and creative excellence of Eric Hines (Coyote Coast), Kevin Gundlach, and guest appearances by Matti Joy, and Broden Farazmand. Check them out and hit them up if you're looking for some sweet artists for your game music projects.
