[Jon Brazer] Creatures of Distant Worlds: Coming Soon

[Jon Brazer Enterprises]

Jon Brazer Enterprises is happy to announce Creatures of Distant Worlds, a line of creatures that characters discover and encounter during their space travels with stats for the Traveller system. Each in this series of PDF products detail a single creature with artwork, a physical description, details on how it fights, the environment where it lives, and stats ready for immediate use in your game. Additionally, every release in the series contains a paragraph about our forthcoming setting and how that creature interacts within the setting. New creatures arrive every other week.

Creatures of Distant Worlds will be available both individually or as a subscription. Individually downloaded creatures will be available for US$2.00. Our subscription of 5 creatures can be purchased for US$8.50, that ’s less then $1.75 per creature.

Jon Brazer Enterprises - Bringing You the Future

“Traveller” and the Traveller logo are Trademarks owned by Far Future Enterprises, Inc. and are used with permission. The Traveller Main Rulebook is available from Mongoose Publishing.

 

[rust]

This sounds interesting.

Will the series include aquatic creatures, too ?

And will the creatures be mainly "monsters" (= creatures to hunt or
fight), or will there be domestic creatures, too ?

 

[Jon Brazer Enterprises]

Will the series include aquatic creatures, too ?

One of the creatures in this run of 5 will be an aquatic creature. More of a sea monster type with an interesting attack.

And will the creatures be mainly "monsters" (= creatures to hunt or fight), or will there be domestic creatures, too ?

One of these 5 will be both domesticated and wild. Another one might be as well (still debating which ones to lead off with). But the main thrust of this series will be "monsters" to either fight or use to your advantage.

 

[rust]

One of the creatures in this run of 5 will be an aquatic creature. More of a sea monster type with an interesting attack.

Consider that one bought. :wink:

 

[Stainless]

This does sound interesting. I hope there is a preview.

But what is really needed is a book of NPCs!

 

[AndrewW]

This does sound interesting. I hope there is a preview.

But what is really needed is a book of NPCs!

Well there is 760 Patrons.

 

[Stainless]

This does sound interesting. I hope there is a preview.

But what is really needed is a book of NPCs!

Well there is 760 Patrons.

True, but what I mean is a compendium of NPC stats. So when my group decide to pull out a gun in a bar, I can flick to the citizen's section and pick out five random NPCs. Then get a couple of law enforcers. Then a doctor, etc. I don't need plot devices (wich 760 Patrons is), I need canon fodder :twisted:

 

[Jon Brazer Enterprises]

This does sound interesting. I hope there is a preview.

Next week, the free creature get released. The free creature is not part of the subscription.

But what is really needed is a book of NPCs!

*Pulls out paper and jots that down*

 

[AndrewW]

This does sound interesting. I hope there is a preview.

But what is really needed is a book of NPCs!

Well there is 760 Patrons.

True, but what I mean is a compendium of NPC stats. So when my group decide to pull out a gun in a bar, I can flick to the citizen's section and pick out five random NPCs. Then get a couple of law enforcers. Then a doctor, etc. I don't need plot devices (wich 760 Patrons is), I need canon fodder :twisted:

There are some sample NPC's in some of the books that could be used like this. Though you'de have to dig through them. The Spica Career Book has some pregenerated characters for the career's in there you might find useful.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

The Spica book has pregenned careers for ALL of the careers in the TMB as well as the new careers from that book.

 

[kafka]

I am reluctant to buy individual Monsters...as I would rather save my money for a Monster Manual of sorts. The thing about Traveller is that we cannot have just monsters but realistic animals. Will you be releasing samples beforehand? Because, if they meet expectations...I could consider buying a finalized product which would have alot of animals, even if were to be priced more.

 

[AndrewW]

I am reluctant to buy individual Monsters...as I would rather save my money for a Monster Manual of sorts. The thing about Traveller is that we cannot have just monsters but realistic animals. Will you be releasing samples beforehand? Because, if they meet expectations...I could consider buying a finalized product which would have alot of animals, even if were to be priced more.

Next week, the free creature get released. The free creature is not part of the subscription.

So I would assume so.

 

[Jon Brazer Enterprises]

I am reluctant to buy individual Monsters...as I would rather save my money for a Monster Manual of sorts. The thing about Traveller is that we cannot have just monsters but realistic animals. Will you be releasing samples beforehand? Because, if they meet expectations...I could consider buying a finalized product which would have alot of animals, even if were to be priced more.

The Creatures of Distant Worlds line ranges from the mundane (i.e. spiders) to the plausable (a sea creature somewhere between a turtle and a pleasiasaur) to the science horror (zombies) to the genetically engineered (Wait?!? Did I say that???). Its not going to feature things like hippogryphs or displacer beasts or other things straight out of fantasy. They all have a foothold in reality, even if it is a small one in some cases. Between forces like evolution taking a different course than our own and ancient alien races interferring, there are a whole host of possibilities out there for me to play with.

The goal of this series is to give players something new, exciting, and dangerous to discover on a world, plus provide plot hooks (why did some ancient alien race feel the need to populate 10 different worlds in this subsector with this seemingly useless creature, why has this once passive creature suddenly become hostile, etc).

As far as a full collection of creatures goes, I'll be frank. These are being designed with a full manual in mind. Would I like to see the full manual happen, absolutely. But I am still testing demand. Some people prefer their Traveller games to focus on interpersonal interactions and feel there is no use for these in their game; others like to interact with new and unexpected creatures. How much of each, I don't know. Should there be enough demand for a manual, I'll produce it. If not, I'll move onto something else.

The initial run of 6 (1 free and 5 in the subscription) is largely done (tweeks and minor edits to go) so I will be putting them out. Will I do another subscription of 5 (or even 10) afterwards, will I move onto something else, will I start in on the manual at that point, is 1 creature every 2 weeks to fast or to slow, is a subscription model a good idea? There are alot of questions that I hope this run will help me begin to answer. All I can say for the time being is, "We'll see."

 

[kristof65]

Hmm interesting.

I'm interested in seeing how you present these. I don't know that I'd buy into a subscription model, but I probably would buy a monster manual type source book. The other thing I would do is buy individual critters as they met my needs - FREX, if my players crashed on a desert world, I would likely look through and buy one or more desert creatures (assuming I could).

Also wondering - what type (if any) of artwork shoud we expect with these? If I'm presenting one of these to my players as an encounter, I'm going to want a picture to show them. Are we talking b&w, color, computer generated, line art, etc?

 

[Jon Brazer Enterprises]

Also wondering - what type (if any) of artwork shoud we expect with these? If I'm presenting one of these to my players as an encounter, I'm going to want a picture to show them. Are we talking b&w, color, computer generated, line art, etc?

All b&w or greyscale for ease of printing. Mostly line art. You'll get a beter idea next week when the free creature comes out: the Sand Cobra.