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HC SVNT DRACONES Another transhumanist horror RPG coming up

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Mon, 2014-09-01 14:52

Zarpaulus

HC SVNT DRACONES Another transhumanist horror RPG coming up

http://hcsvntdracones-game.tumblr.com/ Like Eclipse Phase it's a Posthuman RPG that takes place after a nuclear war on Earth and traditional nation-states are practically non-existent in the rest of the Solar System. But, the writers seem a bit inclined towards capitalism. The backstory is that mobile construction platforms called "geomats" contained refineries and 3-D printers and could build a city cheaply in a matter of months, enabling the rise of "corptowns" that attracted people with their lack of laws. Tensions rose between the corptowns and the old governments for a long time, MarsCo colonized the red planet, and then things spiraled out of control when the corps began to engineer bipedal animals (fine, it's a furry RPG) as pets and the governments saw them as abominations and ordered them destroyed. MarsCo responded by uplifting their bipedals, now called Vectors, and naming them free citizens of an independent Mars. That, of course, meant war. The Earth-bound Corps kept the governments occupied for a few years, but then the nukes came out. When the dust settled Earth seemed to be sterilized. MarsCo was the only power left standing, though other MegaCorps spun off over the centuries. So yeah, they tried to make corporate semi-feudalism look good. Oh, and a few hundred years after the war Earth seemed to have life again, the expeditions to the planet brought something... else with them. The population of Luna was killed off by creatures that appeared to be made of crystallized blood and burst out of people's chests. Then started to build a ruby tether between Earth and Luna. Needless to say, they're both quarantined. Shockingly, the creators claim they hadn't even heard of Eclipse Phase. HC SVNT DRACONES (here there be dragons) is supposedly hitting Kickstarter this week.

Mon, 2014-09-01 19:34

puke

Get off of my lawn

wow, you're right. it is a Furry RPG. Neither the first nor last, I guess. I'm a little surprised that they think there is a large enough of a target market for it. Gamers are a small community, and RPGs have small profit margins that usually make them labors of love more than anything else. The Furry community is also small. And, while there may be a large intersect between the two, it is still a subset which is smaller than either group. EP can cater easily enough to Furry and non-Furry gamers, but the way they have styled HDS, it will likely exclude... whatever you call gamers who are not furries. Baldies? Breeders? Good for them if they can sell it, I guess. All that aside, i'm a little unclear as to how they'd tether the Moon to the Earth. Does the tether just drag in the atmosphere? have they moved the Moon to a geosynchronous orbit? Is there a giant Ruby (wait for it...) "Rail" on the surface of the Earth along the orbital path of the Moon? And on all the corporatism, I'm guessing they are aiming for more of a post cyberpunk dystopia vibe than a pro capitalist paradise vibe. hard to tell, though. I suppose the thing I'm most disturbed by, is that their web page is a Tumblr. Is this how professionally made products represent themselves now? Is that the world going past me? Hey you furry kids, get off of my lawn!

Mon, 2014-09-01 21:15

ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture

well when you have a tight

well when you have a tight budget you make do with what is available i guess.

Mon, 2014-09-01 21:21

Zarpaulus

Well, it's still pre

Well, it's still pre-Kickstarter. And tumblr probably has a bigger proportional furry population than any other social network site. While I'm led to believe that the crystal-blood creatures, or Whispers, are generally an exception to the "hard" sci-fi of the setting. You know, like the Exsurgent stuff in EP. Who knows how they tethered the Earth and the moon.

Tue, 2014-09-02 00:31

Lilith

...

I don't even have the words right now, honestly. But hey, whatever floats their boat. Good luck to 'em.

Tue, 2014-09-02 00:59

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

How do I read/say hc svnt

How do I read/say hc svnt dracones? Is hc svnt an abreviation of latin or something? "I'd like to buy a vowel please." Ooh! Perhaps that will be one of the game mechanics!

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Tue, 2014-09-02 07:30

GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture

Reminds me a bit of the

Reminds me a bit of the Justifiers thing that was big in german RPGs a few years back. As far as i researched, it started as a regular Sci Fi Planet exploration RP, but then Markus Heitz (who's a hack in my opinion) got it and the current thing has crap rules and the PCs are all half-human/half-animal hybrids. But, hey i wish them luck. I see nothing wrong with RPGs where there are animal people to play. A friend of mine are still fondly remembering our Ironclaw one shot and if its a well crafted world with a good spin mechanicswise, why not? It can only add to the RP community that way.

Tue, 2014-09-02 16:05

Dison

OneTrikPony wrote:How do I

OneTrikPony wrote:
How do I read/say hc svnt dracones? Is hc svnt an abreviation of latin or something?

Latin can be tricky sometimes, but to the best of my knowledge, it's pronounced Hic (Like a hiccup) Soont (Like soon), Dra-kone-aes (Latin doesn't really do soft Cs). I'm not sure why hic is abbreviated, but v in Latin is used as a U or W sound, and they didn't use soft Cs or V sounds much. Hope that helps.

Tue, 2014-09-02 17:32

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Thanks Dison,

Thanks Dison, I wasn't sure if it was an abreviation or a community in-joke/code. Im a bit behind on my webculture. just found out that emoticons stopped being cool. :'(

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Tue, 2014-09-02 18:42

#10

Dison

It's not an in-joke or code

It's not an in-joke or code to any knowledge I have (I admit to not being a furry). It's just Latin for "Here be Dragons", AKA "Beyond this point things are unmapped and/or dangerous", an old and infamous phrase that turned up on a lot of old maps.

Tue, 2014-09-02 19:09

#11

ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture

a lot of old maps and more

a lot of old maps and more recently repurposed by the dnd community the other well known term for uncharted land is terra incognita

Wed, 2014-09-03 21:26

#12

Zarpaulus

Well, if anyone's interested

Well, if anyone's interested the Kickstarter's up: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1448273438/hc-svnt-dracones

Sat, 2014-09-06 10:46

#13

Zarpaulus

It made funding, with 28 days

It made funding, with 28 days to go.

Sat, 2014-12-13 21:39

#14

Zarpaulus

The backer edition of the

The backer edition of the rulebook came out a few days ago. You might be interested to know that it has both Uploading and Farcasting. However, they're very expensive, 2,500 credits for a new body and 1,000 credits to Farcast (not a typo, I asked, capitalism), while chartering a flight to any inhabited planet costs only 80 credits. It takes four weeks to rehabilitate after receiving a new body. And it seems that an "Ego" can only be imprinted on a brain while it's being grown, there's no "used" bodies, the old body is euthanized, though you can sell the organs to recoup part of the cost and it takes less than ten hours to grow a clone.

Tue, 2015-04-28 09:14

#15

GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture

It popped up again on a few

It popped up again on a few of my channels. Has anyone here actually looked into it more in-depth? They are apparantly churning out books, so they seem to have found their niche.

Wed, 2015-04-29 00:59

#16

Zarpaulus

Well, I'm in one of the Beta

Well, I'm in one of the Beta-tests for the rules for "Cog" characters that are coming out in the first supplement. They basically tried to make AGIs as human as possible while still having metallic frames. They actually have families and childhoods, to the point where they resleeve through a succession of bodies over the course of twenty years. Which Applied Sciences and Robotics provides for free, upgrades will cost you though, a lot of Cogs start out in debt to ASR anyways.

Wed, 2015-04-29 10:28

#17

GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture

How do you rate the core

How do you rate the core rules? The setting?

Wed, 2015-04-29 13:12

#18

Zarpaulus

To be honest the rules seem a

To be honest the rules seem a bit half-baked. There's been at least two updates to fix typos and rebalance the Ledger system. And I've seen at least one person complain about the dice system, though everyone else thought he was just whining about it being different. Traits are differentiated by size and number of dice, and skills modify the numbers on the dice with the level of success being determined by how many dice come up with 8 or higher after all modifiers are applied. There's also no "XP", you gain new skill points every two weeks in game if you're using a device that teaches you in your sleep and trait increases every 3 or 4 sessions. I personally think it's rather interesting. The setting, I personally like it but there's going to be some people who are turned off simply because it's "furry".