Ov The start of the End and the Heritage of Demons
over 1 year ago – Sat, Jan 07, 2023 at 07:42:30 PM

2023 and new horrific possibilities of everything turning into darkness! We've had some time to recouperate and we're more motivated than ever to get this MAJESTIC MAJESTIC game into your hands! With that said...

FIRST

As we were warned our printing house have now closed Q1 and the books won’t go into production until earliest April. The final layout has been started as planned and even if we’re still poking around in the mechanics section, we’re hopeful that we can show you a final first part of the book as pdf at the end of this month.

The larger sections of part II and part III are finished and we’re using this extra time to add some spice to the lore parts and to expand the illustrations somewhat.

SECOND
All of you who have backed the Legendary Edition will get your names into the Legendary Credits and these will be using the name you’ve entered in the Survey. If you’d like to change the name this will be done manually (because we’re idiots), and if so you need to contact us with what name you want to replace and with what.

We’re still missing some of the Corum and Cernunnos submissions and if you have not seen any mail from us yet you should get in touch with us pronto since the window is closing and we’d hate to have some of our most devoted backers miss out on this opportunity.

THIRD

One section I hadn’t planned on being in this book has turned out to be one of my favorites. And in retrospect, this section is actually somewhat of the core of the game world. I really like how it turned out and I’ve just started layout on it and can show you some previews.

(Note: None of this has been proofread yet and as such obligatory gramatics and conventional language conventions might be completly disregarded. If you feel offended we advise you to contact the Satanic Ministry of Obligatory gramatics.)

The section is about the heritage of Fracture so to speak. It is pretty in depth and explains the different “family trees” of gods and demons and will give GMs a way to immerse their players into the story in a totally different way. It also briefly describes a whole range of creatures and together with our Triptych system also gives stats on many of them.

This will in no way replace our Adversaries section with creatures and full stats, but instead expand upon it and give the GM more inspiration and creatures to use in his games.

Let’s go deeper into one of the gods, Exhilibriz - God of broken car stereos.

BOSS III ‡ Engage 6 (DEVOUR) ‡ AREA 1 (PSYCHIC) ‡ IMMOBILE

As an example the Triptych table for adversaries would explain that this is an Excellent III Boss with the base stats of Bones 4, Damage 13 and Mortality -3.

- Devour gives it a special attack, trapping and dealing damage to a player on a triggered or end trouble that probably needs saving unless they will get more damage next verse.
- Area 1 means that no straining is allowed in conflict with it, meaning this would be a very hard fight.
- Immobile on the other hand means all Story points made with the Movement skill tree are doubled.

So with four words we’ve defined a complete fight/creature with stats, preferred strategies and special “events”. The narrative around them won’t be explained in more depth, we want the GM to use the inspiration and create their own story or creatures with these “bases”.

We plan on doing these stat blocks on many of the creature illustrations making the book feature inspiration for many many different encounters/entities.

Aiiight!!

The Dragon with ten horns turns the chalice of life, creating death in its wake

I want everything that can destroy my life
Everything will happen to me
Crush, mix and swallow

You are to good to follow me there
Down to hell
I want to lose everything myself

I'm on the verge of madness
Blood on my teeth
High and tripping in a dead end

I don’t want to keep you awake
I know you think you’re helping
But I’m in a dead end

"Återvändsgränd" - Daniella Rathana

Ov The power of storytelling and Conducting the darkness
over 1 year ago – Sun, Nov 27, 2022 at 10:18:24 PM

FIRST

Time moves so fucking fast when she wants to and she sure has made November move past in a hurry.

A slight delay in production together with advice from other creators has made us realize that locking credit cards and charging for shipping and add-ons is best done closer to launch and we’ll give you a heads up. 

We’re still hoping for a layout phase in February and production in March, but It is looking more and more likely that final production will be delayed further into April or May but we’re still hopeful and if we encounter any more delays or feel like March isn’t doable we’ll let you know first!

SECOND

We’re very proud of our system with story points, Aspects and Truths and to make it less confusing for new GM’s, we’re currently writing a whole GM chapter with deeper explanations, hints and tips.

Example spread

An Aspect can be so much and only the imagination of the players will set the limits. This will probably scare some players and that’s why we’re also giving the GM a "cheat section" with loads of tips and tricks on how to come up with new and exciting aspects to use in their games.

One of the spreads are full of examples like this, divided in categories giving the GM some hints on what they can use failures or suggest players to use story points with.

Environmental

Cast (You can’t find anything in here, but suddenly you hear voices out in the hall.)
Scene (Something crashes and you suddenly find yourself in pure darkness.)
Setting (As you jump the wall you realize that the other side a long fall down and you are now in free fall, what do you do?)
Weather (As your shaking hands try to load the bullet into the chamber, the heavens above open up and rain starts to pour down.)

Personal
Affliction (A sharp pain travels your spine and when you touch your lower back your hand is covered in blood.)
Flashback (The noises around you awaken memories you rather not have, the world is now a blur of echoes and voices from the past.)
Emotion (You have never thought about the High Inquisitor before, but you realize you harbor a fiery hate for this sick bastard.)
Urge (You are so fucking thirsty, your mouth is as dry as a desert.)

Conditional
Effects (This artifact is cursed in some way, when you touch it you feel something transferring from it to you.)
Limits (This ladder is very weak, only one soul can climb it at one time and if you fail another check, it’ll crash down.)
Quirks (Your Genesis sword develops a bloodthirst. Unless it tastes blood each day it’ll take it from you at the worst possible time.)

Mechanical
Environment (The heavy blood rain is ice cold and obscures sight and sounds as well as movement, you are not able to use any Perception or Movement skills while you are in this Blood fall.)
Stat changing (You realize you’re not as good as you thought at climbing. Switch the values of your Climb and… let’s see… Scrounge skill!)
Skill bonuses (This gun reminds you of another one which you are very fond of. The gun gains +1 Attack bonus.)

THIRD

To give you all an insight into the world of Fracture, today we share some examples of enterprises that the Satanic Court and Church is up to described in the lore.

 
Conducting the choir of stars - When slavers bring souls for sale to the Thrones of the Satanic nobles, this is called Conducting the choir of Stars. An enterprise as dangerous as it is profitable. The mood of the Satanic nobles are fickle and if you catch them on a bad day or with slaves they aren’t happy with, it can end badly.
 

Satanic Hearings - Knowing the basics of Codex Satanas is very important, especially if your local Satanic Church is active and does Satanic Hearings. The dreaded Satanic Hearings are often performed by an entourage of Church legionnaires and a chief Inquisitor or priest, who often leave fear and death in their wake. Extra taxes, additional hearings, confession journeys, public torture, improvised executions and being “marked” in the church archive are some of the punishments you can expect if you either don’t have the right answers or just get on the wrong side of the interrogator.

Belial's "Ceremonies of the Dark" - A secluded mass, very well attended by Belial's huge congregation. The mass always opens with the sacrifice of 100 of her followers, seemingly chosen at random and her church is crowded to the tipping point with hundreds of thousands of her champions of Unlight and Death Singers who long to hear the preaching of "the Second Angel." To be killed by Belial’s Kherubs and Seraphs in this ceremony is one of the most sought after deaths in all of Fracture.

The Registry of Souls - a completely dark and silent vast underground library beneath the Ministry of souls in the Satanic capitol DIS. Book shelves reaching hundreds of meters up, with books, documents and Holtztech containing information on every soul ever present. A handful of librarians, shepherded by Executor Minerva, Director of Registry, are often seen patrolling the library, making life a misery for any visitors or researchers, making their function twofold as assistants and tormentors and it’s not unusual to hear screams from some poor soul who was caught “looking for the wrong information”, did “not know the dewey decimal system” or made some other bureaucratic wrongdoing.

Claiming of Heaven - There are many locations with a “heavenly nature” that the Satanic Court see as abominations and one of their more fruitless enterprises is their search for the “True Gates of Heaven”. A network of conquistadors, Seraphs and Unlight Deathsingers are on never ending quests to find the enigmatic gate. Many false gates have been found leading to all kinds of places in this search. Locations often claimed in the name of Satan, expanding his Black empire.

Mimirsbrunnr - The well of wisdom - This once mythic location is now a fortified factory city of Haxan with enslaved workers. Bottling the springwater of the well, “Mimis water” and exporting it to the rest of Fracture and to the very richest who can pay very handsome for its exquisite and useful properties.

Mimis water
“E6009 MIMIS - Question first, then drink”
“Warning: magnitude of question might kill user”

FOURTH

There have been a lot of requests for wallpapers and finally we present a fresh set.

I cast my halo from perdition´s clay - Coiled in untruths - Breathing the splendor of Unlight

"O Lion-Serpent Sun, the beast that whirlest forth
A thunder-bolt, begetter of life
Thou that flowest, thou that goest
Thou Satan-Sun, Hadith, that goest without will
Thou air, breath, spirit, thou without bound or bond
Thou essence, air swift-streaming, elasticity
Thou wanderer, father of all
Thou wanderer, spirit of all"
 - O Father O Satan O Sun!

Ov Horrors beyond imagination and Crux of production
over 1 year ago – Thu, Nov 03, 2022 at 01:04:37 AM

FIRST

Development is proceeding, maybe not at a perfect pace because of real life issues, but I see progress and I can see the end product taking form. Elizabeth has produced drafts of all the Ancient chapters and this is currently being curated and edited. Pedro is on the last stretch of the mechanics and soon all of the systems are done. Curtis has written some amazing lore and we’ve seen so much potential in his visions, that some of the lore actually has been changed, to fit his stories. 

I’d like to share one of them with you today, exploring the atmosphere around Harvesting Blood Relics.

“Damned souls swarmed the corpse of Leviathan, like ants picking at the wreckage of so much roadkill. They plunged impossibly large needles attached to leather billows through the beasts thick hide. Expanding the billows, they sucked blood from the corpse of the titanic beast.

Its midsection lay pinned open. The slaves of the Haxan crawled into the monster, carrying massive bonesaws, and out with stolen organs and venom sacs. Foreman Smythe barked orders at his thralls, demanding they work faster at stripping the carcass. There was not much time before it would be reborn, and there was still so much profit to be mined.”

SECOND

We’d planned to finish all the Corum and Cernunnos submissions in October but we’re still only half way, so if you are a Corum or Cernunnos Backer and still have not received word on your contribution don’t fret, we’ll get to you soon. We’re still lacking a couple of submissions though, and if you have not received any mail from us, or an answer on your already sent submission, please check your spam folder or write us an email at [email protected]

THIRD

We truly wanted this to be a Halloween update but time slipped through our hands and Astro sort of is Halloween all year round anyway. But we can give you a glimpse of what truly is the horror of Fracture. The largest and most powerful of the Red Gods of the Genesis, the Great Ones!

These massive biomechanical creatures, so active and violent during the REGENESIS are now stagnant, dormant giants, floating in the void, on the bottom of seas, buried in the ground or still standing like massive biomechanical monuments of a time lost.

These are not enemies to be fought in the game, they are one of the end games. Legendary, exotic locations and dungeons of fantastic and macabre design. To explore a section of a Great One is both a treacherous adventure and often a unique setting in itself. Fighting hordes of screeching Granulocytes, ferocious stalking service Macrophages, or exploring Meta Temples or Crypto forests.

The goals of these expeditions are often reached through longer investigations and planning with different steps and precautions, being plotted like a large heist. And the treasures gained from them, are of the highest magnitude in the game, equal to that of blessings of gods.

So let the darknes embrace us, let the night come, unleash the forgotten memories of hope,of lust, of sacrifice!

Drowning deep in my sea of loathing
Broken your servant I kneel
(Will you give in to me?)
It seems what's left of my human side
Is slowly changing in me
(Will you give in to me?)

Down with the sickness

Ov Blackened Hearts and the reading of Futures
over 1 year ago – Mon, Oct 03, 2022 at 03:47:30 PM

 FIRST
 Development is coming along nicely, we have outlined most of the book and I can sort of see how the game will look in the end, even if not everything is finished yet.

 We can’t tell you exactly when the Pledge manager will close, but we believe it will be in late November and we’ll make updates ahead of time to make you all ready for when that is about to happen.

 The planning right now looks something like this:
October - Continued development
November - Pledge manager closes
December - Finishing touches and detailing
January - layout and proofreading
February - Printing and manufacturing
March - April - Shipping
 

SECOND
 Since we haven’t any huge development news I thought we could present one of the additional Destinies added to the core rules.

Rare Blood
 These most humane of Souls live their afterlife on a silver platter. They are equally admired and hated by both souls and unlight, and their opulent lifestyles leaves them vulnerable to pride and greed demons who often ravage them. This Destiny is for anyone who wants to play a character of wealth or importance but also great for players who want to play “human” characters but aren’t fond of the idea of being an Undying. Luxurious, decadent lifestyle high above the misery and despair of common souls, consort with ancients or the court or even involve the players in political intrigues and love affairs among demons and gods.

THIRD
 Had some requests for updates on the Tarot deck and this is turning out far beyond our expectations! The usefulness of the main cards will be staggering and I believe many GMs will use them for many of their roleplaying needs ahead, not only for Astro.

 We have yet to decide the reference part of the cards and the duality of them. Right now we’re focusing on the main four Books and the Major arcana and how to structure them in the best way. The deck will have several functions giving GMs ideas, locations, personalities, skills, Legendary places, events and story ideas. We also want to implement a system to create adventures and future events for the players or give the Psychotech a way to read the future of the party with them, but this is still only plans.
 

The horned one enters your soul, like the spear in the side of christ, like the tongue inside a loved one

 “I will not bow down - I’ll rise through the sun
 I’m transcending - I am claiming my throne
 We are immortal - We rise from the wraith
 We are eternal - You are my blood legion
 My faith!”
- Blood Legion

Ov the Death of summer and the Art of Machines
over 1 year ago – Fri, Sep 02, 2022 at 11:03:43 PM

FIRST

September is here and summer is officially over. Our print shop has closed the order window for 2022 and the dream of a holiday release had a hammer smashed into its face (many dreams deserve such a treatment so it was probably for the best). We’re instead looking for the original 2023 release and hope is to get a slot in January or early February so we can deliver the books in March as intended.

During summer we’ve hired the freelancer Elizabeth Price who will be doing drafts for the remaining lore chapters from our nonsense notes and ridiculous ideas. So now the Haxan team consists of:

Andreas Ruu - Prime Witch

Niclas Berg - Nefarious chancellor

Pedro Latro - Mechanic conductor

Helge C. Baltzer - Miscreant depictor

Curtis M. Lawson - Repugnant scribe

Elizabeth Price - Discordant fictionist

SECOND
There have been some questions about the AI art that is being implemented and I just want to make sure you backers got the right idea of this new direction. We’re not looking to make instant images that look like a jumbled mess and insert them into our high end product. The AI art is being used in conjunction with my own illustrations. Sometimes as backgrounds to existing images, sometimes on its own as landscapes or cityscapes and sometimes as an amalgamation of AI generated art and my own distinct style.

We’re pretty amazed at how far it can take images, create atmosphere, mood and describe scenes. These are some examples of finished pieces for the game including AI art to give you a hint of what the images will look like.

BTW: If you'd like to see more updates and art pieces join our facebook where we share images and WIP stuff whenever we feel the urge to get some likes.

www.facebook.com/AstroinfernoRPG

Many see the AI art as stealing the jobs of illustrators but I see it as a tool that can be utilized as any other to enhance the work of illustrators. Bring new ideas, fasten work flows and just inspire when inspiration has run dry. The day when illustrators are obsolete has not come yet and probably never will.

The future of Astro shines bright in the shadow of the black sun, and as the bitter cold of autumn, engulfs us - the unholy ritual starts anew with increasing and relentless power!

Hell the black goat - Gorge on the milk from it’s crusted tits - as crimson eyes observe the world slowly falling into darkness

Pull on the new flesh like borrowed gloves

And burn your fingers once again

I must have died again, nobody lives forever

This psycho machine

The buzz, the cut, the pain, the love of undercover

When the code breaks we swim