2202 - This Week in Hobby
Naming the Adepta Sororitas, WH40K rules updates, and new TTRPGs abound.
Naming the Adepta Sororitas
I love a warrior-philosopher. She'll kick your entire ass, but feel ways about it. To the best of my knowledge there aren't many philosophers in the canon 40K universe. That doesn't mean I can't add one. That's something else I love. Warhammer is pliable, plastic enough to admit its players creative juices, like a grimdark tres leches cake.
Put a bird on that thought process. I promise we'll come back to it in a moment.
Restrictions breed creativity. Faced with unlimited possibility I often get stuck in a quagmire of options. Give me some restrictions to work around, and I'll figure out a way to work around them. That propensity made me a nuisance in school, but can be channeled as a busy adult with many important things to do.
One restriction I set for myself: any new Warhammer armies start at 500 points. A combat patrol that can only grow through use of the narrative campaign rules. This applies a limit to how much I spend; armies that I play the most, grow the most. It also provides the start of a narrative arc. When I set out to build that initial 500 point list I'm often thinking about what kind of story I want to tell. Who will these units be when there's 2000 points of them?
Lately I've been thinking about a new force of the Adepta Sororitas. I come late to their 9th edition update, by way of having been very into the Adeptus Mechanicus at the time they were refreshed. Don't worry, we'll come back to the toasters at some point.
When I create a crusade force I often start with a name. An evocative and interesting name is itself a form of limitation. Why do they have that name? Few names spring out of thin air, so what qualities would lead a force to be called what they're called.
Without providing any context, I asked friends across many social spaces, several of which have nothing to do with hobby, to pick between four candidate names for the sisters. I wanted to see where people would gravitate when they didn't know the purpose. Which sets of words, wholly divorced from their meaning, resonated.
My friends seemed to like "Obsidian Sepulcher." It's definitely evocative. Why is it obsidian? Sepulcher to whom? It didn't feel right. As thoughts about the order started to coalesce in my head, it didn't match up with the other ideas I was having.
I ended up going with The Order of the Alabastrine Candle. Imagine a single candle made of carved marble. It shouldn't be lit, there's no wax or oil or wick, yet it burns eternal. A miracle of the Emperor's grace made manifest, with an entire order of the Adepta Sororitas dedicated to its protection. Where did this candle come from? Why is it lit? Who carved it? These are the questions that fall out as a natural consequence of the name, and I look forward to discovering the answers.
Shiny Trash and Other New Things
Games Workshop
The first battlebox of the new Age of Sigmar 3.0 ruleset is finally landing. Fury of the Deep pits the Idoneth Deepkin against the Fyreslayers for the title of "most shirtlessness." Armor? Never met him. Each faction gains a new character, and the box contains 43 minis in total. Release date and price not yet set, but the box is due "early 2022."
Fresh off inventing the word "seasons," which nobody has ever used before, Warhammer 40K has rebranded their semi-annual content and competitive rules update. The first of these "seasons" returns to Vigilus, the lone and tenuously-held bastion of travel into the Imperium Nihilus. Expected to last through the first half of 2022, with campaign book, mission packs, points updates, and new box set for Kill Team coming soon.
The new Genestealer Cults and Adeptus Custodes codexes will finally be available to pre-order Saturday. Planned to launch alongside the Shadow Throne box in December, but then gestures vaguely at everything.
TTRPGs
If you've ever wanted to play Scooby Doo: The RPG, you might want to check out the kickstarter for Ghost Club RPG. Developed for kids as young as 10 or as old as 100, this dice-heavy and system-light RPG aims for short sessions of investigation and puzzle solving. There is no plan for a physical release while the system marinates. Backers will receive updated PDFs as appropriate.
DMs and aspiring writers should check out About a World: a Worldbuilding Narrative Handbook. This workbook offers tools and advice for building a new world from the ground up in a fun and fully-illustrated format.
Board Games
How to Create Your First Board Game is entering its 6th edition and available through Kickstarter. Sections include popular trends, hand-drawn prototypes, graphic design tools, and navigating Kickstarter itself.
Programming Notes
I'm currently considering ways to incorporate TTRPG Archeology into the newsletter. I have a deep back-catalog of forgotten and under-appreciated games. Some hidden gems, some rightfully maligned. If you have ideas for systems I could look into or the format of such a newsletter, let me know in the comments!
In Other News
Dicebreaker put out a list of ten small-publisher TTRPGs that they think people "might have missed" in 2021. Highlights include Bucket of Bolts, Wanderhome, and World Wide Wrestling 2E. All are games I will dig into in future issues of this very newsletter.