Want A New Avatar?

If you're looking to try out a cool new avatar for your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or other social network, take the 7 questions in our How Strange Are You? quiz! You'll discover whether you're an ally of Ruk, Ardeyn, or Earth. Then download the badge for your faction and make it your avatar!

Behind the Scenes: whichever faction of The Strange achieves its goal by the end of The Strange Kickstarter (https://www.bit.ly/TheStrange) will get an extra full-color illustration by lead artist Matt Stawicki, and all backers will receive the art as a desktop wallpaper. Further, all allies of that faction will be able to vote on the contents of the illustration.

(As of the time of this writing, Ardeyn holds onto its lead with 45% of the votes tallied. Earth remains second at 32%, while Ruk trails with only 23%. Can Ruk get back into it? Only if more people take the quiz! Tell your friends; they can take the quiz even if they're not backers!)

Something Strange On The Horizon

After I left Wizards, I started putting together an outline for a sci-fi novel. But then MCG made me an offer to join the team. So I pitched my novel idea, except as a game called The Strange. And guess what? Monte and Shanna loved it!

Which leads us to where we are today, just a couple months later. We’re going to launch a Kickstarter for a new game, co-designed by myself and Monte Cook, called The Strange (UPDATE: We launched it here!). The Strange uses the Cypher System game engine. As you probably know, the Cypher System also powers Numenera. What's cool is that The Strange is going to allow us to use the mechanics in some new and very exciting ways.

When you play The Strange, you'll be able to translate between different worlds, called recursions, that have been seeded "around" Earth. Yes, that's right: Earth. The game setting includes modern day Earth. The image showing the Space Needle in Seattle is no whim. But in some recursions, sorcery, super-science, and even stranger rules of existence are all too real.

Be ready. Something Strange is just on the horizon!

Nalurus and Numenera Design Esthetic

One of the creatures I'm working on for Numenera Bestiary has the working name Nalurus. The unedited* description follows.

A nalurus looks like an ordinary person, but one who always wears a hood or mask. It may be pretending, even to itself, that it's still human, despite the terrible infection it survived but still carries. The nalurus's infection is transmitted by sight. If a living humanoid or related creature sees a nalurus without its hood and looks full upon the disquieting lines, spirals, and geometric shapes laid out in ridges across the creature's face, the awful pattern imprints on the victim's mind. Something in the interplay of information, refraction, and the physical structure of the victim's brain itself sets off a cruel and rapid chain reaction. What begins as a pinkish nose drip ends when the victim's brain completely liquefies and exits the victim's head from eyes, nose, mouth, and ears less than a minute after the infection occurred.

My concept for the nalurus was born from my real fear of a disease called Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD). CJD is an incurable and fatal brain disease that is caused by a type of protein called a prion. Prions are misfolded proteins that infect other nearby proteins merely by being close enough to incite those proteins to misfold. It becomes a sort of chain reaction that, over months, dissolves the brain. Obviously, over a billion years, it's gotten more aggressive . . .

But telling readers all about CJD in the Nalurus monster description itself, or the science behind some other monster I'm writing, despite it being my first instinct to do so, isn't actually the way to go to maintain the Numenera design esthetic. It turns out, I needed to deprogram, and I'm thankful the MCG team was there with the design and editorial insight that allowed me to do so. At the end of the day, Numenera is a game designed to inspire a sense of wonder, mystery, and weirdness in its players, not explain the science of how prions misfold, the underlying mechanism behind spurn evolution, or how an amber monolith might be able levitate for so many thousands or even millions of years. For most people, those specific explanations will come across as technobabble. Revealing the entire answer to a mystery is sort of like telling a joke, then before anyone can appreciate it, following up with "The reason that's funny is because [proceed to ruin joke here]."

We (I, Monte, and Shanna, if they'll allow me to speak for them) are not suggesting that a designer shouldn't have such background information in his or her back pocket, possibly even to reveal the edges of in a monster description if it seems right to do so, or indeed, available for some other purpose (for instance, such as a blog post like this one). We're just saying that the main body of a Bestiary monster entry itself isn't the best place to pull back the curtain, at least not all the way and certainly not every time.

*Unedited, pre-layout, and truth-to-tell, working version of the monster. The name could change, or for reasons, we might decide this monster shouldn't go in the Bestiary.

Numenera Bestiary and the Spurn

I've been working on the Numenera Bestiary for a couple weeks. I haven't had this much fun writing monsters since I co-wrote Libris Mortis. Which, now that I think of it, was the last time I had the opportunity to create an entire new set of monsters without any real restrictions other than theme.

(Numenera? If you don't know, go read this, then come back. I'll wait.)

So, yeah, the Numenera Bestiary. It turns out I get to write about half the creatures that'll be appearing in the product. The very first creature I created has the working name "spurn." (The spurn are, so far, the only monster in my concept collection that have an irregular plural form: 1 spurn and 20 spurn are both correct usage. Later editorial oversight could nix that.)

From afar, a gang of spurn seem nothing more than humanoids in oily rags. But up close, they're revealed as creatures formed of smashed machines, shattered synth, matted hair, drippy sludge, and garbage. Spurn are self-organizing collections of refuse that evolved among the landfills and dumps of previous civilizations over deep time.

I'm biased, but I love the concept. In the Ninth World, even "simple" dirt isn't actually simple. In fact, it's not even called dirt; it's drit, a fine, artificial soil made from microscopic pieces of ancient, unknown technologies and structures. Which makes drit fertile soil for creatures like spurn to spring up, so to speak.

I'm hoping to write about what I'm working on in the Numenera Bestiary in future posts, and give you an insight into some of the ways I'm approaching design. Until then, iadece!

Parking In Seattle

I found out last night about a 'no parking w/in 5' of a driveway' law courtesy of a crazy Seattle homeowner. A necessary law or an excuse for extortion? I guess it depends on the circumstances.

I know how I come down on this particular case. It's not fun to come out of a friend's house to discover your car is mysteriously missing, and you must figure out your next steps with no clue other than the mere fact that the car is gone.

At the end of the day, I'm glad my car wasn't stolen, but instead towed, and that I had the necessary resources (friends to drive me to its new location, cash in my bank account, wits to figure out how to track it down in the first place) to get it back.

Bruce R Cordell is joining Monte Cook Games

Did you hear the big news announced last night at Gen Con? I'm joining Monte Cook Games as a Senior Game Designer! (Click here for official press release.)

Words can hardly express how excited I am to join my friends Monte, Shanna, Charles, and Tammie on Numenera.

Which is fabulous, because how could I not love a game set a BILLION years in the future? Where genetically altered monstrosities, flesh-warping radiation, creatures transplanted from distant stars, and clouds of out-of-control nanobots wander? Where ruins can be found, ruins surviving out of deep time from eight previous civilizations that rose and fell on Earth, some of which weren't even human? Yeah.

Numenera is right up my alley. Sign me up. (Wait, I've been signed up. -FIST PUMP!-) I'll have more to say later. It's going to be a wild ride, and I'm ecstatic to be on board.

I'm Going To Gen Con!

Recent developments mean that I'll be at Gen Con this year!

Of course, I just arrived home from Space City Con, where I got to tour NASA, cosplay as Dr. Horrible and Malcolm Reynolds, make friends and hang out with one of my favorite scifi authors Elizabeth Bear, run three days of D&D, and do all of this while enjoying the incomparable company of my sweetie Batgirl (and my pals Hobo Lord and Lady Gumdrop). You might imagine that Gen Con's got its work cut out for it, if it wants to follow that act.

You might imagine that, but the truth is, Gen Con 2013 is shaping up to be pretty fracking awesome in its own right. See you there?

Seven Questions

I talked with Artificer's Intuition about the 2nd Edition Monstrous Arcana "Evil Tide" adventure trilogy I penned, and other topics. 

An excerpt:

QUESTION: What's the story behind the Evil Tide adventure path? I've never really been able to find any history behind it.  

BRC: The Evil Tide adventure path got its start by being part of a planned series of "coffee-table-like books with lots of great art" (called Monstrous Arcana) that each would feature one of D&D's most notable monsters. Illithids, beholders, sahuagin, for starters. Each of these coffee-table books were slated to be supported by three connecting adventures. Skip Williams had already written the source book Sea Devils. But I was given the opportunity to write the three supporting modules.

All seven questions (and answers) can be found at:

http://artificersintuition.blogspot.com/2013/07/7-questions-with-bruce-r-cordell.html 

Space City Con Aug 2-4 in August

I'll be a gaming guest for Space City Con in Houston, Texas next month. If you're in the area in August on the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th, stop by and say hi!

Along with Robert J Schwalb and Miranda Horner, I'll be running a table of D&D Next each day. Come by and play a game at Space City Con! I promise not to TPK. Much.

While you're at it, you can meet some of the many media guests. If you're lucky, perhaps Jewel Staite will call you a ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng.

http://spacecitycon.com/

Farewell Wizards and Thank You

It’s with mixed emotions that I announce the end of my 18-year run at Wizards (and TSR before that). I gave my notice last week and will be leaving the company.

Art by Arnie Swekel for "The Illithiad"

This isn’t an easy departure for me, both because of my long history with Wizards, and my recent good luck to be a member of the 5E Dungeons & Dragons design team. I’m thrilled to be part of 5E, and proud of what we accomplished: a kick-ass set of D&D rules. The team is on track to carry D&D Next to wide success.

Overall, my years at Wizards have allowed me to work alongside and learn from talented, creative, and innovative game designers, novel authors, and editors (professional editors, my friends, are worth their weight in platinum). Every project and novel was a chance for me to learn something new and hone my skills. Wizards granted me the opportunity to indulge myself telling stories, then gave me the ability to share those stories with the world.

Likewise, working at Wizards allowed me to develop fantastic relationships and enduring friendships. Everyone at Wizards is a superstar, both those presently employed and all those who’ve left before me. I hope that my future adventures will allow me to team up with many of them again for more forays into the dungeon.

But ultimately, every story ends so that new ones can begin. I’m looking forward to discovering what those stories will be.

UPDATE 2015: Since this post continues to draw traffic, let me add that I accepted a job with MonteCookGames (MCG) just a month after leaving Wizards. Together Monte and I wrote The Strange RPG (plus a ton of other stuff since then).

UPDATE 2018: I'm still at MCG! Last year saw the first novel I've written since leaving Wizards published by Angry Robot called Myth of the Maker. And literally the day before almost dying, I wrapped up the design on Numenera Destiny, the new companion corebook that expands Numenera into a two-corebook game. Moving forward from here are more Numenera 2 related projects that will likely see me through the rest of the year. (Though I also got to try my hand at some Invisible Sun design). In 2019, I'll be moving on to begin design on the updated Cypher System Rulebook and The Stars Are Fire science fiction extravaganza! 

Author Affirmation Sword of the Gods

Sometimes, I discover wonderful messages like this in my email inbox that make my day:

Good evening, sir! I wanted to take a moment to tell you how much I have enjoyed your Sword of the Gods series. I'm a PhD student, and don't get much time to read things that aren't journal articles. Once I picked up the first book, I couldn't put it down! It set my imagination free in a way that hadn't happend in years! Thank you for bringing that back to me. I needed it.

Mandated: Ice Vests For All! (And a Carbon Tax)

The recent heat wave saw me tinkering with my latest invention: an ice-vest/chest personal cooling unit. Tinkering conceptually, at least ;-). But the ice vest is a symptom of a much larger climate concern.

Those with more power than I to affect change need to address it: Congress should mandate personal ice vests for everyone!

No, not really. Actually (or, maybe in addition to?), they need to adopt the economists' simple, one-page answer to climate change: tax carbon emissions.

Henry Jacoby, an economist at MIT's business school, says the one thing you need to do to solve the problem is to tax fossil fuels in proportion to the amount of carbon they release. That would make coal, oil and natural gas more expensive. That's it; that's the whole plan.

So simple but yet so effective. Then again, I'd probably want to add a phase in period of 10 years so as not to shock the economy too badly. Otherwise... let's get on this plan, Congress, pronto!

(Oh, and call me if you want more detailed plans regarding my the hybrid vest/chest air conditioner.)