Is it dead?
Moderators: Immortals, Supreme Beings, Old Ones
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OrionPrime
- D-Bee
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:26 pm
Is it dead?
Well nothing for Splicers was listed on the projects list linked in the latest news letter. so anyone think we will ever see anything published for Splicers?
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Guy_LeDouche
- Megaversal® Ambassador
- Posts: 829
- Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:29 pm
- Location: Charleston, SC
Re: Is it dead?
At the risk of sounding like a jack hole, the game has been dead for a long time. At least as far as official Palladium support. Its the fans that kept it alive as long as it has, and sadly, that's a dwindling number.
In all honesty, the game never really had much Palladium support. There's a variety of reasons behind it, but it all boils down to that one bottom line. Even after initial publishing, almost everything that came afterwards was fan based and written. Even the Legion source book, which ultimately saw the light of day finally, was a project written completely by fans for fans.
For years, Splicers had a pretty dedicated fan base and they were some of the most creative and supportive people. We flooded the boards, our material was constantly in the Rifter, and ultimately a lot of the material was placed in the new special hardcover. But officially, never got a whole lot of support from Palladium.
I can only speak for my experience, but for a couple of years there was a cadre of about a dozen or so ultra dedicated fans who wanted to see the universe grow and thrive. Legion was completed, the Technojacker source book had been completed and turned in, and a couple of us had mapped out and started working on a few other books we thought would be great to round out the universe as a whole.
We got a few victories, but largely met with resistance and apathy from the powers that be at Palladium. For a number of reasons, some justifiable, others I disagree with, Palladium had little interest in expanding the universe.
After literal years of no forward motion whatsoever, I pretty much abandoned Splicers. You can only but your head against an artillery shell so many times before you finally decide there are better battles to fight.. Taking a look at the Technojacker book for example, that was completed and submitted for publication almost 10 years ago at this point.
Some of us have stayed in gaming, other still dabble in it a little bit. One of our cadre launched his own gaming company and has had at least two successful Kickstarters that I know of, maybe more. I've been working on something with one of the other folks from the group that we hope to launch end of this year, early next if the universe will finally cut us a break. But ultimately, most of us have reluctantly left Splicers behind.
And to me, that's the real shame of it. That was by far my favorite PB game universe. It wasn't without its flaws and there were definite areas of improvement, but the setting itself was phenomenal. And you could literally play it as anything you wanted, it could be action, sci-fi, horror, even post apocalypse in a way. It just depended on you, your imagination, and what direction you wanted to take the game. I have, and will always believe that Palladium missed the boat with Splicers.
I hope this didn't sound too depressive, and I am glad that people are still interested in the game. I may not contribute anymore, but I do pop by the boards every couple of months just to see what's floating around.
For anyone interested in our Splicerverse plan, here's a rough outline of what we had wanted to do:
1. Legion
2. Splicers: Blood and Iron (Technojackers!)
3. Splicers: Underworlds (one I was really excited about, a source book or two detailing the underground environments, habits and structures, the joys of cave and tunnel warfare, and the ongoing battles beneath the surface of ground and oceans)
4. Splicers: The Shadow War (this was Espionage and spy craft in the world of splicers. The Intrigue between the great houses and other resistance groups, and was going to introduce the concept of a whole secret war in the shadows being waged between Scarecrows and Skinjobs.)
5. Splicers: The Hard Roads (Road Warrior antics, Splicers style!)
You can also see some of the art done by the always amazing Premier at his Deviant Art Page: https://www.deviantart.com/chuckwalton
In all honesty, the game never really had much Palladium support. There's a variety of reasons behind it, but it all boils down to that one bottom line. Even after initial publishing, almost everything that came afterwards was fan based and written. Even the Legion source book, which ultimately saw the light of day finally, was a project written completely by fans for fans.
For years, Splicers had a pretty dedicated fan base and they were some of the most creative and supportive people. We flooded the boards, our material was constantly in the Rifter, and ultimately a lot of the material was placed in the new special hardcover. But officially, never got a whole lot of support from Palladium.
I can only speak for my experience, but for a couple of years there was a cadre of about a dozen or so ultra dedicated fans who wanted to see the universe grow and thrive. Legion was completed, the Technojacker source book had been completed and turned in, and a couple of us had mapped out and started working on a few other books we thought would be great to round out the universe as a whole.
We got a few victories, but largely met with resistance and apathy from the powers that be at Palladium. For a number of reasons, some justifiable, others I disagree with, Palladium had little interest in expanding the universe.
After literal years of no forward motion whatsoever, I pretty much abandoned Splicers. You can only but your head against an artillery shell so many times before you finally decide there are better battles to fight.. Taking a look at the Technojacker book for example, that was completed and submitted for publication almost 10 years ago at this point.
Some of us have stayed in gaming, other still dabble in it a little bit. One of our cadre launched his own gaming company and has had at least two successful Kickstarters that I know of, maybe more. I've been working on something with one of the other folks from the group that we hope to launch end of this year, early next if the universe will finally cut us a break. But ultimately, most of us have reluctantly left Splicers behind.
And to me, that's the real shame of it. That was by far my favorite PB game universe. It wasn't without its flaws and there were definite areas of improvement, but the setting itself was phenomenal. And you could literally play it as anything you wanted, it could be action, sci-fi, horror, even post apocalypse in a way. It just depended on you, your imagination, and what direction you wanted to take the game. I have, and will always believe that Palladium missed the boat with Splicers.
I hope this didn't sound too depressive, and I am glad that people are still interested in the game. I may not contribute anymore, but I do pop by the boards every couple of months just to see what's floating around.
For anyone interested in our Splicerverse plan, here's a rough outline of what we had wanted to do:
1. Legion
2. Splicers: Blood and Iron (Technojackers!)
3. Splicers: Underworlds (one I was really excited about, a source book or two detailing the underground environments, habits and structures, the joys of cave and tunnel warfare, and the ongoing battles beneath the surface of ground and oceans)
4. Splicers: The Shadow War (this was Espionage and spy craft in the world of splicers. The Intrigue between the great houses and other resistance groups, and was going to introduce the concept of a whole secret war in the shadows being waged between Scarecrows and Skinjobs.)
5. Splicers: The Hard Roads (Road Warrior antics, Splicers style!)
You can also see some of the art done by the always amazing Premier at his Deviant Art Page: https://www.deviantart.com/chuckwalton
Fairy tales begin with "Once upon a time". Southern fairy tales begin with "Y'all ain't gonna believe this s**t!!"
XBL Gamertag: Guy L3D0uch3
If Keanu Reeves had played Thulsa Doom, he would have told Conan to contemplate on the Tree of Whoa..
XBL Gamertag: Guy L3D0uch3
If Keanu Reeves had played Thulsa Doom, he would have told Conan to contemplate on the Tree of Whoa..
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OrionPrime
- D-Bee
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:26 pm
Re: Is it dead?
Any chance dome of the stuff below will be posted online and/or somewhere?
For anyone interested in our Splicerverse plan, here's a rough outline of what we had wanted to do:
1. Legion
2. Splicers: Blood and Iron (Technojackers!)
3. Splicers: Underworlds (one I was really excited about, a source book or two detailing the underground environments, habits and structures, the joys of cave and tunnel warfare, and the ongoing battles beneath the surface of ground and oceans)
4. Splicers: The Shadow War (this was Espionage and spy craft in the world of splicers. The Intrigue between the great houses and other resistance groups, and was going to introduce the concept of a whole secret war in the shadows being waged between Scarecrows and Skinjobs.)
5. Splicers: The Hard Roads (Road Warrior antics, Splicers style!)
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Guy_LeDouche
- Megaversal® Ambassador
- Posts: 829
- Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:29 pm
- Location: Charleston, SC
Re: Is it dead?
Not that I know of; at least not by me. Some of the material for the TJ book is on the forum here, usually as a sneak preview of some sort. Blood and Iron was 100% completed and submitted for publication.
Underworlds was in the "spitballing" process, with a rough outline and about 30 pages of written material, in various stages of polish.
The Shadow War was a loose collection of ideas and a basic outline. I included on the intro stories I wrote below. It was intended to reintroduce and somewhat retool Skinjobs.
The Hard Roads had about 30 pages of good, solid text behind it outlining a few clans, vehicle centric OCCs, and some other general info.
Here's one of the intro stories I wrote up for The Shadow Wars. This was from 2018, the last year I seriously did anything Splicer related:
THE BECOMING
Tyler didn’t know how much longer he could survive. How long had it been? A day, two days, a year? Everything was a blur, experienced through a dense fog of agony and torture. Even after months of intense training and preparation, he was not prepared for how truly grueling the Ceremony was. For three days, he hadn’t eaten, slept, or attended to personal needs of any kind. Even with meditation, his body screamed its demands at him. He had no idea how the High Priest, Kavarna, was still chanting and gesturing coherently after this long. Every so often the priest would pause, and the blades would again dance lightly across Tyler's skin, peeling it away strip by strip, the pain blinding in its intensity.
Through the haze of anguish and distress, Tyler felt other alien forces at play. At first, he thought it was simply a trick of his mind, an attempt to escape the never-ending torment. It began innocently enough; the feeling of a slight breeze, some shimmering light, and some vaguely sinister feeling all around. As the seconds (minutes? hours?) ticked by, Tyler's mind raced. The visions and sensations that came were horrifying. Pushed to the edge of sanity, his mind simply refused to translate that kind of sensory input.
Now Tyler was sure that something else was here, circling him unseen. It was something from his visions, something he couldn’t quite process. Something deep inside called to it however, longed for it. Rationally, Tyler knew that he was going to be joining in symbiosis with something inhuman, but now that the time was here, his resolve faltered. He swallowed hard, pushing down the rising lump of panic he felt.
The blades came again, cutting deeper this time. He wasn’t sure which was worse; the pain from the lacerations or the sickening tearing sensation as his skin was methodically flayed from his body. The pain was interrupted; he could feel the invisible presence closer now. It was bumping against him, inspecting him, judging him. Tyler knew why. It was trying to figure out if he was strong enough to be a predator or if he was going to end up as prey. The moment of truth was coming.
Suddenly, the chanting reached a crescendo and a brilliant pillar of light shot down from the ceiling, encompassing him. The pain intensified beyond anything he could have imagined, dwarfing all other sensations. He convulsed powerfully, his muscles spasming, his teeth clamping together with such force he almost severed his own tongue. The thing he’d felt circling him began to touch him, probe him, gradually flowing across him like some obscene sludge. And though he couldn’t have thought it possible, that’s when the agony truly began.
Tyler tried to focus on something, anything to take his mind away from the searing pain worming through his entire being. Somehow, he noticed the chanting had stopped. Mouths were still moving, yet he heard nothing. Their movements slowed and slowed and slowed and then everything stopped. Everything, except Tyler – and the thing now clinging to him.
It was no longer invisible, but a living, tangible presence. It was enormous, far bigger than Tyler had expected. It oozed across him, engulfing him, probing him. His entire body went rigid as the thing spread across him. Without warning, his mind snapped. Time and space froze; he and it existed in the same formless moment together. To say it entered him would not properly describe the experience. The entity invaded him, violated every part of him – body, mind, and soul – and was now trying to consume him.
In a moment of clarity, Tyler now understood the harsh training he’d suffered. No amount of physical distress or pain could compare to this. His body was simply not designed to contain this sort of power, to merge with a thing this alien. It was an agony there were no words to describe. If he could not keep himself together and master the entity that was joining with him, he would be torn apart. It would devour him completely.
The pain lasted an eternity. He wrestled with overwhelming alien sensations piece by piece, limb by limb. All the while, he could feel the symbiote infusing itself into his very soul, literally becoming a part of him. This whole time Tyler had thought symbiosis meant that he and it would remain somehow separate. Now he truly grasped the idea that symbiosis meant becoming one and the same. Each time the power of the creature threatened to rip him to pieces, he found a reservoir of indomitable will he had learned to harness. Each time he did, it hurt a little less.
After another eternity, Tyler could begin to feel time slowly start to flow once again. Alien flesh and limbs began to grow all around him body. It was the strangest sensation. The flesh that was beginning to form around him didn’t feel foreign anymore, the alien weirdness fading like a half forgotten dream. It felt like it was him. The entity was gone. Yet gone seemed the wrong word for it. It was still here. He was it and it was him. There was no more division.
Time slowly returned to normal and Tyler could hear the chanting reach a climax. However, he heard it like he’d never heard anything before. In fact, all his senses were like that. The world opened to him in new ways. He could see life in those gathered around him, feel the energy that made them. Then he noticed the flesh solidifying around him. It was his new body and it was something to behold. The raw power he now possessed was intoxicating. Strength rippled through his every muscle and he knew he could move in ways no human ever could. The power surged through him in waves, each one making him feel more indestructible than the one before it.
Then one last surge hit him, like an otherworldly umbilical snapping. Tyler rolled off the dais and dropped to his knees, buckling under the pressure. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. It was over. He had won. Tyler had faced the thing and he had the will to conquer it. He was now and forever a Skinjob.
After a final eternity, he stood, feeling the power coursing through him veins. There was no feeling in the world that could have compared to this. It was the feeling of being something to be feared. Kavarna fell to his knees as well, exhausted, sweat streaming down his misshapen face.
“You have been chosen. You are now one of us.”
Underworlds was in the "spitballing" process, with a rough outline and about 30 pages of written material, in various stages of polish.
The Shadow War was a loose collection of ideas and a basic outline. I included on the intro stories I wrote below. It was intended to reintroduce and somewhat retool Skinjobs.
The Hard Roads had about 30 pages of good, solid text behind it outlining a few clans, vehicle centric OCCs, and some other general info.
Here's one of the intro stories I wrote up for The Shadow Wars. This was from 2018, the last year I seriously did anything Splicer related:
THE BECOMING
Tyler didn’t know how much longer he could survive. How long had it been? A day, two days, a year? Everything was a blur, experienced through a dense fog of agony and torture. Even after months of intense training and preparation, he was not prepared for how truly grueling the Ceremony was. For three days, he hadn’t eaten, slept, or attended to personal needs of any kind. Even with meditation, his body screamed its demands at him. He had no idea how the High Priest, Kavarna, was still chanting and gesturing coherently after this long. Every so often the priest would pause, and the blades would again dance lightly across Tyler's skin, peeling it away strip by strip, the pain blinding in its intensity.
Through the haze of anguish and distress, Tyler felt other alien forces at play. At first, he thought it was simply a trick of his mind, an attempt to escape the never-ending torment. It began innocently enough; the feeling of a slight breeze, some shimmering light, and some vaguely sinister feeling all around. As the seconds (minutes? hours?) ticked by, Tyler's mind raced. The visions and sensations that came were horrifying. Pushed to the edge of sanity, his mind simply refused to translate that kind of sensory input.
Now Tyler was sure that something else was here, circling him unseen. It was something from his visions, something he couldn’t quite process. Something deep inside called to it however, longed for it. Rationally, Tyler knew that he was going to be joining in symbiosis with something inhuman, but now that the time was here, his resolve faltered. He swallowed hard, pushing down the rising lump of panic he felt.
The blades came again, cutting deeper this time. He wasn’t sure which was worse; the pain from the lacerations or the sickening tearing sensation as his skin was methodically flayed from his body. The pain was interrupted; he could feel the invisible presence closer now. It was bumping against him, inspecting him, judging him. Tyler knew why. It was trying to figure out if he was strong enough to be a predator or if he was going to end up as prey. The moment of truth was coming.
Suddenly, the chanting reached a crescendo and a brilliant pillar of light shot down from the ceiling, encompassing him. The pain intensified beyond anything he could have imagined, dwarfing all other sensations. He convulsed powerfully, his muscles spasming, his teeth clamping together with such force he almost severed his own tongue. The thing he’d felt circling him began to touch him, probe him, gradually flowing across him like some obscene sludge. And though he couldn’t have thought it possible, that’s when the agony truly began.
Tyler tried to focus on something, anything to take his mind away from the searing pain worming through his entire being. Somehow, he noticed the chanting had stopped. Mouths were still moving, yet he heard nothing. Their movements slowed and slowed and slowed and then everything stopped. Everything, except Tyler – and the thing now clinging to him.
It was no longer invisible, but a living, tangible presence. It was enormous, far bigger than Tyler had expected. It oozed across him, engulfing him, probing him. His entire body went rigid as the thing spread across him. Without warning, his mind snapped. Time and space froze; he and it existed in the same formless moment together. To say it entered him would not properly describe the experience. The entity invaded him, violated every part of him – body, mind, and soul – and was now trying to consume him.
In a moment of clarity, Tyler now understood the harsh training he’d suffered. No amount of physical distress or pain could compare to this. His body was simply not designed to contain this sort of power, to merge with a thing this alien. It was an agony there were no words to describe. If he could not keep himself together and master the entity that was joining with him, he would be torn apart. It would devour him completely.
The pain lasted an eternity. He wrestled with overwhelming alien sensations piece by piece, limb by limb. All the while, he could feel the symbiote infusing itself into his very soul, literally becoming a part of him. This whole time Tyler had thought symbiosis meant that he and it would remain somehow separate. Now he truly grasped the idea that symbiosis meant becoming one and the same. Each time the power of the creature threatened to rip him to pieces, he found a reservoir of indomitable will he had learned to harness. Each time he did, it hurt a little less.
After another eternity, Tyler could begin to feel time slowly start to flow once again. Alien flesh and limbs began to grow all around him body. It was the strangest sensation. The flesh that was beginning to form around him didn’t feel foreign anymore, the alien weirdness fading like a half forgotten dream. It felt like it was him. The entity was gone. Yet gone seemed the wrong word for it. It was still here. He was it and it was him. There was no more division.
Time slowly returned to normal and Tyler could hear the chanting reach a climax. However, he heard it like he’d never heard anything before. In fact, all his senses were like that. The world opened to him in new ways. He could see life in those gathered around him, feel the energy that made them. Then he noticed the flesh solidifying around him. It was his new body and it was something to behold. The raw power he now possessed was intoxicating. Strength rippled through his every muscle and he knew he could move in ways no human ever could. The power surged through him in waves, each one making him feel more indestructible than the one before it.
Then one last surge hit him, like an otherworldly umbilical snapping. Tyler rolled off the dais and dropped to his knees, buckling under the pressure. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. It was over. He had won. Tyler had faced the thing and he had the will to conquer it. He was now and forever a Skinjob.
After a final eternity, he stood, feeling the power coursing through him veins. There was no feeling in the world that could have compared to this. It was the feeling of being something to be feared. Kavarna fell to his knees as well, exhausted, sweat streaming down his misshapen face.
“You have been chosen. You are now one of us.”
Fairy tales begin with "Once upon a time". Southern fairy tales begin with "Y'all ain't gonna believe this s**t!!"
XBL Gamertag: Guy L3D0uch3
If Keanu Reeves had played Thulsa Doom, he would have told Conan to contemplate on the Tree of Whoa..
XBL Gamertag: Guy L3D0uch3
If Keanu Reeves had played Thulsa Doom, he would have told Conan to contemplate on the Tree of Whoa..
Re: Is it dead?
The other really big problem was the "rule" of no crossing over into rifts and other game settings. This alone killed the game for many palladium game fans. I broke the rule in my game setting, but there is no official crossover. I love the setting and love rifts but have not played in any groups in many years I am getting old and my health has been poor.