The weirdling sun continues to bath the Purple Planet in cosmic rays! This week I interviewed Tim Sattley regarding his project: Random Acts of Violet. This is his contribution to the Purple Planet Horde. You may know some of Tim’s previous works: Horror at the MERCC, Get Me the Juice, or his contributions to Scientific Barbarian.
Hi Tim, congratulations on funding Random Acts of Violet! You've created a 1st level adventure and also a region to explore. All that takes up 50+ pages. Did this project start with the adventure, the region, or did their development happen simultaneously?
Thanks for asking about my Horde Project for Purple Planet campaign. My original plan was to create a first level adventure as a follow up to Harley Stroh’s Purple Planet funnel “Escape from the Purple Planet.” I always enjoyed running and playing that gladiatorial style funnel but felt unsatisfied when the new first level PCs left the planet at the end, because staying would quickly kill all of them. 1st levels just aren’t strong enough to take on the kith war parties, gibbons, and death orms.
As I started creating the adventure, I quickly realized that the storyline needed a reason for all of this low-level stuff to exist (besides me just tossing it in there). This morphed the project into an adventure with a bunch of hex crawl content for low-level players, but it still didn’t feel right to me. After some playtesting and rewriting, I concluded that I should just create an entire setting area people can drop anywhere on the Purple Planet.
In a classic case of project creep, I ended up with more than enough content to publish two separate books. Instead, I chose to create a single, horde sized offering, giving people a ton of new content specifically made for 1st and 2nd level characters to learn about survival on the Purple Planet while gaining some experience.
What's the premise for the adventure? What kind of situation do the PCs find themselves in?
At the end of the funnel, the players find a wrecked Ythothian longship and it’s (still functional) pedestal-of-worlds. Using this fact and/or having the party find another skiff is where the adventure begins. Lacking the energy to leave the planet’s surface, they struggle for survival, floating around the surface, almost dying every time they land or attempt to hex crawl on Harley’s original plateau setting. Eventually, they are spotted by an airship of the sky masters, leading to a run & gun pirate style fight in the air. Floating into the Violet Valley (my setting location), things suddenly go haywire.
The adventure is called “Cavern of the Purple-People Eaters.” I don’t want to let lose any spoilers, but what I can tell you is that players must figure out what is happening to them, explore (crawl) their way through the location, and roleplay or fight their way to survival. In that space, they will find a new house of ascended masters, potential troves of knowledge and lore, new artifacts & creatures, along with a location that can be used as a “home base” for a little while.
You're crowdfunding alongside Goodman Games and multiple other creators. You're adventure is supposed to pair well with, or in some way continue Die Robot! by Studio 9 Games. Can you share a bit about how you and Aaron collaborated? Was there much other collaboration projects beyond just making sure that no one did anything too thematically similar to another creator?
The collaboration with the entire group of 7 third party publishers has been awesome. This is the first time I have worked with a group of creatives on a coordinated project. It has been a lot of fun so far, mostly because Joseph has done a great job creating an open architecture for us to play around with. I especially appreciate seeing the crazy ideas and story plots everyone brings to the table and hearing about how they developed over time. Yes, a lot of conversations end up being about logistical things like shipping, fulfilment, and project launch dates – but not all. Even so, it is really cool to see how each of us took the same location and created stuff that is completely different, but ultimately linked in some really cool ways.
Aaron at Studio 9 has created a really new playable robot class. After hearing him talk about it, I realized that some of his characters would fit perfectly into parts of my setting. I was able to coordinate this with him, utilizing part of his specific rule set and content within my adventure. Spoiler alert – it may be possible that parties encounter some robots who can be used as replacement characters.
I wrote my adventure with enough latitude for parties to come from Aaron’s Die, Robot funnel, Escape from the Purple Planet, or any other DCC location/funnel. As I think about it right now, a party exiting DCC #67 Sailor’s on the Starless Sea could even find their boat warped onto the planet, directly into my 1st level adventure. I’m not a fan of linear path dungeons, railroading players through a specific storyline. With that in mind, we created opportunities for judges and parties to move in and out of things from different directions. Harley’s original purple planet plateau is built for level 5+, and the horde took on the task of filling the hole beneath.
Tell us a little about the stretch goals! I know there's some bonus content from myself, but also Jeremy Shuman.
The amount of stretch goals and bonus content across all of the projects is insane. It almost doubles the original content, providing additional hours of adventuring fun. To start with, each project provides backers with a unique drop-in adventure for their backers. As additional stretch goals, I have included two more drop-in adventures for everyone who backs my project; a mushroom forest encounter by Jeremy “Father Goose” Shuman, and a pre-adventure set-up adventure by you, called “Drifting Through the Stars.”
There are also cross-project bonuses available to people who back multiple projects. All of our projects reached funding goals, which unlocked us creating our own unique rune lore. In case people aren’t familiar with the setting, scattered across the planet are relic weapons and technological wonders, leftover from an ancient war. Each of these has a set of 8 rune buttons which must be used correctly to operate the relics. All of the horde members created their own origin story or lore behind the meaning of these runes.
There is also a set of custom Purple Planet 3d6 for backing at least 3 projects, and (my personal favorite reward) the ability for about 20 people to have an anagram of their name enshrined in official purple planet lore. People are ranked based on backing projects and remaining active during the crowdfunding process (participating in polls, comments, etc.). Personally, I am using two of these anagram names in my project – one as an NPC and one as a bossman.
On a final note, all of the bonus content will only be available to people who back the projects during this crowdfunding campaign. Once finished, all of the stretch goal and bonus content will not be available for purchase via print or digital PDF. In the future, people will still be able to get the main content, but not the bonus material.
Thanks for sharing! Anything I didn't ask about that you'd like to share?
I just wanted to thank you for creating a cool little set-up adventure for my project. I appreciate the creativity that went into your piece and think judges and players will have a lot of fun going through what you put together. Both you and Jeremy did a fantastic job, and I was really excited about getting the two of you involved as members of The Purple Planet Horde. Anyone who wants to check out the project can find it here.
What did y’all think? How is the combo of the Purple Planet Horde and ZineMonth treating your wallet?
What else is going on?
The Neon Jungle
A gonzo post-apocalyptic location supplement compatible with Mutant Crawl Classics RPG.
Terror of the Stratosfiend : SNAKE WOLF 3 (Mega-Dungeon)
An endless dive into a Mega-Dungeon—chases a man who dared to touch a god! A paranoid, conspiracy laden, Level 1-6+ adventure for DCC. It’s hit the stretch which gives ALL PREVIOUS STRATOSFIEND CONTENT to backers in PDF. So this is an especially great deal for those new to all things Stratosfiend.
I'm so stoked that you and I were asked to participate in this project. You and Tim are among my favorite creators, so being asked to work with both of you made me so very happy. I'm excited to see the finished product, as well as the rest of the Horde entries!