Commentary On Drivethrurpg's Sale and A Ready Made White Star Rpg Campaign Set up

If your unaware of Drivethrurpg's big sale that's happening right now then you might miss it. Magic Pig Media is one of those OSR style outfits that got onto the bandwagon of turning out some very well done material for the White Star game. I did a whole range of reviews for Magic Pig a while back including one of my favorites Outer Space Raiders: Zeloxians From Magic Pig Media For Your White Star Rpg Adventures & Your Old School Campaigns  & I also took a look at the Norni too from Magic Pig Media

 You can find a ton of good solidly done White Star materials from Magic Pig here

Another author whom I like for one stop shopping for White Star is Mark Hunt. His Ships of Shade Space and Drongo (Planet of Peril) From  Leviathan Publishing both dovetail right back into White Star with a bit of work and can be evened out with Magic Pig Media's Have Death Ray Will Travel campaign setting for a cross between Edgar Rice Burroughs and Babylon Five with touch of Flash Gordon's vibe to even things out. I've been doing an OSR sci fi  campaign similar but with a completely different vibe for many years otherwise I might be taking advantage of this sale myself.  If I were you my friends I'd take full advantage of this sale right now.

Outer Space Raiders: The Norni From Magic Pig Media For Your White Star Rpg Adventures & Your Old School Campaigns

Its amazing to me how much time has passed since I did anything with the White Star Retroclone Rpg system. The material for White Star comes out every single week or day it seems. Someone comes up with a new science fiction or science fantasy title for the game. This is not a bad thing in my humble opinion, it keeps the community vibrant and live with fresh ideas and new prospective toward the game. There's one area that always seems lacking to me and that's the middle management vile villains. You know those guys who are challenges and the type that are always dogging your  White Star  adventurers but don't quite have the TPK potential of the void knights. Well the Outer Space Raiders: The Norni from Magic Pig Media are not quite as cut and dry as they might appear. The Norni are an alien race example of what happens in those old Marvel Star Wars comics when the Rebels high tale it out of dodge and the Empire moves in for the conquest. We know that White Star drives its inspiration from old school Star Wars and Magic Pig Media has tapped that well with the Norni but in a good way. There's a lot going on here. According to the Rpgnow blurb: The Norni supported the fledgling rebellion. When the Imperial Armada arrived, the Rebels fled and the Empire bombed the planet making it an example to any who would oppose their power. Civilized worlds turned their backs on the refugees out of fear of imperial reprisals. The Norni are a people without a home, fated to wander the stars.' Sure it might sound a bit like the old Marvel Star Wars comics from the 80's but its not. There are several factors that those comics would never have tapped into.

• The Norni themselves are basically a good people caught in the cross fire of forces beyond their control and the Rebellion is no better then the Imperials in their eyes. There's a racial history to this and the product has this built right into its history. 
• There are lots of opportunity for violence and deadly conflict with this race and they've got a reputation for space piracy and dark forces at their call. They also have access to technologies that generally seem to involve some heavy duty but kicking and its likely that your PC's are going be caught in the cross fire of it. This is not a race of NPC's that's made to sit on the side lines.
• There are plenty of fleshed out details in nine pages and this isn't a pdf that leaves you with cliff hanger questions unlike Marvel's Star Wars where we got alien races and zippo background until later issues.
  
  
  As I've said this is not a slow and steady pdf at all you get lots of tools for your dollar, yeah that's right a dollar buys you the following :
  Included is information on the Norni and their culture, the Norni Star Wanderer Racial Class, and twenty adventure hooks.
  
  Also included is Lady Iliza, Mistress of the Void, a powerful Void Knight villain  for use in your campaigns. So why do I like this pdf? Because you get a group of middle management vile villains with a reason to hate everyone and yet their not actually really bad guys more like victims with regrets who have issues with the universe of White Star. And their coming to get your adventurers in spades. Their is a new PC class right out of the gate that presents the Norni Star Wanderers which has a bit of the Star Trek Orions in their gamer racial PC DNA and a whole package of trouble for PC's ships. Here's the introduction blurb: The stars are your home. You wander the space ways in search of fame, fortune, and just a little bit of revenge.
  Not the type of PC that you want on the bad side of your adventuring party or their ship, instead I can see actually using this class to fill out the ranks of a smuggler or pirate ship on the side of the Rebels with a whole package of reasons to get into and out of trouble. We get broad strokes on culture, signature weapon, homeworld, timeline, Norni technology and solild looks into the race's home world, timeline, events, and more. This presents the Norni as a well rounded and fleshed out race with plenty of room for DM DYI campaign hook ins. There's also plenty of room to squeeze out even more play with the twenty Norni adventure hooks. There's enough here to be introducing the Norni into your campaigns and for using them for other applications.
  They don't make that kinda fun anymore. Because the author has included the little twist that the head of this race is a Void knight in her own right and there's a whole subplot involving the fact that she's got here own dark agenda going right in the back of the plot. She so evil that even her own race has exiled her. So there's a ton that can be done with her.
  This makes customizing the Norni a snap because using them anywhere means that they can pop up in the least likely places. For example the Norni could with little effort be used in a Mutant Future Mazes and Mutants campaign providing the muscle and high tech alien assistance to mutant armed forces in the wastelands. For a Labyrinth Lord or Swords and Wizardry campaign the Norni could be the power behind the throne of your favorite despotic rulers. For Hulks and Horrors these guys make a opposition  for adventurers combing through the space hulks for treasure, artifacts, or more. For White Star or other OD&D retroclone style rpgs this race has lots of potential such as filling in a  middle management enemy role, they could be bounty hunters  or even gasp as a possible PC alien PC race. My recommendation is to grab the PDF and customize the Norni as you see fit for your old school campaigns.

Outer Space Raiders: Zeloxians From Magic Pig Media For Your White Star Rpg Adventures & Your Old School Campaigns

The White Star rpg retroclone system community is one of the most dynamic communities on G+, Facebook, and within the OSR. Everyday another supplement, monster book, alien race book, etc. hits the airwaves. But then comes along  the Zeloxians. Described as a' small, fearless alien race that's out to conquer the galaxy as soon as they fill out the right paperwork and get their equipment to work.'they played for yucks but let me explain there is nothing funny about these aliens. They're possibly one of the most nightmarish bastards that you can run across. You see these guys are alien bureaucrats, possibly the equivalent of alien accountants, tax collectors, bean counters,pencil necked geeks, or any other nightmarish nebbish fool behind a desk that you've ever run across. And they've got energy weapons and their not afraid to use them. If these guys don't make your White Star or old school adventurers break out in a cold sweat then your not using these bastards right. I really don't think that the author even knows what he's created personally. He describes them as,"

The Zeloxians are a darkly humorous, tongue-in-cheek alien race for your space opera campaigns. Included are a racial class and the most common pieces of Zeloxian equipment such as the Doom Fighter, Radium Atomizer Magnum Blaster Obliteration Gun, Power Gauntlets, Trooper Armor and Powered Assault Armor."

This is a tightly put together four page pdf that sells for around one dollar and what do you get for your dollar investment? An entire race and array of tools that you can torture your adventurers for hours and hours with. They don't make that kinda fun anymore. See these guys are the bill collectors, phone sanitizers, tax collectors,etc. of the space ways and their waiting to suck the fun and treasure right out of your PC's hands. Its all here in black and white, signed sealed, and printed out in triplicate waiting in a nice tightly sealed official looking envelop in the standard Zeloxian Empire stationary. And these little bastards have the weaponry and fire power to enforce their will on your adventurers. Think that your Swords and Wizardry retroclone dungeons are safe? Think again, rumors that Zeloxians parties of bureaucrats & treasure enforcer units are even now are dimension hopping to take away your hard earned gold. After all hyper space bypasses, and empires across the stars don't run themselves.
Grab It Right Over
HERE


Everything about these guys reeks of smarmy pencil headed alien bureaucratic menace in spades, these little bastards will drown your PC's in red tape while blasting the Hell out of em with a spade of weapons that are scattered throughout the pdf. There are rumors of Zeloxian agents infiltrating across the stars and into governments,bars, gambling establishments,intergalactic brothels, and every black market operation they can get their four fingers into! All the better to report to their masters and tax your PC's to death. Everything you need to run these little alien horror shows is included in the pdf. Personally I think that this pdf is merely another piece of  Zeloxian empire propaganda. These alien penny pinchers  are rumored to split ten percent with local intergalactic governments any taxes they collect. And these bastards have been known to show up in dungeons, post apocalyptic ruins, and a wide variety of retroclone OD&D style systems. They have a tendency to spoil any fun that they can for adventurers. Even though this is a well written pdf, the fact is that there are some adventurers who have been know to shoot these guys on sight! The fact is that the  Zeloxians make a great mid level alien menace that  can be easily dropped into a wide variety of old school adventure settings and can cause adventurers all kinds of mayhem. DM's should pick this pdf up for the sheer horror that these alien bastards can wreck in an old school or retroclone system.
There are a wide variety of applications where the Zeloxians could be used. For a Basic Fantasy rpg campaign these little nasties could be used as tax collectors, enemies, conquerors, or used as part menace or comedy relief. For Hulks and Horrors these guys make a perfect foil for adventurers combing through the space hulks for treasure, artifacts, or more. For White Star or other OD&D retroclone style rpgs this race has lots of potential such as filling in a foil role, comedy relief or even gasp as a possible PC alien PC race.
My recommendation is to grab the PDF and customize the Zeloxians as you see fit for your old school campaigns. These little bastards are flexible enough to have a vary large variety of uses.

Review and Commentary on Outer Space Raiders Volume 2: Aliens, Creatures & Foes From Magic Pig Media For The White Star rpg

The White Star rpg community has to be one of the most active rpg communities I've ever seen, and there's been fan based  & professional  product after product for the game coming out daily it seems.. Which brings me to Outer Space Raiders Volume 2: Aliens, Creatures & Foes by Magic Pig Media. This book covers over twenty monsters drawn from the public domain, the author's warped imagination, and generally every conceivable source that's known to man. But is it good? Well, this is done with an eye towards tongue planted firmly in cheek here. There are over twenty monsters from the Pulsarites to Warp Beasts with at least one fully developed race called the Radioactive Lust Vampires. I love the artwork for this monster by Bradley McDermott.You've even got some star ship sized monsters in the form of Cosmic Behemoth or the Star Kraken along with some others. Finally to round out the whole affair you get  a random Bug-Eyed Monster generator and three new starships in the appendixes or add ons.

For the most part I enjoyed the book which you get eight pages for a dollar fifty and over twenty monsters as well.

Everything seems well put together here, the font is easy to read and the monsters are pretty damn useful but the tongue & cheek tone of the book bothers me a bit. White Star while it is a Swords and Wizardry variation seems to have as many science fiction and fantasy settings. Magic Pig is taking full advantage of this situation to bring DM's a good selection of monsters. But the fact is that this collection takes the overview approach to its monsters not quite seriously enough but there are some damn useful foes in this book.
With a bit of imagination these monsters could easily be used in any Swords and Wizardry or OD&D style campaign adventure. Because there are traditional, funny, and pulp material mixed in. I have a feeling that a DM is for a bit of a headache with the monsters in here. These monsters work quite perfectly for a sci fi action comedy series such as one that draws from the Ice Pirates or the Star Wars knock off school of space fantasy.
There is a ton of utility and bang for your buck here for a dollar fifty, with a bit of fore thought there's plenty here to get in on the ground floor of  Outer Space Raiders Volume 2: Aliens, Creatures & Foes. Would I recommend this for the right DM to take his game into a comedy style science fiction or space adventure? Absolutely this is a very well done little solid game book. Four out of four for this one. My advise is to grab this one and get the ball rolling.