Maelstrom's Edge: Battle For Zycanthus arrives!

It's finally here! Approximately four years and four months since I was first approached to work on the project, the launch box set of Maelstrom's Edge is in the wild and has arrived in the hands of our Kickstarter backers. It's also the first time I've had a look at the whole thing myself.

The Maelstrom's Edge: Battle For Zycanthus box set, together with my two co-written tie-in novels.

It's a satisfyingly heavy box, packed full of sprues - exactly how you want a new game to arrive! The box art is beautiful, too, and I've not noticed any typos in the back cover text I wrote, which is good!

A very full interior...

Inside the box is a veritable horde of plastics, tokens and cards. I've seen some of the infantry models before during our tests, but this was the first time I have had the opportunity to build the robots and Angels, and the first time I've ever seen the Handler, Kaddar Nova and Shadow Walker models in the flesh. The plastic is so crisp and the details are great, and the multipart models are great fun for converting - I've started building my Epirians and will post some pictures in a few weeks time. 

There's also the cards - unit cards for points costs and army building (that let us tweak the stats if we need to without reprinting the rulebook), mission cards for easy selection of which game to play, and an entire extra game using cards to represent fleets of ships battling for resources on worlds threatened by the Maelstrom. I'm looking forward to playing that in particular. 

The Maelstrom's Edge A5 rulebook details all the game rules, the army building for the first two factions, as well as lots of rich background to the Maelstrom's Edge universe

The biggest thrill for me, aside from the models themselves, is the 144 page full colour A5 Rulebook. Jon 'yakface' Regul has created an amazing ruleset full of dynamic action and careful battlefield tactics, and the diagrams and pictures in the book really do justice to it. There's also details on how to build armies for the first two factions - the corporate robots of the Epirian Foundation and the religious fanatics of the Karist Enclave.

I'm really proud of the fluff section, which I wrote a large part of. As well as delving further into the background of the Epirian and Karist factions, we also talk a lot more about the broader Maelstrom's Edge universe, including further details on future factions, which I'm very excited to start working on, like the exosuited House Champions of the Remnant Fleet, the ragtag rebels and revolutionaries of the Broken and the bizarre posthumans of the Kaigus Pact, changed after thousands of years living in the microgravity of space. These are the three factions we want to expand into next, and each should porvide a very different experience on the tabletop and in the fiction. There's also teasers for where we might go even further into the future, with hints at factions further from the Edge like the aquatic Tragunite Host and the the AI hunters of the Comm Guild. 

We've put so much effort into designing a universe and game to match the dreams we always had for a tabletop wargame. It's so amazing to finally see it in the flesh, and to start getting positiv feedback from our backers. I look forward to exploring more of the universe and creating more great content in the future!

Maelstrom's Edge shipping soon!

So after 4 and a half years of work, and many hundreds of thousands of words, Maelstrom's Edge is making its final steps into the public domain this month. Our Kickstarter backers will be getting their copies soon, as we ship the first collection of box sets into the wider world. 

Over on the Maelstrom's Edge website, the store is starting to come together, and those that didn't back on the Kickstarter can order copies of the boxed game, as well as hard copies of the two novels that Stephen Gaskell and I cowrote for the project, Maelstrom's Edge: Faith and Maelstrom's Edge: Sacrifice. For those that prefer ebook format, it's of course still available on Amazon Kindle. 

It's been a lot of work to get it to this point - we've spent the time since the Kickstarter refining the rule and fluff content for the 144 page rulebook, as well as all the associated content - the back of the box, the flyers, etc. Everything is more or less back from the manufacturers, so the boxes will be assembled and sent out to our first backers.

I'm really proud of the work we've done to create the first two factions, the rules, the background and the miniatures, not to mention all the fiction we've written (there's some great short fiction still to come!)

I'm also very keen to start exploring the next phases of the project - the fluff section of the rulebook hints at the future factions we want to explore. I'm a big fan of all of them, whether it's the gladiatorial spec-oc teams of the Remnant Fleet, the rag-tag warbands of the Broken or the high-tech of the Comm Guild's Darkener operatives hunting down rogue AI. But the ones I'm particularly excited about expanding into miniatures are the two alien races - the many-bodied creatures of the Tragunite Host, who can reassemble their coral-like component organisms into different larger forms, and the freaky bio-enhanced posthumans of the Kaigus Pact, gangly creatures that have evolved from humanity's first forays into space, twisted after millennia living in low gravity. 

We have loads of plans for future miniatures, rules and fiction, and hopefully when people see the quality of our first release they will be excited too! The more successful our initial box set, the easier and quicker we can move onto the new factions, as well as fleshing out the armies of the Epirian Foundation and Karist Enclave. So we hope that our loyal Kickstarter backers enjoy their first taste of Maelstrom's Edge in the Battle for Zycanthus box set, and please spread the word if you do - the more players we have, the faster we can explore the wider universe we've created!

Maelstrom's Edge: Faith and Maelstrom's Edge: Sacrifice are now available on Kindle!

In late 2011 I was asked to join a creative project creating a new science fiction miniatures wargame. Over the last three and half years in my spare time I've worked with a fantastic team of writers, designers and artists to design a universe and the game and miniatures to go with it. Today we went public on the Maelstrom's Edge project - we'll be going to Kickstarter on the game very soon!

I've also written two books - with my fellow Lead Writer on the project, Stephen Gaskell. It's been a lot of effort to get them finished, but at last, finally, today we have launched the novels on Kindle - Maelstrom's Edge: Faith and Maelstrom's Edge: Sacrifice, books one and two in the Battle for Zycanthus series that ties in to our first boxed game. 

Maelstrom's Edge: Faith is the first novel in the Maelstrom's Edge universe. In the far future, a golden age of exploration and progress has been shattered. Humanity and alien alike are on the very edge of annihilation. 

A gigantic apocalyptic explosion of dark energy known as the Maelstrom is rapidly expanding out from the heart of the galaxy, destroying everything it touches. As worlds and stars on the Maelstrom's Edge are obliterated, those who have the means flee towards deep space, while those left behind fight for the chance to escape. 

In Maelstrom's Edge: Faith, conflict and conspiracy grows as the Maelstrom nears the doomed world of Zycanthus. Sheriff Kyle Wynn is one of many living in the shadow of the Maelstrom. When his desert patrol is ambushed by strange warrior cultists, Wynn realises that there are other forces at play on Zycanthus besides the corporate interests of his Epirian Foundation bosses. 

Zafah is a missionary from the Karist Enclave. The Enclave see the Maelstrom as a chance to ascend to a wondrous higher plane of being, but Zafah’s mission to save the people of Zycanthus is threatened by the world's heavy-handed security enforcers--and her own conscience. 

Wynn is convinced that the Karists are a threat to his family and Zycanthus. Can he uncover the intentions of the Karists before it’s too late, or will Zafah’s secretive organisation succeed in their mysterious aims?

Maelstrom's Edge: Sacrifice follows on from the events of Maelstrom's Edge: Faith. The Karist Enclave's plan to save the world of Zycanthus is in tatters. Shocked by their terrible losses at the hands of Epirian forces, Zafah joins the Karist military knowing the time for artful persuasion is over. 

Meanwhile, Sheriff Kyle Wynn is struggling to convince his Foundation bosses of the threat the Karists still pose. But when he infiltrates a Karist base, he discovers that their intentions are far greater and more dangerous than even he could have imagined... 

Zafah and Wynn are thrown into an escalating tussle for supremacy of Zycanthus, both on the planet's surface and in orbit. With the shadow of the Maelstrom hanging over them, the outcome of this clash will decide the fate of millions. Will the robotic might of the Epirian Foundation or the inner faith of the Karist Enclave emerge triumphant?

I'll be doing some blog posts on the design and details of the universe over the next few weeks, but in the meantime you can purchase both books at the Amazon links below!

The novels are finished - and Maelstrom's Edge is revealed at last!

So for the last three and a half years I've been working on a secret project that no one has been allowed to know about - and despite writing hundreds of thousands of words of fiction and background material, it's only now that we're finally in a position to reveal it - Maelstrom's Edge.

I was approached back in the summer of 2011 to join as one of the lead writers in a small team working on a new science fiction miniatures game. The idea was to create a completely new and unique far future universe as a setting for a new tabletop wargame with high quality plastic models. 

We wanted to do this right - wargaming is a very competitive business and there are lots of other companies out there. We wanted to take the time to work in secret on something that felt unique and innovative across all parts of the game - that everything in the models, art design, game rules and the background would be new and exciting. 

The setting was key. We wanted a universe that had the broad appeal and wow factor of great space opera, but with a nod to the trend towards the grittier, more mature themes that modern science fiction has embraced in recent years - closer to the darker 2003 remake of Battlestar Galactica rather than the cheesier original version. We wanted the Maelstrom's Edge universe to be morally complex and populated with flawed characters – the technology may have changed, but mankind still faces the same problems it always has.

We also wanted to keep to a fairly hard science fiction feel - including awe-inspiring elements like aliens, powerful new weapons and faster-than-light travel, but trying to make any such invention feeling grounded in enough worldbuilding logic to feel realistic within our setting. Stephen and I having a background in science helped with designing things like the cybel network to be internally consistent and believable.

With the initial design goal to create a miniatures game where players would battle a number of different factions against each other, we wanted to create a setting where each of these factions would have a legitimate reason for conflict. There is no absolute good or evil faction in Maelstrom’s Edge – each organisation has its own understandable motives for the way it acts. We have also made sure to include conflict and friction within each organisation, to allow conflict both between different factions and between splinter groups of each. 

The result was the universe of Maelstrom's Edge, a far future science fiction setting where a golden age of exploration and innovation has been ripped apart and humanity is on the very edge of annihilation. The Maelstrom, a gigantic apocalyptic explosion of dark energy, is rapidly expanding out from the heart of the galaxy, destroying everything it touches. As worlds and stars are obliterated from existence, those who have the means flee towards deep space, while those left behind fight for the chance to escape - and for the resources in the worlds under threat. 

For millennia before this catastrophe, humanity spread across the galaxy at sub-light speed, painstakingly eking out an existence in space and on barely habitable worlds. Then the cybel network was discovered. A gossamer web of dark energy threads stretching between every star, the cybel network allowed humanity to colonise thousands of worlds across the galaxy's spiral arm. All the progress that the cybel network brought, the Maelstrom took away. The Maelstrom erupted from the centre of humanity's worlds a millennium ago, racing down the cybel tunnels, splitting them apart and spilling their destructive energy out into real space. 

The Edge is a stormfront, light years wide, where real space meets the Maelstrom’s tide of roiling, coruscating energy. The apocalypse is coming inexorably to every planet on the Edge. In the decades leading up the Maelstrom's arrival, every person is forced to make a choice about how they want to live the remainder of their existence. Unite or divide, give or take, love or hate. Those living on the edge are not bulletproof or elite. They are ordinary people caught up in a bewildering cataclysm, their only goal to survive as best they can. 

The design of both the Maelstrom’s advance and the relative difficulty of interstellar travel means that it is intentionally impossible for everyone to escape its destructive clutches. Worlds do not have the time or resources to evacuate everyone before they are destroyed. This forces the characters in our universe to confront cold, hard choices about what they do in the face of this implacable enemy – do they run, or try to save as many others as they can? Do they fight for the last remaining ships, or loot the helpless? By forcing humanity into such a difficult position, it encourages nuanced, morally grey decisions and characters, which is just what I want as a writer to encourage me to think of unique situations for stories - and also for scenarios for the game itself. As someone who likes to play miniatures games, I always found it irritating when I turned up to play a game with the same army as my opponent - in most settings, this doesn't make sense. But the stress of the impending destruction the Maelstrom brings means that organisations and governments come apart under the stress - and civil wars and internal strife are all possible as armies from the different factions battle to save themselves.

As part of that work, as well as countless pages of background design for the universe and game design, my fellow lead writer Stephen Gaskell and I have written a lot of fiction content - a bunch of short stories, as well as two novels set on the world of Zycanthus - Faith and Sacrifice. 

These two books form a story that tells of two of the factions battling it out for control of Zycanthus, a planet a few tens of lightyears from the Maelstrom's Edge. The corporate Epirian Foundation owners of the world are trying to extract what resources they can in the last few decades before Zycanthus is destroyed by the Maelstrom. The secretive religious extremists of the Karist Enclave however, have identified Zycanthus as a key world for conversion to their beliefs - that the Maelstrom is not the end of everything, but the beginning of a new age for mankind - that if they prepare their souls for the Maelstrom's embrace, they will ascend to a new plane of existence.

In the first novel, Faith, Epirian Sheriff Kyle Wynn is ambushed in the desert by a Karist landing party and left for dead. He begins to uncover just how deep and wide the Karist infiltration of Zycanthus goes - and how dangerous it might be. Meanwhile Karist priestess Zafah has travelled to the world to try and teach people of the salvation that Ascension can bring - but the reaction of the Epirian security forces to her missionary work forces her to consider more direct methods of teaching the people the Karist Way. With both sides adamant that their way is best, the stakes are raised for a cataclysmic battle for control of the Zycanthus star system in the second book, Sacrifice.

I'm pleased to say that both books are finished and have been sent to the printers. We'll be doing a short print run of hard copies for the game's launch at the wargaming convention Salute in London on April 25th, and they are also available as ebooks on Amazon Kindle right now!. 
 

Very exciting to finally be able to share some details with everybody and looking forward to seeing the reactions to something we've been working so hard on for so long!

Novel nearly done!

I've been working on it for three and a half years, but the novel I've cowritten with Stephen Gaskell, Sacrificial, is nearly done, although it's still under wraps so I can't tell anyone about it! The final proof copy went out to my beta readers last night. I'm hoping to finish any final edits in early March for release in April. Keep your eyes peeled for then!

I had another scientific publication this week, although I'm not sure I can claim much credit! Kane O'Donnell did all the hard lifting for this one. It's a summary of the computational simulations he's done on the diamond surface using various alkali metals in combination with oxygen. I did a little of this for my thesis.

I'm working on many other papers at the moment, things are really busy! I'm also helping to write some promotional videos for my friend Tom Morgan's production of Arcadia by the Southside Players in Balham this February. Should be fun!

Reading: My novel!
Watching: The Theory of Everything
Listening to: The Decemberists - What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World