Tom Stephens's picture

Issue 4 Now Available

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Hello explorers!

Issue 4 of the Frontier Explorer is now available for download.  This issue provides a fresh look at the Saurian race published originally in Dragon! Magazine issue 103 (Nov 1985) and provides new ships, weapons and creatures related to the Saurians and Spacefleets initial contact with the new race.

Much of the content of this issue was due to inspiration from the lead article on Subspace Radios.  You can find the details of how the issue came to be in our letter from the editors.  Additionally the issue includes another Jurak Hangna creature write up as well as a short story by a new fiction author.

The issue content (articles) are:

Grab your copy and keep exploring new frontiers.

jedion357's picture

Robotipocalys Now

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First Big Dog, now Petman robots. DoD spending in the area of robotics is making this a brave new world.

http://boingboing.net/2013/04/05/boston-dynamics-humanoid-rob.html

I wouldn't go so far as to predict a Terminator style "sky net" that wipes out the human race. I would predict something much scarier and on a smaller scale: robotic minions in the hands of free moral agents (human beings) but lacking a moral center. Ultimately robotic minions will not question the morality of their actions and they will just perform them. What is truly scary is the capacity of man's inhumanity to man and having minions do you bidding and you do not even have to be present and witness the carnage will make it easier for these tools to be abused and for humanity to abuse itself. We might end up with a military built on robotic servants (no casualties in war) and that the establishment will be under the thumb of a human. To me that is the truly scariest possibility.

 

Still PETMAN is a fascinating step forward for robotics and the future is clearly knocking on our door. The question is, "Will the human race exercise good moral decision making with the power it is developing or not?" History would inform us on this question but then my local public schools dont teach it anymore focusing rather on teaching for the test that students must pass to graduate. Thus irrelevent things like History and Geography are shunted aside. We are truly entering a brave new world and is scares me.

jedion357's picture

Frontier Fashion

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Issue 4 will have a short article on cultural perspectives: Morgaine's World. The purpose of the article was to examine the founding and development of that world with a view to helping players use it as a distinct player character background.

 

The founding as a agricultural colony to renaming in Admiral Morgaine's honor to the impact of corporate development of its economy and the presence of the STar Law and Space Fleet academies here are examined.

Material culture was developed and some details on the typical clothing styles as well as "the" planetary sport.

Look for Cultural Perspectives: Morgaine's World when issue 4 hits the digital news stands soon!

Pictiured is the planetary grand champion knife thrower in typical Morgaine's World clothing style.

jedion357's picture

Saurians making a come back

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Issue 4 is nearing completion and we've revisited the Saurians from Dragon Magazine 103 (the date it was published escapes me at this minute but it was the Fall of '85 or '86). We've laid some ground work for referees looking to do a first contact scenario based on the suggestions in the Subspace Radio article and developed a sector and planetary brief to give the saurians a concrete place to be from instead of being refugees left in limbo on ark ships orbiting Theseus.

One might naturally think some fresh artwork of the suarians would be a nice addition to this theme but truth be told we needed to use up some space in layout. None the less I'm sure a fresh illustration of the saurians will be welcomed.

Enjoy.

jedion357's picture

Happy Easter

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Its an hour before sun up on Easter morning and my house is preparing to attend a sunrise service. Just wanted to wish the other staff at the Frontier Explorer a Happy Easter. I'm pretty sure that I'm aware of everyone's religious sensibilities so that this is appropriate- its sometimes tough to get to know someone through only the internet but it has been a pleasure to work with everyone.

Tom V/ jedion357

jedion357's picture

Hurray! I just went commercial with my art!

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Just sold one piece and have another on reserve.

 

jedion357's picture

Drawing vrusk use to be the hardest of the core 4 aliens to draw

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Trying to draw a vrusk use to give me fits. This one was done with charcoal and conte crayon.

 

Vrusk Tai Chi

jedion357's picture

Spawn of Volturnus

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Recently joined a PBP run through of the classic Volturnus Campaign. Thinking about the campaign while doing my daily drawing assignment lead to the following- a group picture of the sapient species of Volturnus.

Done in charcoal.

Spawn of Volturnus

Tom Stephens's picture

Server issues

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Just a quick note to let everyone know.  The main server the site runs on is having issues and not working properly.  Luckily the site runs in a virutal machine. I've gotten the site up on an alternate computer for now.  However, expect some random downtimes and possible slowness between now and when I get the main server back up (it seems to be a software issue not a hardware one) as I try to figure things out.  Thanks for your patience.

Tom Stephens's picture

Print Version of Issue 3 Now Available

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Just a quick update to let everyone know that the print version of issue 3 is now available for purchace from Drive Thru RPG.  You can order your copy from the Issue 3 product page on their website.

 

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