More Thoughts On Those Dark Places

This week, author Jonathan Hicks shared some more thoughts on his upcoming Those Dark Places RPG, and the influence of Outland and Alien on its aesthetic.

Amazing Artwork By Ïve Bastrash

Artwork by Ïve Bastrash.

101 Alien Scenario Ideas

Alien King by freelance concept artist arvalis

The RPG.net hivemind has compiled 101 ideas for diverse scenarios in the Alien oeuvre, after eliminating the plots of the movies from the mix.

Thanks to Craig Oxbrow for drawing this thread to my attention.

You've Got An Alien In My Traveller

Published in 1980, issue four of the prestigious Journal of the Travellers Aid Society (a source of supplementary material for the original iteration of the grandaddy of sci-fi RPGs, Traveller) included this highly unofficial adaptation, by Chuck Kallenbach, of the creature shown in Ridley Scott's original Alien movie:

Thanks to a very kind fan of this blog - and HeroPress - for drawing this article to my attention.

Aliens: Theatrical Cut vs Special Edition

Travel To The Forbidden Planet For Your Alien Day Mementos

Check out the Forbidden Planet's Alien range for some sale bargains and pre-orders.

Free League Wins Alien Day By Opening Pre-Orders On Two New Box Sets

Today, in honour of Alien Day, the annual 4/26 celebration of the Alien franchise and fandom, Free League has announced not one but two major expansions for the official Alien RPG: a boxed Starter Set and a brand-new Cinematic scenario entitled Destroyer of Worlds.

Both titles will be released in August and can be pre-ordered today via the official Alien RPG website. If you pre-order, you will get complete PDFs well ahead of the official release day.

The boxed Starter Set is designed to be the perfect entry point into the game and the Alien universe. It contains everything needed to start playing:

• A 104-page condensed rulebook.
• The 48-page complete Cinematic scenario Chariot of the Gods by Andrew E.C. Gaska.
• Five pre-generated characters to play.
• A huge full-colour, double-sided map (format 864x558mm), with one side depicting chartered space in the year 2183 and the other floor plans for the Chariot of the Gods scenario.
• 84 game markers for keeping track of characters, motion tracker pings, and more.
• 56 high quality custom cards for weapons, personal agendas, and initiative in combat.
• A set each of ten engraved Base Dice and ten Stress Dice, designed specifically for the ALIEN roleplaying game.

Destroyer of Worlds is a complete Cinematic scenario, written by sci-fi novelist Andrew E.C. Gaska just like the previous Chariot of the Gods.

In Destroyer of Worlds, you take the roles of Colonial Marines as seen in Aliens (1986).

The scenario is designed for 3–5 players plus the Game Mother, and it’s a gauntlet of one hell after another. Expect it to take three sessions to complete. This boxed set contains:

• The main Destroyer of Worlds scenario book.
• A huge double-sided map (format 864x558mm) of the Ariaricus moon colony on one side and the Fort Nebraska space elevator ground base on the other.
• Five pre-generated characters to play.
• Custom cards for weapons, vehicles, and personal agendas.
• Player maps and handouts.

Spend Alien Day With Studio Yutani

You can find the megacast here: https://www.youtube.com/c/studioyutani

Happy Alien Day!

Now THIS is how you make a movie trailer!

Mondo Merch For Alien Day

With Alien Day falling on a Sunday (tomorrow) this year, artistic outlet Mondo has released its celebratory products early.

Check out its range of themed Tiki mugs, T-shirts, badges (pins to our American readers) etc here.

Warrior: Predator

A 16th century Native American warrior is forced to fight for her life against sister Predators. Will this fierce warrior survive? Or will she become another trophy for the deadly hunters?

(a fan film by Chris .R. Notarile)

Buy Two Aliens, Get One Free!

As a slightly more wallet-friendly offer for Alien Day, Eaglemoss is offering a "two-for-one" deal on select Alien products from its Alien and Predator Collection.

Get the cheapest one item free when you buy two. The offer ends on Sunday (Alien Day), so get young purchasing finger clicking!

Own Your Own Full-Sized Xenomorph!

How better to celebrate Alien Day this weekend than with your own life-sized Xenomorph?

A snip at $6,999.95 from the Orlando-based Hollywood Collectibles Group, this eight foot tall (including base) beauty is limited to a run of 25 pieces worldwide and is available for pre-order now.

The website says:

"We are proud to present our highly anticipated, Officially Licensed, Life-Size Alien Big Chap statue!

Designed by H.R. Giger for the movie Alien, the “Big Chap” needs no introduction. His bio-mechanical Xenomorph became one of the most iconic movie creatures ever created.

Constructed from fiberglass and mixed media, this spectacular statue stands almost 8 feet tall atop its Alien themed display base!

Painstakingly recreated by an Aliens SFX professional with meticulous attention to detail, the Xeno’s terrifying presence has been captured perfectly! To ensure authenticity, the major components of the body can trace their lineage back to the molds used to create the original movie costume.

Each stunning Museum Quality statue is hand finished before being individually painted to the finest detail. It comes complete with an Alien themed display base.

This HCG Exclusive Edition is Limited to just 25 pieces Worldwide, and includes an individually numbered 6” x 4” themed metal plaque. A regular edition is also available, click here for more details.

This is the definitive centerpiece for any Aliens collection!

* Photos are of a factory production piece, not a prototype."

Actual Play: Hope's Last Day

The crew from AVP Galaxy & Studio Yutani play through the Hope's Last Day cinematic scenario for the Alien RPG.

Jonathan Hicks Pods His Love Of Alien

In this week's episode (episode four) of The Farsight Podcast, author Jonathan Hicks discusses his love for Alien, how its aesthetic has influenced his gaming as well as his upcoming Those Dark Places (and his appreciation of Free League's Alien RPG).

You can find the podcast episode here via Anchor or through your podcatcher of choice.

Mystery Of Xenomorph XX121 Life Cycle

I like Ripley's theory that some (all?) drone xenomorphs are capable, in extremis, of creating their own eggs in this fashion... to continue the species.

"Another Glorious Day in the Corps!"

Aliens: Another Glorious Day In The Corps! is a new co-operative, miniatures, boardgame from Gale Force 9, based on the battle of Hadley's Hope in James Cameron's seminal Aliens movie.

Originally scheduled for release any day now, in the current climate who knows when we'll actually get to see this in the wild!

This is definitely one to keep an eye out for.

Hopefully, we might hear something on, or around, Alien Day (April 26)

I can't help but be reminded of the incredible Leading Edge boardgame from back in the day, which I played the hell out of and then - for inexplicable reasons - sold, much to my enduring chagrin.

As that old game now commands seriously silly money on the secondary market, I guess it only makes sense to purchase this new game instead.

And it's got miniatures... and we all know my love of miniatures!

Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps! is a co-operative survival board game where you and your team of specialist Colonial Marines will gear up with serious firepower and head into Hadley's Hope to find survivors and answers.

But you're not alone. To survive, you'll need to work together, keep your cool, and stay frosty to fight off relentless Xenomorph ambushes and get out of there alive.

Players can play up to six different missions, taking them into different areas from the Hadley’s Hope terraforming facility to the deep, dark recesses of an xenomorph nest.

Aliens also offers an exciting campaign mode to play four of the missions linked together, so players will need to fight relentless xenomorph attacks and keep each other alive all the way to the end of the campaign.

The remaining two missions are purely about survival, it’s kill or be killed. The players are dropped into the game with nothing more than a pistol. They will need to scavenge weapons and gear while hordes of Xenomorph aliens are trying to get at them. How long can you survive against the odds?

Here's a first impressions video, of a prototype edition, from last year's Gen Con (and GF9 were already talking about expansions!!!):

"Is This Going To Be A Stand-up Fight, Sir, Or Another Bug Hunt?"

For a mere €219.95 (approx. £193 or $239) you'll be able to snag a pair of limited edition Reebok U.S.C.M. Bug Stompers this weekend, released at 11pm on Saturday, ahead of Alien Day on Sunday.

Inspired by the shoes worn by Ripley and the combat gear of the colonial marines in Aliens, these bad boys will be available through the official Reebok site.

Stomp aliens in style. These futuristic shoes are inspired by the ones worn in a legendary 1986 science fiction movie. The iconic strap made them easy to slip on and off quickly for quick scene changes. Camouflage graphics and a "Bug Stomper" label give them an authentic vibe. The upper is made of a supple, full-grain leather.

In Space No One Can Hear You Smeg Up!

My great friend Adam Dickstein of the marvellous Barking Alien blog has put into words an idea I, co-incidentally, had been toying with recently.

A thought exercise combining the, actually very similar, universes - both in live-action and roleplaying games - of Red Dwarf and Alien.

Adam, of course, has summed it more eloquently, and with a better grasp of the game mechanics involved, than I could.

Read his wonderful article here: It's Cold Outside, There's No Kind of Atmosphere...

For several years I have been tinkering with my own Red Dwarf RPG campaign idea (it's currently docked here at The Red Knight Chronicles, although it began life as its own Wiki) and this is encouraging me to dust it off as a back-up campaign in case my planned Alien RPG falters.

Planets Of The Alien 'Verse

The planets of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Prometheus and Alien Covenant.

Sourced from the films, novelisations by Alan Dean Foster and The Weyland-Yutani Report by S.D. Perry

ASMR ... From Spaaaaaace!

We removed the music track from these scenes from The Expanse, the result: ASMR in space.

Actual Play: Home Sweet Home

Two rival families put their differences aside to build a future. But when disaster strikes how far will they go to protect what they have built, and how long will new-found loyalties last?

This three-and-a-half hour session of Alien RPG was the last session of CovidCon, Effekt podcast's mini online convention for patrons in the time of lockdown.

Dave runs “Home Sweet Home” the Con adventure he was writing for Free League’s presence at UK Games Expo and Gen Con. These events *may* still happen this year, so if you don’t want spoilers check out some of our other sessions.

New Box Sets Due To Land In August

Brilliant 20-minute interview, on Box To Board, with Free League's Tomas Härenstam about forthcoming products, including some more tantalising details about forthcoming Alien RPG material.

It looks like August is going to hurt some wallets with two box set releases: a Starter Set, containing everything you need to run the Chariot Of The Gods scenario, and a smaller box set for Destroyer Of Worlds, the Cinematic sequel to Chariot.

Free League is aiming for a simultaneous release of these two.

Then, before the end of the year, they hope to get out a thick book about playing Colonial Marine campaigns.

Watch the video for more details, and a taste of the many other great projects Free League is working on.

More Information On Forthcoming "Industrial Sci-Fi", Those Dark Places

This week author Jonathan Hicks shared some pre-release thoughts on his upcoming "industrial science fiction" RPG, Those Dark Places, on his blog.

Before  going on to introduce the simple rules engine that drives the game, he set the scene as follows:

"It's my first fully finished RPG game and it's a dark scifi setting, and while it's inspired by movies such as Alien, Dark Star and Outland it takes inspiration more from the aesthetic rather than the content; so, no aliens or monsters or cosmic entities, they only exist in the minds of those who can't handle the pressures of working in deep space.

Or perhaps they don't."

He refers to his central d6 rules mechanic as the "ODDS System - One Die Determines Success", adding that it is not actually referred to as that in the book.

To find out more about the game, which is due for release in November, check out Jonathan's blog, , Farsight Blogger

Some Vintage Poster Eye-Candy

by Tim Anderson

by Tim Anderson

by Tom Walker

Underwater Alien Art From The Abyss

Looking for inspiration for unusual underwater alien species for your games?

Then check out this concept art from the legendary Jean Giraud aka Moebius for James Cameron's wonderful 1989 movie, The Abyss.

Originally sourced from Monster Brains.