Bones of Old Earth Lives!?

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The ruins of the solar hegemon, drifting out there in space.

I set down Bones in October, resigned that I had allowed the scope of the project to creep to the point that I could no longer complete it. I had made efforts to scale back the project to something that could be finished, but feeling as though I had failed, I moved on.

Until, last week, I got an offer to collaborate on a sci fi project. I dusted off my old Bones manuscript, and pitched it to them: maybe there's something in here that's worth exploring?

Their response really shocked me. They said, "This is a 5,000+ word manuscript. You're done. Release it."

So that's the plan. I took everything that was in the manuscript and put it in a layout, and it's already at 20 pages. Today, I hopped on a call with BigTen and we filled up the google doc for places that needed an editing pass, and spots to add roll tables or NPCs, but the project is about 80% done.

Bones of Old Earth #1 is somewhere between a setting and a point crawl. It explores the wreckage of Sol, where calamity preceded the invention of warp travel, ruins of war and collapse.

I'm really looking forward to sharing more from this project. I said it before, but I really mean it this time: I'll be posting sample pages very soon, and I'll have more artwork to share as I produce it.

Here is one of the minor locations:

xx Transcendent

Sensors indicate abundant plant life

Tug ship connected to a huge alloy lattice frame. Vacuum-adapted bushes grow in rows along the latticework.

• The vacuum orchard bears a year-round crop of ripe produce. Laboratory inspection reveals a complex, highly nutritious protein structure.

• Tended by a fleet of small crablike bots with highly specialized appendages.

• The lattice is patrolled by robotic guard automata, with logic circuits far beyond anything currently in development.

• Automata directive: allow cultivation, protect future yields

• Guards are slaved to an advanced decision making computer suite, capable of high level threat assessment and reasoning. It is conversational, and appears to be self aware.