Hello everyone! We hope your week is going well. This update is a quick behind-the-scenes look into the creation of the cards deck and a preview of the card backs. Let's get to it!

First, here are some words from deck creator Christian Kessler.

"Hi, this is the author and designer of Survivors of the Core Wars, a 50-card character deck for Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. I just thought I'd share a little on where this came from.

"The project started as a set of 5 NPCs I wrote for Stella Condrey's Red Solstice zine. These are the core members of the Bastard Brigade, a fleet of space pirates and mad scientists that was directly responsible for the destruction of the Core Supersystem and uncountable deaths.

"The project also started years before that, when I was working on a collaboration with Fiona Geist that sadly didn't go anywhere. Each player was expected to have several characters die, so it was going to include 20 pregen characters on postcards. Some of Fiona's contributions to the project were psychological obstacles that played on past traumas and triumphs, so each card included brief descriptions she wrote of some of the character's core memories.

"Years later, I liked the Bastard Brigade enough that it made sense to explore their origin. I knew I didn't want to write a gazetteer-style setting book, or a detailed history of the conflict. The strength of a concept, especially in an RPG setting, gets lost in minutia more often than not. I was inspired to think more about the conflict because the NPC descriptions I'd written asked more questions than they answered. Answers that raise questions are useful and thought provoking. Simple answers that don't are still useful but boring.

"So this wasn't really going to be a setting at all, but a bunch of snapshots of the memory of a setting. The postcard layout I designed years ago was perfect for it. The Core Supersystem is no more, but its survivors bring it with them, for better or for worse. Mostly worse. "

Cool, thanks CK!

Now, as requested, here is a wip of the card backs. Keep in mind this is an older iteration, but the current iteration of the card backs is very similar to this.

Also note that the above card back is one written specifically for 0e Mothership (the original game). All of the cards have been updated and tweaked to properly align with 1e rules, so no need to worry about that. As you can see, these cards will have a vast array of information for ease of use at the table, and will also be useful as reference cards for new players. We're pretty stoked about making these as useful as possible.

Alright, we'll be back the week after next (Happy Holiday next week to those celebrating) with some more creator commentary and some previews of some of the art for the card fronts, plus some insight into card art creation from the visual side of this, Boson Au.

Cheers!
-Space Penguin Ink