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Space: 1889 - the Mars sourcebook

Created by Uhrwerk Verlag

The Space: 1889 sourcebook on Mars. Everything you need to know about the mysterious red planet in one comprehensive book.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Fifth stretchgoal reached!
over 6 years ago – Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 12:56:28 AM

This morning, the mars sourcebook got another upgrade :)

The endpapers now will be printed with two different themed maps of mars - one political maps and one showing recources and languages spoken in the different regions of the red planet.

Next stop (hopefully) is at 19.500 euros - when backers will get another pdf, describing the martian Shistomik tribe.

Space 1889 Movie: The Secret of Phobos
over 6 years ago – Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 12:56:19 AM

Today I got some information for you that don't relate directly to this project, but might still be interesting for many of you. As some might be aware, there was a Kickstarter project for a Space:1889 movie called "The Secret of Phobos" a while back. While this was done not directly by us, the people responsible are very good friends of us - and they did a wonderful job. By now, the movie is finished and it is available either via DVD or Bluray via our (German) shop or via streaming. The film is done in German (with some scenes in English), but it has English subtitles. Check out the trailer if you are curious. :-)

"Space 1889 - The Secret of Phobos" is based on the famous tabletop rpg and the first official feature film from Germany based on a roleplaying game. It was successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2015 and stars an international cast from Germany, Austria, France, the UK and Hungary. It was shot in Germany, the UK, China, Iceland and Portugal.

In "Space 1889" the colonial powers of Earth have conquered the solar system using Thomas Edisons "ether propeller". The encountered alien cultures on Mars and Venus.

Will Armstrong is a young female adventurer and explorer. On Venus she saves Michael Verne, son of famour author Jules Verne, from a dinosaur attack. At the same time she get's in the focus of the mysterious Worm Cult, a group of martian fanatics seeking revenge on mankind. They searching for an anvient artefact known as the "Graviton Key" which is installed in Will's ether flyer.

Running Time: 152 minutes
Genre: Victorian Sci-Fi/Adventure
Cast: Mháire Stritter, Steff Tannert, Anselme Champollion, Chris Fano, Tommy Krappweis
Languages: German with some English on the main audio track, English audio commentary
Subtitles. English
Bonus: Making Of, Outtakes, Deleted Scenes, Audio Commentary (Englisch)

But back to this project: In a couple of days I'll also post another update from Mars editor Dominic on what exactly is included in the Mars sourcebook. Stay tuned!

Chadwick’s Mars and the Mars Crowdfunding
over 6 years ago – Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 07:06:53 AM

We are on course for our fifth stretchgoal and have slightly under three weeks to go. Time for another update, this time Mars editor Dominic Hladek will give you some information on how the team incorporated the old GDW material into the Mars sourcebook.

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As most of you probably know there was never a sourcebook dedicated to the whole Mars (or any other whole planet) in Frank Chadwick’s original Space: 1889 roleplaying game. However, there was a large amount of texts highlighting single areas, city states, persons, cultures and other aspects of the Red Planet, with a focus on the British crown colonies and protectorate. You might wonder if and how we assimilated this material into our sourcebook. In this small text I would like to answer this question:

The short answer is “We made it almost all part of the sourcebook”. But this answer requires a long version, too. So, what did we do?

For participants of our first Space: 1889 crowdfunding it was probably evident that many creatures in Marvels of Mars were derived and adapted from different sources of the GDW Space: 1889 RPG. The little Kroliks from the adventure Krolik Run, the Canal Shark from the Transactions, the Bilair, Ganz Willoi, Griigan, Koljiss, Teshuwaan, Wocnids and others found their way into the new edition. But many more of the creatures are new. For the Mars sourcebook we chose a similar approach consisting of three steps:

1) The first step was screening the existing material. The GDW Space: 1889 core rules and Conklin's Atlas of the Worlds give an overview over Mars and were mostly already integrated in Clockwork’s Space: 1889 basic rules. But there are several further source books and adventures picking up single facets of the planet. The information was shared over more than 30 different sources: Steppelords of Mars describes the Shistomik tribes in detail, Caravans of Mars delivers information about the desert nomads and areas of the northern Martian hemisphere and the languages of Mars, Beastmen of Mars and Canal Priests of Mars are both adventure modules, but contain information about the High Martian Astusapes tribes and the canal priest religion. Some Tales from the Ether are set on Mars and contain city descriptions and NPCs, several issues of the Challenge magazine include scenarios and descriptions of city states like Dioscuria, Thymiamata, Melas and Shastapsh, but also articles about Liftwood biology, even a scenario on the Martian moon Phobos. And the Transactions Of The Royal Martian Geographical Society deliver many more small bites of information. The amount of these texts alone could have filled multiple sourcebooks (in fact it did in the GDW roleplaying game).

2) This leads to the second step: Reducing the content of these many, many articles and texts into a core extract that is useful for players and gamemasters. Many of our city state descriptions, NPCs, mysteries and cultures are based on information from these sources. I am able (and proud!) to say that the Mars sourcebook therefore gives the first overview ever over most of the existing material about Mars that was written 3 decades ago. The material was thoroughly sighted and edited. For people new to the Space: 1889 this means they have everything they need to play on Mars in one book, while veterans will find a lot of material reminding them of their beloved Mars of the late 80s.

3) The third step was the most important: Although we considered and compressed the texts from GDW sources, we had a high focus on enhancing Chadwick’s Mars for new aspects. The existing settings from back then were fit into a larger context and were supplemented with a lot of additional cultures, city states, realms, mysteries, equipment, technology and areas never described before. So, even if you are a veteran of Space: 1889 you will therefore come across many new aspects of Mars. You will find new background about the Oenotrian and Tossian empire. You will get to know the wild Hill Martians of the south pole region, the Hydraulic League in Mare Acidalium, the High Martians of Biblis Fons and the decadent city states of the Death Rivers. You will learn about the mysteries of the pyramid and face of Cydonia, about the dome of the city state Aurora and the holy mountain Olympus Mons. You will get to know the weapons used by Martian duelists and “pistol knights” and many more aspects enriching your game experience.

We hope this little article helps you understand what parts of the classic material will be contained in the sourcebook and how thoroughly we handled the many existing sources for the Red Planet in Chadwick’s game. Soon we will update you with more information about the structure of the Mars sourcebook.

Fourth stretchgoal unlocked - "A walk through Tossia" PDF
over 6 years ago – Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 10:17:33 AM

Last night (at least it was night here in germany ;) ) we unlocked our fourth stretchgoal, which means all backers of "Ethernauts" and above will recieve a PDF article about the martian city of Tossia.

The next stretchgoal will be reached at 17,500 euro, which will unlocked printed endpapers for the book (two different themed maps of Mars).

We still have three weeks to go and we here at the office are very positive surprised about what we already reached. Thank you all very, very much for this :)