It is this schism that is at the heart of one of the most intense Temporal Wars ever fought, and our temps are the front line. A long, drawn out game of cat and mouse spanning millennia with the very nature of existence at stake, the war with Dr. Thraxis has no beginning and no end. The corporation and the scientist have been chasing each other on such a convoluted path through the past, present and future, that it has now become impossible to map out just exactly in what order things have happened.

In fact, it always was impossible.

Here then, are three of the many faces of Dr. Thraxis not currently found in the book Time & Temp.

Dr. Thraxis, Head of Research & Development, circa 1973
TVI: 0

This is Dr. Thraxis the employee. The brilliant scientist who, while working for Browne & Levitt Parcel, Inc., was one of the leading pioneers in the field of temporal mechanics. He has not yet been disillusioned by the grinding will of the mighty corporation he is on the brink of creating. A vibrant young man with a burning curiosity. Temps are absolutely forbidden from ever coming in contact with him. Doing so is a firing offense. Which is highly unfortunate, because this Dr. Thraxis is often the locus for many experiments attempted by future Drs. Thraxis.

Under no circumstances should young Dr. Thraxis be exposed to evidence of time travel before he has discovered it.

Hooks

• While Dr. Thraxis will never risk his past life or consciously do anything to prevent the invention of time travel (which would then render it impossible for him to experiment in the first place), it’s pretty clear that one of the easiest ways to disprove the Overriding Theory of the Fragile Immutability of Time is to smuggle a message to himself in the past that he never received. The temps should do all that they can to prevent this from happening, short of harming either of the Drs. Thraxis or interfering with the work of young Dr. Thraxis. And management should never, ever find out about it.
• Many of Browne Chronometric Engineering, Inc.,’s rivals would stop at nothing to beat them to the early time travel patents. An elite temporal black ops team armed with state-of-the-art equipment from 2033 is sent back in time to abduct young Dr. Thraxis. Its a good thing we’ve deployed a squad of underachievers armed with only their wits to intercept them.

Lord Thraxis the Elder, circa 1550
TVI: 3

For a brief while, in an attempt to create a historic record that had not existed before began traveling in time, Dr. Thraxis spent some time working his way into the gentry class of England during the reign of King Edward VI. Unbeknownst to him there are several historical, if trivial, references to a Lord Thraxis the Elder from that time period, but the spelling of the day being what it was has somewhat obscured the matter. The real threat here is not the Elder, but his son and daughter, twins who, historically, never managed to produce any offspring. These two horn-birds need constant chaperoning from the moment they each come of age in 1550 until they are ostensibly burned at the stake by order of Queen Mary I in 1555.

Hooks

• One (or more) of the twins has set their lustful gaze on no less a personage of Princess Mary herself, and is now embroiled in a love triangle (or rhombus) with King Philip II of Spain. Ah, romance, intrigue, sword play and poisoning! All the makings for a classic tale, with the temps tagging along to make sure everyone remains perfectly chaste.
• You didn’t think we’d actually let the Thraxis twins perish in the flames of religious cleansing, did you? After so many encounters with the kind and reasonable, but ultimately misguided Dr. Thraxis, what sort of cold-hearted assholes wouldn’t answer his plea for help? Can the temps successfully convince the world that the Thraxis  family expired at the stake and then whisk them away to a time and place where they can live out their lives anonymously?

Thraxitron 9000-X
TVI: 4

At some grim moment of Dr. Thraxis’s life, his memories, hopes, dreams and ambitions are transferred into the mainframe of mechanized plutoid object orbiting in the Kuiper belt. Thus the almighty Thraxitron 9000-X was born. From this platform, Thraxitron continues the good doctor’s work, attempting to create a single moment of tiny paradox to prove the mutability of reality.

Hooks

• Able to transmit radio waves back in time, Thraxitron makes several attempts to contact SETI and reveal to them his existence in their own future. Working on Earth, the temps must do battle with astronomers, g-man and conspiracy theorists in order to suppress and obscure these messages.
• Eventually, fed up with Thraxitron’s constant attempts to spoil causality, Browne Chronometric Engineering, Inc., will take the battle to Thraxitron 9000-X. This could play out like the end of Star Wars: A New Hope or 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it’s more likely to fare far worse.

As did Nostradamus.

As did a bushel of other mystics, seers, prophets, and holy men. And a more than a few crazies. “2012,” they said. “2012 is the year in which it will all end.”

And by all, they mean “Time & Temp: Unbound Edition.” And by end, they mean “go out of print.”

Yes, 2012 is the year in which it will Time & Temp: Unbound Edition go out of print.

Or some arrangement of those words that make sense.

As of right now, I have no more copies of the Unbound Edition. Nor do I intend to print any more. There are still some floating around out there, at various stores and whatnot. A smattering of them are still available at IPR. I’ve personally seen a few of them on the shelves at Modern Myths. So, if for some reason you’re desperate for the Unbound Edition and you haven’t found the time to purchase it in the past two and a half years, you still have a chance if you act fast and dig around.

But This is Not the End End

No, not by a longshot!

• You still have Time & Temp: Paperless Office to knock around. All the power of Time & Temp: Unbound Edition in the convenience of a PDF.
• I have finally begun work on a bound edition, simply called Time & Temp. All the content of the Unbound Edition–plus some extra stuff I’ve been working on–in the convenience of a book.
• Current owners of the Unbound Edition, fret not! It remains a living file. Whatever additions are in the bound edition will be made available to you for free via PDF.

And that’s not all! The Time & Temp family is growing. There is a card game in the works, tentatively title Time & Temp: Office Politics. It’s a bridge-like bidding and trick taking card game in which the players compete to lead the temps as they police history and maintain temporal integrity. All the drama of Time & Temp–gunslingers, mummies, Nazis, dinosaurs, spacemen, a shattered time machine and ass-kissers trying to earn a full-time position–in the convenience of a card game.

What’s more, the change in the political climate may provoke further investigation into the recent economic troubles the world has been facing, which could uncover some unfortunate temporal trading schemes of certain CEOs.

And now the chronometric cat is out of the bag. New Scientist has just published a how-to guide to building your own time machine, presaging the 2013 boom in temporal tourism which will lead to a massive influx of work orders for temporal maintenance technicians as millions of hapless tourists make a right mess of history (in particular over 55 million Americans trying to beat themselves to the 2012 polls in order to change their votes).

Browne Chronometric Engineering, Inc., must have known this was coming. And I’m sure they have a plan. Still, can’t expect it will be easy. They’re going to need some help.

If you’re one of the twelve people left on this Earth who don’t have a copy of Time &Temp, this is your chance. Time to stop feeling left out. Time to stop wondering what all the excitement is about. Time to finally be let in on the mystery of time travel.

The Wayne Foundation Bundle is $80 worth of gaming material for $15–a great deal and for a worthy cause. All of the proceeds generated from the sale of this charity pack will be donated directly to The Wayne Foundation, a 503(c) charity organization dedicated to ending child prostitution in the US and assisting underage victims.

Teacher Pete Figtree talks about using games and gaming tools in the classroom on his freshly minted podcast Ruthless Diastema. And on episode 01 he gives MonkeyDome some loving. If you’re curious about the game, but not ready to commit to the zero-dollar price tag, I highly recommend giving this a listen to. It includes a thorough rundown of the game, how it works and how it can be used as a teaching tool. So thorough, in fact, that he actually manages to solve an issue I’ve been having trying to communicate one of the MonkeyDome rules that has survived the process of becoming Swords Without Master.

MonkeyDome, as you may or may not know, is a game about post-apocalyptic action and comedy created in a single week by Emily Care Boss, Jason Keeley, John Stavropolous, Jim Sullivan and myself. We published it as the Imagination Sweatshop and delivered physical copies of it to JiffyCon-goers eight days after its inception. And now it’s available as free PDF on this page.

I love this little game. The creation of MonkeyDome was a manic, amazing experience. We used a process we coined playstorming, wherein we sit down and start playing the game before almost any of the design work is done. We design as we play and then we play it some more. Nonstop roleplaying action. Hell, after we were finished–bleary eyed from the last couple sleepless nights spent trying to write, layout and assemble the physical object–we were stuck on an train slowly working its way towards JiffyCon. You’d think we’d while away those hours napping, but no, instead we played our first hack of the game set in the Young Guns II universe. It was glorious.

It was on that train ride, playing that game, that Swords Without Master was conceived.

I could go on and on. And we did, that night, and afterwards at the con.

The game was a personal victory of mine, because of the type of player Tavis is. He’s an open-minded gamer, willing to try all sorts of new forms of game and play, but his heart belongs to his true love, the primogenitor of the hobby: D&D. There’s a little Tavis in me, hell probably in all of us, and I wanted to see if Swords could seduce him.

Now, I’m no homewrecker. I wasn’t trying to break Tavis and D&D up for good. I just wanted to see if what I saw in the game was real. There were promises made when I was young and first came across the hobby. Promises made by the fiction in Appendix N, by the art in the game, and by the metal I was listening to at the time. Promises of violence, adventure and wonder that were never quite answered by the mechanics of D&D, or any other game, not for me, not until Swords began to form.

Sure, I found plenty of violence, adventure and wonder along the way, playing a multitude of games, but these were turning out to be very specific promises. I clearly feel Swords answers these promises, but I’m a little too close to it to judge. So I love testing the game on players like Tavis, players who I think have heard the same promises. Tavis obviously had these promises fulfilled with D&D, but I was delighted to see he could find them answered in Swords as well.

Over on The Mule Abides, Tavis quotes me talking about a moment during the design of Swords when I felt compelled to hack at early D&D.

I had a moment, last year, while working on Swords, where I found myself compelled to hack D&D. It was like I was exorcising a demon. With both Sw/oM and the hack, I was striking at the very roots of my gaming in an attempt to capture the essence of what lured me into this hobby. And what I was finding was two completely different games. Swords answered all the promises in one way; and something in that Basic-Expert-Companion set combo felt like the other way to answer them. ACKS looks like it’s hitting right on that second way. I’m excited about that.

For me, where the mechanics of D&D and the promise of the fiction diverge, the mechanics begin to promise their own thing. Flipping through the old books, perusing the levels I’d never reach (at least not in that edition) I’d dream of the tower my magic-user might one day build, or the army my fighter might amass. There were glories to be won beyond treasures that lay abandoned beneath the earth. Something for the adventurer to become if he or she survived long enough. Something to fight and struggle for.

All of these promises–from the mechanics, the fiction, the art, the music–intermingled in my mind for decades. And so, when it came time to design Swords, I found I had to hack and toy with D&D as well, perhaps to reassure myself that I wasn’t abandoning one dream for the other.

Adventurer Conqueror King seems to be hitting exactly what I was striking at while I hacked. A game about characters whose concerns and influence change as they grow in ability and renown. Where this growth, this struggle, is the game itself. The promises I found in D&D‘s mechanics. And I’m pretty damn excited about that.

ACK has just over a week left in its Kickstarter. If you’re as excited about it as I am, I recommend getting in on it now, so you can get a piece of that mass combat supplement. You’re going to have a hard time conquering without mass combat.

If you’re mucking about in British history, you’re going to want check out the History Cookbook for all your dining needs. It’s a lovely collection of dishes categorized by the eras in which they were commonly eaten.

Regrettably, the recipes seem to be confined to British history, but if that’s good enough for Doctor Who, it should do quite nicely for the occasional temp adventure. And I have no idea how accurate any of this is, but then again, accuracy is not a temp’s strong suit. In any case, it should make a lovely resource for creating a reasonably realistic meals whether they’re for your temps or for your players.

Yours truly,

Eppy

P.S. One’s favorite meal would make an excellent eidolon or simulacrum for a Swords Without Master rogue.

P.P.S. If anyone has other resources on the history and anthropology of food and cuisine, hit me up with a link in the comments. I know they’re out there.

P.P.S. Do check out the comments.

I’ve got about 85% of it written, roughly. I have no idea what that comes out to in terms of pages, because I’m a little adrift in the graphic design department. But it does mean progress is being made and this 85% includes the Great Pronoun Shift of 2011, a necessary and laborious task.

How Do You Suggest I Spend My Time Waiting For This?

Adventuring! Get thee to the Unstore and check out Simon Carryer’s sword & sorcery game: On Mighty Thews. And then check out the Pulpy Primer he put up for free over here. Actually, it doesn’t matter the order, just buy the game and play it.

Okay, Fine, We’ll Be Off Adventuring While You Toil Away; But Throw Us a Sword Without Master Bone Here.

Okay, but seriously, just a bone. While whittling away at the text, I’ve also had the opportunity to play some Sw/oM with fellow game designers Emily Care Boss, Robert Bohl, and Joshua A.C. Newman. We’ve been testing out the novella rules.

Swords very specifically focuses on short-form fiction, both because most of its inspiration comes from a tradition of short stories and because the short story is unequivocally the pinnacle of fiction. To that end, every Sw/oM game should take only a few hours and contain a complete story arc, thus allowing you to complete your fiction in one sitting. But not every short story is short.

The novella dips into a slightly longer form that, conceivably, could be finished in a single sitting, but not without the threat of exhaustion. Especially in the case of a game like Sw/oM. So to accommodate those without the stamina, without the iron fortitude required to game for 6 to 12 hours–those lesser gamers among us–Sw/oM needs rules that let us carry the themes and threads of part of the story through our day-to-day reality and back into the world of Swords unbroken for the next part of the story. These rules are called the Campaigns.

Campaigns belong to a category of rule that also includes Styles and Rituals. These are agreements made by all the players to apply the rest of the rules a certain way or to ensure specific elements make it into the fiction. How they differ from one another is largely a function of scale.

• A Ritual is something that takes place in the heat of the moment, during the game. It’s a way of informing your fellow players that you’re looking to handle something a certain way and giving them the tools to support that. For example, if I say I’m invoking the Ritual of the Long Spell, I’m telling my fellow players that my rogue is working on something that will deal with our current foe, but it’ll take some time. The Overplayer should focus our enemy on my rogue, my fellow Rogue Players should focus on keeping that enemy away from me, and when we’re ready to end this, hand me the dice.
• A Style involves an entire game session, which often invoke a series of Rituals. Tonight, we’ll be playing with the Intrigue Style, which means that whenever we have a Discovery Phase, that phase cannot end unless we’ve revealed a hidden agenda or introduced someone with one.
• A Campaign is a specific series of Styles (and Rituals) that are laid out for each session in the Campaign. Do not let the name fool you. They’re meant to be short compared to what we’d traditionally think of as a roleplaying game campaign. Two or three sessions worth, mostly. By way of example, on Monday night we played the second session of a trilogy which we all agreed should be a bit of a downbeat. So before we started playing we agreed that at some point before the story ended one of them had to be maim, lose something they love, or otherwise be permanently altered. A downbeat was had, as our drive towards this goal broke most of our rogues and left them imprisoned and worse.

This is just breaking news at the moment, but I’m breathlessly awaiting more details as the story unfolds.

Paradox: 1

Reality: 0

Suck it, things that have once or possibly ever will have existed!

And speaking of those challenges, over on the forums there’s some chatting going on about how to make sure the folks sitting down for a game of Sw/oM know what they’re getting into. It’s a bit more complex than you might expect. I’d love to hear your two cents worth.*

* Offer of two cents void anywhere within or without the continental United States of America.