Net Find - Age of Aces

Age of Aces is a site dedicated to the Air War Pulps of the 30s and 40s. Bill Mann, Chris Kalb, and David Kalb reproduce the old pulp magazines by scanning the original content, re-typeseting the words, and restoring the original artwork for the completed book. You can either download fred PDFs or order the books from Amazon.com.

The site describes itself as follows:

Straight from the tattered pages of Popular Publication’s air war pulps, Age of Aces Books is proud to be able to bring you the best of these heroes. Don’t spend all that time and money tracking down dozens of the crumbling original magazines looking for your favorite aviator. Age of Aces has done that for you. Each of our books contain stories featuring a single exciting character or written by one of your favorite authors. We are also doing some books that are not air war but still have a connection to that era and those magazines.

If you're a GM running a Savage Worlds pulp campaign, I count this as must read content. Scenario ideas and NPCs will leap off the pages. As a player, you'll get all sorts of ideas and new directions for your character.

I've spent hours on the site reading the pulps, pulling sayings and settings for Thomas Gunn stories. Drop by and give them a read. You won't be disappointed.

Pulp Magazine Cover Fun

I found a great site the other day thanks to Shane Hensley. Pulp-O-Mizer has an amazing resource for generating your own pulp magazine covers. You simply plug in your headings and titles, select some art work and Viola! You've got pulpy goodness.

The site also offers serial fiction with loads of other content. I'm impressed most with the artwork, however. The main site, Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, contains all sorts of resources for the pulp lover in all of use but most its a site that contains the stories of Bradley W. Schenck. The web site contains all his stories for free but you can also purchase non-electronic versions, if you like.

There are now two different kinds of stories on the site. The first are interactive, branching stories. The second kind are non-interactive, serial stories. The two have a lot in common regarding plot line and art.

The interactive stories have about three or four paragraphs of text followed by a set of actions. Your choice of paths dictates where the story goes next. Over all its lots of fun and a great time waster. You'll also be treated to some outstanding artwork.

The really great discovery was to find that almost all the artwork is draggable into TokenTool for use in MapTool. You can take any of the character portraits

This is a great pulp resource regardless of whether you're looking for some pulpy adventures, seeking artwork for your Savage Worlds game, or looking for tokens. I can't recommend it highly enough.  

Savage Worlds Characters: Detective Tom Gunn and Father Burk

I enjoyed something last week that I have not enjoyed for a very long time: participating in a game as a player. Life's gotten complicated of late causing me to prune some of my favored pastimes just to keep things afloat for family and work.

Review: Thrilling Tales 2nd Edition for Savage Worlds

Savage Worlds 1930's Pulp Fiction
If you ever enjoyed the two-fisted treasure hunting of Indiana Jones, the high-flying action of Dave Stephens' The Rocketeer, the globe trotting exploits of Doc Savage, the extra-planetary adventures of Flash Gordon, or the gritty mob busting of The Untouchables then you've enjoyed a story set in the pulp era. Pulp is not a genre unto itself. In the strictest sense, pulp was the medium used to present stories during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. The pulps reached their height during the 1930s as great change swept across the globe. Gandhi's fasting and Hitler's rising occurred as synchronous events. It was the time between World Wars with the world growing steadily smaller thanks to air travel, automobiles, radio, and an increased literacy rate.

Pulp fiction fed a hungry and growing audience a steady diet of adventure, intrigue, and action. Good was good and bad was bad. Even some bad guys were really good guys if given half a chance. The hero never died in pulp adventures. But then again, neither did the villain. The stories, plots, heroes, and villains are great RPG fodder as players and GM recreate some of their favorite settings from movies, books, and TV. Adamant Entertainment produces a Savage supplement titled Thrilling Tales 2nd Edition to add to their extensive line of Thrilling Tales products.

Net Find: Men's Adventure Magazines

I'm a pulp fan so I'm always happy to find a resource for game prep. I use Maptool for online RPGs and thus need art to make tokens to move about the map. I was therefore very happy to find a web site catering to the pulp magazines of the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Men's Adventure Magazines is a blog dedicated to the "Sweat" pulp mags from the post war era. Not only does it contain numerous magazine covers, it is rife with plot ideas for your pulp games.

The blog does contain some scantily clad women which I'm sure were quite scandalous back in the day. Today they seem pretty tame but the site still boasts a "Mature Content" warning.

Check it out for all your pulp gaming needs.

N-Space Beastiary: The Beastmen of Mars

The Races of Mars


This article discusses the various races of Mars in the Space Nazis setting. The setting utilizes the Slipstream product in conjunction with the Savage Worlds Explorers Edition from Pinnacle Entertainment Group for race creation, equipment, vehicles, edges, hindrances and power.

Cat Men are the Red Planet's dominant life form. Other races live alongside them as either prey species, intellectual masters, or hide from them altogether to prevent racial extinction.

The topography of Mars is that of large swaths of red, savanna plains separated by forests, mountains, caverned trenches, and polar ice caps. The canals of Mars stretch from the poles to the equator supplying water and trade routes.

Space Nazis Z-Space Beastiary - The Dark Ones

If your characters make it to Z-Space they are likely to run into Dark Ones. These minions of the Elder wander Earth in search of slaves and food.  Their ancestors were banished to Z-Space when the Elders were put to sleep eons ago by the Harmonic Stabilizers. 

Savage Setting - Space Nazis - The Reveal

This would be considered the GM's section of the Savage Setting - Nazi Horror from Outer Space!  The previous post is player information to give you and your players a feel for the game universe. This post contains information not generally known by the peoples of the Great Solar Alliance for the Librarians of Mars keep secrets very well indeed.

Savage Setting - The Nazi Horror from Outer Space

I love creating universes. It's the aspect of Game Mastering I enjoy the most. I'm almost never satisfied with an out-of-the-box setting. I feel compeled to add my own twist to it.

What follows is my re-imagineering the Slipstream setting from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. It can and should be used directly with the Sliptream Players Guide.

Space Pulp: Artifacts

1.

Orange and yellow clouds gathered, darkening in preparation of a Saturnian Summer storm. The birdman flew away from the pursuing tempest, grateful for the tailwind and the clouds that hid him. Lightning flashed between nearby clouds, causing the birdman's hair to stand on end. Then the rain came.



Streams of water flowed past his brow and into his beard. The tailwind became erratic, tossing him about like a child's doll. His wet, blue tunic clung to his thin body proving little protection from the fierce weather. He had to find shelter soon or he and his precious cargo would fall into the clouds below to be lost forever in Saturn's dense, lower atmosphere. He tightened his grasp on the leather satchel that slickened in the rain.