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Knights of Lazarus + Familiar Faces

Created by Marco Serrano

SpicyTuna's adventure and worldbuilding kit from the Knights of Lazarus Kickstarter campaign. Important Notes: *Pre-orders will ship after the Kickstarter ships (Est. June 2022) *Pre-orders ship with all items in a single order and cannot be spit into various shipments or by item. *Shipping will be charged when the Pre-Order store closes. (Est. May 2022)

Latest Updates from Our Project:

New Release + Knights Extensions
about 1 year ago – Mon, Sep 25, 2023 at 08:58:22 AM

“Outsourced: The Luko Fin Corp Deception” is currently on Kickstarter with 3 days left!

Outsourced Cover (Mockup)

Outsourced is an intrigue filled survival module for Mothership 1E.

The hardcover book contains the backstory and motives of the people behind Luko Fin Corp, two horror filled planet settings, each with detailed toolkits to generate stalking horror missions, a ready to play bunker escape adventure playable with an optional solo procedure, and a mercenary appendix to spice up characters and shore leave.

Here’s Our Team:

  • Evangeline Gallagher (One Night Strahd, The Lost Bay)
  • Christian Sorrell (The Bloodfields at Blackstar Station, There Is A Goblin Loose on Icarus Station)
  • Marco Serrano (Knights of Lazarus, Constant Downpour Remastered)
  • Stephan Serrano (Constant Downpour Remastered)
  • Walton Wood (Lichoma, Down We Go)
  • Alfred Valley (Thousand Empty Light, Lay On Hands)

And the link to the campaign so you can check out more:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marcoserrano/outsourced-the-luko-fin-deception-for-mothership-1e

Interior Spread in Outsourced (Mockup)
Interior Spread in OUtsourced (Mockup)

Knights of Lazarus + Familiar Extensions

One thing we’ve tried to stay consistent on is integrating Knights of Lazarus (and the rest of our Mothership releases) into an integrated sandbox universe. This way Spicy Tuna modules can be played in any order and easily hook into each other. We’ve also been building off of our printed modules with extended content.

Knights of Lazarus has 4 extensions/tie-ins to date, and Familiar Faces Vol.1 has 6. For the sake of brevity, we’ll cover the Knights of Lazarus extensions and tie-ins here.
(All free downloads are linked below, and a link to The Guac issue that discusses the sandbox universe our Mothership modules create is also linked.)

The First Extension was a pair of NPCs.

(Knights of Lazarus  x  Orbital Debris)

Lionel Nesque of The Pelican Crested & Sichelgaita, an Escaped Knight

Lionel and Sichelgaita grew up together, and Lionel turned her in once she expressed concerns against the order. Sichelgaita escaped, crash landing on the Junky Moon where she is now the Reclaimer’s Lead Recon Agent.

(In the same pamphlet there are two NPCs that connect Familiar Faces Vol.1 and Orbital Debris.)

I was ecstatic to make these NPC connections between Knights of Lazarus/Familiar Faces Vol.1 and Orbital Debris because they allow for wardens to run between the three modules in any order with NPC motives/hooks that lead to and from each module.

Lionel Nesque + Sichelgaita

The Second Extension was the Steel Order Infantry 698

(Rival Party and Xenotech Artifact)

Recently released earlier this month, Steel Order Infantry 698 is a party of 3 Knights, Assio Ilia, Aurora Ash, and Ken Hachimura. They are complete with backgrounds and stats randomly generated from the Knight Grunt Generator [55.1] in Knights of Lazarus.The trio is on mission to locate The Holy Summit Tablets, a xenotech artifact capable of emitting an invisible ray that freezes objects in thick acidic ice.

The Rival Party can be placed anywhere, and can be adversarial or act as a party to sell the tablets to. They can also act as a first introduction to the Knights of Lazarus if you haven’t ran the module, or as a reintroduction to the vastness of the order. If your crew has stolen from The Ship Canterbury in the past, the Knights may know who they are and may switch objectives to hunting the crew once they discover them.

Random Tables and The Holy Summit Tablets from Steel Order Infantry 698

The Third Extension is inside Review.Books.Ads.

(Knights of Lazarus x Review.Books.Ads)

Reviews.Books.Ads. is an in-world, player-facing mercenary-made zine made for the Lo-Fi jam hosted on the official Mothership Discord. It’s a series of book covers and ads with commentary from a bored mercenary.

Included in the book cover selections are “Maps From Outside My Galaxy” and “Cloning the Black Prince. Proliferation #7362” from the “What Books Do You Find?” [57.1] table from Knights of Lazarus. The commentary also notes that these covers were provided from Davin Tigerstick, one of the treasure hunters in KOL so the crew may be able to get some information from the author of Reviews.Books.Ads. about him.

The zine ties into 5 other 3rd Party Mothership zines, including The Oceans Are Endless on Meridian, The Cleaning of Prison Station Echo, 5QIIC, Yucatan Tech Co Retro Weapons Catalog 1, and Familiar Faces Vol.1.

Interior Page from Reviews.Books.Ads.

The Fourth Extension is inside Outsourced

(Knights of Lazarus x Outsourced)

In the back of Outsourced is the Mercenary Appendix which includes several shore leave random tables, mission tables, and of course mercenaries. One of the mercenaries, Tristan Blanc, is a former knight in the Steel Order. Tristan, like many former knights, hates the order and is willing to discreetly share the knowledge with those wanting to do the order harm. Tristan also knows about The Ship Canterbury and a trick to locate it.

This connection was important for me to include, because like Familiar Faces Vol.1, Outsourced is one of the pillars of the shared sandbox universe we’re making which makes for easy connection into The Knights of Lazarus.

If your crew joined the Knights of Lazarus instead of stole from them, I’d find it very fitting that as they are moving up in rank for them to be sent on a mission to find, capture, and return Tristan Blanc to the Knights of Lazarus.

I hope one or all of these extensions help you get more mileage out of Knights of Lazarus! And, likewise with Familiar Faces Vol.1 connections we’ve made since these zines were first published.

You can download both the NPCs and the Rival Party + Xenotech Artifact free here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1odEIDmU9DGK_BLzNWEkLFcNTiWjCRl44

You can see our full deep dive about how we’re investing in an integrated sandbox universe for our Mothership releases on this issue of The Guac, our newsletter.
(Free to read without subscription).

https://theguac.substack.com/p/the-guac-015-free-rival-party-and

Have a great one ahead!!

Marco

New Mothership KS - Constant Downpour Remastered
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Dec 02, 2022 at 11:55:34 AM

We're excited to share that the Spicy Tunaverse is expanding! And there are 7 Days left in our Constant Downpour Remastered campaign.

Constant Downpour Remastered In Progress!

A retro-scifi psychological thriller inspired by Ray Bradbury's "The Long Rain". Constant Downpour is an adventure of dying hope. The open world stress-crawl pits players in the deadly environment of Venus 3 with limited information that is slowly revealed in an easy-to-use fog-of-war system.

This 100pg hardcover is a remaster of our first printed zine. With twice the material, there are twice as many hallucination and illusion encounters, more deadly monsters, and sauced up Venusian lore.

See more here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marcoserrano/constant-downpour-remastered

2x Free Zines + Solo Variant Unlocked

We're happy to be providing a number of notable stretch goals that are already unlocked!

2x 8pg Printed zines contain 10x Stim Packs manufactured from Venusian blood and the DNA of Venusian monsters + 6 Retro Scifi Weapons to enhance Constant Downpour or use after the campaign.

Both are presented as catalogs and are able to be player-facing.

Alfred Valley is on the team!! And, is designing the solo-variant ruleset to experience Constant Downpour in a whole new way.

Lastly we've unlocked 3x Sound bytes for use as in-game recordings players can find. These recordings reveal more of why the crew might have been sent here and affect their perception of one of the four factions on Venus.


The Original Soundtrack

7 Minute Preview of the Soundtrack on Youtube

Blake Suarez mixes classic Moog and Roland JD-8 synthesizers in an immersive cinematic soundtrack. The tracks carry heavy influence from the 80s, darkened for the adventure with inspirations pulling from the cadence and tonality of the Metroid Prime series, along with Stranger Things inspired retro synth.

We're overjoyed to have Blake on the project, and have an original soundtrack for the module! It ties the entire tone together for CDR. Excited for you to check it out!

That's it for now! We have a few things in the works that expand the Julip IV system from Familiar Faces Vol.1 and will be updating you here when the free content drops on our itch.io page.


Thank you for being here, Family! Have a beautiful day,

Marco

Zines in Peoples' Hands! Packages Out for Delivery!
over 2 years ago – Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 09:20:59 PM

Be On the Lookout!

Most people in the US have started receiving packages.

UK/EU fulfillment partner has received their package and will be sent out as early as this weekend. 

Canada fulfillment partner has received their package.

Australia fulfillment partners' package is in transit and will be receiving their zines early next week and I'd imagine they begin shipping shortly after.

I will finish sending out special US orders (anything different than a standard pledge level, and some late survey fillers) and the rest of the world by end of next week. I had to delay the final shipments because of family illness. 


Feels good to know everyone will have their zines in just a few weeks <3 I appreciate your support. I am excited for you to tear into these.


Have a  beautiful day,

Marco

Shipping starts next week!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 05:31:07 AM

I'll start by saying we were hit with another delay. Familiar Faces Vol.1 came in with a printing error, but the reprint is happening quickly and we should receive the new batch by July 29th.

In the meantime, I've quality-checked all the other books, have started tenderly grouping the 11-piece art packs, and have started packing the Knights of Lazarus only orders. Those will start to ship next week!!!

New Backerkit Charges

We will begin charging shipping next week as well. Please expect this from the same account you set up with Backerkit.


And some photos :)

Digital Rewards Sent! + Physical Shipping Update
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 09, 2022 at 04:24:55 AM

Digital Rewards were delivered two days ago (7/6/22)!

Keep an eye out for an email from Drive Thru RPG. I’m stoked to share the files with you and I can’t wait for you to see Familiar Faces Vol.1 and Knights of Lazarus in their entirety!

I apologize, I’m not sure if I did it ineffectively, but Familiar Faces Vol.1 and Knights of Lazarus digital rewards are delivered separately - so you can expect 2 emails if you ordered both. If you backed the Spicy Tuna Buffet than you will receive a third email with Constant Downpour that was sent earlier today (7/7/22)

Last note on digital delivery - I recently uploaded the Pages version of the zines so they should be available. Feel free to message me here or at [email protected] if you need anything!

If you signed up for our newsletter check your emails (and spam) to make sure you received it. :) Some big sneak peaks in there and four free pocket mod notebooks.


I am also looking for feedback on the Knights of Lazarus and Familiar Faces digital assets.

Knights of Lazarus Digital Assets:


Player-facing assets include 2x Posters (Tour the Merlin Dome, and Join the Knights of Lazarus), The Crumpled Map stretch goal, All 5 Maps, printable logos for Bashkir E and Orbito 4 plus a bonus KoL symbol to find, and optionally all of the notesheets and print-at-home notebooks. (Notesheets are created for most any page or enemy that is in the zines, for notating the experience or interaction, or for wardens to plan using the components of the zine.)

Warden-facing assets include 2x Easy-Print Notebooks (1 for Maps, 1 for NPCs) for easy planning, Notesheets for the entire zine, Spicy Tuna Brainstorm!


Familiar Faces Vol.1 Digital Assets:

Because FFV1 isn’t necessarily an adventure, I think the assets are more interchangeable between wardens and players - depending on player preference.

Assets include: 3x Posters (for Julip IV, Gilgamesh Red, and the Julip IV system), 3 Easy-print Notebooks (Atlas Roe, Gilgamesh Red, and Julip IV), Julep IV System Shuttle Voucher, and Notesheets for everything in the zine.

Here are the sneak peaks of printable assets :) (Low-ink options are included but not shown.)

All 5 Printable Notebooks + Spicy Tuna Brainstorm
Some inside sneak peaks

Physical Fulfillment Update

A rookie mistake pushed back our order until July 22nd. I forgot to account for final approval from TKG, and luckily got it approved rather quickly. I had to pause our order while making sure we didn’t have to change anything. I’m super appreciative of their time and swiftness and excited to say the books are legit 3rd party licensed.

Australian Fulfillment! Big win! 

I got in contact with Ash at Cardboard Monster and they are going to be able to help us with Australian fulfillment!! This is a huge win - as AU fulfillment was one of the highest cost points for shipping. I will still need to see how much it will take to bulk ship the zines to Cardboard Monster, but we should be saving a decent amount to each AU backer <3

Much love, everyone!!