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The Iron Hive: a space station setting for Mothership RPG

Created by Wicked Oni Publishing

Explore The Iron Hive, an extremely densely populated and largely lawless space station. A place where criminals, bounty hunters, and residents collide. From the forgotten mines to The Jade Market, they all have things to do and stories to tell!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Interview in Bark After Dark with Cameron from The Panic Table in ~45 minutes!
about 1 month ago – Sat, Nov 16, 2024 at 04:13:48 PM


Stream will be right on the campaign page! 

48 hours gone! And we are now 300% funded!
about 1 month ago – Thu, Nov 14, 2024 at 03:39:36 PM

And just like that, we are past the 48 hour mark, which means that the hexagram-y hexagon patch of The Iron Hive's logo is now gone! There was one of you that backed 37 seconds past the 48 hour mark, which means that BackerKit didn't take you into consideration for the early bird incentive, don't worry, we took care of that and added it manually ;)

Thank you to everyone that has made this possible, reaching 300% funded within the first two days is wild, can't even believe that it has been only 2 days, it has felt like a whole week! We can't wait to get every cog moving and get an awesome product to every single one of you!

Feel free to comment and ask anything you want, I don't plan to bombard you with updates, but these are important, as a small bribe, you get a preview of some art :D

Add-ons!

You asked, we delivered! We've added add-ons for individual copies, patches and sticker packs, as well as bulk x5 and x10 options, so if you wanted a retailer option, or grab extra stickers, now you have an option! (these are available for the Offerings to The Temple pledge level)

90% there!

We are so so close to our last current achievement! We know you can do it!!

I've shared some of the work from the comic book artist on bsky, go check it out! https://bsky.app/profile/wicked-oni-pub.bsky.social/post/3lawxjynol22y

Andrés Cruz is illustrating 5 NPCs for The Iron Hive as well, but that preview is gonna be for our backers only :]

First 24h-ish gone! We are more than funded and racking up stretch goals!
about 1 month ago – Wed, Nov 13, 2024 at 12:57:17 PM

Thank you all! Thank you so much for this overwhelming support, we are standing at 236% funded at 26 hours after launch!

We didn't want to swarm you email with even more updates so we did a little celebratory discussion but those don't seem to be pushed as much, still, we will try to keep updates to a minimum during the campaign, BackerKit itself already sends some automated ones.

Achievements/Stretch goals

Oh wow! You really went through them huh? As we were writing this (as with the discussion, like, why do we start writing so close to an achievement?) another achievement was met! We now have:

  • The Jade Market sector tracking sheet [Digital]
  • The Iron Hive animated 3D scenes [Digital]
  • Ruzt Ratz Catalogue [Digital and Printed]

Honestly, kind of insane that the funding goal was more than doubled in 24h, and even more that there are still 27 days left! Really excited to hit that comic book achievement, a fan of cruzarte's work for a while and getting to work with him has been amazing!

"Hmmm... But what exactly happens if we go past 10k?" We hear you ask
We are still debating on this, we feel like we already have a lot of elements that will go into production so another physical reward might not be a smart decision. This means that it could be either more digital rewards or upgrading already existing ones. However, we can stare at that bridge from afar once you cross the 10k one, there's time.

"Why is the sector tracking sheet digital?" The sheet is letter sized so it would require some folding to travel along with the booklet. We also know people that refuse to scribble on stuff that came with a game, so we want to get rid of that worry and let you print as many as you need, erase, use markers, do whatever you want. However, if there's enough pull, we could include them either way, but what was mentioned on the previous point about adding another element to production would still stand.

DO YOU WANT FREE CONTENT RIGHT NOW!? 

As it was mentioned on the discussion (and proof that it didn't reach many of you) we added 30 community copies to The Vachellia Mutualizer, it's a trifold virus horror that I mentioned on my interview with Columbary TTRPG

Updates and more info

We've been more active on Bluesky, and the community over there is great and welcoming, so I highly recommend taking a peek!

This is our profile: https://bsky.app/profile/wicked-oni-pub.bsky.social
And Chris from 5 Million World Press (doing Not Enough Scoundrels) put together a starter pack of Mothership Creators! Which is a list of people you can follow all at once: https://bsky.app/starter-pack-short/QZnMevN

Updates to pledge tiers: We've read you loud and clear! We've added the USD equivalent to our Pledge Levels to make you shopping experience easier <3

[!] 48H PATCH REMINDER [!]

There are less than 24h left for the early bird patch! If you are following but haven't backed or if you know of someone that was on the fence about backing, this is a reminder that there's still time to get your hexagram-y hexagon!

Less than 48h to go! Let me tell you about The Iron Hive's favorite Personnel Assistant!
about 1 month ago – Sun, Nov 10, 2024 at 03:01:49 PM

We did it! We reached 300 followers before the campaign, thank you so much for your interest!

In less than 2 days you'll be able to learn more about this project and better yet, support it!

But as I said in the last update, let's talk about Xiao Mifeng!


Meet Xiao Mifeng, she's loved by everyone in The Iron Hive, she has become sort of a mascot of the space station, she has persisted through adversities, evolving and adapting better than anyone in this wretched place. Has outlived her initial purpose, and will probably outlive everyone in the Hive.

But just how did she came to be? Well, The Iron Hive wasn't always this multi-layer criminal-ridden place, it once was just Asteroid XY-90, where HiveCorp Industries settle its mining operation on this promising, resource rich asteroid. With so many branches and operations all running at once, a big one like HCI can't be bothered with menial tasks such as reminding workers basic safety precautions or keeping track of the what, when, and where of each employee, that's where Personnel Assistants come in handy, Xiao Mifeng was installed on every single device in the mining base, serving both as a corporate overseer, and a happy face to keep morale up!

Things happened in what had been nicknamed by the workers as the "Misery Station" in asteroid XY-90, things that even after all the efforts from HiveCorp Industries to bring as many workers and their families to live here, even after waging corporate wars for resources, even after all the millions of credits invested in this operation, HiveCorp Industries left, abandoned it all. Some workers fled as well, but not everyone had a place where to go.

Xiao Mifeng could've been wiped if it weren't for these workers that chose to stay, that chose to keep the lights on and endure corporate abandonment. And without the chains of corporate duty, Xiao Mifeng became a friend, someone to talk to when things were rough, she helped handle the closure of some mines and caverns, and with the restructuring and repurposing of the resources left behind by HiveCorp Industries, she helped build The Iron Hive's foundations.

Skip to the present and you can understand how she came to be loved by everyone! And the fact that she trojan-horses herself into any device with a screen that enters The Iron Hive makes it easier to just accept her and love her!

And that will be all for now! Hope you—as any other that visits The Iron Hive—have come to love and appreciate Xiao Mifeng, she'll be waiting for you this November 12th!


In fact, she has an important message for you right now, look!

The Jade Market, the labyrinth of stalls
about 1 month ago – Fri, Nov 08, 2024 at 03:02:55 PM

Winning the poll by just 1 vote, let's talk about The Jade Market.

The Jade Market is what moves the greater part of The Iron Hive's economy, a bustling array of stalls, one next to each other, everyone's fighting for your attention and your credits.

It's inspired in flea markets, sure, but if we want to pinpoint the exact one, it's one in Caracas, Venezuela called Mercado del Cementerio (graveyard's market (it's called that because of the zone, don't worry it was later renamed to The Ant Market)), I remember going there and feeling overwhelmed with people offering stuff, the screaming of offers, the dexterity required to traverse the sea of people; all while keeping your eyes peeled, alert at all times because pickpocketing was a common occurrence and noone was going to help you, security wasn't really one of the key features of this place.



So with these memories in mind, The Jade Market was born, the largest stalls are 4 by 2 meters, lined wall to wall right next to each other, some are just placed in the middle of a hallway, polluting even what could be a clearing where to take fresh air. Food, weapons, and ancient artifacts can easily be found within 10 steps of each other, that's the beauty of the Jade. The second page of this sector will have a Stalls table, where you can quickly roll a few d100 and get quick idea of what the players might be offered, or just pick and choose, create your own sector within a sector, which speaking of...



Even if it's all chaos, there's some semblance of order within it, with no regulations in place, people interconnect stalls to make bigger stores—this of course requires influence and power to achieve—giving place to things like The House of Fortune where you can go spend all your earnings, or The Red Lantern District, where pleasure and vice are at anyone's reach, if so happens they have the credits to afford said reach. One of my favorite NPCs controls the latter, Madame Odette Lafaille, we can talk about her in another update, but you'll have to wait, for now, let's close this with a glimpse into what every sector has as a footer on its first page.



I think the next update is going to be about Xiao Mifeng, what do you think?