New Agenda Publishing

Orun Kickstarter Now Live!

MishaB — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 12:10:00 +0000

Eons ago, we were a desperate and different people, all vying for dominance of the galaxy. Fearful… Angry… Greedy… Shaped by petty desires… When the beings called Orisha came, they showed us a better way. Worlds flourished. The peoples of the galaxy were happy. They guided us to apotheosis, transcendence from the physical reality and expansion of our Ori.

Then, with a single stray thought, it was all torn apart. The mnemonic Sopona virus spread throughout the galaxy. Worlds fell into catatonic states, others hurt themselves in unspeakable ways, and all that stood against the psychic maelstrom was the Union of Ascendancy and some of the ascendant, the Oluru, who returned. Ultimately the war was won, the Sopona virus contained, and order restored… but the secret of apotheosis was lost.

That was over 500 years ago.

In Orun, you play an envoy of the ascendant Oluru, called a Djali or Luminary. Not quite ascendant themselves, the Luminaries travel to different worlds as advisers, troubleshooters, and peacekeepers in the post-apotheosis galaxy. They explore lost star systems and ultimately help enlighten worlds and their people, waking the galaxy from its disordered indolence.

Orun is on She’s a Super Geek!

MishaB — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 18:10:17 +0000

Tune in to the first of three episodes ahead of our Kickstarter for Orun!

http://sasgeek.com/podcasts/91-orun/

Introducing Our Orun Writing Staff!

MishaB — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 13:45:30 +0000

It was hard work but we narrowed the field of 65 amazing entries to this exciting team!

David Castro
David Castro is a Puerto Rican writer from New York City, which makes him cooler than you think he is but not as cool as he thinks he is. He has worked on the upcoming Undead supplement for Chill 3rd Edition, and you can find him on Twitter (@theinkedknight), on Tumblr (thedevilsyouknew), and at davidrcastro.com

Samantha Day
Samantha Day is a writer from upstate New York. She makes Twine games, plays and runs tabletop RPGs, and sometimes streams them. You can find Sam on Twitter, and you can find her projects on itch.io. She is a threat to her environment and she refuses to go extinct.

Tim and Kristin Devine
Tim and Kristin love to hack, design and play games. They share a passion for storytelling and together they formed Dice Up Games with several games in the process of being published. You can find more information on their website at www.diceupgames.com as well as several free games.

Sharene Gilchrist
A veteran gamer and DM, it’s no surprise Sharene was drawn to fantasy and sci-fi from a young age – her father named her after a Conan character. She has been playing and running a wide variety of roleplaying games (tabletop and LARP) for over 25 years and has been enjoying live-streaming games in the last few years. She reads a lot, has an overactive imagination, and is also a crafter who loves to sew on her 110-year-old treadle sewing machine when she can get the cats to stop knocking things off it. You can find her as Madfishmonger online at https://linktr.ee/madfishmonger

Robert Jeffrey II
A freelance writer with over 13 years of experience, Robert was chosen along with 5 other writers (out of more than a thousand applicants,) to take part in the 2017 DC Comics Writers Workshop. He’s the creator/ writer of the Glyph Comics Award nominated/ winning comic book series Route 3, Editor In Chief of BlackSci-Fi.com, has contributed to such anthologies like Dark Universe: Bright Empire, and is co-writer of the Glyph Comics Award nominated Radio Free Amerika. His client work includes work done for the Centers for Disease Control and Nitto Tires, and he currently co-hosts the New Wakanda podcast.

Kathryn Lee
Kathryn is an avid anime, visual novel, and games-of-all-sorts enthusiast who loves to create. In 2016, she graduated with a Masters in elves and dragons Popular Fiction from the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program. Recently deciding to quit her day job, she now freelance writes/edits full time for companies such as Choice of Games, interactive fiction start-up, Legendary Affinity, and now NAP! Kathryn runs on Jesus and boba, and can be found pursuing a myriad of hobbies, including but not limited to crocheting, dancing, acting in community theatre, and figure skating.

Alexa Fae McDaniel
Alexa Fae McDaniel is a young author and historian soon to be featured in Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes, an anthology of fantasy short stories written entirely by trans women and trans femmes. She often runs roleplaying games for children, because she believes that RPGs can be a great tool for teaching math skills, problem solving, literacy, and patience. The patience is mostly learned by trying to keep a party of children together.

Thomas Manuel
Thomas Manuel is a writer from Chennai, India. He has three plays to his credit. His latest play, Hamlet and Angad, won the Hindu Playwright Award in 2016. He works as a freelance journalist with by-lines at The Nib, The Wire, Nature Index, 3QuarksDaily, BLInk, Sunday Magazine, etc. His journalism includes data, comics, cultural criticism, labour politics and higher education. He occasionally blogs about fantasy books and role-playing games and is looking forward to setting up a second-hand bookstore near the sea. He can be found on twitter @notrueindian.

Nell Raban
Nell has made a life out of crafting stories, first in the theatre and more recently as a game master and writer. She’s the author of The Others, a Powered by the Apocalypse hack about marginalized communities (coming soon to an itch.io page near you), and is attached to a number of other unannounced projects. When she’s not writing, Nell can be found wandering the streets of Chicago in search of her muse, tweeting idly as @nell_do_well or lapping at the dregs of a cup of coffee.

Alex Whalen
Alex Whalen is a freelance writer and editor, previously published for creative nonfiction in Prick of the Spindle and Digital Americana Magazine. Also a prodigious writer of fantasy and science fiction stories, and a game master for the last five years known for her lengthy narrative codices, Alex is committed to honesty and inclusion in all writing, drawing on the truth and variety of the real world to breathe life into fictional ones and dream of what could be. This will be her first foray into writing professionally for roleplaying games.

Call for Writers and Artists Now Live!

MishaB — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 13:57:49 +0000

Thanks for your interest. Our call is now closed.

Are you into tabletop RPGS?
Have you ever wanted to work on a game?
Are you a member of an underrepresented group in TTRPGs (Person of Color, Woman, Non-binary, Trans, Queer)?
If you answered yes to all three, we’d like to hear from you!* We’re looking for artists and writers to help us finish Orun!

You can download a PWYW copy of our Quickstart guide here to see more information about the worlds and Peoples of Orun. If it looks like something you’d be interested in submit your work below. Submissions open until July 3 @ midnight EDT (GMT-4).

Writers: Submit a sample here!

Artists: Link your portfolios here!

*While we are looking for underrepresented talent, all submissions will be evaluated for potential of joining the team.

Orun Quickstart Now Available!

New Agenda Publishing — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 13:25:49 +0000

Join Us at GenCon!

MishaB — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 14:10:37 +0000

We’ve got an exciting schedule planned. Wednesday From 3PM-4PM join Eloy, Jerry, and a panel of other distinguished guests for We need Diverse Books…and Games Thursday From 2PM-6PM join one of our fabulous GM’s for Vaults of the Withered Tongue, The heroes are tasked by the Union of Ascendancy to oversee the construction of a […]

Dreamation Wrap-Up

MishaB — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 19:00:23 +0000

Just back from Dreamation, a lovely con in picturesque Morristown New Jersey, hands down one of my favorite cons consistently. I get to reconnect with so many of the people I usually only get to interact with electronically. Saturday nights are often couch cuddle parties with my harpies and harridans around me (and a few guys we like) swapping ideas and stories about everything from makeup to games to laughing at mansplaining and more.
It did get me thinking about player bases and parity though. For reference, I played in 6 sessions worth of games. (I bowed out of my Saturday night game due to mood issues following a really poor dinner experience but that’s a rant for another time). In those 6 sessions I played with one other Black person. In the 4 tabletop slots (2 long con and 2 one shots), only 1 game achieved gender parity but I was the only PoC at the table. In the other of the oneshots I was the only woman at the table and all of the pregen characters were male. Granted, I had fun at all these games, even accounting for differing definitions of fun. (I laughed, I cried, I was a poo flinging chimpanzee.)
But this is not that rare of an event for me. The first time I got to play with another Black woman at the table was at a small 50 person house con. All but one of the times were where I was playing a Black female designers game with her. (The 4th was serendipity and knowing both the GM and the player well.) And the fact that I’ve been gaming since 1994 and can count all the Black women I’ve played with and still not have used all the fingers on one hand is telling. If I include Black men I still only fill one hand. It’s not for lack of their existence. I’ve worked with and for other designers, but at cons their games are full, or conflict with when I’m running, or a million other ships crossing in the dead of night reasons.
Which gets me to another point. Over the years I have come to recognize a few other Black women and other WoC at various conventions and I greatly noticed the absence of many of them this year. I’m not sure if circles are contracting or shifting or the Trumpian nightmare we find ourselves in has made people less likely to travel or what but I noticed. Your absence was noticed and you were missed.

–MB

Also posted on BlackGirlGameWorks

Looking for a few GenCon 2018 GMs

Jerry Grayson — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 13:31:34 +0000

HELLO! Are you a person from an underrepresented group who likes GMing games? Are you going to Gencon this year? Would you like to run a game for New Agenda Publishing using, what Jerry’s mother calls, “the best game ever created by my son, this week”? We’re looking for a few good GMs to run […]

Sneak Peek: What is an Orun?

MishaB — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 15:48:25 +0000

Here’s a look at one part of what we’re working on!

The Oruns

The Celestial homes of the Peoples of the Union of Ascendancy

There were eleven known Orun, each a home world to the ten Peoples, plus the central Orun known as Prime. Each Orun is a solid shell 50,000 kilometers in diameter, with energy provided by tapping and regulating the gas giant’s energy. All Oruns are designed to replicate an idealized version of each home world, a perfectly reproduced paradise for each people to live upon. Each Orun is large enough to hold 20 trillion inhabitants, but most contain only a fraction of that amount. The majority of any Orun is untouched wilderness, dotted with large machines used to regulate and maintain the workings of the world. Each Orun exists in an orbit of one astronomical unit around a star that shares the same name as the Orun. Much of the Orun’s star system was used in its construction, and some planets were moved to make room for the new world. Each system has other terraformed worlds used for vacation or industry, but all are dominated by the Orun.

Anatomy of an Orun

The Oruns are varied in their layout and design, but each has several attributes in common.

The Star

Not truly a star, the central gas giant of each Orun was modified by the Orisha to act as a source of energy and light for the Oruns. The color varies and is usually engineered to be pleasing to the inhabitants. The light source even shifts emitting less visible light during “night time.” The light source does not denote the class of star as normal and is a cosmetic feature built into the start to the specifications of the inhabitants. Before the last Sapona war, the color of a star could be changed for celebrations or ceremonies; now it is fixed at its “default” setting.

The Seneschals

The Seneschal drones maintain the Orun and are ever present in the sky of the Oruns. They do what the populations have lost the ability to do after the Psychic Wars, maintain the Oruns. It is estimated that over a billion Seneschals exist on a given Orun, ranging in size from .3 meters to 2 meters. All Seneschals are an autonomous artificial intelligence with one programmed goal, to maintain the Orun and to keep the inhabitants happy and safe. Mostly the Seneschals are ignored and left to go about their business, but it is a bad omen to see a gathering of Seneschals as that means there is trouble in the Orun that needs their attention.

The Megaliths of the Orisha

Each Orun has a megastructure near the primary Iris portal. The structure is a free-floating block of blue-silver 10 kilometers long, 5 kilometers wide, and 2 kilometers thick. There is no way into the Megalith, and all are inactive since the destruction of Orisha Prime.

The Primary Portal

The large iris portal sits at the exact equator of the Orun and is 20 kilometers in diameter. Radiating out another 40 kilometers are the machines and facilities that regulate the opening and closing of the enormous structure. Through it, the largest of the Union ships may pass. One hundred smaller portals, none more significant than half a kilometer dot the Orun surface and are used for maintenance.

The Union of Ascendancy Moon

Orbiting the Orun’s star is a moon 3,000 kilometers in diameter. The Union Moons are considered the capitals of each Orun and house all the bureaucracy for the Orun systems. Each is populated by a staff that numbers into the billions.

The Ring

At the equator of the Orun is a metal ring 100 kilometers wide and 20 kilometers high. The only opening into the inner shell of the Orun can be found here, and each is guarded by Seneschal wardens.

The Outer Surface

The outer metallic surface “skin” of the Orun is a dull silver. In some places, the outer surface is rocky and littered with cosmic dust from meteor impacts. Some of the impact sites have been cultivated into livable terrestrial areas with breathable atmospheres.

New Interview with AGC!

MishaB — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 12:53:40 +0000

Happy Monday! The Eagles are Super Bowl champions and we’re on All Games Considered! Have a listen.