 February 8, 2019 - 7:32am |  was thinking of this picture and inspired by it for an illustration (I've actually seen the WIP version of how he put it together) got me thinking of a group of SF characters surronded by and being swarmed by Sathar. If you think about it the sathar are possibly a good fit for swarm attacks from a game desing or referee perspective: they are never presented with a lot of equipment. Certainly a sapient creature would look to preserve itself and find advantages to make up for lack of equipment but we also know the sathar dont care to preserve their own lives and frequently suicide. I suppose maybe the "swarm" could be slave bots? as well. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 16, 2019 - 10:25am | I still have the original text, thanks :) My original post is here: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/7902 |
 February 16, 2019 - 4:18pm | I still have the original text, thanks :) My original post is here: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/7902 Great. Yes, most of the Sathar biology stuff comes from Laura Mumma's postings on "The Sathar" project ( http://starfrontiers.us/node/8619 ). I had combined it with your original posting because they seemed to be very complimentary. Whatever I've mused above for Jedion's sathar swarm and other Sathar equipment shouldn't confilct with your tech ideas.  Joe Cabadas |
February 17, 2019 - 5:57am | @ Kringway and JCab747 I think both of you should dust off your sathar material and submit. I'll work on the quickdeath variants I started. and taken together it will be the core of a sathar themed article in 2019. Anything I've posted that you wish to run with just let me know- having already published 160+ articles I have no need to assert my place a "mr big time SF writer" and actually need to transition to something along the lines of Content Editor for the magazine (although I'm still likely to write and illustrate) We have some seriously good material brewing here and a sathar themed article is probably called for. Also i have some sathar art that never saw the light of day although its of the creepy sathar abduction kind. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 19, 2019 - 2:32pm | That would be nice but I have to create some artwork and do a bit of redesign - which entails having some free time, and I don't have much of that right now ;) When were you planning on the article being published? |
February 19, 2019 - 9:16pm | That would be nice but I have to create some artwork and do a bit of redesign - which entails having some free time, and I don't have much of that right now ;) When were you planning on the article being published? Content for the next issue is more or less set. Issue after that would have a deadline of June I believe so its a ways off. Sumer or Fall issue could be sathar issue. in some ways Fall/Halloween might work best as sathar issue- if you view sathar as creepy scary. Nothing set in stone at any rate. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 28, 2019 - 6:48pm | I'll be working on some concepts here for a Sathar submission... As the worm turns!  Joe Cabadas |
March 3, 2019 - 6:07am | Yeah, if the Sathar special issue is later in the year I should have time to create the weapons article with artwork. I've not decided yet whether to bog things down by getting into Clans, as I don't want to get into the Sathar having different basic weapons. |
March 3, 2019 - 10:20am | Yeah, if the Sathar special issue is later in the year I should have time to create the weapons article with artwork. I've not decided yet whether to bog things down by getting into Clans, as I don't want to get into the Sathar having different basic weapons. Ah, I don't think what I presented above conflicts with your concept. Yes, you don't need to get bogged down into the Clans. What I'm thinking about is equipment for the upper caste Sathar rather than the average worms. Joe Cabadas |
March 3, 2019 - 12:26pm | If you guys are going to write something do it and get in I've been tackling issue 25 even before Layout for 24 is done because I'm going to have a 5 week stretch where Im in school 40 hours and work 30/ per week. So im lining up art and content for issue 25 so I can coast while in school. Although I'll probably manage magazine stuff while at work anyhow. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 3, 2019 - 12:35pm | If you guys are going to write something do it and get in I've been tackling issue 25 even before Layout for 24 is done because I'm going to have a 5 week stretch where Im in school 40 hours and work 30/ per week. So im lining up art and content for issue 25 so I can coast while in school. Although I'll probably manage magazine stuff while at work anyhow. Got it! Joe Cabadas |
March 3, 2019 - 12:59pm | OK. My raw notes from the discussion above, with redundancies, comes to about 2,100 words. It needs a bit cleaning up and structure. I want to make this complimentary to any RKingway or Laura M. submissions. If Laura does not have time to pull all her Sathar musings together, due to her family situation, I pretty much have it all. I could create a draft of a story out of that, which she could then add to or change... it is her ideas afterall. I had to do that before when I did my S'sessu story and she wasn't checking her messages on this site.  Joe Cabadas |
March 3, 2019 - 1:08pm | OK. My raw notes from the discussion above, with redundancies, comes to about 2,100 words. It needs a bit cleaning up and structure. I want to make this complimentary to any RKingway or Laura M. submissions. If Laura does not have time to pull all her Sathar musings together, due to her family situation, I pretty much have it all. I could create a draft of a story out of that, which she could then add to or change... it is her ideas afterall. I had to do that before when I did my S'sessu story and she wasn't checking her messages on this site. Shorter is better at this point I have to squeeze a long radiation article in for issue 25 ;) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 4, 2019 - 2:25pm | When is the actual deadline? |
March 4, 2019 - 4:34pm | OK. I've submitted an 870-worm story on Sathar swarm tactics only. It provides general descriptions of how it works, only general descriptions of weapons -- i.e. a laser rifle with a powerclip and a spare -- plus statistics for the light combat robot and the small attack monster. So, it can fit with anything KRingway submits. I'll now work on a story about more advanced Sathar weapons -- those more geared for the upper caste. Any mentions of specific clans in the swarm story have been omitted. Joe Cabadas |
March 4, 2019 - 9:36pm | When is the actual deadline? Actual deadline is June first but I'd like some lead time to square away illustrations. so May 1st. But IIRC you have your own illustrations so you would be a different case although I'm going to be endeavoring to have everything squared away for the layout guys by June so as long as we're in communication and I know what's going on I can make adjustments and leave room for your material. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 4, 2019 - 10:20pm | I have submitted a story about advanced Sathar weapons and armor. I have hopefully written it in such a way that it should compliment anything that KRingway provides. Joe Cabadas |
March 5, 2019 - 6:17am | I have submitted a story about advanced Sathar weapons and armor. I have hopefully written it in such a way that it should compliment anything that KRingway provides. Actually this is not that important. anything fan created is optional. Bill Logan, i think it was Bill, and i both wrote cybernetic articles and they were not compatible. Larry Moore published them in separate issues. Not a big deal. I dont see that either is used much and again not a big deal. Dont sweat it if your material is not compatible. Down the road we are looking to do some collaborative stuff in the magazine where lots of people are contributing to one project. Those projects will require internal harmony and that will be the project lead's role to harmonize all the contributions, not reject material he doesn't like out of hand, and ultimately some things will be cut and the project lead will have to make that dicision. On the times that I've had to do this I kind of agonized over it because you want people involved and contributing and you dont want them feeling like their contributions dont matter but sometimes some things have to be cut for the sake of the project moving forward. Regular magazine operation does not require internal harmony of all the material published. Hell, we're going to be seeing an up swing in non Star FRontiers material in the future anyways. EDIT: i just scanned without fully reading both of your new sathar
submissions. They are perfect- they support the theme and their in the
3-6 page range. bonus: i've had a particular piece of sathar art that
has been brewing in my head that would be ideal for the swarm article so
I'll just have to get off my butt and draw it over the next couple of
months. The sathar equipment article I didn't really get into the nuts
and bolts of it but will in a month and will figure out what to do about
the illustrations then. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 5, 2019 - 2:00pm | May sounds doable. I may be able to rustle up some cover art for you too  |
March 5, 2019 - 2:28pm | May sounds doable. I may be able to rustle up some cover art for you too Alright. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 10, 2019 - 12:28am | Change of plans - I recently lost my job so I'm busy trying to get a new one. This may impinge on what I can do with my article, if the deadline is still May. |
April 10, 2019 - 4:57am | Change of plans - I recently lost my job so I'm busy trying to get a new one. This may impinge on what I can do with my article, if the deadline is still May. Would you like the free services of a ghost writer? (I've done that.) In other words, I can pull together whatever you've written. Create a draft of a story. Send it for you for your approval -- recommended changes -- and then it gets submitted to the magazine under your name. This is the time to publish it! Joe Cabadas |
April 10, 2019 - 5:15am | Change of plans - I recently lost my job so I'm busy trying to get a new one. This may impinge on what I can do with my article, if the deadline is still May. May is a fluid deadline as I wanted lead time to focus on art and illustrations before the layout guys are working on the zine in earnest. Do what you got to do to live and dont sweat the magazine. Its shaping up nicely for issue 25 and beyond. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 10, 2019 - 11:55am | Thanks for the replies :) The text is all wrapped up after a few rewrites a month or so back (my original text is thus partly obsolete). I just need to create the illustrations and at the moment I need to focus my artistic skills elsewhere (on my portfolio so that I can get another job soon). I would've liked to have created some cover art, but at the moment that's not something I can commit to. Hopefully in about a month, if not less, I should have a better idea about my situation. |
April 10, 2019 - 1:51pm | Thanks for the replies :) The text is all wrapped up after a few rewrites a month or so back (my original text is thus partly obsolete). I just need to create the illustrations and at the moment I need to focus my artistic skills elsewhere (on my portfolio so that I can get another job soon). I would've liked to have created some cover art, but at the moment that's not something I can commit to. Hopefully in about a month, if not less, I should have a better idea about my situation. Roger. Joe Cabadas |
April 13, 2019 - 4:54am | Ok, I'm going to make time to get the artwork ready over this weekend. Is there a limit to the amount of illustrations I can include? What are the required image dimensions? I'm not sure yet whether I can also stretch to creating some cover art - not possible this weekend, AFAIK. I also have an idea for another article which considers the possible evolution of the Sathars. In this I plan to discuss whether they have some basis in an aquatic form (given that the Sathar look a bit like lampreys, so I ran along similar lines as an idea), and that their lower arms with their large 'hands' are actually derived from flipper-like appendages that adapted to become hand-like limbs in terms of utility. I have another idea within this that the lower arms are retractable/extendable, as the Sathar have a hydrostatic physiology - when retracted, the 'hands' resemble flippers. This is usually done when slithering, if needed. |
April 13, 2019 - 7:59am | Ok, I'm going to make time to get the artwork ready over this weekend. Is there a limit to the amount of illustrations I can include? What are the required image dimensions? I'm not sure yet whether I can also stretch to creating some cover art - not possible this weekend, AFAIK. I also have an idea for another article which considers the possible evolution of the Sathars. In this I plan to discuss whether they have some basis in an aquatic form (given that the Sathar look a bit like lampreys, so I ran along similar lines as an idea), and that their lower arms with their large 'hands' are actually derived from flipper-like appendages that adapted to become hand-like limbs in terms of utility. I have another idea within this that the lower arms are retractable/extendable, as the Sathar have a hydrostatic physiology - when retracted, the 'hands' resemble flippers. This is usually done when slithering, if needed. Art: higher res is always desirable, we take what we can get and have permission to use As to water origin of the sathar:  I always liked this image for inspiration for an sathar city underground. This is a spillway for a dam and no reason the sathar couldn't have a similar spillway dumping water into an underground cavern/city or community (your classic underground D&D cavern with giant mushrooms and etc.) perhaps a sathar version of "Xanadu did Kubla sathar a pleasure dome decree where Alpha the sacred river ran down to a sunless sea" Combine with that the cover image from SFman 18 and that is my inspiration for a sathar home location. of course if you go lamprey type origins then you bring back my attempt at making the sathar creepy with with this bit of art:  I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 13, 2019 - 8:23am | Adventure seed Sathar agent, under heavy interrogation by Star Law (sci fi equivelant of telol boarding) spills the beans on the location of a sathar home system. Naturally Star Law in cooporation with Space Fleet sends a scouting mission to check it out. The location is a retreat/resort used by upper caste sathar of a particular clan and the information is a plant to use Star law to neutralize the leadership of a rival clan. The PCs team needs to be able to scan and land: they carefully penetrate teh system but do not find anything untoward. They orbit the inhabitable planet and again dont find anything suggesting industry or habitation until orbital observation notices a "hole in a lake" Mountain range dumps water onto plateau, which has a lake with a hole in it and river that creates a waterfall off the plateau. caverns beneath the plateau is the sathar version of Aruba. Hole in lake seems unnatural and investigation reveals that there is a contruction that is built up from lake bottom - basically a tube that ends just centimeters beneath the surface of the lake. The spill way is the easiest entrance to the caverns to locate but there is another behind the waterfall an others more hidden. All the sathar creatures are on the encounter list here. Inside the cavern is mud wallows and ectera. entrances along cavern walls access more modern type rooms and stuff. Two ideas as to whats going on here that the PCs land unopposed: this community has been struck with a virus that is killing the sathar- most are sick and dying. or this particular group of upper caste sathar has become addicted to the sucking of blood/ juices and they hang out here doing it and control the clan from this location but other upper caste sathar want to overthrow these, as they see it, perverted leaders and thus planted the info on the location in an agent that star law captured. Thus these sathar leaders are "drug users" in a "pleasure dome" (go with that for flavor) They have Frontier citizens as prisoners (all are hypnotized and "turned") that they routinely feed on. Depending on how creepy you want to go they may have even been working on a human sathar hybrid that they bio engineered and implanted in the womb of the human female prisoners. No idea what that hybrid would look like- only thing I coming to mind at the moment is a classic mind flayer but something could be worked up- certainly the double iris would be present and tentacles somehow. maybe the creature rips its way out of the belly of the woman (shades of alien) we are talking a dungeon crawl + investigation here. Once they have entered the cavern they must find one of the hidden exits to get out. Sathar sucide reflex the installation has a nuclear reactor that could melt down making the whole area unsafe radiation wise. Reactor melt down ends up in contact with underground water supply and massive steam explosion/ erruption spread radiation over the area. ie time to get out of Dodge at the end of the dungeon crawl or "get to the chopper" lift off reveals that a sathar destroyer or force has shown up and we can have a little KHs action. PCs goal should be to evade and report so they should be able to do that easily in an assault scout or with greater difficulty in a troop transport. PCs dont have to be High level KHs PCs they could be the investigation team sent along on this mission where the spacers occupy themselves with engine overhaul and jump computations and landing site security. EDIT: One of the side exits would lead to a large cavern hanger with 3 or so of the sathar scout ships from the Eleanor Mores series. plus side rooms to support hanger operations the exit to the hanger is screened by the water fall. another side exit leads to the med labs for gruesome discoveries of experimentation on frontier citizens. another would be security, robot and attack creature housing, control center. another side exit would be to quarters. this location would have an access tunnel to the next location another side exit at the back of the cavern would ahve the "throne room and pleasure palace" this location has access tunnels to the sathar upper caste quarters and to the hidden plateau exit. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 15, 2019 - 3:40am | I was thinking more that they had an ancestor in the distant past that was 'aquatic', but they no longer had that aspect as part of their current lifecycle. Perhaps liquid plays some part - although I am steering more towards some sort of slime rather than water. The 'slime' being some sort of soup of micro-organisms that once made up the 'seas' on their native world. I was thinking maybe there were huge pools of this stuff all over the world in it's earlier form, perhaps related to volcanic activity, and the sathar ancestors came from there. A later sathar ancestor evolved slime-producing glands that allowed them to move on land, and that's what lead to the sathars evolving into land-based creatures. Perhaps the slime, like the organisms in human intestines, is part of a symbiotic relationship. |
April 15, 2019 - 5:28pm | I was thinking more that they had an ancestor in the distant past that was 'aquatic', but they no longer had that aspect as part of their current lifecycle. Perhaps liquid plays some part - although I am steering more towards some sort of slime rather than water. The 'slime' being some sort of soup of micro-organisms that once made up the 'seas' on their native world. I was thinking maybe there were huge pools of this stuff all over the world in it's earlier form, perhaps related to volcanic activity, and the sathar ancestors came from there. A later sathar ancestor evolved slime-producing glands that allowed them to move on land, and that's what lead to the sathars evolving into land-based creatures. Perhaps the slime, like the organisms in human intestines, is part of a symbiotic relationship. I agree wet but not under water. the spill way feeds a pool that supplies mud wallows and drains of to lower cisterns . I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 16, 2019 - 12:09am | Btw, my article on Sathar weapons is almost ready. It's about 2300 words and has 7 or 8 illustrations. I'd still like to create some cover art but just need a cool idea to surface from my brain |
