Maruzar 01: Wastelanders of Maruzar

Maruzar. Once the throneworld of a great, multi-planet-spanning empire, now reduced to an arid wasteland. City-states ruled by decadent warlords, diverse nomad tribes, and remnants of prehuman civilizations fight over the dwindling resources.

You play the heroes of a Drylander tribe, protecting its land and members from alien predators and raiders from the cities and other tribes. You also guard the ruins of your ancestral city, lest tomb-robbers take its sacred treasures or awaken technologies and beings that must never rise again. Welcome to Wastelanders of Maruzar.

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SOMzines #1, Wastelanders of Maruzar, is live! This zine contains a complete TTRPG set in the vast, barren Drylands of the planet Maruzar, with light, easy-to-learn and cinematic style rules, quick character creation, and adventure seeds. Further issues will also contain the complete core rules, and detail other regions and peoples of Maruzar.

The game uses Vivid+, a system I designed for easy learning and GMing and a cinematic play style. Players are encouraged to be creative and describe their actions to get more Free Dice. Roll Free Dice + optional Effort Dice and add up the two highest. Rolls are player-facing (GM's don't have to roll), and only six-sided dice are used.

Damage and other consequences of failure are handled in a signature cinematic style in which players spend points of Guts, Wits or Luck to describe their characters having close calls instead of tracking numbers. The closer the call, the less you have to spend!

Wastelanders of Maruzar is a 54-page PDF that includes:

• Complete rules for play, using a light, easily-learned system designed for cinematic style play.  The core rules take up only 7 pages.
• Play defiantly independent Keshana nomads, Irajin defenders of sacred ruins and powerful secrets, Marrud outcasts of the city-states, or stray Earthlings.
• Telepathy-based mental powers.
• Relics of ancient weird science, and rules for rules for Decay. These devices have lasted for thousands of years, but not without some wear and tear!
• Rules for sandstorms, forced marches, foraging and hunting.
• Details of the Drylands campaign setting, including interesting terrains such as alien-infested oases, underground highways that used to be aqueducts, malfunctioning weather pylons, and psionically active megaliths; 24 new sci-fi predators and other nasties; adventure seeds; and NPCs.
• 2-page rules summary you can print out for easy reference.
• 8 pre-generated characters so you can dive right into play.

Stay tuned for more issues! Planned issues are Sky Pirates of Maruzar, Warlords of Maruzar, Tomb Robbers of Maruzar, and Corsairs of Maruzar.  Let me know which one you're most excited for in the comments!

Also, looking for artists! I couldn't spare anything at this time for interior art, but if this project can raise some funds I'd like to commission one or two like-minded souls for an illustrated edition and art for future issues.