Lone Wolf Fists: Acid&Steel

Story

In the chthonic depths below the World of Ashes and Ghosts, there is a terrifying underworld made from the flesh of fallen demon-gods where the damned plummet after their wicked lives conclude. These fallen titans, the Asura, struggle against their prison but cannot escape; it is forged from their bodies. They anoint champions from sinful fallen heroes in the mortal realm and imbue them with their primordial magic; these are the Damned Heroes, who carve their diabolic master’s whims into the world’s firmament with radioactive fists and dark sorcery from the mythic and forgotten past.

Meanwhile, far above the Fallen World, a flying continent-world drifts within the chemical-choked heaviside layer. Its inhabitants, at once citizens and prisoners of the clockwork darkness of their world, struggle against its mechanical horrors. They build Artificial Heroes of glistening steel to beat back the robotic horrors and wage their endless wars over ever-scarcening resources.

Both the hellish underworld of Naraka and the clockwork paradise-prison of Bebal-Ki-Menar have been sealed away from the World of Ashes and Ghosts for centuries.

But no longer

The doors to hell are flung wide; the thirsty tendrils of Bebal-Ki-Menar descend from heaven to leech the world’s blood. Serve in the Steel Heaven or Reign in the Acid Hell: the Choice Is Yours.

Lone Wolf Fists: Acid & Steel is an expansion for the Tian Shang: Lone Wolf Fists tabletop roleplaying game. Set in the post-apocalyptic kung-fu universe of the World of Ashes and Ghosts, Lone Wolf Fists sets the kung-fu masters of a fallen age against the monsters, villains, titans and warmachines of a dark and nightmarish era. It adds the Artificial Heroes, robots designed with science and kung-fu sorcery and the Damned Heroes, badass martial warriors gifted the dark powers of the fallen devil-titans the Asura.

The Book

Acid & Steel Provides new character options for players: The Damned Heroes, who draw power from the diabolic masters of Naraka, the Asura and the Artificial Heroes, robot heroes who can modify their bodies with cybernetic Augmentations and gain a soul by forging one through mastery of the mystical fighting arts.

It also provides two new, sprawling settings: the hellish depths of Naraka and the floating cyber paradise-prison of Bebal-Ki-Menar. A complete Bestiary and Lores for travel, battle and exploration fully flesh out these additions so that you can rocket your players into the thick of it from the word jump!

Lone Wolf Fists: Acid & Steel will be an 8.5” x 11” hardcover book with 200+Black-and-White interior pages of beastly old-school art by returning rockstar artist Kazuki David.Chapters include:

History of Hell: Describes the history of the terrifying underworld of Naraka, the setting’s Hell.

The Asura:  Introduces the fallen demon-titans the omnimalevolent Asura

Damned Heroes: Describes the mighty Damned Heroes and how their pact with the Asura dooms and empowers them

The Glorious Powers of the Fallen Asura: Brings you 140 new diabolic Techniques that draw an the primordial magic of the Asura to reshape the player characters and setting in their horrifying image

Hell’s Bestiary: Brings the many devils, demons and infernal nobility to your table

The Lores of Hell: Gives you all the setting in easy-to-use chart-lead design; design an entire hellscape, complete with warring demon factions and civilizations of damned souls, in seconds

History of Babul-Ki-Minar: Describes the history of the floating clockwork prison-paradise Babul-Ki-Minar

The Three Great Nations: Gives you the background of the three great nations within Babul-Ki-Minar; the nightmare police-state The People’s Fist, the radical utopian cyberpunk-coalition of the Dragon States, or the robot-ruled hyper efficient steampunk-empire of Mammon

Artificial Heroes: Describes the robot might of the Artificial Heroes and how they deal with their peculiar balance of computer minds and emerging human souls

The Four Augmentation Paradigms: Describes the awesome robotic augmentations that Artificial Heroes can install into their mechanical bodies. Includes the industrial-sized Augmentations which transform them into giant, vehicles, and eventually entire cities

Supreme Martial Disciplines of the Great Nations: Describes the three mystic martial art styles pioneered by the Nations to train the champions of their endless wars

Gremlin Bestiary: Brings the clattering, mechanical monstrosities from the depth of Babul-Ki-Minar to terrible life to bedevil your desperate heroes

The Lores of Bebal-Ki-Menar: Gives you the setting of the intra-world of Babul-Ki-Minar; the three great nations and the vast world-engines whose clockwork and steam sustains the enormous mechanical world

This Campaign

The primary purpose behind this Kickstarter campaign is to enable me to create a PDF and Print-on-Demand for the 250-page Acid & Steel supplement. I want to bring robots and demons to the World of Ashes and Ghosts, and YOUR contribution will be put to that awesome purpose.

Exceptional funding will fund more art, potentially a better-quality offset print run, and even enable a sick update to the core rules enabling them to whup even more kiester!

Beyond these limited campaign goals, I intend to continue doing what I always do: providing you with the most metal use of your time and attention humanly possible. I’ll do this by continuing my lifelong campaign of producing the absolute highest-quality Fistgames, running our discord the Fistoverse, and releasing new kung-fu, new monsters, new warmachines, and ever more glorious violence-fueld games to make YOUR table the most awesome place in all the land! 

Any fantastically radical persons who contribute to this project’s inevitable and crushing success can pledge their support. If I meet my funding target ($2000, cheap!), then it’s game on and my life will enter the glorious perdition of finalizing the game so that it can hit your table like a thermonuclear warhead ASAP. I’ll only charge you if I hit the goal, but let’s be real it’s happening.

The following tiers are designed to appeal to our small but dedicated fans, new fans who are getting in on this fantastic game right here, pioneering friendly local game stores who want to carry our game, and the few kooky megafans who have enriched this game like uranium (for maximum carnage!)

NOTE: shipping costs ARE NOT included in the cost of your pledge. You will be charged for shipping after the campaign through the pledge manager.

Reward Tiers

Digitized Damnation: This Tier offers a high-quality PDF of Lone Wolf Fists: Acid & Steel so that you can get in on the robot-stomping, demon-blasting action through pure modern techno-sorcery. Why dirty your hands with some clumsy, heavy tome that your enemies are sure to steal anyway? Outwit those dullards, once again proving your superiority!

Instrument of Destruction: This radical Tier rewards your very own Print-On-Demand Hardcover of Lone Wolf Fists: Acid & Steel so that you can bring its infernal, mechanical glory to your tabletop! Fill your hands with an elegant, sturdy tome that your enemies wouldn’t DARE to steal. Style on those blundering incompetents, proving your unassailable glory! 

Two-Fisted Champion: This breathtaking tier includes BOTH a Print-On-Demand Hardcover of Lone Wolf Fists: Acid & Steel AND of the Core game, Tiang Shang: Lone Wolf Fists! This palindromic piledriver delivers everything you need to run the game and is perfect for newcomers!

Friendly Local Warlord: This Badass Tier includes a Dealer-discounted SIX Hardbacks: Three of the Core Book Tian Shang: Lone Wolf Fists and Three of Lone Wolf Fists: Acid & Steel. Ideal for stocking YOUR totally radical local gaming store’s shelves! 

The Burning Crown of Hell: This Supreme Tier grants YOU, diabolic champion, with the power to bring YOUR Asura to life in the pages of this unholy tome! You will design a fallen devil-titan alongside myself, the game designer! This includes its powers, demonic servants, and the terms of its diabolical contract! ONLY ONE AVAILABLE

The Supreme Clockwork Throne: This Radical Tier grants YOU, steampunk technocrat, with the power to bring YOUR Great Nation to life in the pages of this lore-artifact! You will design a mighty Great Nation of Bebal-Ki-Minar alongside myself, the game designer! This includes its national ethos, Augmentation paradigm, and state-approved kung-fu style! ONLY ONE AVAILABLE

Pledge Rewards 

DRAFT MANUSCRIPT – While I finalize the writing, the draft is going to be available for ALL backers of EVERY tier. I WILL be listening to ANY AND ALL FEEDBACK while I write it. Make YOUR voice heard and get access to the rules as quickly as I can write them!

Acid&Steel PDF  - All backers will have FIRST ACCESS to the PDF of Lone Wolf Fists: Acid & Steel BEFORE it is made available to the public (I learned my lesson from last time). In addition to putting you all on the Fist-Trhone where you so rightfully belong, I’ll use this opportunity to squeeze in playtesting and gather high-fidelity feedback from all you wonderful Knuckleheads to improve and polish the core text, layout (including any irritating blank spaces, grr!) and other attributes of the game before it’s finalized and sent to print!

Lone Wolf Fists Acid & Steel PoD Hardcover - The main goal of this campaign is the creation of this glorious tome. As Soon as I’ve received proofs back and they have my final approval, backers will be sent a code for their copy of the PoD from the wonderful folks at DriveThruRPG.com. 

NOTE 1: EVERY Reward Tier that includes a hardcover ALSO includes the digital PDF of that hardcover! This ABSOLUTELY means that if you get both the Core game and Acid&Steel, you ALSO get PDFs of BOTH! I just want to make this 100% clear!

NOTE 2: The download codes are good for 1 copy of the PoD each! These are “free” as opposed to “at-cost” codes, so you will ONLY pay shipping!

NOTE 3: I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE: No shipping costs are included in the cost of your pledge. I’m going to charge you shipping after the campaign through the pledge manager/the PoD shipping from DTRPG. THIS IS GOING TO COST YOU MORE MONEY. SORRY MY MARGINS ARE REALLY THIN THIS TIME GUYS. I covered these last KS but I just cannot make that happen this time, I am so sorry.

Stretch Goals

If we succeed beyond our original goal, I’m going to increase the richness of the rewards for EVERY backer.Every Stretch Goal has a target: if we hit that target in total funding, it smashes through the barrier and adds the updated, enhanced rewards to all backers. Some of them benefit Hardback-tier Backers exclusively; I hope this incentivizes you all to back physical, but you go your own kooky way Knuckleheads.

At $2000 in Funding - Furiously Funded!

We’ve broken the Divine Seal and unleashed hell! – The Book is getting written! This is the minimum funding level for art, writing, design and layout to commence. If (when) we get here, then it goes from nightmarish dream of perdition and iron into two-fisted reality, baby!

At $5000 in Funding - More Art!

I commission more art to fill the pages with BLOOD – Now we’re cooking with hellfire! This DOUBLES the art budget and means I can keep my rockstar artists eating good while they fill every page with as much art as I can tempt them to create!

At $10,000 in Funding - Chapter Comics

Every chapter gets introduced by a kickass comic page! – In this not-in-any-way-derivative stroke of artistic insight, I’ll commission a one-page chapter intro comic depicting the many weird and radical heroes and villains of the setting!

At $15,000 in Funding - Dear Lord, even MORE art?!!

I triple the art budget and this thing gets PACKED – I fully intend to burn your eyeballs out with the sheer glory of the art I’ll commission at this tier of funding

At $20,000 in Funding - Offset Print Run

Holy Moly! With this level of funding, we do a high-quality offset print run of the game! – Now we’ve got some serious duckets! I’ll use this tier of funding to switch from a PoD option to an offset print run for all backers of the Acid & Steel Hardback! Yowza!

At $50,000+ in Funding - Core Book Update and Offset Print Run

Haha What? With this level of funding, I’ll ALSO do a full revamp and Offset print run of the CORE book as well! – This has officially become my part-time job with this extraordinary level of funding! I’ll use the time this literally buys me to update and polish the core book with additional art, rules updates, and upgraded layout, THEN I’ll do an offset print run of the updated text for backers of the Core Book Hardback!

Pledge Manager

After the campaign’s conclusion, I’ll launch the BackerKit Pledge Manager and invite ya’ll to set up your rewards by survey. This allows you another chance to review your rewards and naturally allows you the option to give me more money for more awesome swag. It also lets all my fine international Fistheads mull over the shipping options. Keep in mind: Funding collected by BackerKit after the crowdfunding campaign doesn’t count toward the stretch goals, so make sure to STRIKE while the IRON is HOT.