The Lost Bay First Look - Release

Your one-way ticket for the 90s that never were.

Today is the day! after countless play tests and tweaks The Lost Bay - First Look has been released digitally. In it you play as a young person touched by the Weird, an ancient force that gives you supernatural powers. You roam the Bay with your gang, its malls, arcade games shops, skateparks and beaches, and fight the Horror that has awakened.

Key features of the game:

1. You play Vibes. Each vibe has a distinct flavor and set of powers. You can play as Splinter, Screamer, Scanner, Firestarter, and many more. Vibes are granted custom growth opportunities: every time they fail at using a power they get a Scar, and this can include getting new powers, or discovering something about the Bay.

2.The lore of The Lost Bay is spread throughout the ruleset, tables, and game procedures. You’ll discover it as you create your character and play, without having to read boring lore text blocks. The lore of the Bay is embedded in the items, powers, Scars and NPCs you’ll encounter.

3.Open and play. Three attributes, two resources to manage (Heart and Weird), one mechanic to rule it all: a D6 dice pool. If you have a basic knowledge of tabletop RPGs you’ll need fifteen minutes to familiarize yourself with the ruleset.

4.Weird is cool. And there’s a lot of it in the Bay: cults, curses, relics, and Living Saints. The Lost Bay is both a familiar playground and an uncanny world that portrays an alternate version of the 90s. It’s wicked enough to give you the chills, and it’s open enough for you to expand it the way you like.

Why the 90s?

Because they’re a decade where the ancient analog world mixes with the modern digital one. This mix creates infinite clashes and conflicts, ideal to spark tabletop RPG adventures, and horror stories.

The Bay itself is the incarnation of this contrast. Ancient creatures and forces dwell right next to modern technology and buildings. Even the playable characters embody this duality: they are archetypes inspired by the late 80s/90s media and culture, but their powers derive from the ancient and mysterious forces.

What you’ll get in the First Look edition? 

• Spooky Locations

• Scary MOFOs

• Supernatural Horror

• Powerful Vibes

• Loads of items

• Relics

• Living Saints and immortals

• Story sparks

• VHS, arcade games, skateboards, evil cults, demons, ghosts, blood and fear.

You can get the First look edition right now at an affordable price. The game PDF is updated on a weekly basis, and its price will increase as new sections are added. Meaning that the earliest you get it, the less you’ll pay for it. Pretty neat right? Funds collected will allow commissioning more art from Evangeline Gallagher and to pay for editing.

Have you ever wanted to play a zombie or a ghost? Now you can!

This week’s update features two new Vibes (playable character classes): the Half-Dead, and the Spirit. To unlock them you have to die first, and if you’re lucky enough you’ll become a Reborn. You might even get a Zombie cat pet.

Community powered

I’ve been working on this game for quite some time. And I feel its development has been fueled by the community. Play tests helped me fine tune the mechanics. Interviews with designers at the Lost Bay Podcast gave me precious insight on how to design the game. The mechanics are based on two robust and successful systems, Cairn by Yochai Gal, and LUMEN by Spencer Campbell. The game has its roots in shared intelligence. I’d like the development of The Lost Bay to remain community fueled. A lot of modules are drafted and ready to be added to the PDF, but knowing what you’d need would help me make meaningful choices. I’ve put together a small survey. If you have one minute, let me know what kind of updates you’d like next. With your help, I can make a better game —> SURVEY

MINIDUNGEON

If you have little time on your hands and are looking for a ready to play horror adventure compatible with The Lost Bay check UNIT DH-17. This suburban horror mini dungeon has been updated to fit The Lost Bay ruleset.

You can also get them both as a bundle with a 20% discount here https://itch.io/s/99423/the-lost-bay-rules-adventure

Weird is beautiful

Want to know where this game comes from, what it’s really about?

I grew up in an environment where toxic masculinity was the rule. Both at home, and outside of it. And by toxic, I mean horror-movie level toxic. Murders, blood and all. That was just the way things were, the world of the grown ups. Normalcy. I didn’t find that normal at all! I was pretty scared most of the time. But I was lucky enough to be part of a gang of kind souls. We loved each other and helped us survive the harsh world of the Bay. We were Geeks, Punks, Queers and Dreamers. The normies called us Weird. At first that felt hurtful, and it took me years to understand that being “Weird” is more than ok, that “Weird” is beautiful. Eventually, I made “Weird” my one-word motto, and used to wear a Why be normal? pin. I was proud of my Weirdness. Things felt better, the Bay was my playground, I loved its marshes, forests, beaches and skateparks. I was happy.

Then one day, something unexpected happened. I had to leave the Bay, without notice. Like in the movies. At dawn, hiding, in secret. I didn’t come back for more than 15 years. During that exile the Bay grew in my mind like a place of fantasy, and actual memories blended with fiction. The Lost Bay became a dream, partly familiar, partly alien, a place of wonder shrouded in a terrifying mystery.

The Lost Bay - First Look is the travel guide to this wondrous and wicked place I’m offering to you. If you accept the invitation you’ll play beautiful and powerful characters, you’ll fight the horror in breathtaking combats, and rewrite the Lost Bay’s history.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION

We’ve just passed 700 followers for the OUTER RIM: UPRISING pre-launch page. This is just mind-blowing! Thank you so much to all of you for the support. To celebrate this milestone I’m sharing with you a freebie today, but first let me tell you a secret: I’ve set internal pre-launch stretch goals. The next one is at 1000 followers. If we break it, I’ll be adding a little goodie to the bundle. Oh gosh I hope we’ll reach it!

Oh, by the way, ORU is a bundle for the Sci-Fi horror RPG Mothership, you can follow the campaign on Kickstarter.

KNOWN FREQUENCIES 2

If you don’t know Alfred Valley/

Haus of Valley

, well you should. Alfred is one of the most original and creative TTRPG creators out there. They have a unique and distinctive style, but whenever I think I’ve figured them out, they come up with something new and unexpected.

I’m super excited and honored to count Alfred among the designers of Outer Rim: Uprising. Today, we are sharing with you a new exclusive freebie, a preview from Known Frequencies 2, Alfred’s contribution to ORU. Go get it on Operations HQ, our secret itchio page, and then come back to read Alfred’s interview right below.

Know Frequencies 2, A5 zine, printed on color stock

Known Frequencies 2 is designed as an in-game document that catalogs continuous Tremendously Low Frequency (TLF) transmissions that can be received across the Combined Systems. It’s published by the Ham Ultro Mono society, a collective of enthusiasts keeping the subradiosport alive, and one of the ORU factions.

Ultra Ham Mono patch, one of the 3 patches you could get if you’re an early backer of the campaign.

Tune in to a spaceship rally beacon, the broadcasts of a colonel fighting a war that ended long ago, an interstellar lonely hearts line. Known Frequencies is a lo-fi Mothership lore zine written from the perspective of a society of future ham-radio enthusiasts.

Do you listen to sounds (at night), if yes, which ones?

I enjoy listening to white noise when I sleep but my partner is not a fan. Similarly if I could listen to the rain on my rooftop every night I would.

Your zines often have a punkish aesthetic, where does it come from, what are your influences?

I think a lot of it is a fascination with rave posters and flyers. I grew up in the 90s and was exposed to this subculture from a distance. I have memories of catching fleeting glimpses of these posters from the car window. I was too young to experience it firsthand, it was an exciting mythical presence, a texture amidst the liminal places near where I lived.

This intrigue goes hand-in-hand with a love of photocopy machines. The degradation effects of a photocopy are nostalgic for me (and the smell is a personal favorite). I like when digital and analog worlds butt up against each other and this is something I explore a lot, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.

Why Mothership?

I originally started designing for Mothership because it was popular. It sounds cynical perhaps, but I wanted to improve my chances that what I made would get played. What’s made me stay is the highly active third-party creator scene. A lot of the Mothership creators have been very helpful to me, it is a great and vibrant community. I enjoy the game itself, particularly the Panic engine, and it’s become the definitive all-purpose sci-fi system for me, in a way that I don’t have currently for fantasy.

Know Frequencies is designed as an in-game document, why?

Originally this was prompted by a lo-fi zine jam organized by Tuesday Knight Games. But I’m revisiting it because the first one was so much fun to make. (Known Frequencies is a series of zines Ed.) It was a welcome relief from trying to design much more polished things. The appealing thing about designing something purely for lore is that there is no mechanical overhead to get worried about. With the first one I made sure to tie a few details together with things in Thousand Empty Light, and I found it enjoyable to approach the idea of worldbuilding from this sort of modular point of view. I also like that technically I am part of Mothership lore now as the first issue refers to me as a figure within the universe.

How do you imagine (or would you like) Wardens to use it?

In essence I see it a bit like a table of prompts. I like to think a Warden may read it and expand on a particular detail as an adventure hook for their party. Or even cooler would be a Warden describing how the party comes across a pamphlet and handing Known Frequencies across the table. Maybe later in their adventure they need to get past a security system and they try dialling the Killtone.

That was Alfred Valley, one of the twelve designers involved in producing the rebellious Sci-Fi bundle Outer Rim: Uprising. Subscribe to the newsletter to get more freebies, and designer interviews.

END TRANSMISSION

The Newsletter Ring

The Lost Bay Studio is a member of the Newsletter Ring — a support network aimed at building bridges between RPG enthusiasts and creators.

There’s something very cool happening right now, and the cause of it is René-Pier Deshaies, the person behind

News by Fari RPGs

. René-Pier is a super creative RPG designer. I had the chance to print one of his games, Breathless, as part of the Fear Bundle, and I can guarantee he delivers the good stuff.

Speaking of which, René-Pier has just released Tales of the Burned Stones, a 70 page free RPG, prequel to his Sci-Fi fantasy RPG Stoneburner. Here’s what he says about it in his last newsletter:

TotBS is inspired by Diablo, The Witcher, and The Warded Man and takes the setting of Stoneburner in a totally different direction. In this game, players start by losing their character in a cataclysmic event that ripped open a mountain and unleashed demonic hordes on the continent. They are then resurrected by a doomsday cult and given new powers to fight the forces of the underworld.

You know what you need to do next, subscribe to News by Fari RPGs and get your copy of Tales of the Burned Stones.

That’s all folks

That’s all I got for you today folks. 

While the summer/winter keeps rolling I’m still doing a lot of background work to reboot our logistics chain. We’ll be reopening the store soon with a mega sale and new bundle pre orders. I’m super excited, but that’s all I can say for now.

Back to packing our inventory and sticking barcode labels!